welcome. I apologize that we are a few minutes late getting
started. Thank you for being here at the earlier time of 6
30. Adequate notice has been given and I would ask everyone
to rise and join us in saying the pledge.
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 justice for all.
Thank you. And Chris would you read the motion to adopt the
agenda?
I move that we adopt the agenda as posted.
Second.
Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes.
We're moving now to recognizing our own and I'm going to ask
Gina Tartt our chief communications officer to
recognize William and Lauren Carey.
Good evening. I'm actually here with Dr. Tarita Murdock from
Glenridge and she's going to do our formal presentation.
Great. Thank you Dr. Murdock.
You're welcome. Good evening everyone.
You know today is you're too bright for drugs so that's why
I'm the brightest thing in the room.
So in the aftermath of the heartbreaking acts of vandalism
that occurred on our campus last spring William and Lauren Carey
parents of Patrick and Charles a first grader and a family
center student reached out with a simple but powerful question.
How can we come together as a community to heal?
From that conversation the idea of our very first school
beautification day was born.
The Careys collaborated with the PTO to secure funding and
promote the event which occurred on Saturday September
20th.
This day was more than just planting flowers and I even
found myself getting emotional throughout the time of how many
people showed up who showed up and just the idea of the day.
The day was about restoring beauty fostering unity and
demonstrating the love and resilience that define our
school community.
What began as a response to harm has grown into a movement of
hope and togetherness.
As we beautified our grounds we also strengthen the roots of our
community reminding everyone especially our babies that
kindness, connection and care will always triumph over
negativity.
The Careys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much to the Carey family.
Next do we have any public comment tonight?
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next do we have any public comment tonight?
No?
Okay.
Moving on to our superintendent communications with Dr.
Patel.
Good evening everyone.
Thank you for being here tonight.
A few updates that I have.
I want to start off with some really exciting news that we got
to share.
Dr.
Murdoch left but yesterday we went to Glenridge Elementary
School and we were able to surprise Jeannie McQueen with
the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award.
She is one of our amazing fabulous teachers at Glenridge
Elementary and she's a fifth grade teacher.
She actually started at Clayton at Merrimack as a reading
specialist I believe in 2000 and I want to make sure I get
this right, 2014 and then from Merrimack she spent a few years
there and then moved to Glenridge as a fourth and fifth
grade teacher.
Everyone who knows Jeannie knows her heart, knows her love and
compassion and she is the epitome of being student
centered.
She not only loves her kids tremendously but she also
pushes herself, that's what I admire so much about her, to
grow professionally.
She's always taking on challenges and supportive
colleague.
It could go on and on and on about Jeannie but she truly is
so good.
So we were excited to surprise her and her family was there as
well so they kind of snuck out when we announced it so of
course she couldn't contain the emotions and I think we have a
few good pictures there so congratulations to Jeannie and
we will officially honor her also at the Mayfair Awards every
year so we'll recognize her there as well.
Moving on last week I believe it was we had our former board
member breakfast at Glenridge.
We hosted it there.
We had a great turnout.
It was a good opportunity to connect with former board
members who have left a lasting legacy in this district.
It was exciting because they got to talk to one another.
Some of them had not seen each other in years and not only did
we have a chance to continue to strengthen the connections but
after breakfast Dr. Murdoch took them on a tour of the building
and for so many of the former board members it was an eye
opening experience from what they had seen years ago when
they were on the board to now and Dr. Murdoch kind of told the
stories about the impact of what Glenridge has on the students
and the staff now and the facilities that are there and
the struggles they face with all of it so I think a lot of them,
I would say the majority of them, if not all of them, left
just wanting to be very supportive of whatever work we
are doing with our facilities, master planning process.
Next continuing with board involvement and engagement.
This weekend we were at the Missouri School Boards
Association Conference in Kansas City so thank you to the board
members who were there. We felt like it was a great
opportunity for us to connect but also we went to some really
good sessions and one of the sessions actually was from
Clayton High School. They did a presentation at the
conference and they talked about how important it was to
have one of its kind in the Midwest and Jen McEwen and the
principal were there and presented to a room filled. I
don't think there were any seats left. It was packed and
they did a wonderful job showcasing the Wellness Center
and at the end of the presentation we had a lot of
individuals go up to them and ask to tour our facilities and I
think some of them are coming from Kansas City, already
scheduled like I believe in December so I thought that was a
great opportunity for us to share what we're doing in
Clayton with other school districts across the state.
Point of pride for us on that. And then students, oh my gosh,
so once you hit October, November, December you will see
our students shine on stage and behind the scenes so our plays
have started. I went to see the play and I was like, oh my
gosh, it has started. I went to see that and that was
phenomenal and then we have the orchestra concerts, we have
band concerts, choir concerts, you name it. All our students
are out in the community and in the schools performing. I hope
you get a chance to go visit them and see some of them. I
believe I think there was a concert last night as well. Yeah,
band. So if you get a moment please take that chance and go
see them perform. They are some of our amazing students with
great talent there so I wanted to highlight them and then our
work continues to accelerate with of course our long range
facilities master plan so tonight there will be a
presentation from the design team about that and we will get
to learn more about it in terms of what our next phase is with
the work. We have continued to do tours at Merrimack and
Glenridge were the most recent ones. We had a community
engagement forum which we got really good feedback on.
Whoever was there they all said that they appreciated the fact
that it was less sit and get and more of being able to go into
small groups and have conversations with areas of
interest they have there so that is ongoing and again we will
have an update later today for our facilities work.
Presentations we have three tonight so fasten your seat
belts. The first one is from excellence K-12. They will
share our survey results followed by our long range
facilities plan update with our design team and the last
presentation will be a mini assessment report with Dr.
Garganigo and Ms. Robin Hogg are going to come here and talk
about academic growth for a specific population of our
students. Those are our three presentations and now I will
hand it off to Nina for our student board update.
So over the past couple of weeks I have gotten the chance to
meet with Wydown student council and a group of fifth graders
from Merrimack. One of the questions I asked to both groups
was what do you not like or not like about your school building
and how do you think this could be improved? Wydown students
said they love how modern and efficient their building is but
they wish they had more opportunity to move between
classes outside. For example there is an area between the
6th grade and 7th and 8th hallway which is an outside area
that they say isn't used very often so they said they would
love to use that more if they got the chance. They also said
8th hallway is a center for many popular electives. It gets
really, really crowded and prevents kids from getting to
class on time. This is one I heard a lot but I don't know how
much of that is also just like middle schoolers love to talk
and chat with their friends in the hallway so I was a little
bit torn on whether this was actually a problem or just a
problem of people wanting to talk to their friends but that
was really good feedback to get and when I asked them how they
felt about their field because I know that's kind of something
we are considering with the long range facilities master plan
of grass. A lot of them said it would hurt less to fall. I don't
know how much they're falling in PE but apparently it would hurt
less to fall in the turf and it would recover more quickly from
rain and snow meaning they would get to go outside still in the
winter months. And then when I asked Merrimack students about
their school building they initially struggled to identify
any aspects that needed improvement. They told me a lot
of things that they loved which I think is a pretty good sign
but when I pushed them a little bit harder they told me that
they wish their classrooms and specials rooms were a little
bit shorter. They also said they wish their school had more
shortcuts because transitioning from room to room often cuts into
like their time for certain activities. But all in all
everyone had such helpful and well thought out feedback to
share and I was so impressed and I look forward to meeting with
both of those groups again. And then for our next slide. Yes.
And then on Thursday October 9th I had another meeting with
Clayton's Clayton High School's principals advisory club. We
continued our discussion about the long range facilities and
master plan by thinking through which areas of our school don't
improve efficiency and learning environment. Some things I heard
were if you're in the chemistry language or CTE hallway you have
to walk pretty far to get to the nearest bathroom which I
definitely agree with. And then also the placement of the
stairwell sometimes makes it difficult to find a quick and
concise path to your next class. We also continued our discussion
about gay field. In general the group seemed pretty in support
of the possibility of moving gay field to Shaw Park. The only
potential issues that we saw arising were the reroute of the
building of the homecoming parade and the decrease of green
nature space outside in Shaw Park which are both issues I think
can definitely be solved through like planning and careful
thought which I know we're doing. And then our last topic of
discussion at principals advisory club was the presence of hate
in our community which we opted to talk about the meeting before
we decided we wanted to talk about this meeting. We talked
about what can be done to combat inappropriate and hurtful jokes
made in class in the hallways and even at sports practice. The
group agreed that jokes many of which have to do with anti
violence and understanding though this is never
justification. Many students say that they wish they talked more
about current events and politics in their classes as they feel
this would be a good way for the student body to gain more
information about what's actually going on in the world. We
decided that although groups like the intercultural dialogue
group which is a new club at CHS and the current events club do a
great job of encouraging critical thinking and debate they wish
there was more outlets for discussion and we're going to
talk more about that next time. All in all it was a very
wonderful meeting with the principals advisory club and I
look forward to working with them again in the future.
Thank you Nina and thanks for meeting with the middle school
and elementary school kids too. It's always great to hear their
perspective as well. Okay we're moving on to our agenda item
6.1 our presentations and we're going to start with excellence
K-12. Excellence K-12 is the company that did the survey both
phone and online surveys for us regarding the facilities
planning so we're looking forward to hearing about those
results. Thank you.
Okay. I'm going to go through a
executive summary of the telephone survey, kind of hit the
highlights for you and then I will talk about some data mining
that we did that I think will give us clarity on what was
going on with the telephone survey and then I'll talk about
the online surveys. If you have any questions holler out so I'll
get started. As you know in late September and early October we
did a telephone survey with 300 randomly selected head of household
registered voters living in the school district. Calls replaced
the landlines and cell phones. Completed interviews were divided
into three geographic segments that the district gave us and
when we do random digit dial combined with population pattern
matching our margin of error is 5.6% so you can kind of keep
that in mind as you hear about the stuff. Our first section when
we do these types of surveys is grading the district's
performances on a number of areas. This is your brand. This
is what people think about your brand and as you can see there
we had some very high numbers. Overall grade 4.78. Quality
education 477. Even down to class sizes 447. These are the
highest scores we've seen on this type of survey compared to
similar districts in Missouri and the Midwest. Terrific scores.
We were blown away. Really good. The next area we ask about
is strengths and improvements. Strengths of the district
provides a good education. Don't know which I would like to not
see in the second place. I would like to see them be able to talk
to other attributes of the district there so that's an
opportunity. Quality teachers and staff and strong community
support. Areas for improvement. Managing the budget and spending
is always the number one area of improvement in every school
district that we've ever worked with. They're doing fine is
really good. Don't know. That's the only place in the survey you
want to see don't know is areas for improvement so you can see
that. So good scores all around and like I say people like you
a lot. We then went to what we call statement exercises and we
made six statements and we asked people how much they agreed with
these statements. The purpose of this to see if citizens are
civic minded so we ask questions like is it important? It is
important to maintain our school buildings. Quality of the
district provides a strong foundation for property values and
again you can see here when you combine strongly agree and
somewhat agree overwhelming numbers in terms of civic minded
and I didn't expect anything less than that so we got through the
statement exercises and then we go to support or opposition of
the potential projects. Level of support for the potential
projects. Good news, less than good news here. Construct
academic labs dedicated to career tech programs had more than 50%
of respondents showing support. That was the only project that
scored at 42% or above. Top items in the group of what do we
have here? 11 options I think. Gayfield scored highest at 42% and
then the numbers kind of drifted down from there and we'll talk in
a minute about reasons for that support and we'll talk about the
online surveys which were vastly different from the previous
online surveys which were vastly different. Answering the
questions related to the elementary schools, only 8% of
people said they would be more likely to favor the bond issue.
