[0:00] It's always a pleasure to welcome people to our group, and
[0:04] work together for the betterment of the kids of our state.
[0:07] So thank you for being here.
[0:13] So everybody, have they had a chance to look at the agenda?
[0:18] Any corrections, additions to make?
[0:21] Hearing none, I move for a passage of the-
[0:24] Call to order
[0:25] ... Call to the ord-
[0:26] Call the meeting to order first, and then
[0:27] Oh, I thought I already had. I'm sorry. I apologize.
[0:30] I call the meeting to order. How about that?
[0:32] There you go.
[0:33] Is there a time that we need to have?
[0:34] Like 8:59, so we're right on schedule.
[0:38] Move to approve the agenda.
[0:39] Okay. We have a-
[0:41] Second
[0:41] ... motion and a second to approve the agenda.
[0:43] All those in favor say aye.
[0:45] Aye.
[0:45] Aye.
[0:46] Okay.
[0:48] Move to approve the minutes.
[0:50] Move to approve the minutes by Michael Matusow.
[0:55] Second.
[0:55] Second by Gretchen Shull.
[0:57] All those in favor?
[0:59] Aye.
[0:59] Aye.
[1:00] Okay.
[1:04] We're down to agenda item four,
[1:07] and that has been approved. Any...
[1:10] No additions to
[1:12] the agenda. The minutes of the June 23rd meeting,
[1:18] have you had an opportunity to review those?
[1:21] Yeah, we just approved them.
[1:22] I'm sorry. I'm having a confusing time here just a little bit.
[1:26] So I'm going to turn it over to commissioners for reports.
[1:30] Sure. Thank you.
[1:32] I just have a few things to note this morning.
[1:35] First is Luke Reid is joining us for the first time.
[1:38] Luke is our chief of governmental relations. Can you stand in...
[1:43] So you'll be hearing from him a little bit later on.
[1:48] And this is not Lisa Serino's first meeting, but it is her first meeting as the
[1:51] deputy commissioner for the Division of Learning Services.
[1:58] And then I would just like to say thank you to Brooks, Kerry, and Robbie for
[2:02] joining us for part of the administrators' conference, the cooperative conference
[2:06] on school administrators. It was a great conference and I
[2:10] know that people I've heard from, so many people who really appreciated seeing you
[2:13] there. So thank you for doing that, and for showing them your support.
[2:17] Yesterday we had new board member orientation with
[2:21] Robbie, Jordan, Vince, Mike, and Brooks joined us, and we talked
[2:26] in detail about literacy, the Department's literacy initiatives, and then the
[2:30] budget process. So they are primed and ready to go for the budget
[2:33] discussion today.
[2:35] And then finally, next week is back to school week for I think almost
[2:39] all of our schools are starting on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
[2:42] And so I have started already
[2:46] making a schedule of some places to visit in the fall, and other people have been
[2:49] reaching out to us about coming to
[2:52] visit or to meet with them. So, really looking forward to that, to getting
[2:56] out in the schools once the kids are there and settled in.
[3:00] And then lastly, on Thursday, some of us will be heading
[3:04] to the state fair to attend the governor's ham breakfast.
[3:07] So I will be there along with Kyle and Luke.
[3:11] Yes. So that is
[3:14] pretty much all I have. Thank you.
[3:16] Okay. Thank you for your report.
[3:20] Moving right along here,
[3:22] president's report,
[3:24] committee report from Mr. Matusow.
[3:28] Thank you.
[3:30] Just a quick update on the strategic planning committee.
[3:33] We've met a couple of times,
[3:36] just to kind of... And others on the committee, please chime in if
[3:40] you want at any point. But
[3:42] met a couple of times to kind of figure out
[3:45] what the process looks like for
[3:50] coming up with a strategic plan.
[3:54] I think we've identified Bellwether as a consultant that's going to help
[3:58] us with this. I think the
[4:01] difference, this will be board driven, a very board-driven
[4:05] process.
[4:07] Our plan is to include other board members in the meetings
[4:11] as we go. We'll have to figure out how to
[4:15] do that to avoid a quorum.
[4:20] Each board member will have an opportunity to meet one-on-one with our consultants
[4:24] to give them whatever your perspective is on what a strategic plan should
[4:28] look like and what it should include.
[4:31] And I think all of the work
[4:34] that had been done before this is going to be used, and we'll
[4:39] use it as much as we can. So we have
[4:43] stakeholder input from over 100 people I think.
[4:46] And so we'll go through all that. And timing-wise, our plan
[4:50] is to have something that we can bring to the board for a vote
[4:55] into the calendar year early next year.
[4:57] So
[4:58] probably four, five, six months from now, that's the timing.
[5:02] So,
[5:03] with that, I'll pause and see if any of the other committee members want to add
[5:06] anything, or if anyone has questions.
[5:10] No additions. Well said, Mike.
[5:12] Thank you.
[5:14] Yeah.
[5:14] Vincent, did you have a question?
[5:16] No.
[5:17] Okay. Thank you for that report.
[5:18] Thank you.
[5:21] Legislative committee, Robbie, if you-
[5:23] Yeah. Obviously we're in the infancy of that.
[5:26] Got appointed that at the retreat, and I thought maybe more than one board meeting
[5:30] before I help pick legislative priorities, but we will be
[5:34] getting some things done this fall to present as the legislative session
[5:37] begins.
[5:39] Good.
[5:43] Thank you-
[5:44] Commissioner Casey
[5:45] ... Mr. President. As part of the legislative committee, I am not
[5:49] a member of the legislative committee, excuse me, but as part of the work of the
[5:53] legislative committee, I got to thinking about all of the statutes.
[5:57] John does an excellent job of reminding us when we're in a discussion what the
[6:00] actual statute is, and we have access to that online.
[6:04] But when I was a new board member and came to my orientation, I said, "So
[6:07] what laws do I need to know about?"
[6:11] And I was given this book. And this is
[6:15] from 2020. It's a couple of inches thick.
[6:18] It probably has a few more updates to it since that time.
[6:22] But it
[6:24] reminded me just recently as I was looking through it, just how
[6:28] much
[6:31] regulation is really out there. And we went through a great exercise
[6:35] in reducing regulations in the early childhood program, and I
[6:39] wonder that perhaps the committee could somehow think about
[6:43] how do we start to look at all the legislation that's there for
[6:47] public schools in the state of Missouri, and in what way can we
[6:51] begin to refine it or reduce it,
[6:55] eliminate it
[6:56] where appropriate. Just do a good review and thorough review of it.
[7:00] So as the new committee chair, I'm going to leave this on your desk.
[7:04] Thank you. An excellent suggestion.
[7:07] Congratulations.
[7:07] Thank you.
[7:10] Okay.
[7:12] Moving along, we have John Otto.
[7:15] All right. Yeah, thank you.
[7:17] John Otto, chair of the governance committee. I'll give you a brief update.
[7:21] The governance committee met last week,
[7:23] and we discussed briefly the meeting agenda
[7:27] structure. So I don't know if you've noticed, the board members who are
[7:31] not as new,
[7:33] we added
[7:35] a timeframe allotment to
[7:38] each agenda to kind of help us gauge or manage how
[7:41] long
[7:42] each topic should be. And so,
[7:46] we're open to feedback, if there's any other suggestions
[7:49] on what we can do to make these meetings efficient and
[7:53] also
[7:55] substantive at the same time. And so, we want to make sure that
[7:59] we're
[8:00] making the best use of everybody's time.
[8:03] And so, we've talked about things like maybe moving the consent items
[8:07] to the end,
[8:09] things like that. And so if there's anything that you wake up in the middle of
[8:13] the night and think like, "I think we can do this," just shoot me an email and
[8:18] we'll talk about it at the governor's committee and then come make a recommendation
[8:21] to the board if we need to make any changes.
[8:25] We also
[8:27] discussed maybe with there's so much
[8:30] new
[8:32] topics that we need to cover in these meetings, we talked about potentially
[8:36] having
[8:37] more frequent meetings, meaning
[8:41] twice a month, and once virtually, one in person.
[8:45] But I think given the amount of work that
[8:49] staff needs to do to set these meetings up, I don't think
[8:53] that is necessarily the best course of action at this time.
[8:56] But
[8:59] currently, we're not scheduled to have a November meeting, and so maybe we
[9:03] could talk about having a board meeting in
[9:06] November to kind of spread these things out because
[9:10] obviously December with the holidays and things like that, it gets kind
[9:13] of difficult with travel and everything, and we don't want
[9:17] to have a 12-hour meeting or something like that.
[9:20] So I'll shoot an email out,
[9:24] unless there's dates right now in early November
[9:27] that you cannot do, but
[9:30] I'll shoot out some proposed dates, and we could possibly have a November
[9:34] meeting.
[9:37] Let's see.
[9:40] What else did we talk about? We talked about
[9:44] standing agenda items.
[9:47] There is currently a calendar in our
[9:50] bylaws that are online, I think it's Appendix A,
[9:54] that the staff is going to go through and make sure
[9:58] if we can take anything off or move anything, or
[10:02] if things need to be added. And so if you want to take a look at that, you
[10:06] can,
[10:07] and we can get that incorporated
[10:11] into this and then into our board meetings going forward.
[10:14] And kind of speaking of
[10:19] the
[10:20] board meetings going forward, we will need to set the board
[10:24] meeting calendars for 2027. And so typically, at
[10:28] least since I've been here
[10:30] since last year, it's been the second Tuesday of each month,
[10:35] subject to deviations based on holidays or conflicts
[10:39] or things like that.
[10:42] For example, in October, we have the teachers' banquet.
[10:45] And this year, our board meeting does not align with that, and so we'll
[10:49] need to make sure that maybe next year we align.
[10:52] So,
[10:54] I think we're going to put together a tentative
[10:58] calendar. Like I said, it's just going to be starting with the second Tuesday of
[11:01] each month.
[11:02] And I'll send that out, and if there are any dates that
[11:06] are a conflict, like I personally have a conflict in the December meetings,
[11:11] and so,
[11:13] we can work that out kind of online or offline and then get
[11:17] ready to
[11:19] have a board meeting scheduled that we can approve at
[11:23] either our September or October meeting.
[11:27] I think that's it.
[11:32] Now, one other thing that we did discuss, and we can talk about it here,
[11:36] is that
[11:38] I do have a conflict with this December's board meeting, and so I
[11:41] didn't know if
[11:44] everybody was comfortable moving that meeting back.
[11:46] It's currently scheduled for
[11:49] December 8th. So I didn't know if people were comfortable moving that
[11:53] back to December 15th.
[11:56] Again, if not, that's fine. I'll just miss the meeting.
[11:58] But that's just selfishly I was thinking, seeing if we could move that
[12:04] back a week.
[12:05] I would support that.
[12:07] Okay. Anybody-
[12:08] Same.
[12:08] Yeah.
[12:09] Same.
[12:09] Okay. All right
[12:12] Stacy, if you can make note of that, and we'll get
[12:14] the schedule updated so that our December
[12:18] board meeting is pushed back one week.
[12:20] And then obviously,
[12:23] we talked about the November meeting.
[12:25] I think there's the Tuesday, November 10th or
[12:29] Tuesday, November 17th.
[12:32] Unless somebody's opposed to a November meeting,
[12:36] I think that would go
[12:38] a long way. Like I said, we can kind of stretch out some of the items that are on
[12:42] the October and December agenda.
[12:47] But if either of those dates do not work, then let me
[12:50] know.
[12:52] And did you recommend what dates?
[12:54] November
[12:56] 10th or November 17th.
[12:58] I would not be available November 10th, but I am on November 17th.
[13:02] Anyone else?
[13:06] So it sounds like the 17th probably works
[13:08] for most.
[13:09] Yep.
[13:10] Okay. All right. Yeah, let's make a note then to add the November
[13:14] 17th
[13:17] meeting to the board calendar.
[13:20] And I think that's it. The only other thing I had was that, now
[13:24] we have two new board members
[13:27] as of this meeting, and we have five committees.
[13:30] And so that's something... Oh, good.
[13:33] As you can see on the
[13:35] screen there, there's a committee membership
[13:38] matrix. And so,
[13:41] we need to add the
[13:43] two new board members to that. And so if there's any particular
[13:48] committee that either of you gentlemen would
[13:51] like to join or would not want to be on, then just let us know and we
[13:55] can get you added. Or if somebody wants
[13:59] to put you on,
[14:01] volunteer you onto a committee based on your background and your
[14:05] skillset, speak up now.
