Wentzville School District Board of Education Meeting | December 16, 2021

001on important issues in public forum we have reports to consider in business to duck that it conduct that is critical to the functions of our school district we ask those in attendance respectful as the board of education conducts its business this evening we want everyone to have the ability to hear the business of the district and the comments of those who are speaking during public forum i would like to say thank you in advance and we are very much appreciative of your corporation with that i'll call this meeting to order and jace werner if you could come forward to lead us in the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and

002justice for all if i could ask you joining us in our mission statement learning today leading tomorrow all right good evening um yep thank you very much director schaefer uh good evening it is my pleasure to recognize our 2021 teachers of the year tonight these teachers represent all that is great in our schools and we are lucky to have them here at the winsfield school district tonight we will share a video with you that quotes each of the winners building principles describing these talented hard-working individuals before we roll the video i asked our teachers of the year to come up and get your certificate when your name is called in the video and i ask the audience to hold its applause until the end of all our building recognitions so let's roll it [Music] farfield's

003teacher of the year is psychological examiner dr melissa roth's child melissa is often the first contact new families have with the windsville school district and she makes an incredible first impression on our behalf she listens and makes them feel welcome [Music] boone trails teacher of the year is special education teacher annie twillman annie loves her job and it really shows she makes her students shine she's brought in a tent and made s'mores at the end of a story on camping she finds the most fun and entertaining ways to engage students [Music] crossroads teacher of the year is special education teacher lindsay remiger lindsay is a perfect example of an advocate and fighter for her students she always gives her best effort to make sure they get the help they need she is tirelessly selfless her

004students are lucky to have her discovery ridge's teacher of the year is school support interventionist dr lindsey burkhemper lindsay takes the time to build relationships with everyone around her and values them dearly lindsay is calm and patient she has a great listening ear and offers support and insight in difficult situations duelo's teacher of the year is kindergarten teacher sarah mcdowell sarah gives 200 to her students she leads the kindergarten team with grace and compassion she helps us all to be our very best versions of ourselves greentree's teacher of the year is 6th grade math teacher tracy webb tracy creates meaningful lessons that challenge those who need it and encourage those who struggle she cares about the whole child not just the child she sees in her math classroom heritage primaries teacher of the year is

005special education teacher dr carolyn samuelson carolyn is the type of educator people look up to she does everything she can to meet the needs of her students she has such a warm calm and supportive presence all of heritage is better because she is here [Music] heritage intermediate's teacher of the year is third grade teacher suzanne piper suzanne is an amazing teacher her dedication to her students is tremendous she makes her students feel special and loved she follows our curriculum and makes it come to life she is a loyal and thoughtful teammate and friend journey's teacher of the year is special education teacher kim gonzalez community members staff and students have recognized that kim is a great listener and problem solver who provides a supportive caring and loving environment her passion and excitement for student growth

006and success is contagious lakeview's teacher of the year is 4th grade virtual teacher katie schlichter katie rose to the challenge of virtual teaching she has not only been able to teach academics through a computer screen but has found a way to build positive relationships with her virtual learners her instruction is innovative effective and engaging [Music] piney ridge's teacher of the year is second grade teacher erica walker erica empowers students when it's time for those students to move on they do so stronger more confident and with a bigger heart she celebrates the smallest achievements knowing that they may be all a student needs to feel loved special and seen [Music] prairie view's teacher of the year is special education teacher samantha miller samantha goes above and beyond each day her calm presence is felt by her

007students and co-workers which is very helpful in stressful situations her ability to build relationships with her students is a big reason why they succeed [Music] stone creek's teacher of the year is 5th grade teacher taylor wade taylor is the teacher every student dreams of having the energy and passion she brings to her teaching makes learning exciting and engaging she sprinkles creativity into her lessons to make students not even realize they are working and learning [Music] wabash's teacher of the year is third grade teacher lauren lasseter though lauren remains humble she has mastered her craft and continues to seek out professional learning whenever possible she has very high expectations for her students and gives her all to help them get there [Music] frontiers teacher of the year is special education teacher julie post julie performs her

008job at an exemplary level in the classroom her instructional practices are simply unparalleled she has successfully fostered and maintained a welcoming learning environment where all students feel a sense of belonging south middle's teacher of the year is special education teacher christine nant christine is incredibly flexible and always puts her students first she always has a smile on her face and connects with even the most challenging students she goes above and beyond to help her students be successful winsville middle's teacher of the year is physical education teacher jennifer werner jennifer is a teacher that is understanding and easy to talk to she always knows how to brighten the mood and knows how to include everyone she's really caring and is there for students even if they are not in her class holt's teacher of the year

009is social studies teacher lisa bach lisa is what defines hold she is devoted to the students in her classroom and their endeavors outside of the classroom she brings attention to the successes of students and puts a spotlight on all the great things in the whole community [Music] liberty's teacher of the year is special education teacher denise jolla denise is always creating new ways to help our students she is willing to put herself out there and fight battles she feels need to be fought for our students she is what i want the district to know is a great example of what is going on here at liberty north point's teacher of the year is science teacher jennifer willis nichols jennifer works incredibly hard to create new activities for her classroom and is always willing to share

010ideas and resources with her coworkers we admire her willingness to always step up and help and come into each day with fresh ideas and a smile on her face timberland's teacher of the year is family and consumer sciences teacher teresa drabala theresa has been a staple at timberland for some time now students describe her as a teacher who wants the best and brightest future for them staff describe her as someone that goes above and beyond for everyone at timberland [Music] pierce hall's teacher of the year is alternative program teacher lauren wally lauren's dedication to her students and program is shown by her pervasive enthusiasm for the content she understands that each student brings with them a different background and perception towards school lauren emphasizes instruction that is truly individualized [Music] reaches teacher of the year

011is special education teacher stephanie icardy stephanie is an exemplary teacher that goes above and beyond to provide her students with an individualized multi-sensory approach to learning stephanie is extremely knowledgeable on the program methodology and serves as a coach and role model [Music] [Applause] thank you and congratulations to all those amazing teachers now it's time to name our district teacher of the year this individual has been described as a ray of sunshine by her building administrators she is a product of what she describes as two wonderfully talented educators a special education teacher and an alternative high school principal she says teaching gives her the privilege of inspiring the next generation of science professionals and she holds the prestigious title of the 2019 canvas teacher of the year so without further ado our 2021 district teacher of

012the year is north point high school science teacher jennifer willis nichols that was an impressive breakaway in terms of the speed there before you go congratulations congratulations to everyone and thank you so very much for what you do for the students in this district on a daily basis i'm giving you time to collect yourselves i was told to take off my coat is there anything that you'd like to share with anyone at this point um i just want to thank my husband and my family and um i share this with everybody like it's great to see all former students from the whole football team that are here i'm so proud of them and sorry i'm a little emotional and um and share it with like all the staff because i know we've all been working

013so hard and not just at north point but all across the district so thank you all very much so all right i'd like to share our second recognition this evening it is my privilege to recognize holt football for the historic season this year hold advance to the class 5 state championship game and was the first football team to represent our district at this level in our many years of existence congratulations to these hard-working student athletes and their coaching staff for an incredible season uh you so i i just want to say i just want to say this guys um you if i can get the teachers of the year to come out to the lobby i'd like to take a group picture of you thank you we'll let the room clear here a little bit

014and i think we're ready at this time earlier this evening the board in closed session uh did make a selection for the msba john belcher scholarship and uh dr kane if you would take it from there please um yes the student uh that is going to be the district nominee for the belcher scholarship is sanjana anad of liberty high school so we'll just need a motion for the board to go ahead and approve that okay so we would need a motion to nominate sanjida and had as a district candidate for the msba future builder john belcher scholarship motion those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye those opposed nay yeah it's heaven and that's six zero with mr bryce well next up is public forum the speaker may offer such objective

015concerns of school operations as they deem appropriate the board will not hear personnel complaints or against school personnel or against persons connected with the district in public session matters involving personnel shall be discussed by the board and executive sk executive session as you come to the front to speak please state your name and your address if you would please renee henke is it on now okay um several teachers had asked me to speak tonight on their behalf and it starts i wish there was there was zero tolerance for unacceptable behavior for all students i wish physical violence towards other students or staff members wasn't tolerated i wish we had zero tolerance i wish special education wasn't understaffed i wish students weren't suffering i wish teachers could teach and not have to deal with disruptive students

016i wish staff didn't have to give up their lunch due to being understaffed i wish staff didn't have to get sent to urgent care i wish my child didn't have to watch the teacher they love being disrespected or hit as a normal thing i wish we were treated like professionals and knew what was best in the classroom i wish students that needed help didn't have to be put through a long pst process just to postpone the process i wish students that i'm sorry i wish students didn't have to fail and fall behind four months before getting the help they deserve i wish i didn't get bit by students i wish when we begged for help last year someone would have listened i wish there wasn't teacher retaliation i wish students were held accountable i wish

017students weren't afraid to come to school due to their peers i wish students received consequences i wish staff wasn't getting punched i wish poor behavior wasn't rewarded with a back rub and a snack i wish communication to all staff was a thing i wish everyone was respected i wish central office wasn't failing our students i wish i heard laughter and could see smiles i wish we were a family again i wish central office thought that students needed structure and consequences i wish my child didn't have anxiety from going to school i wish central office wasn't setting students up for failure i wish central office reviewed the incident reports that our school nurse send them i wish every staff member had a voice i wish central office cared i wish i was able to talk at

018the meeting with dr kane and dr lebron we are still waiting to be heard i wish that this won't fall on deaf ears like the past two years and i would also like to say i would like to thank the board for what you have done so far but i think everybody understands there is still much work to be done but so far thank you for what you have done thank you next is vanessa hugedom good evening i'm vanessa hagedorn and i reside in the windsville school district i am speaking tonight about my disappointment and concern regarding the book the bluest eyes in case you don't recall it's the book available in some of our schools where a girl is raped by her alcoholic father the complaint that was filed against this book on october

0198th well according to the windsville school district policy the protocols were not followed our district superintendent told the parents that in the board meeting in october that these books would be removed and they weren't according to the children's internet protection act the individual that filed the complaint amber crawford should have been included in the library review committee since it was electronic content she discovered on the internet the library review process that occurred was completely biased and did not follow winsville school district policies and regulations the district has 15 days to appoint a review committee and then 20 more days to finish reviewing materials however it's been far more than 35 days additionally the complainant was to be updated on all process progress rather in the book and was not i am requesting a roll call