People seem to be a little indecisive on their answers.
Trying to figure out does education matter and why? Bond
issues after hearing all ten project ideas 35% of participants
said they would either strongly support or support a general bond
issue if the election took place today. That's your benefit of the
doubt question without knowing what's on the bond issue, without
knowing the cost, would you support it? 35% again a number
lower than you would want to see. When we got into typical tax
levels, $500,000 home at 447 your percent was 32 at 223 per month.
Your percent was 33 and support increased somewhat when we asked
for a general rate increase although not as high as I would
expect and again I think there's a good reason for this.
Communication from the district, very good. Number one, newsletter
and mailer is the only district I can think of where social media
isn't number one. It shows that Gina is doing a great job with the
website. Kids in school website, those are all fairly typical.
Summary. Why did we get the information that we got? I think
there's six things going on. I think one, there's a level of
satisfaction that precludes the perceived need for additional
improvements. When you have grades that high it's not unusual
people look at it and say how do you get any better than we are?
We're already great so I think that's one thing. I think there is
a general lack of knowledge about the reason that the potential
projects are needed and I think that goes back to the perception
of it's very good. I think people assume that the buildings and
everything associated are fine. General disinterest in projects
that would not directly affect them because of geographic
or not having children or grandchildren. We went through all
of those and it's none of those. What it was was the people who
answered it would not affect me or people who have lived in the
district for 15 years or more but not their entire lives and what I
would deduce from that is those are people who moved to the
district specifically for the school district. Their kids are
no longer in school and so it's less likely that they're going to
go to school. They're no longer in school and so it doesn't matter
if I vote one way or another so that makes sense. It didn't make
sense to think that it was one particular area, geographic area
or something so I was glad to see that it wasn't that. A distaste
for anything related to athletics. Maybe a too strong
statement but that is typical. The farther you get away from the
classroom the harder it is to get support for something and
whether we included the word athletics we got lower scores than
what we talked about academics. Finally an uncertainty about the
world that we live in now and we've got four or five other surveys
with other districts going on and we're seeing some of that same
thing. No matter what side of the aisle that you're on, it's chaos
on a daily basis and I think that's one of the things that we
talk about. It's chaos on a daily basis and I think people tend to
get very conservative about changes when there's chaos so that's
what we have there. Questions about the phone survey?
Who would like to start? Any questions?
Anyone?
Jason? Go ahead.
I guess that leaves me.
I'm sorry.
If it makes sense to do the phone.
This was just the phone survey. If we have questions specific to the
phone survey we can go over it's just about the survey in general.
Maybe let's hear the online survey presentation and then we'll ask
questions about all the surveys together.
Just let me get you a little more information on the phone survey as
an addendum. When we talked about the 11 surveys that we had
and talked about the 11 options, people who lived here less than two
years, two to five years, five to ten years, we didn't see anything
higher than a 10% of those people who said it doesn't matter to me.
For the most part they were in the three and four percents. When we
got to more than 15% it ranged from 17% to 36% so it really stood
out that this one demographic group had that attitude so I just
wanted to share those numbers with you real quick.
Just to clarify.
Yes.
If you have lived in the district 15 years or more you disproportionately
answered that question of it doesn't matter to me versus if you were in
the district for two years.
Any other amount of time.
Yes.
Long-term district residents have more indifference than others.
15 years plus but not people who lived there their whole life so I think
there's a distinction to be made right there with that.
Okay.
Talking about the online surveys and let me preface this by saying with
opt-in surveys with online surveys what you tend to get are your raving
fans and your cave dwellers.
Cave stands for C-A-V-E citizens against virtually everything and
there's a percentage of that in every market that is against anything
related to taxes whether it's the municipality or the school or the
college board or whatever.
If you look keeping that in mind I think what you got here is you got a
lot more people who are raving fans than you did to tractors on the
online surveys.
That's a good thing.
Okay.
If you look at the grades compared to the telephone survey in some
cases again the telephone surveys numbers were very high and in most
cases the weighted scale for staff was at that level or above.
Teachers were a little bit I mean not teachers.
Parents were a little bit lower than that.
Community was higher for the most part.
I'll give you an example.
Preparation of students for college, vocational training or employment,
4.69 for the phone survey, 4.56 for parents, 4.78 for staff, 4.71 for
the general community so your numbers in most cases were higher than
the community than they were even with your parents and teachers which
is pretty cool.
Hit a couple of numbers in particular for you.
If you look at the options for Glen Ridge Elementary for example 39% were
more likely to vote in favor of a bond issue on the telephone.
That number jumps to 52% for parents, 51% for staff and 44% for the
general community so again the numbers are higher.
It would make no difference in my voting decision.
This is interesting.
47% said it would make no difference but when you get to the other
demographics only 13% of parents said that, only 18% of staff said that and
only 14% of the general community said that so we didn't have a lot of
people who were 15 years plus in the district taking the online surveys
which doesn't surprise me because they already told us it makes no
difference to them, okay, so that's what you get there.
An interesting one that and I just picked out some that I thought were
kind of glaringly obvious.
Second option for Glen Ridge would be to build a brand new school.
You had 22% of people on the telephone say that they would be more likely to
vote against.
In the community survey and this is the anomaly, 44% of people said they
would be more likely to vote against so your cave dwellers came out but you
also had some other people who were saying that to get that high of a
number.
I don't know what the issue is with Glen Ridge if there's a specific
issue.
It looked like a good option with the same site in the storm shelter but we
got kind of some negative stuff there.
Merrimack was pretty even across the board for the first option.
More likely to vote in favor of the bond issue for the second option, the
brand new school.
Not as high on the phone survey and other than the staff survey not really
high on the community survey as well.
And again there's 11 different options that we went through with this.
I'm not going to read them all to you and bore you to death.
Another project idea was Clayton High School.
More likely to vote in favor of academic labs, dedicated CTE programs
across the board.
People were more likely in favor to vote for that than were negative.
More likely to vote against here was generally speaking 10% which tells me
that your percentage of cave dwellers was about 10%.
It's usually 10 to 15% in most cases.
I think in this poll you got about 10% and it looks like you got about 25 to 30% of
people who are your raving fans.
This was an interesting one.
Replace the current grass field at Wyden Middle School with artificial turf on the
phone survey.
You only got 3% of people say they were more likely to vote in favor of the
that.
Parents were at 52%.
Staff at 60% and online survey at 50%.
A dramatic difference in the opt-ins versus the telephone survey.
One more that was kind of a head scratcher was the options at Gay Field.
Renovate the existing campus.
You only had 1% of people vote or 60% of people voted in favor of that.
You only had 1% of people vote or say they would vote against that on the phone
survey.
You had 53% of people say it would make no difference when you get to the
percentage of community online survey that's only 13%.
So again the people who live here for 15 years or more and you don't have their
interests anymore for the most part didn't take the online survey.
That's what we can deduce from that.
Same thing on build a multi-use field next to the Clayton High School campus.
47% on the phone said it would make no difference.
Only 9% in the community said it would make no difference.
If the district proposed a bond issue that included the list of projects you just read
about how would you vote if the election were held today?
Again, benefit of the doubt without knowing anything.
Support and strongly support on the phone was only 35%.
Support and strongly support in the community survey was 61%.
Even higher among parents and staff.
73% among parents and 82% among staff.
So you know that your parents and your staff are on your side and it's important to know
that because they're not always on your side.
I've actually seen it happen where a school was going to do a levy issue and staff was
against it which meant raises for the staff that were against it.
Talking about the tax tolerance, 447 per year.
Fairly low numbers on the phone survey.
Good numbers for parents.
Good numbers on the online survey and 53% on the community online survey.
Compared to 34%, 32% on the telephone.
So again your numbers went up dramatically.
53% on the online survey said they would support the highest.
Did I mishear you?
Okay.
Yes.
I know, right?
Good numbers.
When you drop down to 32% on the telephone, that's the highest.
Good numbers.
When you drop down to the mid level, 223 per year, your numbers didn't change on the phone
survey at all.
The numbers got a little bit better among parents and staff and for community online
survey the numbers jumped to 66% would support it at 223.
Zero tax increase and this is a little bit of a head scratcher because on the phone we only had
39% of people say they would approve of a zero tax increase bond issue.
When you get over to the online survey that number is 84%.
I'm at a loss to tell you why that is.
I told Gina before we started today, I have been doing this 40 years and this is the
strangest survey results I have ever seen.
I have never seen numbers that are this high of either don't know or doesn't make any
difference to me.
I would agree after seeing this.
Yes.
I know that was a lot of numbers to throw at you.
I'm sorry.
There was a lot of data there to chew through and I would be happy to take any questions
that you have.
Thank you.
And just so the public knows we received this data ahead of time so we're not just we've had
time to kind of digest this and formulate questions too.
So who would like to start with some questions?
Jason.
Yeah.
Thank you for all that.
So I just a couple of questions.
There are some numbers in here that I would like to understand a little better.
You may have said this and if I missed it I apologize but do you have the cross tabs on who
makes up the 30% of undecided voters?
Yes.
Okay.
Could you share it?
The 30% of undecided voters.
More data.
The 30% of undecided voters.
More data.
Makes no difference.
Makes no difference for students by age.
So and it's different for every question.
Yeah.
But generally speaking it is you do the second option for captain elementary school make no
difference by age 2%, 11%, 10%, 12%, 12%.
Sorry not the make no difference.
So if the election if the vote were held today how would you vote?
30% were undecided.
Yes.
Who are those people?
30%.
30%.
A combination.
Including the list of products that we just talked about.
Your 18 to 24 year olds were only 3%.
Your 25 to 34 year olds were 12%.
35 to 54 were 12%.
45 to 54 were 10%.
Interestingly enough your 55 to 64s were 16%.
65 or older 9%.
So roughly equal.
I mean I could say this in generalities and I guess it's right because it's so general but roughly equal
distribution across age groups so there's nothing distinguishing there.
No.
Are there any cross tabs?
That could be an answer that you come back with and I would rather have that than you don't feel like.
I think we just need to have some clear understanding if at all possible about who makes up those 30%.
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
Right.
The only cross tab that made sense was people who have lived here 15 years or more.
Okay.
Okay.
The second thing is can you go back to one of the first slides?
I apologize.
I don't have it right in front of me.
But the one more.
No more.
Okay.
So I guess I read the first one.
I'm willing to support school improvements et cetera et cetera.
That's 78% of people either strongly agree or agree.
Yes.
Which is a good sign.
Yes.
Right.
Yes.
And so I square that up with the variety that as you correctly pointed out a bunch of people said like
this option makes no difference in how I vote.
That option makes no difference in how I vote.
Like the statement sounds negative.
Like it makes no difference as in I don't care about this.
But isn't an alternative explanation that it's that I was going to vote for this whether you did something to captain or not.
I live in Merrimack so I'm only going to say more likely for Merrimack but do whatever you want to do with Captain Glenridge et cetera.
Excuse me.
Yes.
Okay.
That is another explanation for it.
Yeah.
I think the I think the election will come down to turnout.
I think some of those people if the sorry it went down the wrong way.
I think some of the people who said it doesn't matter as long as the tax tolerance is zero or reasonable I think those people will vote yes.
Yeah.
I think if the tax tolerance is not reasonable that they will vote no.
I think on a zero tax that they probably won't vote out of apathy.
Yeah.
I think the zero tax and I don't know where you're at needing that.
I think zero passes easily.
I think 223 passes with a good campaign.
447 is a little bit of a reach.
Okay.
That's great.
Thank you.
Okay.
Sure.
Yeah.
I want to follow up on that.
