St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education - workshop

All right, this is test one after a long time off.

to the flag of the United States of America.

Good evening, and welcome to our monthly work session, July 28, 2026. Our meeting is now called to order at 6.47 PM. Ms. Bond, roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Present. Mr. Hikes? Present. Ms. Hubbard? Here. Ms. Jones? Here. Ms. Foster? Present. Mr. Morrison? Present. Dr. Connors-Adams? Present. We have a quorum. Thank you. Approval of our agenda?

I move to approve the agenda for tonight's monthly work session. Second.

Roll call. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Heitz? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Morrison? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

Approval of the special board meeting minutes.

I move to approve the minutes from our June 9th regular business meeting. Second.

Roll call. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Ms. Hubbard. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Ms. Foster. Yes. Mr. Marston. Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams. Yes. Motion approved.

I move to approve the minutes from our June 18th special board meeting. Second.

Roll call. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

I move to approve the minutes from our June 26 special board meeting. Second.

Roll call. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Morrison? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

And finally, I move to approve the minutes from our June 30th board retreat. Second.

Roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Abstain. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

We'll move to our reports.

Superintendent's report.

Dr. Berry. Yes, first we would like to take a moment to pause to acknowledge the legacy of Mary J. Armstrong, past president of the American Federation of Teachers, St. Louis Local 420. President Armstrong impacted the lives of many in St. Louis public schools, including students, staff, leaders, and families for more than 30 years. President Armstrong was known not only for her negotiating skills, but her whatever it takes from all parties to get it done mindset. President Armstrong served in this role from 2003 until 2017. However, even as recently as a few weeks back, she was still sharing and providing guidance in her own way and telling me what she really thought. President Armstrong was a proud graduate of Vashon High School who went on to serve her community as a teacher at every grade level in the K-12 setting at SLPS. Her passion for her fellow colleagues was evident as she took on the role of being the union representative at each school she served in. This was well before she joined the ranks of Local 420 in their leadership team. President Armstrong's legacy will last forever, not just in the history books, but also in our hearts. Information regarding services will take place this Thursday, and information will go out by tomorrow. In the words of Dr. Nicole Williams, and published by the saint louis american there are people whose accomplishments can be measured by the offices they held then there are people whose greatest achievements are found in the lives they touch and hope they inspire mary j armstrong was that kind of leader so family as we remember president armstrong and all that she stood for let us continue to inspire and uplift to our sister our friend and profound advocate we miss you and we thank you for your service

Yes, ma'am.

And so good evening to President Collins-Adams, Vice President Marston, board members, staff, students, our entire community, and listening audience. We do have about three updates this evening. And so without further ado, if it's OK, we'd like to call up our legislative update from Mr. Steve Carroll.

Is it on now? All right. Thank you. Madam President, members of the board, Madam Superintendent, distinguished guests, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight before you, try to give you kind of a quick overview of the past legislative session that we dealt with and what I think is things to come, are things to come. dealing from statewide issue or certainly the next legislative session. Now, I realize that I went over some of these issues with you at the board retreat. I don't want to try to be repetitive, but people in the audience may want to hear a little bit about what happened in the session and how things turned out, but yet also what to expect moving forward. As I indicated to you during the board retreat, you know, I've done this for quite a few years, and this was probably one of the busiest legislative sessions that I've ever had. And you could tell it was an election year because the legislators put in all kinds of legislation. They try to bring out their base if they're running for reelection, their favorite issues. I get that. But this was a record-setting year of bills being introduced, 3,110 bills or resolutions were introduced. That's not even counting the thousands of amendments, floor substitutes, committee substitutes that we had to keep track of. And so believe me, our office was keeping track of almost 1,000 bills during the session. That's a lot to keep track of. And I got to admit, at the beginning of session, I was quite worried for public education because there was a lot riding on the table. You had a governor that stated in his state address that he wasn't going to fully fund the foundation formula for public education. He wanted more money for vouchers. And his top two priorities were statewide open enrollment and an A through F grading system for schools. And so when a governor is pushing that on his agenda, you've got to worry just a little bit when you have super majorities of his party in both chambers. Not to mention you have a president pro tem of the Senate who thinks public education is getting too much money to begin with, and she's a strong pro-choice, education choice advocate. You also had both the Senate chairman of the Education Committee and the House Chairman of the Education Committee that are also Education Choice proponents. And so both of those individuals are running for higher office right now. So we'll see what happens there. But it was just difficult. But I'm happy to say that when it was finally said and done, we came out in pretty good shape for public education overall as a state. I will say that Governor Kehoe did get through one of his major objectives, that is to eliminate the state income tax, which is amendment number five on the ballot that you'll be voting on next Tuesday. I just want to give you a little perspective about how that could adversely affect affect public education should it so pass, because you're looking at doing away with potentially $9.8 billion in GR, and over four of that funds K-12 education in the state budget. And so to try to eliminate that with higher sales tax or user tax, you're going to have to be taxing a lot of things, everything under the sun, to come up with that amount of money to make sure the public education doesn't get hit. I mean, just imagine paying sales tax on your rent, on your car insurance, on your home insurance, for accountant services, legal fees, hairdressing services, lawn services. The ag community will get hit, which has never paid sales tax before. Not to mention the real estate, real estate transfers. That could be hit. I know the governor says he doesn't want to include that, but you're giving away this power to a future legislature for the next five years that you don't know who's going to be in power. So, I mean, these are all things that I think that, you know, while we're seeing public education folks across the state coming out in opposition to Amendment 5, and each of you have to make up your own minds on that. I'm certainly not trying to influence. I just want you to know the adverse effect that it could have on public education across the state. Now, it's not polling very well, even though the advocates have spent $15.5 million dollars trying to pass it and that all the money is coming to a 501c4 so they don't have to share who their donors are that's trying to get it done and yet those that are opposing there are basically realtors and education groups such as nea so you know they're coming out in the open so we'll see what happens next tuesday but i would encourage you to go out and vote for sure um as i said a lot of the things that the governor wanted to get through didn't I mean statewide open enrollment, Senate Bill 971 failed. Now that bill is usually passed in the House by just a few votes over the last four years and sent over to the Senate where we kill it every year. Well this year, since it's election year, the Speaker of the House told the Senate, we're not taking it up first. I'm not gonna put my members through a tough vote like that. You pass it first, send it over to us and then we'll deal with it. Well, the Senate didn't even take it up. I mean, we had the votes, I think, to kill it on the floor. The appetite's really not there in the Senate. You even have some Senate Republicans from outstate Missouri that really don't like it because they view it as school consolidation for small school districts that would fold should this go into effect. So you've got members of both parties that really has a problem with the bill. And as you know, we were also able, even though the A through F grading system made it through the House by just three votes, we were able to stop it in the Senate, even though the executive order is out there. I know Desi's dealing with it, but it won't have state statute behind it. So I'm sure it'll come back again next year. But this year, you know, we were able to do what we needed to do. And there was one disturbing bill this year, which I call the monthly financial ledger website bill, that they were trying to get through on Senate Bill 1029. And the sponsor of the bill was the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Rick Bratton. And he put that bill on every other bill that he could coming out of this committee as an amendment. And what it would do is simply a state mandate, unfunded mandate to school districts, making you monthly, on a new website, put up every dime that you spend and where it goes, and every dime that you spend on legal fees. And if you don't do on the legal fees, you can get sued by the attorney general. And so it was just an unfunded mandate. And so we had several senators, several Republican senators that got up and stood up and stopped that piece of legislation because it would have cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would have been an administrative nightmare for school boards and administration. So I'm glad that we were able to stop it. And like I said, the senator put it on so many different bills, it was hard to keep track of all of them. But fortunately, we were able to stop them. Obviously, there's other legislation out there that we're watching. We were able to stop Senate Bill 998, which would have made it easier for vouchers. Currently, you have to go to public school for 12 months before you can even apply. This would totally take that out. Any child could apply for a voucher, homeschooler, parochial, private, what have you. Senator Hudson had that bill, and we were able to stop it as well. I did touch on the deed restriction earlier to you. I know that legislation will come back again, but for the last seven years, we've been able to stop that legislation as well. The bill that did make it through in the budget was an additional $10 million for vouchers. But there's a big argument going on in the Senate right now about whether the state treasurer should oversee that program or since it's an education program that DESE ought to oversee it. Now, the state treasurer doesn't want it out of his office. We're trying to figure out why. And so Senator Doug Beck, Senator Tracy McCreary, some others are trying to get that transferred over. In fact, we passed the bill in the Senate that would make that voucher program go to DESE. They would oversee it. We would see who's actually getting the money, which is not known right now where it's going. But it was able they were able to stop it in the house Where they have a few more education choice folks over there than in the Senate But I'm sure that issue will be back again next year for sure Now as far as is moving forward most of you know that the governor's task force has to make a recommendation by December 1 to the General Assembly on a new they're working on a new foundation formula and And so I've been in two dogfights for two new foundation formulas, and it's the worst debate, it's the toughest debate, it's the toughest issue to deal with. You know, the first one that I dealt with was in 1993 when I was still in the legislature because it was ruled unconstitutional, our foundation formula at that time, that we weren't spending enough money. And so we had to... Rewrite the formula. The judge, I still remember Brian Kinder's decision handed down. He said, our schools are the golden or the god-awful. And he said, you're not spending enough money. So we had to raise corporate income taxes to pay for it to do it. Well, that lasted until 2005. We put in a new foundation formula then, but we phased in it over seven years. The life of the foundation formula is about 15 years or so. So we're right there needing to do it. Now, the question is, how much money is it going to take? Now, Governor Kehoe has indicated to the task force, he said, you put me together a foundation formula that's not going to cost any more money than what we're currently spending. I don't know how you come up with a new foundation formula that does a good job for the future of our kids that doesn't adjust for inflation and all the things that we need out there for pre-K, remedial reading, after-school programs. And so I just anticipate it's going to be quite a battle next legislative session that we're going to be dealing with. And, you know, I've thought about this over the years, the last couple of years, and I've really come to believe that 90%... of the legislation that gets filed in Jeff City is about one or two things. One, it's about money. Somebody wants somebody's money. Somebody wants to do more money or spend more money. Somebody wants to take somebody's money from them and give it to them. It's all about money. Or two, it's about power. Somebody wants to tell somebody what to do. Somebody wants to tell somebody what they can't do. Somebody wants to tell somebody you've got to do it a certain way or you're breaking the law, you've got to do it this way or that way. And now every one of these education bills that I just talked about was about one of those two things. And so, you know, we're just going to have to deal with that. That's just a legislative process anymore. How has it changed? So, you know, we'll deal with it as it comes. Now, next year, it's going to be an interesting session as well because we have a new time of term limits folks coming in. We're going to have at least 55 new House members and at least 11 new senators. That's a third of the General Assembly. that is going to be voting on a new foundation formula a 52 billion dollar budget they don't understand the legislative process so it's going to be a time of trying to educate them on what's important and that's kind of where i come in i've been doing this for so long i kind of feel like a tenured teacher when i start going and trying to educate these legislators and trying to bring them up to speed on things that are important so you know that will be an interesting thing as well i've already started going out and trying to meet some of these new candidates, some of these new legislators to come. In fact, the city of St. Louis, we're going to have a new state senator because Carla May is term limited out. So you've got Representative Steve Butts and former Representative Gina Mitten in a spirited campaign against one another right now. And then Lakeisha Bosley has turned out as well. So I think there's three candidates that are running to take her place. So we'll have some new legislators from the city delegation as well. So that's kind of where we're at. I'll just kind of stop right there. I want to thank you for allowing me to represent you in Jeff City. It has been a great honor and I sincerely mean that. And I've certainly enjoyed working with all of you and Certainly you, Superintendent, Madam President, and others who have come to Jeff City. Every time I send out my weekly report, I say, we need a little help with this. And I give you a call, can you come to Jeff City? And you do. And I appreciate that very, very much. And the Parents Action Council, their legislative day, I think that's very important. So I do appreciate the help that you give me because it's important. You are citizens of the city of St. Louis, and you can vote for these legislators. I can't. I can just go and tell our story and ask them to support us as much as we can, but I think it's important that you all stay involved, and I do appreciate you doing that. So with that, I'll try to answer any questions you might have, and if I don't have an answer tonight, I'll get it to you.

so thank you for the opportunity to be here no i appreciate everything that you're doing you keep us to date on everything and uh it's an uphill battle we got this it can't be but you know

