St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our regular business session of May 12, 2026. Meeting is now called to order at 6:46 p.m. Dr. Harvey present. Mr. Heights present. Miss Hubard here. Miss Jones here. Miss Foster present. Mr. Marston, present. Dr. Collins Adams present. We have a quorum.

Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. We'll move now to our board norms.

St. Louis Board of Education norms adopted April 9th, 2019. Decision making. We believe our first priority and greatest concern is the education welfare of all students in St. Louis public schools. We align decisions, discussions, superintendent evaluations, district partnerships, budget allocations, etc. to the current transformation plan. We demonstrate respect for diversity of thoughts, backgrounds, and experiences, roles, and decisions once they have been made. We embrace healthy debates. We acknowledge board members with differing opinions during discourse in both open and closed sessions to gain clarity and engage in meaningful dialogues. Professionalism We demonstrate engagement by thoroughly reviewing the board packet and other documents, arriving on time to meetings and work sessions, remaining on topic during discussions, and respectfully interacting with each other, the superintendent, staff, and all stakeholders. We demonstrate respect for diversity of thoughts, backgrounds, and experiences, and roles. Communication. We demonstrate professionalism and respect for other board members, the superintendent and district staff by adhering to timelines and deadlines outlined in the workflow calendar and any other task as assigned. We conduct all official board related email communications using ours.org email accounts. We read and reply to all board emails within 72 hours. We conduct all official board related phone and text communications using districts issued phones. We check voicemail and return phone calls and texts within 72 hours. We are ambassadors in the community and as individual concerns or questions arise, we will seek to understand the information and gather pertinent facts in order to direct stakeholders and staff to contact appropriate district personnel. We channel concerns or requests for information through the board president who will direct those requests to the superintendent in an organized, concise

manner. We recognize the importance of proactive communication and agree there will be no surprises. The board president shall be the official spokesperson for the board. The superintendent shall be the spokesperson for the district. Board members who receive requests for board issue position shall direct the request to the board president or superintendent. Confidentiality. We respect and maintain the confidentiality of closed session items and the board's discussion on those items. We refrain from discussing confidential business in public with members of the press or with anyone else not privy to such information. If it is necessary to provide a statement to the public following a closed session, the board president and superintendent will agree on a unified response prior to making the statement.

Thank you, board member Foster. Um, I make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Roll call. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Hubard? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. Move to approve the minutes from our April 28th, 2026 work session. Is there a second? Second. Roll call. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Huard? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Foster?

Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. The spirit of excellence for St. Louis Public Schools. Dr. Barry.

Good evening. This time of the year, we are so excited as St. Louis public schools prepares to celebrate the class of 2026. We are proud to recognize Nathaniel Bombshell. He's a rising senior at Metro Academic and Classical High School for creating this year's graduation theme beyond boundaries. Selected through a district-wide vote by high school students across SLPS, the theme reflects the strength, resilience, and determination of our students. It is especially meaningful as graduations begin this Friday, May 15th, also my birthday, and continue through next Tuesday, marking not only a season of celebration, but also nearly one year since the devastating tornado that impacted our community. Beyond boundaries serves as a powerful reminder that even through challenges, our students continue to rise, preserve, and move boldly towards their future. Congratulations to all of our graduates and congratulations to Nathaniel Bal Shaw. Please stand up and come to the front. Come up here. Thank you. Thank you, Nathaniel. We appreciate you and we're so very proud of you. Next, this evening, we want to recognize 28 graduating seniors who have earned Missouri Seal of Biiteracy. Before we call them up, the seal of biiteracy is an award available to native Englishspeaking speakers studying a world language and English language learners acquiring English and maintaining their heritage language. To earn the award, students must meet three criteria. Proficiency in English, proficiency in a language other

than English, and socio cultural competency. Many universities have incentives for the seal of biiteracy recipients and award up to 12 credit hours. The seal can also benefit students as they apply for jobs. As more and more employers are supporting the seal of biiteracy, we have 10 students from CSNB. If you could please stand and come to the front as well. One in English and Korean, 10 awards in English and Spanish. And can our CSNB students please stand? If you could join us to the right from CBPA, we have two students, both awards in English and Spanish. CBPA, if you are in the house, can you please stand? All right. And Dr. Sherman, if you like, you can come. If they want to say their names for us, I see that all of them aren't here. So if you want to quickly do it, we can certainly do that. So moving forward, students, if you wanted to come and announce yourselves.

Hi, my name is Molly Schultz. I'm a senior at Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Juan. I'm a senior at CVPA. Thank you. And we have one student in English and Spanish from Gateway STEM. Can you please come to the front and say your name for us? Hi, my name is Jackson P Rodriguez. I got to get some.

Thank you. We have three students from McKinley in English and Spanish. Please come up and say your name. McKinley. Hi, my name is Michelle Rosio Sanchez. I'm from McKinley.

Thank you. And lastly, we are awarding 12 students from Metro, eight students in English and French, five students in Spanish and English, and one in English and Portuguese. Metro students, please come up and say your name. I'm Gabriel vonro. I'm Darius Berman Carter. Lucy Lukemire.

Arson Galbert Ruiz. I'm Hannah Kavaric.

I'm Vivian Rose. Thank you so much. And to our parents that are here supporting them, thank you as well. Congratulations to all of our graduating seniors and their seal of biiteracy. That concludes our spirit of excellence. Congratulations y'all. Thank you, Madam President. We will go straight into our reports now. First up, we have students again for our student advisory committee. We are so

excited. The student advisory committee was an idea and brought on by Joseph Smith. He is the AIC at Gateway STEM. He's an aspiring teacher leader program and he is soon to be Dr. Smith.

All right. Uh, good evening. My name is Joseph Smith. I'm an instructional coach at Gateway STEM High School. I'm here to speak about the superintendent student advisory board and our work over the past school year. First, I want to thank chief chief of staff Dr. Henny and of course our superintendent Dr. Barry for giving the students this platform to express their concerns and opinions and for giving me the opportunity to work with some of our district's brightest students and future leaders such as the young leaders I have with me today and soon to be graduates. Miss Amorey Walker and Mr. Maurice Davis also both representing Gateway STEM. Um, also thanks to Miss Susan Reid with the district for helping to guide our process throughout the semester. Um, in thinking about how our advisory board will function and what topics we will focus on, we wanted to concentrate on our district's strategic values, which define the types of students we want to develop before they graduate. College and career ready. So, there were discussions about student plans for after high school change agents. So a large part of our work was getting students to realize that they can use their voices and resources to make positive changes in their environments. Uh we wanted them to become critical thinkers who not only identify problems but understand why these problems exist and how they came to be. We want them be to be great communicators who can express their views and opinions clearly competent being able to think of solutions to problems and devise plans to address solutions. And lastly, both culturally aware and able to collaborate. As the board consisted of a diverse group of students from different schools and backgrounds in general, they had chances to talk with each other and work together as a unit to identify and solve issues. Our advisory consisted of 21 students from all SLPS high schools. So, we had representation from every SLPS high school, approximately one to two students from each school. At the

beginning of the year, we asked counselors to identify students at their sites who will represent their schools the best. We wanted scholars who were examples of integrity, leadership, and commitment. Commitment to education, and commitment to making changes that would impact schools for future students. All of these students were upper classmen with the majority being seniors who could speak about their schools based on multiple years of experience. Now, in terms of our purpose, the student advisory board, the purpose of the student advisory board, I've already touched on many of the points on the PowerPoint. Fostering student leadership, identifying problems and potential solutions, supporting district goals, encouraging collaboration, and highlighting student voice. But I want to point out how our activities align with this vision. Uh we had community builders for them to get to know each other. Whole group discussions about their experiences at their at each school, both positive and negative. Uh poster presentations about proposed changes, uh games to test their knowledge of the city and the district with incentives, visits, and talks with district leaders, including Dr. Barry, Dr. Penny, our MTSS coordinator, Miss Revetta Jackson, who talked to the students today for our last meeting, and Miss Gloria Nolan, our parent liaison, who facilitated our group's trip to our state capital, Jeff City. Speaking of student voice and his field trip, I would like to invite Mr. Mory Walker up to speak more about our SLPS parents day of action. Hello, my name is Amorei Walker and I'm a senior I am a senior student from Gateway STEM High School. As a member of the student advisory board, one of the most engaging experience from this semester was our trip to Jefferson City for the SLPS parent day of action. For many of us, it was our first time going to the state capital. For me, it wasn't. We were able to meet and interact with

members of the executive branch, including the Missouri state treasurer and legislative branch, including the Missouri House of Representatives. The Missouri House of Representatives allowed us into their offices, where we open discussions about St. Louis public schools and general issues that affect education in our state, like issues like public school funding, accreditation, transportation, and etc. It was great to hear the opinions and insight of Missouri legislators, some of who are themselves products of St. Louis public schools. For example, we talked with Lisha Bosley, who is a Democrat member for the Missouri General Assembly representing the 79th district, which also covers St. Louis City. The various group from St. Louis Public Schools came together in the Rotanda of the Capitol for a district rally. At this rally, SLPS parents lian, Miss Gloria Nolan, encourage students, parents, SLPS alumni, Missouri reps, and educators to talk about the success of our district and the positive aspects of SLPS that often get overlooked. We also talked about the need for internal unity and the need for support from lawmakers to secure a healthy future for SLPS. between walking around the Capitol and talking face to face to the Missouri reps, talking to lobbyists, listening to speeches at the rally, observing a House floor session in person, I was inspired. I was inspired to be a better person to advocate for myself and others, including the current and future students of SLPS. I'm a little tall. Give me a second. All right. Hello, my name is Maurice Davis. I am also a senior student at Gateway STEM