[14:09] Kerry?
[14:10] Thank you,
[14:12] Vice Chair.
[14:14] As Kerry Casey, I would like to recommend the inclusion
[14:18] of board member Vince Schamel to the student success-- or
[14:22] excuse me, to the finance committee, and board member
[14:26] Mike McDonald to the student success committee.
[14:30] Are you guys fine with that?
[14:33] Okay.
[14:33] Yeah.
[14:33] All right.
[14:35] All right, so we got two new
[14:38] board members added to the two committees.
[14:39] Now, speaking of the student success committee, that committee does not yet have
[14:43] its charter finalized, and so we're working on that, and we'll have that
[14:46] to present to this board for approval
[14:50] at
[14:52] October's meeting, hopefully.
[14:53] Correct. At September's meeting.
[14:55] September, I'm sorry. I keep thinking it's October.
[14:57] And I'd also like to-- I know this was just an initial draft, so there's a few
[15:01] other edits to make to it, but in our previous retreat,
[15:05] we did make a change where Dr. Schull
[15:09] is no longer on legislative, but is now on student
[15:12] success with me. And
[15:16] Robby Myers, I think,
[15:19] we need to talk about the number and if Robby will stay on student
[15:23] success,
[15:25] or where appropriate. And I think that works, so Robby being on student
[15:29] success, along with Gretchen and myself, and then Mike,
[15:33] who's a non-voting board member.
[15:36] Mr. Chairman?
[15:37] We have a
[15:39] search committee underway, is that correct?
[15:43] I would like to offer myself as a member of that committee, if
[15:46] that's possible. I think I-
[15:48] That would be great. It's an ad hoc committee, so not listed here, and I'll just
[15:52] follow up with you on that.
[15:53] Okay. Very good. Thank you.
[15:56] Yep. All right, well, we'll get this updated, and sent out around
[16:00] to the board and to staff. And if we need to post this online, that's fine,
[16:04] too. But yeah, I think that concludes my
[16:08] governance committee report.
[16:10] Any questions? Mr. Otto?
[16:13] Hearing none, we'll move to our next item, which is the finance committee.
[16:16] Great. Thank you very much, President Brooks.
[16:19] So, a few things that I'd like to lay out, because we do have new board
[16:23] members here,
[16:26] though you did get a great introduction to the budget process and an overview of
[16:29] the finance process yesterday and the budget
[16:33] itself. Just a little bit of a backdrop.
[16:37] We formed this committee, as all of our others, many of our others,
[16:41] over just the recent months. Both John and I have been
[16:44] members of that committee, and now we'll have
[16:48] Vince as a member with us, and we've worked closely with Dr.
[16:52] Cruz.
[16:53] As a new committee,
[16:56] we first established, John and I discussed this,
[16:59] and along with Dr. Cruz, and we first established that our first
[17:03] objective was to just lay some groundwork, get
[17:06] our better understanding of the budget
[17:10] process, the budget timing, the components of
[17:14] the budget, and work to bring a
[17:17] better insight of the budget to the board as a whole.
[17:22] And I think we've generally accomplished that.
[17:25] That's never completed, of course, but we have, if you look back
[17:28] over minutes of previous meetings or
[17:32] agendas of previous meetings, you will see the great work that Dr.
[17:36] Cruz and his team have done to better define the budget in
[17:40] terms of whether it's the programs that we're providing,
[17:44] the revenue streams, or the expense
[17:48] allocations to give us a better and deeper understanding of
[17:53] what the budget is made up of and
[17:57] beyond that, a deeper understanding of the actual budget process.
[18:03] What we have identified, very importantly, is that the
[18:07] budget process is very
[18:10] condensed for the creation of a new budget.
[18:13] Two months, basically, to maybe eight to 10 weeks.
[18:17] Before, from start of creating the budget to a board approval of
[18:21] a budget. And you're going to experience that right now.
[18:24] We're in that budget creation timeline for FY28.
[18:28] We're going to see some information today that we'll be asked to
[18:31] approve in September.
[18:35] Separately, you then have a very long
[18:38] timeline,
[18:40] which is required, and understandably so, from the
[18:43] approval of our budget in September all the way
[18:47] through the
[18:49] fiscal year up until June, when the governor actually signs
[18:53] it. And that whole time is used working with
[18:57] legislature to
[19:00] further define, further support, answer questions, clarify,
[19:04] make adjustments, et cetera, based on all the back and forth that occurs
[19:08] between the legislature, and probably sometimes even the governor's
[19:11] office, maybe with input, and the department.
[19:16] The time in creating the budget is far too short.
[19:20] That is the most important time of all, for us to have,
[19:24] one, good input, to have thought, to have justification, to
[19:28] understand what's working, what's not working, how can we better fund,
[19:32] not formula fund, but better fund education from the
[19:36] programs that we're
[19:38] supporting. So now that we've laid
[19:42] our groundwork, John and I have discussed as the committee, and now Vince, you
[19:46] will be a part of that, is that we're ready for that next phase,
[19:50] and how we will be taking the creation of the budget
[19:54] to a much broader window. Now, we can't do that for
[19:57] FY28 because it's due to be approved and submitted by
[20:01] a deadline required by legislature.
[20:05] But through this coming year, we will be delving very
[20:09] deeply into FY28 and looking at it,
[20:13] relative to what the outcomes are, relative to the
[20:16] programs that we're supporting,
[20:19] just better understanding it to bring that information to you as a
[20:22] board. We'll call in experts where appropriate on a particular topic
[20:27] if needed, to help us better think
[20:30] about ways in which to fund in that area,
[20:34] or ways in which to structure the budget to achieve the goals that we have.
[20:38] Of course, it's needing to be aligned to the strategic plan.
[20:42] So as that strategic plan further takes shape, et
[20:46] cetera, that will also begin to inform the budget.
[20:50] So I just wanted everybody to appreciate the work that's been done
[20:54] and the road that we have ahead of us in terms of the plans that the
[20:58] finance committee has.
[21:01] So today, what you're going to hear a little bit about, or a lot about,
[21:05] is FY28. But let remind you that
[21:09] the FY27 budget was just approved
[21:13] by the governor at the end of June, and there is still work being
[21:17] done. Where any work is being done, any asks of the department being
[21:21] made for any clarifications, the committee does work alongside Dr.
[21:24] Cruz and his team to ensure that we're
[21:28] providing that feedback. But FY28 is what we've been
[21:32] really focused on, and what you're going to see today is
[21:37] the presentation of new decision items and supplemental requests.
[21:42] As you learned yesterday in your orientation, and as the rest of the board knows,
[21:46] the current budget process, creation process, is you start with your baseline,
[21:50] which is your previous year, and you make changes.
[21:53] You build upon it. And that's what you're seeing today. What are those changes?
[21:57] What are the new adds that we're asking for today?
[22:02] Within that, you will see that there is a significant
[22:05] increase
[22:07] being requested to the tune of $400 million for the funding,
[22:11] based on the funding formula. That formula is cast in statute.
[22:15] It's not newly created by the department.
[22:18] It is not changed at all by the department.
[22:21] In fact, you'll hear later about a task force that is addressing the
[22:25] funding formula.
[22:26] But that $400 million is to fully fund the formula.
[22:30] Kyle will give us far more details.
[22:33] But it's important to appreciate that it has always been the
[22:36] responsibility of the board, demonstrated through our past legislative
[22:40] priorities, that we ask the legislature to fully fund the
[22:43] formula. That is what has been defined as needed for
[22:47] education in Missouri.
[22:49] Now, we also understand that revenue in the state is not
[22:55] sufficient at this time to cover the fully funding of the formula.
[22:59] In fact, the formula has not been funded fully over the last
[23:03] few years, if not longer.
[23:05] So part of that $400 million, as Kyle will explain, is associated with the
[23:09] gap that has already been existing.
[23:11] And then new items that have been either added by legislature
[23:16] in this recent year or recent years, which require
[23:20] additional funding, whether it be for virtual schools, charter schools,
[23:24] different programs that are mandated by legislature, that will make up
[23:28] the difference to the $400 million.
[23:31] So I just want to assure the board that we
[23:35] understand the significance of that request as a finance committee,
[23:39] but that we also understand that this is just part of the iterative process.
[23:43] This is where we start, and then we work with the
[23:46] legislature in making appropriate changes
[23:49] as revenue is better defined for the
[23:53] FY28 year. And obviously, we do our part in
[23:56] bringing the budget into balance.
[24:00] So that's what you're going to see today.
[24:02] You're also going to see new decision-
[24:03] So I have a question.
[24:04] Okay, sure.
[24:05] So
[24:06] on the money,
[24:08] and this is kind of complicated for me right now, but
[24:12] my understanding is we asked for $400 million
[24:16] more.
[24:16] Mm-hmm.
[24:17] And the governor asked us to address our budget, or
[24:21] consider addressing our budget 10%.
[24:24] Now, so for FY28, we're not to that point
[24:28] yet.
[24:30] When the legislature goes through their process
[24:33] of
[24:36] reviewing the budget and making recommendations and changes, there will be
[24:40] asks that will come back to us to reduce our budget
[24:44] or-
[24:44] Yeah
[24:45] ... increase our budget if we should be so lucky that more revenue was identified.
[24:49] So those adjustments will be made through the course of the year.
[24:53] Now, what we have discussed in the past is in current
[24:56] years where revenue shortfalls are
[25:00] identified, the department, as other departments are, are
[25:04] asked to identify areas where changes can be made,
[25:08] reductions can be made. That's a separate exercise from FY28.
[25:12] So it's a load everything you can in there and see what we get.
[25:16] See-
[25:16] No. I wouldn't say load everything you can.
[25:19] It's be good stewards of your money and identify what the needs are.
[25:23] And the needs are, in terms of the
[25:28] funding the schools-
[25:29] Yeah
[25:30] ... are based on the formula that's in statute.
[25:32] So that 400 million isn't over and above what the formula
[25:36] requires. It is to get us to what the formula that
[25:40] has been set in statute requires.
[25:43] Okay.
[25:43] And then other items, to your point-
[25:46] Mm-hmm
[25:46] ... we are asking for things that you'll see,
[25:49] just call them discretionary items,
[25:53] that we, as a board, need to think about and talk about if we want to start
[25:57] to...
[25:58] And not start. There have always been innovation in education, new
[26:02] programs identified, et cetera. Not to suggest that there hasn't been at
[26:06] all, but there always will be. So you will see some new
[26:10] items in the report today that we,
[26:14] as a board, need to talk about. Are we supportive of this particular
[26:18] item?
[26:19] So it isn't so much ask for everything you get, but it is asking
[26:23] for something that we think, as a board, if we decide we want
[26:27] to keep it in the budget request, that we think is important for the
[26:30] future. And it may not be
[26:34] approved,
[26:36] and we, as a finance committee, then collectively back to the board,
[26:40] will guide that process when we are asked to reduce things, what's
[26:44] our priority? Where should we reduce? Where can we reduce?
[26:47] It'll be done in a prioritization way.
[26:50] But we've already
[26:51] said
[26:52] we already have a 10% reduction.
[26:55] You've already worked up a 10%, right, Kyle?
[26:57] We'll be looking at that 10% as it relates to
[27:01] FY28 as we go through the budget.
[27:04] Okay.
[27:04] Yeah.
[27:05] I thought it was 27.
[27:07] That's a separate initiative that has occurred, yeah.
[27:12] Okay.
[27:12] Makes sense.
[27:12] We'll talk about that more when that agenda item comes up-
[27:15] Yeah
[27:16] ... later in the details, because then Kyle will be here to explain.
[27:19] Right.
[27:20] Okay.
[27:22] That concludes my report
[27:26] on the finance committee.
[27:28] Well, you have-
[27:30] And now moving forward to the-
[27:31] Now moving-
[27:31] ... student success committee
[27:32] ... thank you for the hard stop there.
[27:35] Thank you. For the student success committee, I'm excited to have
[27:39] Mike McDonald now a part of that committee, joining Gretchen Shull and
[27:43] Robbie Myers,
[27:45] just recently added to the committee.
[27:46] So this committee was literally just formed
[27:50] anew with the board retreat. So as
[27:56] Board Member Otto noted, the charter is in formation, and
[28:00] it will be presented after the committee finalizes it.
[28:03] It'll be presented for approval in the September board meeting.
[28:08] The focus of the student success committee is that, success of our
[28:11] students. We'll be looking at it at relative to student academic
[28:15] outcomes, but also life success. How are they prepared?
