St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Testing one, two, three. Testing one, two, three.

Yes. Ready. Good evening. Our regular business meeting of February 10th, 2026 is now called to order. Miss Vaughn, roll call. Miss Foster present. Mr. Heights present. Miss Jones here. Mr. Marston present. Miss Hover here. Dr. Collins Adams here. We have a quorum. Hold on a second. We need a motion.

I'm sorry. Yes. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You may be seated. Board member Marson, board norms.

St. Louis Board of Education norms as adopted on April 9th, 2019. Decision-M. We believe our first priority and greatest concern is the educational 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 debate. 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 timeliness, timelines, and deadlines outlined in the workflow calendar and any other tasks assigned. We conduct all official board related email communications using ours slps.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 or 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 positions shall direct the request to the board president or superintendent. and confidentiality. We respect and maintain the confidentiality of close 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 Marst. And now for a special presentation of our board. The board followed a process of accepting applicants and set forth um excuse [clears throat] me and set forth interview to interview the candidates. Previously, our St. Louis public school board set a precedent for the requirements and for consistency, this board followed the same set of requirements. Tonight we appoint a board member replacing an appointed board member who replaced an appointed board member who replaced an elected board member. I am excited to share this evening that

we are swearing in one of our newest members to the board, Dr. Robert Harvey, who will be joining us for the first board meeting this evening. Dr. Harvey will be sworn in by Judge Christopher McGra. The board is pleased to have him join us and return the board to a full voting body after we met the he met the requirements necessary for the appointed members. We welcome the insights and experience that Dr. Harvey brings to his service and h how [clears throat] his contributions will ensure we move ahead collaboratively as a board that is committed to transparency, fairness, and the best interests of students and families of the St. Louis public schools. And now we will conduct the swearing in ceremony. Judge McQu please and repeat after me. I state your name. I, Robert Harvey,

do hereby swear do hereby swear upon my oath upon my oath that I do not hold that I do not hold any other elected office any other elected office in the city of St. Louis in the city of St. Louis state of Missouri or state of Missouri that I possess that I possess all the qualifications all the qualifications required by state law required by state law to serve as a member to serve as a member the board of education of the board of education city of St. Louis of the city of St. I am not a party I am not a party to any contract to any contract with or claim with or claim against the board against the board either directly or indirectly either directly or indirectly I will not while serving I will not while serving as a member of the board as a member of the board

become interested become interested in any contract in any contract with with or claim or claim against the board against the board directly or indirect directly or indirectly or as as an agent or as an agent or an employee or an employee of any individual of any individual firm or corporation firm or corporation which is so interesting which is so interesting. I will not be influenced I will not be influenced during my term of office during my term of office by any consideration by any consideration except that of merit except that of merit and fitness and fitness and the appointment and the appointment of an officer of an officer and the engagement and the engagement of employees of employees. I will faithfully I will faithfully fulfill all the duties fulfill all the duties of the office of the office

of the state board member of the state board member will serve and will serve St. Louis public schools St. Louis public schools to the best of my abilities to the best of my abilities as such. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause] And now we'll take a brief 15minute recess and then allow to allow for pictures and then return to our meeting.

Okay. I motion that we go into recess starting at 6:27 for 15 minutes. Second. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Hikes, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Miss Hover, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved.

Okay, we're ready to rejoin our uh regular business meeting. I need a motion to approve the agenda. I move to approve the agenda for tonight's regular business meeting. Second. Second. Roll call. Mr. Harvey.

Miss Foster. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Miss Jones. Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Miss Hoverard? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. I move to approve the minutes from the open session of our January 27th work session. Second. Roll call. Dr. Harvey. Abstain. Miss Foster. Yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Miss Huard? Yes.

Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. Excuse me. We move now to the spirit of excellence.