High School. As a member of SLPS student advisory board, I was able to purs part participate in many deep conversations about ways that SLPS can improve as an entire district. Student advis student board members had small group talks, whole group discussions, completed surveys, and made posters. Some of the topics we discuss will include the need for better technology in classrooms, constant issues with transportation and buses throughout the district, classrooms, uh the quality of district food. I already buildings that need remodeling. I'm sorry. I want to start with technology. Our members suggest that we increase the quantity and quality of the laptops that could help learn help learning as well as ideas for maintaining tech availability such as classroom charger stations and systems for borrowing for school laptops. With buses, our members stated that our buses have not always been the most reliable, which has affected some attendance, especially some first period classes. With the district food, we suggest to having more food options at breakfast, lunch, and specialty foods on different days of the week and options to order off campus for upper class with internships. Students would like opportunities to get firsthand experience in different career fields at all schools. We would like to also have an addition of alternate career internships in such areas as game development. Lastly, board members pointed out school bathrooms, classrooms, and stairwells as common places for students to go. These are the changes that need to happen in order for students to take pride in their schools and feel comfortable in schools that have learning. As we approach the end of the school year, the future looks bright for both the SAB going forward and the current SAB members who will be graduating over the next few weeks. First, the plan is

for the student advisory board to continue and expand with our juniors who will be seniors next year and help Mr. Smith in board activities early in hopes and finding new ways to change systems within the school year. For seniors who will be moving on. Oh, wait. Really? For seniors who will be moving on, I believe that participating in the SAB has helped us become better leaders and has given me ideas of how I can use my voice to affect change as necessary. I feel better prepared for college and life after high school in general. The plan is for all members to share our future success stories with the next wave of SAB students and give them advice needed to become the best versions of themselves. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I didn't know if the board had any questions for our wonderful SAP students. Seeing none, we appreciate our entrepreneurs. That's the pathway they are in at Gateway STEM. We will move right along. We have our special education presentation.

Good evening everyone. My name is Candace Boyd. I am the executive director of special education with the district. We have on our first slide here our strategic values which really is the foundation of how we're going to improve outcomes for our students and it is our segue to our portrait of a graduate. Again, the goal for special education is to ensure that once our students leave, once they graduate, they are as independent as possible. The foundation what special education requires governed by the individuals with ed with the educational act IDA guarantees FAPE free and appropriate public education for all eligible students requires education in the least restrictive environment services delivered through an IEP plan and ensures procedure safeguards that are shared with our families on an annual basis. is there are local obligations that we must adhere to in the city of St. Louis. We are obligated to serve our students eligible between the ages of three and 21 that live within our city boundaries not enrolled in charter schools. We provide services across all of our school buildings including early childhood settings for our P3s, our P4s, daycarees and head start. So we have itinerate services where we go into select daycarees and head starts and we provide those services to our students. We also provide services to our private and parochial families. So again, if they're city residents and they attend private parochial schools here in the city, we have an opportunity to service those students as well. Special education is not optional. It is a federally mandated system with legal

accountability tied to every student that we serve. This next slide here just gives an overview of the services that we provide to our students. Again, early childhood programming for our P3s and our P4s, special education services for our resource students, students who receive minimal services, students who receive services in the general education classroom. We also have students who receive the bulk of their instruction in small special education settings as well. We also have partnerships with private separate facil facilities. We have four schools that we partner with so to ensure that we're providing our FAPE to our students who require more than what our buildings can offer at the particular time. We have related services, occupational therapists, physical therapists and PT, school psychologists, school examiners. Um, we also LEA the state schools. So, Missouri school for the blind, Missouri school for the severely disabled. We also have par educators which are ICAs that support our students in a classroom setting. Behavior therapists. We also promote transition services for our high school students, autism services for our students in self-contained classrooms or students in resource classrooms. We have ABA services for our students who require those services as well. We also provide hearing and vision services, orientation and mobility again to support our students who have vision impairments. We provide sign language interpreters, foreign language interpreters for our families. So if parents are coming to our meetings and they speak another language, we provide that service. If we have parents that are deaf, heart, and hearing, again, we provide that. We provide that service as well to assist. We um provide services through our non-public afterchool program. We've expanded that program. So, we provide services during the day to some of our schools as well as in the afternoon.

Parents have the opportunity to access that program if they so choose. We provide services to our juvenile detention center, um, homebound services, virtual instruction, and then our special education transition program. What we try to do with our set program is to keep our students within the district as much as possible before we have to recommend to IEP teams to have additional conversations to support those students with behavior needs. We also have LPN. So we do have some students who have acute medical needs and they need that level of support. So those students may have LPN for medical support with our services and placement. So again, we're at 2,817 students receiving services here in the district. Our biggest part of students are going to be our resource students. So again, those students receive special education services either getting pulled out for services or we're pushing in for those services. We also have a model where it's self-contained. So that means special education instruction, that core instruction is provided to students in that small special education classroom setting. early childhood services again now public after school. With our impass um this year we did expand our impass program now public after school program. Um the state affords us um x amount of dollars to provide the services. We were um overzealous in our efforts in doing that and we did exhaust those dollars. Right? So now we've sat down with those partners, talked about how we can form a better plan to monitor that program because it did have a lot of traction. It was a lot of success. So again, we will be continuing with that model, but we're going to have more guar wells in place

homebound. So we have some students that have medical needs and they cannot um access our brick and mortar locations. So we do send service or send providers into those homes to provide those services as needed. We also have three public separate special education locations and those buildings again we support our students who have needs. We also partner with our private separate partners. We have four where we contract out to ser service our kids. So again, it's when we have met as an IEP team and the team has determined that we have enough data that we just cannot adequately support the students needs here, then we partner with our contract vendors to make sure those kids were getting those services per their IEPs. Okay. Um Okay, let's go back. Okay. staffing, contractual services, and funding. So, with this slide here, we're going to talk about just our staffing, and we're going to talk about challenges and and things all associated with servicing our students with disabilities. Um, staffing gaps, um, we there is a shortage of educators, right? There's a shortage of special education practitioners. It does not erase our obligation. We have to figure this out, right? So again, with staffing shortages, we partner with human resources to ensure that we have staff in place to make sure we're providing services to our students. So our district head count as is is as followed. We have 452 staff that are district employees and they provide services to our students. Um managed care. So we have eight staffing partners that we work with. Of that we have 293 individuals that support us. What I would like to do is kind of break down that 293 if I could. With the shortages that I spoke of

earlier, we have individuals that are virtual. So, we don't still have enough individuals that can come into the district to provide services. So, then we pivot to virtual clinicians, um virtual school psychologists, virtual speech language pathologists. And when you have virtual clinicians, you have to have boots on the ground, someone there to support that service. So you have the psychologist or the school psychologist who's virtual and then you got to hire someone to go in and support the services. So think about it. Historically you would pay one person to do that job. Right now we've had to pivot to pay two people to go in to do that. The same example with speech pathologists. We don't have enough inperson speech language pathologists. So we have to pivot to virtual. When you're doing that you have to add another person to help in that. So just not understanding why that number the way it is is because you're paying people to help in that space. Another example, we have um ILAS that support our students with disabilities. They do not write IEPs. So again, you've got to onboard certified staff to write those IEPs. So again, it multiplies because you're adding additional people to do the job that traditionally one licensed person can do. with our private separate day partners. We have four of them and we have a total of 48 students that are assigned um to those locations. Challenges that we that we deal with on an ongoing basis. It's a rising cost of our contract staff. There's typically 3 to 5% increase in the hourly rate for those coitions for those clinicians. So again, keep in mind we have individuals providing direct services and then you have individuals that we've onboard to help provide those services. But again, that could be a three 3 to 5% increase in those hourly rates and those rates go

up. Um with our private separate day partners, um those hourly those daily rates, they go up as well. Okay. the same challenges that we have with onboarding staff. The agencies have the same challenge. They're trying to hire individuals to come in to video to deal with our more involved students. So again, we will feel the grunt of that piece or that cost because they're trying to keep staff in place as well. Um staffing shortages again um it is a direct impact on services so and compliance. So again, that's why we're very vigilant in partnering with human resources, working with our vendors to make sure we have individuals in place, current progress. Um, I really appreciate the partnership that our office has with um, transportation. Um, Mr. Davis um and I talk sometimes 6:00 in the morning. Sometimes we we start our day in that space. Um but I appreciate his ongoing partnership. He and his team meet with our team um every Wednesday. And again, we just appreciate just being a thought partner in the work and that true collaboration. We appreciate that. On the horizon, we were awarded a grant from Desi. And with that grant, we can look to expand some programs in the district for our more involved kiddos. Not so much on the behavior side. It's going to be coupled with behavior, but really more of our kids who would go to state school. The state has given us the opportunity to look inward to build programming. So, we're really excited about this opportunity with compliance. Um, special education is truly highly regulated. failure to implement IEPs can result in child

complaints, due process complaints, or legal and other financial consequences. Um, so again, those are things that we just monitor and we look for. We work with our partners, we work with our wonderful staff. So again, just to make sure that we're providing services to our babies. That is that is our endgame and that is our goal. Last slide. Okay. And that's it. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Jones and then Harvey.

Uh yes. Uh I have a question about the juvenile detention services. What does that look like? So um Griskum is our juvenile detention center. We have right now we have two um teachers certified teachers that are there servicing our students. So if students are uh detained by authorities and then they are assigned there for a period of time we still have the obligation to serve our students provide those minutes. So we have staff in place to service the students. So I mean other you're providing a therapist correct? We're providing I we're providing special education services. There are two teachers assigned to that location.

Okay. But when they leave uh that facility, do they are they learning any type of skill or do they go back to the school that they were before? Yes. So once they are reassigned from the juvenile detention center, they're then signed back to their neighborhood school or school they're coming from and then we're just going to continue with those services. So the intent is not to have a delay in services. So whether they are at Griskum or they transition back to their neighborhood school, um we're going to continue with pro providing those services. How does a student qualify for your behavior uh services because I know a lot of students are going through a lot a lot of lot of things are going on at home

and uh so how would a parent get that kind of help? So um we use our standards and indicators as as our governing guidance in in qualifying students. So parents would make the request. We would then go the necessary steps. If we suspect the disability exist, then we will sit down with that team and decide what areas we're going to assess and evaluate the child in. Once we have those findings, we come back with that schoolbased team, including a school psychologist, and we're going to get we're going to review those findings from those evaluations. When we're sitting down, we're looking at the criteria that the state has outlined to ensure the child meets criteria. So, they have to be eligible for services and once and if they're eligible for services, we then write that initial IEP. Then that IEP team can sit down and talk about what level of support is needed.