[28:19] Whether it be for career and college readiness, what we're doing in
[28:23] all of those areas. But as I like to say, I don't think
[28:27] our approach should be to boil the ocean.
[28:30] We need to take first things first.
[28:32] And to us, the first thing that's coming up will be after the first of the year
[28:36] that's important to student success is the accountability that we
[28:40] have in our model. And that is all around accreditation, among
[28:44] a few other things. So,
[28:47] from a student success committee standpoint, as the chair of that committee, I have
[28:51] met with Commissioner
[28:53] Priest and Deputy Commissioner Sereno, along with
[28:57] President Miller,
[28:58] and had other conversations such to outline the approach that we
[29:02] would like to take with our first area of focus being
[29:06] getting ready for the accreditation process that
[29:10] will take place in our January board meeting
[29:13] and being prepared for any outcomes of that
[29:16] accreditation review that will occur.
[29:20] There had been work being done already in the previous strategic plan work
[29:23] around
[29:25] a plan for working with schools that were struggling, and we'll
[29:30] review, as a committee, that plan, edit, change, build
[29:33] on that. We will bring in experts as needed to assist us
[29:37] such that our goal would be that in the
[29:41] December meeting, in advance of the January
[29:45] accreditation process, we will be discussing
[29:49] plans for accreditation and plans for dealing
[29:53] or
[29:54] further supporting any schools that are struggling as identified in the
[29:58] accreditation
[30:01] review, and we'll have that plan ready for the December board meeting.
[30:06] And that concludes my report on student success.
[30:10] Thank you, Carrie. Appreciate it.
[30:12] Now we go to commissioner search committee.
[30:15] Moving right along. On the commissioner search committee,
[30:18] thank you,
[30:20] Vince, for joining us in that committee, and I'll bring you up to date a little bit
[30:23] further beyond the discussions we've already had.
[30:26] What I want to do today in terms of committee update is just share with you the
[30:29] timeline, ensure that everybody is fully aware of the timeline.
[30:33] While we have discussed this timeline in the past
[30:37] It is important that everybody be reminded of it.
[30:40] First of all, our overall arching objective is that we will be
[30:44] hiring a new commissioner, making that commitment to a new
[30:47] commissioner by the end of this
[30:51] calendar year, by the end of 2026.
[30:54] We are excited and thrilled that we have Commissioner
[30:58] Priest in her role, and she will continue in her role, even though we
[31:03] would be hiring somebody by the end of this year.
[31:06] Commissioner Priest will be staying in her role through the calendar school
[31:10] year, I should say,
[31:12] such that we have continuity, that we have consistency, that
[31:16] we're not disruptive in any way in terms of all of the activities that are
[31:20] needed to support our schools during the school year.
[31:24] A new commissioner would begin their role, as is
[31:28] typical in the education
[31:32] hiring timeline, would be to begin their
[31:36] role at the end of the school year, whether it be in June, July,
[31:39] but during that transition period from one school year to the next.
[31:44] But now is the time in which we need to be working across the education
[31:48] community to identify an excellent candidate
[31:52] for the Commissioner of Missouri Education.
[31:55] To do that, we are hiring and conducting a national search.
[31:59] We are hiring a national search firm,
[32:02] and we are right on target with that.
[32:04] We are working through our standard, following all statutes
[32:08] and regulations to ensure that we are
[32:13] committing to a
[32:17] search firm of quality and of excellence that will do the work on our
[32:21] behalf of identifying a candidate
[32:25] that we, the board, will work closely with.
[32:28] The search firms, we have identified six different
[32:32] firms. RFPs have been submitted on schedule.
[32:36] Those RFPs are due back by the end of this week,
[32:40] and the committee will meet and interview the top
[32:44] search firms and make a selection by August 31st.
[32:49] That's a week from Monday, and we are on track to meet that deadline.
[32:52] We've got our schedule in place.
[32:54] Then, during the month of September, that search firm will
[32:58] work with the board, the committee, the board, and
[33:02] others in the education community to
[33:06] prepare and complete a job description
[33:10] and a job posting.
[33:13] That posting will be
[33:15] posted no later than the end of September, if not sooner.
[33:20] And then applications will begin.
[33:23] The application and interviewing process will begin
[33:27] during October. The application window will close
[33:30] October 31st, with all interviews then continuing
[33:34] through November, final interviews completed in early
[33:38] December, which then even better aligns with the change we've
[33:42] made in our board meeting timelines, so that now when we're meeting in
[33:46] December 15th,
[33:49] our goal would be that we would be presenting to the board a
[33:52] final candidate for approval.
[33:58] So, that is our timeline.
[34:01] We're sticking to it, and we're on track.
[34:03] Are there any questions with regards to the search process?
[34:07] I don't have any questions. I was actually going to see if I could add a couple
[34:10] more things about strategic planning, but I'll wait and see.
[34:14] So, that concludes my report.
[34:15] Okay, thank you for that.
[34:16] You're welcome.
[34:18] Mike, do you have a question that you want to interject?
[34:21] Yeah, no questions. I actually just wanted to...
[34:24] Carrie and John provided a lot of information on their committees, so I feel like I
[34:27] should provide more. And I'll be quick, but
[34:32] it did make me think, for the board,
[34:35] our next steps on strategic planning are identifying, I can't remember who
[34:39] said it, but what is our North Star, right?
[34:41] What is it that we want to accomplish?
[34:44] And then once we figure that out,
[34:47] what are the sort of key pillars that go underneath it to get us
[34:52] moving in that direction? And I know
[34:56] through the process, that's a question that everyone on the board will get
[35:00] asked. And I think our next meeting, we'll have some
[35:06] information about what other states have done for their strategic plans.
[35:10] What was their North Star? How did they
[35:14] get to that?
[35:17] So that's something that I hope everyone will be thinking about.
[35:20] And again, it will be a
[35:23] very board-driven process. Everyone should have a chance
[35:28] to weigh in. And Carrie mentioned earlier about alignment.
[35:32] I think that was a great point.
[35:34] I do think the strategic plan is,
[35:38] once we have that, our legislative priorities can align with that.
[35:41] And
[35:44] part of my goal of the strategic plan is to making sure there's alignment with the
[35:48] legislature, making sure there's alignment with the governor's office, or just
[35:51] making sure that we don't include anything in there that's so far out in left field
[35:56] that it looks bad or hurts the overall plan.
[36:00] So,
[36:01] would certainly, for anyone on the board, if you have ideas,
[36:07] concerns, whatever, would welcome all of that.
[36:11] And
[36:13] so yeah, just wanted to highlight a couple other things.
[36:17] And for all of you, just be thinking about that, right? What is that North Star?
[36:21] I think it was... I can't remember which state said, "We want to go from worst to
[36:25] first in NAEP scores," or something like that.
[36:27] That's kind of what we're talking about, right?
[36:29] What
[36:31] makes sense for Missouri?
[36:33] We can look at other strategic plans to see what they look like, what kind of
[36:36] issues they focused on, but
[36:38] we need to focus on what works for Missouri and where our challenges are.
[36:41] So
[36:43] Thank you. Just wanted to add that.
[36:46] Thank you, Mr. Matuszek.
[36:49] Now, once again, Kara Casey, right?
[36:51] Or are we-
[36:53] Thank you, President Brooks.
[36:55] All right.
[36:55] Before I begin the update and provide a NASBE
[36:59] report, the National Association of State Boards,
[37:02] I would like to take a moment to step back, if possible, and speak about
[37:07] a past colleague of this state board, Don Claycomb.
[37:13] It's with great respect and sadness that I would like to remember Don
[37:16] Claycomb today.
[37:19] He was a former board member of the State Board of Education who recently passed
[37:22] away. Don served on our board from 2018 to
[37:26] 2024, so many of you around this table may not know Don.
[37:32] But I was fortunate enough to serve alongside him during the final two
[37:36] and a half years of his service to all the children, families, and
[37:39] educators of Missouri.
[37:42] First and foremost, Don was a good man.
[37:45] He was a devoted husband and father who cherished his beautiful family.
[37:49] He often shared stories about his parents, including his mother, who was an
[37:53] educator,
[37:55] and how he grew up in the same home
[37:58] that he then ultimately lived throughout his life.
[38:02] Those stories offered a glimpse into the values, the roots,
[38:07] and the sense of place that shaped the man that he became.
[38:11] Don served on this board with honor,
[38:14] bringing his years of experience as an educator and then leader in Missouri
[38:18] education to every discussion.
[38:21] As the former president of State Technical College of Missouri in Linn,
[38:25] Missouri,
[38:26] Don left an extraordinary legacy.
[38:29] He was known there as a legend, and is to this day.
[38:33] His vision, leadership, and hard work helped shape
[38:37] the State Technical College into the institution that it is today.
[38:42] As the college's current leadership has said, "Dr.
[38:45] Claycomb's legacy lives across our campus, in its
[38:49] buildings, its traditions, and the lives of every student who has
[38:52] walked through our doors."
[38:56] Don's knowledge of and commitment to career and technical education and
[39:00] workforce development were especially valuable as we focused on
[39:04] these critical priorities for Missouri's K12 education system.
[39:08] He was always caring and respectful, but yet never afraid to
[39:12] challenge our thinking. More often than not, he would bring
[39:16] discussions to a close through a thoughtful and very on-target
[39:20] pithy statement,
[39:22] bringing clarity,
[39:23] laughter, and when needed, simplicity to our debates.
[39:28] Most importantly, he always kept our priorities and our
[39:31] responsibility to Missouri's children at the center of the conversation.
[39:38] So it was an honor to know Don, to serve alongside him, and to now
[39:41] remember him. I extend my heartfelt sympathy to his children
[39:45] and grandchildren, as well as to his many friends and colleagues
[39:49] throughout the Missouri education community, some of which are sitting here with us
[39:53] today.
[39:55] Don will be deeply missed. His wisdom, his service, and his
[39:59] unwavering commitment to Missouri's children, families,
[40:02] educators, and workforce will be remembered with deep gratitude.
[40:07] So thank you.
[40:08] Certainly. Thank you. And that concludes your report?
[40:12] You have more?
[40:13] Now I will be moving on to the report from the
[40:15] National Association of State School Boards.
[40:20] For those new members to the board, this is an association comprised
[40:24] of, as you would imagine, our colleagues from other states.
[40:28] The majority of states are members.
[40:30] It is a great organization that seeks to bring
[40:35] people together
[40:37] of similar responsibility across the nation
[40:41] to learn from each other, but also to delve into
[40:44] significant issues of priority across our country to improve
[40:48] education. They don't tell us what to do.
[40:51] They just bring us together for us to help understand and get
[40:55] new ideas from each other.
[40:57] So I've been serving as the liaison to NASBE,
[41:01] actually replacing Don Claycomb,
[41:05] after a short tenure on
[41:09] the board.
[41:10] So during that time, I've been able to attend conferences, I attend all their
[41:14] conference calls, et cetera. They do many webinars.
[41:18] They have great meetings on particular topics.
[41:20] They'll maybe put a task, not a task force together, but a group of people
[41:24] together to particularly focus on an area.
[41:27] But they also just have a monthly webinar where anybody from the
[41:31] state boards can join and hear what's happening from the other
[41:35] states.
[41:37] And that's what I'll give you an update on today.
[41:39] I would like you to know that you've all been included, including Mike,
[41:43] the other Mike, has been included on the NASBE
[41:47] distribution list. So you should start receiving emails from them, and
[41:51] if you've read them, you'll hear a little bit of what I'm going to say today.
[41:56] So as you get those, I encourage you not only to read them, but I
[42:00] encourage you to join as much as you
[42:04] can,
[42:06] in terms of the opportunities they offer to learn
[42:09] from state board members around the
[42:12] nation. What
[42:15] I would also encourage, in October, will be their annual
[42:19] conference, and it's October 26th through 28th in
[42:22] Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. I've attended a couple of
[42:26] times, and it is a great conference. You get to meet people.
[42:30] There'll be deep dives and discussions, and the presentations are provided not
[42:34] by NASBE, but by other state board members, so you really get good
[42:37] insights.
[42:39] So updates from this last exchange, as it's called, the monthly
[42:42] exchange
[42:44] There were
[42:46] 14 states that were there that gave updates, and I want to share with
[42:49] a few of the highlights. First of all, there was discussion and
[42:54] updates were given in general about bullying and what's
[42:58] happening. Are any states addressing bullying?
[43:01] What are the best practices, and how are they addressing it?