020vote on the book the bluest eyes i'm asking you to follow the winsville school district 6241 protocol furthermore on behalf of our children the book the bluest eyes is one of three of the five that we challenged why are we so set in keeping books like these when there are thousands of other books that can depict these eras why our children already live in an over-sexualized society the internet social media music movies video games the list goes on some of you might have heard billy eilish at teenpopstar she recently had a quote begin quote watching porn as a child destroyed my brain end quote please i implore you allow school to be their safe place in closing i will leave you with a fitting quote by plato lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of

021all order with impudence unseemliness sloth and dissoluteness thank you for your time and consideration on this matter thank you dawn rice well i'm don rice i would like to address the administration and board members within winston school district in april i went through some tough times with my daughter and some of the staff at this meeting tonight and others that are not present we as parents and most that sit behind me tonight are fighting for transparency with parents and all employees of the winsfield school district i'm ashamed that i had to fight for my daughter's rights with winsville school district a daughter who feels mentally raped by a fellow student because he hacked your supposed high-tech security on your school's computers i was advised her password was changed when her laptop was taken to review

022for further evidence wow computer was handed back to her with the same password i sent an email on october 25th of this year six months later to somebody in i.t requesting her password and lunch pen be changed i found one detail rather disturbing that person advised me that the school must if they must do a reset on the system it would revert back to her original path passport i have never heard of this at any place of my employment you change a password it is changed and does not revert back this child had all of my daughter's protective health information information on another daughter my husband myself including my amazon login password and credit card information this is a big concern and when i reported my concerns to staff members at central office act like

023this was not a big deal i've completed several public records requests i find it very alarming that there is either very limited information or none at all when a parent files a complaint for an investigation there should be something in the personnel file indicating what steps were taken and what the final outcome is you know what there is nothing when an investigation is completed there should be an outline of steps taken for future coaching and there's nothing when your own title knight coordinator is now leaving winslow school district and violates the student civil rights and not following title ix is disgusting within the within title nine seven processes were not followed by winsville school district i have brought this to the attention of much higher than winsville school district and provided names of all individuals

024that were part of this your own policy states that the police should be contacted a week and a day later of me demanding that your staff file a complaint with the police i was told that winsville police department should not lie to me and just didn't want to handle it the district has lied to me multiple times there's a complete cover-up and nothing is ever in writing i hope every parent knows the proper steps to file a department of education civil rights complaint ocr you never once protected my daughter and i find it very disgusting the things that were said i had to fight to protect her and there is not one ounce of compassion from any administration or faculty member other than one assistant principal your job continue to a quick conclusion as you

025would sure transparency is lacking in winston school district as as it has become a business not about our children's education and some individuals sitting in front of me should be ashamed i hope when you lay your head down at night you have guilt because you did not care about my daughter or the victims of assault harassment etc you care about the dollar and filling a seat well my daughter's rights are just as important as every individual sitting in this room and i'm sharing this so every parent behind me knows the process on fighting and going to the department of education civil rights transparency is not hard yet staff are overly transparent when it comes to awards thank you robert warner hello my name is robert warren and i am a sophomore at timberland high school

026first i would like to ask for a few seconds of silence in honor of miss manor i couldn't imagine the pain that her boys are going through right now thank you tonight i would like to address two issues the first issue is the imprint inappropriate books that are in our libraries i do not know if you guys have considered the effects of these books that they can have on us yes kids can access inappropriate things on the internet if they know how but this is usually not what parents would want or be okay with happening by having these books in our libraries you are basically telling us to disobey our parents if our parents wanted us to have access to these kinds of things they can take us to the public library after i read

027some of these books i was grossed out and it made me uncomfortable i could visualize the scenes and those images may never leave my mind images of monsters sexually abusing children the what value does that have on my education the school should not be providing children with sexually explicit material or pedophilia you may think these books are being used in a good way but what about the other side of that coin what about the seed it plants in the child's head that could may that may lead them to do horrible things to other people this is the seed that shouldn't be planted in anyone's head but some children aren't so lucky some children are raped and abused by adults in their life why should all children unnecessarily be exposed to other children's trauma their trauma

028should be addressed with their parents and doctors not the schools these parents these books can create trauma that does not currently exist in the reader's mind i hope you all vote to remove these books i would also like to address the way that i learn as a male males don't always learn the same way females do i know i'm not the only one because a lot of my male friends feel the same way i feel like our schools are set up for females to exceed but not the males males need active learning while females can learn just as well by reading something males do better when our mind is stimulated in active environment i think we can have this in every subject because i i have had a few teachers teach this way mr adelat

029he was my fifth grade teacher at boon trail and every subject was talked was taught actively that was the best year i've had so far as grades go a lot of us are struggling and we don't want to speak up we feel we are expected to learn a certain way even if it doesn't work for us i think we should have active learning for every subject available for those who don't learn the same way as females do we deserve the education that leaves us behind we deserve the late an education that doesn't leave us behind young man you can continue to a quick conclusion if you win we aren't just a select few or just the kids with add we are the majority of males enrolled in public school if you don't believe me i

030would suggest sending out a survey to all male students in this district i feel you would be surprised thank you [Music] jen olsen you saying you would like to yield your position you can do that yes so we'll we'll bring it up at the end if you would we'll go in order my name is jj suffoco jj we could help you we're going harder and bring you on in at the end if you want sorry dale thank you okay christina is it mccormick my name is christine mccormick i live in lake st louis if you think negotiating when it comes to our children's education and health is an acceptable thing you are mistaken the rumor that is going around is that the board members are saying covid will be over after christmas break when it

031comes to our school district let me remind you what pre-covered looked like no mask wearing no contact tracing over the sniffles the stomach flu or strep throat parents were freely allowed to show up to school anytime they wanted to and were more than welcome to walk down the hall to their kids class drop off a book bag a coat a hat or a cupcake how is that going to happen when you have signed a contract with chads on june 24th of 2021 where it states the responsibilities of winsfield school district are as the follow the office space should allow for recommended six feet of social distancing for chad staff and clients and all cdc guidelines will be followed so are you going to void that contract with them or are you going to lie to

032us just because you didn't read the fine print doesn't mean i didn't i don't want to hear negotiations because that is not science anything less than pre-covet is a waste of our time while you are making back door deals for that carrot covered blood money the rest of us are researching and reading the fine print you failed to read we are well informed and we are informing you now if you want us to like you which is truly what you're trying to do get public approval stop playing games stop straddling the fence if you are not you're not going to please everybody so figure out where you stand and don't back down from that position we want security knowing that you won't cave because you have values and moral morals that are unshakable 2020 has

033shown us that wsd school district has many people pleasers as leaders this is a very big concern you guys signed this in june and we're hearing we're going to lighten up mitigations or covet the rumor is that we've had board members say covid will be over after january how is that possible if you're signing a contract with chad's that says cdc guidelines will be followed do we understand that means if you are vaccinated you don't have to quarantine right that's a cdc thing so is that also saying that if you are not vaccinated you're going to have to then be quarantined as a contact because that's cdc saint charles county has that on their website as well this is fine print and when i look at some of the things that you guys are putting

034together like today's a million things we're going over an agenda you guys have things as much as 200 what 17 pages we had at one of the meetings where we had to go through all of the individual things to read to see this stuff that's ridiculous most of you guys aren't reading that because here we go it says cdc guidelines so i'd like to know how this fits into our mitigation strategies today thank you paul watson i don't have anything on a paper for you but um i'm sure you guys are aware of the incident with the um the kill list at the school um kind of disgusted that you guys are just trying to throw it under the rug i know all you guys know what happened in michigan um there was an action

035plan put together by you guys um it wasn't very well thought through um there's there's loopholes in it um one of them for example it doesn't doesn't account for these students meeting in the restroom at one time which is a very likely place where assault would occur in michigan same issue happened they knew about certain incidences with the with the child before and they um they had every right to go to just get stuff to see what his home life was like they ignored it all he comes back shoots all the school up there and and there's no security at the school but for the students themselves you go to the school um it's there's there's security for outside measures such as parents strangers you know they got all the doors locked um they got

036the camera system but what's to stop a kid from coming to school with a weapon there's nothing um one of the students that made um the list has a tick tock where he openly displays him immaturely using said weapons firearms um we talked about the safety plan you guys did nothing you're trying to sweep it under the rug 10-day suspension they come back to school then what what's the plan to keep the kids safe nothing you guys are going around with the principal to to every classroom telling these students you know you're safe here right if you have to go around telling kids they're safe they're not safe that's common sense um and then today you guys are now to think about the tick tock threat about tomorrow all across the nation uh you said

037it's a credible threat you'll monitor i understand you can't call off school because you know national threats um kids that start calling in school you know threats every day um my thing is the action plan was punishing the students that were threatened more than the students who made the list that makes no sense none and it also put the strain on the teachers the teachers can't follow this all the time and successfully uh teach the rest of the students it doesn't make sense why wasn't these why wasn't these why are these kids being allowed back at the school do you guys not take this seriously this is something you can't afford to get wrong you can't so i just urge you guys to rethink the the whole disciplinary thing that you guys are trying to

038sweep under the road i would like to start by just seeing if i can hand this book to dr curtis kane just to look 10 seconds at one page because i'm going to be addressing it i can't read it otherwise you guys get kicked off youtube so do you mind if i come up and just hand this book to you so you can look at it thank you sir ten seconds you can ask around what the title is so while you guys are looking at that i'm going to jump on two things real quick first you guys signed a charter contract last year for 116 400 it was one of these emergencies we have to do it to protect our internet the whole year not a single one of you asked the it department for

039a dashboard to prove that that technology was deployed and that the taxpayers money went to good good use i haven't seen it come up yet and you're up on your one-year contract so does that mean it didn't work or does that mean that just got slid under the rug i'm asking you guys to please address your i.t department and find out that's 116 000 of taxpayers money second you have a contract tonight that you're looking at it's called vanco three point four nine percent per transaction to the school where's the other bids guys that's one bid square which is in st louis a massive st louis company i didn't see a bid from them i also didn't see the bid from the other two competitors from vanco reading that contract it doesn't talk about minimum