So, I guess my concern is the IEP because I've had that situation before and it was very difficult to get out of an IEP. Uh, so how does that How has it changed now or has it changed at all? So, so Mich hasn't changed. So, if a parent no longer wants to receive services, then parents can invoke what's called revocation of consent. So, they can then terminate any and all special education services. If they feel those services are no longer meeting the child's needs or they feel as if the child is in a good space and no longer need those supports and protections.

So, when our students there are a lot of students who are really having a a rough time out here. So how does the record follow? Is there a record uh that follows them? If is as if if their behavior starts to change in elementary school, middle school, high school, how does that work? So um we all have access and we all share the focus online system. There is a special education module for for our students with disabilities. So that record those documents are going to follow that child throughout the system. If the child transfers out, then the uh the incoming school would then make the request to our district to get those records. So again, we have that full database, that full breadth of that child's record that would kind of give you just a overview of the service that the child has received from year to year.

And the last question is when they graduate, what does the followup look like? So the followup, I would say that is an area of improvement that we will need to to improve upon. So when our kids graduate, what does that independence look like or um in the IEP meeting, we talk about transition services, we have that conversation with the family and with the student because we want to talk about what does leaving SLPS look like for your child? Will your child live at home with you? Will your child go to the military? Will your child go to a two-year or fouryear? So that is a part of the transition services when we working with our students. That is part of that ongoing process. Is there something online that they can refer back to? because I'm sure a lot of parents are going to be lost.

So there is a parents guide to special education. It can be found on Desi's website. The latest version was done in two two in 2018. So again, it is just a very very simple read, very comfortable read if you will, helping our parents kind of navigate terminology like I've been throwing out lingo all day. L or all those different things, right? OTP. That guide gives you an overview of the referral to placement process and it gives you a working definition so parents are in a good space. Absolutely. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for your work and for your presentation. I have a few questions. I want to pick up where Miss Jones left, which is um navigating special education language complicated thing on the website. Cool. And for families who may struggle to get that kind of access, I'm curious like how you would rate your team and the district's like working relationship with parent literacy around special education services and if you can zone in on like where you see an opportunity to strengthen family literacy around services, what is that?

So I would say right now there's a work in progress. There's work that needs to be done for us in that space. It's just real talk and it's just being honest. I think a place for us to tap into was parent university. So I know I've attended parent university and that's an opportunity for us to partner with our families uh to have the podium to have the space to talk about what services look like and to address questions. But again, there is much work we need to do in that space to assist our families. our central um our admin team, we go to IEP meetings, I go to IEP meetings, parents come down here, we talk, we support, and our schoolbased teachers and and staff, they support parents as well. But again, parents um can definitely reach out to our office um to get that kind of level of support if needed. But again, an opportunity that we do need to improve upon. Real talk, we do.

I appreciate that. So, I'm thinking about like the culture that we're part of the portrait of a graduate and the disproportionality nationwide around particularly black students center down black male identifying students with special education. How often are we doing cultural audits to really think carefully about disproportionate placement, disproportionate services, and then like where are we posting our audit around the statistics that call out race, sex, gender for for special education. So currently right now we are dealing with the disp professionality with DESIE right now because they're stating that we are evaluating um too many students with particular disability with the with race. Right. So we'll be meeting on the 21st with DESIE officials to talk about what that looks like. When we have audits with DESIE where they're saying we're overidentified for autism or any other disability we um we meet the standard because we it's state standards. That's what we use. We use the the the district's the uh state's profile. We use the strategy indicators when we're evaluating our students. So, um it is an ongoing conversation that we have with Desi. When they have their findings, they will let us know. We will then come in. They then have us to do a self analysis. They will then come in if they need to, if they want, they may come in to interview staff, come in, look at our protocol just to make sure that we're operating as we should. And what diagnosis and what race, just so we can zone in the data, are they saying we are disproportionate against

in um ID? So, intellectual disability, black students. Okay. Um autism and what I think it was white students, I believe. Got it. I believe I want to say the last one, and I don't have in front of me, so I'm sorry. The last one we're going through right now is disproportionality with black students with an intellectual disability diagnosis. That's the one that we're dealing with right now.

Got it. I would love to see that data if possible. So in the presentation you note that the failure to implement IEPs can result in due process hearings, leave cost etc. Can you share if you have the data or even at the macro level like where we currently stand on IEP implementation rates and are there particular schools of concern where that around compliance so I don't have the implementation rate I don't have that in front of me where we can get that information in front of you. Um, I would say the implementation, um, there's not a particular building that stands out. Quite honestly, it's not. Okay.

It really is making sure we have staff in place and that we implement the IEPs and that we're documenting that. So, with our IEPs, we have goals. We have to make sure that we're noting the progress that we're noting to our parents, but we're also communicating with our families. So, I just don't have a particular school in mind. I would say across the board as a whole we can do better.

Got it. Um again be helpful just to see like numbers around that either by the building level or at some level to just get that picture. My my my last two so 293 contracted staff alongside the 452 is like a significant portion and your breakdown was helpful around why we have that. I guess where I'm curious is like are we tracking are we tracking to the same degree as other like-siz districts nationwide with having to rely on contracted support? Are we an anomaly? Are there strategies that we are not pulling because of constraints either within or beyond our control? I I want to understand better the way we are overleveraging seemingly Sure. Sure.

contracted position. So I think we have to be very creative in this space. Um because again shortages they mean nothing right we we cannot tell a parent I don't have an OT I don't have there's none of that right so we've had to be craving I I'll give you an example so for years we were always good to occupational therapy we always had enough in the last two three years we've we've had we've had a decline with OT's so then we've had to pivot to a different model of using kodas those are certified occupational therapy assistants right so we had to move to that space with our speech language pathologist ologist. Again, we're now looking at a model because we had a shortage with SLPs. We're now looking at SLPAS,

right? You know what I'm saying? So, again, we're just looking at how we can provide those services and provide the level of oversight to provide those services.

Yeah. I mean, this next comment is not at you. So, I'm going to say a thing. Please don't take it personally at all. The struggle I have like creativity often hurts black and brown kids and kids who are already vulnerable. And so I guess I'm just I'm curious as a larger discussion around how we can be less creative and identify people who are in fact skilled and credentialed in areas because I I mean as an educator by practice I've seen too many moments where our creativity which we have to do has longterm impacts that we just weren't controlling for. And so I I don't know I would just love to have a bigger conversation around like what levers are at our disposal to identify people. Are there ways for us to work alongside I mean there are a number of massive national foundations right now investing and thinking very creatively about special education services namely around speech and like are we pulling those levers? Are we talking to the institutions that are pouring tens of millions of dollars in? Um because I worry that in our current position and the in the current region, black children in particular are going to lose hard in this creativity. And I and I have we have a responsibility to try to slow down that that hard loss against many other losses they're already experiencing. So I just c I mean I don't know if you want to say something.

Oh to Dr. Barry, you turned your mic on. I know.

I just want to interrupt. You're absolutely correct. Um some of the thought things we thought were being um not creative but pushing that narrative. We have a few grow your own programs where we are actually paying for teachers or those that may have um enough hours to become a certified special education teacher to receive that service or to receive that certification. So we're paying for we're paying for their masters. um we were grasping we even took um teachers that maybe have an A scale they get their certification they can come in on a B scale and the last um increases that were approved it was a higher increase for special education teacher so it was like we're throwing money and throwing things on them that wasn't working so it would be great to know um some of those institutes that you're talking about so we can figure out what are we not doing that we can grasp those uh core people that we really need

and even like our recruitment like our talent recruitment strategy like are we nationwide selling St. Louis as an ideal place to start your PTO career in SLPS. Are we working with like the big placement like the big ED placement firms and thinking creatively around the kind of package we need? I mean, this is just one of those areas where like it feels like if we're going to put some money behind the thing, our young people that have IEPs deserve some radical investments that I think are which I think is a very different framing than like getting creative internally. Right. My last question for you, sorry, my last question, I promise I'll move over this, is the you have you mentioned a new grant and I think the bullet points under it speak to it, but I'm just curious if you can click down a little bit more to like what exactly is the new grant supporting when you say in district capacity to reduce external placements. Is that compensation? Is that training? Kind of how is the grant works and congratulations for getting it. Um we'll have to learn more about it.

Sure. So the grant is an opportunity for us to really re-imagine what our state school kid placements will look like. So it gives us opportunity to look in to purchase equipment, PD things you just talked about curriculum so that we can offer the same supports rather than refer our students to state school placements. So it allows us to look inward build the capacity in our public separate locations. So that is what it looks for. So so PD curriculum equipment all of those things.

Sure. I I do want to say one thing. I want to make sure that we're really clear. Um um there is an obligation to service our students and the models that I spoke of the codas the SLPAS those are approved desi models. So I just want to make sure that we're clear that yes it would be ideal to have fully licensed clinician in our spaces but right now we are implementing what we have to do and what we should do to support our students. That is what we're doing right now. Yes. And I am not suggesting that we are not meeting that. I am suggesting that there is a difference between what Desi indicates as equity and what lived equity is.

That's all I'm arguing. And I think that we cannot be beholdened to an institution's definition of equity that has never been equitable as our standard for black and brown children. That's the that is the distinction I'm drawing. So, it's not about us or what we're doing. And Desi could not set equity standards for me. And I just want to name that. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Harvey. Miss Hover. Um, can you come back, doctor? I'm sorry. Boy, don't leave. We're not done. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. First, I just want to say God bless you. Oh. Oh, this Oh, okay.

This is a huge work that you're doing. Um, and so thank you for everything that you're doing and you know the things that we have to do. Um, I have a question about teacher preparation. Are new teachers or older I guess any teachers are they coming to us with with their education degree prepared to implement special education stuff. Is that something we should, you know, change on a state level, national level?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Um, it's it's one thing to to to go to school and get the degree. It's another to be in the classroom and actually apply those skills with students um and not come in timid and not come in fearful. So, um, I think there's definitely room improvement for our universities and for districts to support our incoming staff. Definitely.