I was thinking when someone were to respond like it doesn't matter or does that in any way reflect kind of like whether I vote for it or not like I'm not heard or is it like a trust issue at all do you think?
I mean is that a factor at all?
I do not think so because that would show up in your grading questions.
Okay.
And it didn't.
I really think it's I'm done with school so I'm not going to think about this and I don't know the age here where you no longer have to pay taxes.
Is it 60?
The senior tax free.
Senior tax free.
Is it 60?
60.
62.
62 I think.
I think we may have some of those people in there as well.
Okay.
I've seen that in other markets where you have quite a few older folks and they're like I don't care.
I don't care.
Doesn't doesn't bother me.
It doesn't bother me either.
I vote yes because it doesn't affect me in my home market.
So gotcha.
Thanks.
So are so on the phone survey do you have similar breakdowns in terms of like what's population you're speaking to like you have that data as well.
I'm just curious like you mentioned that one particular 15 year ish kind of cohort right residents.
I'm just curious if in the phone survey do you have like I would be interested to see like in the report card do we have that broken down by.
I do not have a report card broken down.
No.
Okay.
Got you.
And I don't think there's anything else here that you would you would really look at and say oh yeah there's something going on there and again we spent a lot of time data mining a lot of time looking at the numbers trying to figure this out.
And the absolute last thing we did was amount of time living in the district as the last thing I thought it would be so as the last thing we did we're finally like oh my gosh there it is.
That's what it was.
I gotcha.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks.
Now you you have your digital dashboard that everybody has access to and there's more data on that than I have that I have here.
It's impossible to present that whole that whole thing so you can go in and you may find some you know find some things that are interesting or of interest to you.
Yeah.
So I I mean can do you think that the differences between the phone survey and the online survey have to do with the fact that you're missing that moderate middle in the online survey because the majority of your respondents were your super fans or your as you put it cave citizens.
Against virtually everything folks.
Does that explain in your opinion based on the number of surveys that you've done before the difference.
Exactly the difference.
Yes.
Okay.
So but otherwise you think in terms of the questions the results are consistent.
Yes.
Between the two.
Yes.
Okay.
So then based on those results what are your three top takeaways from the combination of those two surveys.
Number one I think you have a lot of raving fans that are going to support it.
We had a lot of people take this or I don't remember the number of people that took the online survey was a pretty good number of people.
So I think you're going to have a lot of raving fans that support it.
I think your cave dwellers are probably 10 percent or less.
So you know that's kind of that's kind of one thought.
I think that the people who said no are the people who said it wouldn't matter need more information than they have.
We ask a general question about do we renovate this elementary school or do we tear it down and build a new one.
There's no why there and you can't do that in the survey because you skew the results.
But I think that you have people who are need more information about that in order to make a decision.
So I think the plan that we had talked about of educating people in the next couple of months and doing another survey in January I think that this bears that out.
And I guess the third thing that that kind of strikes me a little bit about this is the just the strength that you have with your parents and your staff really really good.
And like I say that's not always the case.
There are markets where parents are unhappy because you change the boundaries on the high school 12 years ago and I'm still mad about it type of a thing.
I don't see any evidence that there was any problems in the past that cropped up on this and we would have seen that in the open ended questions about biggest strengths and areas of improvement and we didn't see any of that.
So that is a good thing.
I think this comes down to turnout.
I really do.
If you get your teachers and your parents turning out and you get your other raving fans turning out.
I think you'll do well.
And do you believe that there is enough time between now and the potential April listing to execute that sustained information campaign that you believe is necessary in order to turn enough undecided or indifferent voters to successfully pass?
I think we'll know depending on what happens in the next two months.
The idea is if we can move the needle some in the next two months then that would give us an indication that in the three months that we have next year that we can move the needle even farther because whatever we do this year is going to be not as intense as what we can do next year.
So that's the whole premise of re-survey again just to see if we can move it a little farther again.
And I don't think we need to re-survey online.
I think we just need to do the telephone survey.
And how much do you think that needle needs to move in 60 days?
Great question.
I think if we could move that 15 to 20 percent.
Keep in mind on some of the scores you have that are 32 percent in favor we need to see.
So you need to see above 50 percent in order to be confident that you'd have the next 90 days after that to get to the point where you could pass it at 62 or something.
Not necessarily.
If you're at 32 percent and we move it 20 percent that's 20 percent of 32 is six so if we go from 32 to 40 I think that's a good indicator that we can take it from 40 to 50 or better.
Oh, I see a 20 percent improvement from the base.
From the base, yes.
Okay.
And I was told there would be no math.
Don't hit me with that.
I'm the treasurer so I got to ask math questions.
No, no, that's great.
Thank you.
Anything else?
Pam, Chris?
I just think I just have one question.
So the questions are about the different options.
More likely to vote in favor.
If it's today, more likely to vote in favor, more likely to vote against or it makes no difference.
That it makes no difference.
We don't know if that is like no way or I don't care.
I'm going to vote yes or no.
We have no idea what that means.
We have no idea.
One of the things that I and I haven't talked to my team about this but one of the things I
thought about driving here was do we put a why after that?
If you answered makes no difference, ask the question why.
Why?
I think that would be great information for us to have.
Right because they might say I'm voting yes regardless.
That might be there or I'm voting no regardless but it would be so helpful to know.
Or I'm not going to vote.
Which way that would change.
Whichever way it is and at the end of the day the whole point of the survey is to inform your
marketing campaign to pass a bond issue so I think having that information will be critical to
what Gina is going to do to address whatever people are thinking.
Which survey, I think I know the answer to this but just so everyone hears, should we be
paying more attention to the results of the phone because it's random and it's not just the cave
dwellers and the super fans?
The phone because it's statistically accurate.
Your staff and parent surveys, I didn't look to see what percentage of staff and parents that we
got.
You would need to get upwards of 66% of the people taking those online surveys for it to have any
viable accuracy.
With the community survey it's 50% margin of error.
That's the way that it works.
And I love knowing that teachers, the staff is so supportive but actually most of them do not
are not registered voters in this district so that's something to consider as well.
In other districts we've seen that the staff that doesn't live in the district doesn't take the
online surveys nearly as much so I think there's hope that the people that took the survey are
people that actually live in the district.
I'm sure we have a number of people in the district that took the survey.
Chris, did you have any other questions?
Ask the things that I was going to say.
I was glad to hear what you said.
I think what you alluded to, the way I read it initially is for these folks that are saying I don't
know or it makes no difference, I think that's the way I read it.
I think that's the way I read it.
I think that's the way I read it.
I think that's the way I read it.
For these folks that are saying I don't know or it makes no difference, education is what they
need.
Information is what they need.
In January if we do give them that information that will tell us a lot about what to do.
I think by asking why we'll find out that I either need more information, I don't care and I'm not
going to vote.
We'll find out what that is and that will inform the campaign that you end up doing.
I just appreciated you pointing out that our grades were so great.
Grades are amazing.
That makes us feel really good.
We work really hard to make sure that our community feels like we're doing a great job and I do think
I'm sort of asking because I'm assuming myself that that does bode well for us in terms of once we
get information out then potentially because we have folks that are very invested and have given
us an A the more potential to say yes to that information.
Okay.
And keep in mind that the average patron hasn't stepped foot in a school building in 30 years so
they have no idea what you're facing with this so that's why the education campaign is so
important so they know why you need to tear down the school building.
Thank you.
One thing that jumped out at me that I wanted to point out from the phone survey was the
question about the high school academic wing had a really high percentage of support like over
whatever your minimum threshold is.
When I compared that survey question to the questions about the elementaries and the
athletic fields I realized that one was very specific.
Like it listed what programs would be at the high school.
It said robotics, geometry and construction and so what that tells me is that the
community wants to know exactly what we're going to do and maybe had the other questions been more
specific maybe we would have seen stronger results.
I don't know but that was something to me that that point pointed out that I think the community
just wants to know specifically what we're doing.
Just saying a storm shelter for safety is important but I think maybe.
I struggle with how much information.
Modernized schools is kind of like a vague term that maybe people don't know what that means.
We always struggle with how much information do you give somebody on a survey knowing that Joe
Sixpack isn't going to have that information when he walks into the ballot box so yes I think that
helped on that.
I also think CTE helped.
And the high school touches everyone.
Every kid in this district ends up at the high school so that's another thing too but I think it did
help just being very specific with exactly what that would be and the others were a little more broad
and vague so that's something for us to take away too.
To follow up on your point Stacey the one just underneath that was about turf at Y down and it
explained what turf would be good and it was almost 57% vote against it and like 2.6 vote for it.
That one surprised me.
It's your same point but if you're specific you get a clear answer.
Turf didn't surprise me at all.
I think just the athletics in general didn't.
Oh it didn't?
Every district we work with has trouble convincing people that turf is a good deal.
Even when they show that you save money with turf ultimately people think that's a luxury and we've
done some postmortems on that to know that.
People think it's a luxury.
Yeah well I think I guess maybe more than I was thinking about the academic questions.
You know the elementary schools.
The athletics didn't score well in general.
Okay Nina do you have any questions about the survey?
I do have one question.
So I think the first data statistics that you showed had like just like overall ratings and I
noticed like the lowest one and it was still pretty high was like communication or do you have any
Yeah.
So the district's efforts to involve the community decision making.
Do you have any like because I think there's another question that was like how people like what they
feel is most helpful for getting their information from.
Do you have any like data to show like the percent of people who are voting maybe lower on feeling like
they weren't involved in community decision making and how they were and what they were saying their
biggest like place they were getting information from was.
I do not.
We don't do demographics on grading questions.
It's kind of a whole different set of algorithms that isn't in the dashboard that we offer.
I will tell you that district efforts to involve community decision making is low at every district
we go for 392 is a great score on that.
I mean we see people in the low threes high twos with that.
And keep in mind that that could be anything from my daughter didn't get inquired to you know to
anything else.
What was the decision making process of the district that my kid didn't get inquired.
It could be something like that but it's low everywhere and that's a really good number.
That's good to know.
Thank you.
That's a great question Nina because I think as we move forward we need to figure out first of
all why like you said the social media is low you know was low not our top or whatever.
Figure out our means of communication and how we're going to reach people the best and make them
feel like they're involved in our decision so thank you.
Part of our informational campaign needs to be social media.
Facebook in particular.
I would just say too that the timing of our inside Clayton came out just a few weeks prior to the
survey hitting so that might have been really top of mind for the individuals who are called to
participate.
And that's a really good point and we got such great feedback on that.
On that mail.
Yeah that really nice.
So that's the hard copy that went to every household in the district.
That's really nice like magazine.
Yeah.
So you're right.
Okay well if there's no other questions thank you very much.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
And thanks for sending us the data dashboard too because aggregating it was really helpful as well.
And if you have any questions about that please reach out.
Everybody's got my email I think and please reach out on that.
I know it's a lot to dig through so if you come across something else that doesn't look quite right let us know.
Thank you.
It's very helpful as we move forward to know what we need to do and who we need to target and how.
I look forward to resurveying in January.
It will be terribly interesting.
Yeah terribly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay we're moving on to 6.2 which is our long range facilities plan update and we have a team from Paragon here and Perkins and Will.
We've got everyone here.
Good evening.
It's great to be back.
So this is on the heels of our community engagement last week which we had really good turnout.
It was a lot of fun.
I think we had to echo Dr. Patel's sentiments earlier.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
I think we had to echo Dr. Patel's sentiments earlier.
I think we had really great engagement from the community as well as the district staff and the design team so I think it really helped us propel forward and be able to provide some additional
feedback tonight as well as we move forward so this is just a snapshot of where we're going and where we're at so we always like to think with the end in mind in order to be
able to provide you with more clarity on the direction of the designs for the December and January board meetings.