040transaction rates which means i could cause this district money just going in and going one dollar one dollar one dollar one dollar you're paying 3.49 on every transaction so please review that contract and make a smart intelligent uh vote and don't vote if you don't have two or three other contracts to look at thank you now second i'm handing you a book that has some very appalling language if i use that language here today i'd probably lose my job i don't believe in the language in that book that book was given to students at a high school as recommended reading from your librarian you spew hate hatred out of that book that word that's in there and everybody can figure out what word i'm referring to that word speaks nothing but hatred it hasn't been

041used in years by over a decade and yet that book is all about it jokes i find that extremely appalling you have a violent problem in your schools those books that's your reason why kids are reading that stuff not for the other pages they're zoning in on it that was a joke i found out about the book by listening to kids joking about it on a bus and i asked kids for the book to figure out what they were talking about oh i got it from the library are you kidding destiny your library program does not allow parents to go in and say i don't want my kids to view these books it doesn't have that functionality i talked to your librarian they said destiny actually doesn't even show what kids are checking out books

042because if the bar code on a book matches a student id destiny screws up and gives the kid the wrong kid the wrong book i should know i got billed for books that my kid apparently lost that never had so we've got a problem in this school second you may continue to a quick conclusion so you guys have this policy of violence we all know there's threats against this district did you know that next tuesday a schools function sponsored event called anything but a book bag day is going on at one of your high schools kids are bringing in coolers kids are bringing in anything that they can other than a book bag what type of weapon is going to come into that school on that day you have these threats let's use your intelligence

043use what's up here guys you're all educated individuals use it stop it now tell the schools no book bags shrink the book bags down until you get this under control get these books under control and get your i.t under control final thing thank you the parent that spoke here earlier i'm gonna tell you i told you so and i've been telling you so for two years thank you amber crawford well michael you're up okay all right okay my name is mike nickler i'm uh residing the wenceville school district um i just wanted to make a few more comments about kovid um our policies over the last couple years um because i don't believe that we keep getting the carrot dangled in front of us and taken away um we hear it's going to be going

044away after the the new year i hope that's true i think we've had it all have had enough of it i just want to talk a little bit about some of the incompetence and absurdity i've seen me personally i've had one of my one of my children was put on quarantine for close contact now luckily we still had the masking mitigation whatever it was called that we were allowed to go to school a child was not sick ever during this quarantine she was actually put on another quarantine and then following that a third close contact with the third quarantine all while she was still on the original one so it was kind of absurd i just kept i was kind of laughing um about it but it's actually absurd if you think about it because

045i mean she wouldn't have been able to do like extracurricular activities like um i don't know we had that that amazing whole football team in here if they had been close uh contacts or whatever they would regardless whether healthy or not they would have been able to compete you know and for a lot of these older kids are missing out on you know stuff like just extracurricular activities school functions dances whatever whatever it is um athletics and i don't think it's fair i mean these kids put a lot of work in and they're not we're talking about healthy children here so um anyways i'll move on a little bit here uh another another part of that is masks um i don't know about you i my my children do not care for wearing masks they

046they know that doesn't do anything it's not it's not conducive to a learning environment they're irritating they're distracting you've got to constantly adjust you know they fog up glasses for kids who wear glasses which is a clear indication that the aerosols are actually escaping and it's not doing anything itself makes it difficult to communicate it's muffled sound um miss out on facial cues which is especially detrimental to really small children that are they they learn a lot from reading facial cues from other people um so you know then they're not getting that they're not getting normal socialization they're being segregated from each other um just last week i think was last week the the surgeon general had a report and they said that uh let's i'll wrap it up um depression over the last year

047um depression's up 25 among adolescents uh anxiety is up 20 increases in negative emotions behaviors and which is like adhd stuff like that impulsivity irritability all these things are up 2021 suspected suicide attempts were up 51 higher in adolescent girls four percent higher than boys compared to 2019 this is all due to what we're doing to these kids we got to stop doing this so i just would like to encourage um you know you guys want to be leaders let's let's take a stand let's stop this madness all right let's just move on from this all right thank you sir that brings us to a jj sofco on the behalf of the wenceville school district bus drivers i wanted to thank jen olsen for yielding her time to me my name is jj sufko and

048i'm here to speak with you all tonight on behalf of the wenceful school district bus drivers the heartbeat of a school district at its core has many heartbeats you have teachers custodial workers para educators and bus drivers without each of them the school day is impact impacted with a cascading domino effect in the last week for fear of retaliation by school district administration you've heard that before i've been asked to publicly share concerns and events occurring daily weekly on our school buses students are fighting on the buses while being driven to school creates a major distraction and a safety issue for the bus driver along with the aid along with the students that they're transporting also in many cases the day after the fight the same students are riding the bus again school bus drivers

049and aides are being physically and verbally assaulted while driving students to school they are instructed to pull over and call 9-1-1 all while being physically assaulted with a busload of students a driver told me the scariest time for drivers is early in the morning when it's dark outside drivers can't see the attackers coming on them or the in the or the students on the bus can't see the attackers also this hasn't just recently started but it's been an ongoing issue and the school district administration turns a blind eye to it you want to know why so many bus drivers have left for francis howell troy zumalt it's because they didn't feel safe or protected by their employer the winsfield school district if you want to solve the problem start with discipline and following enforcing school

050policies in closing bus drivers are transporting our most precious cargo our children driving an 8-ton loaded down vehicle from point a to b is hard enough but having to deal with students physically and verbally assaulting them is just too much for them its reasons like this is why our district has a 63 employee retention rate across all positions not because we can't find good people good people aren't being supported and it's widely known there's little or no no consequences thank you be with you in a minute this brings us to our consent agenda is there any other items to be pulled from the consent agenda to new business i would like to pull 10.14 banco there's no others i would need a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended motion second motion second all

051in favor signify by saying aye aye all right so suppose nay i hear no nays if we have mr bryce we have six zero next up is our superintendent's report and dr kane if you would please yes i will have mr angevine actually walk uh through um the audit report itself and actually introduce a couple of individuals uh quite pertinent to the completion of said document thank you thank you at this time i would like to thank susan dawson our director of accounting and finance uh susan has uh directed the department extremely well since she has joined us uh we are going at this point in time to have our independent third party auditor give us an opinion on our audit at this point in time we're going to find out of course it's not

052my opinion it's the opinion of a person coming up here who i will introduce in just a second but susan dawson has worked extremely hard and we are going to have a clean unqualified opinion which is the best opinion uh that you can get on a financial report here to present this opinion is derek goken from daniel jones and associates cpa daniel jones an associate cpa is an independent third party hired by this district to give their opinion on whether our financial statements are proper and are put together properly uh what we want at this time from the board is we are recommending that a board that the board approved the fiscal year 21 audit report as presented and derrick will present this report and again once this report is uh authenticated and approved by

053this board we will be sending it to uh the various entities such as standard and poor's moody's various banks deci our state agencies our federal agencies and all of our proper postings uh with your approval when derek is uh is done we will start this process derek if you could present the audit report thank you thank you very much as mr angevine said my name is derek goken and i'm going to go over a few highlights of the audit first i would like to thank mr angevine miss dawson and the rest of the finance department for their help in conducting the audit they made it a very smooth easy process for us which is certainly appreciated this year for the audit is broken down into three main parts first the financial statements here we issued

054an unmodified opinion which means that they were presented fairly in all material respects this is the highest opinion the district can receives and means that it was a clean audit second is the state requirements and through our testing we found the district to be in compliance with attendance transportation and budgetary procedures and finally because the district expended more than 750 000 in federal awards we had to conduct a single audit here we tested the child nutrition cluster as well as the cares money which is broken down between the education stabilization fund and coronavirus relief fund for the federal awards we also issued an unmodified opinion again the highest the district can receive the means everything was presented fairly all in all i'd like to say great job and thank you very much for all your

055help does anyone have any questions secretary schaefer just a real quick question and it can be rick or you that answers just how long has daniel jones been the auditor for the district um i know at least three years since i started i do not know how far back we go before that though this is a this is the final year i'm not sure i've only been here three years it's been daniel jones and associates this is the last year of the contract of which we will be uh coming to the board for a new contract uh during our next audit what and it may be daniel jones it could be others but we will go out at that particular point in time secretary schaefer i had a question please yes please this question is

056from mr angevine i just noticed that the audit basically revealed that the district was non-compliant with a um 30 day of receipt of audit statute and i was just looking for an explanation to that certainly as i stated we're required we send the report out to various agencies and we're required to post it in numerous places someone on my staff had checked off during the process that they had posted the clean audit in a newspaper which is a is which is recommended by desi uh we uh our new uh director uh uncovered that that was checked off improperly as being done but it was not done and we self-reported that it was not put in the newspaper to our current auditors this was self-reported by us as our new director found out that the previous

057staff did not do that we have checked and what we are going to do this year we have a check there are no penalties uh there's no fines what we're going to do is report last year's opinion as well as this year's opinion within the 30 days of this year's opinion what i'd like to say is it was certainly nothing that was overlooked i'd love to put in the newspaper clean opinions it's uh it states that we have done an excellent job and that we have a complete completely clean audit the fact that it was not put in the newspaper last year uh no it was not but i sure wish it was because this is awful good news to report thank you and i just had a follow-up question are there any assurances moving

058forward that we can you could put in place so that hopefully this doesn't happen again yes we we have a a checklist this uh uh susan this year as as always has a checklist of all the places that this audit gets sent uh that checklist uh i expect that susan and she will follow this checklist and not check it off unless it is actually done and uh this is susan's uh first year doing it again she reviewed last year and found out it was checked off and not done i fully expect that our controls are in place and that this would not be checked off unless it and this was actually done this year is there any other questions for the gentleman from daniel jones and associates or mr angeline on the audit hearing none

059we would need a motion to prove the audit report as presented in a second those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay acid thank you very much everyone thank you thank you sir brings us to old business and first up is policy number 4867 this is a second reading and also for vote for approval dr kane if you would please unless mr schulte has anything else the uh this is the second reading for this lactation accommodation policy um basically it was presented before and just uh presented again for approval formal approval by the board of education does the board have any questions for mr schulte on this issue hearing none we would need a motion to approve policy second reading as presented second promotion those in favor signify by saying aye aye