Okay, that is feedback that I heard from a group of graduating students. So, I thought I would ask um is our percentage of sped kids um I divided it by 16,000. I'm not sure what our right thing is, but it was like 17%. Is that normal across other districts? Um, so I I don't know quite honestly because I'm I'm kind of laser focused here. So I don't know. I do know um our average has hovered over the last several years between um 12 to 17% of our students with disabilities. So I know that's kind of how we've been for the last multiple years quite honestly.

Okay. And my third question is going back to whatever you said you were working on with Desi, they're comparing our student population with the whole of Missouri. That's a conversation we're going to have with them. Um because no sense. That is that is our argument when we meet with them. Um yes, because we we have questions. So, I don't know how we get dinged for overidentifying black students with ID if if we are 80 plus percent African-American and that doesn't make sense to me. So, we have those questions and we'll be asking district officials when we meet with them in two weeks. Yeah.

Because we don't we don't understand the district question out if we don't.

Okay. And I also want to sort of second Dr. Harvey's statement about making sure that I know that you are doing your best, but so often it is the black and brown kids who um get pushed. And since we're 80% black and brown that there's probably less pushing, but the differences, you know, in the lifespan of what happens, I mean, the lifespan, life chances of the child, um it's just really important. Can't think of a better word. So, thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Um, Dr. Boyd, I would Miss Boy. No, you're going to be Doc. You are You are going to be okay. Yes, I claim that. Yes, you are. Yes, ma'am. Send you back to school today. Yes, ma'am. All right. Here we go. Hey, I went late.

I did it. Um, you know, I'm an advocate. You know, that's what my area is. Um, and for my fellow board members, there are a dis disproportionate number of brown and black children that are identified with many disabilities. Um, we used to call them exceptionalities and then they changed that to, you know, disabled. I would, as you have your conversation with Dusty, would you please have them look at the assessments that we use in order to identify our students? Because in many cases, our students are identified based on the referral process and our referral process takes them into an extensive assessment process. What are we using to assess our students? Are our testing measures culturally biased? So, we need to look at some of those things. 17% is extremely high. someone else the percentage normal percentage would be 10 to 12 in a large school district and if you're at 17 in an average size school district which I think we fall into right now in city Missouri we're higher than most we're higher than no Springfield's the only one that's higher than us right um that it if it has rated us as 17 that it's it's high so I would look at not how we're identifying to do referrals but how we're assessing once we have done the referral I'll help you with that if you need it.

Um, thank you. I know you've been doing this work for quite a while. So, just a few things, too. We also, I don't know if you heard in the presentation, we service the city's children. So, if a child is being homeschooled, private school, and they cannot do the services, we are also providing those services for the children. In addition to many of our neighboring school districts that cannot or have the capacity, we see families bringing their children back to SLPS. And with Griskcom, I know uh Miss Boy talked about, but we service every child in Griskum that's in special ed or not, even if they are not SLPS children. So, there's a lot of work that we're doing that are costing us dollars because we're servicing the children of the city of St. Louis. I just wanted to make sure I pointed that out. But I I deeply appreciate you coming today and um I'll make sure we get those questions um answered. I do know board member Harvey I missed the first question, but I'll make sure I get it from you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, we have our final presentation of the evening and we are bringing before you the um proposed budget that we are asking for approval for tonight uh for the fiscal year 27. So, Miss Dobel.

Okay. Good evening, President Collins Adams, Vice President Marston, Dr. the entire board and the school community. I'm Kelly Dobel. I'm the interim executive director of finance and tonight I'm here to present to you our proposed budget. Everything we do is centered around our portrait of a graduate and the budget is no different um and supports each of the pathways. Our agenda tonight, you can see that I'm going to talk about budget buckets. um both by fund and object categories. We're going to talk through the data and compare the 26 and the 27 budget numbers and why does it matter? Because the budget supports the commitment that we've made to our students, to our staff, and to our community. Um we'll talk about next steps and then if you have any questions. Okay, first is our budget by fund. So we do fund accounting and we have all of these different funds. We have the general operating budget. We call it the GOB budget. Um, and that includes things that's where we get our property taxes. We pay salaries. We pay benefits. We pay for transportation expenses and supplies out of that fund. Um, we also have our federal or our grants fund. Um, that's where we have our title programs, our special education programs. That's all paid out of that federal fund. Local grant fund is the St. Louis ation foundation trusts endowments parson it that all runs through that local grant fund debt service fund is where you can imagine that's like where we pay our bond payment so that's like a mortgage payment with your house that's how you can would compare that food service fund everything we do for food service runs through that fund um we do our breakfast lunch and afterare snacks for our students all of that goes through the

food service fund and then we have prop s those ares approved for our capital projects. And we've done things in Prop S that you may see out in the buildings, restroom updates, roofing, windows, doors, things like that. Not sure where to point this. Um, then within each of those funds, we have smaller buckets. So, they're buckets where we pay for employee salaries and benefits, health insurance, workman's comp. that comes out of one bucket. Our purchase services are things like our transportation costs, food service management cost, services like the occupational and physical therapies that we just talked about, nursing services for students. We have the supplies and materials bucket and that's where we pay for things like technology, books, paper, consumables for the classroom. And then our capital outlay fund. That's equipment over $5,000, construction, renovation, and major repairs. So the this is a visual diagram of the budget development timeline that we followed. We started way back in February. We distributed general operating budget workbooks to the cabinet departments and to the schools and began building the budget. In March, we went through staffing reviews with HR and continued to build the expenditure budget. Then during March and April, we continued reviewing, refining the expenditure requests and allocations in addition to adding any known costs we had for our bond and our debt payments. Then in April, the team performed performed grant projections. So what we thought we would get in grant funding. Then we presented to the community both virtually and in person and then later

or then we presented the preliminary budget document to the board and for final presentation at tonight's meeting. So it's a lengthy process that we go through to build the budget. So, first we're going to talk about the GOB, which is, remember, it's the general operating budget comparison between our current budget FY26 and then the FY27 that we're proposing tonight. We're projecting an increase of approximately $9 million in the revenue. Based on local tax collections that we've already received, we can make a pretty good assumption on in that area. There are decreases in the special revenue fund and that's mainly driven by Prop C revenue. Um that's the sole line that we're paid on a per pupil allocation from the state is in that area and the state is projecting a lower amount per pupil for next year and then capital projects is pretty much the same on that. Now we're going to move on to the expenditures in GOB. So this slide shows a sideby-side comparison of the current where the current FY26 budget sits and what we're proposing for FY27. You can see that the large increases are in the employee salaries, extra service, and benefits. Those are all related. Those are fixed costs. Those they're not they're recurring costs. We have to plan for those. Those are fixed costs. You can see that we have decreases in those more variable categories. The purchase services, the supplies and materials and the capital outlay. Now the let's talk a little bit more about the salaries. We know based on our union agreements and like we know where everybody sits on their salary lines and we know where next year is going to lay because we have union agreements with our teachers. So we can make those

projections. On top of that, we've had to move our AIC's off of title funding and over to the GOB budget. So, that's another increase. Um, our insurance is going up. We know what it's going to be through January. We're making a projection for January of 27 through um the end of 27. And then in conjunction with that, we pay retirement on the increase in salaries and and for paid benefits. So, that's where it kind of builds on that increase. Here's a visual diagram of where the extra 19.8 million from one year to the next is coming from. Like I said, previously negotiated salaries and benefits and insurance costs, we're projecting at 11 million. Those academic instructional coaches that we had to move off of our title grant because we don't have carry the amount of carryover funding from last year, we won't have that same alloca allocation. So, we have to move them off. transportation costs we expect to go up next year based on our contract. And then the vacant teacher positions and that's tricky because last year when we did the budget, we budgeted at a very low percentage of fill on those vacant positions. So how we're budgeting this year is a more accurate representation of what we think that's going to look like. We're budgeting at 100% of an ILA rate plus benefits. So, we felt like that was a good spot, but it's an increase in over what we budgeted last year for those vacant positions. So, here's the same information I just talked about, but in a visual overview for any visual people. I I think it's easier to digest. You can see on that pie chart how our revenue is broken up

in the general operating budget overview. We get the majority of our revenue from local tax collections. That's where it comes from. Um the county piece is state assessed railroad and utility that we get. It comes from the city, but we record it in county. The state is mainly a transportation reimbursement. And then the federal that we have on there is just Medicaid reimbursements. Um based on local SP special education spend, we get some Medicaid reimbursement. So this is a sidebyside comparison um down in that lower lefthand corner of the revenue versus the expenditures for the past three years because we're always looking at typically we're always looking at three years. The year we just finished, the year we're in, and the year we're looking forward towards. Now, let's talk a little bit about the grants budget, different fund, so we look at that differently. Um, in our in the local bucket, that's like our foundation and Parsons Buitt. The state bucket has things like adult ed and literacy, career and technical education, early childhood special education, and then the federal is our title funding, idea special education, and how we budgeted the grants. We budgeted for a 10% decrease in grants unless we already had a preliminary allocation from DESIE. Then we use that preliminary allocation. So we didn't shoot too high, shoot to the moon on the revenue. We want to be conservative. And then with the expenditures, we typically budget in the grants fund even revenue in expenditures because most of those grants are on a reimbursement basis. Um you will see that there's a difference in FY27 and that's because we have some expenditures for food service that we know we're going to spend above um what we will get in things for like