Dr. Barry. Thank you. Good evening members of the board and listening audience and welcome Dr. Harvey. Today during the spirit spirit of excellence, we are absolutely thrilled and incredibly proud to share that collegiic school of medicine and bioscience has been recognized as a 2026 Missouri Goldstar School by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. There are only seven other schools in Missouri that receive this distinction. This prestigious recognition reflects the extraordinary work that our students, staff, and leaders and affirms our district's commitment to academic excellence and innovation. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor for the second year in the row. Keep leading the way of excellence. Absolutely. The community clinic at Llead officially opened this week. We look forward to serving families in the area. This community clinic is open to our community. And you do not have to be a student or even have a child that attends the cleat. For more information, please reach out directly to the cleat junior career academy or the student support office. Planning is in full bloom for the district-wide recruitment event for our kindergarten students, new and returning families with our on-site registration event in March. Stay tuned as more information is coming your way. And our mento mentor, our male mentors and caregiver event will hold its next session on February 18th, 2026. And we already have over 54 males registered for this initiative. And finally, I want to say thank you to the many staff members, families, and community partners that listened to the state board presentation today. Thank you to the cabinet for ensuring this work continues. We want to thank DESIE for their continued support and the state board of education for welcoming us and stating their support of St. Louis public

schools. We are making a promise to our students that we are going to keep you in the forefront of everything we do. To our teachers, we will continue to hope you up as you impress upon our students. To our board, thank you and continue to stand firm and pushing us for excellence in this momentum. To our community, continue to hold us accountable. and we are asking that you work with us and understand that we are reshaping and reconfiguring our district to better fit the needs of our community together. No one can stop us because we have an entire city behind us. Thank you. [applause]

Superintendent Board reports.

Yes, ma'am. Tonight we only have one report and that is human resources. They're providing a staffing update. Good evening board members, Dr. Barry, and members of the community. My name is Latica Williams. I am the interim executive director of human resources. Tonight, we're going to provide a brief update for staffing for the district. So, as always, we are committed to our district goals. We know that we have to best serve students only when we have the right staff members in place. So, through care, careful and intentional staffing, we can help our students have access to highquality education they each deserve. In human resources, we serve every department in every school. In particular, we are committed to three targeted goals. to staff our classrooms with certificated teachers to provide exceptional service and to support, coach, and empower our leaders to be effective. So each year we evaluate our net total of hires against separations. As you can see, we have hired and onboarded 201 certified teachers since July 1 of this year alone. We have already exceeded teacher hiring over the previous school year. Our teacher separations continue to decrease year-over-year. Since July 1 of this year, we've had 60 teacher separations, primarily due to resignations. We know that we must all commit to retaining our current teachers if we want to make a dent in the vacancies. Which brings me to our school-based vacancies. As we look at our vacancies, we are glad to see that we have 10 less teacher vacancies than last school year. This is a win for us. That metric of 135 vacancies are

positions not covered by a permanent SLPS employee or a retired certified teacher, but they may be covered by a temporary substitute or a contractor. You will also note that the non-eing staff vacancies have increased. Non-eing staff include our instructional care aids, our teacher assistants, teacher aids, in school suspension monitors, and building learning associates among other roles. The reason for this high number of vacancies is that many of our classroombased non-certified staff are transitioning either to full-time substitute roles or to our teacher certification programs. Additionally, many of those reported vacancies are covered by contracted contracted staff, particularly in the special education support positions. We continue to support our building leaders and hiring for those non-essential support roles in each building. As we review our hiring numbers for school-based staff, we'd like to highlight that we have seen a dramatic increase in our number of certificated teachers between last year and this year with the change from 1,100 certified teachers to 1,213 certified teachers.

Wow, nice.

Thank you. In central office, we have 31 vacancies in the academics department, most of which are special education team and are considered our hard to fill positions such as the applied behavioral analysts, speech language pathologists, and psychological examiners. Most of those vacancies are covered currently by contracted employees. Also, you will also note a large number of vacancies in our operations department. Most of those are custodial positions and we continue to support all central office departments as we post positions and help to uh fill vacancies. We've had long-term substitutes in St. Louis public school for years and our current iteration of that position is captured by the interim learning associate role. As an update to this position, we have now met with every ILA in the district to create their own personalized certification plan. We continue to recruit participants from our pathways to certification from our population of ILAS. This is why you see the number of ILAs decreasing from last year to this year. We are working diligently to continue to move this population of employees towards certification. So earlier we looked at our increase in certified teachers over the past year. Since fall of 2024, we have added 61 cultural exchange teachers from six countries. These teachers are fully certified and are working in dozens of our schools providing first excellent instruction but also to enrich our students learning experience from global contexts. We will be asking the board next month to approve a third year of recruiting internationally and if approved we hope to add up to 20 more teachers focusing on recruiting from countries in the Caribbean and South America. The current countries that we have recruited from is