Kind of picking up on the comments tonight about the survey.
It's really important for us to have more defined design documents.
We need to be able to provide you with more clarity on the direction of the designs for the December and January board meetings.
We're going to talk a little bit about what that process looks like as well as just some updates on each one of the designs tonight so the first part is in order to do that we have to enter
what's called the schematic design phase and you can kind of see some of the things that we're going to be doing and we're going to talk a little bit about that and what that process looks like and
we have to enter what's called the schematic design phase and you can kind of see some of the bullet points there so when we talk about the elementary schools and the athletics this is the main push for our design teams
over the next 60 to 90 days because what this does is provide more definitive information for the board, for administration and for us to also be working with the construction manager to really start to work through what those costs will be
and so when we get to looking at that December board timeline and especially in time for the January survey we'll have more definitive information because we are now in that schematic design phase.
Right now our recommendation would be and just a question for you guys moving forward is right now we are planning on pausing at the end of schematic design which for us would be sometime in that January timeframe and then once the ballot passes
we would pick up on the design after that point for the elementary school and for the athletics. When we look at the high school projects that might look a little different and the reason is that very similarly to the elementary schools we're in that schematic design phase now
if we continue to move forward into design development and construction documents before the ballot in April that allows construction activities to take place this summer in summer of 26 so that the high school projects would be ready by August of 27.
If we were to take a similar pause on the high school projects like we do on the elementary that would push it back instead of opening August of 27 it may be January of 28 or August of 28 so just a consideration for the board as you think through the timelines it's not impacting us for the next 30 to 45 days.
We're still working through the schematic design but it's a decision for the board to give us permission to move forward or not pass that and again there's some cost implications to that but also just that benefit of opening up the high school projects a semester or an entire year earlier just because we're able to push forward and design the spring.
Okay I'm going to run you through the elementary schools before I do that I think it's I think it's worthwhile to just always keep present and remind ourselves the work that's come in advance of where we are today and I'm going to take that real all the way back to the beginning of the master plan phase that Paragon led when needs were assessed, buildings were assessed, conditions of buildings were assessed.
To really understand what you've got in your facilities district wide and so I think those are important benchmarks to keep reminding ourselves and the community in fact of the work that has come so far to the extent possible.
The elementary schools captain is contemplates a existing we have two slides for each elementary school and the existing site plan and the proposed we're just going to sort of quickly jump to the proposed captain contemplates a new building or replacement building and again the why for that goes back to all the findings that came out of the master plan.
One of the things that we did starting earlier this summer after we came on board was a series of workshops where we worked through all of the issues a lot of the sort of where the where the district sees elementary school education going into the future the types of spaces that are needed to support the type of work that's that's being contemplated.
It really wants to happen. It happens today but in spaces that are perhaps not ideal for that so that's a lot to do with things like classroom size. It has a lot to do with things like the flexibility of space having places for students to break out or work in small groups and to collaborate and to build those kind of skill sets that all of our clients are looking for their students to walk out of their K through 12 education with so and it starts in elementary school and so dialing those kinds of things together.
And right sizing spaces bringing those types of different programmatic elements to each of the schools is one of the things that's driving the size of the buildings. What you're seeing in the footprint here is again it's a replacement of the existing building.
You'll see on all the proposed site plans the red dotted line is something that goes away so in this case it's the entire captain elementary school. The footprint that's there is in the east west direction is roughly the same as the existing building. It's a little bit more compact.
That left side, the phase one, is a three story academic portion of the building. It's principally academics. The right side of that, the phase two, is cafeteria, gym, and some support spaces for that so it all happens on the ground floor but it's a two story volume because those spaces are taller.
The play areas really just flip to the east side of the site so it actually puts the building where the original Danone Elementary School was on the west side of the site and it allows that phase one if this building stays occupied during construction that's why it's shown in two phases.
If this building, perhaps like Glenridge or Merrimack, takes advantage of a swing space that the district is working on what that might look like then it would not be two phases. It would just all happen together in one phase.
Glenridge Elementary, existing site plan, we'll just jump to the proposed. This bears a lot in similarity to Merrimack in that the existing, what you know of as sort of the front, the sort of classic front of these schools remains unchanged.
So that experience that the community has had with these buildings now for almost a hundred years is what it will be in the future. The additions, the demolition, you'll see there again in the dotted line, in this case happens on the north side of Glenridge which is its traditional, I guess, rear of the school, although one of the points we've made about this campus in particular is it's surrounded by streets and folks' front yards and their living room windows looking out the window.
If you're looking at this building we don't see any side of this building as the back necessarily, but the traditional front of this school is on Wellington and we're proposing via the work here, and this is true at Merrimack as well, to reestablish that front door where the traditional front door was originally for these buildings and handling at the same time ADA accessibility to the fronts of these buildings which is why those, you know,
sort of the main entry, I'll call it the front door, the main entry currently is not at the traditional front of the building. So the additions again are helping to right size. They are doing things like making the gym an appropriate size, coupling with this, this is true at Cap'n as well, coupling with it a cafeteria space so they work together. The cafeteria in fact becomes a stage to the gym so it doubles as a performance space to the gym.
So those things are all common, programmatically the schools are basically the same. The only one difference is at Merrimack there is an additional classroom that we're calling a flex classroom and that just has to do with the population at Merrimack to handle bubbles that's running through the school.
The playgrounds and the turf field at Glenridge remain intact where it is and again the building addition sets to the north. Merrimack very similar. You have to sort of reverse this in your mind now that the traditional main entry to the school is now to the top of the page.
Excuse me. North is to the right towards downtown Clayton and then a bit of a removal of the building on what is actually more of a backside here because you don't have front yards facing it to the east.
All of these additions to Merrimack and Glenridge we see those architecturally as being very, very respectful to the architecture of those original buildings so primarily brick buildings with articulated in a way with there's a fair amount of detail and interest to those existing buildings that we feel like might be important in these additions.
So coupling those additions with the new buildings is going to be very important. Like Glenridge the addition is the big part of that addition back there is a new gymnasium and a new cafeteria combined with it. Playground and I should have mentioned the turf field is a common element at all three elementary schools.
So we're just a little bit further along in the high school in the in the development. Not much has changed over the last couple of weeks so essentially we're looking over on the west side. You can see the baseball field kind of out to the left there.
You'll also see on the left hand side a couple of other little violet colored spaces so one option is moving the school store up to where the current Hounds Grounds is so better access for students, visitors, parents, guests and then also be able to get Hounds Grounds down there on the lower level of the commons closer to the cafeteria.
As we talk about the CTE expansion there on the west side one of the drivers there is to maintain our west access, our driveways as well as the access back into I'll say the more mechanical and maintenance yard of the high school.
What you see there in purple is the geometry and construction, the green is the robotics field and then those light blue are the classrooms for math, a dedicated CTE classroom and the amped program.
We still have to work through some details to still try to work through how we can connect to the existing facilities.
We're a little bit closer there. You can also see there's that red dashed line again of the small portion of the existing high school that we would demolish in order to get those spaces in there.
Currently we have the geometry and construction. I don't know if you can see it on the screen, but we have the geometry and construction.
We have the green dashed line again of the small portion of the existing high school that we would demolish in order to get those spaces in there.
Currently we have the geometry and construction identified as the tornado safe room space and so as we work through that again kind of what Steve mentioned being very respectful to the quality of architecture that is on that side of the building as well from the
large expansion that was made with the science wing to its north. Right now we're just looking at this as a one story addition.
We'll be working with BSI to see if there's advantages and what the costs would be to design it in a way that could be a second or third floor added in the future.
Because once we put this footprint here there's really no other spot on the high school campus where you can easily add classrooms.
And so we just want to be cognizant of that and make that decision early on and we'll have some opportunities for that decision.
The robotics field is like a story and a half though, right? Isn't the robotics field like a story and a half?
Yes, thank you.
So the classroom story is just one single level. If we have the ability to build above it for the second or third floor it would be stacked on top of those blue areas on the south.
We would not put anything or plan to put anything above the robotics or the geometry and construction because those will be a story and a half.
And the diagram up there at the top is just trying to show what we're going to have to do with the shape of that building in order to be keep those windows and the science labs intact.
So there's some some design details that still need to be worked out there.
But we're cognizant of keeping the daylight and into those science lab classrooms on that second and third floor.
And then we just don't the other side of campus.
We don't have the visuals of it and this may be funded through many different ways, but it could be capital projects that could occur in a summer or these projects could be tied in with the CTE project next summer, for example.
But there's limited mobility to get to the backstage area for ADA purposes.
It's there. It's accessible.
It's by code, but there's better ways to do it, so we're looking into that.
Looking at within the auditorium some opportunities for some seating replacement, taking the auditorium lobby restrooms and giving them a refresh.
Not an overhaul, but just a refresh.
And then back of house, back by the band, choir and orchestra rooms.
There's some HVAC improvements that are pretty typical that what we see after something's been around for 20 years.
But there's some improvements back to that area that would make a big difference for the faculty, students and staff.
Thank you.
Okay, so as your priorities come into more focus, our focus has evolved a little bit, right?
So now we're looking at gay field modernization.
I want to be clear that that still includes the work at Wydown, which is replacement of that field and some multipurpose playing surface.
It also includes a softball infield at one of the Shaw Park fields.
It includes work at ADZIC, which would be improvements to the dugouts and a new press box.
The work at gay field is taking advantage of some of your assets already on site, so we aren't going to redo the track.
That track has been resurfaced recently.
It's in good shape.
You have a brand new scoreboard that stays in place.
And so we would look at replacing the turf.
But really and also focus on the athletics building renovation of that renovation of the concessions and toilet building and really focusing on that home side.
Bleacher press box area create a pedestrian way.
You know, these spaces need to be inviting.
They need to be inspiring.
They need to be motivating.
But most importantly, they need a place where the community can come and celebrate.
Hopefully celebrate mostly.
So that's where we will be focusing our efforts.
Obviously, we understand that there are issues with parking, so we'll have to work through that.
We just today did a really sort of more, you know, specific look at why down and gay field to sort of look at all of the ins and outs of what makes the most sense.
And we're going to focus really on that upper level, trying to figure out what's the best way to make that safe and welcoming and also allow ADA parking and ambulance access and those sort of things.
So we're focusing on that modernization of gay field and plan to meet your goals in terms of the schedule.
Thank you so much for the update.
Any questions for anyone, Pam?
Go ahead.
Hi, let me just kind of go through my list here.
Okay.
Elementary schools at one point somewhat recently, there was talk of keeping the original fronts as the fronts, but building out part of them.
What happened to that?
The school you're referencing was Glenridge.
Okay.
In fact, we never were looking at an addition to the front.
It was just Glenridge.
What we've done is found an alternate way to do that.
It primarily was being driven by the size of the library.
We found another way to handle that at Glenridge that allowed the addition just to be one consolidated addition on the back of the school, right, instead of doing it on the front as well.
When we were talking about the front, we were talking about it being very much in keeping with the architecture of the existing front of the building.
But the simple answer to your question is we found another way to get that library to happen without the need for the front.
So the addition in the back got incrementally larger.
The advantage of it having, there is an advantage of having it in just, there's really two advantages of having it just in one spot.
One advantage is the front of the building remains unchanged.
So from a community asset standpoint, from a community experience standpoint, I think there's a message there that the beloved cherished building, it's going to look just the way it always looks.
I think that's one thing.
The other thing, though, from a constructability and a cost standpoint, consolidating additions in one spot is more cost effective than putting a number of additions in a number of different spots.
Cost effective, I like that.
Okay, next one is about the high school.
A few questions.
You talked about the theater.