060those opposed nay hearing noise the eyes have it and if mr bryce is voted we're 6-0 that brings us to policy revision 27-10 once again mr schulte i think this would be you uh yes thank you we're just asking for your approval of this mandatory revision which really just adds to the um current policy the updated statute as it relates to unaccompanied youth is there any questions from mr schulte on 27 10. hearing none we would need a motion approved policy revision 20 on 20 revision on 2710 as presented promotion in second those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay the eyes have it and six zero brings us twelve three covered update and dr kane if you would please thank you secretary schaefer so this is our board um update as

061relates to covet 19. we had a meeting just last week and provided more detail specifically where we were headed and what we're going to do is not only review that there's going to be an opportunity for some feedback to be collected but we can't put that out there until we have clarity in terms of where the board of education wants to explicitly see us go as relates to mitigation and management as relates to covert so this slide is a boil down slide that was presented back on june 2nd in terms of what was our primary goal or is our primary goal for this particular school year and it is to return to as normal school operations as we possibly can um you can see the goals in terms of five days a week uh updated

062mitigating mitigative measures and addressing individual school needs as they present themselves we have been working toward that not only as far back as june but moving forward that's what we have absolutely been doing as a district so that was what was discussed and literally the action of the board at our december 9th meeting which was just last week right in order to really frame out how are we going to finish this particular calendar year and looking for what was going to happen um in january of 2022 as well moving forward to close out the spring portion of the school year so at that meeting i shared that moving forward effective when students return on january 3rd when it came to mitigation specifically contact tracing and quarantining what was the process going to look like i

063elaborated that it was going to look a little bit like what you see this exposure letter which was also embedded in the board doc board docs portion of um of the board packet as well and what it said is that effectively let me just use an example in a second grade classroom if a student were to be positive the families impacted by that particular classroom would receive a letter like this simply provide school name it provides the date in terms of the exposure in terms of when it occurred and it simply states that parents need to monitor for symptoms provides an opportunity if you have questions as parents in terms of want to reach out to our nurses you are more than um welcome to do so but it does not provide the specifics as

064it relates to distance any of the time components as related to contact tracing as we have noted in 2021 it's literally turning the page to something that looks different this is a part of what we want to run by our community as we are reporting from the board report for this board meeting and gathering that opportunity for people to provide some feedback a very broad feedback statement as well but this is what exposure letters will look like moving forward and that's what the process is going to look like moving forward as well so update on mitigation measures this was provided to the board and in the board packet um on yesterday there's been a number of comments uh and questions specifically related to our our strategies and what our particular measures are going to in

065fact look like uh moving forward there are pieces that we are stepping back from um and then there are other pieces that we are going to continue for example hand washing good idea throughout the course of the pandemic and outside of a pandemic as well we're going to continue when it comes to hand washing you can see the statement on recess in terms of mass being optional for those that are outside um health services there's a good breakdown i don't want to read this slide or line by line to you all but you can see what's going to happen there moving forward visitors during the school day i know field trips have also been a question and you can see what is what has been removed from our last set of mitigative measures as it

066relates to field trips themselves you can see the um ability for assemblies to in fact in fact occur uh the same for parent meetings i will say the virtual option has been very logistically um favorable for parents it allows for people to be able to actually stay at work find a break room attend a parent meeting not have to leave work or leave wherever they happen to be staff can tune in my tune in uh log in as well um they can conduct the meeting and then actually head back that's actually been um very very um advantageous for everyone that's been involved you see what's going to happen as it relates to large group meetings during the day as well staff meetings in-person meetings are going to be permitted and from our perspective my perspective

067i think it's something that needs to happen as well as important as it is for students to be returning and having some of that face-to-face contact we need that for staff as well now i will be clear a faculty meeting does not have to occur in a classroom right if we have a library if we have a large meeting space it is fine for those uh spaces to be used when it comes to meetings themselves but it's time for us to return to some of that as well so specifically when it comes to cross-district meetings and collaborations starting the week of january 24th we are going to begin process of coming back and being much more connected in terms of being face to face there are times when virtual options still work they're still the

068most advantageous so we're going to let those go they'll still be permitted but we'll be providing for some face-to-face options as well physical distancing you can see what's going to happen as it relates to that when and where possible which is challenging in the windsville school district but we will continue to encourage physical distancing drinking fountains fountains transfer facility usage we're up and going as a to facility usage um horizons you can also see as relates to um cleaning in terms of uh what we are going to continue to do there are parts of our buildings that are um deep cleaned on a more frequent basis because of what actually occurs in those spaces and if we have something that does happen we've done enough deep cleaning in terms of fogging and other measures that

069if something were to occur uh flu something were to happen in a specific classroom or a specific bank of classrooms we know that we can in fact turn around relatively quickly and provide additional cleaning for those spaces you see chautauqua you can see our cafeterias in terms of returning to our building practices our practices that we've had in place as well special education special areas lockers and i will say uh backpacks have actually worked in a number of settings they've worked quite well and so those will continue to be permitted performances and then what's going to happen as it relates to athletics and activities as well so we are going to still have a number of mitigation measures that are going to be in place but we're also rolling back getting back to as much

070normalcy um as we possibly can i did skip over masking because i believe that's going to be a source of conversation that i believe the board of education wants to have um i will just i will say this we have had to pivot we've had to this year right we have had a number of buildings where we've had to do something but i'm going to go back to our primary goal to keep kids in school five days a week as much as we possibly can we just want to be in a position that if something happens we have clear understanding of what the thresholds are going to be if we need to pivot we do not want to close school doors we want to keep school doors open and that's the reason we continue to

071have language as it relates to masking um once we have direction by the time we close this conversation out essar funding does require us to just uh kind of dip dip stick with our communities and figure out any thoughts and so we're going to ask for feedback in terms of what people's feelings are of our plans moving forward when it comes to our mitigative steps and our measures as we're moving forward as a district with that i believe the board of education has some thoughts secretary schaefer for me thank you uh so dr king i appreciate you know that the update that that we asked for and clarification on these specifics for for us and obviously for the community you know i think there's there's without a question you know on you know unprecedented legal

072pressure from from really all aspects and an active um you know attorney general that we've seen with cease and desist uh comments across the state and obviously specifically to winsfield you know what it's clear it knows um you know in in those risks etc is around masking which is you know a sensitive topic across the board and and i and i'm reluctant to show and have in our policy and approve you know a mass threshold given that that puts that spotlight that risk on the district and you know i think recognizing what we've done historically i think we've taken measures as appropriate and so you know from my perspective having that on there is not something i want to see and support um and then and i think it correct me if i'm wrong dr

073kane it is probably appropriate given all things considered with legal risk etc that this board should take action and a motion um specific here with these mitigation strategies and recommendations is that fair i would say it's fair the board does need to act on the mitigation mitigative measures that we're going to have in place moving forward so what i would like to do is is i propose a motion here for the board to approve i i'd like to make a motion that continuing after december 22nd the district returns to the communicable disease policy um prevention measure measures under board policy and regulations unless otherwise ordered by the saint charles county health department including adoption of the updated mitigation measures as presented with the removal of a masking threshold in our buildings i suck at that

074motion you second have a motion a second floor is open for any discussion i have something i would like to say secretary shaper i would appreciate respect from the crowd please the guidance from the health experts has remained consistent safely returning to in-person learning for the 21-22 school year was to be the priority the cdc dc dhss scc dph and aap have outlined prevention and mitigation recommendations on how to safely reopen schools the recommendations have varied slightly and have also been modified over time prevention and mitigation recommendations have included masking social distancing everybody is familiar with that it has also been recommended to layer the prevention and mitigation strategies any efforts to eliminate prevention and mitigation strategies are based on personal and or political beliefs and not um based on science or the recommendations from

075the overwhelming consensus respect please consistent of health and education professionals moving forward i have confidence that the administration will track any trends impacting winslow school district students and staff and present the board with a recommendation from health and education professionals to ensure that all students and staff are safe i believe the administration will do what is necessary to make accommodations for students that meet the needs of their ieps and 504 plans secretary schaefer good question please uh relative to this survey that you had mentioned that you were going you wanted feedback from our parents right i had that correct it'd be a community survey with really one question that's asking given the plan that's ultimately going to be approved by the board of education please feel free to provide feedback for future considerations going forward

076it's going to be very short that's going to be it so when does the survey go out tomorrow tonight we are looking forward to go out tomorrow morning we'll have it open over the course of the weekend and what's the time frame for return we close it most likely on monday okay and then how quickly will we then uh discuss the the survey the board as a void so the board has to per director goodson's uh comment the board has to be has to act what we are simply doing is looking to comply with s or regulations but also provide that opportunity now there's been a lot of rumor and innuendo in terms of what was going to happen tonight right so now that you've heard what is going to happen tonight replacing the board

077report and on the district website an opportunity for people to provide some thoughts moving forward not to alter where the board is ultimately going in terms of right now but moving forward thinking forward that's the window that we're looking for that's the feedback that we're looking for so uh just for clarification exactly um i know that i know that we've been talking about we had talked about this at the last meeting from the standpoint that mitigations would continue until the 22nd of december and then school will return i'm sorry what's the date in january january 3rd january 3rd so we felt everyone will return by january the 3rd and is that is that the time frame when we move forward because i saw in here you had a notation of january the 24th in one

078of the process yes that was related to that was related only to the carve out for that particular line in terms of meetings right in terms of faculty coming together okay we are turning the page ending 2021 right with what we are currently doing starting january 3rd 2022 we're moving forward what the board ultimately proves tonight okay all right so that's going to be the criteria it'll be right after the winter break the christmas break and then things will move forward at that time i think so things will be moving forward at that point in time yes thank you just a quick comment if i could please dr kane to this i think the board has always stepped forward unanimously whenever we wanted to um at schools where we need to address on an emergency

079basis and you've had full support of the board where i understand this this motion here is is just eliminating everything stands except for the five percent is that correct uh director grissom it's accepting everything as written except for right except for kim thank you mate yeah sure please when things happen they happen very very quickly and i know everybody's schedule is a logistical nightmare and i respect that um it very well could be a situation where we're talking about an emergency need for a meeting um and that very well could be something that is a virtual right you have demonstrated an ability to come together and um to support those decisions just planning for the worst and then we can hope for the best in terms of what reality will look like but just a