India, Ghana, the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria, and the Dominican Republic. Now we're going to transition to a quick highlight through our recruitment and retention strategies. Miss Beth Davyy will come up and talk to you about that.

Good evening, board members. Um, so one of our main recruitment and retention strategies, particularly for our non-certificated staff, is our pathways to certification. So this in-house recruitment strategy identifies our most talented non-certified staff members to help them obtain the necessary coursework and credentials to move to certified teaching roles. Our message to our SLPS employees is no matter what step in the educational process you are, we have a route for you. The Stepping Stones program with St. Louis Community College helps employees finish their associates degree in order for them to transition to our parro pathway with Lincoln at which they can complete their bachelor's degree with certification in elementary or special education which as you know are some of our highest need areas. The programs through UMSL and Slooh are M's programs and they require that participants already have completed a bachelor's degree in any content area. These allow staff members to be immediately placed on a provisional teaching certificate which is considered fully certified in the state of Missouri while receiving their master's degrees. Um we cannot speak to these pathways of certification without publicly again thanking the Parsons Blue Memorial Fund um which generously contributes full tuition scholarships for our programs at Lincoln. um soul and Slooh um over a million dollars a year and I think you'll see that this evening in your consent agenda. Um just a few quick metrics for you on our certification pathways. Again, this is one of our most effective teacher recruitment strategies. Um first I need to mention that St. Louis Community College is not on this spreadsheet because it is a transition program, right, for employees to move from associates program to a full program. Um and but I do need to note a few exciting things. So, first I want to show you that the three-year retention rates for completers of the UMSL and Slooh Masters programs are both above 87%. In contrast, the three-year retention rate for all teachers across the state

of Missouri, so someone going into their fourth year, is only 45%. These programs are working. We are keeping our teachers. Um, we also wanted to note, you can see on the column on the very far right hand side, is that through these pathways alone, not mentioning all of our other recruitment initiatives, we will add 49 certified teachers to our ranks by December of this year. That's huge. Um, in addition to our pathways to certification and our international teacher recruitment, we also continue to participate in traditional recruitment events. This school year, our recruitment and talent team and HR office has attended 28 external hiring events and college career fairs. We are continuing to reach out to those who are finishing their degrees in education. Um, in addition to that, some of our other recruitment initiatives that we're really trying to support individuals. Um, we have remaining vouchers to cover the cost of certification exams. Those can often cost more than $150 per test. Particularly for our non-certified employees, it's a huge barrier that we can help remove. Um, and we also for our non-certified positions, our substitutes, our instructional cars, teacher assistants, those roles that are so essential to making sure that our schools are functioning, that our children are well, we are still offering to cover the cost of their background checks, of their substitute certificates, and of other credentials that they will need for the role. We are seeking to remove barriers to make sure that we have the right people in place for our children. And retaining high quality staff of course is the responsibility of all of us of every department leader of every school leader of every coach mentor and colleague in the district. HR specifically however we are doing some innovative recruit um retention initiatives. Um we manage currently 120 employees who are participating in the Missouri Career Ladder Salary Supplement Program. Um we honor staff anniversaries. Thank you to our last board meeting. I know we were able to celebrate some of our individuals who have been here with us a long time. Um, and we s provide support