I don't like somebody else telling our story because there's a lot of great things that are going on in the San Luis public school that the people just don't hear about. And I try to get that story out to as many legislators Because quite frankly, the party, supermajority party, most of them are outstate legislators that are controlling key committees and stuff. They know very little about the San Luis public schools. But I try to relate to them as a former outstate legislator myself that we have certain unique opportunities. We have challenges in the city of San Luis that they may not have. And so they need to understand what we're facing, and we try to educate them every day. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move right along to the future ready portion of our agenda, we do have a PowerPoint a little pull up. And I know we are not sitting in our U shape, but this is still a work session. So cabinet, please get ready. I know we're going to have lots of questions. The board has been very adamant to come into all of our sessions. I'm very appreciative. And they haven't had the opportunity to really engage in thought-provoking conversations with us. So please be prepared. Loosen up, because we're going to be on for the ride tonight. All right, thank you so much. I just want to thank the entire community. They have been so awesome coming out and supporting us and asking really thoughtful questions, but not just showing up, but showing up with intent, showing up with care, and being solution-oriented when they come to the meetings. We held three community session meetings, but aside from that, we have spoken to multiple stakeholders. We've also had one on one sessions with various stakeholders and a few emails have come through again at board members. Thank you. You were at every single session. We appreciate that. And then tonight's presentation is going to be a summary of what we actually did during the meetings. Reason being, there was a call. The community said, hey, can you slow down on what's happening and what's going on? So what we said, we'll first come to you tonight to share at least an overview of what happened in the meeting. Then on the next step, we will come to you to share what the information actually said during the sessions. We were able to collect data, but a few of the data that was shared so far was only about 93 responses from over 600 members that we actually saw in the community. So we're still trying to capture that feedback, but we do have overviews of what was said during that time. Jump right in. Is this working for me? If not, you can just, perfect, thanks. Of course, we share this with our community, the Portugal undergraduate, we wanna see every educator have. And so many of these slides, you'll see exactly what we shared, so we will not go into detail because I know that you were there, many of the community listening audiences, they were there, which is an overview of what was shared. And also looking at this slide, we talked about the core four, we are embodying this in everything that we are doing. Yeah, it's not working for me, so I'm gonna need you, thanks. So again, the intent right now is for us to talk about with transparency to provide an overview of how the information was shared highlight any feedback that came from the Community about the process of how we're going to move forward and then the alignment between what the Community said in our next steps in this process. The purpose, a lot of questions around the purpose. So the purpose of these sessions were to gather structured feedback on the preliminary structure of Future Ready. And so we asked a lot of questions during that time centered around the actual models. We asked various questions. What was strong? What was promising? But more important, what blind spots do you see that we may have missed? What additional analysis do you think that we need? And what data may be missing from what we're doing? We did share the why and the why now. We basically were sharing that we must do this and we must do this now because every student deserves access to a high quality education and we need to make sure that there are schools right there in neighborhoods that can provide this high quality education. We must understand, I keep saying this, that we are moving from a district of schools to a school district and we have to embody that and the time is now for us to do it. During the meetings, we did ask for level setting, and so I think by starting the meetings with level setting, it allows spaces and opportunity for those to think about which trajectory we were going, and we also understood there'd be a lot of questions around actual schools, so we're trying to keep the focus on the model, and then the next part of the process, we'll embed and get deeper into the schools once there is a final recommendation to the board. We also talked about data, and I think some of this, each time we met in the meetings, more conversations came up about data and where are you getting it from. We know this particular slide was written in the book, in the Future Ready book, but I think more importantly, when you get to looking at some of the other data that was provided to us, it really brings it to the picture of why we need to do this. And just this slide along, it shares that we lost almost over 25,000 students since 1991, The trajectory has us going further, lower than this, but the onus is on us to do something about it and I think the Future Ready is certainly going to help us reverse that trajectory. And so, these slides came from my partners at court and Clark and while the court and Clark is our firm that works with us architecture firm I do want to make it very clear that. Clark isn't deciding what happens with the district, they are literally taking the data and they're finding it from multiple sources and working with the census data and working with the state. to give us a true picture of what the data is telling us but the onus is on us to decide what we're going to do and how we're going to use this data so a few pieces that really stood out and i think we added this after the first two sessions to really hit home on why another reason this is necessary so looking at this slide you'll see we peaked at about 850 000 a little over that residence in st louis city and today we're sitting at less than 300 000 So we're looking over 550,000 residents that have since left the city since 1960. And so we keep hearing about the birth rates. And so every time we're going to these community sessions, and not the ones we're providing, but when there are other demographers having conversation, they're talking about how the birth rate and how it's getting lower. And since 2016, we've lost over 1,000 births that are happening each and every year. And I believe one person even shared that unfortunately, the death rates have surpassed the birth rates. And we need to figure out how, as a city and a community, we can reverse that trajectory. We also share data not just around the city of St. Louis, but also around schools. You know, we are members of the Council of Great City School, and so this slide is just sharing with you that right now as we sit with our 68 schools, our neighbor in Kansas City, they have 35 schools, and they're a little under 1,000 students than what we have. And then when you're looking at Cincinnati public schools, they have 68 schools, but they have double the amount of students that we have. And then bring it up a little closer to home we shared with the same demographics are like demographics, even though our footprint in the city is larger looking at hazel that they have. About 1000 students less than us, but they have 31 schools and we currently have the 62 schools and 68 programs. And this last slide here is the one I think resonated the most with me. When we're talking about school age children in the city of St. Louis and thinking about all of our buildings, our buildings right now, we can hold a little over 40,000 students. At the peak in the city, we had over 150,000 students in the city of St. Louis. Right now, we are looking at less than, we have about 34,000 students, school age, that goes to private, parochial, any school, that could go to any school in the city of St. Louis, but only about 34,000. We have half of that. So even if we were able to get all 34,000, we still have too many buildings as it stands for the students that currently could go to school. We also shared the magnet school concept. At the first meeting, there was a lot of questions around magnet school. So we then started talking about the magnet school concept and how that came about. And we started seeing later in the second and third meeting, we think people had a better understanding. And even in the third meeting, started to share their own perspective about magnet schools and how they came about. and how, if they even talked about gifted schools, and thinking about, if you're talking about desegregation and segregation, what are gifted schools doing in that arena? And so that caused a lot of pause for us to say, hey, what part of the phase do we need for having conversations around gifted? And we can certainly discuss that. And then we share on just understanding the data. We talked about a few of the data pieces that we use. And I think a lot of the community members were asking questions saying, hey, give us a formula. And there is no real formula. If we went based off of numbers only, it would look a lot different. And there would be many more schools on the list. And there may be schools that would really cause a stir because of what we think it should be on. So we took all these various pieces of data that were both quantitative and qualitative, but understood there are a lot of things that also go into it other than just looking at the zip codes, other than looking at the facility index scores. You have to see what's the capacity of buildings, what's the capacity of the building, how it can be utilized in the community. Not every school as it sits, even though the community may want housing, every school cannot be transformed into housing. So you have to also understand what the building can be utilized for. We also shared on the website, and you'll hear a little bit more from Courtney Clark and also from Chief Watson, how in-depth we're using the Power BI system, and it goes into more detail. So I'm really excited for us to see the updates that have been made with that. And then we can get to our feedback, and so we capture the feedback from a number of ways, and so, when participants walked in, they could do us qr code and they can give their immediate feedback on what they think the models, they would recommend. We also have them looking at patents and so in real time, they were able to have discussions and conversations. and then give solutions or give comments on models A, B, and C. And then we did ask for them to give us their final, if they had to make a recommendation right now, their final recommendation. And so be very candid. We had about 289 posts from all of the meetings. A lot of great conversations were happening. We also had handwritten notes. There was also a note catcher on the back where community members could write notes on the back and give us that feedback as well. But most of the great conversations just happened in between when people were sitting next to each other and talking about their thoughts. And so when we're looking at the data, just because there were 289 posts doesn't mean there were actually 289 people that created the post because there were multiple people that could put a post on or even respond to various posts. And then the reflection form, right now we have 93 responses. And then from our website, we have 17 responses. And then with our school leaders, because we did speak with them as well, we have 57 responses. And so while we're collecting this data, we know there were so many more people, one, that were at the meetings, and two, that have something to say. So we're going to do another push. um via email so get ready and also through parent square so we ask the community to please provide feedback over the model concept to gather more data And so when we were looking at how these items were analyzed, again, there were quantitative questions that were asked, there were written responses that we're looking at for themes, and then a single response could have multiple themes and reflect more than one area, and then looking at all the total Padlet posts, and then responses from individual submissions. And again, we talked about the Padlet Post and how they could put those submissions on and then you could see in real time what some of the community members in the audience were saying. And if you were in session three, that session, the Padlet Post is still up, so if you wanted to provide responses, you certainly could. But again, that was for all three models and even asking for a final model recommendation. but this data right there, it captured immediate real-time feedback, but it also left open-ended questions that many of the communities are asking, and others could see what questions that they had. And so just an overview of the community meetings. For the first meeting, we had the number of posts was 101, but roughly we had about 200 attendees there. And for the meeting two, we had 128 and roughly about 240 attendees. And then the meeting three, we had 60 respondents, but I did put an asterisk because many of the conversations were happening and then we did not put the padlet up for a long time. So I do believe we would have had more posts if we kept that padlet up. looking at the participants many of them this is where their feedback was directed but because feedback was directed there did not mean they selected that particular model and so we had 49 posts for model a 29 for model b and 59 for model c again those were just comments and there were a lot of comments around model c particularly around safety and could we reconfigure the buildings in a time for this so those are just a lot of comments that we had We did have 129 comments for the final portfolio recommendation and a lot of questions and comments around closures themselves, demographics and equity for the buildings in the community. And so the final recommendations, basically we were asking to collect information about which participant. We did ask for names because what we found in PASS, many people may go on and they'll do multiple palettes or multiple responses. And so we wanted to make sure that we're capturing that individual. We're also looking at their strengths and opportunities, again, those blind spots. and then we also sent a separate version of this form was created for those that could not attend the meeting to see if the conversation or the thoughts were different from those that came to the in-person meeting versus those that did not or may have watched it online And some major themes that we saw across school closures and neighborhood stability. That was a huge question and concern. The fortunate and very unfortunate part of all of this is that our district has gone through some sort of change or reconfiguration in the past. And so what the community has said and what they've known and what we know is that buildings were being left in their neighborhoods and were eyesores to the community. And how are we going to ensure that this doesn't happen again? They also asked questions about what if a family decides to leave for a charter school or a private school. So those are questions that came up in real time. They asked about academic performance and the student experience. And so with the academic performance, we're saying the well-resourced school. Questions are, well, what does a well-resourced school look like? Ideally, we can share things out, but we don't have that. We're hoping that once we pick the model, that we collectively can create what a well-resourced school looks like. They also talked about the safety and the K through eight setting. And so we did have to share, we currently have K through eight schools right here in our district now. And so what we can tell you and what we do know is that the attendance is higher, the discipline is lower, but there were grave concerns from parents about their child, not just being in the school setting, but riding a bus, a preschooler and an eighth grader. There were also questions about the schools. Can they fit an elementary school, be transferred, or moved to a eighth grade school and classrooms, and what does that look like, and what's the time does it take, and the cost that it takes? I know we had a presentation at our real estate meeting, and it talked about the cost. I just want to be very clear, while it shared $127 million, that also had a deferred maintenance cost in it. So we're looking at roughly maybe $200,000 to start and get this going. there were questions about facility readiness will our buildings be ready in time if our timeline is 2028 and then again this process and trust community members are asking for us not all there are some saying hey we want to trust you but we need to take our time figure out how we do this and why should we trust you and so having that conversation with the community to say we hear you we are listening to you but we may have to make sure that we are doing something and doing it rather quickly than slowly because we're finding we can continue this conversation which we have for the last three years and people to understand that this conversation just didn't start last month. This conversation didn't just start two months ago. We've been having this conversation, but I think people are actually now listening and understanding. So how do we pull all that together?

And some key takeaways for the planning process.

Definitely, it was great to listen and receive the feedback and to hear the reoccurring things. And if people are standing in multiple sessions, there has to be validity to it. And so being able to look at what we're doing right now and how do we implement some of those recommendations, those thoughts, and those ideas. And then what are we reconsidering when we're moving forward to get a better understanding when we present the final model?

Also, transparency. What does it look like?

I really enjoy one of the parents said, you know, this process, thank you for doing it, but it's messy. And she's right. It is messy. It's going to be messy. And they understood.

So it didn't come from a place of whatever you're doing is messy.

It came from a place of, like, no one really knows what we need until we know what we need. So we get it. It's going to be messy, and we're in this with you. Also, our students, how are we going to ensure that, this was a comment one of the students said, and out of all the comments that I received, this is the one that resonated most with me. The student asked me, how are you going to ensure that when we move, that the community that we have built in our school right now is going to be available in the next school? And out of all the answers that I had, I had no answer for that baby. And I said, thank you, because we've been so busy talking about what the school's going to look like, how it's going to be so great. Never stop to think about the community that you've built and how we're going to show that same communities in your next school. So now we're taking that back to figure out what does that look like. Also, having individual meetings with school principals, and so while we have spoken with principals and shared ideas, and they just take everything on the chin and they're so tough, one principal called me out, she said, hey, you know, I love you, I got your back, I'm supporting you, but you haven't once asked me how I'm doing. I'm like, you're right, I haven't asked you how you're doing. We've just been moving. and understanding that we're gonna schedule meetings with you, but I haven't asked you. So I apologized to her in real time and said, I'm gonna make sure that I do a better job. And so just having that and taking that in and then actually listening to what the public is saying and seeing where we can implement that change. Oh, I did miss one part on that too. A lot of questions came up about gifted education. And so now us figuring out what phase of the process do we look at gifted education? Is it something that we look at now how we do it? Questions came around saying, hey, why can we not have this in our schools? And so the truth is we do have schools that offer gifted education classes right through the neighborhood schools. However, many parents don't know about it or because a child maybe one student receiving gifted services then we want to say we need to send that child somewhere else because we don't have the staff to provide those services so looking at what is it like to have a gifted center model there are various things we know there was work done with a few parents about maybe a year and a half ago over gifted and there was a huge conversation they did all this work but picking that work back up to say let's look at this again and this is time for us to change or do we make this the second phase but those are questions that we're thinking about

And so the next steps with the future ready process.

So we are here tonight. Again, we are excited. I know we haven't had much conversations. You've been great just sitting in the board meeting and the meetings listening. So we are very open to questions and thoughts and suggestions that you too may have. The April 11th board meeting, it is our plan to come and present all of the additional information that we have that happened in the community meetings and with various parents to make sure that we bring that data forward to you and have another robust conversation. April 24th, not April, August. All right, get me together. August 24th, we are going to survey our students. I know it's the first day of school, but there is a board meeting the very next day. So we're trying to capture student voice in that moment. In addition to the first day, we also are going to have our student advisory committee. They're going to provide information and ongoing conversations with students, but seeing what their initial reactions are on the 24th. And we're looking at doing a Microsoft Live, either a pre-recorded or a YouTube stream to see how we can capture that feedback. So we haven't decided exactly how we're going to do it, but one of those three options. And then the August 25th board meeting. The plan is to, by this time then, bring you, after all that information has been collected, we're gonna bring you a recommendation for a final proposal. That proposal will have actual names. It will take in the additionals that we may have to have changed based off of feedback we received, recommendation we received, but it will be a final proposal. Of course, you will not vote on it that night, but we wanna make sure that you at least have it and can ask some of those tough conversations that we may need to have. and the hope is by September, maybe not the first board meeting, but hopefully by the last board meeting, that we can have a final vote. What we are realizing is that while the community is asking for more time, so we're stretching this out another month, the issue is bigger than just now. And it takes a lot to get to this final phase. And the more that we push this back, the shorter time that we have to actually prepare if we're gonna do this starting August of 2028. And then I think understanding that there are real lies behind what we're doing. And so a student face, an adult face. And so no matter what we do, there's going to be someone affected. And even if, thinking about our school leaders, we know that if we're going to repurpose our schools, we will not need the number of leaders that we have now. And so hearing that and understanding that can be really hard, but we have to figure out how do we, in real time, support what the community is asking us, but also deliver a promise to our leaders and to our staff that are waiting, because school is starting, right? And so we're asking them now, while future ready and potentially your school repurposing is looming over your head, We're asking you to still move forward with instruction and still come in with your smiling faces and prepare your students each day. And so I think we owe it to them to at least move something off their plate that's no longer looming so they can prepare and move forward with what's happening. And that's it. So we are ready for your questions. And I did say we.

I'm going to ask board members to open your mic and begin asking questions. And Dr. Berry, you have your leadership team members here. Board Member Jones.

My first question would be, I wanted to know, do we currently have a map on our website that identifies all the schools that we're speaking of, just all the schools in general? So if parents or teachers or students want to just look and see where they're located, where the schools are, where the potential loss of a school might be, that they can do that.

Thank you for the question. I hope we're taking notes. So yes and no. So there is a map, and we'll show from the data dashboard that has a list of all the schools. What we do not have is a map that shows which schools are going to be impacted. and how in location of reference where another school that may be impacted. So we can certainly update that. So we do not have that on the website.

OK. Yes, I really would like to see that because it would seem that some areas are not going to get the representation that they need, especially the ones that have a large vacancy rate. A lot of our neighborhoods, particularly in North St. Louis, are empty houses. empty lots and They're going to need once this money that has been allocated so-called millions of dollars from the mayor's office and from FEMA We're hoping that they're going to bring in what we really need affordable housing and so how are we going to make up for that future change and

Yeah, thank you. And that's a really good point. And we will note that I can say just for the listening audience, so far we have about 10 schools that have been identified through all three plans for what we will consider north. We have about, sorry, 11 for north, 10 will be considered for south. And there are about seven additional schools that with hopefully private public partnerships or potentially the state, we will be able to repurpose or reopen newer schools north of St. Louis, but you are absolutely right. There are a lot of neighborhoods, and I'm so glad I see Mr. Roper here from Urban Planning. The district, we have been having meetings with a committee. I don't want to say committee, that's the wrong word. It's not committee. We have been having meetings with various stakeholders for about two, three months, and that includes the city, and we're having conversations around what does it look like in their plans that they're having for the city, and how do we move forward to make sure that SLPS isn't doing something that the state or the city's not doing, and we can move forward collectively. So thank you for bringing that up.