[43:05] So the
[43:07] Washington, DC Board of Education
[43:11] is looking to reestablish their youth bullying
[43:14] task force. That happened in the past.
[43:18] It was dissolved in 2013, but it had resulted in quite a bit of
[43:21] legislation at the time. They're looking to renew that task force.
[43:25] Virginia
[43:28] has a new House Bill 957, which encourages
[43:32] public and elementary secondary education to promote and
[43:36] utilize the 988 suicide platform.
[43:39] New Jersey
[43:41] has introduced a bill that would establish an anti-bullying youth
[43:45] council, which I thought was a great idea across bringing the
[43:49] youth into the discussion.
[43:52] And then, two years ago, Wisconsin
[43:56] developed a bullying prevention toolkit.
[44:00] So, information that's available to us that I encourage the
[44:03] department to take a look at how is that an area of concern.
[44:08] I know we partner closely with our mental health
[44:11] services division, and I would encourage the
[44:15] department to see what can we do in those areas to always
[44:19] continue to look out for the safety of our children.
[44:24] Self-assessments, it was brought up that Hawaii State Board
[44:28] is going to be doing a self-assessment of the board, and I
[44:32] think now, as John has driven us in the past through
[44:35] development of our bylaws, development of a commissioner evaluation
[44:39] tool, I think that it also included,
[44:42] if not an evaluation that we all do as a self-board,
[44:46] and that would be in our future.
[44:48] Other state updates have included that Connecticut State Board of Education is
[44:52] encouraging
[44:56] schools to implement bell-to-bell restrictions on
[45:00] student personal technology use.
[45:02] Now, Missouri already has a
[45:07] requirement that you cannot have cell phones.
[45:09] I don't want to say the wrong words, but it's prohibited in the
[45:13] classrooms.
[45:15] But there is other work to be done in that area, and I'm hearing a lot of
[45:18] conversation not only in other states, but from parents and
[45:22] school districts on looking into what are we doing with all this
[45:26] technology and how do we reduce screen time.
[45:29] And I think that will be something that we as a board need to be looking at as
[45:32] well, either through a committee or through the advice of the department.
[45:37] We should be ahead of that.
[45:39] California is looking at doing some restructuring around their education
[45:43] governance as it relates to responsibilities between the board and the
[45:48] department, et cetera. The District of Columbia has
[45:51] developed new 2026 physical education standards.
[45:56] An interesting point, I'm not familiar with what our physical education standards
[46:00] are and would be valuable for us to be aware of them.
[46:03] The Texas State Board of Education voted to adopt new social
[46:07] study standards,
[46:09] structured around a chronological framework, which include a new Texas history
[46:13] capstone course in the eighth grade.
[46:16] Texas has also adopted a new personal
[46:19] financial literacy half-credit course.
[46:23] Now, Missouri already has a financial literacy
[46:27] half-credit, I think.
[46:29] Again, through committee work, it might be worthy looking at what are the
[46:33] standards, is it structured in the right way?
[46:37] Something also that Texas has done, they've recently implemented
[46:41] through board policy, but also in statute, a required
[46:45] K12 reading list to address
[46:48] improving reading and literacy in education and
[46:52] for their students. And I love that idea.
[46:56] I don't believe we have a required reading list or
[47:00] anything of that nature towards requirement of books to be read,
[47:04] regardless of what book. So, I think it's something that the Student Success
[47:07] Committee will be looking at.
[47:10] And,
[47:11] as I mentioned, I just want to remind you
[47:14] again about the conference in
[47:18] October.
[47:18] Then
[47:22] that's it. There will be a NASBE exchange, and you'll be seeing that in email for
[47:26] an invitation if you would like to join.
[47:29] And that concludes my NASBE report.
[47:33] Any questions?
[47:35] Okay.
[47:37] It's Kerri Casey's turn.
[47:38] Thank you. And this will be my last.
[47:41] So, I would like to provide an update as a member of the Missouri
[47:45] School Funding Modernization Task Force.
[47:49] I have been a member in the past, along with
[47:53] Pamela Westbrook Hodge, who we all know,
[47:56] and we were fortunate to be able to celebrate her last night for her years of
[48:00] service on the board.
[48:02] So,
[48:03] as that co-member of the task force, I would like to give you an update.
[48:08] Since our last regular board meeting where we updated,
[48:12] the task force has met twice. We met in July 13th, and we met
[48:16] as recently as last week.
[48:19] The task force, if you're not familiar with it, those of you that are new to the
[48:22] board, it was as a result of an executive order last year in
[48:26] 2025 by Governor Kehoe to
[48:30] modernize the formula and to submit to Governor Kehoe
[48:35] up to three proposals
[48:38] of recommendation on how to modernize our
[48:41] current funding formula. As you know, that current funding
[48:45] formula was implemented in statute in 2005, so it's
[48:49] due for a refresh. It's important to know that in
[48:52] 2005, I think we were the leaders in the nation in that funding
[48:56] formula in making it student based.
[48:59] There are states now, just today Beginning to
[49:03] change their formula and take into consideration the dynamics,
[49:07] the demographics, and the needs of students, where it has been driven
[49:11] through other methods in the past.
[49:12] So we have been ahead of the game, but we now need to be
[49:17] more modern with our formula. And so that is this task force.
[49:19] It's comprised of
[49:22] up to 30 people, board, legislature, members of the
[49:26] community,
[49:28] past people involved in that past formula, educators.
[49:32] It's a great task force led by our previous
[49:35] deputy commissioner, Dr. Monsis.
[49:38] So back to the update. This task force continues to explore two different
[49:42] funding models, one that modernizes the current formula in several ways,
[49:47] and a second one that relies on a new approach, which is a
[49:51] combined wealth index approach to determine the state and
[49:54] local shares for funding.
[49:57] The combined wealth index approach includes household income
[50:01] in addition to local property wealth to determine the expected
[50:05] state and local shares of funding.
[50:07] The current formula only relied on local property health.
[50:12] Wealth.
[50:13] The task force is considering options to address the challenge of uneven
[50:17] property valuations across the state within the mechanism of the formula
[50:21] to help ensure property values are considered equitably.
[50:26] The current formula includes additional pupil weightings for
[50:30] students from poverty, those with disabilities, and also English
[50:33] learners. The task force is considering adding weights for gifted
[50:38] and homeless students as well. The task force is now
[50:41] considering a variety of recommendations related to the operation of the
[50:45] formula, including funding for charter schools and virtual
[50:49] schools,
[50:51] and other adjustments for small and/or sparsely populated
[50:54] districts.
[50:56] Proration options to address any shortfalls in funding,
[51:00] addressing potential hold harmless provisions for any districts that might
[51:04] otherwise receive less under the new formula, and potential
[51:08] phase-in approaches for transitioning from the current formula to the
[51:11] next formula over a period of time.
[51:15] So as you can see, it's a very complex approach, and I'm grateful
[51:19] to all of the fellow task force members and
[51:23] the great wisdom that they're bringing to this and the
[51:27] discussions that we're having. The next task force meeting is
[51:31] scheduled for September 14th. We do have a webpage linked
[51:35] on our DESE site where a lot of information is housed, including
[51:39] all of our past presentations. You can also go back and listen to past
[51:43] meetings.
[51:44] I would like to say, at this time, here we are in August, we will quickly
[51:48] move, and it will be through the year, and it will all of a sudden be the end
[51:52] of the year. We need to approve,
[51:57] or be aware of, I think we will be approving the proposals
[52:01] that will go into the governor's office. Do we approve them?
[52:05] Dr. Cruz, do you know?
[52:07] I think we need to refer to the executive director.
[52:10] Okay. If we don't approve them, we certainly want to be aware of
[52:13] them, and knowledgeable of them, and support them.
[52:17] So,
[52:20] it's very complicated, and I would like to work with President
[52:23] Miller, Commissioner Priest, and just talk about how we as
[52:27] a board can spend time on this without it being in the depth of
[52:32] taking up agenda time in our monthly meetings.
[52:35] But in what way can we better inform board members
[52:39] about the details within these
[52:42] two proposals that would be put forward?
[52:44] I'd like to volunteer to be part of that working group if I could.
[52:47] I don't know if it's a committee or what.
[52:49] Yeah, it's already established, but I certainly think that would be great.
[52:52] I know Pamela will continue to be, but as a replacement, as
[52:56] another board member, I think we can talk to Dr.
[52:59] Monsis about that and how you can become a part of it.
[53:03] I-
[53:04] Or maybe not the task force, but work with me just on the education of the
[53:08] board.
[53:08] Chairman on, on-
[53:09] I love it. And honestly, the finance committee as a whole should
[53:13] be doing that. So I think that will be an undertaking of the finance
[53:16] committee of which you're a part.
[53:19] Thank you, Vince.
[53:20] That concludes my report.
[53:22] Thank you very much. It now moves down to
[53:26] the consent agenda.
[53:28] Move to approve consent agenda.
[53:29] We have a motion.
[53:31] Second.
[53:31] Second.
[53:31] Okay. We do have a second, and we have discussion.
[53:35] Yes. Thank you. I actually, it's not so much discussion, just a request or
[53:39] a recommendation.
[53:41] I like how we're formatting the new rules
[53:44] process that was presented to us,
[53:47] and as part of the consent agenda is a rule change.
[53:51] It's item H on the agenda.
[53:54] Within that item H, it will give us an update, and it basically
[53:58] says that no changes have been made in the text and therefore it's
[54:02] not reprinted here. Great. But could we also include a
[54:05] link to what it was so that we just, as a point of reference when we're
[54:09] reviewing, that we're knowing what we're with? That's all.
[54:13] My recommendation. Thank you.
[54:18] Okay. Any other items on the consent agenda you would wish to bring
[54:22] forward?
[54:24] Hearing none, I will call for a motion to approve the consent agenda.
[54:30] Oh.
[54:30] Has it?
[54:30] Call a vote.
[54:31] Yeah.
[54:31] It's already moved, yeah.
[54:31] Oh.
[54:32] Okay. So call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye.
[54:35] Aye.
[54:35] Aye.
[54:36] Aye.
[54:36] All those opposed.
[54:38] Passes.
[54:41] Okay, now we have action items.
[54:45] Dr. Wheatley,
[54:47] I think you have a couple items, or just one here.
[54:54] Good morning, everyone.
[54:56] Morning.
[54:56] Morning.
[54:58] Mark Wheatley, the assistant commissioner in the Office of Special Education that
[55:02] provides a lot of extra feedback apparently here.
[55:04] So I'm going to try to be here
[55:09] Maybe we'll shut these. They're all on. It'll be okay.
[55:12] I think that was better.
[55:14] Everything got moved around a little bit, so that should work.
[55:17] I'm here today in the first process to bring to
[55:21] you
[55:23] a proposed amendment to some of the five of the
[55:27] extended employment sheltered workshop rules.
[55:30] And so before we dive in deeply to the content of the
[55:33] information, just wanted to make sure you understood and know where we are in
[55:37] that process. So, this is the first phase as it
[55:41] relates to the rulemaking process that comes before you, the board,
[55:45] today. So, these are the proposed amendments that you'll see today,
[55:49] and then following that cycle in the rulemaking
[55:52] process, we'll move into those next steps of
[55:56] actually publishing this information
[55:59] with the Missouri Register, and then we'll seek public comment
[56:03] before that rule then comes back to you for the proposed order of
[56:07] rulemaking. And at that time, you'll vote again to
[56:11] determine the next step for that. So, just kind of wanted to level
[56:14] set, make sure you understood that process.
[56:17] And again, I'm here today to speak with you about five extended employment
[56:21] sheltered workshop rules that we are
[56:24] recommending for proposals to amend.
[56:29] Those are located in the five rules that
[56:33] you see before you, 5 CSR
[56:35] 2300.160, 170,
[56:39] 180, 190, and 200, and those will be
[56:43] defined more specifically here as we move through.
[56:46] But for a little bit of context, Missouri operates...
[56:50] Actually, sheltered workshops operate independently,
[56:54] 87 different workshops in 94 locations across the
[56:58] state of Missouri.
[57:00] And so those are the workshops that we're speaking of today.
[57:06] And so when we start with 5 CSR
[57:08] 2300.160, essentially, a couple
[57:12] changes that are made here. One reduces wait
[57:16] time for those folks who can remain
[57:20] eligible and unassigned before a sheltered workshop is required to
[57:24] provide training and support.