Well, I'll actually stick with the theater.
At one point I heard also that we're going to make the lobby larger, not just the restrooms.
Is that still when you talk about lobby?
Yes, we talked about that earlier.
Right now we're focusing just on the restrooms.
We think the cost benefit ratio there of expanding the lobby really wasn't worth it.
So we've put that part to rest for now.
Okay.
Another thing we've heard about is that the science and language wing at the high school, that there's not, Nina actually spoke about it, there aren't bathrooms there in that whole addition.
And we talked sometime about how the reason, there wasn't, when they did that addition they didn't put bathrooms there for financial reasons it seems.
And so is there a need to think about that?
Yeah, there's two restrooms right there just south of the geometry and construction.
The two gray boxes are our restrooms.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
That's great.
We recognize that was a pain point in that area of the building.
And those are multi-stall?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Then the next one is the little theater, black box theater.
Any talk of weaving that in with the other?
Currently we do not have any work shown in that area.
Okay.
I would like to push us to think about the, I don't know, the need for that and the cost associated.
Risk benefit discussion of that one.
And then with your work over there in the main lobby, the wellness center, is there a way, I know that we just put all this money into the wellness center where it is, but what we do know about wellness centers is that they are most effective when they are near the
colleagues that they work with such as counseling and nursing.
And if we're already going to be doing some work up there, I don't know if there's any way to rework that area.
I just wanted to put that back on the docket.
So back to the master plan.
One of the things that we showed was if we expanded and group some of those forward facing student services all in that one wing of the high school near the front lobby area, that would have to relocate all of those social studies rooms.
So there'd be anywhere from two to four, I think social studies rooms that would have to be relocated in order to fit those rooms anywhere else that we saw right now.
It would require a second or a third floor expansion into that area in order to make that switch.
So that was the other reason from our perspective, tying it back to the master plan is if we make that a one story addition with the math, the CT and the amped that can be built on to the future, whether it's that need or any other needs that might come up in the next 10 or 15 years for the high school.
That would be the opportunity to build above that space and because it's challenging to build above an occupied space but because we know that going into that possibility we can make the right design decisions now to make it easier to do that later versus more difficult later.
Any other questions Ben go ahead.
So on Glenridge there is an addition that's about 20 years old with the cafeteria I think upstairs it's got like science classroom, does that remain untouched in your recollection?
Yeah let me go back to that.
It's all the way on the east side.
Yeah.
It is.
Yeah I think it's that.
It's less than 20 years.
Okay so that.
Currently.
Down below.
Gotcha.
So that space remains there although the cafeteria gets reconstituted up above.
Right so that I guess what any vision on that would be.
We at Glenridge we don't have any classrooms in the lower level right now by request.
We do have administrative spaces down there however including the main office which it's not in that location it's not in that location it's not in that location.
It's kind of in the middle of the building where the front door would want to be but there's two options for that existing space where the cafeteria is now.
One is more administrative type offices another is sort of more back of house kind of functions for the school in general.
Okay.
So we are cognizant that those are nicer spaces and so I probably lean toward them becoming more administrative type spaces and finding other homes for back of house spaces.
Okay.
Switching to Merrimack.
What are some of the things that you would recommend that you would recommend that you would recommend that you would recommend?
Okay.
Switching to Merrimack.
Can you describe what the percentage change in the hard surface play spaces?
It's some.
It's not a quantity it's not a it's not a number that I have off the top of my head.
One of the changes that we I did not talk about but I can now given your question is there's a drop off that happens up here off of this turnaround.
And so what this is showing is a notion of essentially building a retaining wall to allow more of a flat play surface so we're definitely aware that we're taking up some existing playground space with the new addition.
So we're trying to sort of reconstitute that back here.
What exact form or shape or surface it necessarily takes is that's worked yet to be done.
But the notion is again the retaining wall to allow more horizontal flat surface instead of having it sort of.
So you're going to kind of push back into that hillside.
Exactly push back into that hillside into the hillside a little bit more equal to what it is today.
That's right.
Without doing that it's definitely less.
It's definitely less.
Okay gotcha.
And who owns that property?
Is that school district property that push back or is that city?
Okay thanks.
To follow up on that the when we did the workshop this summer with Mayor Mack they the faculty had the exact same concern.
That's a priority for them.
Very much a priority for them to make sure they have as much space.
I've heard the same.
Yeah.
Now on the high school.
So the addition.
I'm just trying to understand is that you mentioned that things could get pushed back based on getting construction documents ready.
Is that is that work going to happen during the school year?
You know that demolition and the construction itself and what kind of impacts will that have on the school?
The benefit of having construction documents ready for bidding and permitting we might be able to do some of the demolition work during the summer.
Maybe.
But in either scenario there's going to be construction activities taking place throughout the throughout the entire year school year.
Okay.
Some of that we might be able to get some of the dirtiest noisiest stuff done in like last part of July early part of August.
Part of that's how we can get permits handled quickly.
But there's a higher likelihood of being able to do that if we're able to have documents ready to go out for bidding and permitting right after the ballot passes versus three to four months later.
So kind of on a related question in a way you know if I guess at some point we're going to have to figure out exactly what we're going to be asking to do.
So based on what has been presented I feel like there's a chance that not all that's going to get done or going to get asked for in terms of the you know.
So I guess in the question then is do we need to go for with schematics on something that we're not actually going to pull the trigger on if you know what I'm saying.
So that yes.
So that was in our conversations internally within the design team and with the district.
That's why we felt comfortable taking it to the end of schematic design on on most of the projects because what that allows us to do.
It allows us to get more definitive information to make better decisions and be able to communicate better with the community to show them what they're getting so to speak.
It also allows the construction manager to get better pricing on that to be able to make that decision better until we get to the end true the end of schematic design.
It's a little bit more based on I'll just say square foot numbers and what's been typically built elsewhere in the community at the end of schematic design.
We have some pretty good hard numbers to do actual takeoffs actually be able to talk with subcontractors and suppliers to get better numbers to make better decisions.
That's on the elementary schools.
That's why we recommended stopping right there because when we actually looked at the analysis by pushing forward let's just say on Glenridge further along it really didn't buy us any advantage in time wise for the district especially with a move in date.
Getting done with a brand new large elementary addition in October doesn't really benefit the district as much as getting it done in July or December for example.
So by stopping the elementary schools where we proposed keeps the district in a really good spot for construction and move in.
The only one that showed a clear benefit was the high school to be able to essentially possibly move in as much as an entire year early.
I guess the reason I ask also is that if we kind of know at a macro level where things are going to fall even by kind of ROM estimates or whatever then it might I guess will there be an opportunity to say okay we kind of know what we can get done for X amount of dollars so maybe we would hold off on schematics on some of the projects or one or whatever it may shake out to be.
Just because I feel like if we're not going to utilize that any time soon right those schematic effort that I mean well let me ask you this would that be usable in three, five years out or whatever it may be?
It's actually one of the things we didn't talk about very clearly was Glenridge and Merrimack were actually proposing to go through the schematic design phase.
We're actually pulling back to 35% schematic design because of that exact reason and the same reason I said of the benefits of it we think we can be able to be successful in everything I talked about and get to technically it's 50% but it's 35% architecturally and so that's where we thought the good break point to be able to get the best value and the lowest risk for the district.
Perfect. That's awesome. Great. And then on the gay field renovations proposed one of the things that was brought up at the community meeting is the need for storm shelter there and I see that renovation of the existing building is part of that scope of that work.
Would that serve as a sufficient storm shelter for I mean it would be better than someone being in a car right for example but I guess is that part of the goal with that renovation?
So yes the athletic facility if we are able to take over the entire lower level that adds space that would be allowable to use in the case of an emergency I don't want to have anybody assume that this is a tornado shelter in terms of so we will have the existing facilities at the concession and toilet, the athletic facility, new press box, ticket booth, those will all be small so those are all places you can go in case of emergency.
We're not building anything, any new structures that would add to that capacity but you would be surprised how many you can actually get into a locker room when you have to.
Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Sorry I got a lot of questions. Regarding why down field is there, I feel like we talked about this, is there a shade structure plan for that?
It is one of the planning elements. When I talked about your priorities coming into more focus what that means is dollars that are available so that's one of the things that I'm going to be pushing on to make sure I understand what those needs are so that we provide you what you need and try to make sure we get into budget.
I will be the first to admit, I don't know about the rest of the team, that the dollars that have been allocated to our projects we have work to do to reduce scope so we have to get the dollars down and so I will be asking very difficult questions to our user groups.
Sure. Yes. Great. Gotcha. Fair enough. Then last question is part of the, obviously we're eager to have visuals and things that we can show that people can really kind of connect with and will one of the things that's made available, are you going to utilize any kind of digital virtual tools? Are we going to get fly throughs or any of the cool kind of new things they have in design?
I think having people at least have some kind of this is what the new Glenridge experience for example would be like and it would be helpful to have some of those tools. I'm not sure if that's part of the scope or it doesn't have to be like choose your own adventure. It could be a preset fly through.
It's a great question. It's something that we've talked about. The buildings are, Glenridge and Mary Mack in particular are already, the existing buildings are already built in a 3-D modeling program that we call Revit. The additions, anything that we change to, we'll be doing the same thing.
So we've talked about, it'll be frankly a little bit easier for us to do the sort of imagery from the outside perspective. The potential difficulty of going flying through the inside of the building is to make it look realistic. You actually have to know, you have to have all your material choices.
Everything actually has to be modeled inside the, in the model for it to actually look good. So probably more likely to be, let's pick a couple of spaces that we want to grab like a still image up and show that instead of flying inside the building. I see that's more likely what would be an outcome.
Getting the inside is more likely to happen at the end of design development because in the design development we're finalizing all those interior finishes, colors, materials, that type of thing.
Gotcha. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
Thanks.
Any other questions from anyone?
I just have one just so that everybody can hear it again for probably the umpteenth time but, and how many of these projects that you guys are scoping out, how many of them require swing space? Not the high school, not Y Down, not Captain, but all of the other two elementary schools?
Yes, yeah, in order to successfully complete Glenridge and Merrimack, people have to move out.
So there is no way to do Glenridge and Merrimack with students in the building?
I would highly discourage it. Is it technically feasible? Yes. It would probably take two plus years to do and the cost would probably be 50% more because of how long it would have to take and there'd be a lot of disruptions.
Yeah, I just needed people to hear that answer. Yeah, I can share with you. We did the, we were the architects, the design architects for Spady Elementary School over in Ladoo.
If you're, if you're familiar with what happened over there that we ended up basically keeping the gym, everything else got replaced.
Most of the construction happened.
Thank you very much for the update. Look forward to more.
Thank you for being here. Okay, our last presentation tonight is a presentation, a mini presentation on assessment just on a portion of our student population.
We will, of course, hear more on assessments in the springtime too.
Look, can you check on the mics up here? I'm not sure if mine sounds good, but those, yeah, for Malene and those two, I don't know if there's still one.
Sorry.
Does it work?
Hi.
Thank you for having us. Like you said, this is not our full blown assessment report, but a smaller version of it where we're going to laser in on some specific things related to assessment and related to a specific population of students.
So before we started, we wanted to get ourselves grounded in our CSIP, so in our comprehensive school improvement plan, which we refer to as our strategic plan and in goal two, we focus on the educational growth of our learners.
And so that's the focus of our work tonight is to talk about growth on our local assessments.
So as a part of our work within the district, a year and a half ago, we started to reboot our multi-tiered system of support process across the district and really trying to align language across all of our buildings and really focus on our tagline of our MTSS process, which is knowing our learners well and responding to their needs.
So our goal as educators is to know all of our learners and how they're achieving and then being able to respond to their needs.