OK, my last question right now would be about the repurposing of our school buildings, because there are a lot of people, and I understand that no one wants their school building to close, especially. I really don't. But I want to hear the ideals, and I want to hear who's going to help, because we need help. And it's one thing to say, let's repurpose. We're going to do this, and we're going to do that. But come on with the help. That's what I want to know. Please, can we list some suggestions and who's going to dig their heels in and help us?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. That's a call to action. I will ask Chief Watson, not today, but if maybe we can ask some of the members that have shared some ideas, if they will be willing to come to the next board meeting work session to share those ideas about repurposing and what that looks like.

board member hubbard and then hi okay i did write some feedback from the meetings i have attended and you know scuttlebutt that i've seen on facebook and it is really clear that people want specific answers and we haven't provided them yet and i know it's going to come but it is We have questions from the first meeting that could be answered. Just keep it coming. I don't know if we need one site or one page on the website where you can say, here are the questions. Here's our best answer as of today. But that would help. It would help me a lot. And yes. you're thinking of your next one you're absolutely correct i know we as a cabinet said that but we did not do that and we have not followed through so yes we will get that on the website okay great um one of the data points that i really want to see and i've looked at it through desi's website but i don't know if it's accurate um Like which schools have uncertified teachers and how many do they have? We have a student to teacher ratio, but is that certified teachers to students? Which schools have full time related art teachers like my children are at McKinley and it is a great school and it has all the things and it is one of very few schools in the district that have all the things and. I've tried to get over my guilt for using it anyway. But are there any other middle schools that have languages. What high schools have bands. Does Carl Lane which is a visual and performing arts school. What is their band program been like. Those are the things where yes we love McKinley I. If it's the right thing to close it then we should close it. But how can we see you know which schools with a low enrollment have very few of the perks that McKinley has including a very dedicated band booster club. It's just not translating for me. I know that it is real but I haven't seen the numbers to be able to say i'm sorry, but what if we made it so every kid had access to schools like mckinley. here's what it would actually take because we're going to have to say no to some things, so we can say yes to all the things for all the kids um. And it's not going to be easy. But I think that's really important to be able to show the inequity within our school district. If we're not going to do anything about that then our efforts are for naught.

Yeah, thank you. I'm gonna ask H. Roy, that Beth Davey or Ms. Williams to come up as well, but you're right. And so while we do have internal sheets that has all that listed, we can get one that we can make more public facing that doesn't have actual teachers or students or classrooms that we can share, because there are a lot of inequities that exist. Also along with that, I think someone may have said, you know, McKinley should be the model if it's working here, why not somewhere else? And I had to politely share, if every school had a requirement that you had to read and write and be proficient in all areas, how many students are we really excluding? And if that's the criteria, then you're right. Those students should be proficient because that's the criteria to come in. Like your school should be excelling because that's the criteria to come in. But the unfortunate reality is all students don't have that option. So how do we provide that access or that same type of feel in every school to make sure that they do have, like you said, the arts? And so I appreciate you for bringing that up, but it isn't equitable right now. And that's why the onus in order for us to get this right, we have to change and we have to change it now because we keep it the way it is. We're going to get the same results.

I want to add that I last school closure I started a petition to close the gifted schools to have the children largely with the most, and we can see with state data which schools have the most kids on SNAP or TANF, that's public data. So how do we make the kids that have the most resources already feel the least impact? And that's gonna be a sticking point for me. But also I'd love to hear from you, Ms. Davies.

Sure, so I heard first the question about how many schools do we have that do not currently have full time related arts across all of the required content areas, so when we talk. The state of Missouri requires that every elementary student receives access to music art and physical education. Physical education, the minutes are a little bit larger than we look at music and art, but they must have access to those in St Louis public schools, we are also in a reality. Of course, several of our elementary schools are so small, they may only have one class per grade level. Because of that, and because we want to make sure that every student has access, we do have schools that have split allocations. So a music teacher, for example, that may be reporting to more than one building. At this time for the 26-27 school year, and we make adjustments on this regularly, we have 10 schools that will be impacted by having a split allocation with another building. So for those 10 buildings, they do not have full-time art music. Okay. Everyone pretty much has full-time PE. Um, and the, the dream is the goal is just Dr. Berry said to make sure that every child has full-time access to related arts. Um, I'm a former music teacher. I believe firmly that children deserve a rich arts instruction, and that is for performing and related arts. Um, I think another question was about the certification rate in the district. Is that right, Ms. Hubbard? Um, so currently in the district, as Dr. Berry has shared in our public sessions, but we have nearly 300 teacher vacancies. We have done a lot of work. It used to be 400. So we are grateful to can see that number continue to drop. Um, but currently that is often due to, um, the distribution of students. So out of those 300 teacher vacancies, we are currently at 223, I believe as of today. full time substitute teachers who are interim learning associates. It means they have a substitute certificate they have shown their shown their medal shown their worth and be able to provide classroom instruction to some level and they are assigned to a classroom specifically. Part of the distribution of that with the number of schools we have now is we have some of those schools particularly our schools that are less than 150 students where you may have some classrooms a third grade class with 11 13 students in it. Whereas some of our larger schools, when we have more teachers per grade level, class sizes will be up more at 23, 24, which is really our goal maximum. And so the hope is, again, with part of the future ready plan is to be able to right size the classrooms, because if we can have the class sizes that are large enough to be able to Feel the show. Let me see if I can do this. If we can have class sizes that are large enough at a smaller number of schools we will be able to provide a larger amount of certified teachers for our students. So it is not at this point acceptable for us to move forward understanding that we are not providing full time related arts and that we do have several non-certified teachers in front of our students. But we will have to do better and part of that is this consolidation plan. So what else data were you looking for Miss Hubbard. I'm trying to remember. Is that it?

I think that's it.

You think that's it?

That's it for now, anyway.

All the numbers.

Board Member Harvey?

Thank you. I guess I want to click all the way up to start. I have a healthy number of questions, but I'm going to pick and choose. Okay. Because you... I heard at all the presentations and tonight that we can't rely on a formula. And I conceptually agree with that because of the way that formulas force moral decisions hidden by numbers. So I agree with it conceptually. And though, I am wondering what method, produce the models. Because when I look at the slides and I see the eight data sources that you pull from, and then I see on another slide how community feedback was coded, all of that is, those are all fine individual steps, but it's not a methodology. And so we have not told the public the decision rules, the weighting, the sequencing, the academic thresholds, the strategic priorities, the facilities. Everything that goes into we started with A and we ended with Z, and this is every step we took in between, we've not said that. And so we're asking for trust with no method. And so I can understand the way that a family is saying, you landed on the double digits of schools. with no methodology public. And we, in most other situations of this grave decision, wouldn't allow ourselves to be in a moment where we can't defend the method against the conclusion. So I am really hungry to hear from whatever collection of you in the cabinet, what was the sequencing? And how did we land here? Because as it currently stands, right, nobody actually knows other than eight disaggregated data sources that I know you all spent a ton of time with, but we did not. And so we are out to trust three models of, we don't know how many that you started. We might've started with 12. We got three. And so like, bring us into that a bit.

Yeah, absolutely. And so we will, and we had talked about that because that came up live, put that in writing so people can actually see what that looks like. But you're right. And outside of those eight size sources, for instance, we went to the ribbon cutting ceremony at Peabody. And I know Peabody is on our list. And then to hear that they're going to rebuild and have 89 units available at 28 and then 300 units. So then you have to take that into consideration to say, well, what is the best source? So that's another piece of feedback that we take in. But you're absolutely correct. We spent a lot of time with a lot of different numbers and a lot of different systems. But you're right. It makes sense in our head. So we're going to figure out how to take that, I don't want to say like brain mass and put that in a consolidated system. plan to share what the thinking behind it was. And I just want to be very honest. When we put it on, someone may still say, that doesn't make sense. It's just irrational, right? But we will certainly put at least what our thinking behind it was to get it out there. So at least it's there. And if someone's asking, well, how did you get here? You can see how we got there, even if it doesn't make sense to the person who's reading it. So we will do that. And you will have that soon.

Board Member Harvey, let me just add on to that particular thing. We need it in a presentation that everyone will understand in a simple step. I don't know if it's simple. But the average person has to understand it. So the questions that I'm getting are exactly what Board Member Harvey said, Board Member Jones has said, How did you pick apart an entire district and come up with this one, this one, that's schools, and then how did you come up with three models out of the gazillion models we could have had? Now, I knew there was a process. and I've watched your leadership team work, and we've had conversations in bits and pieces, but what we're saying now is we've had three meetings, and the same question keeps coming up. How did you get there? In simple terms. If it's about Collins Academy near Peabody, then talk about Collins Academy right there by Peabody. We did this because of this. We did that because of something else. And nothing else in between. Because it has to be simple enough for everyone to understand. The person that has the college degree in architecture and design, urban design, and the person who finished third grade and is raising five kids and needs to figure out what school their kid is gonna go to, after next year. And that's not to pick apart the leadership team. You guys are working great on everything that you're doing. But there seems to be something missing that the board has to have, that the public has to have, so that the board can answer. Because we're answering to the public. We're elected by the public. We need to be able to address that. And I know there are a lot of things that you've done and a lot of community members that you're speaking with. But we are two now. And it's going to become very tedious soon when you bring the next step to us. And granted, and I've already said this, but I will say this publicly, of all the people that I saw in all of those auditoriums, we had 93 people that put out, everybody's got, if we took right now, we just took, and I'm gonna say it, go ahead and call me and send me your emails, you've already done it. McKinley, off this whole thing, how much noise would we really have? I have to say it because McKinley parents have come out, they've spoken, the band performed. I have two McKinley parents on the board. If we would take them just out of this mix completely, we're not gonna discuss McKinley anymore. McKinley's gonna be fine, let's just let it go. How much then would we really have?

Yeah, so thank you to the question. To the point of McKinley, I will share that.

And thank you, Board Member Harvey, for letting me.

I will share that I actually met with a parent from McKinley who said that, had a lot of great ideas, that said, I will stand up with you to share that the voices that you're hearing, they don't speak for all of McKinley parents. And this parent said that a lot of the ideas and suggestions that you have, it makes sense. They gave us additional suggestions and were very appreciative of that, but said, you know, in essence, McKinley High School is sitting on a third floor of a building and their children are not getting a real high school experience. And so I do have on the other side of McKinley parents who are speaking out and who have said they'll stand up. So you're right, the loudest voices right now are just those who are really passionate about McKinley in particular. We do have some other voices and I appreciate, I'll just say, for instance, the area of Walnut Park. We had Miss Regina who came out and she had pictures of schools that have closed in her buildings. And so it wasn't so much of why are you doing this? It is how are you going to ensure that three and four years down the line that our neighborhood doesn't still look like this? And so those are the questions that I think the community members are asking, not so much because they understand we need to do something. And it's not more so about an actual building other than you're right, the one school. It's more so about what's going to happen in my neighborhood once the building is gone and how you're going to ensure that my neighborhood is still going to be viable and this will not be an eyesore in my building.

Can I build on that, Dr. Berry, as a question? Because I think that is something I'm hearing is a wondering about, I guess, what I'm going to call the readiness gate for each of these. And I know that I'm assuming you're waiting to present detailed readiness conditions until there is the model. And I wonder if it actually, though, keeps critical information from families and leaders being able to actually digest distinctions. We've given them the distinction of grades, disruption levels, by our definition of disruption. But we haven't given us like facility readiness, staffing readiness, transportation readiness, before we press go on anything. And I think I'm curious of all of the readiness conditions, which of the ones are we the most vulnerable in? I sit in those three sessions and I hear families talking about how beautiful their facility is and why is that one being picked for redevelopment and not staying in school. I hear another family member talk about the busing, et cetera. And so I am unclear and would love to know if you ranked the readiness gates that we know we need to get solid, what are they? Where are we going to put our attention pre-vote? Because I would want to know how we're resolving where we are the most vulnerable pre-vote. And then does the cabinet share a point of view around vulnerability versus readiness? I'll stop there, but I'm really curious about the conditions that allow us to verify that any of these are viable.

And so the actual conditions will change based on the model, and I think that's why I keep harping on I need to know what model, and I'll give you an example. So if it's model C, that's pre-K through eight, and so in my mind, my readiness condition is I need to see what the facilities look like and how can we prepare the facilities. Transportation is top of mind for all of them because we are changing transportation, but we don't know how we are going to or where to make sure that our students are receiving transportation from and to because we don't know what school they're going to go to because the model hasn't been selected. We don't know which teachers that we will have in certain buildings because the certifications because all the models have different variants pre-K through eight. So we can't make a move until we get the model. And so the readiness is for me right now is understanding what we're doing. So then we can plan. I know it's hard for people to hear that and understand it, but we can't make a decision until we know. The only thing that we can do is talk about what we know we're gonna have in every schools around. What resources? We can talk about what the academic structure look like. Those are things that we can plan for, but the readiness features are the things that I'm like really worried about. We can't plan for until we know what actual model and which schools in the model we're gonna proceed with.

Yes, and? If I'm torn between purchasing an apartment, a townhouse, or a single family home, I'm going to do some pre-work on the preconditions to get me ready for all. So I hear you. But I don't need to decide what house type I'm going to buy first, and then I'll start worrying about my preconditions. I'm going to weigh my preconditions against all the ones in my purview, and then have a. So I want to push back a little bit, because I do think If it feels a bit escape-ish, then no, we know all of the conditions and we're willing and we want to hear what the risk tolerance of the people is. Because there might be a lower risk tolerance for, I don't want to upend these facilities and redo X and Y. So that one's interesting to me. And I think the last part, I'm going to stick with your analogy, is I know you want the foundation, you can't build the roof, you have the model, but we're talking a lot about decor. Concentration of resources. Every school has a this. Every school has a that. So we are asking people to decorate a house before we've given them the preconditions of what might make it fall apart anyway, and before we can actually pick one. So there is a bit of a kind of dance that you, that the... the methodology is doing that is not allowing us to hold the right sequencing.

Yeah. First, I want to say I love this, right? But to the point of your analogy of moving, you have to know what area you want to move to, right? And so you can say, I want this type of house. I want all this. But you have to know what particular area you want to live. And so that's where I'm at. We need to know what particular area we want to live at to formulate all these different ideas to figure out if it's going to be an apartment or a condo. But you are absolutely right regarding the methodology. We are going to figure that out. I can tell you regarding readiness, we have certainly looked at what each building is going to cost no matter what the building is to see what that looks like. We are looking at the capacity of each building. We've already started looking at, depending on whatever model it is, how we would have to transfer or move or what the cost would be if we were to move desk or looking at the sizing of the rooms. So those different readiness models we are certainly looking at, but it's kind of a pause. But I hear you loud and clear. Sorry.