080commitment that we will continue to do that if we see something if we see something we have to act for the good of students for the good of this the staff for the good of the community we have to act in a timely manner as long as we continue to do that moving forward we'll patch the rest together okay so with that being said is there any other questions could i ask you to read the motion again please director goodson made the motion that continuing after december 22nd the district returns to the communicable disease policy and prevention measures under board policy and regulation unless otherwise ordered by st charles county department of public health including adoption of the updated mitigation measures with as presented with the removal of a masking threshold in our buildings um

081seconded by director stolle could i ask some can i um the part where it says unless the saint charles county health department orders is that the correct word orders mandates or what what validity do they have what what power do they have what so what would what would the word the technical word be ordered i believe the word is ordered i think this was a an ad by secretary shaffer in our last meeting this so it's consistent with that language and basically given the caveat if they do so order which they have yet to do so in certain circumstances so so it's just to give clarity that we will yield if there's an order certainly not the recommendations i wanted to make sure that that was the word that we were going to use and

082it wasn't going to be a recommendation all right thank you so with all being said will vote on the motion as presented those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay i believe my count is 5-1 unless anybody objects to that dr king we're coming back to you again then with assessments if you would please yes thank you so there's a 22 i believe page uh document that's going to provide an assessment update not only map data it's also going to provide some thank you graduation numbers act some other uh course completer information as well we know we have work to do um it's being felt everywhere but i'm not talking about everywhere i'm talking about the winsfield school district we know that we have work to do we know with the i-ready

083data in terms of what is uh happening as relates to us compared to the state in terms of growth trends as well but um one of the reasons we need to be in school five days a week is that we all have work to do to address uh some of the unfinished learning so with that dr skeeters do you want to say anything uh i just want to start by thanking uh cheri bertrand our director of assessment for her work on this as you know the data was slow to be released this year and so she's been working fast and furiously to put this together this lovely 22 page document or however many pages it ends up being and uh this presentation tonight and um we are uh we are excited to share with you

084what we have learned and the opportunities we have identified for growth good evening um board cabinet and stakeholders my name as as dr skeeter stated is sheri bertrand i am the director of assessment tonight i will present wentzville school district's annual achievement report in addition to this presentation i have provided you with a full 2020 2021 achievement report i do understand that having this information before tonight would have been ideal and i absolutely agree unfortunately the late release of the data to all stakeholders impeded that so um you can you can follow along it's almost like a student right like you give this stuff and then it doesn't matter what i say you're looking at it but it is yours to keep so you don't have to memorize everything that i'm saying so and i'm

085also very excited to present this data on the night that we honored our teachers of the year because our teachers do amazing jobs and so i just want to give them accolades as well so dr van margie van dieben commissioner of educated commissioner of education stated and i quote districts across the state worked extremely hard to focus on the well-being and academic success of all students during an extraordinary 2020-2021 school year because of cobin 19 pandemic most aspects of last year's school were not typical i urge stakeholders to use the data to learn from this experience and to inform how we deploy resources that best support students educators and schools in a memo released in september by the department of elementary and secondary education it stated that because the 2020-2021 map tests were taken under

086such unprecedented circumstances during the copen 19 pandemic the state board of education voted in december 2020 to waive the results for the state and federal accountability purposes those variables schools faced included but are not limited to chronic absenteeism and learning disruptions due to illness and quarantine stress fatigue and mental health challenges changing modes of instruction as you know on-site virtual distance hybrid limited access to technology or lessen reliable internet connection as well as testing how students handle anxiety for being back in in the school building for the first time in over a year due to these extenuating circumstances the 2021 assessment scores look different from the previous school years those factors should be kept in perspective when reviewing this data the memo concluded by saying that making blanket comparisons to previous school years is a

087serious misuse of data tonight i will share state testing data which is a snapshot of one assessment and any of you who work with numbers and data understands that one data point is insufficient for drawing large-scale conclusions to truly understand areas we must areas we have opportunities for growth we must triangulate with multiple measures and multiple data points i will share the data reported on our state report card and highlight fall the fall i-ready data in january the teaching and learning department will share our goals opportunities for growth and data that highlights the whole child without further ado so the 2021 annual achievement report there are going to be a lot of numbers and so that's why you also have the report that you can take with you so we ask critical questions these three

088critical critical questions are what are the what are the accountability measures by which we monitor our students progress what are the assessments in which winsfield students participate and how well are well students performing and how well are we performing on key indicators so the state accountability measures which is what our report card our apr report is on is total student achievement as well as subgroup achievement which is being changed to student group achievement and that measures ela math science and social studies it also looks at our college and career readiness so act asvab our advanced placement dual credit technical skills attainment it looks at attendance the percentage of students attending school 90 of the time and it also looks at graduation rate not only for four but also five six and seven years so the

089way missouri does it it looks at a missouri performance index so the way school the way the state does it is not always looking at the students who are proficient or advanced but it has a calculation which is an mpi so basically if you work with me for once it's like one of our students visit there's no percentage every student was basic it would be a 300 because the multiplier is 3. that's why you may have heard they get a double bump so if you go from below to 300 proficient all of our students that would be 400 and if every one of our students was advanced it would be 500 so the scale is really between 100 and 500 so when i'm sharing this data that's where your range is okay so the district

090progress so under previous state and federal accountability measures districts could earn and i would be sharing with you what we met or we didn't meet but in 2021 under mc5 points were not awarded for districts to summarize annual performance so there has been a changing assessment system and again this is no this is not about excuses we have lots of opportunities for growth i'm just painting a picture of what is happening around with with assessment so there's been a state assessment change a lot the state assessment system has changed a number of times in the past five years making comparisons from year to year in cautious in 2021 the participation rate for map testing was significantly lower due to previous years because there are a lot of parents concerned about bringing their students in for

091in testing during the pandemic so here's a snapshot of what has changed so in 2016-17 we gave pre-pandemic the world was good we gave the assessments there was a glitch in the data at the state level through our our testing company therefore we were not able to use algebra 1 and english 2 in accountability measures then in 2017-18 they gave there was a new science test so 1617 there was a new ela in math test in 2017-18 there was a new science test so no results came back for science and our ela and math data were not returned until late november in 2018 there was a social studies field test so there were no results 1920 there was covid so testing was canceled and then last year there was a lower participation rate because of

092covid so you can see well i will still give you the data but there's been a lot of changes along the way so let's dive into it let's look at total achievement so this is for the district as a whole so what you will see is in blue the blue bar is is consistently windsville school district and the gray is the state so you will see over basically if you look at the state line that's basically the average of where all students are you will see in english language arts we outperformed we actually outperformed the state in every area we outperformed the state by 22 mpi points in 2021 in english language arts as a district in mathematics we outperform the state in by 34 mpi points in science science is only tested in fifth

093grade oh what happened paper cup i'm not printed and um in science we only test fifth grade eighth grade in biology just so you have that frame of reference you'll see the gaps in the in the testing and basically we continue to we continue to outperform the state and in science this year we outperform them by 28 npi points and then social studies has tested the only thing we test for social studies is government and that is obviously at the high school area and we outperformed the state by um 20 points even though there was two years of no data we still outperformed the state moving on into grade span so the state will report grade span by elementary and then middle and then high because we have sixth grade in elementary i recalculated the

094stuff so it's having a direct comparison so we'll compare third grade through sixth grade seventh and eighth and then high school so first looking at english language arts um third sixth element uh between third third fourth and fifth sixth grade we outperformed the state by 24 mpi points in seventh and eighth grade we outperformed the state by 23 npi points and in english 2 we outperformed the state by 10 mpi points moving on to mathematics braid span in 2021 we outperformed the state by 26 mpi points again i know i'm going very fast that's why you have the document in front of you and in seventh and eighth grade this one is pretty remarkable our middle school math did a great job they outperformed the state by 45 mpi points which is actually the highest

095that we've outperformed the state from 2018 and 19. and algebra one we we outperformed the state by 59 npi points and science fifth eighth and biology in science our fifth graders outperformed the state by 32 mpi points and in eighth grade by 23 mpi points and lastly in biology by 26 mpi points i didn't say i said lastly but i lied government we outperformed the state by mpi points moving forward we have student group achievement student group or the way it is outlined in mc5 is the super subgroup the super subgroup embodies students who are african-american who are multiracial who are hispanic english language learners students with an iep and students who receive free and reduced lunch so the way this graph is is it's only winsville students you can see how our super sub

096group as a whole as well as the the groups broken down how they fared you will notice that in english language arts our african americans and our iep students are the ones who are hit the hardest if we're comparing from year to year even though that isn't cautious to do you will see and that is across the state that students with ieps they had a harder time when it was the the coveted learning in mathematics again our on this time our multi-racial had was was a hit as well as our iep students our iep students are the ones that again as i stated we had great concerns with in science again our iep students it was a they went down by 26 mpi points from the previous year and then interesting government even though there

097was a space so they didn't test in 2019 interesting and i have to dig deeper into this our iep students actually did better than any of the other subgroups with this and they were up i believe my handwriting says 17 mpi points which is pretty interesting okay so map summary just for this map data it's pretty amazing we mirrored exactly what the state had so the percentage of students scoring at or above grade level last year was lower than last time the exams were given in the year before the pandemic that's that's a no-brainer right but the decline was greater for elementary students than in middle school students that's across the state and in our district the english helps the decline was greater for math than in science and then in english the largest decline

098was in the percentage of students hitting the mark in algebra one the smallest decline this was one deviation from the state the state had the smallest decline in fourth and eighth grade in ela and our greatest decline was fourth sixth and seventh grade and the other one that was a little bit different is in the state eighth grade math had the smallest decline in the state and actually ours was exactly the same which is pretty remarkable so that's just a quick summary but we do mirror the state questions on that before i move to act or you can save it that's nice okay eight is just a lot of numbers okay so a-c-t so the graph that i'm going to show you this is looking at how how winston did compared to missouri compared to