to employees looking to advance their careers. Um, we also in HR provide a staff transfer window each spring for employees who are looking to find the right school fit through changing buildings. We have such unique uh schools across our district and sometimes it's about our staff members finding the right fit for them. And finally, just want to highlight our upcoming hiring fair set for Saturday, March 7th. For this event, we are targeting those essential non-certified support staff vacancies. And that does not mean that we are not always recruiting certified teachers. But we know that for this kind of event, for the clientele that we are seeking to bring in, we want to hire our teacher assistants, our instructional care aids, and our substitute teachers. At this event, uh candidates will have the opportunity to interview directly with SLPS principles who have these vacancies. And we're working now with our communications team both internally and externally uh to advertise for the event. Our goal is to have a minimum of 50 on the spot offer letters by the end of the day on March 7th. So that is a speed through of some of our recruitment and retention initiatives. I'll turn it back over to um interim Executive Director Williams if you have any questions. I have a question.

Go ahead. Board member Robert, sorry.

It's a little bit more like a comment. I am so glad to see all these numbers. Um [clears throat] they haven't been present um in [snorts] board meetings for us to know what exactly is happening. And even though it is disquing to know how many teacher vacancies we have, it's also knowing that we have this many um helps us move forward. And um I would like to put in a plug for Slooh's program since I held it um as a grad student. It is really great and I'm so thankful for the work y'all are doing and the you're acting like you have hope and

hope that hasn't always been the case and so I'm so thankful. Thank you. And it's not an act we do have hope. Thank you. Thank you. [laughter] Any other questions or comments? Yeah. Board member Morse. Yeah. Just going back to slide four, I wanted to point out that there's been a phenomenal improvement in teacher retention this fiscal year. Like just astonishing really. Uh so congratulations on that. Thank you.

I'm excited about the programs that we have to um get individuals certified and move into classrooms quickly. So, having been a part of that in the past, I I know it's really worth every minute of it. Absolutely. And if Madame President, if I may, Pardon me. If I may. Yes. Go ahead. I just want to say I am excited as well. And um since October, I had no clue about the personalized certification plan. You may know that every teacher has to do an individualized professional development plan. So the fact that you are implementing this because they are actually in classrooms in front of our students is phenomenal. So way to go and keep up the excellent work. Thank you.

Any additional comments? Thank you so much madam. That concludes our presentations.

Thank you Dr. Barry. And now we move to the public comment segment of our agenda. Good evening and thank you so much to our president, Dr. Collins Adams, Vice President Hubard. Uh welcome Dr. Harvey, to one of the hardest working boards that I am familiar with, and to our interim superintendent, Dr. Myra Bry. Uh we will continue to conduct our professional business with public comment. Our commenters have all been made aware of the uh the rules, but we will go over them for our community's sake. Out of respect for our board members and their mission to conduct district business, we will continue to enforce guidelines for public comments. They are as follows. Citizens interested in commenting should sign in between 6:00 and 6:30. Each commenter will have up to three minutes to address the board. Each commenter must remain respectful and refrain from using names or speaking derogatorily about anyone. Only one individual should speak to the same point or topic. To start this evening, we will have Avis Funches.

Hi, good evening. I'm Avis Funches. I have three children in the district. I am on the Mason PTO. I am on the Compton Drew PTO. And I am a co-chair of the parent action council. So this evening I'm here to share some information about the parent action council. So I'm going to read what we have on our website and it says um the SLPS p wait the parent action council of St. Louis public schools is a volunteer-run community network. Our [snorts] primary purpose is to advocate for the protection of SLPS funding and increase resources for students while building bridges with district administration to address concerns of SLPS parents and families. It could be a run-on sentence. Sorry about that. [laughter] Um, parents and caregivers of SLPS students are automatically members. Um, I also wanted to share that we've been really lucky this year that um, the district has been sharing out information about our meetings and about upcoming events and that's been hopeful too. Um, some of our goals for um, this school year was to establish communication with family support specialists and key contacts in every school. Um, once again, that has been helped by the district sharing out information about what we're doing. Another goal is to ensure all parents and caregivers feel welcome and safe within pack. Um third goal advocate and be a voice for parents and caregivers that do not have access to traditional PTO channels. One of the things that we do within PAC and with the St. Louis education fund. They used to be the foundation. Um is that they help us uh one of the things that they did for us for Compton Drew because we're trying to get our PTO going was that they helped us pay for some of the food for one of our meetings. So as PAC