I attended all three community meetings and the presentation at each one evolved in response to community feedback, which shows that the administration is listening. At the model level, an idea that came up during the community meetings was to consider pre-K through 6, then 7 through 12 schools, rather than pre-K through 8 schools. And I think there's a compelling argument that they would be a better fit for our buildings and programs. And this is something Ms. Hubbard also mentioned, but I'd like to get to a point where advanced academics and visual and performing arts are available at every school, not just specialized ones. In terms of the budget, the approximate cost savings with Model C is $29.4 million. And my question is, where is the other $11.6 million going to come from to close the budget? And that $29.4 million included salaries, benefits, and transportation savings for Model C. I'll stop there, and then I have maybe

couple other questions yeah um so the first one about the six through twelve and so um you're right that has come up a few times um i am not personally a fan but i am just one person we have looked at to see what data says and so while there are assumptions being made about pre-k through eight with an eighth grader and a preschooler but i can tell you there will be more assumptions happening with a sixth grader any 12th grader so i am very leery to stand behind that model Maybe in certain settings it would be productive, but to put that across the scale, I just don't know if I'm ready to stand behind that. But that is something that we are looking into to see where that has worked in other areas and how we can emulate that because it has come up. And so that means it's top of mind for some of our community members. Advanced academics. I'm right on with you. I think that needs to be in every building. I asked a parent what we need to do to get you to send your child to so Dan and they told me what you need to have more IB and AP classes like I receive that and we need to figure out how to make that happen and as well as the arts. And then I think your last one, I didn't write the last one down. But what was the

Thank you.

The important one. And so, ideally, we would not come to you at the end of the year with a balanced budget, ideally. However, it would be hopefully under the $15 million. And I say that because it is going to cost us to actually put investments in building. What we found is after the tornado, it cost about $300,000 just to move one school. And so we know there are going to be investments that have to happen. The $41 million right now does include contingency monies. And so we're keeping our fingers crossed that nothing too severe happens in the district and that we can rely on some of those contingency funds. But we know that we're not going to be able to come with a balanced budget. We also see with the models over the next five to ten years that we're going to save upwards of over $300 million. And so the balanced budget projections will come within the next two to three years. But you're right, the models as they're looking right now takes us about less than needing $30 million below the $41 million, but it does not get us to a balanced budget. So thank you for pointing that out.

I had questions about a couple of specific schools, if that's okay. Of course. My thinking here is just a sort of help us understand how you and your cabinet are thinking through some of these decisions with a couple of specific examples. And feel free to say those are bad examples. But one is Laclede and the other is Dunbar. And so with Laclede, it's the closest elementary school for 506 students, which is, I think it's out of all the schools, for elementary schools, that's second on the list in terms of proximity to students. but it's slated for closure. And I have some guesses about like maybe why that would be, but I was wondering if you could, kind of walk us through that again, just as an example of one out of 62 schools.

Yeah. And so the harsh reality, like board member Jones said, when you're looking at neighborhoods and deciding what's happening in the neighborhood and the growth of the neighborhood, um, when we're looking at various schools that we were talking about, we're looking at, um, I think Hamilton was on the list and then we're talking about bringing up Mitchell. And then I think one of the next closest schools, just trying to think in proximity, um, we had, uh, maybe Hickey right around there, a few other schools. a few other schools that may have set right in that area. But when you are looking at from various areas where we're saying these schools are not gonna close and we're gonna send children to a particular school, we have to ask ourselves in reality, will every parent in the way that the neighborhood is right now, will every parent send their child to that particular school? It is unfortunate, it is deplorable. But that's a hard reality that we have to ask ourselves. And so I think we're going to be faced with some of these questions and realities when we do present the methodology. And we don't want to come across as saying, this neighborhood is not a good neighborhood. I worked at Lexington. I love that area. But we're asking ourselves, would every parent send their child to that school? Also, the Cleve has some great things happening with the community aspects for us, the community garden. And there are a lot of things that the community needs as resources that could be available in that school. But until we, when I say we, I mean like the city, until we figure out how to make every city, every neighborhood a neighborhood that's welcoming, where everyone wants to stay, those are questions that we have to ask ourselves in these decisions.

Thank you. And just one last question is about Dunbar. Dunbar has been gutted by thieves. It doesn't have a boiler right now. But it's slated for reopening in all three models, while Carver, which is half a mile from Dunbar, and Columbia, which is 0.7 miles from Dunbar, are closing. And so it seems on the surface like it would be less disruptive and more cost effective to continue using Carver or Columbia rather than Dunbar. And I'd like to hear about that. I'm guessing that this relates to the concept of a community campus. And I'd just like to hear you sort of expound on that.

you're exactly right and so again that's not one of those quantitative pieces of data we heard loud and clear from the various board meetings where we had Community Members come out and say that they wanted a Community meeting cons I mean Community concept Community campus and so with the Sean right there and the potential whatever we decide of the makeup of Blewett and then being able to have you have the Harrison Center. which is for our students that are going to get their dual credits and they're getting college credits. So having that community campus right there and so Dunbar being at the center of that and bringing that feel was the rationale of reopening Dunbar, so yes.

Can I pick up the thread where you ended, Dr. Berry, around to Vice President Marsden's comment on the school and community conditions? Because one of the issues it seems to create for me as I assess these is the plan is almost equity in one direction. because if our gifted and specialized schools are not on the table as an equal part of this discussion, like we're kind of using this language, like what phase do they come in and do they make the phase or not? That's like one directional equity. And I take great issue with that, particularly because again, just using the thread of where you just closed, will every family send their child to X? Answers, no. But would every family want to send their child to a specialized gifted school? Sure, potentially, highly likely. And so I guess I would love to hear like, we opened, I remember hearing early on, like everything was on the table. And now we're like days from August and everything is actually not on the table. And I would love to hear like, why not? And how do we get it on the table if this plan is actually about equity? Or I'd invite us, and you probably know my point of view on this, but at this point, I'd invite us to actually not use the word equity and just lay that down when we talk about this plan and just talk about it as a consolidation plan. Because right now, it is not bilateral equity.

Yeah, no, thank you. And what you're saying is absolutely correct. Um, I, I want to say in the beginning, we did say everything on the table and what we meant is that we wanted to provide a plan that we thought everyone could stand behind and just being fully transparent. We did not feel like the community would stand behind. us looking at our gifted schools right now in the way that we are trying to move in this direction. I think it was very eye-opening, one, to hear parents actually say that to us, and then two, to have the parent that stood up and talked about, like, hey, you're talking about magnet schools and how they are not equitable, but look at the gifted program, right? That conversation, and I said to the team, we really need to have a serious talk about what does it mean to proceed with that. And so to your point, it should be on the table now. And I think that we now are ready to move forward. But to move forward of what that looks like, I don't have an answer right now. But you're absolutely correct. If we're going to talk about it, if we're going to do it, we need to talk about it, and we need to do it.

Then can I ask that whatever comes to the board at the big presentation, that there is just a clear point of view. Wherever you land, you land. But I would love to hear it like 10 toes down with a rationale and not just it didn't make the phase. Why?

Absolutely. I smile because I tell Dr. Henning all the time, you know, we're 10 toes down. So to hear you say that, it just, it brings back memories. So thank you.

Can I piggyback for a second? Jones had a light on and then Rebecca Hubbard.

Okay.

Yes, my question would be around, you talked about doing a survey of our youth, of the the young people that are actually going to be the customers. So I'm hoping that you will do a YouTube or reach out to them even further. We have 17,000 students. I'm not sure if we're going to be paying attention to the pre-K up to, I know, high schoolers and middle schoolers. But I think it's going to really be important to really ask the students how they feel about their schools, how they feel about their teachers. What do they want? What does their future look like to them? And because we have all the grown-ups talking, but I really want to hear the babies talk. And another thing is the employees, the frontline workers, the teachers. I really want to understand. I don't want to really hear the, uh, principals are important to me and I want to know what the principals feel and cause they're in charge of a school and their views are very important, but the teachers are right there in the classroom and they get the brunt of what's going on because right now in the city of St. Louis, we're currently under gentrification. And I just want, this is clear to me, as a resident of the city of St. Louis, this is not a joke. We're not including the city of St. Louis when they talk about the future plans five years down, and then we're gonna need this and our buildings will continue to deteriorate. This has been since 1947, the Team Four plan, this has always been the plan. And so our students and our homes and our families are suffering quite severely So I'm just really hoping that, uh, the five year plan that we're looking at, that we will really ask the city of St Louis to come in and help us with the housing because we have homes I'm going to go to it again, in the neighborhood, that could be revitalized. If it was on the south side, if it's two bricks laying together, they're going to put them together. Look at Suloy Market. But when you come to North St. Louis, you have a building like Stowe. We've been asking to even reduce the price. Come in and do something with us. Help us. Help us. So that's important right now. So I just wanted to say that because we need help and not people coming in wanting a free for all and just want to throw $0.05 at the building and say, oh, your building is no good anyway. We can't think of anything. Help us create a viable place. Just say, for instance, like agriculture. With the food crisis going on right now, we have a building. We talked about Walnut Park becoming a school of agriculture. My goodness, what we couldn't do with that building to create viable food production and teach our students in an area that is a food desert instead of relying on some food coming from Mexico. No offense to Mexico, but I really want to teach our students self-sufficiency. So we have property right now that people in Jefferson City and legislators and People, politicians that don't really care about our students want to hurry up and they want you to give them a property away. People are coming in and stealing and destroying our buildings on purpose so they can come and buy it for nothing. So I'm just asking to please consider all those things when you're developing this plan. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am, and thank you. You're absolutely right. Thanks for bringing that up. We did say we're also going to survey the staff, so I appreciate that. And I just want to put a plug in. I know we keep saying we have 300 vacancies, but we could not get through the year without our allies. And so we are very thankful for the allies that have stayed and have supported us. And so I don't want this to make them feel or believe that we don't value or appreciate them. But we are asking them to make sure that they are going back. We pay for it to go back to school. This is really your passion. So you can become certified and get the training you need for our students. But thank you, Ms. Jones.

I'm going to go back to Dr. Harvey. I have talked to so many people since I found out that there was a gifted program. And they're... is a fatalism about it people say oh they'll never do this um but who is the they because i have not asked my board members um what their opinion is on this but it only takes four votes and if you know that something is wrong you can say maybe we should change this without having that fatalism because the they is us. And I know that we want equity for every child. And we want that to be part of going forward, like Dr. Harvey is saying. So I just want to throw that out there to the community. There's no need to be fatalistic about that. You can tell us what you think. We'll listen. Thank you.

member foster um i wanted to wait till kind of the end of the discussion to share my questions plainly is the board and the community being asked to get behind one of the three models that are that's being proposed by the district and leadership or is there room for a model d that comes down in a few weeks to the board

yeah so ideally we are going to present a recommendation for one of the models they'll look different than what they are but we'll present that and then of course we will have conversations to say even because we'll present to the community this final proposal and i'm sure more conversations will come up and which will transfer to a model d so yes we'll present but absolutely we'll figure out what it takes to make that model configuration work for slps

Sweet. I love to hear that. The other three comments I have are more like not questions, but just commentary and considerations. Board Member Hubbard and Dr. Harvey also kind of touched on this. And I'm using this time to be personal, but I don't think that I can get behind the concept of a plan if we are not considering gifted program at all in any of the models. I'm just going to put that out there. I graduated in 2016. I love Metro dearly. I did AP and IB. But people that lived in my neighborhood and down the street from me did not have access to it at all. And it didn't seem like they were ever going to get access to it. So in good conscience and faith, I personally cannot look at or vote on a plan that does not include anything about gifted programming. My last two comments, you mentioned that staff will be getting cold. Principals have already looked at the models, gave their feedback. Are we considering any kind of surveying feedback sessions during our professional development that educators are coming back and are required to attend? If not, that could be an opportunity without sending an email. And then kind of same system for students. Like, we send out well-being surveys. We have access to student information systems. How are we getting the information to students who actually attend our buildings every single day? Emily talks about this all the time, We have a lot of like big grown up conversations in these board meetings and rarely do we ask, OK, what do our students think? So I'm excited and looking forward to the student council to come here and kind of talk about their opinions. I've talked to a lot of students day to day in the last, I would say, three weeks. And so I just really, really push us to do our best to ask our students what they want. and what they would prioritize.

Thank you for that, and I appreciate the transparency as well.

Just some things to consider for me. On the operations front, we spend a lot of time talking about bus routes. I'm curious to know if there's any increase in efficiencies or differences around food, support services, health, that are just not bus, bus, bus, bus, bus. And I get that that's a single cost driver that's massive. But we've not talked about any other student support service shifts. And I'm really curious to understand that. And also, we use almost every deck we've used has this concentration of resources phrase. Stronger schools and more support. And there's another quote, same number of teachers across fewer buildings. Some claim has to give somewhere. I said amongst a lot of families, who just don't believe that certificated staff number. Not that it's wrong. They just couldn't wrap their head around like every teacher will have a job almost equitably equally across these models. Does that mean like there are no staffing changes? Nothing? And that list at the back that had like the titles a good healthy portion of people around me read that as like uh a cloak i'm like how many and so i would need one of my like lines of analysis is like a very accurate detailed staff concentration plan um so that the claim can actually be backed in community And then to every point, I hope that we exceed disaggregated data around each model by category that is surveyed. So students versus principals. And then under that, whose voice are, whose voices are we privileging to drive the final recommendation? So if there is great diversity in variance, same as the other one, I would love to see, again, 10 toes down, whose voice you picked and why, and what does that say about the future? And then my last ask is we have said at every session, what is it, every five, three years, this will be assessed. What's the dashboard of assessment that a family can hold us accountable to? What are the look fors that are simple, and discoverable without doing a ton of deep diving recognizing that like some of the kids who are going to be on the on the underside of this decision will have graduated can we at least have a dashboard that salvages trust for families who have multiple children and will be in this thing for a while thank you yeah thank you so dr barry one of the things that i'm trying to

gathering all my notes that are in my little notebook here and lead the board so that this information does come back to the board when you and I meet when you meet with your leadership team I've also suggested that maybe some other board members would be interested small group we have lots of committees but we don't have a committee on specifically this that will work directly with a small group of your leadership team to be able to not lead those operational things that you just asked for, but you be certain that we get it in a manner that we can use and that our input stays live and our requests are heard. I do understand the pupil-teacher ratio issue and non-certified teachers haven't worked in those types of programs throughout my career. And I know it's difficult, but the one thing that I would say, and please, Dr. Berry, you have a leadership team here. Correct me if I'm wrong. When we provide, as a principal and as a director and as a CEO, when I had to run those operations, the larger the group of students in one particular environment allowed me then to be able to have a fully certified group and not have as many substitutes in all the other varying places. So it does increase the pupil teacher ratio in the classroom, but it allows you to provide a person of caliber in that room so that you're not spreading them all over the district and having to provide substitutes in the areas where we couldn't get a teacher because the ratio was so low. So in that particular case, the resource I see, we are giving a true story. I do have the only other concern, and I will work with your director over special education to determine whether or not we are able to move our students with special needs into environments that could be conducive to their learning to be able to write IEPs and the other program issues for them so that they get the services that they need. Related services, we talked about itinerant teachers. That becomes a big problem when we have students with special needs and IEPs all over the district. If we can combine them in certain areas, provide inclusive education, and then be able to get those services to them, we could actually increase what they need and get it to them on time. And that includes their transportation because tonight we're going to talk about some of the transportation needs and what we have to pay for our students that are homeless or have special needs, and we have to provide specialized transportation for them. If we come up with a really good plan in this model, we'll be able to service our students. So I know it's a lot of work and it's a lot of effort. I really appreciate it. Just judging from the questions that our board members have had tonight, we understand what you're doing. We understand what everyone seated here is doing. We just want to be able to make sound decisions by being a part of that decision and answer to the public who will circumvent you guys and come straight to us. They always do. But it's the truth. But we have to have good answers for them.

no um and i i hope that none of my responses came off as aggressive or abrasive i actually do receive it and appreciate it these are questions and like again you've been sitting in every session with me and so these are questions that one either you've heard or you actually have and it'll help us produce a better document that the public can stand behind so i am very i'm looking forward to having that smaller group So I think we can have these conversations on a smaller scale, but then also on a broader scale. So I appreciate today. I really do. And I'm going to take all of this back and see how we can start to work on this. So I thank you.