Tonight, we're going to focus in on really two areas of this. So our strong collaborative teams and our continuum of tiered support.
So tonight's presentation is different from our annual assessment report that we will do in February.
The presentation is going to amplify our MTSS work as well as the superintendent's goals.
So it's going to be some high level information.
We're going to talk a little bit about what the MTSS process looks like for us.
But just to get you regrounded in the superintendent goals in twenty three and twenty four, there was a focus on reading specifically on reading improvement plans and reducing the number of reading improvement plans across the district.
The state made some changes for us in twenty four and twenty five.
We saw that as an opportunity and we were we sort of lost some longitudinal data because we had to change our assessment practices.
So we moved from fast to the star as our reading assessment to be aligned with the requirements from the state.
And at that time, we also added edge climber as a data visualization tool for us and a way for us to track information across the system.
And so rebooting everybody in thinking about how we look at data as well as how we track that information across the district.
And then this year we continue with the reading focus, but then also layered on the math piece.
So tonight we're going to show you some baseline data from both the NWA map, which is our local standardized assessment that we focus on for math and the star reading assessment.
Both are standardized assessments meant to report student achievement as well as student growth in those two content areas.
So unlike the annual assessment report in February, for the purpose of our focus on MTSS, we're going to talk about students scoring at or below the fiftieth percentile on the NWA.
So those are the red and the orange that are circled here.
And then we're going to talk to you specifically about data from fall to spring of the school year.
The purpose in that is to remove summer from the conversation.
So we like to look at growth fall to spring because we're responsible for children that entire time.
And so we we feel like it gives a more accurate read of growth.
And then with NWA, we will only be focused on elementary because in the spring we had a tornado which prevented us from assessing the middle school students.
Because of what our plan of education was for them after the tornado.
The testing companies or the state, depending on the assessment, determine the cut scores for us to use.
And it's important to note that while there's a percentile determined for us to consider to be at grade level, we remember that this is one data point on one day.
So in addition, a percentile, just to recalibrate everybody on a percentile, is not a percent correct.
It means that in a testing session, a student if a student were to score in the fiftieth percentile, it would mean that their score was as good as or better than 50 percent of the norm group.
So it reports a relative comparison.
Another thing to consider with NWA, the company reports scores within a range, generally a plus or minus 10.
That becomes kind of difficult for us to report to you.
So cleaner data for us to report to you is actually a single score.
So that messiness is what we deal with in the schools when we're talking about student data, but it's difficult for us to present to you in a clean way.
So we just make a decision to go with just one score.
For STAR, we'll talk to you about data from below the 46th percentile.
So this is red and yellow that's highlighted here.
The state sets this threshold for us.
So unlike NWA, which is set by the company, the state is setting that threshold based off of the Senate bill with each of these assessments.
Robin's going to share data with you about growth between fall and spring, as well as students meeting projected growth as determined by the testing companies.
So she'll go into more detail about what that is for growth.
It's important to know that as a student ages up in the system, growth norms on assessments are smaller as students get older.
So we anticipate that they will make larger growth at earlier ages.
So, for example, in first grade on the NWA, the norm growth is around 16 points, but by seventh grade, it's six points.
So that's a pretty significant difference.
So Robin's going to walk you through the data.
Hi, good evening. Thanks for having us.
So you'll notice that I'm going to start going into some tables, but our grain size is going to just continually get smaller.
So that by the time we get to the end, we are down to one individual child, and that's intentional, right?
Because that's the goal to know our students well and to respond to their needs.
So you'll kind of see us take you through that throughout this presentation.
So this first table looks like a lot of numbers here.
So I'm just going to take you through kind of what the blues and the reds mean and what the different numbers mean.
So the first table is showing us potential areas of disproportionality in our data.
And as Milena just discussed, we're spending this presentation narrowed in on 24, 25 school year and data for about 15 percent of our population is what we're looking at.
So the first table is how that 15 percent actually breaks down.
And this is breaking down by student group.
So in the table, you can see that we're discussing 34 African-American students, nine Asian students, 13 multiracial students and 68 white students in math and 83 African-American students,
27 Asian students, 16 multiracial students and 118 white students in reading.
So similar to how M-6 provides a scoring breakdown that includes total population and then also student group populations.
So we're focused specifically tonight on the growth of student group populations.
So where the student group matches or is less than the percentage of the total population, we have put those numbers in blue.
And where the percentage of that particular student group is higher than the group in the total population, we have put those numbers in red.
That's to highlight disproportionate data.
So in order to maintain our anonymity, there are some groups that are not going to be represented throughout that data.
As we look at this table, you will notice that the total percentage of African-American students in the district is twelve point eight percent.
But the percentage of African-American students falling below the threshold in math is twenty five point six percent and in reading is thirty three point two percent.
Those numbers are highlighted in red to show that disproportionality.
So that's just an example of what you'll see as we go throughout the presentation.
So the second table is going to show us those potential areas of disproportionality in our data by groups that receive a specific or targeted support plan,
like an IEP plan, a 504 plan or a language acquisition plan.
So in line with the previous slide, those groups in math and reading that are at or below the percentages of the total population are noted in blue.
And those that are above the percentages of the total population are noted in red to show that disproportionality.
As we examine this particular data table, we note that our percentages in math and reading for our students with IEP and language acquisition plans are above those of our total population.
So both of those initial data slides are simply just inform you what is the general makeup of our students last year that fell below the threshold.
So the next several slides, we're now going to start looking at growth for these groups.
And that's really the key to our MTSS and our intervention processes.
So these next two slides are just kind of the big number overall slides.
And like I said, the grain size will continue to get smaller.
So here we've broken down math and reading by growth that our students are making in STAR and NWEA indicators.
We are defining growth by any positive change in the score between the fall and the spring assessments.
So in the 2024-2025 school year, you can see that our students were showing growth across the board.
But the importance of this slide to this particular data presentation is the growth of that group of students that we're zooming in on.
And so you'll notice those are both in blue.
That group is noted in blue because they demonstrated growth at a larger rate than the total population.
And while this is one data indicator and the larger picture of our students,
we are encouraged by that data and its connection to the intervention processes that we are continuing to refine as part of our system.
So as Malina also just spoke with you about,
there are also some projected growth numbers that are provided for us by the companies or by the state.
And so this next table is showing that based on the norms of growth provided by STAR and NWEA,
our students scoring below the threshold are making larger gains in projected growth than our total population.
So the slide before was just general growth, right?
This one is the projected growth.
And the goal for students that score below the threshold is to achieve on average more than a year's growth in a year's time.
So that's what we want to try to get to.
So, again, you'll notice some encouraging data in this table that shows us that our students growing below the threshold are making some gains.
So now we continually bring that grain size down again.
So our previous growth tables have told us that our students that score below the threshold are growing in reading and in math, right?
So that's what we just looked at.
But as we keep breaking it down, we're going to start to see it now again by our student groups by race and ethnicity.
So those with numbers too small to maintain confidentiality are not included in the table.
And as a whole, large percentages of our student groups that fall below the data threshold are demonstrating growth.
We are continuing to move them forward.
In this slide, we highlighted blue those groups that are demonstrating that growth at the higher rates than the total population.
And in red are the groups that are demonstrating growth at lower rates than the total population.
So in math, as you can see here, that is our population of multiracial students.
And in reading, that is our population of African-American students.
And they are just slightly below that growth threshold.
So then we'll kind of continue that going to the smaller sizes.
So similar to that previous table, this is now the breakdown of math and reading based on those STAR and NWEA normed data.
So we're back to projected growth again that is provided for us by those companies or by the state.
And this is for our students with a support plan in place.
So those IEPs, 504s, and language acquisition plans.
The majority of this data is highlighted in blue.
But we are remaining cognizant of the data highlighted in red, showing disproportionality in the math IEP and 504 growth data
in comparison to the growth of the total population in math.
And that growth of the total population, if you remember, in math from a previous slide, was 94.97.
So that bar is set pretty high.
And now we're going to go kind of back to that projected growth, those norms set by STAR and NWEA,
and the approximate amount of students that are growing in relationship to that norm.
So this table returns to that idea and shows projected growth by race and ethnicity.
When we look at all of our students who fall below the threshold as one group,
they were demonstrating that projected growth more often than the total population.
This continues to be true for the groups broken down by race and ethnicity,
with the exception of our African-American math data.
And then finally, similar to the previous slide, we're looking again at projected growth
and those students scoring below the threshold are making projected growth when we consider IEPs, 504s, and language acquisition plans.
And as we examine our 504 data, this appears to be an area of growth for us as a district,
and the data indicates a need to focus more specifically on both math and reading for our students with a 504 plan.
So a part of our story is not just the data, but what we do with that data.
And so we wanted to share our process of when an assessment window closes, what happens for us.
I don't think this is the right slide.
I don't think we have the right presentation.
I can talk from that one.
Okay, if you put it back up, I'll just talk from that one.
We're going to skip a couple things.
Okay.
I'll just talk from whatever we've got, but I can't click at the moment.
I'm going to have you pretend that you're looking at some things.
I mean, some of it you've already seen.
Do you want to drive for me?
Okay.
So if you remember the hexagons when we were talking about the hexagons before of our overall MTSS process,
we're really talking specifically once a data window closes around the strong collaborative teams
and the continuum of tier support and personalizing and individualizing practices to respond to data and plan to address learner needs.
So we can set up edge a climber to automatically run reports for us once data are entered into the system.
And so this slide here shows we're actually shifting now to this school year's data to talk to you for about edge a climber.
So we're shifting out of the twenty four twenty five school year into this year because this is the most accurate data and I'll tell you why in a minute.
But so we can automatically run the edge a climber system to set up the system to run a report for us when a testing window closes.
So this right now shows why down when we close an assessment window this fall and fifty nine students at why down scored at or below the 32nd percentile on star.
Thirty second percentile is important in this story because of reading success plans.
That's the first threshold.
So we're casting the first wide net with the state assessment data.
So then we look start to zoom in on those fifty nine students and start to look at that.
So NWA and star we look at as essentially universal screeners.
And then from those data that determines where we go from there.
Gina.
Gina.
So when a student.
Yeah.
Oh this is.
Okay so my but nothing's happening.
So I'm going to talk without slides.
Okay.
All right.
So when a student scores below an established threshold.
So some of the things that we've already talked about so forty six percentile fiftieth percentile the team look at other data points so subscores classroom performance etc.
And then they determine if and what additional data are needed to to make a decision about a student's plan of service.
So the team once they've made the determination about what additional data they're going to gather they gather it and then they analyze those data and put a plan and service in place.
So the next thing that you would be.
Okay the next thing that you would be seeing at this point.
Is.
A slide that talks about the interventions that we have in place this year.
And so tier three interventions this year.
And we planned with edge of climber to last year we started to roll things out and pilot them and then this year third year.
And then we're working to establish them as students age up in the system.
But so what you will notice is that this year K through eight currently we have two hundred and forty intervention plans tier three intervention plans in place.
Sorry two hundred and forty intervention plans in edge of climber two hundred and six of those plans are tier three academic plans offered by fifteen different faculty members.
So one hundred and two of those plans are in math and one hundred and four of them are in literacy that represents one hundred and eighty four unique students.
So there is some overlap of some children having a plan both in literacy and in math but it's not a significant overlap.
And then the last slide that we would have been showing you is what an intervention looks like in in edge of climber.
And then the last slide that we would have been showing you is what an intervention looks like in in edge of climber.
And once we put the intervention in place we set a goal for the child.
We determine a progress monitoring tool and then we start to track attendance the goal the exit criteria and then we provide the individualized or small group instruction using those tools and collect the data with the progress monitoring tool.