um some capital equipment that we need and we do have a balance that carries forward with with Desi that we can spend down that balance and we have to use that on food service items. I have another picture over Just like with the GOB budget, this is a visual overview of the data presented in the previous grant slides for revenue and expenditures. And you can see in the bar chart, the purple, green, and blue on the left, that is our the projected and then the proposed for this coming year. And you can see the change in source and grant funding on those two charts. You can see the decrease that we're projecting for next year. But again, we're being conservative on this year's numbers. We actually know what those are. So, we're being conservative as we project forward. So, this is a revenue overview for all of our funds, all of them together. To sum them all up, this slide shows an overview of the total revenue. Like I said, we look at three years, right? We look at last year's actuals, we look at this year's projection, and then next year um what we are proposing. And then I have a change column off onto the right. The general operating we discussed that's where we get local tax revenue, local grants, um the foundations, endowments, trust funds. The food service is how we feed our students and the reimbursement we receive from meals served. State and federal grants, again, that's things like IDA, special education, Perkins, adult ed and lit literacy, early childhood. And the revenue is based on actual expenditures. It's a reimbursement basis. The debt service, this is um the money we received for the levy on our debt service fund to pay our bond payments. And then Prop S, that's the fund we used up keep our facilities. And the revenue

is interest that we anticipate earning on remaining unspent funds. So overall, it's not a significant decrease in revenue. It's 1%. That's a little hard to read from here, but it's just 1%. um fund 210 again there's a reduction due to Prop C let's see the food service like I mentioned the revenue projection is a little lower based on some historical data that we have and then state and federal grants is the largest change and that's due to those AIC's moving off and moving up into that go bucket go on to the expenditures again just like the previous slide this one shows expend expenditures for each of those specialized categories on the left. Overall, it's less than a 1% increase in expenditures when we blend all of the funds together. Um there's some differences between the funds, but when we blend them all together, it's under 1% increase. And then this slide is the summary of all of it. Right? This is what we've really been talking about. the total fund balance where the impact of the budget that we're presenting is indicated in this slide because so many more of the expenses are up in our GOB budget. That's what really impacts that fund balance spend. Um whereas expenditures are increasing by less than 1% and the manner in which those expenditures are happening is what's causing our fund balance to go down. Um, you can see the actual from FY25 on there, the projected where we're projecting to end this year. And then if we implement this budget, we're saying we will most likely be around 31%. We hope that that's better, but that is our best projection right now. And I want to reiterate, this is a strong fund balance. Um, a lot of large districts, just most districts, 18 to 25% is a good fund balance. And we know that we're in

a tough time with revenue from the state, with tax collections. It's a fiscal cliff, right? So, we are in a strong position, but we know that moving forward, we have to make some change. We know that has to happen. Okay. Next steps to review. The budget starts with projections, but it's a living document. As we find out about changes, we're going to a make amendments to reflect those changes that need to be made. We do recognize the importance of long-term stability. That's why fund balance spend is not intended to be a long-term practice for us. And throughout the coming year, the team is committed to working to identify opportunities to strengthen the financial position and develop a multi-year plan with a goal to present that balanced budget by 2829. That's our goal and we're going to work hard to do that. Any questions, thoughts? Oops.

Your lights on. I'm sure lots of both, right? Questions and thoughts. Well, my thought is thank you because having a graphic organization helps me so much. So, thank you for taking the time to make sure that goes in there. You're welcome. Morrison,

just for the listening audience, I just want to clarify that we're talking about the fiscal year 2027 budget, which runs from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027. So, if you're not used to looking at organizational budgets, it can get confusing. In my head, when I hear fiscal year 2027, I have to translate it to the 12 months where January 1st, 2027 falls in the middle. Uh, the year before I was born, a children's book called Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day was published. A lot of you are probably familiar with it. And this is the story of SLPS and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad budget. Overcoming a $41 million general operating budget deficit is going to require more than just trimming around the edges to get to a balanced budget. We need to make big structural changes. If we don't figure this out, it'll be the end of the line for a district that was founded in 1838. It's not going to be easy, but I take some comfort in knowing SLPS has weathered many other challenges over the last 188 years.

Thank you. I'll do better to describe that fiscal year like ingrained in my brain. Yeah, foster.

Thank you. Um, I think this was also stated in the proposed budget packet that we got from the superintendent. It has been stated in both the budget forums. Um, and tonight specifically, I'm going quote you. You say, "We know we have to make some change. We know that has to happen. We are already looking at opportunities for next year to balance our budget for the 27 28 28 29 school year, excuse me. for the board and also our community and listening audience. Can you all give a little bit of insight like just a projection in the future? What you're thinking some of those opportunities are what those changes actually look like? Like give us something to hold on to concrete ideas.

Yeah, I can take this. Okay. So, um again, we're looking at next month and then the following month we're going to have a smaller committee. We're going to meet to give three proposals. In those proposals that we're going to also bring to the community, it will have details on what the future of SLPS could look like structurally. And when I say that meaning if we have buildings, how we can redevelop those buildings to be attainable housing, how we can look some of those buildings. We talked about urban farming and when I say attainable housing also for teachers. We even talked about museums. There are a number of ideas and is our hope that when we present because we know that we will have to look at schools we have schools that have less thanund 100 students we have schools with less than 300 students we're taking a number of factors and say hey this is SLPS's idea of saying what an ideal school should look like depending on um location if what what's around it population is growing not just attendance but a number of factors and saying okay community we're saying we're going to take this one building and we think there are about three other buildings that could potentially go into this one building. But with that, here are ideas that you've told us that you may want to happen to have in your neighborhood that could potentially happen in these buildings and for the community to be able to tell us, hey, yes, we agree with that and we want this building to be A and we want this building to be B. And then take those plans, put it in one final plan and be able to present that to the board. Um, we're giving ourselves some wiggle room. I say in September, October. We're hoping that it's much earlier than that, but we're saying September, October to make sure that we can work out all the kinks, but we do know that we're going to have to look at the schools that we have and see how we can make sure that we're putting a number of students to utilize and maximize our resources. It is our hope that every classroom could have a certified teacher. And so while we are extremely appreciative and we know that we probably will need ILAS,

but we're thinking how can we then take some of those ILAs, the ones that are already in programs that are getting certification and backfilling those positions for teachers who are retiring to make sure they have long-term positions and then positions where we have open vacancies for our ICAs, our instructional care aids or our TAs and saying, "Thank you, ILA. we know that you've done so much work and if there's not a position here, let's figure out what else in our district you can do. And that's not just the ILAS, it's other positions that may have to um we don't have a need for as many as there are. But looking at the district in totality to once we and I know many people are asking, well, you talk about the 2728 and not about 26 27. You have to backwards plan. We can't plan for 26 and 27 until we know where we're going for 2728. So, I think it's very important that we plan that and be able to share with the community what that looks like and is our hope that with everything that we're doing, we can figure out how to maximize those resources and still support the students and staff that we have. C

can I build on that? Oh, go ahead. Anyone else? Member Harvey.

Yeah. Can I build on board member Fost's question, Dr. I mean, so a $41 million um a $4 million deficit is like not easy to close and I I hear community planning. I hear three ideas. I hear the creativity of building usage. I guess where I am at a wall is like there three levers. There's decrease in expenditures, there's increase in revenue, there's enrollment stabilization. I think what I would love to hear and I don't think that this is a future committee answer is what weight if those are if those are weighted against 100%. How would you weight those three levers as where you plan to spend the most time to close a massive deficit? Because against against any trajectory and I have an unused finance degree, but against any trajectory, it doesn't add up. And so I I I and I and and I hear great thought. I hear like we know we have work to do. That feels like a six on an urgency scale to me.

And thank you. It's only a six because I don't want to make commitments without asking having the community provide input. But I can tell you we're going to have to cut transportation. $32 million is unacceptable. So we I' I've charged the team was how do we cut this in half. So looking at it will present to the community unique ways of what is it like back to have neighborhood schools because every school in the community should be a wonderful well-resourced school. So what does that look like? Looking at our parameters of how we're providing transportation. So transportation is one we're going to have to cut in half. Um and then the largest bulk is staffing. So figuring out how do we maximize those resources and still fill vacancies. Even if we took 20 administrators today and said, "Okay, these 20 ministries, you don't have jobs. It's only $2.2 million." We would have to have almost 300 positions to see how we're utilizing. Now, we have 400 vacancies, but we're talking about from those 400 vacancies, we would need 299 to say, "Okay, here's about $15 million that you have removed." So, it's going to be large um jumps. And we're talking about in the terms of how we're doing staffing, in the terms of how we're doing transportation.

Yeah. And I appreciate you naming those because what I I tend to believe that community even hearing that start would allow a person to start wrapping their head around how I can give you a point of view. Right. Starting at nothing creates it's so complex to hold a budget like this for a person who on any given day cannot wrap their head around $41 million. And so you starting with some some some categories is helpful. I guess what I did not hear but curious about and I and for the public I asked this in our when we started wrapping our head around this budget is like is the cabinet talking about a public revenue strategy? We have had two revenue growths via taxes in this community that both passed overwhelmingly and I'm curious on why we think that we're going to get out of this through expenditures primarily and not having a very public honest conversation about revenue.

Yeah, thank you. And so we are I think we've had um over the last couple of budget meetings talked about asking the community for a bond um approval and next April we're asking the public for 200 um million dollar bond approval. While we have about 500 million that we could ask for the 200 million would allow it to be tax-free and so that will at least help us with some of those unfunded mandates that we have for our SB Senate bill 38 and some of the talked about uh the vestibules and the safety. So that'll at least help us with some of that. Um we do know we just heard about the um passing of the data center. So if that goes through you we're supposed to get SOPS on the first year $34 million. Now the first year though I'm hearing would not be till 2028 and it's the fourth quarter of 2028. So other than the um tax the bond and if we get that right now there has been no other talks about what it looks like to to crowdsource or get money from other venues. We are certainly looking at if there are private donors, if there are community partners that say yes, but other than that, there is no real um revenue that we're expected to receive.

Got it. So, thank you. Pivoting a bit. So, I I asked for the per student cost trajectory and never got it. And I'm curious like where we like where is that falling or is that in this packet somewhere? It's not. Oh. Um we developed that this week. So, we do have a graph for that. Okay. Can can you talk it over. I'm just Oh, the per pupil cost or the per pupil allocation. The per pup people cost. I'm curious with enrollment projections and the rising cost of things where those lines are intersecting. Well, they're closer than they used to be. Okay.