OK. My last question. No, no, no. It's not complicated at all. It's just a presentation question. Sorry. No, no. It's an accessibility question. Everything we've done has been in English. Every single thing we've done. So I just want to name that before a final thing comes, will the remaining percentage of our community who is not fluent in English or English as a primary language be able to access this to what degree, where, how?

Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I know, thank you, absolutely, yes, to the answer. Our first couple of meetings, we were moving, and Dr. Dino did, and her defense came to me and said, hey, we have not transcribed this or sent this out to our ESOL families, so we're gonna do a couple of things. We're going to actually have a meeting specifically for our ESOL families at the ESOL office, and yes, these documents will be provided in their native languages.

I would like also to have something in braille and large print for our students that are visually impaired. Dr. Dean, I'll tell you how we can do it.

Thank you.

That's a lot of questions. Are we ready to move on to the next portion of our... This is a work study. We're really working tonight. The next session of our agenda is our consent agenda.

Oh, you have one more? No, we all had all those questions. We have one more, I'm sorry.

Oh, I don't want to forget our facilities update, yes. Dr. Berry, you want to introduce? He did. Oh, Chief, you thought you got out of this one. No.

We have Chief Watson, and there's also a few of our partners that have come to present with Chief Watson, but he'll start about our facility updates that we have about a few of our buildings and the overall facilities.

Good evening to the board, Dr. Collins-Adams, the president, Vice President Marston, board members, superintendent of schools, Dr. Berry. So tonight we're going to provide some more data for our facilities capital plans. So I just kind of wanted just a few remarks just based on just some of the feedback that we received from the presentation that Dr. Berry shared. And although we do look at the data, we know that a lot of the recommendations go beyond the data. But with this particular presentation, we're going to dig a little deeper into some of the data, and we'll actually get the opportunity to see some of the dashboard that was provided by Cordigan Clark to help drive some of the decisions in our recommendations. So of course we begin with our strategic values. The through line represents just the operations. The ultimate goal for not only the decisions that we make, but the ultimate goal from the operations team is that we would like to, in the pursuit of reducing our operational costs so that those funds, those savings goes towards instructions, goes directly towards the students. The other thought when we talk about SLPS future ready, and this is the vision that Dr. Berry, Dr. Henning, the cabinet, and all of the SLPS staff share, is when we talk whether it's pre-K through, I think Dr. Henning, Dr. Berry coined it, from cradle to career. Cradle to career. That means that we will have students for the next 20 years. So we're planning for today for 20 years ahead of us. So SLPS Future Ready is a generational plan. So as we again go through our priorities, highlighting the operations where we will be able to create the safe and well-maintained, fully operational schools and learning environment so that we will be able to achieve the academic learning for all of our students. So this next slide speaks to our facility as a part of our facility master plan. Over the past few years, we've done a deep dive and this is nothing new in terms of the information, but this gives us some guidance or framework over the next five years of how we can prioritize the work with intentionality, with priorities. This will address some of the deficiencies that we have within the district we had 160 million dollar bond issue that we're currently working towards the end and this enabled the district to address some of the long overdue facility needs but that was just the beginning of the work this particular slide highlights over five years are over 430 million dollars worth of facility needs and that is inclusive of the $160 million bond issue that we are currently under. And these are not all of the categories. A point of emphasis that I just wanted to highlight when it comes to when we talk about SLP as future ready. Generally, and I'm using facilities and operations as an analogy, but we always start with an assessment. go in and assess to see what issues, what challenges that we have. The next piece is we develop and build an infrastructure. So when we talk about SFP as future ready and some of the models that have been presented, this speaks to setting the infrastructure and from the operations, my mind frame just in terms of how we think and one of the areas that we started with was transportation because transportation is the infrastructure of this system. When any city is built, it's the infrastructure, it's the design of the highways, it's the roads, it's the layout. So the infrastructure was the first, after we've done the assessment, and some of the categories that you see address some of the infrastructure needs throughout the district. Um, this particular bond, as I oftentimes say, was not, uh, a glorious, uh, cutesy bond issue. It addressed a lot of the, the infrastructure needs throughout the district that have been deferred for over 10 plus years. So with this particular information, and again, you see the 430 millions of dollars that will be spent in the current state of where we are within the district. So this next slide speaks to the $160 million from the current Prop S project or Prop S bond issue that's passed. And as you can see, a significant investment that addressed some of the deferred maintenance across our schools. It helped build some of our critical building systems that exceeded their expected life cycles. It improved some of our safety and the functionality of our facilities. This bond, it demonstrated our commitment and our promises that we kept to, that's gonna have the greatest impact on students and student learning. We've invested approximately $157 million, which also includes some of the professional services that's from our construction management firm, architectural firm, and our environmental team. This has helped to improve our facilities. So I definitely want to give a shout out to all of those firms, our partners that have undertaken this huge task. And as you can see just from some of the data, we spent over $54 million just improving some of our heating, our cooling, and our indoor air quality. More than 30 million went towards our building infrastructure, and these were projects such as our window replacements, roofing, tuck pointing, exterior doors. We spent more than 23 million modernizing some of our classrooms and some of our academic spaces, projects such as lighting upgrades, whiteboard replacement, painting, flexible seats. over 22 million or nearly 22 million for building enhancements. These are restroom upgrades, flooring repairs, auditoriums, which when we had those community sessions, three of the schools had auditorium upgrades, and we're currently working on gymnasium locker upgrades at Gateway STEM. The hazardous material abatement, over 15 or nearly 15 million to improve the health and safety. This included projects such as duct cleaning, abatement that's needed because most of our buildings have lead. So some lead removal is a priority, particularly before construction begins. and other safety and security needs improvements that we've invested over nearly nine million. That includes some of our fire alarm upgrades, our stair treads, and a lot of safety equipment, and enhancing our outdoor learning spaces. This next slide is just a chart, just the same information, just given a graphical representation of how the Prop S funds were invested. And again, building our systems and infrastructure was the primary Need for for this particular bond issue and not so much as the aesthetics So now comes the interactive part, and I think this will hopefully answer some of the questions that were asked in terms of where did this data come from? And before I turn it over to Cordigan Clark to actually show and demonstrate one of our newest features in this Power BI, this is a tool that will, I think some of the questions, I think Board Member Jones, when you asked about some of the maps, with this particular dashboard will allow, as you make changes, as you click on some schools, take away from others, it'll actually adjust and you get the opportunity to see the power of this interactive tool. And there were several matrix and other data points that are included when, not only when we look at this particular condition assessment, but in the facility master plan as a whole, And I think when we've had several of our real estate committee meetings, that information has been presented just to kind of share that this is one piece of the bigger and larger puzzle when we come to facility master plan, which we'll have before the board to the superintendent within the next few months. So as I begin to turn this over to our friends with Cortic and Clark, you'll get the opportunity to see live how some of this interactive dashboard works. But I'll pass it over to Cortic and Clark to give more information.

Chief Watson, thank you very much. President Colin Adams, Vice President Marston, Board, Dr. Berry. Thank you very much. My name is Steve Raskin with Courtney and Clark Edner. With me, I've got Miss Tiffany Dawkins and Mr. Tony Duncan. We've been privileged, our firm has been privileged to be working with St. Louis Public Schools for more than 100 years. As architects, we are in the business of creating quality learning environments to really support our students. But today we're talking about something a little bit different, which is about the planning process. And as I've shared with you over a period of time, we've really talked about that data gathering process. So, Ms. Tiffany, if you could switch us over, please. What we're sharing with you tonight is really the next step in that process, which is a data-driven analytics planning tool. This is a real-time, live, interactive tool, the purpose of which is really to provide a framework for the evaluation of key performance metrics. Now, this information is what you see right now is actually live. And really, it serves as a framework, as Dr. Berry and Chief Watson had mentioned, This provides the data, this provides the information by which many of those planning decisions are currently in the process of being made. This is not something that will make selections in terms of what schools may be open or may be closed, but rather provides a framework by which a purely data-driven analysis can be made and provide inputs. So this works in a couple of different ways. Step one is we're going to select the year by which we're going to evaluate our criteria. This is set up in such a way we've taken all of the demographic, the facility conditions assessment, the space capacity and utilization study, and we compiled it within the dashboards, which we shared with you earlier. And now we can set it up in such a way so that you can pick the year by which we want to adjust our framework. We also have the ability to adjust for student enrollments. For elementary, middle, and high school, we'll have the ability to make a selection. We have a benchmarking system for K-8, elementary, middle, and high schools. We've provided some frameworks, which are basically just numbers by which state of Missouri local schools, as well as DESE and the Council of Greater City Schools, provide some framework by which many of those schools have attendance areas. We also look at the facility condition index, and we've shared this with you before. The higher the value, typically above 30, that's generally bad. Those numbers that are 20 and lower are generally good. We'll have an opportunity to make those selections as well. We also talk a lot about capacity and utilization. This is where we start to look at what are the numbers by which we're going to be measuring this information for all of our individual schools. We have some benchmark information for elementary, middle, and high schools that can be selected individually. And of course, we have something called the override. There are many buildings within the school district which are unique. There are programs and facilities that cannot be replicated elsewhere, so the idea is, you can manually select specific facilities that will basically override many of the criteria that we've looked at today. So this is basically the framework, this is the cover page, so to speak, and this is the way we will be accessing this information. So now we look at our data-driven analysis criteria. So the first thing we'll do is I'll have Miss Tiffany go ahead and we will take a selection year. We'll go ahead and select year 2027. That'll be the 27-28 academic school year. We'll go ahead and make a selection for the minimum student enrollments for the elementary schools. And we can also do that for middles and highs. We'll also make a selection for the elementary middle and high school minimum building utilization. Basically the percentage of open classrooms and open seats we'll have in our buildings. And we'll also have overrides. We have the ability to take a look and select individual schools. Now while all this is happening, you'll see on the right hand side, those matrix and those visualizations are changing. So based upon the information that we have right now, Miss Tiffany is going to have to help me a little bit because I can't see all these screens. looking at approximately 30 schools on the top right which are schools that we have selected that meet or exceed those evaluation criteria so those key performance metrics that we have selected in real time now tell us a list of schools their zones their grade type we have a calculation in terms of the total number of schools we also have the ability to calculate The projected student enrollment. Those are not today year enrollments, but we've actually forecasted that data for school year 27 and 28. We also look at the facility condition index scores. And we also look at the utilization for each of those individual schools. An incredibly powerful tool that you can use in real time, we also show information for schools that do not meet that evaluation criteria. So as you can see, you can change the various KPMs on the left-hand side of the screen. And we can see how those schools will fit. Either they will meet or they will not meet those specific criteria. So we switch on to the next one. Given those same key performance measures that we talked about before, now we have a graphical map of the school district. This, again, is a data-driven analysis. These are not recommendations. This is the information that we provide to help provide information to the district as they go through that planning process. We've color-coded all of the dots. We have early childhood in yellow. We have elementary in blue, middle's a darker color, and high schools are in red. We have a larger matrix that identifies each of the schools. They were identified as part of that matrix. Those that meet or exceed those key performance metrics, school name, grade type, numbers. We also look at the building capacity. And those are numbers that we've identified through our capacity analysis. We also look at our projected student enrollment. Again, I mentioned that this is based upon year 27-28 academic school year. We will have the ability to change that and forecast that basically I think through year 30-34. We also look at our unused capacity. What that's telling us is how many open spaces are available as we start to plan for the future. So we have the capacity, we have the projected enrollment, but we also have a delta, which shows us how many spaces are available for students to be placed as part of this exercise. Now we go to the next page, which is our deferred maintenance. As Chief Watson mentioned early on, the district spends a significant amount of money in terms of their capital expenses. What this is identifying is at the very top, you're looking at the selection schools that do not meet that criteria. So this is a savings to the district as we go through this data-driven analysis. Those particular schools that were identified, we have 28 schools. We look at the five-year cost savings by not investing in those schools. This is the information that we've shared with the district. many times over about the capital improvements that are required. There's a five-year savings of $143 million and a 10-year cost savings of over $300 million. Those are dollars that can be reallocated toward other facilities and toward focusing on student-centered learning. Additionally, at the bottom, we have a separate visualization that identifies the schools that do not meet that evaluation criteria, but now we can look at them at an individual school-by-school basis. So, Ms. Dawkins, if you could just pick one of those schools. As we look at Hamilton, we look at the system type, whether it be plumbing, conveyance, which are basically elevators, building facades, equipment, fire protection, electrical, and so forth. Again, we look at the five-year and the 10-year cost savings. This is a very powerful tool for the planning process. These are not recommendations. This is basically a data-driven analysis, a real-time data tool that can be used by the district. This will also be made available for the community so that they can go through this analysis and provide full transparency. I think many members on the board have talked about the opportunity to provide some tools, some visualizations. The hope is that this particular iteration of the school pad dashboard will provide that level of transparency. This is also a measurable tool that could be used to provide quantitative data as the process moves forward. A lot of information in a short period of time, but I certainly opened up to any questions you might have.

Ms. Hubbard?

Thanks. Number one, how can we access it right now because I cannot see the screens clearly from here. Is there a link on the website already that we can click on?

It is almost available. What we'd like to do is there is one or two more steps we need to take before we can make it public. We have a that home page that kind of gives you a little bit of information But we've also committed to the district is doing a short video And we'll have that done the next day or two and we'll provide this information to the district and the expectations This will be live before the end of the week

OK, thank you. And my other question is, how did you choose the key performance metrics? I wasn't able to see all of them.

Oh, I'm sorry. So these key performance metrics are very much similar to what we talked about in previous. We're looking at school evaluation year. We're looking at minimum school enrollment, maximum facility condition index scores, and minimum building utilization scores. These are data driven. These are basically hard quantitative elements that we can look at. The district is looking at a wide variety of parameters in terms of this planning process. This is focusing on only those key pieces of hard data that we can analyze. This is the information that we gather through the facility conditions assessment, the demographic, the space capacity utilization studies. So those are the four key performance metrics that we focused on at this moment. Thanks.

So on slide eight of the presentation, and this is a question that's been asked before and Dr. Berry actually answered it earlier today. I'm asking again just to sort of surface it and make sure everybody's clear on this. But on slide eight, the pre-K through eight realignment costs are estimated at $115 million to $140 million. which includes the deferred maintenance costs. So the question is, what would we need to spend to get the buildings ready for Model C in August of 2027?

So, so what we have done to answer that question. And what you see on on this next slide is somewhat of what I will call a menu. So when we took the information from court again Clark in terms of the deferred maintenance. So we do have calls for each individual school and what Reconfigurations, alignment, realignments that are needed for each school, what this particular slide indicates is just the somewhat estimated cost. For example, if we wanted to turn some of our middle schools into a pre-K through eight, which means that we would have to reconfigure some of the restrooms at a playground, well, you can just see at a glance here what those prices, those potential costs Construction costs would likely be so with that example you see to the right where we have the restrooms that range for Just like a small restroom, which is like two fixtures maybe two to toilets or two urinals, it ranges between $125,000 to $145,000. When we look at playgrounds, particularly new playgrounds, whether it's for pre-K and or just for early childhood, that range for pre-K classrooms, I mean, for playgrounds is $150,000. $275,000. And this is basically new construction, new items. One of the benefits is if we are looking at potentially consolidating, we could also make use of the existing playgrounds, existing fixtures, and some of the existing parts, similar to what we've done before, and actually transfer those over to the new location, which will potentially be a cost savings.