as we're trying to educate people on how to get their PTO going um that is a resource that we can offer to them as well. Um, next goal, support board of education legislative priorities and protect SLPS funding at a local and state levels. Empower parents and families to advocate for their needs at the district, local, and state levels. We recognize that um we are privileged to be able to find time to come to the board meetings or to any meetings to share our concerns. So when a parent shares theirs with us, we try to find the correct resource for them. Um, and encourage and support family engagement in collaboration with staff and community partners at all SLPS schools. Once again, we're doing that by bridging communication with the district and with the superintendent and the chief of staff. Um, that's still in its early stages. Um, and last is support and assist parents and caregivers interested in starting a PTO at their children's school. Um, I'm pretty good at that. I'm at a lot of PTOs at this point, but I just wanted to take that time to share that with you so that you could kind of put a face or one of the faces of pack um to the things that we're doing.

Thank you. We will have Tracy Fantini who will speak directly about the parent day of action. [clears throat]

Thank you.

Good evening. It's nice to be up here. I haven't been up here for a for a for a hot minute to talk to you all. So, it's nice to be here tonight. Thank you for having us. Um, so I'm Tracy Fantini. I am a parent of two students in the district at McKinley. Um I am a fierce defender of public education and a fierce advocate for our district. I'm here to tell you about our upcoming fifth annual Parents Day of Action in Jefferson City. Um, just to give you a little background, in 2022, uh, Republicans in the general assembly tried to take $18 million from our district from our local property tax revenue, in fact, uh, and give it to charter schools, which would have meant cuts to services for our kids with special needs. But myself and three other strong parent advocates, including one sitting on the board today, uh traveled to Jefferson City several times during that session to testify against that bill. And the parent action council organized our f very first uh day of action. We took families and students to the Capitol to tell state legislators to keep their hands off our local tax dollars, but also um es especially to tell them why we choose St. Louis public schools to educate our children. And we won. But we didn't do that alone. AFT420 and our members of the board of education were with us that day to support us and stand with us. So this year on February 24th, we are traveling back to Jefferson City again for our fifth day of action and we invite each

of you to join us. Make no mistake, the powers that be in Jefferson City are determined to destroy public education in Missouri. and St. Louis public schools is at the top of their list. We are going to show them once again that our families are a force to be reckoned with and we need you to stand with us. Please join us on the 24th and show them why we are St. Louis strong and public school proud. Thank you for your time. And finally, Dr. Zachariah Davis. Good evening, everyone. Um, I stand to follow up with my concern from last time we met. It's good to hear uh that there was a plan uh presented to the state board. Um so I'll give my follow-up question. Will that plan or the presentation be shared with the community so that we can view it um and have some stake in it, if you will, um anytime soon, next month, next 30 days, what have you. Uh that's that's what my main question is because I'm I'm a fierce advocate for what we're doing here in St. public schools. I believe in it and um I believe this young lady capsulized greatly um that our school district is top of the list um and we want to make sure that we bow together um to keep our school district strong and safe. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we move to our consent agenda items um 8.1 through 8.31. I move to approve consent agenda items 8.1 through 8.31. Second discussion roll call Dr. Harvey abstain. Miss Foster. Yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Miss Hubard? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams. Yes. Motion approved.

Section nine of our agenda items for discussion. Are there any items? We move to section 10, items for information. Any additional items? Section 11, items for action. 11.1 Acceptance of Funds from Parsons Blue at St. Louis University St. Louis teaching fellows grant letter of agreement I move to approve item for action 11.1 to accept the donation from Parsons Buitt to support the St. Louis University teachers teaching fellows program.

Second discussion. For the record, this is an acceptance of a donation of $554,025 to support the St. Louis University Teaching Fellows Program from the Parsons Fluitt Foundation. Roll call. Dr. Harvey. Abstain. Miss Foster. Yes. Mr. Hikes. Yes. Miss Jones, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Miss Hubard, abstain. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved.