So what we can confidently say is that we're well on the journey of ensuring that all of our students show academic growth and well on the journey of showing that we know our students well and that we're responding to their needs.
What questions do you have.
Thank you. Yes. Who has questions.
First of all I just want to say I appreciate the mini assessment in the fall and not just waiting for the spring to receive all you know all of the information.
I like that you focus this just on that one student that one student group the one group of students so that we can have kind of like a mid year update and not receive it all in the spring.
I like breaking it up into two separate ones.
So thank you for that.
Does anyone have questions on it.
Jason I don't really have a question.
I mean I just want to echo that.
I just want to thank you guys for preparing this and for the conversation.
I just you know this is something that's a topic that's particularly important to me so I appreciate it being you know the focus on an agenda item and I don't know many.
I mean I'm not an expert in every school district but like the fact that we're able to have this conversation about our student group population speaks to the culture that we have around this topic and the fact you know that we're willing to put some numbers in red and put some numbers in blue.
I think just speaks a lot to the team here and the focus that we have on that.
And so for that I just really thank you guys.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Anyone else.
I want to thank you also.
This is great.
I asked some questions beforehand and you 100 percent explained them just now.
So thank you.
And I just want to point out for the community that not only do you have you shared with us information about student groups below the threshold of I don't know if it's for this one 32 ish percentile or something but that you're also looking at kind of the middle group also that you're not only looking at these at the below the threshold.
So these are actually below the 50th or below the 46th.
So thank you.
That's good to know.
I just have a tech question.
Does edge of climate pull in that data for star and for N.W.E.A. easily.
Is it like a direct easy integration.
Star and edge of climate are owned by the same company.
So that one is a really easy one.
And then N.W.A. has made it an easy import.
Thank you.
Our other assessments are not as easy to import.
So we have I have a departmental assistant who helps pull in all those other data.
I just want to say thank you for this as well.
I'm really happy to hear all this now instead of having to wait for it especially because you have such good news.
I just want to make sure that I that you hear me say that I heard that really good news.
And I'm really proud of that work.
So keep it up.
And I did get to see the entire presentation.
So don't worry.
We did see your amazing slides.
They were very effective.
I was pretty proud of them.
You should be.
You should be.
I really do love edge of climate.
It is amazing.
And we're good.
Thanks though.
No I really did.
The slides were very helpful.
I looked through all of them.
They're very easy to understand.
And again it was it's very clear the work that you're doing.
And from from a parent point of view someone who's been in this district you know now my boys who were two year olds at the family center are now are 20.
This is a very different school district from you know this what what you're providing here is steps about what they got provided.
So I'm just thrilled by how much it's changed in growth in that amount of time.
That's remarkable.
So keep up the good work.
Thank you for what you do.
Thank you.
And I know I have or we all have sung the praises of edge of climate in the past but it's really great now to see how it's evolved and all the more data we now have entered in it.
You know from when it took time of course when we started.
But it really is so great to see that and how we can meet individual student needs with all of that data in one place.
It's really great to see.
So yeah thank you for the good news.
Thank you for your work.
And the most important part of the presentation to me was the second half.
What do we do with the data and everything you presented there and what we saw what we have seen before tonight is the most important part.
And we're doing great work.
So thank you for pointing out that part out.
Did you have a question.
No I just have a comment.
So the the good news for me is that you have actionable data and you're taking action behind it.
I just want to be I guess I just want to say out loud that if you're one of these families though that has a child that is African-American that is not doing as well as the as you know peer groups that are in the same class.
This may not feel like good news and probably doesn't.
So I just want to make sure that in our praise for the tools that we have and everything else that the takeaway for me is that there are interventions in place to help those students.
You now can identify exactly who those students are.
And if there is any silver lining it is that they're outpacing the growth in this school district that they would otherwise experience if they want to another school district.
It does not mean that there's still not a lot of hard work between the teachers and the specialists and those students in order to get them to the point where they're feeling as successful as other students that are in the district.
So that's a good point.
Okay.
Anything else?
Okay.
Well thank you.
Robert and Melina.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Policies tonight we have five first readings and I believe five second readings of policies.
So the first reading Dr.
Poole.
Policy ACA sexual harassment.
Do you Chris want to read the motion and then we'll wait I don't know why there is a motion.
Oh this one we're only doing one reading right because we're changing the title.
Yes this one.
You're right.
This is the one we're only doing one.
So go ahead and read the motion and then we can.
I move that the Board of Education approve the change to Title IX coordinator from the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, the assistant superintendent of equity and student services.
Second.
Okay.
It's been moved and seconded.
So are there any questions or comments on this one?
I just want to point out something I discussed with Cameron that this policy refers to another policy AC that has people in charge that have titles that we no longer have in our district.
And so that policy is going to be coming to us soon to update that as well.
Update.
That's it.
Yeah.
Good.
Okay.
Policy IGBB programs for gifted students.
There's no motion on this.
Again first reading.
Oh no we need to vote.
Sorry.
I forgot about this one was just a first reading.
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
That motion passes for the first reading only policy ACA update.
Okay.
Now we'll move on to IGBB programs for gifted students.
Does anyone have questions or comments on this one?
For Cameron.
For Dr. Poole.
Thank you for making the changes that putting in the changes that I had suggested.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
Anything else?
Okay.
How about policy IGBCA programs for homeless students?
Any questions or comments, suggestions for that one?
No?
Okay.
Policy IGBE-1 students in foster care.
Okay.
No.
Okay.
Policy JHDF suicide awareness and prevention.
Are there any suggestions for changes in this one?
Yeah.
Chris?
Okay.
Let me see.
Does Chris know about the edits?
No.
I'll bring it up after.
Okay.
Yeah.
Oh, this is the one.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Chris.
Yeah.
It's under for students who may be in suicidal crisis number four.
Let's see.
Do you see where I am?
Yes.
There's two and then there's a one, two, three, four.
On page three.
Yes.
It says conduct a brief of the response with the crisis response.
Sorry.
A debrief of the response with the crisis response team.
I love that that's there.
I'm wondering if that should be a little bit less vague because when we're talking about
a team that has come together to manage a student who's actually in suicide crisis, there are
going to be many things that those, that team experiences on an emotional, personal level,
so when we talk about debriefing, you know, that part of me that knows about crisis intervention,
prevention, et cetera, you know, all that kind of, you know, post-traumatic therapy, et cetera,
knows that that's part of that debriefing but this really doesn't say any of that.
It just talks about, it doesn't give any delineation between what we're going to debrief on in
terms of what did we do well, what did we learn from this, what are our areas of growth,
and then separately how are we as a team, individuals, personally doing?
So I didn't have, I started to mess around with some language and I can get it to you,
but I didn't, you know, completely, you know, I wanted to see how everyone else felt about that,
whether you felt that was necessary, but I could propose some language.
I just don't have it right this second.
Just so I understand, are you asking, is your question or your point about the membership of the CRT?
Or is it more the procedures and prescriptions are to what they should be discussing?
The second thing you said?
What the debrief is.
Correct.
Intails.
Yeah, that would be great if you sent that language over and I think that's a good segue into.
Well, I agree.
But go ahead.
I think we're probably.
I mean, I don't know that that's, I don't know that's, I'm not against making sure that's
as important, but that's a really important conversation to bring up.
So that's not my point, but that's that strikes me as below the level of policymaking.
That's more like a procedure.
Yeah.
Oh, procedure is what you mean.
Yeah, I was going to echo exactly what Jason just said.
So everything you're talking about is important.
It needs to be part of what the CR team action plan is.
But their action plan may be different than what is written into the.
Sure.
Yeah.
It's separate.
It just lives in a different place.
Document.
Okay.
But everything you're talking about is important.
Okay.
That's important to make sure that that goes into the discussion of whatever the procedure.
Exactly.
Which we don't see.
Right.
I would also say on that number for that exact sentence, she's pointing out for whatever
reason, the entire document uses CRT, but that sentence spelled out crisis response
team.
I don't know.
It's not a big deal, but I just was curious why that was different.
It probably, I mean, if Leo were here, he would say change it to the acronym.
Right.
Because it's kind of.
It's just inconsistent.
I just didn't know why that one wasn't the same.
Okay, we can change that.
So how are we going to know from this that that debrief includes what I said?
So, and again, I think this is a good segue to go into, I think the whole, Pam and I were
talking about the entire section and just kind of improving some of the language that
is within it.
So a possible proposal that we have, and this could be a part of the second reading,
would be, you know, after any crisis situation, CRT members would debrief the response document
actions taken and identify opportunities for improvement of procedures and support systems.
So it can be fleshed out a little bit more just by adding some more clarity in terms
of what the process looks like without actually going into a lot of specifics.
Yeah.
Okay.
And we talked about, and Pam, you can share as well, we talked about just kind of that
section, you know, in its entirety, which is making it a bit more clear.
Okay.
In terms of, you know, what our process is and kind of the steps we follow.
Great.
So what I brought up was that whole section called response plan and they divide it by
students who may be at risk and students who may be having a crisis.
And I felt like the people that those should be combined into one and that at a policy
level, we should not separate who may be and who may be at risk and who may be in crisis.
That I believe that that is a decision that is made by people who are licensed and trained
and risk assessment.
So we combined it.
I gave him some wording for that.
It was sent to MSBA.
I'm happy to read it.
I don't know if I should, but just the bigger picture is just to combine it.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
That's exactly the point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good.
And MSBA, I think, approved it.
Yeah.
MSBA, you know, a few minor tweaks just in terms of, you know, structural things, but
yeah, MSBA was fine with the changes.
Okay, good.
So we'll see that when it comes.
To the second reading.
To the second reading.
So the point is that it's just clear in the policy that any student who is showing any
sort of suicidal risk or thoughts or intentions is the policy guides all people, not separate
post-evaluation.
Right.
Correct.
Okay, but how do I know from sitting here, since I don't look at the procedures, how
do I know that that's there?
How do you reassure me that that's actually getting done for our faculty?
Yeah, so as it kind of outlines, you know, each building, you know, combined with district
personnel, there's a crisis response team.
So anytime we are within a crisis or the risk of one, we follow the process that is in there
kind of to a T in terms of assessing the child, having one of our licensed clinical social
workers run the assessment.
Then that usually goes into, you know, the action plan for the safety plan.
So a safety plan is something that's progress monitored.
It could be a matter of, you know, resources.
It could be a matter of, you know, other outside agencies that we refer the family to, and
then within the house we would develop a safety plan, which is progress monitored by the team
within the building.
And that team usually will consist of, of course, your administrator, your counselor,
social worker, depending on the building, if we're at the elementary level, your IC
would be involved as well, possibly folks from central office, depending on the level.
So our director for student support has been a central, you know, key person and being a key
cog in the response teams as well as, you know, helping with the structure with those as well.
So it just kind of depends on, you know, student's teacher, you know, but the main court people
would be that administrator, that counselor, you know, that social worker that would be a
part of that.
So you don't, you can't tell me right now from your knowledge whether or not that debrief
outlines that it would be discussing both the learned, you know, the things that we learned from
the debrief plus the emotional, you know, place of each of the people that were involved in it.
Yeah.
So that's a part of our, that's a part of our postvention process.
You say you have read that is what I'm asking.
Okay.
Great.
That's all I need to know.
Okay.
That's it.
Thank you so much.
Anything else on this one?
No.
Okay.
Thank you, Dr.
Poole.
So now I think that was the last first.
Yes.
So now we have some second readings up for adoption.
The first one is policy DFA revenues from investments and use of surplus funds.
If you would read that motion, please.
Seven point six.
I move that the board adopt policy DFA revenues from investments slash use of surplus funds
as presented.
Second.
Okay.