[57:26] Just a quick question before you-
[57:28] Sure
[57:28] ... get down into the weeds. Can you briefly describe what a sheltered workshop
[57:31] is?
[57:32] Yeah. So sheltered workshops... And Dan, I might have you come
[57:36] forward here and hang out with me. See how excited he is to share.
[57:40] Actually, Dan Guyer is our director for sheltered
[57:43] workshops. And so, he works very closely with each of the
[57:47] managers in each of those workshops across the state.
[57:50] He has two assistant directors that support that work.
[57:53] Our primary
[57:55] responsibility is to make sure, number one, that we certify
[57:59] the individuals who are disabled within those workshops, as well as
[58:03] certifying the workshops themselves, but there's a lot more that goes
[58:06] into that. And so, first of all, yes, just to speak
[58:10] about the economic impact of sheltered workshops across Missouri, it's
[58:14] extraordinary if you're not familiar with that.
[58:16] And we have workshops doing all sorts of work
[58:20] across the state. Some are very small workshops that you would find in
[58:24] rural or smaller communities. Others are
[58:27] multimillion-dollar facilities that do an extensive
[58:31] amount of work to support the economy throughout Missouri.
[58:35] Dan, I'll let you introduce yourself again here, and if there's
[58:39] anything you want to add just in general summary about the workshops and the work
[58:42] you do, that would be helpful.
[58:44] Good morning to the honored board of the state of Missouri.
[58:47] Basically, to answer your question,
[58:50] Mr. Otto, is it is an environment that
[58:54] typically, according to state statute, and I don't like the word, but is an
[58:58] environment where the unemployable have an ability to become
[59:02] employed.
[59:04] There is a certification process where that individual must have an
[59:07] educational experience, aka an IEP, a
[59:11] transition program furnished-
[59:13] About is the choice
[59:15] that's before the families and before that individual to make that determination.
[59:19] And you'll hear through some of the other proposals here that we're
[59:23] actually, by suggesting amendments to some of these
[59:27] rules, open up the opportunity for those folks in those sheltered workshops
[59:31] to consider
[59:33] employment beyond the sheltered workshops with
[59:37] less regulation for them to be able to come back if they find that that
[59:41] is not the best-suited environment for them based on their needs and
[59:45] their interests. So, again, going back to this first
[59:49] summary of change, talking about just reducing those hours from 12 to
[59:53] 10, and essentially what that does is it reduces the amount of time
[59:57] down to approximately two days based on the work hours that they
[1:00:00] have, where they would go potentially unassigned
[1:00:04] and still be able to provide that training within that period of time.
[1:00:09] And then changing the language from the subminimum wage to a
[1:00:12] commensurate wage, which matches what you see in the
[1:00:16] US Department of Labor.
[1:00:21] We go to the next, 170.
[1:00:24] This basically increases the minimum hourly wage for those eligible
[1:00:28] employees to 30%,
[1:00:31] and that's based on the US
[1:00:35] Department of Labor minimum wage.
[1:00:38] In addition to that, it increases the maximum percentage, again, of
[1:00:42] vocational related time for training from 10 to
[1:00:46] 30%, and then talking about a statutory citation
[1:00:49] because this reference statute has been rescinded
[1:00:53] since this rule had been updated. So, it just improves accuracy and
[1:00:57] clarity on that piece.
[1:01:01] The next talks about allowing for the extended
[1:01:05] amount of time for those annual reports from four to seven months, and that's based
[1:01:08] on the stakeholder engagement needs.
[1:01:11] As they've noted through their processes, sometimes it takes that
[1:01:15] long for auditors to become available for them to complete their
[1:01:19] necessary work. That gives them the extra time to do so and allows us
[1:01:23] to get more thorough and complete applications at that time.
[1:01:29] Again, we see the change in language from subminimum wage to
[1:01:33] commensurate wage. And then this is a piece where I spoke of
[1:01:37] just a moment ago,
[1:01:38] that eligible employees can reapply for certification one year after
[1:01:42] leaving the sheltered workshop.
[1:01:46] And this
[1:01:47] addresses that perceived barrier that some might not
[1:01:51] pursue employment outside if there's a concern or a
[1:01:54] difficulty returning to the workshop, if they have that opportunity and decide
[1:01:58] that's the choice that they end up making.
[1:02:02] And then lastly,
[1:02:05] the disbursement of funds, and this just updates statutory citation
[1:02:08] again, and it just references the statute that has been
[1:02:12] rescinded and adjusts that as such.
[1:02:15] So at this time, the department recommends the State Board of Education
[1:02:19] authorize publication to the Missouri Register of a
[1:02:23] notice of proposed rulemaking to amend those rules as we just
[1:02:27] shared just a few moments ago, and for the
[1:02:30] extended employment sheltered workshops.
[1:02:33] So moved.
[1:02:34] Second.
[1:02:35] We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say,
[1:02:39] "Aye."
[1:02:40] Aye.
[1:02:40] Aye.
[1:02:41] Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes forward.
[1:02:45] Thank you all.
[1:02:46] You're welcome.
[1:02:47] I have a quick question unrelated to that rule, but our
[1:02:51] new rule process, I thought they were not going to come before
[1:02:55] us until they had been out for public comment,
[1:02:59] and then they would come before us.
[1:03:00] Maybe when we get a legislative update, it would be valuable for
[1:03:04] Megan to remind us of the rule process,
[1:03:09] and save it for then.
[1:03:12] Okay. At this time, we have budget discussions
[1:03:17] with Dr. Cruz.
[1:03:33] Good morning. Kyle Cruz, Deputy Commissioner for Financial and Administrative
[1:03:36] Services, and I'm joined by Rebecca Jackson, Chief Budget
[1:03:40] Officer.
[1:03:49] To begin, I'd like to say I very much appreciate Board Member
[1:03:53] Casey's explanation of the budget process and how the board can shape the
[1:03:56] budget.
[1:03:58] I will note that with their help already, we have accelerated the existing
[1:04:01] process.
[1:04:04] Typically in August, in years past, the board has received a high-level
[1:04:07] overview of the budget. But we have actually
[1:04:11] accelerated the process so that we're bringing you today a
[1:04:15] draft version of the numbers and the supplemental requests,
[1:04:19] and the new decision item requests.
[1:04:21] And that is a direct result of the action of the Finance Committee.
[1:04:24] I appreciate their
[1:04:27] participation in the process and look forward to continuing to work with
[1:04:31] Board Member Casey and Board Member Otto to continue
[1:04:35] to engage the board.
[1:04:37] Opening slide. First, I'll note that all information in this
[1:04:41] presentation is in early draft form.
[1:04:45] We are continuing to work to refine the supplemental and new decision items.
[1:04:49] We've also not yet screened the request, as per the budget
[1:04:53] instructions that recently came from the Office of Administration,
[1:04:57] and we will be discussing that momentarily.
[1:05:00] Some of these requests may not end up in the final budget
[1:05:04] proposal due to the instructions, but we want to make sure the board has
[1:05:08] full knowledge of all budget requests that are being considered.
[1:05:12] So what you see today, as far as the supplementals and new decision items,
[1:05:17] they won't all end up in the final budget proposal that goes
[1:05:20] in for legislative consideration.
[1:05:24] A few notes, and our new board members heard much of this yesterday, but
[1:05:28] just a reminder, that the budget begins with what we
[1:05:32] refer to as the core of the budget. And that
[1:05:36] is the prior year's budget minus
[1:05:39] one-time funds. The legislature will mark some
[1:05:42] funds in the budget as one-time, meaning that they
[1:05:46] cannot be just simply brought forward.
[1:05:49] And actually, there is some money like that in the current
[1:05:53] fiscal year '27 foundation formula, and that'll be a point
[1:05:57] we'll discuss here in a moment.
[1:06:01] Each year we do get budget instructions, and
[1:06:05] the instructions we have, in brief, are as follows.
[1:06:09] For supplemental requests, and that is for the current year,
[1:06:13] fiscal year '27, the year we're already in,
[1:06:16] departments may request mandatory supplemental decision
[1:06:20] items and limit those requests to essential items that cannot
[1:06:24] wait until the next fiscal year.
[1:06:26] For new decision items, and that is for the next year's budget, that is
[1:06:30] the '27, '28 fiscal year and school year budget,
[1:06:35] departments may request general revenue for mandatory
[1:06:38] items only.
[1:06:40] We can request other new decision items funded via
[1:06:44] federal or other funds. So really, the restriction
[1:06:47] is tied largely to the State of Missouri general
[1:06:51] revenue. As you know, we are in a bit of a budget crunch right now, and
[1:06:55] general revenue is at a premium.
[1:06:57] Mandatory items are typically those that are in statute, or
[1:07:02] they're formula obligated, if there are federal mandates, if there's some
[1:07:05] kind of a maintenance of effort requirement, or even cost
[1:07:09] increases that are simply across state governments, such as insurance, retirement,
[1:07:13] or items that are legally or judicially
[1:07:17] mandated. So that'll all come through here in a few moments.
[1:07:22] Once again, we're going to look today at supplementals
[1:07:26] for fiscal year '27, current year,
[1:07:29] and new decision items for fiscal year '28.
[1:07:34] The first item I'll bring to your attention is the foundation formula
[1:07:38] increase, and board member Casey brought this up during
[1:07:42] her finance committee report.
[1:07:44] Essentially,
[1:07:47] the formula is calculated in statute,
[1:07:50] and we are simply carrying out the calculations involved.
[1:07:55] The request of $400 million at this point is an
[1:07:59] estimate. Those numbers have not yet been completed.
[1:08:02] We're still waiting on some data, and the data's being calculated.
[1:08:06] But to put it in brief,
[1:08:09] the reason we have a $400 million request for additional
[1:08:13] money for the formula is due to a few factors.
[1:08:16] First, there was a request of 190 million
[1:08:20] in fiscal year '27 that was not approved, so that
[1:08:24] formula call remains. There is also a little
[1:08:28] over $100 million in one-time money
[1:08:32] that was put in for formula funding in fiscal year '27.
[1:08:35] So since that's one-time money, in order for it to be here again, we have to
[1:08:39] request it again. So right there, you're at about $290
[1:08:42] million in new requests.
[1:08:45] Then there are a couple other items in the formula.
[1:08:48] One pertains to an incentive that was provided for
[1:08:53] school districts to have a calendar of at least 169 days,
[1:08:57] and that was first a 1%
[1:09:01] of state funding incentive. However, after the first two years, it goes
[1:09:05] to 2%. So right now, that number could look like about $66
[1:09:09] million.
[1:09:11] In addition, there's also a five-year phase-in of
[1:09:15] a change in how we count students for the formula.
[1:09:18] We've always counted students under a term called weighted
[1:09:22] average daily attendance. Essentially, if one
[1:09:26] student comes to school every day, all day, every
[1:09:30] hour, throughout the year, that's one ADA.
[1:09:34] And then the weighting refers to the extra dollars schools get
[1:09:38] if they have more than the average number of free reduced
[1:09:42] lunch students or special ed students or limited English
[1:09:45] students. So we've always counted students based on
[1:09:49] weighted ADA. However, a few years ago, it was
[1:09:53] recognized that some districts have struggle with
[1:09:57] attendance, but they still have to staff for the full number of
[1:10:00] students. And there's an argument that weighted average
[1:10:04] membership, how many kids are enrolled essentially, should also
[1:10:08] be considered.
[1:10:09] So we're in the process of a five-year phase-in of
[1:10:13] counting students
[1:10:16] 50% by weighted average daily attendance and
[1:10:19] 50% by weighted average membership.
[1:10:22] And each year as we phase in, the cost is about $40
[1:10:25] million. So you can see between the $190 million
[1:10:29] request, plus the one-time money that has to be
[1:10:33] replaced, plus the calendar incentive,
[1:10:37] plus the
[1:10:39] WADA/WAM, weighted average
[1:10:43] daily attendance, weighted average membership calculation, we're approaching
[1:10:47] $390 million, $400 million. Again, this is an
[1:10:50] estimate.
[1:10:52] I will note that we do realize this is a very large request,
[1:10:56] especially in this budget year, and we
[1:11:00] understand there will be questions about
[1:11:03] the likelihood of whether that all comes to pass.
[1:11:07] But there's also the viewpoint that the legislature has
[1:11:11] spoken in terms of how they choose to fund schools,
[1:11:15] and it's in statute, and so we're carrying out the calculations
[1:11:18] provided and following the directions provided in statute.