Item 11.2, demolition of surplus vacant buildings, and the demolition includes Gunlock, Hempstead, Stow, Scullan, and Walnut Park. I move to issue requests for proposals for the demolition of Uklid, Gundlock, Hempstead, Stow, Scullan, and Walnut Park. Second discussion. Yeah, I do have a couple of comments. Mr. Barson and board member Jones. M board member Jones.

Okay. I am I also on the real estate committee, but I did have some second thoughts about uh about Stow. I did drive around uh to all of the schools to uh circle the block and make sure I just want to make sure that I'm making a good decision uh in the community. And Stole has such a beautiful uh architecture. It's just just really a nice building structurally. I know inside I'm sure it's uh in need of repair, but I'm just really hoping that we can think of some other creative way to utilize uh Stow uh that sits right there on Goodfellow uh instead of tearing it all the way down. Um so it's much newer than Ashland is, which is what five blocks, five or six blocks away. and perhaps we could use Ashlin for uh student housing or something like that. But I'm hoping that uh something good will come out of Stow. So that's what I wanted to say. Thank you.

Marston, I I asked this question at our January 27th work session also, but uh I'm going to repeat it just for people who didn't catch that episode. Um and then this is going to be a question for Mr. Watson, but uh do we have a source of funding for the demolitions?

Good evening to the board. So to answer that question, yes, um we did receive some uh insurance uh funds to address these closed buildings. In addition, um we working with some of our partners with the city such as CDA, SLDC so that um they could support us in these endeavors. So in other words, the money wouldn't be coming out of our general operating budget. Yes, that is correct.

Um also I just I wanted to note that three of these buildings uh Hempstead, Scullan, and Walnut Park have been closed since 2003. So that's 23 years. And then Uklid's been closed since 2007, Gunlock since 2008, Stow since 2009. Um, so if there's a developer out there who's interested in rehabbing these buildings for affordable housing or another good use, please step forward. Um, it's u there's this is just the RFP,

right? This is we're just issuing an RFP to see what the costs would be to demolish them, but there's they're not demolished yet. So if there's anybody out there who is interested in adaptive reuse of these buildings like please make yourself known.

Also recently um Dr. berry. And of course, there were many individuals that were invited to Springfield to see what a community could do with a building that they were going to demolish and use the uh architectural valuable pieces to it to be able to rebuild another school. Um, and it was amazing the things that they were able to save to be able to define the culture of that neighborhood um from those buildings that they were taking apart. So, let's hope that we can do the same thing here. And there were, when I said a lot of individuals, there were foundations that were invited, other board members from across the state, um, other superintendents. It was well attended. Um, we all wore hard hats to be able to go through some of these facilities to see exactly what they were doing. And to see the before and after was absolutely amazing. So hopefully we can do that here. Are there any additional discussions? Miss Fawn call for vote.

Dr. Harvey abstain. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Hikes, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Miss Huard, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. Motion approved.

I just need the public to understand too that when we know that there's something that's going to be done, this board does follow through. We have questions. Just as Mr. Marson mentioned from a work session. We, you know, elaborated. If you don't watch the work sessions, we discuss everything there and then we vote on it at our board meeting. But simply because we vote doesn't mean that it actually goes away. We stay with it. We talk about it. We try to follow through on it. We monitor what's going on. We have a vested interest in this community. And we also listen to the other partners in the community. Miss Jones made a point of driving around and she made it really clear that this is something that we need to do. Everyone needs to see what we're doing in the community. It's not enough to sit back and say, "Oh, I'm so tired of seeing such and such and write about it or talk about it with our friends." Become actively involved in helping us resolve these things and solve these problems so we can move forward. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Item 3.3, um, the sunset standalone sixth grade classrooms at Adams, Hickey, Mason, and Nance. I move to approve item for action 11.3 to sunset the standalone sixth grade classrooms at Adams, Hickeyi, Mason, and Nance. [snorts]

Second discussion. Call for vote. Dr. Harvey, abstain. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes. Mr. Marston? Yes. Miss Hubard? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approve item 11.4 cosmetology program relocation from Bumont to Clyde C. Miller. I move to approve item for action 11.4 to relocate the cosmetology program from Bumont to Clyde C. Miller. Second discussion.