099the united states as a whole this is the graduating class so our graduating class of 2021 had a composite score of 22.7 as a district as a whole our composite score was 22.9 we are two points higher as a total than um the state of missouri this is real i think this is really exciting this is the nerdiness coming out in me um so what this what this is it's a graph of between the four years how many times our students take the a.c.t and so as a mom i'm like no you got to keep taking it go keep taking it you can take it again and it actually shows that our sweet spot in wentzville is between the second and third time that they take the act and after that their scores actually go

100down a little bit um so it's just pretty interesting and then that in 2021 that's when we had the most um that's when we had the most students who took the act three times they had a little bit more time um to work on it so that's just it's interesting our um this is information that i'm going to give to the counselors for them to even give to students and their parents because if you're like me you want the kids to keep taking it to do better and better and better so advanced placement so our students take ap classes and they take the ap exams which are very very difficult if our students score three or above they they are able to um get college credit so in 2021 you will see actually in 2020

1012021 the number of students who were able to take these exams it it decreased um mostly because of the time of the ap that basically the ap exams are right after spring break and that's when the world shut down and so they had our they allowed ap testing to be done at home which they've never done they didn't let us do grade level assessment at home or eocs at home but they allowed it at home just for that one year and then this last year um we had the kids so we were at 68 of our students scoring um three or better it's pretty awesome and then moving on to attendance our attendance is really right in line with the state for from 18 19 20 basically we're up one or two percentage points from

102the state last year we were down one percent from the state but to be honest attendance last year was a nightmare from the credits they get from being you know being hybrid to being in person to being quarantined so i know that um our coordinated people were working on across the state were working on attendance until like november this year it's it was it was a lot so for us to for us as well as the state to have um 81 and 82 attendance during that year is it's pretty remarkable and graduation we had a 95.5 graduation rate the state target is 90 and basically you can look at the last four years we've basically been six plus percentage points above the state for the last four years so where do our students go this

103is not re this is reported out kind of on our 180 day follow-up but it's very interesting to see i think where our kids go data excites me so i'm going to share with you 46 of our students go to four-year colleges um 32 go to two-year and then three go to technical schools which is eighty-one percent of our students continuing formal education sixteen percent go straight into employment which we believe is a direct correlation between career readiness opportunities that we provide through courses and extracurricular activities so that is it with the apr data that will be released on our state dashboard or our state report card but i do want to bring something up as i said in the beginning we don't just look at one snapshot of data we look at multiple things

104so i know earlier this year i shared some i-ready data but i wanted to share fall to fall comparison so you can see there is a large scale study on the relationship between ireti diagnostics and the 2018 map they found a strong correlation in english language arts it was 0.82 and equally strong correlation in math at 0.84 we know with this being statistically significant you want it as close to 1 as possible so that is very statistically significant so looking at i ready the way you'll read this graph which is really hard and small to read is the far left which is historical national norms that's fall 1819 pre-pandemic then you move into national fall that's this year national fall then how missouri did and if you remember i shared with you that i already

105test over 10 million students in missouri and then we have our district so basically what i one thing i want you to remember is looking at this they're looking at end of the year standards end of the year expectations okay so this is measuring the students took this in september and they're being measured for end of the year expectations so basically any of the kids that are in green they are rocking and rolling and they are great they're doing wonderful things our kids on the yellow are really basically right on track if i change this to beginning of the year expectations those would all be green but we want to be realistic and know what we need to do the ones that we're obviously concerned about are the students that are two grade levels or

106three grade levels below so looking at missouri reading in pre pandemic nationally there were 30 percent of students um two to three grade levels below and in our in um nationally it was 36 and missouri was 36 and then winsford was 29. on the positive note we had 35 uh percent of our students in the green which is eight points above missouri six points above national and three points above where our where students were performing pre-pandemic and then we'll move into mathematics the same thing national i'm sorry historical national norms national missouri and then our district um our district scored 22 points um we had 22 in in the um in the green which is five percent higher than missouri five percent higher than national and um under five negative five from pre-pandemic um in

1072018-19 and then our students who are at um the ones that we're really looking at we had 27 percent of them which is um seven less than missouri nine less than national and two less than pre-pandemic so again we want to use multiple measures to see where our students are doing we know we have lots of room and lots of opportunities for growth but as i stated before we're doing some great things and then dr skaters wants to share our opportunities for growth that we have already outlined thank you sherry thank you so much i really appreciate that there was um it's really great information and we are continuing to digest that and look at it with a fine-tooth comb however i just want to share that coming into the school year we knew that

108we were going to be addressing some challenges um and so we started the year by ensuring that we were addressing everything that we possibly could we emphasized this year small group instruction we've been providing some training in that ongoing professional learning for our teachers and administrators and at the secondary level we've been emphasizing student engagement we know that over the last year and a half things have been really tough for kids and that it's um sometimes difficult to re-engage and so engagement strategies and uh the emphasis on engagement in school has been um a point of of uh emphasis for us we also are digging into the priority standards missouri released several years ago the missouri learning standards this spring they identified which of those missouri learning standards are their priorities and they will be

109aligning the missouri assessment program assessments to those priority standards so uh the teaching and learning department is uh providing additional information for teachers regarding those uh priority standards we are uh at this point in time we are emphasizing student group it's okay i don't know what i just said we are emphasizing uh really student growth um for a couple different reasons one as sherry mentioned um looking at any one point of data is uh is is not helpful we definitely want to always meet that mark but we are also looking to move students forward so we are um working on uh we have identified a way for us to be able to really dig into student growth we are looking at um there's a quadrant system to use uh and there's four quadrants the first

110quadrant is high performance high growth the second one is low performance high growth the third is low performance low growth and right and the fourth is uh high performance low growth and essentially we're looking at are we moving the needle on students and so even if they're in quadrant two if their performance is a quarter too they're at low performance but they're a high growth that means we're actually still moving them forward which is our goal so even if they haven't hit the the um end score that we want them to hit if we're moving them forward that is that's what we're working toward i'm looking through outside i know sorry no it's all right uh let's see we are also um with that growth we are looking we have input we have implemented the

111i ready benchmark assessment and that is currently in grades k through 8 for math and k through 10 for reading and we are in the process of researching i think i mentioned this before a high school benchmark assessment as you can see from our eoc scores it's really difficult for our high schools to monitor student growth using that assessment data so we're looking for a benchmark system to provide the opportunity for us to monitor growth like we do for our students using the i ready benchmark assessment we also have implemented educlimer as a as a tool to help us monitor student progress and achievement sheri and our assessment coach jill klein smith have been working to build the quadrants into edge of climbers so that teachers can look and see where are their students falling

112in terms of performance and growth and help them to track student progress that way and finally this year we have added an intervention coach and that person's responsibility is to uh research interventions um about academic behavioral and social emotional and to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all students and providing interventions uh where um they are needed so again i want to thank sherry for being here this evening and at this point if you have any questions do we have any questions or comments on the presentation please sergeant thank you very much for your presentation and giving us something to take home um so my question is that all the comparisons that we've seen in your charts are basically where do we stand relative to the state correct where does the state compare

113to the nation so mike so you're looking at nate so we have the national report card which is nate and nate was not able to be um administered last year either um i can provide that to you it actually is a direct correlation there we're here and then there's a big drop for missouri because our standards were raised and so it's there's a direct correlation between nate and the state of missouri so basically then we're getting a really good and accurate correlation to where we actually stand even though that the state maps and those kinds of things were not available is that what you just said i don't know if i understand your question so um we didn't have records from the nationals they did not give them um they did not give the the

114report card the nate assessment last year no that they come in so so but you're doing a comparison of where missouri was and where wentzville is that's what your charts showed where we where we were in the categories of the state versus wentzville and how did we how did we compare or did you make that comparison with our surrounding districts or did you do that or i mean maybe it's not even needed but i mean i know we want to know but we're also very competitive with our surrounding statements of course of course districts there is um there is lots of data to dig through this was released on december 1st and so there's still more data to dig through and look at to look at those what your question so would you be coming

115back any time soon to tell us about all of that so that we have a really good handle on how we have compared to our so we can i'll let carrie answer that but i do want to say we can and this is not out at all excuse me at all so but i we have to remember that every every district entity handled things different and started in person or hybrid or whatnot so it's it's truly not comparing apples to apples i i understand your want i'm the same i want to know all of the data but this is the year that there's you really just almost can't compare district to district i'm happy to provide it for you and carrie can share with them but doesn't but didn't jesse set the guidelines i mean

116isn't that basically how you go about many things jesse is the one who sends down the directions for education throughout the entire state so one of the things that happened last year usually they have a 95 participation rate so we have to have 95 of the students take the test last year they lowered that to 85 and then there was a statement made and documentation out that said if we do not make the 95 of participation we will have to then a test again in the fall even though it will be account for accountability but we will have to disrupt learning again to test in the fall our principals and our teachers with the relationship that they had with parents they they talked parents even into coming and saying you know what come and take

117one question take i know you're scared to come in because some of our kids and parents work i know you're scared to come and take come in and take one question which automatically puts the student below basic but gives us a not a level determined right because we want to make sure we hit that participation rate which we did but we monitored every single student so really carrie could have been an advanced student but because of of of reasons she her parents or her did not feel comfortable coming in to test so we had the relationship we had with the family they said okay you know what come in take one question and you can get out in and out in 10 minutes so it's truly not a true fair representation of how our students

118are doing and different districts have different different ways of how parents felt does that make sense if i could just jump in i believe nape is basically a dipstick across the state so they they gather well you're actually identified fourth and age yeah across the state and that's how uh profiles are developed in terms of comparisons for nate the national assessment that that sherry was speaking to and i believe it's been two years that they have not correct and they only test fourth and eighth grade fourth and eighth grade um in january you're coming back with the i ready data which will show the growth that we have made this year from from start of school year to uh they're just they're finishing testing right now yes so our local assessments and how our students

119are really doing input like that shows you really where we're at i have an act question later but i was just going to add that we can provide you with additional information absolutely we're like jerry said we're still working on all of that um and a couple other points so uh you mentioned that dusty sets the standard and they do they set the expectation for the achievement level um i think the the differences that sherry is speaking to is that um when we start looking at comparing this year to last year it just is very difficult because we're not talking about similar circumstances or or not to last year to the year before uh we're not talking about similar circumstances for testing and so that's why it becomes difficult for comparison but the data you