[1:11:23] So that's essentially the basis of the
[1:11:26] foundation formula, $400 million estimated
[1:11:31] request. I will remind you again, though, those calculations have not been
[1:11:34] completed,
[1:11:35] so there's still some things to go through before we actually get to the final
[1:11:39] number. I thought it might be helpful, though, to spend a little
[1:11:42] time and talk with the board about what
[1:11:46] goes into the foundation formula and how it's calculated.
[1:11:51] And I usually talk about the formula in three parts.
[1:11:55] It's not actually broken in three parts, but it's actually helpful, I think, to
[1:11:59] think of it that way. You have the original formula,
[1:12:03] which generates what's called a state adequacy target,
[1:12:07] and that's the amount of money that theoretically should be available to
[1:12:11] educate each student,
[1:12:13] and the key is through a combination of local
[1:12:17] effort money, local tax rate,
[1:12:20] and state money. And then there's a calculation in the formula
[1:12:24] that
[1:12:26] calculates what the local effort could, should be.
[1:12:30] And then we simply take the state adequacy target,
[1:12:34] which this year is $7,145.
[1:12:38] For each district, we subtract off the amount that
[1:12:42] the formula says they should be providing locally,
[1:12:45] and then the remainder is the amount that should be provided in state money,
[1:12:49] and it differs by district. There are some districts in the state that are
[1:12:53] receiving less than $600 per student because of their local effort,
[1:12:57] and there's some districts that are receiving $5,000 per student or more
[1:13:01] because their local effort is not there to support those students.
[1:13:06] But when we calculate the formula, we have to update the average
[1:13:10] daily attendance numbers from across the state.
[1:13:13] The dollar value modifier, DVM,
[1:13:16] is a factor that's intended to compensate for the fact that in
[1:13:20] some parts of the state, things simply cost more. The labor in St.
[1:13:24] Louis costs more than it does in a rural part of Missouri.
[1:13:28] If there's a change to the state adequacy target, we do put that in.
[1:13:32] There's been no change.
[1:13:34] If there's a change in which schools are held harmless,
[1:13:38] and that is they're still receiving money at the rate they would have under the old
[1:13:42] formula Because the new formula did not treat them as well.
[1:13:45] There's sometimes minor changes there.
[1:13:48] There's a change in case,
[1:13:51] and this is a little unusual, if there's some change to local effort,
[1:13:55] say, a district has their assessed valuation drop below a certain level,
[1:13:59] so their local effort changes, that's calc'd in.
[1:14:03] Every other year, we recalculate the thresholds for at what point you get
[1:14:07] additional money for pre-reduced lunch students,
[1:14:11] special ed students, limited English proficient students.
[1:14:15] And if those thresholds have changed and the numbers in a school has changed,
[1:14:19] there's an additional or subtraction amount of the cost.
[1:14:23] There's the WADA/WAM phase-in
[1:14:27] I discussed, about $40 million per year.
[1:14:30] And there's also a piece of the formula that's been built in
[1:14:34] as the modifications to the original machinery that
[1:14:37] actually helps fund charter school local
[1:14:41] effort. When a student goes from a public school and
[1:14:46] goes to a charter school, the state aid for that student gets
[1:14:50] diverted from the public school payment and sent to the charter school.
[1:14:54] But there should also be a local effort amount because charter schools don't
[1:14:58] generate local property tax. So, an
[1:15:01] amount that is intended to
[1:15:06] signify the local effort is also taken out of the public school
[1:15:10] state aid and sent to the charter school.
[1:15:13] When you have so many students that move from public to charter schools, you hit a
[1:15:17] point where there's no state aid left to take from
[1:15:21] to accommodate the local effort for the charter school.
[1:15:25] And so by statute, DESE is required to make up that difference.
[1:15:29] And in this example, by the way, these numbers are from last year.
[1:15:32] This is not current year.
[1:15:34] These are last year's, just for example, because we have not gotten the new numbers
[1:15:37] yet. But last year, the change to charter school local effort was about
[1:15:41] $51 million.
[1:15:44] Any questions at this moment?
[1:15:48] Okay, moving forward.
[1:15:50] In addition to
[1:15:52] the original machinery of the formula
[1:15:55] and then the modifications to the formula, the charter school local effort,
[1:15:59] and the WAM/WADA, there are also a number of
[1:16:03] special payments that are essentially stacked on top of the
[1:16:06] formula.
[1:16:08] And I mentioned the 169-day counter incentive a
[1:16:11] moment ago.
[1:16:13] There is still a kindergarten payment that dates back '70s, from when
[1:16:17] kindergarten wasn't mandatory. I think there are four districts still receive a
[1:16:20] small amount of money to have kindergarten.
[1:16:23] There was change in the formula about schools and how they
[1:16:27] receive fine money, about how they received financial institution
[1:16:31] tax money.
[1:16:33] Virtual host school
[1:16:35] has become a larger number.
[1:16:37] In last year's budget,
[1:16:40] it was about $135 million we projected to spend on
[1:16:44] virtual host schools.
[1:16:46] It's a program where about
[1:16:50] 12 or 13 local Missouri districts so far have
[1:16:54] chosen to be a virtual host school.
[1:16:57] And what that means is that in addition to having, for say,
[1:17:01] an elementary school for students that reside in the district,
[1:17:05] and a middle school for students that reside in the district, and a high
[1:17:08] school for students that reside in the district, they also have a
[1:17:12] building
[1:17:13] for virtual students, and they can accept students from throughout the
[1:17:17] state as virtual students. And generally,
[1:17:21] those school districts contract with a provider, a vendor,
[1:17:25] to provide the virtual education.
[1:17:27] And for doing so, they receive for each of the virtual students
[1:17:32] the amount of the state adequacy target at the
[1:17:36] level it's being paid. I mentioned earlier the state adequacy
[1:17:40] target is calculated at $7,145.
[1:17:45] Well, when the budget does not accommodate the full amount, it gets dialed
[1:17:49] down. And so,
[1:17:51] the virtual host schools will receive the dialed down
[1:17:55] amount of the state adequacy target for each of their virtual
[1:17:58] students. And that number's been increasing.
[1:18:01] I think a few years ago, the budget was $12 million, then 25, then
[1:18:04] 67, then 135 last year, and I expect that
[1:18:08] number will increase again this year.
[1:18:12] There is a payment which is being phased out, a MO Scholars payment.
[1:18:16] That number is sun setting and will no longer be included.
[1:18:20] That's simply a payment to keep school districts whole for any
[1:18:24] student that leaves their district by taking advantage of a MO Scholars
[1:18:29] tax voucher credit.
[1:18:31] There's a minor residential care facility adjustment, and then there's also a
[1:18:35] provision for Show-Me diplomas. But at this time, no one is offering Show-Me
[1:18:39] diplomas. So again, you have the original formula
[1:18:42] machinery,
[1:18:44] you have the modifications, the charter school, local effort, and the
[1:18:49] WAM/WADA, and then you have all the special
[1:18:52] payments stacked on top that create the full funding
[1:18:56] formula draw.
[1:18:58] Any questions about that? I think I've reviewed this a few times over the
[1:19:02] past few months. But yes.
[1:19:04] Just to be clear, that this
[1:19:07] estimate of $200 million, the
[1:19:10] $67 million, and then there's another
[1:19:14] $100 million, that's what all comprise this $400 million
[1:19:17] estimated request?
[1:19:18] No. Let me clarify that again.
[1:19:22] The $400 million
[1:19:24] is
[1:19:25] essentially the basic formula stuff
[1:19:30] from last year, plus the $190 million request
[1:19:34] that we didn't get,
[1:19:36] plus the one-time money that's in the fiscal year '27
[1:19:40] budget that'll have to be replaced, plus the next year phase
[1:19:44] in for the weighted average daily attendance/weighted
[1:19:48] average membership, plus the increase
[1:19:51] for the
[1:19:53] 169-day calendar incentive.
[1:19:56] These numbers here,
[1:19:57] the ones we just looked at, those are from last year, and I provided
[1:20:01] them just for explanation purposes.
[1:20:04] There will be a similar set of numbers calculated for the fiscal year '28
[1:20:08] budget, but we don't have them yet.
[1:20:10] So these numbers in black are from last year, but I think
[1:20:14] they help explain all the pieces that go into the formula.
[1:20:18] Did that answer your question?
[1:20:20] I think so. It really was just to make sure everybody else could understand-
[1:20:24] Thank you
[1:20:24] ... that 400, that's for-
[1:20:26] New members, it's a lot
[1:20:27] ... yeah, go into that $400 million ask.
[1:20:29] I have a question. So when you talk about things like incentives, so the
[1:20:33] 169-day incentive,
[1:20:35] is there any data to show that those schools who
[1:20:39] collect that actually have improved outcomes?
[1:20:43] And is there a way to evaluate how we continue that funding?
[1:20:47] That's a great question. And this is a statutory
[1:20:50] change.
[1:20:51] Okay.
[1:20:51] It did not originate with DESE.
[1:20:52] Got it.
[1:20:53] I think there were some legislators who were looking at the growing
[1:20:57] popularity of the four-day week,
[1:20:59] and they believe that
[1:21:01] a five-day week may serve students better, and they added the
[1:21:04] incentive to
[1:21:07] give districts a little more incentive to keep
[1:21:11] a five-day week. As far as the four-day week and the
[1:21:14] outcomes,
[1:21:17] all I can say so far is generally the reviews
[1:21:21] are mixed, but without spending some more time and
[1:21:25] going more in depth, I would hesitate to make any kind of a statement about one is
[1:21:29] superior to the other or one is providing less results than the other.
[1:21:33] At this point, I'm not sure they've seen a consistent
[1:21:37] change between the two.
[1:21:39] And from a committee standpoint, that's the example of what will
[1:21:43] be being reviewed by the committee.
[1:21:44] Now, we don't have the power to say remove it from the budget, but it would
[1:21:48] align over to legislative priorities because currently it's
[1:21:51] required by the legislature. But that said,
[1:21:55] looking at it as well through the lens of the modernization of the
[1:21:59] formula,
[1:22:01] it could be a factor there as well. So, but those are the things that we're going
[1:22:05] to be looking at.
[1:22:06] Yeah. Thank you, Board Member Casey.
[1:22:08] That actually brings up the last point I wanted to give you about the formula.
[1:22:12] And that is
[1:22:14] when you look at our request of $400 million,
[1:22:17] that's a big number.
[1:22:19] And last year, the legislature was not able to appropriate the
[1:22:22] $190 million that was asked. So we understand that this was a
[1:22:26] big ask and there will be a lot of ground between here and there for the
[1:22:30] legislature to consider. For the board's information, I
[1:22:34] wanted to make sure we have an understanding of what happens when the formula
[1:22:38] is not fully funded.
[1:22:41] And there's really only one dial
[1:22:45] mechanism to account for the formula not being fully funded,
[1:22:49] and that is we have to adjust the state adequacy target,
[1:22:53] and it's calculated right now at
[1:22:56] $7,145.
[1:22:58] There was a shortfall in '25/26,
[1:23:03] and so we had to dial down the SAT,
[1:23:07] and we ended up paying schools at a rate of $6,958.
[1:23:12] For
[1:23:14] current year, '26/27, based on what is in the
[1:23:17] budget and what we project will happen, we are
[1:23:21] hoping to be able to pay the SAT at
[1:23:25] about $6,900.
[1:23:30] One thing DESE does is we always start the year paying at a lower
[1:23:33] amount
[1:23:35] because we want to be able to build up towards the full amount by
[1:23:39] the end of the year because the money's not simply all sitting
[1:23:43] there at the start of the year. We have to have the money rolling into the
[1:23:46] funds in order to pay it out. So at the moment, we're actually paying
[1:23:50] at a rate of $6,750
[1:23:54] and hope to move towards that $6,900 figure by the end of the
[1:23:57] year. The last detail is that when you dial
[1:24:01] down the SAT,
[1:24:03] the schools that are held harmless,
[1:24:07] the ones that are still receiving the amount generated by the old formula,
[1:24:11] they receive their payment in full.
[1:24:13] Districts that are formula-dependent take the lower SAT.
[1:24:18] And this list of
[1:24:23] special payments are largely
[1:24:26] exempt from any effect of the state adequacy target.
[1:24:31] The state adequacy target being dialed down to $6,900
[1:24:35] does not affect
[1:24:37] anything on this list except for the virtual host school payment.
[1:24:41] Those districts are receiving an SAT amount per student,
[1:24:45] so they would receive the lower SAT amount per student, but the rest of
[1:24:50] these would still be paid in full. So it's a very disparate
[1:24:53] effect in how a funding shortfall hits
[1:24:57] different schools.