Yes. I'd like to just state that it's a good thing that we are having this program moved to I mean going to class A miller but me this is for me myself personally I don't want us to get caught up having things in one location I still wish I still would like for Bulmont to still have these steel pro programs also I don't want us to get pigeon holed where only certain schools have certain things. And this is how I feel. I would like for all our high schools to have these things cuz I hate the word when we say we got u what's that word I'm looking for? Um waiting list. I don't want any of our kids to wait. I want our kids they want it. I want them to have access to it. So, I'm just saying I know as of right now we're moving it from Bumont to Class C Miller, but I would really like to see it go back to Bulmont eventually because I want all our kids to have access. That's just my personal opinion and that's not to take anyway take away from anything. you know,

board member Jones, on that same note, I don't want to see uh the centralization of all these uh CTE programs at one particular school. Clyc Builder has a very beautiful program and they have a lot of items to choose from, the students do. And I'm really hoping that the cosmetology, barber, and nail techs can uh have a class over at Vashan as well. And I can just see a lot of students really gravitating toward that as as well as classes from the uh NGA. So I'm really hoping that we will also uh include Vashan in that CTE program uh as well.

Dr. Barry. Yes, ma'am. Um, thank you. We do hear you loud and clear and we agree. Just so a few things with Bowmont, just in the short term. I know we did not mention this last time until we do talk about what's next and so it will not sit idle. We will have our um safety and security have a north side hub while we discuss what we think we can also do there. Um, and to the point of having something at Fashan, I wholeheartedly agree. We are looking at starting and don't quote me on this local 420 the word task force but we are garnering support from the community to figure out how to better improve Vashan. So I do have a quick question Dr. Dino um the funds that we are utilizing for this cosmetology program in specific is it with Perkins funds or is it through a different portion? So the Perkin so the CTE funding can be used to purchase any materials that are that are needed and in fact um this board approved the purchase of new materials for that program in October so that we could be have more up-to-date things for our students and the construction costs come from our from our GOB funds. So could I ask that we could also look at the cost to see if we can bring back to the board what it looks like to do something like this in a Vashan or in the north another school um that's located in the north side. Yeah, we can definitely put a proposal together for that. It would likely be all GOB funds, but we can certainly put one together for cosmetology and barbering specifically. Yep, we'll do. Thank you.

So, I do have a question before Dr. Dino, one question. When they finish the program at Clancy C Miller, will they have enough hours to get their license? Yes. Yes. Okay. And are we focusing on a particular area of the city? Are we the are you know we north, south, east, west? I mean students from across the city are welcome to enroll in this CTE program.

But do we have those programs in different schools in different se St. Louis, North St. Louis? Do we have them in different? So our programs that are very I would say like space specific heavy are located in specific schools and we bring kids from all over the city to those schools just like Gateway STEM has some programs that need specific space that is only at Gateway STEM but there's kids from all over the city who can go to those programs. So like the um like the vet program that's only at Gateway STEM but it serves students from across the city. There are some of our CTE programs that don't have like sight specific requirements that we do have in all of our schools like our business and marketing and those things. Um, so the reason we choose to place programs that have real specific needs in some locations are because it's a lot of money to develop the facilities and then when we have students, we don't actually have many, we don't have students on waiting list necessarily, so we're not we're not turning anyone away at this point. Um, but if you're interested in other cost projections for opening other types of programs, we are happy to put them together.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Any additional um, Miss Hubard, your mic is on. You Yes, I do have something to say. Um, once everything gets settled louder, we can't hear you. I'm right here. Once everything gets settled at Clyde C. Miller, I would love to be the first client of the cosmetology students. [laughter] Um, I am serious. I cut my own hair, so it' be great to have someone else. I tried that. It didn't work well for me. But, uh, any further discussion? Okay, call for vote. Dr. Harvey,

abstain. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Hikes, yes. Miss Jones, abstain. Mr. Marston, yes. Miss Huard. Yes. Dr. Collins Adams. Yes. Motion approved. Item 11.5, Hickeyi reopening. I move to interface construction. I move to approve item for action 11.5 to reopen Hickey School in August of 2026 at a cost of up to $84,436. Second. Discussion roll call. Dr. Harvey, abstain. Miss Foster, yes. Mr. Heights? Yes. Miss Jones? Yes.