120are asking for we can definitely work on and provide for you so my next question is what is the what is the group that does all of the testing for our students at one point in time we used a company called sbac smarter balance yeah okay so it seemed like i saw a word that kind of resembled that or was close to that i don't think so it was in the it was in the graph so that was in that graph outlining the changes so i think it shows you where we moved away from having s back items in the assessment so there several years ago the state had put some items from us back into the assessment i believe that was 1617 or the year prior and they remove those so what you see

121on that graph is when that happened we're just trying to outline the number of changes we have been through because as you as you know we've had standards changed several times the assessment has changed that was what that was outlining is how often that's changed so they're not in there now that we're not using that assessment anymore right so that was the 1617 that's why we had new assessments um because they removed those items from the smarter balance so s back in itself had gone through a court case in 2014 and they had been deemed as illegal and unconstitutional at that time i know that testing wasn't actually mandatory in 2015 although i know that there was some testing that were done parents could have opted out their children i'm just concerned that i certainly

122didn't wouldn't want to see given the conditions of the judgment i certainly didn't really want to see smarter balance mentioned in any way even when it was full of words it was just showing when they were like when it was taken out and that's why a new assessment was made so it's saying that it's no longer it's not being used and that's it's showing you when they were taken out of this of of the state's assessment there's no smarter balance in any state assessment and i sincerely thought that they would have been taken out like two or three years prior when the court case was determined that's about my pay grade probably not there you go all right thank you thank you for answering we have no other secretary schaefer would you like to go

123ahead shannon all right thank you um first of all thank you for putting together all that data it's very data intense and i mean i appreciate all that work i i know that was a lot of work um i guess what i would like to see moving forward i think we all recognize we have work to do is just um dr skeeters you had mentioned some action steps i i think um it would be helpful at the next meeting if maybe in speaking to those action steps um that it's just kind of it's addressing the proficiency levels within our schools so that we can understand actually what the changes or the supplements are going to be moving forward whether it be in a particular classroom or a particular school like elementary middle school or high

124school so that it's a little more specific i know you can't narrow in and hone in on every specific classroom and grade but something that's more specific that shows what we're going to do moving forward at the next meeting that is our teaching learning evaluation right that we're sharing director yeah and that's coming up i'm just saying just you know as you're as you're defining and explaining the goals and the action steps if you just can provide you know a picture of a story what that would look like with which you know in our actual schools please yeah thank you secretary shaffer i i echo the same comments from director stole in terms of the data pulled together here for us and and and i and certainly it's hard to compare with the changes to

125certain tests not happening certain years moving standards uh obviously coveted in the middle of that um and so in recognizing we would have those tough comparisons in this data you know because of those issues and recognizing um you know to sandy's points around comparisons to just the state i've had i'm sure you all do too so i'm not saying anything i'm sure no one has heard there are statements and comments made around what we're seeing in kids right as it relates to how far they feel behind whether it's math or whether it's reading in those sorts of things you can feel it and i i i obviously haven't been on the board for years and can't draw upon past years but i sense in the tone from staff it's different um and it's not and

126i guarantee this isn't unique to winsfield so this please please understand i'm not trying to draw that our you know our staff are excellent what i'm drawing upon and what i'd like to see is we come back in january and talk action items and what we think about we do moving forward is how how has the curriculum we have put in place you know helped or hurt whether it's the reading curriculum we've done the math curriculum i know we've rolled out some you know pilots on certain things i think in the middle school specifically for math i'm interested in what we put in place when we put them in place and how we assess it's working in light of all things that have changed and really draw into those subjects specifically to talk about then

127we talk about action steps what i'm very interested in is how the elected officials here at the board level can support our staff you know what tools can we give our staff to help them succeed i've heard stories of teachers having to pay out of their own pockets for prior year curriculum because the kids were one year behind in math and so had to pull as a seventh grade teacher sixth grade curriculum to help their kids get caught up so they can actually teach the seventh grade curriculum they're there for so my point is to say what can we do as an elected officials i want to help um how can we help what what direction from us or funding or other places that we can draw upon to support our staff and so that's

128what i'm hopeful teaching and learning you can bring back to us you know as we talk in january about what all of the things that we've learned from past curriculum changes that we currently use and what things this board can do to help our staff you know going forward i appreciate that and that is why i love my job because often people do feel or think this and numbers are numbers and they don't lie so it's really actually based in data on what on what is happening so um that's something we can we can definitely look at and how if i have no other comments we'll say thank you and we'll move on all right thank you and i had pulled something from the consent and added it to the new business you will need

129to refresh to bring us up to date so this brings us to new business and our first item is personnel recommendations and resignations and dr kane or whoever asks for this item to be pulled please uh lead the discussion it was just for a separate vote okay it was just for a separate vote okay for a separate vote only so i need a motion to approve the personnel recommendation and resignations as presented then motion promotion second and a second those in favor signify for saying aye aye aye aye aye those opposed nay hearing noit nays the eyes heaven i abstain and once again that brings us bill for payments is there any bills for payment for discussion just for a separate vote just separate vote okay so with that being said i need a motion

130to approve the bills for payment as presented motion second and a second those in favor signify by saying i i those opposed nay i have all eyes fix zero i abstain okay that brings me to the vanco education service agreements and this uh question came up in public forum and mr lawrence if you could help me on that please my question would be uh it was questioned about non-bids is this an exclusive contract for these services uh that is correct so this is an exclusive sole integration um so um that to answer that question it is a sole um sole source um i would like to give just a quick little background which is back in march we also began this began researching this and we did go out to bid for that also released

131an rv um at that time um we did receive one bid back after further investigation with the company looking into them looking at their integrations we discovered that they did not fully integrate with the systems that we had also that their percentage rate was four percent at that time also so um that led us into uh continued research uh discovering this company here that is so sourced so you feel comfortable with what you have absolutely okay is there any other questions on this issue please uh during the public comments we heard that a 3.49 per transaction seemed to be higher than we needed to do so that's one question and the second question that i have is i'm very concerned and needless to say about hackers for this we have seen that we've had issues

132with this over the past year so does vanco do they have separate um security measures that even protect the parents even further with all of this because that's a big concern lots of people get lots of information that can be absolutely devastating i know absolutely thank you um mr angebond would you like to speak a little on the percentage rate and then i'll be glad to answer that next question sure on the percentage rate one thing about this rate is that we're not paying any software fees uh greg asked me to come to a meeting to discuss the financial aspects of this and i was glad to do that this one fee that you're looking at here covers all software it's a transaction fee and this transaction fee is not paid by the district this

133is a user fee that's passed along to the user one thing i like about this particular system is it ties in directly to our accounting systems i don't have to hire any more staff use any more staff if we go with this system there are only two systems that tie in directly to these types of systems that tie in directly to our accounting systems and the other system was not as adequate as this one we believe this one is the way to go it is very inexpensive when there's no other software fees this fee is paid by the user who uses uh this software and it's tied in completely integrated with no additional staff on uh regarding accounting very very uh frugal way to go in my opinion so the user is the parent it

134could be a parent somebody coming to a game i mean whoever's using whoever's using this transaction it's not the district itself with the software but but it's a but it would be whoever's paying on by this by this service yes it'd be very similar to uh when you buy tickets online you pay a uh a fee uh for to that service for that ticket and that is covering the fees that is the same type of fee that we would be using here correct and to answer your final question there um the second question that you had asked is um so this is a separate service um so there are a couple of things that uh van gogh has put in place um with that and as one of those is a data privacy agreement that

135they have agreed to national data privacy agreement that's um for many school districts uh that use we're one of them we also uh they also our pci compliance which is with credit card industry there's compliance that they have met the certifications from there so when a community member stakeholder makes a payment there's actually a separate system login that would be utilized to continue to ensure those credentials and continue to ensure the safety of that transaction so the system login and for that particular transaction then that's that's also then unique to the user that is correct that is completely set up to the district that is correct it is completely set up that is exactly right that is correct and do you know anything about you know the the background from from their system in itself

136have they had issues with breaches and such like that none that i'm aware of i also know that there are many school districts around the st charles county that utilize the same system and utilize the same the same services that we would be utilizing we don't really do anything at all except offer this is a convenience and the convenience of paying for their lunches or whatever else they have to do a ticket admission to a game that is a that is correct so we're kind of like out of it that is correct all right thank you okay if we have no other questions come forward we would need a motion to approve vancore education service agreement as presented motion thank you second and thank you so then all in favor signify by saying aye hearing

137no nays the eyes have it is 6-0 this brings us to 13.4 diane sweeney consultant and director garber i believe you asked for this to be pulled if you would please i took the time to actually go to ms sweeney's consulting website and the reason i did that is because we have certainly been inundated by the situation of crt and i know that people are looking and there are certain buzzwords so i wanted to make sure that this would not kind of attach to a crt critical race theory and so i did find something on the website uh it was under the our publications section of their website and i'll just read something that i copied and pasted so that i could reference what the trigger words were for me it says these technology focused

138moves and this is a code this particular company does coaching for teachers so that they can more adequately and correct me if i'm wrong but they can more adequately teach children and teach in the this is supposed to be a teaching aid for our teachers this would be an instruction from this company on how to do that these technology focused moves are accompanied by language stems i don't know what a language stem is other than maybe catch words i don't know note catchers i don't know what note catchers is and other tools that provide structure and coherence to coaching conversations each chapter also provides and by the way they had something like four four books this uh each chapter provides specific moves that promote equity that is a trigger word for me and i know

139it is for many people around this whole nation and definitely here in wentzville and they work to remove many of the barriers that have been brought into clearer focus during the challenges of our times so while it was really vague about a lot of things that kind of scared me as well the fact that it was so vague what are the clear focuses on the challenges of our times because i can guarantee you that there's going to be pushback on this very much or at least i think there will i didn't have the opportunity to go through every page that they had but i certainly will so i'm very concerned about this particular thing um we had a situation as everyone knows of april in april of this past year and um and i i

140honestly i don't want a repeat of that and i don't know if we're you know if if this would be obviously this would be for professional development and one of the things that you would said in your issue in your letter about this asking for this was the professional learning will be paid for using title two funds all money that comes from the state comes from the taxpayers all of it the state makes nothing it gets all of its money from the taxpayers so i'm very concerned about the taxpayers money being used for something that we have all raised our eyebrows about and given the fact that many of us parents board members we have actually looked into our our scores and how we stand in the nation how we stand worldwide and such like