Is there sort of a total cost estimate if we were to go with Model C for what it would take to get those pre-K through 8 buildings ready?

We're currently working on that information. We'll provide that information to Dr. Berry, and she will share it out to the board.

Thank you. Ms. Foster?

Yeah. I'm curious what our response is as a district to families and taxpayers, those who may not have kids in SLPS, when they ask what will happen to buildings that we've invested so many profits dollars in that are slated to close in two years under Model A, B, or C.

That definitely is a question that we anticipated when we approached this bond issue. We were really strategic around and really intentional of what projects that we put in each school. So we made some investments to some schools that are potentially on the list. And again, we'll provide that information to Dr. Berry to share out with you all as board members and to the community in terms of being transparent. um with some of the recommendations that we made for repurposing a lot of those recommendations were based on the investments that we put into those facilities so for example i'll use wall bridge wall bridge where we actually have renovated restrooms and we've invested quite a bit into that facility but the recommendation is to turn that into a community hub so this would benefit the community some of the other enhancements improvements that we did at a lot of our facilities and this is from the beginning, they were to address the infrastructure, so roof and exterior doors, our envelope, and what that would ultimately do if the decision is made from the board through our real estate committee was that it would at least give us fair market value for our properties, whereas now, I think as board member Jones Vice President Morris didn't know we were actually trying to reduce some of our pricing for some of our surplus sites because they're not in the proper condition. So these investments were strategic because we wanted to at least address the infrastructure piece so that whatever decision is made, whether it's repurposing, selling, et cetera, et cetera, it would either make it more marketable and or it would provide a good start as a resource hub for any future repurposing.

Sorry, one last comment. If that wasn't clear by my question, I highly, highly encourage that piece be a part of the methodology that board member Harvey requested. Because it is a question that we keep hearing. Why do we spend so much money on a school building if it's slated to close in one, two, three models? But if that's the idea behind it, I think more community members could get behind the idea. Thanks.

Certainly. Thank you. And there is one additional presentation. It's much shorter. Last one.

So just from a lot of the discussions around partners, I hear board member loud and clear, board member Jones loud and clear saying, well, who do we work with and what other agencies within the city can support the district? So tonight in our other presentation, this is our planning beyond demolition. So we have Mr. Jonathan Roper. He's the city planning executive for the planning and urban design uh, design agency, as well as our, uh, real estate director, uh, director Ms. Shamika Henry, uh, to provide some updates of our plans beyond demolition. So just to overview our vision and purpose, uh, our vision is to transform our former SLPS school sites into vibrant community assets that strengthen neighborhoods and create opportunities for future generations. Our purpose, our why is to present a collaborative redevelopment concepts that reimagine our former school sites after demolition and support the long term needs of the St. Louis City community. So why redevelop? Demolition is one of the first steps of transforming a former school site into a productive community asset. I think a lot of what's been asked and these are the lessons learned from previous decommissioning where and I've been this would potentially be my third round of decommissioning. learning each step. The first time, it was how to make sure that we properly decommission. The second time, meaning that we make sure that there's no water in the building so that we don't have pipe burst, that we have certain systems in place so that to keep the building integrity intact. The second was safety. I mean, as we learn once the minute that we even think about or mention anything about any consolidations, we get visitors unannounced visitors the next day, the next minute. So how do we make sure that our buildings are secure so that for any future potential, we still are able to keep the integrity of the building to keep a marketable. And now Where we are now is, what do we do with the buildings? And I think that's been the question that has been posed in a lot of these community forums. So we know how to decommission them properly. We know how to make sure that they're safe. And now the next step, and this is where we bring in some of our partners, in which, as Dr. Berry mentioned earlier, we've been meeting with St. Louis City agencies, such as SLDC, Planning and Urban Department, the Zoning Commission, preservation office, others from the mayor's office, almost on a biweekly basis. We now have a seat at the table where we are listening to some of the discussions and some of the plans. So although demolition has always been a last resort given the condition of some of our surplus schools, this is a means for us to have the opportunity to redesign and redevelop some of these spaces. The ultimate goal is to convert those vacant properties into vibrant spaces that will create lasting value, not only for the community, but for the neighbors, the students, and for future generations. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Roper. We have three sites that we now have contracts that we'll provide updates on. Mr. Roper will speak to Scullin School. I'll speak more about Hempstead and Director Henry will speak about Euclid site in conjunction with Mr. Roper. Mr. Roper.

Thank you Chief Watson and good evening. Good evening to the school board members. I'm Jonathan Roper with the City of St. Louis Planning and Urban Design Agency. and i have the pleasure of being planning for the best city in the world and with neighborhood planning uh the plan stl neighborhood planning program we work community members residents our neighbors our different assets and institutions and communities school boards and local schools to create a vision for the community a plan and work together to bring that to fruition This program actually started in 2024 with the Vail Greater Vail Kingsway East which we adopted that plan last December and we're going to do all the 79 neighborhoods throughout the city of St. Louis. One of the items that come up that always comes up are let's make a high quality learning environment not just at the school but the areas around the school. and everything that contributes to that environment there. So with this we're not just looking at a school but a neighborhood that supports the school and that environment. So I'll just before getting into these particular schools I'll just note That the city of St. Louis, we have new relationships, new partnerships that we are working proudly with you guys. And from the decommissioning of schools to the schools that we want to sustain, they all carry different weights, but are very important to our communities. So with neighborhood planning, we look at... to say St. Louis is the best place in the world because we have the best people but also world class assets and a lot of our neighborhoods are five minutes away 10 minutes away from all these assets. Your schools are 10 minutes away from downtown, Forest Park, Botanical Gardens, hospitals, Cortex, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, one of the city's biggest investments in years. So what we'd like to do is to look at this on a neighborhood level and see where we can collaborate together in this ecosystem and grow. Because you don't need to actually leave the city of St. Louis to have a great education and to go to go to a university or a trade school and get a job and stay and retire here. So that starts, though, with looking at what we have in place and where we can build off on. And two of the schools that we're actually looking at tonight, Euclid and Scolin, are within a certain focus area. I'll just take you on a quick journey to look at. So starting with some of our world class assets that we have Cortex the BJC Wash U Medical and Forest Park SLU Wash U BJC. All that is within a couple of minutes of a number of your schools. so at that and looking at a real project we take uh just going north um up euclid you have a lot of restaurants and uh just services you take it up to fountain park with the martin luther king statue what we want to do is for one to invest in that park to make it more valuable to the people who live around it. Also just two minutes walking from that park is Washington Montessori School and on the left side of that is Euclid School. And so we look at that opportunity to say with the school being where it's at near the hospitals near the park. Also I'll note if you go to east of Fountain Park and Washington Montessori You hit rankin and mx tl which is advanced manufacturing for the city, and if you go to the right arm sorry you go to the west of fountain park and euclid you reach sold in high school along the hold them on tracks the greenway there so that's another investment that we want to. pull these things all together in an ecosystem. If we keep going north down Euclid, you eventually hit MLK, Dr. Arthur's King, you hit Page, you hit their Urban League headquarters, Sherman Park, you keep going north of that, you hit... Hickey school and you hit that wc handy park you keep going north of that and eventually you hit one of the biggest assets that we have that's growing and being it's like a diamond it's being found we're. brushing it off and we're seeing how really this this gym is it's called we call the play district that's around school and school. right next to it, you have Penrose park right next to that you have Matthew sticky boys and girls club and right next to that you have. City Academy also in Penrose Park you have the velodrome which is something that you don't you only have one throughout the state of Missouri and that's here and also outside of Chicago you really don't have any velodromes in the region so with this we really want to make we call the play district but the Penrose learning athletics and youth district because we know how important our youth are and the not only the education but the healthy environment that they grow up in. So with this we have this is looking at what could be a future of the school and school site where we have the Catherine Johnson. This is all the outdoor classroom experience where you have science, technology, agriculture, In a place also just overlooking Penrose park and also Penrose park needs a little bit of investment to so we recognize it's not just school and school site but it's the areas around that and how you get to it as well. And so, with this we're looking at different partnerships to make this possible also as chief Watson mentioned the number of other agencies that were working with. We want to make not only the ideas of this, so going with how to make this possible, who to bring in, what are the opportunities? SLDC, the St. Louis Development Corporation, does have a grant writer. So we want, and I actually met with her about this particular site, and she was very excited because she saw it as, wow, we can do the gardening, we can do the I mean the Missouri temple gardens let's talk to them let's talk to a number of different partners to have to invest in a site and really make it into just the most awesome place it could be. It's cool. This is just more of that. So you could see the Katherine Johnson STEM lab. This is a three-tiered system, which, of course, a little bit of AI is fun. But we want to see, really, we want to draw out these concepts and see, all right, what works, what doesn't, and what we can update. And maybe some partners really love these ideas, or they have something to throw in there too. So we want to consider that, but really bring these projects and ideas together. And that's just overlooking Penrose Park. So if you're up there, you'll get this new nice view of the nice new Penrose Park investments. And also, this is one of the biggest entrances to the city on Kings Highway, very busy off Highway 70. So when people enter St. Louis, as was mentioned earlier, when you welcome parents into your schools, that's a big decision. My kid's not going to that school. What does that other school have around it that really betters Well, for one, makes me feel like my kid is safe in that school. We want to reduce all the vacancies around any school that we have. And then after that, we also want to do it around the parks too. And connected to because we know parks and schools go together and we want to then put some activities around it to dining you know parents need coffee in the morning. The teachers need lunch and also they might. I mean they a lot of times have daily needs that they might also hang out a run to the store my students need something so we need these we need these assets nearby the schools and that's what we're planning to do and. It's just mentioning the concept of the Penrose Greenway, just because it connects Forest Park to Penrose Park. It's a little bit jazzed down from, I know, the Brookline Greenway just outside St. Louis University, Harris Stowe, the MLS soccer stadium. It wouldn't be that beautiful, but it's the connection that we would have. And so we would connect a number of the schools and our assets along this intentionally, along with housing as well.

So the other side, Hempstead, where we're looking at our electric vehicle depot. So Hempstead, in terms of the condition, is that building is pretty much demolished. Half the building is there just from over the years of just whether it's storms, rain, the elements, but the idea that Hempstead, and we met with the alder person in that particular ward and got the blessings from the alder person, Now some of our next steps as we start to develop this space is get the community involved, have some community engagement sessions just so that they know, put some signage out so they can see the potential, what that space will look like. also provide some opportunities, at least for the community, where we have some charging stations, and we've had some internal conversations around the number of charging stations, not only for the buses, but also for the community. And this is also an opportunity for some of the people within the community as work. It's an opportunity for them to learn some of the new features when it comes to electric vehicles. There will be a need for mechanics. There will be a need for other specialized areas when it comes to the electric vehicles. So some of the community benefits, and you can kind of see the highlights, and ultimately by going electric by electrifying our fleet will ultimately ultimately reduce the carbon in the air so it's an air quality issue as some of the initiatives around uh air quality will will actually be um in line and aligned with with some of those those future plans In terms of where we are, we actually have a, we finalized in the contract, we have two particular grants. One is with Highland where we were looking to get 30 electric vehicles as we start finalizing some of those touch points. Mainly that Highland will provide the vehicles, help with the infrastructure. And then we also have another grant with our current provider, our transportation provider with Zoom. And again, that would be for another additional 30 vehicles. So both of those combined will at least put some excitement around transportation where we typically would, you know, the yellow bus, now we're kind of improving as i've even seen around the city with um the metro the the electric buses that they have and they are quiet so we want to also get our students the opportunity to ride in new and improved electric vehicles now turn over to director henry for euclid

Thank you, Chief Watson. So I'm gonna get on to our next slide. I'm gonna get into some of the, nuances of this outdoor learning space on the next slide. But some of the potential features of the outdoor learning space that we're proposing at Euclid are outdoor classrooms, nature and science exploration, a STEM discovery zone, school gardens, community wellness, arts and culture. And then, of course, our values are going to be safety and accessibility. And you can see from the rendering a little bit of what our idea was at the Euclid site. So this site has the opportunity to become an outdoor learning campus that extends beyond the education in the classroom. It's located across from Washington Montessori, and it can serve as a living laboratory where students can explore science, nature, agriculture, and wellness through hands-on experiences. All of our partners have joined forces with us to make this happen at the Euclid site.

And another additional point for Euclid, and this was shared before, where to get the student voice and to be able to hear exactly what the students wanted. When we actually went to one of the classrooms at Washington Montessori, and I just have a few of the the artwork that the students displayed, where the students, and this was a third grade class that we actually were able to visit, but the students were really, really, really, really wanting to have just a space to play, grass. And they have some of the visuals, a lot of the students, and some of the conversations that I've even had with some of the support staff at Washington Montessori, one of the biggest areas that the nurses somewhat talked about was the number of students that have injuries because the asphalt, when they go out and play at Washington Montessori, they can only play on the concrete. So to have this proposal, again, working with our partners with the city, would definitely help students and encourage students to for outdoor play for outdoor activity when the students and based on the student voices they just want to be able to go out and play on grass be able to enjoy as one of the other letters that they wrote just to be able to go out and One of them said, I want fake grass. I thought that was nice. And the other one says, I just want a water garden. And they have pictures of just flowers and plants and tomatoes in the shed. So some of the benefits that not only just for the community, but they will also help support students and the educational at Washington Montessori.

So with these schools that you see there's a lot of opportunity we just need to really take a step back and think deeply about what's around it what are the opportunities that we have to tap into this because when I look at something like this or those three poster boards that you see over there not that can't be put anywhere but it can be put anywhere in a number of schools under the right conditions. That fits Solon School. That also fits Euclid School and giving kids more outdoor space too. We have a number of different ideas for a number of these schools. It could be and how to get there too. So it's not just SLPS and just you're not on your own entertaining developers and rehabbers. But we want to think about this and actually bring in partners to say OK if we do this For one, some investors want to know their return on investment, and it's different from a number of people. So for one, some people, if it results in bringing a thousand more families, then some people will jump at that. Versus if it brings, if you raise a site and it brings a business opportunity, other people will jump at that too. so we want to explore these different thoughts and how to get there but also what's important is to support housing with these so some of these sites could potentially be housing uh because more housing is needed i will note though that we are in desperate need of three to four uh bedrooms because we have a lot of families that to support st louis has Some of the not only the state's most single family, not single family, one bedroom units, but probably even the country. It's just because how old their houses are and two bedroom, one bedroom in the city of St. Louis versus three, four, five bedrooms and even five car, four car garages in the county. So we are looking to compete. I think we are in a great place to compete because none of the other municipalities out there have the best parks in the world or the best hospitals or the best entertainment or the best institutions in the world. We also have the Missouri Institute for the Blind and the Institute, so Missouri Botanical Garden. That's Missouri Botanical Garden. So we have some of these best items. Anywhere that your kids are in the city, you can get, without traffic, you can get 20 minutes to downtown. Anywhere in the city. You can't say that throughout anywhere else in the county for what we have here, but we are missing the opportunity of having those really high quality learning environments where you have the housing that you want to have. So we are looking to be more competitive at that. part of this neighborhood plan tornado recovery and the investments that we have is to increase the housing of the population increase our housing units so that's one of those items that we now one of the questions for this transition to consolidation is where is housing going to go and where is it going first and how long is it going to take when can we expect to get you know Dr. Berry had the population of 860, 50,000 in the 1940s and then went down to now we're at 270 or so. So we're trying to say that's the bottom and now we're going up. So as we look at that, we're looking at how does that work and how do we do that? Where are areas of strength? I mentioned the Penrose and that Euclid coming out of the hospitals because I'll just know that is a strong point that we can probably more easily build more housing around. Then in other areas, we look at it. If it's more difficult, more challenging, we don't stop at not building. We just want to look at what do we need to do to make this happen. So some areas might take 10 years. Others might take five. But let's consider both of those and prep ourselves to make sure we can do both at the same time. If it takes 10 years, we'll wait. But we also have to put those steps in place. And that's what we're doing today.