Mr. Marston? Yes. Miss Hubard? Yes. Dr. Collins Adams? Yes. Motion approved. Section 12. Our board reports. I don't have a report, but I do have a a Can I say an honorable mention? Yes, she due respect with all due respect and hopefully I'm not out of order but you know as a district we always try to highlight our success stories with our kids and we are also have to site our success stories for administrators we have Dr. Dr. Dedra Thomas Mary. She is an author

and she wrote a book on surf. It's called surfing without waters. It's about college students who experience homelessness. So in this and she is our what's the her she's the director of homeless liaison in trans students in transition and some of these kids some people in her book are case study are singles public school kids ma'am and they are and this is I hope I'm not out of order once again it's online [laughter] [gasps]

I'm proud of Dr. Thomas, Dedra Thomas Murray. She is um a home girl from New Orleans. So, I'm really proud of her and um everything that she writes is real. She brings uh practice and purpose to everyone's lives. So, I'm really proud of her. Thank you, board member Heights. Any additional information or reports from our board members? I have one

governance. Yes, we had a governance committee meeting Thursday at 3:30 last Thursday and in the future they are going to be Thursdays at 3:30. Um I think it's the first week of the month. Um and at this meeting we talked about grant partnerships and finding ways to streamline getting our partners approved um and getting them in our schools helping our kids sooner. We passed a instructional intervention policy um which is about reading plans. We had been doing the individual individualized reading plans as mandated but we had not updated our policy. So now we have done that. Um we also um updated our public comment policy. We discussed the what our policy should look like for student voice and student protest and I thought I was bringing it up like oh is this a new question but they were already working on it so we should have updates soon about what we have there. Um, we have updated copies of board names and we discussed again our safe schools resolution that we did last February um about procedures relating to um immigration and customs. What is the E? Um, [laughter and clears throat] they will have to go through our superintendent to get to our buildings. Um, and I know our teachers are committed to keeping our children and their family safe. I'm thankful for that.

Thank you.

And I have like half an update. I also, as a graduate student, attended the American Teacher Educators Conference. I came back today um and I learned so much about certification and so many things that I were like I have to tell the board this. Um so I will be writing y'all an email. Um and we actually have it good in Missouri when it comes to certification. Um so I was it's not as good as it could be but I learned to be thankful. So that's all. Thank you, Board Member Huard. Um, the legislative committee will be meeting Thursday. Um, and our real estate committee, the next meeting is Tuesday. Now, Tuesday the 17th is just a regular Tuesday here, but in real life it's Marty girl. Okay.

So, that Tuesdays. Yes. Um, are there any other um, Yep. Our next budget committee meeting will be on February the 25th via Zoom at 12:00 p.m. The 20 What's the date again? Wednesday, February 25th.

And the parent action day is February 24th. Right. Thank you. We have a full agenda for the rest of this month and important things that are going to happen that will impact everything in SLPS. So, let's all stay tuned. If you can get involved, please do. Any further discussion? Any more news? I just thought of one more thing I wanted to say. Go ahead. Welcome, Dr. Harvey. Officially, we're very glad you're here. We look forward to seeing your contributions to our district.

Uh call for a motion. We unfortunately will be returning back to close session. I move to adjourn to close session pursuant to the revised statutes of Missouri section 610.021. Second. Second. Call for a vote. Dr. Harvey. Yes. Miss Foster. Yes. Mr. Heights, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Mr. Marston, yes. Miss Hubard, yes. Dr. Collins Adams, yes. We are journ back to close session at 7:30 p.m. Dr. Harvey only said yes.