It's been moved and seconded.
Any questions or comments on this one?
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
Okay.
Motion passes.
Now seven point seven policy DFA dash one revenues from investments use of surplus
funds.
I move that the board resend policy DFA one revenues from investments slash use of surplus
funds.
Second.
Okay.
Moved and seconded.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
That motion passes.
Now policy DFI dash one setting tuition for district programs.
I move that the board adopt policy DFI dash one setting tuition for district programs
as presented.
Second.
Moved and seconded.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
That motion passes.
Policy DGFA federal programs and projects.
Okay.
DJFA.
Thank you.
I move that the board adopt policy DJFA federal programs and projects as presented.
Second.
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
Motion passes.
And the last one policy KK visitors to district property and events.
I move that the board adopt policy KK visitors to district property and events as presented.
Okay.
Moved and seconded.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
That motion passes as well.
Thank you.
And moving on to 8.1 academic calendars that we're voting on as well.
Will you read that motion?
I move the Board of Education approve the academic calendars for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school
years.
Second.
Okay.
This has been moved and seconded.
And are there any questions or comments for Dr. Solberger on the calendars presented?
Jason, do you have a question?
Anyone else?
Just so the board knows and everyone knows I was on the calendar committee this year
with a diverse group of stakeholders, administrators, teachers, parents, support staff, and we met
maybe four times to come up with the calendars.
There are a lot of parameters that we are working between so there are some compromises
and concessions to be made when we are creating the calendars, most of which comes from the
state.
So anyway, it took four meetings to get here was my point.
Five or six, yeah.
It wasn't the sixth iteration for the 27-28 because what we did was we kept making ones
for 26.
We kept making calendars for the 26-27 school year and then we modeled the 27-28 out of
that.
And I would say there's no significant changes to our current calendars.
No.
It stayed pretty consistent.
When we tried to get creative and make shifts.
It never worked.
We ended up liking the way we currently have it.
I would just say to everybody enjoy your Indian summer next summer because we do start later
because of the state requirement of not starting 14 days before the first Monday.
And Labor Day, the way Labor Day falls.
It's very late this year in the calendar.
So you will have almost the entire month of August off.
Yeah.
For the first time in a long time.
Okay.
So it's been moved and seconded.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
Motion passes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
8.2.
Would you read the motion please for the comprehensive literacy plan?
The board of education approved the district comprehensive literacy plan as presented.
Okay.
Okay.
This has been moved and seconded.
Any questions or comments for Dr. Garganigo on the literacy plan?
Anyone?
Did you have a question, Pam?
Okay.
Anyone else?
No?
Okay.
There is one thing I wanted to point out.
I think you wrote this answer.
I had asked, so this is the literacy part, and I had asked about the amount of writing
that our students, writing and reading that our students are getting nowadays compared
to the olden days, and as I will say what I think Milena said to me is a part of the
literacy curriculum review they're continuing to look at the practices in all areas, and
this past summer they put an emphasis on increasing the volume of writing for all grades.
For the middle school.
We did a middle school rewrite.
For middle school.
Yeah.
Great.
Okay.
Which I thought was great.
Thanks.
I'll just say that it's incredible what you're doing.
I mean I was just blown away by it, and it's just a mile, a million miles away.
Yeah.
So, and you know that, and I love you for it, so thank you.
It's a very impressive plan.
It's online if anyone would like to look at it the way we have.
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
Thank you.
Motion passes.
We read the 8.3 Title I plan.
I move that the Board of Education approve the District Title I plan as presented.
Second.
Okay.
Moved and seconded.
Any questions on this one for Dr. Garganigo?
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
That motion passes as well.
And one more, the bond underwriter engagement letter.
I move that the Board approve the engagement letter for underwriting service with Piper
Sandler for issuing voter approved general obligation bonds.
Second.
Okay.
This has been moved and seconded.
Any questions for John Brazil on this one?
John, can you just comment a little on the selection of Piper Sandler?
For their services here?
I'm sorry.
The selection of Piper Sandler as the bond underwriter?
They have issued the existing debt.
They've been the long-term underwriter and financial advisor for this district.
I saw no reason to look elsewhere.
Yep.
Big learning curve if we would have picked somebody else.
True.
I just wanted everybody to hear that.
And we've been happy with them I assume.
Sometimes, yeah.
Yes.
They're a very good company.
They've done excellent work for us.
I have a lot of confidence in them.
Their staff has been with them a very long time.
They know the markets well.
Good.
Thank you.
There's no fee for their pre-bond issue services which are mostly financial advisory and getting
things ready for the bond issuance itself.
Good.
Believe me, they'll get their fees.
If voters approve this, they'll get their fee.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
No.
Okay.
That passes as well.
Thank you.
Moving to the consent agenda.
I move that the board approve consent agenda items 9.2 through 9.6.
Second.
Okay.
Moved and seconded.
Any brief comments on anything in consent?
No.
Okay.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
The consent agenda items pass and we are on to board communications.
Ben, did you have a technology committee meeting?
I did.
Yeah.
How was that?
Today, in fact.
Yeah, it was the second one.
Today the group was split into AI and one-to-one device committees.
I chose one-to-one.
AI is just like I can't get my head around it.
No.
It is actually both very compelling issues.
I feel like for me, I think the being on the one-to-one is something I have a lot of experience with
and I'll be interested in the process which is really, really cool.
I feel like Luke and Malena and the team there are putting together a great kind of process
and getting a lot of feedback.
It's just kind of great to be in the midst of the teachers and hear them talk about their kiddos
and why and what could be better.
So, yeah.
It will be an interesting process.
I think come spring we should have a recommendation on device kind of direction.
Great.
So, yeah.
That's it.
Good.
I just have a question.
On the AI front, is there somebody that's in that group, either external or internal
resource, that has a lot of expertise on large language models?
How do we know that we're talking about the right things there?
I can't say, really.
I mean, I think it's – so we have a bunch of our tech folks are engaged.
So, there's that and I think, yeah, we have science teachers.
We have teachers that are using AI today or they have at least a strong feeling for it,
I would say, like in terms of –
So, it's more users than developers of the technology?
It's not.
No, no.
It's all just teachers and staff.
There's no – I may be the only external person.
Okay.
So, yeah.
All right.
Well, I think at some point probably – I work in a lot of AI with – outside of the
school board.
It's probably worth getting somebody who's developing AI or involved in the development
of AI to ask for their input on how they think it might change the educational landscape
for better or worse.
Yeah.
So, what I wanted to mention is that we are plugged into like ISTE and other kind of tech-oriented
education organizations that have a lot of information and opinions on these things too.
So, but yeah, I agree with you.
I mean, the more information, the better.
So, yeah.
Can I follow up on that?
So, to follow up on that, last week I went to the AI and Symposium at MSBA.
So, I spent all of Wednesday talking, listening to that exact thing, which is how can we harness
this tool for good for our students and make sure that it's being used properly?
And I went to as many of the presentations as I could.
I wish more of us had been there because they were really great because they talk about
exactly that issue, which is how is your school specifically figuring out how to integrate
it and what policies exist around it?
And if we don't have a policy, we should.
I heard amazing stuff.
So, I was hoping and was going to talk to Stacey, but I think this is something that I would,
as a board member, I think we would all like to sort of know where we're at on this topic.
I would love for it to end up being a presentation that we get to hear what it is that the district
has in mind for tackling this issue in terms of making sure that our policy is in place,
that, of course, as a board we have to do that, but there should be consequences in place.
There are so many things, but I want to say that overall, in addition to just hearing about all
these sort of logistical things, it was a very exciting frame of mind that day.
And it wasn't this sense of, oh, people are going to use it to cheat.
There was this sense of, okay, people use things to cheat all the time.
They always have.
They always will.
But this is actually a tool that we're going to be now able to use.
And if we do it correctly, if we introduce it properly in our school buildings and if we have
great policies and if we have educators that are educated on how to use these, not only do our
educators become better by using it, but so do our students if we really implement it properly.
So I was kind of the same way.
AI is this big, scary thing.
But I left that symposium feeling like as long as we have a grasp for how it fits into our
strategic plan and we are very clear with our buildings and our administrators and our students
and our teachers about what we expect to get from this tool, it could be an incredible thing.
But I think as a board, I think we would love to hear where that plan lies and what's the status.
Technology is doing a self-study right now.
So I'm sure there will be a presentation.
Exactly.
So yeah, if that could be a specific part of that, that would be excellent.
Because I think our parents, right, they're all wondering the same thing.
Like, wait, is my kid allowed to do this?
The resources that I got from that symposium are fantastic.
And I can pass those along to you because they had some great recommendations about how each teacher can say,
here's a sample rubric of here's what you can and can't use AI for on this exact assignment.
I mean, there are students and teachers already thinking about this that we can go and use these
resources that they've already established that are out there.
And the sooner we do that, the better.
So it is helpful that we're in our tech study right now.
This is perfect.
Pam, there was an equity.
There was an equity committee meeting last Wednesday that I unfortunately was unable to attend because I was at a board
community coffee.
However, thank you, Cameron, for updating me.
With the focus of it was kind of a takeoff of last one, which is we've been doing this for five years.
What is the next five years going to look like?
What do our stakeholders want?
What do our students want?
What does our faculty want?
And to really focus on that part of the strategic plan of this being a place for everyone to grow in head and heart
and looking at the sense of belonging.
I don't know if Ben or Chris or both of you went to a safety and security meeting recently.
And I also went to teaching and learning.
You guys are going to hear way too much.
I was going to say that next.
I'm going to be real brief on these.
Safety and security committee meeting, first one of the year.
Jim Burnell was there and reviewed all the fire signage stuff that's been going on.
It's been a very large board committee meeting.
It's almost complete.
We talked about the status of the vestibule at the Greyhound entrance.
That's almost complete, too.
Of course, we had some windows come in that didn't fit.
Awesome.
Let's see.
Mike reviewed the changes since we met last time in like the cameras, the EOP and the VAP, the updates that we have for our
emergency operations plan and our building plan.
So he just gave an overview of all the amazing stuff that he's doing as well as speaking again about
and he was just about to have another meeting with them about the issues that we're having and continue to use this
product as efficiently as possible.
So yeah, great meeting.
Many participants.
Okay.
And Chris went to teaching and learning for me.
Yeah.
I went to teaching and learning for Stacey and that was an interesting meeting because it was a little different than
normal because Milena did a lot of talking and she doesn't usually talk a lot.
So it was a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of fun.
I apologize profusely because Milena did a lot of talking and she doesn't usually.
Usually it's much more interactive.
But she apologized profusely because what she had, we went over the MSIP, we went over the three goals, our three
goals of our strategic plan.
We talked about the accomplishments we have in each one of those goals and then our like next steps for each one of
those goals and then the second half of the meeting was us making sure we are in compliance with Title I.
And we talked about the needs assessments and et cetera, et cetera, about in order to have parents involved
in our Title I discussion which is required by MSIP 6.
Thank you.
Okay.
And the only other two things I wanted to mention quickly which Dr.
Patel mentioned earlier just so everyone knows I want to thank all of my fellow board members who went to the
Missouri School Boards Association annual conference in Kansas City.
Looking forward to hearing about not just our Wellness Center presentation but the other breakout sessions that
everyone attended and wanted to thank board members and the community who showed up to our board coffees and
conversations.
We had two of them in the last couple weeks which were great and we felt good about making ourselves available to the
community and it was really nice.
And lastly on behalf of the board just want to wish Felicia Smith best of luck in the future.
This is her last meeting with us and we will miss seeing you around so best of luck in the future.
And with that Chris will you read the motion to adjourn?
I move that the board adjourn.
Second.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Opposed?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Aye.