So, um let me see. My team prepared something, but I haven't re to be transparent. I I haven't reviewed it in depth, then that's okay. Then I don't I don't that's okay. I don't want us to wade through the wilderness together. But I but I will get that to you. Got it. And I can tell you that the poor people cost has gone up and the state funding for that has gone down. Right. Yes. And because of that Yes, for sure. Um will be helpful to see.

I'm curious because of that when we talk about enrollment. So and Dr. B, you you offered a good explan like you offered a correction for me and I thought it was helpful. One of the like Cordan Clark projections had us at like a 2,000 student decline. I saw somewhere you said that it was more like 500. Yes. I'm curious on the FY27 budget. Are we still going with Cordigan Clark's numbers given that it was exceptionally off or are we using a different actual for the budget? We used actual kid count from February of this year. Got it. Thank you for that. Um, thank you for that.

Does anybody else have more questions? Sorry. Yes. Yeah, I do. It's just a big number and I and I Yeah. Okay. It's It's

Well, Jones and that was a big number, but I'm hopeful because a lot of these numbers are determined by the city of St. Louis and what they have not been doing. We've been watching this special this last few days about the May uh to tornado and a lot of people have nowhere to go, nowhere to live that want to live here in this city with their students, with their children. And I think if it the determination on how SLPS goes is how the city of St. Louis is going to go when it comes to housing because this is why we've lost students. The real big reason is we they're they have nowhere to go. They have nowhere to live, no decent place. So, I'm really, this is a call out, a shout out to city hall downtown. We need you to do what you need to do. The money is there and it can make a big difference and it should be spent on the people here that need it the most and that would be our families. So, I'm looking forward to a change.

Thank you, board member Jones. Any further discussion, additional questions? Thank you. This was quite thorough and um I learned a lot from my colleagues about a couple of other things that I'll be looking forward for in your next report. Um Dr. Barry and I did attend an event yesterday sponsored by St. Louis University and the Department of Education during the Desi visit here and part of it was the research on it was demographic information but it was more trends of where our citizens are going the direction that they're moving from east to west and how that's impacting um the city schools and the school districts that are right outside of the city schools. So, all of our enrollments are decreasing everywhere and they're decreasing all over the country, but right now we have this decrease in very large numbers and everyone is concerned about it. And what member Jones is correct, you know, we can't we're going to be able to draw people to the city if we don't provide something that they they need. We need new construction. We need better, you know, jobs and and um the kind of housing that individuals want to have in 2026. No one I mean they may not want to live in a renovated 200 year old home. So um thank you. Thank you for everything you brought to the table today.

You're welcome. Thank you Dr. Barry. No thank you. And I know there were a lot of um questions that the board had some great thoughts and provoking questions. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you trusting us on this journey and we will get back to you with detailed hardcore facts and I appreciate the community also um trusting us and we're being as transparent as possible. And I want to thank Miss Dobel and her team and Miss Mack. They've been phenomenal in helping us understand the numbers and where we need to go and what we need to do to get there. So, thank you.

And now we move to that fabulous moment in our board agenda, public comment. Sir, would you please step to the microphone? Good evening and thank you to board president Collins Adams, to vice president Brian Marson. Congratulations. And to our board and to our superintendent, public comment will go as follows. Out of respect for our board members and their mission to conduct district business by maintaining order and rules of decorum, we will continue to enforce guidelines for public comment. First, citizens interested in commenting will sign in before the board meeting. Do not hand documents directly to board members. Give them to the secretary at the far left. Commenters may take an available seat in the room. Public comments will occur at the time designated by the board in the agenda published ahead of each board meeting. Each commenter will have up to three minutes to address the board. No speaker shall engage in any illegal or criminal activity. No speaker shall use obscene language. No speaker shall engage in conduct which poses a true threat or disruption. There will be time allotted for all comments in accordance with board policy B9358.3. If you were not called to speak, you might submit your information in writing or return to the next scheduled meeting with a priority number. If the allotted comment period is inadequate for the number of re registered commenters, the board may in its discretion extend the commenting period or may require that an organization or group with multiple individuals desiring to speak on the

same topic identify an individual to present the comments on behalf of the group or organization. First, we will have William Monroe. Thank you. I want to start off with saying that we're at war. We're at war for the very lives for our children. We're at war and we need to treat these things with urgency. I want to ask there's an item on the agenda item 7.4 because I'm here asking about thatou that I've been in search for. Is this does this item have to do with theou where we have been talking about a partnership a collaboration with Harriet Tubman? Can can somebody answer that? Well, I'm here in support of taking Bowmont High School and making Bowmont High School a place for our children. It'll save lives. And we're talking about a dormatory setting, a setting for the unhoused children in our city, in our community. And I believe that that's going to bring at least three or 400 children back to this community. There are so many needs and housing, security, just food. So many things are necessary. And I'm gonna I'm gonna just let it go at that. But that's what I'm here about and I

hope that 7.4 has something to do with Harriet Tubman and Bill Monroe and collaboration with the St. Louis public schools. Thank you so much Bailey. Good evening. I'm really excited about being here tonight above all the nights I've been at board meeting since the um Can you say SAB team is here? You know, I'm almost without words, sir. Donna's got a teammate. She's been working so hard. I am so excited. somebody speaking up for these children and thank you for that and thank you. Their children at the justice center, it seems like from that um projection that was made and the children at the juvenile detention center. If they keep repeating going back to those locations, why aren't we trying to get them in some kind of career field? Why aren't we doing something like that? But anyway, your foresightedness is taking you to the point where you are now and look like you're going to have somebody riding along with you. Um good evening everyone. I am really excited today. I do want to say take an exception for one of the comments. I do think we need to be innovative and creative in some areas. I think we need to look at something like when uh Superintendent Hickeyi was here when he created a whole program for our playgrounds in the summers for our children and had a whole training module to include students that were in the universities and somehow um giving them an opportunity to see what they could do and possibly be teachers and come back and provide more services to our district. Superintendent Cotmmyer had a wonderful basic goals and spelling program that

really helped children connect the phonetics um to reading. And I think we need something like that. And Superintendent Dwey, if you remember, he was the one who started the public library and then he separated because of the cost associated. He wanted the library to be free for everyone and they created the nonprofit for the St. public library. So those are all opportunities that we've had including the first kindergarten that we started. So in some of those areas I'm really open to um hearing more superintendent about the ways we're going to partner with this community because we have to make sure that the kids needs are provided for food, clothing, and shelter. Then we're going to get some more uh better results from what they do. But I do want to speak today to an issue that I brought up a couple of board meetings ago about using the $6 million that the St. Louis public school district had offered for demolition and using that for housing development. I want to clarify in no way or means that I mean for the St. public school district personally to build houses, but I do want to look at uh I want the superintendent and the board to look at some creative ways to create housing through other partnerships like superintendent Dwey created a whole St. Louis public library system. I don't know if many of you know and I found out um Washington University started the art museum and because of funding sources they separated that um art museum from Washington University they still maintain control of it and I don't want to get into the politics of that but they created a system that's been overreaching and far more than Washington University could have maintained but anyway I'm going to write you because maybe two of you all will read what I write and thank you so Ebony Williams.

How y'all doing? Good evening, members of the board. My name is Evan Williams. I'm here representing Bridge Institute. I know the district is facing difficult decisions right now, especially with the reported 40ome million dollar deficit that we in mostly because of other people, but I understand that budgets are tight, resources are stretched, and everybody trying to figure out how we going to move forward while we still making sure that our children succeed. But tonight, I'm not here to ask for no millions of dollars or no dollars at all. I'm here to offer partnership. Bridge to Hope has created the know your level campaign, a family engagement and literacy support initiative focused on helping parents understand their child's academic data, reading levels, attendance, intervention plans, and how to support learning at home. What we are seeing in our community is not that parents do not care. It's that many of the parents do not feel equipped. Some of them are yeah just not equipped. Families are receiving report cards, testing data, reading success plans, and intervention information, but many of them still leave confused about what they actually mean about their child. And when families are disconnected from the process, the students fall further behind. We are proposing a free f re that spells free. All right. Pilot partnership at one elementary school such as Ashlin Elementary or Jefferson Elementary School. This panel will focus on parent workshops, family literacy nights, parent confidence coaching, reading advocacy, home learning strategies, and helping families understand what student data and academic goals in IEP and FA plan support and most importantly rebuilding trust in communication between schools and families. I also want to be very clear about something. Bridge the hope is not coming into this space with a hidden agenda. We are not string puppets for funders and we are not here to push privatization or divide public education. Our work is centered on children and families. Period. We champion for all children and families.