141that and i'm just very concerned about crt and as we know political or not we are hearing from the at current administration they like crt when parents around the entire nation are opposing and for some for many many different reasons but i'm just wondering about our tax dollars and exactly i don't have a problem if you are going to learn how to educate our children in the academics of math and science and reading and those kinds of things but i'm not interested in the um i myself personally have not and i think i speak for many of our parents i'm not interested in the social engineering side of it so i'm not sure if this is social engineering and again um what what what i do know and that is that um to be very

142mindful in my from my standpoint of making sure that i'm reading every little word because of the fact that it seems like the gimmick is let's just change the word but it doesn't change the subject it just changes the word so that's what i'm looking for and that's why i'd like a better explanation of why would we be concerned about coaching to have an effect on and provide specific moves that promote promote equity dr skeeters if you could give a quick rebuttal to the questions that's been presented please sure i'd be happy to we've been working with diane sweeney for many years for well over a decade diane sweeney and her consultants they coach coaches and um when she or anyone who's publishing anything on their site refers to equity they're referring to educational equity

143so making sure that students have access to what they need to learn and to grow at the appropriate rate for them so when uh when the word move is used that is something that i think is really pretty particular to diane she likes to use that term and she describes coaching moves so they're they're talking about the things that the coach can do when talking to the teacher about how to help a student with their with the instruction so the tracking tool you were talking about that's really like note-taking for the teacher as they're conferring with students or working with them in a small group like how do you how do you keep track of the information you're gaining so the way we look at coaching is that when a when a teacher is working

144with a coach the coach is usually in the room and working side by side with the teacher the teachers we want them to be working side by side with the students so they'll sit next to a student they will confer with them one-on-one they'll work with them in a small group and while they're doing that they're gathering information about how they're learning and so they're writing down making notes about where they are and how things are going so that they know what to do next and so there's there's coaching moves that they could that the coach can use with the teacher what kinds of questions can you ask them to be reflective in their about their teaching so this isn't about equity in terms of anything besides educational equity in addition this is um very

145different work for us so the consultant we're looking to work with will be coming in to work with the content leaders and we've had um coaching happening uh in our elementaries for years and years and um we really we really do like like the student-centered coaching model the student-centered coaching model focuses on student work looking at what is it that they're doing to help us figure out where do we need to go next with our instruction we have not had that happening um that kind of coaching really any coaching happening specifically at the secondary level so this is a an opportunity for us to learn about coaching at the secondary level so sorry thank you so my question again then goes back to what was on their own website and working with this equity process

146then it to remove many of the barriers that have been brought into clearer focus during the challenges of our times so now here's what i do want to say because i was on the board prior and the issues that we are having some of those very same issues are back again they're still here um but in 2009 the implementation of without a board approval and without a legislative approval we had we were in the middle of the downturn of the economy in 2009 and what happened with the program of no child left behind i'm not sure exactly what all the criteria were but you had to obviously there was a dollar amount in order to implement the program so in 2009 very quickly after the election then the common core was put in and as

147you probably well know there were many people who were objecting to common core there was an awful lot of common core that looks a lot an awful lot like missouri learning standards in my opinion and we are now we've had open discussion this evening by our parents who demonstrated their lack or their yes their ad their abhorrent ideas about the social engineering and that's more of what people actually saw and and then then again in i'm going to say it was 20 i know it was in 2013 i remember being on the board asking to uh accept the common core of which i voted no and i think i was probably the only one out of all four surrounding districts or all four districts that voted no for that and the following year then the

148same thing about the curriculum again i voted no along with another parent who was now on the board i'm very concerned as i said about you know what is it we're trying to change here and you know and overcome some of the barriers i i think that they're in my opinion there's just an awful lot of suspicious language here because we're already talking about this not just here in wentzville but nationwide thank you and if we uh director sully you you had uh want to make a comment please do yes thank you secretary schaefer so i mean uh dr skeeters just you had said that we've been using um uh sweeney services for quite a while it looks about since 2016 give or take so i guess my questions are is if we've been using

149them since 2016 when as i look at these plan developments or these teaching and learning contracts i guess i want to know and and this has been consistent with previous comments is is what evidence or data do we know that that these are helping our these things are helping our students and to give every to give a reason to have a continuation with the contract for this particular vendor um so moving forward just in general as pd contract items come to the board of education i think it would be helpful to have just at the bottom of that hey some history we've used this spender since this person this is how it's our path to achieving such and such a goal and this is the evidence to that and that would explain the reason why

150you're seeking recommendations for approval certainly we can do that i just want to provide a couple points of clarification uh the one is that um we have worked with diane sweeney it's not been continuously so it's just it's a consultant that we have worked with over the last several years when we're talking about overcoming barriers those really refer to the the different challenges that students face due to the pandemic so the the coaching that they're with what they're talking about in that particular post on their site is referencing the challenges that you know having either missed school or having to learn virtually and maybe that's not your best learning environment um etc so that's we know as we've even just seen this evening that was particularly challenging for students it definitely got in the way

151of learning for many of them and so that's those are the the barriers that i believe that that article is referencing do you know what the definition of language stems is so usually what they will do is provide the teachers with the types of questions that they can ask students to to get more information from them or the kinds of questions that a coach can ask the teacher to better understand or prompt their reflection so their their language stems in that they're these are the kinds of questions you can ask to help teachers become more reflective and to how to basically to open the dialogue between you the coach and the teacher so they're not language stems to use with students their language tends to use but the teacher okay so with all being said

152we would need a motion to prove diane's sweeney consulting agreement as presented motion promotions i have a second in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye those opposed nay nay so we have four two and i presume my account was right if anybody has some objection please say okay this brings us to uh for change orders 13.5 through 13.8 and mr bland would you want to step forward in case there would be any questions for you this evening and our first change order is frontier middle school it's change order number six do we have any questions from mr blind on frontier middle school i do when was this contract signed for the middle school i believe it was october of 21 right october 20 i believe oh yeah sorry 20.

153okay so where i stand with this is if the inflation went away the prices went down 40 percent the school district wouldn't go to this elect electrical contractor and ask them for money off that bid they signed a contract they were good with the price so i personally don't see us giving them thirty thousand dollars of the taxpayer money on a contract that they already signed and agreed to the this is a forced major claim that our attorneys looked at the reason this is in front of the board is this item cannot be ordered until basically it's field field verified so they did bid it at the price in october of 2020 however they could not buy and pay for it until the field work had been completed so my question is did they they

154was bitten by drawings is that correct or is this a or was they on a design and build it was bid by drawings but they were schematic drawings these feeders are measured after everything's in place and then the copper is ordered to length because it is expensive so they have additional footage or is it the price of copper the price of the commodity price of the copper yes thank you any other questions for mr blanton on this change order i i would like to to clarify and make a comment on what is happening here it is true director bryce said if the price goes up that the district is responsible or the district would not be responsible for a price going up when it was bid what happens is in these contracts there's a forced

155major clause a force measure clauses specific clause that states acts of god pandemics and other particular type items there are only certain items that relate to a forced measure clause and pandemic is an enforced major clause i would like to say that we have very strict forced measure clauses compared to most contracts we knew that the pandemic was here and we actually made very tight forced major clauses but this is pandemic related and that's the only reason that a price increase is here it's not normally in a contract it's only an enforced major clause okay if i hear no other questions we need a motion to prove the frontier change order zero five as presented motion have a motion do i have a second for your vote second the motion second all those in favor

156signify by saying aye aye those oppose may mary hey vice president bryce do we have a vote from you nay okay i've got three three am i correct on my totals okay i think i have three three unless somebody wants to object to that therefore we do not have a passage on this train charter this brings us to windsville middle school change order zero nine is there any questions for mr blanton on the wentzville middle school change order hearing none i'm happy we're getting a refund good uh could i have a motion to prove to winston middle school change order zero nine as presented motion motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye six zero six on the eyes the next item is north point middle school change order number

15713. any questions for mr blanton on this change order hearing none sure so basically on this one we're changing and purchasing a viking line communications and that is supposed to be reduced monthly phone charges do you have numbers on that correct that is what's going on uh typically we pay 50 to 70 dollars a month per copper phone line this is not our voip phone lines these are actually copper lines uh and we need those two certain phones and instead of running a separate line to each phone we can run it into this viking line communicator and then that can communicate with these spots so it's like a splitter kind of a thing you would call it and then at that point in time we would save because we would only be charged for one

158telephone line is that what you're saying basically yes uh we're reducing i want to say if this is the north point middle school i want to say we're re reducing the need for six copper lines so 360 dollars a month 420 a month is what we'll be saving okay thank you any other questions for mr blind hearing none we will need a motion to prove the north point middle school change order 0 13 as presented second emotion in a second those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay i hear no a's i presume it's 6-0 this brings us to uh south middle school change order number 12. is there any questions for mr blanton on this change order i do i do um you've indicated that the fire marshal has requested a

159digital alarm commuter transmitter to be installed that can provide point-to-point information to the central monitoring station is this something new i mean just since did we have any idea that we would need this no we did not the system uh is old enough that it predates this technology but since we were upgrading the system what this does uh the existing system would report a fire alarm and that would go and it would say the building's on fire this can actually tie it to a corridor or to a specific detector that information is then communicated to the fire department so since we were updating upgrading and adding on to the system with the uh south middle expansion they asked for that be installed also we've done this on all of our and on this is included

160as part of the project okay i'm not sure at frontier but frontier is newer than south middle so and i was really in reference in the last couple of years since we've been doing this because i hadn't heard of this all right thank you if there's no other questions for mr blanton we would need a motion to approve south middle school change order 13 as presented motion second motion is second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay i have a 5-1 count i'm the nay if there's nothing else come before the board this evening always remember you have the opportunity anything you want to put on the agenda for next month is just contact dr kane or katherine um so with that being said to our crowd tonight i always

161like to give scores when i'm calling bingle and i say i'll give you a b10 that was very good tonight thank you very much you did exceptionally well and uh if no other business come to fort i'm going to call for a motion to adjourn second motion in a second those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay hearing no nays i have six zero