[1:24:59] Any questions I can answer about this so far?
[1:25:01] Yeah, the question I'd have, you touched
[1:25:05] on it briefly, but on the virtual host schools, how many do we have?
[1:25:10] The numbers changes. I think we had 12. We may have 13 or 14 this next year.
[1:25:14] Okay. And so-
[1:25:14] Some are in process of becoming virtual host schools.
[1:25:17] Yeah. So at 135 million, by far the largest
[1:25:22] line item.
[1:25:23] It's in the special payment list. Yes, that's correct.
[1:25:26] Yeah. And so how do you protect
[1:25:29] efficiencies?
[1:25:31] You understand what I'm questioning?
[1:25:34] I do understand what you're questioning, and I think that's actually a topic that's
[1:25:37] coming up in the formula task force, and Board Member Casey may have
[1:25:41] a comment to make there.
[1:25:43] Yes, I can add to that. Thank you. Absolutely a big part of the discussion
[1:25:47] in the modernization of the formula, the way
[1:25:51] Dr. Cruz described it,
[1:25:53] basically these are students. There's not a separate building
[1:25:56] for them, but they are students that elect to go to a virtual school,
[1:26:00] and they can choose the virtual school that they go to, and we will fund
[1:26:03] them. Those virtual schools, those providers
[1:26:08] The 11 or so that we have then contract
[1:26:12] with a public school, let's say Jefferson City Public
[1:26:15] Schools, to be their kind of administrator, if you will,
[1:26:20] even though they would be students from elsewhere.
[1:26:22] So you'll see different amounts, different numbers of children go to
[1:26:26] different virtual schools, so one school might have a larger
[1:26:30] population of virtual students versus another school.
[1:26:34] But that said, the funding that flows to them today through
[1:26:38] the
[1:26:39] host school. So if there are 10 children going to
[1:26:43] virtual school X, and that they're contracted with Jefferson
[1:26:48] City, then the funding for those 10 students
[1:26:52] is given to Jefferson City who then gives it to the virtual school.
[1:26:58] In the future, it is recommended, number one,
[1:27:03] well, most importantly, that
[1:27:05] funding for the virtual school should not be at
[1:27:08] 100% for that child because their
[1:27:12] virtual school is not having to provide brick and mortar.
[1:27:15] They don't have to provide transportation services and the other
[1:27:18] services that are provided. So there's a recommendation to fund
[1:27:22] virtual school students at a lesser amount that still
[1:27:26] covers what is required for their education.
[1:27:31] Thank you for that clarification. I would add that I think I spoke...
[1:27:35] I assumed some knowledge. I mentioned that a school
[1:27:39] district becomes a host district, and I mentioned they had an
[1:27:43] elementary building, a middle school building, a high school building.
[1:27:46] On our books, the virtual students that
[1:27:50] go to that district,
[1:27:52] they're across the state, but they are in a building as
[1:27:56] designated by DESE. It's not an actual building, building, but it's on the books as
[1:28:00] a building as a way to keep those students
[1:28:03] in one place in terms of tracking performance and payment
[1:28:07] and such.
[1:28:12] How long have virtual schools been around?
[1:28:17] I would have to go and look that up. I want to say we had virtual
[1:28:21] schools starting somewhere in the '08, '09, '10
[1:28:25] range.
[1:28:27] I think it really, call it exploded or became more prominent
[1:28:30] during the pandemic, and I believe we
[1:28:35] normally will get a virtual school update and review in September.
[1:28:39] In the fall-
[1:28:41] We do
[1:28:41] ... we will receive one.
[1:28:42] You'll receive a virtual update later on in the fall.
[1:28:45] How do we evaluate their outputs?
[1:28:49] Great question.
[1:28:52] For each district and each building, we generate an annual
[1:28:56] performance report,
[1:28:58] and that's kind of the
[1:29:00] way districts are accredited currently, and there are scores assigned to each
[1:29:04] building and each district. And so the virtual buildings do
[1:29:08] get an annual performance report score, just like every elementary
[1:29:11] school and just like districts do as an aggregate.
[1:29:14] So those numbers are out there and available as far as
[1:29:18] how the virtual buildings are performing
[1:29:21] as measured by the annual performance report, and that's part of the
[1:29:25] report you'll receive later on this fall.
[1:29:28] How are they doing?
[1:29:30] It varies.
[1:29:32] I bet it does.
[1:29:36] I think that's probably where I'll leave that one for the moment.
[1:29:40] Oops.
[1:29:41] Mr. Matousek.
[1:29:41] Yeah, thank you. Kyle, thank you for all the information.
[1:29:44] I
[1:29:45] think I've said this before,
[1:29:48] but
[1:29:50] maybe not in these words.
[1:29:52] This is my opinion. I think this board and the department have a credibility issue
[1:29:56] with Jefferson, with the Capitol, right?
[1:29:59] With state lawmakers.
[1:30:04] On the budget stuff, in my opinion,
[1:30:08] it's hard for me to support
[1:30:11] a $400 million increase that not a single person in this room
[1:30:14] thinks we're going to get. Right? We're
[1:30:18] going to ask for $190 million again that we didn't get,
[1:30:23] and then we're going to add a bunch of new money to that.
[1:30:27] I
[1:30:31] think we lose even more credibility if that's what we submit
[1:30:35] to the governor's office and the legislature, a request we know can't be funded.
[1:30:40] We know it can't be funded.
[1:30:43] And if the board doesn't have any discretion
[1:30:47] in the request that we
[1:30:49] submit to the governor, then I don't even know why we're talking about it.
[1:30:54] If
[1:30:55] something dictates that we've got to request $400 million more than we have,
[1:31:00] why are we wasting time on it? I think we do have the discretion.
[1:31:05] I do. I think our budget request could look a lot
[1:31:08] different and actually
[1:31:10] could
[1:31:14] be a better reflection of where our priorities are.
[1:31:17] The example I'll use is the 169-day incentive.
[1:31:21] No position on four or five-day
[1:31:23] school weeks, but
[1:31:26] that program, for example,
[1:31:29] the legislature has already carved it out, right?
[1:31:31] They provided an exception for inclement weather days, and the only requirement to
[1:31:35] get that money is to have 169 days on your calendar to start the
[1:31:39] school year.
[1:31:40] Doesn't actually mean you have to go 169 days,
[1:31:44] as we've seen in the last year or two.
[1:31:45] So,
[1:31:47] to me, I'm not saying this is... But that's probably $33
[1:31:51] million. We could go to the legislature and say, "Hey,
[1:31:54] we could use this for something else." Right?
[1:31:57] "This could be used for whatever." Right?
[1:32:01] I
[1:32:02] don't love the idea of submitting a budget to the
[1:32:06] legislature that is $400 million more than
[1:32:10] we know we're going to get. It's $190 million that we asked for last year
[1:32:14] and we didn't get. I mean-
[1:32:16] I don't think that makes us look good to people in the
[1:32:20] legislature that deal with the budget.
[1:32:23] I just don't.
[1:32:25] And again, I realize this is just data, right?
[1:32:28] It's numbers-
[1:32:29] Sure
[1:32:29] ... and it's not a shot at anyone. It's just my...
[1:32:35] I would agree with you, Mike. The board member who said the board has
[1:32:39] significant discretion in the budget request.
[1:32:42] And actually, there's
[1:32:45] some more to this budget presentation, and I think you'll
[1:32:49] see both where we have numbers that are calculated as per formula,
[1:32:53] and we also have requests from various offices, and we also
[1:32:57] have a number of requests that have been generated at the state board
[1:33:01] level. So, I think you're on target, and the board will have to
[1:33:05] exercise some discretion. And
[1:33:09] if it's okay,
[1:33:11] just kind of hold that thought, and I'll go to the next piece of this, and
[1:33:15] then it's largely a board discussion about how you'd like to
[1:33:18] proceed. And today, again, these are early draft numbers.
[1:33:23] Let's talk about the
[1:33:25] mandatory
[1:33:27] instructions right now.
[1:33:31] The budget instructions we got were that we can request
[1:33:34] mandatory items, and those are items that are calculated
[1:33:38] by formula or in statute. We can also request items that are
[1:33:42] with federal funds and funds that are not general revenue.
[1:33:46] So,
[1:33:47] does the board have to follow those instructions exactly?
[1:33:51] I think there's probably some interpretation involved
[1:33:54] regarding board priorities.
[1:33:57] So, the next item on the list is
[1:34:02] a request for transportation dollars,
[1:34:06] and this is actually a calculated number as well.
[1:34:09] And
[1:34:11] what we're asked to do is reimburse schools at a
[1:34:15] rate of 75% of allowable costs,
[1:34:19] which are specified in RSMO 163.161.
[1:34:23] And that's essentially paying
[1:34:27] 75% of the allowable costs for running the
[1:34:30] miles to get kids back and forth to school.
[1:34:33] It doesn't account for any miles for ball games or field trips,
[1:34:37] nothing like that. It's simply the cost of getting kids back and forth to
[1:34:40] school. In order to fully fund that,
[1:34:44] we would need a new decision item of about 26.5
[1:34:47] million,
[1:34:49] and that includes covering
[1:34:52] $15.2 million that was marked one time
[1:34:56] in the fiscal year '27 budget. So there's actually $15 million
[1:35:00] worth of one-time money in the current year budget, and we would be asking for
[1:35:04] that back, plus a calculation of 3% to cover
[1:35:08] increasing costs. And again, transportation
[1:35:12] is a formula-driven number.
[1:35:17] The formula, is the formula the 75% in the
[1:35:20] statute?
[1:35:22] The formula, I don't believe is actually in the statute.
[1:35:24] Okay. But the allowable cost-
[1:35:26] It's in federal, yeah
[1:35:26] ... is in the statute.
[1:35:27] That's in statute.
[1:35:30] Okay.
[1:35:30] We have a request for the A through F school grade card, which you'll hear a
[1:35:34] bunch about later on in this meeting.
[1:35:36] And that stems from the governor's executive order to publish an A
[1:35:40] through F school report card with clear academic performance and
[1:35:44] growth comparisons. The fiscal year '27
[1:35:48] current year request would cover the
[1:35:52] IT build and changes to MOSIS and Core Data.
[1:35:56] Those are programs we use here at the department to collect information.
[1:36:00] The fiscal year '28 new decision item would
[1:36:04] cover the annual work maintaining the system,
[1:36:08] reporting, and also support to identify and
[1:36:11] remediate ineffective school practices.
[1:36:14] Again, you'll hear more about that later on.
[1:36:17] Then we have a number of requests that have a
[1:36:21] state board origin, and
[1:36:24] I understand exactly where the state board's going with these.
[1:36:27] There's a request of $10 million
[1:36:31] for a Struggling Schools grant. We're asked to identify
[1:36:35] struggling schools by January 27, and then implement a
[1:36:38] grant award program to improve student academic outcomes.
[1:36:43] And at any point, I'd ask Board Member Carrie Casey to jump in and
[1:36:47] expand, or any board member who has questions to ask them about these items.
[1:36:51] We'll answer best we can.
[1:36:52] Yeah. I'll-
[1:36:54] Sure
[1:36:54] ... so,
[1:36:56] we don't talk
[1:37:00] about struggling schools. Do we have any?
[1:37:03] We do.
[1:37:04] Okay. And so we really kind of need to start putting that to the forefront of
[1:37:08] conversation-
[1:37:08] Yeah. And that-
[1:37:09] ... especially if we're going to fund it-
[1:37:11] Right
[1:37:11] ... $10 million, and we don't know what we're funding.
[1:37:13] Absolutely. And that is what we were referring to
[1:37:17] earlier in the Student Success Committee.
[1:37:19] But it's an annual conversation and needs to
[1:37:23] be a frequent conversation. As an annual conversation, it is
[1:37:27] part of the accreditation step that occurs in January
[1:37:31] where,
[1:37:32] and again, that's been through iterations strictly because of the
[1:37:36] pandemic and changes, et cetera.
[1:37:40] But where schools are identified
[1:37:42] and accredited accordingly into an appropriate status.
[1:37:46] As a part of our past discussions here as a board, it was
[1:37:50] requested that a struggling school program be addressed,
[1:37:54] and that's what had been happening.