Simple. We do not promote school closing campaigns. We do not rally specifically for charter schools or public schools. Our focus is specifically on helping children and families succeed in whatever educational space that they are currently in. Because at the end of the day, our children cannot wait for adults to figure out your political battles while they continue falling behind academically. Families need support right now. We believe that the only way we going to get that support is if y'all make the community and partnerships with the community a part of the solution. The outcomes we will track will include increased parent engagement, increased participation in conferences and school events, reading growth, and increased understanding of student learning levels. This is not about replacing anyone or add no pressure to the school. This is about community organizations helping carry the weight alongside schools during a difficult time. If we truly want to improve student outcomes, we cannot only focus on what happens inside of the classroom, but invest what happens between the school and at home. Um, and I'm going to be heavy on that. We're offering you guys a free partnership. So, there's no way for us to take it over, do anything, or have any ill intent on a free partnership. Tracy Fantini. Good evening, Dr. Barry, members of the board of education. As a parent and the co-chair of the parent action council, um I have serious concerns about a partnership with Bridge to Hope. Um because um partnering with an organization that is funded by the Opportunity Trust is

dangerous and it threatens to undermine the success of our district. Further, after reading theou, it is very unclear what value this partnership would add to the literacy curriculum and the family and community engagement programming that SLPS already has. Um, the theou doesn't specify outcomes, benchmarks, or deliverables, but it does give them access to our parents and families information and encourages them to provide Bridge to Hope with access to their children's reading scores. The IRS forms 990 filed by Bridge to Hope and Opportunity Trust as recently as 2024 showed that Bridge to Hope was over 97% funded by the Opportunity Trust. 97%. Um, their CEO, as you know, stated that SLPS should be burned to the ground. Um, and the Opportunity Trust itself was funded by the City Fund, a national organization well known for their efforts to privatize public education through charter schools. these uh these parent advocacy programs that that Bridge to Hope is is offering to our parents uh were developed with opportunity trust dollars. Um they these programs have not historically been kind to or friendly or supportive to St. Louis public schools. Um, and I feel strongly that we are taking a risk giving them access to our parents in that, you know, um, the information they have could be used to recruit them to, um, go to charter schools. And as we've had speakers in the past up here talking about what a terrible job, and I put that in quotes, um, we are doing teaching our children to read, you know, we're we're just basically handing them a weapon to we be wielded against us if

we give them access to our kids reading scores. Um, so, you know, we know the people in power in Jeff City have been actively working to destroy public education as we know it with us. as number one on their list. We have a target on our back. You know that um the opportunity trust is a key player in this effort. You know, with the with if you haven't read the wolf at the schoolhouse door or the education plan for project 2025, I highly recommend you do so. Um we can't afford to have the wolf walk right in and destroy us. Thank you. permission to speak to our board. President. This concludes public comment. We move to the section of our board agenda. Consent agenda items. Items 7.1 through 7.46 have been reviewed and discussed during

our monthly work session on April 28th. I move to approve consent agenda items 7.1 through 7.46. Discussion. I'd like to uh vote individually on uh seven 7.21 21 and yeah 72.1 and 7.2 chart wells and am I in the right one?

Yes. 2172.

Board member Jones, are you asking to remove or discuss? To remove 7.21 21. Uh I think it needs to be uh looked into further before we proceed.

I make a motion to table item 7.21 pending full board review at a later date. Are we in the middle of a different motion though? We're in the middle of a motion for 7 um 1.746. So,

so friendly amendment to pull 7.21 off. Can amend the motion. I make a motion to amend the motion. I We can't hear you down here. I'm I'm so close to the mic. Um I make a motion to amend Brian's motion to take item 7.21 21 off of the consent agenda at 7.2 in kind to mer. No, I'm sorry. It wasn't 7.2. It would be 7.20. That would be chart. Well, question.

So, just for clarification, we're removing 7.20 and 7.21 from the vote. Correct. Correct. Are we moving them to items for action for tonight's meeting? No, I just merely had a question about 7.2.

7.21. Yes, please. We're removing 7.21. And then we have a question for 7.20. Chartwells removing St. Louis black authors of children's literature.

I think we can discuss 7.20 is part of the discussion of consent agenda. And for 7.21, we could move it to items for action tonight. I'm not I have to look I I need to read it again to see what the date is for the author presentation. I'm wondering if we don't vote on it tonight if we'll miss the date. We have two motions on the table. The first motion was a motion to approve the consent agenda in its entirety. There was an amendment to the motion. It was not second. We need to go back to the original motion. So Miss Von, would you like us to vote on the original motion?

So if there was the amendment, we still have to figure out because you guys were undecisive as to whether 2.70 and 2.71 was going to items for discussion or action or were we moving them all together. Um there so we need to decide exactly how you guys are moving these so that we can go back to the amendment as or the motion as amendment as amended. Madam President, if I may, um I would like to add I am in agreement with the removal of 7 uh 21 until we can get more information.

I defer to our legal at this point. So, right now there is a friendly amendment on the floor to remove an item from the consent agenda. Is there a second to that motion? Second.

That's the thing. It's only one they're going to discuss. They stood on. So also with a friendly amendment, our board vice president can decide to accept the motion without a second. I accept the friendly amendment. Thank you. Motion has been second. Call for a vote.

Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Heights.

Miss. Yes. Miss Jones. Yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes.

Motion approved. Board member Hubard. Um, board member hik your mic is on. Okay. Okay, we we need a motion to vote on item 7.1 through 7.46 with the removal of item 7.21. Move to approve consent agenda items 7.1 through 7.46 with the exception of 7.21 which is being moved to items for action.

Is there a second on the floor? Second. Call for a vote. Do do we have a discussion about discussions from 7.1 through 7.46 46 with the removal of 7.21 has been motioned and second board member Harvey board member Jones I thought wanted to discuss 7.20 right now the chartwell

uh the reason why I asked about 7.20 two with Chartwell is because in response to the young people that were here earlier and they talked about the food selection and I was really hoping that we're not just going to pass the same kind of contract that perhaps there can be some friendly amendment or something added to it that they can kind of change the way that they're doing our lunches and breakfastes in school because our students do deserve uh less processed foods and things like that. and we need to listen to them. So that was the reason for pulling that, asking that it be pulled. Dr. Barry.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Um, if Chief Watson wants to come up, you are absolutely correct. We have heard that more than once. Um, I believe we have one more year on the contract, but until then, we are also already preparing for what may come down from the federal government about having fresh foods. We have kitchens prepared and ready to start. But Chief Watson, did you want to add to that? to that point. Uh we do have survey information that we'll provide to Dr. Barry that we can provide to the the board uh from students and staff uh regarding the participation in the breakfast and lunch. Um but to that point what Dr. Barry mentioned we're coming up on the last year of the contract. Um so at that point we will make those uh taking those considerations for the RFP. So, the students will be surveyed too or

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much. Any further discussion? Foster.

Yeah. I think um to board member Jones's point, another thing we heard tonight from the student advisory board was the desire for high school students or upper classmen to at least have the opportunity to go off campus and get lunch. Um maybe order in lunch. Is that something that's on the table? Is this, you know, leadership considering that? And I'll say for the record, this is available at at least one high school. it has been available for at least over 10 years. So it's Metro um and so it is something worth looking into and considering.

You are 150% correct. Um I do not know the rationale to why it was behind other than there were a lot of places to eat near Metro. Um so we will certainly look into that to see how we do it and what parameters we need to put in place for all students and not just the students that we could potentially add. I really thought there was some USDA guidelines about free and reduced lunch in the the population that we serve in some of the schools and that's why they couldn't leave to be able to go get lunch off campus. But I mean that's something to look into. I don't know.

Oh, I see Mr. Wayne coming up. All right, come on up, Mr. W. This is our uh food service director, so he probably can answer that question. Yeah. So, we're under the community eligibility provision in the district, meaning all students can eat for free, which we definitely take as a blessing, but we want to make sure we're providing that that good food to the students. Um, students do have that choice if they do want to go off of campus. Um, we have directives in terms of competing. So, like we can't offer foods that are competing with the free and reduced lunch that we can't. So, like the school district shouldn't be offering things especially during the breakfast and lunch hours. And Mr. Mr. W, can you please check on to see if there are any guidelines around the parameters for free and reduced lunch versus going off campus? For sure.

Thank you. Thank you. Right. If there's a Pizza Hut next door, you know, is that competing or what? Thank you so much. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Huard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston. Yes. Dr. Collins Adams. Yes. Motion approved.

Thank you, board member Jones. Where are we? Um, our next section is items for information. These items include our credit card statements. They're there for your review. It's item 9.1. It includes the March receipts and um and charges and also our motor vehicle charges um for all of our March credit card statements. Items for action. Items 10.1, Council of Great City Schools membership dues and services. I move to approve item for action 10.1 to renew the district's membership in the council of the of the great city schools for fiscal year 2027

second discussion I do have some concerns or one concern I don't recall getting any type of email from re recently from greater city council I mean um for years since the board has been back. Uh we have attended several of their meetings, but recently for $50,832, I don't see where we've got the value. I don't and I'm ready to receive that kind of service as a board and I don't see it.

You will. We did we did get in very late this year to be able to renew our membership or we would have lost our place in it and it would have been a lot more costly. So at this point we are set to be able to get all of the information and of course that includes all of the conferences and their guidance through our process with the board. Will the board can actually have opportunity to attend? Yes. Because we haven't attended anything.

They'll be sending information to the board. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Additional discussion. And I apologize that it was so late. It was something that happened in the previous administration. But we're good now. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Miss Huard? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved.

Item 10.3, the MSBA, oh, I'm sorry, 10.2, the 2027 Diligent Elevate Conference. I move to approve item for action 10.2 for our executive assistant to the board of education to attend the 2027 Diligent Elevate Conference in Orlando. Second. discussion. I'm excited that we can invest in our executive assistant and her professional learning and um I hope the conference is great next year. Barba Heights

call for vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Hubard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved. Item 10.3, the 2026 MSBA Summer Summit. Move to approve item for action 10.3 for Dr. Karen Collins Adams, Donna Jones, Emily Hubard, Tracy Hikes, and Dr. Robert Harvey to attend the 2026 Missouri School Boards Association Summer Summit. Second discussion. Call for vote.

I'm sorry. Repeat that mo uh motion in a second. Got it. Dr. Harvey. Yes. M Heights? Yes. Miss Huard? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes, Dr. Collins Adams. Yes. Motion approved. Item 10.4, Community Partner, Bridge to Hope organization.

I'd like to have that item pull 10.4 discussion. I make I make a motion.

There wasn't a motion. There was no motion on Excuse me. I didn't and I'll recognize when we need to. Um, there was no motion on the floor. There was Miss Jones was asking if she should. She asked a question. So, and she withdrew that question. Am I allowed to proceed? Yes, I cannot hear. Miss Vaughn, do you have a question? All right, Miss the board member Foster. I like a motion to approve the proposedou with bridge to hope. Second. Discussion. Call for a vote.