Thank you.

So this more or less concludes the presentation and the objective again was to show the partnership with the city of St. Louis. Definitely want to appreciate Mr. Roper, Director Henry for just being diligent in his space. and a lot of what you heard just in terms of our plan or the plans from the city isn't aligned with slps future ready so some of the recommendations when we talk about repurposing um and any of those um the schools that were listed i think on the back of page 17 or 16 in the document It was because we had these conversations with SLDC, with the Planning and Urban Department. We listened to what's being said, and we're planning again for the next 20 years, taking the increments at a time, whether it's 5, 10, 15, and 20. But we're looking and we're planning strategically because we also have this information by working with our partners within the city. So we open up for any questions.

Are there any additional questions?

I don't have a question. I just want to thank you. I really do. To Ms. Henry, Mr. Roper, and Mr. Watson. It took a long time to get that bus depot going. And I think it started like three or four years ago. It's been a long time coming, but I really love the idea of how you're going to repurpose these various areas and how you're working together. This is exactly what we need, and I just want to thank you so much, and our young people deserve these kind of facilities, so thank you.

So in imagining a recreation district in the area around Scullin and the different activities that could take place there, I just want to note that the Penrose Park Velodrome is a fun place to skateboard. So I include that in the list of activities for the area. And then the area around Euclid School, there are 10 contiguous vacant lots immediately adjacent to the north side of Washington Montessori. two of them are already owned by slps and eight are owned by the city so instead of spending 1.4 million dollars to demolish euclid school to create a vacant lot as a starting point for an outdoor learning campus the district could use lots that are already vacant of course that leaves open the question of what to do with euclid school which probably needs about 10 million dollars worth of work to to bring it back into use

Maybe that was just a comment rather than a question, but that's where we'd want to think about it. So I'll just give you, for example, there's this thing called ARCH grants out there that they started with $50,000 to give businesses. They competed in a competition. They gave businesses to relocate here and actually a facility at T-Rex on Washington Avenue. And they've been doing that for over 10 years now, and they even up the award. Why can't we do something like that in Northside? Take a school building and call it Lou Grants and give the same amount of money. And these businesses that come in now, they would also if it's across from, let's say, Washington, Missouri, it's our future. The kids looking at the future that they could have being scientists and innovator or something to that effect right next door, while also having those vacant lots as so you won't scrape your knee on asphalt as you were saying or even building more housing because we definitely need housing but then maybe looking at how could we utilize the fountain park just south of there a little bit more better and those connections to make a safe route to school too so there's a lot of ideas coming together and we have to think about that not in a silo but what can we do with lra property and what can we do with other properties that exist and what's the advantage that we have so thank you for those comments

Thank you both. That's Board Member Harvey.

Two questions, not for tonight. Whenever you come back, it's fine. One, curious, the deck talks about creating lasting value, et cetera, and around future generations. But I'm really curious around our land control strategy. So as the sites appreciate, What's the pathway forward? Some notes for me is like, are we thinking about like district retaining the title? Are there community benefit restriction plans or CBA agreements? Are there trust reversions, et cetera? So would love to hear the mechanism that supports the vision statement. And then the second part, I'm just really, I'd love to understand like the real financing pathways. The menu was, Lovely, and I love the plans and they're really, really beautiful to see. And given the fact that from some rough numbers, the majority black tracks with the current vacant acreage in the city is about nine times majority white tracks and the LRA having like 12,000 vacant parcels. What all of a sudden makes this the right? This is the right development site when the city has overlooked the 12,000 tracks already available to do these same projects. Um, so I'm just curious around like, is there some special financing or magic sauce that I'm missing that is now making this compelling to the city when it's made a very intentional decision to ignore these tracks for the last umpteen mayoral terms. So that's my two to come back. Thank you.

But we will, we definitely take notes and we'll provide that information to Dr. Berry.

I think the big portion of what you just said and what we're all thinking about is it's about time. Let's do something now. I'm serious because we've had individuals and groups ignore us for a very long time so if we didn't do it in the past that's the past and on this is wonderful just understand that with this board when you make a promise we will follow through on and follow up and start asking questions and we're like the kid that gets in the car five minutes after the road trip begins i'll be there now i'll be there now are we there now okay just so you'll know Thank you very much and we really appreciate all the hard work that went into this.

That concludes us and I do want to say thank you too for Corrigan Clark and Mr. Roper. They have been great partners and we're going to keep pushing forward, but that concludes the superintendent's presentations.

she's so glad to say that right now it's just like whoo all right so we now move to the next section of our agenda and that is our consent agenda which is invite excuse me divided into uh areas academics finance and uh communications i don't believe there's anything else we have 5.1 through 5.32 and if we take academics 5.1 through

5.16 is there a motion on the floor yeah i um i guess i'll say i i don't have any to pull out of the consent agenda and add to items for action but i did have some questions or comments about some of the items between 5.1 and 5.16 yes um so I like to pull out some of the bigger dollar ones just to sort of highlight them. And so one of those is 5.3, which is for teacher coaching related to the 95% group curriculum. That's a $1.2 million coaching contract. And then 5.9 and 5.10 are yeah no academics uh i'm sorry five point one through five point i'm sorry my notebook 5.5 oh 5.5 yes i'm sorry that's it that's good yep that's my only one on academics so is there a question about the 1.2 million no i just wanted to point out that that's you know a large contract um and um so i'll be mentioning the other large contracts when we get to them

I do have a question that is for intense training for all of our individuals for the 95% program, right?

Yeah, I was just if you could walk us through some of like, what the training consists of. I'm having a hard time wrap my mind around $1 million of coaching and PD when we already paid for the curriculum and support.

Certainly, so it, this is a request to spend up to that amount, it does not mean that we will necessarily spend. That amount each school who's in this list when they went through their comprehensive needs assessment for spending their title $1 and they looked at their own implementation list. year of ninety five percent. And as we looked at it as a district determined that having more onsite coaching days specifically for teachers would help them with their implementation to be able to do a better job for the students. And so all of this interest in having more coaching came up from the individual schools themselves. based on what they saw. And so the coaching cycles, as you can see, it's approximately $5,200 per day to have a coach come on site. They go into the classroom with the teacher, they observe, they provide feedback, they go back, they do some more planning, then they go back again. And in these individual schools, every teacher would be getting the coaching during these.

Every teacher will get an individual coach to come work with them as needed.

The coach comes to the school and then they will be working with all the teachers in that school during that day. Yes, thank you.

For the entire year?

Each day the coach is on site is $5,200 and so they recommend one coaching day per quarter and so it would generally be about three coaching days overall. As you know, any time you are doing something relatively new, implementation takes like three to five years to really get a hold. And so this is part of supporting teachers to be able to continue to do it. Next year, we do have new teachers in some of our schools who didn't get the training last year. So this is another way for them to get that training. And again, I wanna point out that each is a large dollar amount and it's each individual school who wants to spend either their Title I funds or their comprehensive discretionary funds on these coaching days.

I was just gonna add that it's coming out of the comprehensive funds and the Title funds which are allocated for this, but to the point of after the three years we are working with the singles education fund to see how can we, so 95% does not do the train-the-trainer model, but how can we, after these next three years, also have a certified trainer that's within our district that can then go out and do this?

From there. We'd like to be able to develop the capacity in-house and so that we have staff who can do this with teachers across the district. How long would it take you to do that?

so probably not the latter but it probably will take us about maybe three years we're having conversations now around the funding source we've identified that but now having a teacher who's actually trained and skilled enough to be able to provide this intensive training to other teachers so maybe on the low end we're looking at possibly two years but definitely not five and it's not something your instructional coaches would do No, ma'am.

Not at this time. Our instructional coaches, I would say, in general, are more generalists as opposed to this is really specific to science of reading and specifically the phonics. And so while our instructional coaches, many of them, all of them at the elementary level have the reading certification, it does not necessarily mean that their whole focus is able to be on the phonics specifically. Thank you.

Any additional questions on that?

Please.

Not questions for tonight, but you just opened a whole can for me around instructional coaches, the generalist approach, use of them, not being able to be these specialists, like taking a portion of these funds. It's like, let's take a couple of instructional coaches. intensely deep dive them that's not going to be anywhere near 1.2 so now i just have a lot of decision-making questions around like how we're using people how we measure capacity our long-term vision for them etc and that's the plan what you just said that's the plan there's when i say no meaning not not right now but why

Because it's a new program.

Not the 95%, but what we're saying overall in general, the better use of funding for what we're doing with our instructional coaches could be that we would utilize them differently. Am I reading that right, Dr. Harvey?

Yeah, we're totally on board with that. We're just saying in this very moment, they're not skilled enough to do what we need for the 95% intensive training. Got it.

For the 26, 27 academic year. Correct.

Right. And I'm wondering, can somebody, can a group, can a cohort go through in 26, 27 to be ready for 27, 28? But you're saying two years. And I'm trying to figure out why can't they be ready in a year if they're an instructional coach who's certified in literacy or reading? Science of reading, for sure.

So not to say that they couldn't. We're putting a lot into 95%, so I want to make sure they are, but we can certainly look to see what that timeline looks like. It's very intensive, and I'm sure there are some very astute coaches that could potentially be ready. I just don't know if that would be the wisest thing in this very moment, but we can certainly look to see what that looks like.

I hear you, Dr. Berry. I almost wonder, though, The entire night i've been thinking about every presentation contract that we're reviewing for the next board meeting. In terms of future ready. And i'm asking this to the cabinet would it behoove us to invest our dollars more intensely to a group. of instructional coaches. to support this work rather than allocating the funding to every single individual school on this list that we don't even as a board know will be open in two years.

So I want to clarify the schools, like the comprehensive schools, those funds are allocated to them by the state. We can't take those funds back from the school and do something for the whole district. And so and so for that specific component here, like we're using federal funds and we do have a requirement to do professional development with those with those federal funds for these specific schools. And I 100 percent get your point. Like we're sitting in this future ready space, right, where we don't know what our future looks like.

I think I think I think sitting in this future ready space, not knowing what the future look like looks like. and also being smart about our investments again we pay a healthy amount for the curriculum itself to get to our buildings i'm just not it's just not tracking for me why we would allocate all of the like per school

And to Dr. Daniels' point, every year these allocations would be allocated to the school. So maybe this year we're saying 95%, but next year will be something else for professional development because the state tells us what the certain things you can use them for. So we wouldn't be able to take the funds, the $1.1 million we're asking for right now, to develop AICs for every school. These are strictly allocated to the school for specific purposes.

And so we wouldn't identify strong AICs from a select amount of schools on this list to do a train the trainer model.

We are still going to do that internally to be able to utilize the resources for something else, but that something else will still be professional development. So it may not be 95% professional development. It may be a different idea or concept of curriculum, but it's still be utilized for that professional development because the state requires us to allocate funds for professional development.

Yeah, I want to make it clear. I'm not confused about the state allocating funding. I'm confused about how we're using that funding strategically for a list of buildings that we don't know will be open in two years. Or if we already have AICs, is there not a way that we can give an additional incentive to them? I don't know if I'm just not making sense. I just don't understand why we would spend $1 million. Thank you, Brian.

We're required to spend a certain dollar amount by the state anyway, regardless. So one of the things that we were asking was whether or not, as a part of this, would we be able to train instructional coaches? And you're saying yes, but not now.

Correct. I'm saying yes. They will not be ready to implement 95% for this year. And we will still utilize these funds every single year, so every single year we're going to come to you that we get these comprehensive dollars asking to utilize them.

And I guess the other thing I would say about training in schools that may or may not be open the teachers, all of these certified teachers will be teaching students somewhere in so PS, and so I do. believe that what we pour into them in terms of professional learning even if they may be at school a this year and next year at school see that they would be able to carry that with them to your which is part of the part of why we want to make sure that we have things district-wide i just want to make it clear too i'm not questioning or asking should we not invest in our educators in our classrooms regardless of what building they teach in

I'm just asking about how we're doing it, because this doesn't make sense. And the explanation that you just gave earlier in the presentation, it just didn't, it's not tracking for me.

So if you could share, the state requires all school districts to do a professional development plan, and we have to, well, you guys are no longer doing that anymore.

Respectfully, President Collins-Adams, I think you are also missing my point. Because that's not, I'm not worried about the allocation from the state. I know that the money is coming down from the state. I know we have to use it for specific reasons that we've identified. My question is, why is so much of the allocation going to training when we can train a select cohort? Dr. Berry has already answered it. they're just not ready this academic year, may not be ready the next academic year, but the goal is for them to be ready within five years or under, I would hope. I am just making a public comment That I take issue that we are already spending millions of dollars on the curriculum and how the curriculum gets into our classrooms physically and then, on top of that, this vendor is also asking for an additional million dollars for coaching and development. Which I think should have been a part of the contract initially and we should have negotiated that a little bit more smarter but. I just want to make that clear, because I don't think I'm being clear right now.

You are. I understand.

I'm about to forget my questions. No, your point was great. Is there licensing issues that make the whole training the trainer issue more difficult? They definitely don't license for train the trainer.

like some other companies do. And so, yes, we are working to increase the capacity of not just our instructional coaches, but our principals, so that when they go in and give feedback, because they participate in these rounds as well, and our classroom teachers, because we don't want to rely on outside trainers forever for any particular thing.

And then my other question. comment question is a lot of our local universities including slew where i'm studying um do not or have not made the state mandated transition into teaching science of reading when it comes to literacy which might be one of the reasons the aic's are not quite ready to go be teachers of it. If they've gone to letters and stuff, I'm sure they're more than capable. But that is a blind spot in our higher education space that continues to frustrate me.

Thank you.

My last comment, building on Board Member Foster's point, is I guess I just want to, not now, But given the 95%, I don't know what as well as you all do at all. But I'm pretty sure I was like, because their sweet spot is K-5, right? I know they have like the finance library and stuff for the older grades. I guess I'm just curious, like, are we really, are we expecting to see the same results from investing about 300,000 of this 1.2 with grade six and up? And I guess I'm just curious, like, for a program that has, like, made their song on K-5 phonics, putting a third of a million dollars behind upper grade training, a person pushing in, that's the part I'm just curious. That's not tracking to me.

So they do have other parts. I'll let Dr. Deno talk a little bit more about morphine magic and things that we've seen. And some of the pilots that we did were around that middle school concept. Now, this year will be a test, so we'll see when the data comes back for the schools that utilized it last year what that looks like. But there are other areas going up to the, I want to say, eighth grade that we're utilizing. Dr. Deno?