Oh,

yeah. I definitely have discussion. Um, I think when we get into the practice and business of not reviewing anou thoroughly or vetting it against templates that are provided by our legal team, our district team, it puts us at a large disadvantage to be able to govern our school district and give appropriate services to our students where we've heard time and time again that there has been a lack thereof. Um I plan to vote the way I'm going to vote. But I think that again it's important for us to have a larger conversation about how we talk as a board and how we communicate as a board, what our priorities are, what partnerships we believe in. um because we all took an oath to not allow outside groups or outside interests dictate or influence our votes. Um and so I'll leave it at that. The third thing I'll just say too, I'm under the impression that this is not the updated template that has been approved by our legal team and our district leadership. And so I it would behoove us and I strongly strongly suggest I'm open to a friendly amendment or not to review theou and the partnership in its entirety against the correct template. So we've heard tonight that there are no key performance indicators associated with theou. There are no clear um value marks or ads, but it still went through the process to be approved to sit at our desk today. So, just a few thoughts that I have um that I'm willing to share in the public and I invite my fellow board members to engage in public discussion with me.

Board member Oops, excuse me. Um, Superintendent Barry and board member Jones and Harvey. Thank you.

Just to speak to theou. So, that did come through prior to the new process being established and it went through quite a while ago. Um, but we hear you and we understand. So, moving forward, if someone does present an MLOU that comes later, we'll make sure that it is on the updated and new template. This is by no means uh a statement that comes from a lack of experience with this organization. Before many of my fellow board members were here, I've had the experience of dealing with Bridge to Hope and there was no Bridge to Hope. they were associated and admittedly that they were working with opportunity trust. I'm as a board member my 20 years I'm not sitting up here because I'm not interested in St. Louis public school. I'm here because I want to see us here stay to stay free and I understand that opportunity trust is an organization that's interested in the privatiz privatization of public schools and many people don't mind working in the background. This has been SLPS's problem for the 20 years that I observed. You get people in here, they look good, they talk that talk, but then in behind they're stabbing the district in the back. And that's the way I feel about Bridge to Hope. And I don't think it's fair to our young people to say, "Hey, Bridge to Hope." Because I I got I highlight this all in yellow and everything. Look, uh they said they wanted uh to embed themselves and this is how they you do when you're destroying something. You embed yourself in that organization. And it took us a long time. We've lost millions of dollars because people have embedded themselves in our organization that we are trying to save with our students. They want to take our students away from the campus. They want to have organizational meetings outside of the

campus. They want our data and it feels like we're being set up for a lawsuit. To me, that's my personal opinion as a board member that we are this is a setup and if anybody takes their time out to read this and which I did, fell asleep reading some of them, woke up again and read it again. But I'm saying this is dangerous. I I had the experience of working with them. The CPN, the school that they were interested in was Ashlin. Okay. They were at Ashlin and Marramac in the prior years CPN. So for me it's dangerous and that's what I have to say about bridge. I hope it's no

board member Harvey.

Thank you Dr. Cald. There's a part a point that board member Foster made that I want to second or at least lift up in my own way which is like I I see this as a real call for us internally to ask and figure out why we are not just doing the things named in thisou. So when you read it, it reads as if the what is being offered and provided is novel against what we have the capacity to do. Any school in SLPS should have the capacity to sit down with families for them to understand their child's reading scores and to help them understand their academic success. Any school should have the capacity to support parent literacy around how to be a more empowered parent. And so my challenge with the MLOU is that it is written as if it is doing something that is distinct from the role of the district. And I found a problem with that. And I think that is an opportunity for us to be clear that we don't and this and this is not about brid I don't have the history that board member Jones has with bridge to hope at all um or any intimate knowledge of their work but I do have history with school districts and knowing that school districts can do this and most of the time are doing this but they're doing it with a different strategy a different playbook and a different sometimes a different level of fidelity than what a family empowerment organization thinks is a better way and so I I just struggle with the what theou is suggesting is not happening in SLPS by suggesting that they will do a thing better or different than what we are already supposed to do with our families. And I take I I don't say take issue with it, but it raises an alarm for me around partnerships in general and how I think that they uh invite us to challenge ourselves about our own fidelity to promises.

Dr. Uh yes, I just wanted to also to board member Foster's point, it would be great too if there were parameters around the which the board wanted to operate when it comes to partners so we can make sure prior to them getting to you, we will know how to make you know look at the ones that we know that all of the board members could not um stand behind because of how we feel with our values. So that would be great as well to receive that information. board member Hubbert.

I really don't like that it doesn't specify at school. That seems like something that should be important. Um yeah, that's everyone has raised good concerns. Um but that is my specific one that where is it going to be? I don't know. Well, so that it'll go in public record. I thought when we pulled when it was moved from the work session agenda that it was going to be pulled from the agenda and it really wasn't until I saw I didn't pay attention to that that it was moved down to items for action on this agenda. So I will take u responsibility that it didn't I even asked Dr. Barry today but by that time it was too late. So but we had asked that it be pulled. Yeah. So, are we ready to vote? Any further discussion? And I do appreciate everything you said.

Miss F. Dr. Harvey, no. Mr. Hikes, no. Miss Huard, no. Miss Jones, no. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston, no. Dr. Collins Adams? No. Motion denied. Our next item is item 10.5, Power School Business Plus. I move to approve item for action 10.5 for the district's financial software Power School Business Plus. Second discussion call for Call for vote. Dr. Harvey,

yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Huard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster abstain. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams. Yes. Motion approved. Item 10.6, the fiscal year 2027 proposed district budget. I move to approve the proposed fiscal year 2027 district budget. Second. Uh discussion. I'm sorry. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Huard? Yes. Miss Jones?

Yes. Miss Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. Item Are we pulling 10? Item 10.7. the 26 27 policy and procedure structure. I move to approve item for action 10.7, the new version of board policy P2461. Second, discussion.

Attorney, Attorney Dust, do you want to just voice over high level what the policy update is and why it would be a benefit for the board to adopt this tonight? Good evening everyone, board members. Dr. Barry, my name is Kim Dutch. I'm general counsel. Uh the new policy setting policy is improving upon the existing policy setting policy. Basically, what it adds is a purpose uh an authority section and a designated program office which designates the office of general counsel as the responsible program office for implementing a new policy cycle. And that does not mean that the office of general counsel is actually involved in the um drafting and approval of each individual policy that is running the cycle and in the administrative procedures or administrative regulations. We have yet to decide on a terminology but that will be clear moving forward. We will um be implementing a policy cycle and the first week of that will be internal program office review. The second week of that will be legal review. The third week of that which we're most excited about will be external feedback uh from uh external groups such as uh union members, MSBA, students, parents etc. And then there will be a week where we implement that feedback and follow up with the stakeholder groups who provided feedback. Then the policy would go to the first board governance meeting, committee meeting after um those four first weeks and then to a work session and an action meeting right after that for potential final approval by the board. Uh another highlight of those administrative procedures in addition to the policy cycle are additional guidance from the office of general counsel around um the sections that would appear in policies that would create a um more

formatted and consistent format in our policies across SLPS. And we'll also um have those responsible program offices uh making administrative procedures or regulations so that the public and our stakeholders and our district members can know uh the process that actually gets done pursuant to a policy. I hope that helps. Here to answer any questions that you guys might have. Thank you. Call for vote. Dr. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Hubard, yes.

Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved. Item 10.8, the March 2026 check register. Consolidated check register for March. I move to accept the March 2026 check register. Is there a second? Second. Sorry. Second. Discussion. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey? Yes. Mr. Height? Yes. Miss Hubard? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Foster? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams?

Yes. Motion approved. Item 10.9, the April 2026 check register. It's consolidated check register for April. I move to approve the April or to accept the April 2026 check register. Second. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Hubard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston. Yes. Dr. Con Adams. Yes. Motion approved.

Item 11, our board reports. For our audit report, we still need an additional audit member with credentials to be able to join our audit committee. I don't have anything for real estate. uh legislative committee will be postponed until the end of the session and uh our lobbyists will then be able to report out to all of us which by the way I believe ends Friday.

Dr. Collins Adams I hate to interrupt um but the final motion when it came to the consent agenda was to move item 7.2 to one as an item for action. So, we need to get that taken care of.

My brain said table. I'm sorry. See, Marson, thank you. Um, Miss Fall on the board. That motion was never second. So,

which motion? That motion. Hold on, give me a second. So, the final motion as it came to the consent agenda was to approve consent agenda item 7.1 through 7.46 46 with the exception of 7.21 moving that as an item for action. That was made by Mr. Marston and it was second by Miss Jones and it was approved. Okay. So it was not moved to table or removed. So they say item for action. So action. Got it. Yes. All right. So we need to square away that one.

Um board member Marson, are you open to a friendly amendment? Okay. Great.

Uh I'll accept uh advice from council if this isn't uh worded correctly. But I move to table item for action 10.10 concerning the St. Louis black authors of children's literature. Second. Is there a Is there a second? It's been second. Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Hikes, yes. Miss Huard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster,

yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Yes. Motion approved. Are there any other additional board reports? I I have a couple.

Um the Prop S committee will be having a meeting on Thursday, May 14th at 3 PM at Gateway STEM High School. It'll be part of it will involve a hard hat tour. So you need to RSVP for that. Um and the next real estate committee meeting is on Thursday, May 28th at 3 PM. It's different than our usual third Monday of the month schedule. Uh, so I just wanted to call that out. And I wanted to mention that Emily, Robert, and I had the pleasure of attending the educator of the year ceremony on May 6. And it was a reminder that we have some of the very best teachers in the entire region. I want to give a a shout out to Sean Loftton for his excellent work on the videos about the honores. And uh want to also uh give props to Dr. Leticia Smith, the MC, she's she attends all of her board meetings and mostly you don't you don't you don't hear much from her at the board meetings, but when she gets on the mic, she knows how to make sure everybody's having a good time and laughing with her quick wit. So, I'd like to thank all of our board members for preparing to go to our student graduations on the 15th, 16th, and 18th of this month. That's the end of this week through Monday. um we'll be ready. Our gay is ready and we'll celebrate our students of St. Louis public schools. So, thank you so much. If there are no additional comments or concerns, we will now move to our last item on the agenda. Do I have a motion?

I move to adjourn to close session pursuant to the rise revised statutes of Missouri section 610.02. 021 second call for vote. Dr. Harvey, yes. Mr. Hikes, yes. Miss Huard, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Dr. Collins Adams. We are adjourned back to close session at 9:06