Yeah, so we have morphine magic and multisyllabic routine cards to hit at the pieces that are more i would say necessary for especially adolescent struggling readers because at the k-5 it's very much we have they have both a tier one which is for all students they have the tier two which is the additional these other pieces at the six through eight are really kind of inner i would say tier two materials we are asking because we know that as a system we did not teach phonics well to the students who are current sixth or eighth graders and so we are asking as a system that our In our English language arts courses they spend the 10 to 15 minutes per day doing this intensive work in morphe magic or the multi slavic cards to build to try to fill the holes that we created by not having had adequate supports for them to the beginning. And I hear your point about the cost and what kind of what the return on investment for that is.

yeah especially now return investment for like multi-syllabic cards and a person coming into the tune of five thousand dollars a day for tier two intervention for upper grades now it is really not mathing to me i was rolling with the logic ish then i we just took a massive left turn Because that is not tracking to me at all. And that we haven't talked to the person. Is that the highest and best use of dollars you have to spend to get a coach to observe and give you feedback on using cards for 10 to 15 minutes a day? Not tracking.

Thank you.

About 5.1 to 5.5 on academics. Carry the whole thing. Got it. That works.

Can I make a comment?

Sorry. Go ahead. Tiffany, or sorry, Ms. Vaughn, can you pull 5.3? to be voted on separately.

Got it. So do you want me to pull it and move it forward as an item for action for next meeting, or just vote on it separately tonight?

Separately tonight.

Got it.

We have additional questions.

Go ahead. I just want to know, Dr. Gino, this particular item, is it written in the school's comprehensive plans that we submitted to the state?

So all of the schools that submitted that they would like to be able to use their discretionary funds for this, for Title I or comprehensive, it was part of their comprehensive needs assessment. which becomes part of what we submitted at the end of June as their plan for what they're doing for this school year. And for our comprehensive schools specifically, those plans get approved by their DESE supervisors before we're able to spend funds. And so for all the schools that you see on the list that say they're using their comprehensive funds, those have been approved by our DESE supervisors and in fact encouraged specifically to get the support from 95. and are are we able to then um send a amendment to the plans if something has to change all of these things can so you submit all your information to DESE in June they're living documents and so we can we can resubmit at any time as schools go through their needs assessments over the course of the year. So that would be true for any expense that they wanted to spend. What they can't do is spend money on something that they didn't put into their comprehensive needs assessment without going back and changing the comprehensive needs assessment.

Understood, thank you.

Items 5.6 through

5.16 are items for communications any discussion or any items being pulled Board Member Marston?

A little discussion on 5.9 and 5.10. 5.9 is a three-year grant for before and after school programs at Carver. 5.10 is a five-year grant for before and after school programs at Walbridge. And my question is, if Carver and Walbridge close, what will happen to the grant funding after the first year? Does it sort of follow the program, or is it specific to the building? kind of a more general question again now that we're in this future ready period what happens with multi-year grant funding

Yes I can answer that question specifically because I asked that question prior to approving and so I think we also wrote it in one of the bars but the DESE will work with us to wherever those students go will work with us to create the grant or reconfigure the grant for a different school.

Then we have that would apply to any of our grants then through the Department of Ed. Yes ma'am. Any additional questions? For clarity, did we change the 5.3, Board Member Foster?

To be voted on separately as item for action in our next meeting. Okay, all right, thank you. Sorry, got a little confused.

Any additional polls from our communications section? All right, we move on to, Finance 5.17. Human Resources 5.18.

operations 5.19 through 5.23 there's some big numbers in there so i'll talk about those but um so on 5.19 uh it's uh new elevators for mckinley and roosevelt which i know will make some people very happy that's funded with prop s money uh 471 thousand dollars And there's an episode of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast that came out in May. It explains why elevators are so expensive in the US. So if you want to do a deep dive on elevators, I recommend you listen to that. For 5.20, it's specialized transportation for students in transition and students with IEPs. It's a $3.3 million contract with Everdriven and Via Transportation. That's over and above our large Zoom contract, sort of an auxiliary contract. I don't know if I have a question. to point out that there's you know we think of transportation is one of our largest expenses that came up earlier today also and the biggest piece of that is with zoom but then we also have this other contract for 3.3 million dollars I don't know if anybody wants to make a comment about that I have a question are we paying for this I mean these funds come through McKinney-Vento and through IDEA

They do, and Chief Watson can come on up. Last year, roughly, we did spend about $4 million, and so we are hoping that we're going to spend a lot less. We can tell you that even looking at these vendors, I know that Attorney Dutch did have a question, too, just to make sure that if these vendors are doing outsourcing or using third parties to make sure everything is done with fidelity and every I is dotted. But our hope is that we're now going to utilize not so much the Zoom transportation, but these smaller vendors, that it may also save us some money. along with we are now moving the transportation and the invoicing over to the transportation department to see if we can also make sure we have a better handle on what's going in and what's coming out. Chief Watson, have I missed anything?

I think you touched on it was initially housed in student support services and now it will go into transportation. A lot of what Dr. Berry highlighted to monitor costs because Just with the different vendors that we had, the costs were ranging from per student to multiple students, so this will allow for us to manage it with the transportation department, make sure that all of the compliance boxes are checked, and again, just for consistency with pricing, as that was one of the big hang-ups from McKinney being told how it was serviced prior to.

And then just also under operations, I just want to highlight there's three eight-figure contracts all funded by Prop S. There's 5.21 with Amoresco for $26.2 million. 5.22 is a roofing work for $25 million. And 5.23 is with Trane for $24.8 million. So again, that's all Prop S money, all survey the neighborhood of 25 million each.

Thank you, Board Member Marston. Student Support Services 5.24 through 5.29. Any discussion or pulling any items? OK. Technology 5.30. Through 5.32.

Yeah, there's a couple contracts above $1 million there too. One of them is 5.30 with Dell for $1 million. Again, that's in addition to our large Apple contract. So this is sort of for the things that Apple machines can't do. We've got another million for Dell. And then 5.31 is for TSI smart boards at $2 million.

Okay yeah just to clarify those are what we call blanket purchase orders and so the technology department takes the lead in making a blanket purchase order for schools for the entire district if they need to purchase anything under dell and. And that particular instance like the screens you see any smart boards things like that truthfully, we do not anticipate spending anywhere near that amount that just gives us a safe amount that we will never go over when as schools are putting in their purchase request in business plus on their own. they have to reference that particular board resolution number and the PO that's generated from that. Specifically, as Board Member Foster stated before, as we think about future ready, things like smart boards and screens were being really, really, really conscious about. Obviously, we don't want any disruptions to instruction, but we know as we make those big decisions, we should need so many smart boards, screens, things like that. The Dell also covers what's called Absolutes. And so those are the licensing similar to like Mosul for Apple. That's the MDM for the Dells. And then any replacement costs, things like chargers. So all of that falls under that blanket PO. It's not just we're guaranteed to spend that. That's just that cushion amount for the entire district.

Thank you. Any additional?

Move to carry consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.32 to the agenda for our next regular business meeting with the exception of 5.3, which will be moved to items for action at our next meeting.

Second.

Further discussion? Roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Morrison? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved. Items for discussion or items for information?

Board members?

Yeah. Sort of comment on 8.1, which is the rental chiller for Hickey Good news is that we the person who vandalized the chiller was caught and the rest was made and I'm hoping as the legal system works its way through the case that we might get some restitution from the person or just just something for the amount of damage they did.

How do you know this stuff? I mean, he does every little, you have to teach me how you do this. Tiny detail, thank you. When was the, nevermind, I'll give them more details. If there are no additional items for information or discussion, Board Member Harvey?

Actually, on the- All right, you sure, you good on the chiller? All right. On 8.3, which is for the restoration of 801, it's another one that I'll bring up because it's a $1.2 million price tag. And I wish it were for a building full of students rather than administrators, no offense. But you don't get to pick where your emergencies happen.

All right. Let's begin moving through our items for action. Item 8.1, rental chiller for Hickey Elementary School. All right.

I move to approve item for action 8.1, the rental chiller for Hickey Elementary School. Second.

Discussion? Roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes.

Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved. As board member Marston says, we do have emergencies. Item 8.2, emergency water main repair for Nottingham.

Move to approve item fraction 8.2. Second.

Discussion? Roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Yep. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

Item 8.3, emergency water intrusion restoration at the 801 building.

I move to approve item fraction 8.3. Second. Discussion?

Roll call.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Heitz? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

Item 8.4, authorization of community partners literacy. to authorize the district to enter in renewals for mlus at no cost programming for oasis south city webster university uh congregation temple israel st louis public library uh pb at nine pbs e that's the tutorial education initiative ready readers and story pirates change makers i move to approve item fraction 8.4

Second little little discussion discussion on each. No, no, this is a this is a blanket comment. Okay, thank you. All of the memoranda of understanding with all of our community partners. I just want to say we have a great roster of community partners. They all went through our MOU process and I thank them for their partnership and for doing all the paperwork they needed to do to work with us.

Thank you, Board Member Marston. Is there a motion on the floor? Is there a second?

Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Abstain. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adam? Yes. Motion approved.

Item 8.5, Community Partners College and Career Readiness Slate.

I move to approve item fraction 8.5. Second.

Discussion? Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey?

Yes.

Mr. Hikes?

Yes.

Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston?

Yes.

Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion to approve.

Item 8.7, authorization of community partners, college and career readiness.

I move to approve item for action 8.7. Second.

This includes, by the way, Life Bridge Partnership, Train Together, Credit Union, College Bound St. Louis, St. Louis University Educational Talent Search Program, Commerce Trust, Firefly Services, Missouri Goodwill Industry, Wyman Center, Show Me the World, we need to go back to 8.6 8.6 the literacy slate uh hope education 8.6 oh i'm sorry i skipped one yes community partners literacy slate for hope education the 2026-27 lit shop

I move to approve item for action 8.6. Second.

Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Ms. Hubbard. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Ms. Foster. Yes. Mr. Morrison. Yes. Dr. Collins-Adam. Yes. Motion approved.

Item 8.7, and I just inadvertently read the wrong one. So it's the Authorization of Community Partners College and Career Readiness.

I move to approve item for action 8.7. Second.

Call for vote.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

Item 8.8, community partners for STEM, Junior Achievement of Greater St. Louis, and SEED STL.

Move to approve item for action 8.8. Second.

Call for vote. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

item 8.9 community partners health and wellness includes design fc girl scouts of eastern missouri north side youth and senior service center youth friendly learning stl arts education uh craft alliance operator of st louis do you want to read all the yes food distribution st louis area food bank operation food search health services athena healthcare the ifm Community Medicine, CHADS, Coalition of Mental Health, that is very important, it covers suicide. Smile America Partnership Dental Safari Company. Resource Closets, National Council of Jewish Women, St. Louis. The Little Bit Foundation, National Charity League, Assistance League of St. Louis. Social-emotional programs include Girls in the Know, NAMI St. Louis, Prevent Ed, Better Family Life. incorporated conflict resolution center the oxygen project for other wellness urban league st louis b works special olympics missouri cyber up belfonte cemetery and arbitrary arbitral

I move to approve item fraction 8.9. Second.

Discussion?

I do have a little bit of discussion. Yeah. I just want to thank our executive assistant, Tiffany Bond, for this new format that we're using for our agenda, which groups all of these. community partnerships together and streamlines the process of voting on them and also categorizes the other items for action and the consent agenda items. It just makes things much easier to work with as a board member. So thank you.

When you look at this as a whole, you see the wraparound services that are provided for our students. This is absolutely amazing. And it touches on some very sensitive needs of our students. So thank you very much. Any further discussion? Call for a vote.

Dr. Harvey.

I have to stay.

Mr. Hikes. Yes. Ms. Hubbard. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Ms. Foster. Yes. Mr. Marston. Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams. Yes. Motion approved.

Item 810, authorization of community... Did I do this already?

No.

Again, community partners for STEM, and that includes Green St. Louis Machine, Missouri Department of Conservation, the Magic House, Young Scientist Program, Missouri Botanical Garden, Greenhouse Venture, Forest Park Forever, Gateways to Great Outdoors, Missouri Gateway Green Building Council, and St. Louis Zoo.

I move to approve item for action 8.10.

Second.

Discussion?

Call for vote.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

item 811 authorization of community partners health and wellness center for hearing and speech easter seals at easter seals the city of st louis department of health i thrive girls on the run st louis league of women voters metro st louis limp neighborhood arts association roosevelt high school community council st louis art st louis symphony orchestra Youth in need the curators of the Missouri University of Missouri on behalf of the University of Missouri st. Louis Unleashing potential Boys and Girls Club of Greater st. Louis med ed Med ed BJC school outreach and youth development University of Missouri PBS Center urban Street urban st. Louis K life arts Missouri Historical Society, Missouri History Museum, the Whitfield Foundation Success, Another World, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis Housing Authority, Dual Dogs, Dignity Period, Diamond Diva Empowerment Foundation, New Avenue Incorporated, American Lung Association in Missouri, Annie's Hope, the Center for Grieving Kids, BJK People's Health Centers for Behavioral Health, contemporary art museum st louis dance moves st louis dance st louis gateway region ymca gateway to oral health foundation international institute of st louis kids vision for st louis kids vision excuse me for life st louis Metro Theater Company, Monarch Immigrant Services, Music for All, Safe Connection, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Chess Club, St. Louis University School of Medicine, Scottish Partnership for Arts and Education, Springboard to Learning, St. Louis Children's Hospital, The Covering House, Scouting America, Greater St. Louis Area Scouting, Midas Family Foundation, Let Me Run, Archangels Foundation. These are all services that have provided great services for the students of St. Louis Public Schools.

I move to approve item for action 8.11.

Second discussion. I have a question for Aaron. If it would not take a lot of work could we also see these in a separate format that just lists which schools have which memorandums. That's a question for next time. But that would be really helpful to see which schools are working with which partners. Thanks.

It would be great if we get just a chart that Ms. Vaughn would actually be able to put up there and people could click on that link to see everything that's involved. Thank you. I appreciate it. Call for vote.

Sorry. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Ms. Hubbard. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Ms. Foster. Yes. Mr. Marston.

Yes.

Dr. Collins-Adams. Yes. Motion approved. Item 8.

MSBA Annual Conference, the 2026 Missouri School Board Association Annual Conference.

I move to approve item for action 8.12. Second.

Discussion?

Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. Motion approved.

And that is the end of our items for, I don't have, oh, I didn't have it in my printout, I'm sorry. At least it's not a long list to read. Item 8.13, Authorization of Community Partners, United Way, 100 Neediest, United Way Organization.

I move to approve item for action 8.13.

Second Discussion Remember, I want our families to get everything they need and this program feels so exploitative Especially when it's published in the paper that doesn't mean I'm not going to support it but I as Someone who's been at schools where they regularly offered the forms out it

feels terrible to receive one um there has to be a better way but i appreciate the effort into getting resources to families thank you very much call for vote dr harvey yes mr hikes yes miss hubbard yes miss jones yes miss foster yes mr marston yes dr collins adams yes emotional proof

And if it is the pleasure of the board, item nine would be our adjournment. Is there a motion on the floor?

Yes.

I move to adjourn to closed session pursuant to revised statutes of Missouri, section 610.021. Second.

Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Hikes? Yes. Ms. Hubbard? I guess so. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Foster? Yes. Mr. Morrison? Yes. Dr. Collins-Adams? Yes. We are adjourned back to closed session at 10.06 PM. Sorry.