[1:37:57] We haven't had an update on it, and I think Commissioner Priest is now involved
[1:38:00] with the work that had been done and is going to come forward with it, and that'll
[1:38:04] be the first thing that the Student Success Committee will be looking at and
[1:38:08] coming back to the board on. And included in that, Brooks,
[1:38:12] is a really good point, will be the plan of then how frequently do we talk
[1:38:16] about them?
[1:38:17] Mm-hmm.
[1:38:17] Not just, "Here they are, and here's what-
[1:38:21] What wraparound, if you will, or program would be in place from a
[1:38:25] department perspective, but how does the board continue to
[1:38:29] stay informed, have plans? It was requested earlier in the year that
[1:38:33] a plan be put together for what was identified in January, some
[1:38:37] struggling schools.
[1:38:38] Mm-hmm.
[1:38:38] And that was a plan that we, in all the transition change, did not receive.
[1:38:43] So we've been asking, and that's what's going to be focused on.
[1:38:48] Do you have anything to add, I...
[1:38:50] No, nothing too much to add, just that so when we talk about supporting
[1:38:54] struggling schools, yes, we will be going through the accreditation classification
[1:38:58] process later this fall, and that identifies at
[1:39:01] the LEA level, so the school district or charter school LEA
[1:39:06] level. But we also, as we're going to be producing these grade
[1:39:10] cards, we want to use that as an opportunity to identify
[1:39:14] or to work with the schools that end up with lower grades than they would like, so
[1:39:18] the D and F schools. So it can support that as well, not-
[1:39:21] Mm-hmm
[1:39:21] ... just the schools that are identified through the classification process.
[1:39:24] Okay.
[1:39:26] Okay.
[1:39:27] There's a item of state board origin to create an
[1:39:31] excellence in education awards program to recognize exceptional
[1:39:35] Missouri educators, school leaders, and high-performing schools, and this, I
[1:39:39] assume, would go hand-in-hand with the Teacher of the Year program.
[1:39:43] And
[1:39:44] Missouri has had a Gold Star School program
[1:39:48] for a while, which always led into the National Blue Ribbon Schools program, but
[1:39:52] the National Blue Ribbon program has been discontinued.
[1:39:55] So I assume this would be part of replacement there.
[1:39:58] And I will just add on this one, it was something that, as Robbie and
[1:40:02] I sat at the breakfast
[1:40:04] the
[1:40:05] closing morning of the conference, that there was so much enthusiasm
[1:40:09] and
[1:40:11] for the direction of the new school year, that it would be a
[1:40:15] wonderful way for the board to recognize certain things within
[1:40:19] education in Missouri. $50,000 is a very small amount.
[1:40:23] It's not intended to move a dial anywhere.
[1:40:25] It is intended to continue to celebrate different successes.
[1:40:29] It is not intended to create any one particular program.
[1:40:33] We would define it. We'd have
[1:40:37] to work out what the criteria for it would be and how it would come together, but
[1:40:41] it's to give the board an opportunity,
[1:40:44] when we are
[1:40:46] there publicly with
[1:40:49] the entire Missouri education community, to recognize various
[1:40:53] forms of success and celebrate it.
[1:40:56] Okay.
[1:40:58] Another item of state board origin is
[1:41:01] professional development for teachers for classroom management.
[1:41:06] I think it's aimed specifically at managing especially difficult behaviors in a
[1:41:10] classroom. And we all know that there are some times it's
[1:41:14] tough in the classroom.
[1:41:15] This kind of goes back to even what other states are addressing, maybe in a
[1:41:18] different form around their work around bullying, et cetera.
[1:41:22] There have been programs in the past piloted and already
[1:41:26] implemented in various districts that demonstrate the success
[1:41:30] of better classroom management resulting in better student
[1:41:34] outcomes, better teacher retention.
[1:41:38] So this is intended to say there's more we can do in this
[1:41:42] area, and it's likely to create a
[1:41:45] playbook for schools and districts to use on best
[1:41:49] practices, whether from the nation or from the state as well as maybe
[1:41:53] across the nation, to provide
[1:41:56] classroom management skills develop, or it could be
[1:42:00] viewed as working with a particular district as a pilot
[1:42:04] and doing further professional development to improve
[1:42:08] that area. And this is another area where our now teacher
[1:42:12] representative at the board,
[1:42:15] Mr. McDonald, would be very helpful in helping us shape that.
[1:42:19] So did this number come from any particular evaluation
[1:42:23] or is this kind of a random number?
[1:42:24] No, it's just a starting point.
[1:42:26] Okay.
[1:42:27] We know that from past experience and in research I did, if you
[1:42:31] really want to roll out a statewide program
[1:42:34] of something that hasn't been developed, it's millions of
[1:42:38] dollars.
[1:42:39] Mm-hmm.
[1:42:39] But to look at what we can do and start
[1:42:42] further addressing keeping our eye on this issue of
[1:42:46] classroom behavior, because it really is at the root of struggling
[1:42:50] students and increased attrition
[1:42:54] of our teachers. And it has come up over and
[1:42:58] over again in teacher surveys. That's their number one point.
[1:43:01] So we've got to continue to address it, and this is a seed money to look at what
[1:43:05] we can do further.
[1:43:07] Mr. Otto.
[1:43:09] Yeah, just a quick question. I see the last few slides and some of the ones coming
[1:43:12] up have the State Board of Education priority in the
[1:43:16] parenthetical there. Is that something that-
[1:43:19] That's what we discussed in that committee.
[1:43:21] This was just something that we input from a committee
[1:43:24] perspective is or from a board. It's not that it's a priority
[1:43:28] within the
[1:43:33] strategic plan. It was just something that the board has recommended
[1:43:38] is all.
[1:43:38] This
[1:43:39] board or...
[1:43:41] Yeah. We talked about it. I'll chat with you.
[1:43:43] Okay. Yeah.
[1:43:44] Yeah.
[1:43:45] Like I said, I wasn't
[1:43:48] participating as much in the finance committee meetings.
[1:43:50] But I will say that if we're going to present that
[1:43:56] in the future, I guess, present that at this level,
[1:44:00] we should probably have this new student success committee
[1:44:04] vote and talk about those-
[1:44:06] Yeah
[1:44:06] ... and then we kind of-
[1:44:07] Yeah, I think it's-
[1:44:08] ... agree that these are our priorities
[1:44:09] ... as we're still in the forming stage-
[1:44:11] Right
[1:44:11] ... some of these things happen in that manner, but that's also why we're bringing
[1:44:14] it forward today for full board discussion.
[1:44:18] But we're just not at the point with the other structures in place to-
[1:44:21] Yeah, no, I just-
[1:44:22] ... do it differently
[1:44:23] ... and I just got the question from another board member, too, and I was like,
[1:44:25] "Yeah, that's a good question. I don't recall all of these in spec-
[1:44:28] Yeah
[1:44:28] ... specifically." But
[1:44:31] We'll talk.
[1:44:32] All right.
[1:44:34] Mr. Matusik?
[1:44:35] Yeah. Thank you. I was kind of wondering the same thing when I saw the SBOE
[1:44:39] priority up there. I
[1:44:42] just don't remember
[1:44:43] $10 million-
[1:44:44] Sure
[1:44:44] ... for struggling schools. I don't remember talking about that really.
[1:44:47] And that was something not so much any one board member
[1:44:51] submitted, it was a recommendation, I think, that went in separately.
[1:44:55] Or I might have echoed it, but others have recommended it.
[1:45:02] Let's go back in time to some of our past discussions as a board, and new
[1:45:05] board members in particular, where you're like, "Why don't we have more input into
[1:45:09] the budget?"
[1:45:10] And so along the way, and even in the retreat, we said, "Let us know
[1:45:14] what you think you'd like to be included in the budget."
[1:45:18] And these are just some ideas that have come forward.
[1:45:20] So this is just an effort to get us going in this
[1:45:24] direction, to give us a voice. It's not to say it's been done
[1:45:28] perfectly, it's not to say that all the right research has been done, but
[1:45:32] it's to bring us together now as this way.
[1:45:36] Will we continue to evolve how we develop these items?
[1:45:39] Absolutely. They'll come from the legislative committee, they'll come from the
[1:45:43] strategic plan, they'll come from the student success committee.
[1:45:47] But this was just giving board a voice and getting us
[1:45:51] started. And that's why it wasn't discussed in the past, but that's what you're
[1:45:54] talking about right now. We want to hear feedback and thoughts.
[1:45:59] So, like the $10 million
[1:46:01] struggling school grant, is that
[1:46:04] in the draft budget right now?
[1:46:08] So this is the draft budget that we're-
[1:46:10] You-
[1:46:10] ... that's preparing. But I want to ask the commissioner, because we had spoken
[1:46:13] about this as well.
[1:46:15] And I believe,
[1:46:17] isn't there a grant, a program that was suggested as part
[1:46:21] of,
[1:46:22] submitted to the legislature, not necessarily by our board?
[1:46:26] That maybe-
[1:46:27] I think I can speak to that. First, I'll answer two questions, Board
[1:46:31] Member Matusik.
[1:46:33] The question is this part of the draft budget?
[1:46:36] Not part of the draft budget. What we're bringing today is the
[1:46:39] summation of all the potential requests for you to look at and
[1:46:43] to consider. Now, going back to the budget
[1:46:47] instructions, mandatory items is what I refer to as a very-
[1:46:51] ... a narrow gate,
[1:46:53] and there will be a number of these
[1:46:56] requests that won't get through that gate in terms of
[1:47:00] actually making it into the budget.
[1:47:02] These are put out here for your consideration and for you to
[1:47:06] provide feedback either today or in the next few weeks and help
[1:47:10] shape the work that I and the commissioner and the finance
[1:47:14] committee will be doing in terms of determining what actually gets through the
[1:47:17] gate. So these are simply the full
[1:47:22] spectrum of the requests that
[1:47:25] are generated based on the program that DESE needs to do or would like to
[1:47:29] do, and the formulas that are calculated. I hope that answered your question.
[1:47:34] Yeah, it does. Any new decision item should
[1:47:38] be
[1:47:39] scrutinized, right? For heavily and-
[1:47:40] And that's what we're doing here today.
[1:47:42] Yeah. Well, I don't know that you can
[1:47:45] talk about a $10 million grant program that we've never heard about-
[1:47:48] But it's-
[1:47:48] ... in a 30-minute session. So,
[1:47:52] we just talked about we're $400 million short, and we're asking for
[1:47:56] another $10 million for a struggling schools grant program.
[1:47:59] I'm not saying it's bad, I just-
[1:48:01] Right
[1:48:01] ... you know.
[1:48:02] It's an opportunity to get us started, to take advantage of
[1:48:06] an opportunity as we're sitting here today to get us started
[1:48:10] on these discussions.
[1:48:13] Structures in the future will take it through things of these other
[1:48:17] committees and will come forward in a different way.
[1:48:20] And to answer the other question, I think what you may be referring to, Board
[1:48:24] Member Casey, is
[1:48:25] in the fiscal year '27 budget, there
[1:48:29] is budget guidance
[1:48:32] to use $10 million from Title I
[1:48:36] allocations, and instead distribute that $10 million
[1:48:39] through a competitive grant process.
[1:48:42] I think-
[1:48:42] And this is-
[1:48:42] ... that might be what you're talking about
[1:48:43] ... building on that idea for FY28, knowing that
[1:48:47] struggling schools will continue to need our support.
[1:48:52] So if I can.
[1:48:53] Go ahead.
[1:48:53] This is
[1:48:55] more of a
[1:48:57] state board initiative rather than
[1:49:01] priority, right? Is that a fair-
[1:49:05] That could be a fair term.
[1:49:07] Yeah. I
[1:49:08] don't think this has been approved yet, is that-
[1:49:11] No.
[1:49:12] No.
[1:49:14] So maybe the word should be
[1:49:17] initiative as opposed to priority.
[1:49:20] Becomes a priority if, in fact, it gets adopted by-
[1:49:22] Good recommendation.
[1:49:24] Yeah.
[1:49:24] Okay.
[1:49:26] There are a few more.
[1:49:28] A request for dollars to address chronic absenteeism,
[1:49:32] targeted funding for attendance intervention toolkits, family engagement
[1:49:36] frameworks, and technical assistance for schools with high chronic
[1:49:40] absenteeism.
[1:49:43] High dosage tutoring
[1:49:47] recommendation or initiative,
[1:49:49] and that program would provide grant funding for local districts to
[1:49:53] implement
[1:49:54] some measure of evidence-based high dosage tutoring
[1:49:58] programs in reading and mathematics.
[1:50:04] An initiative for supporting high quality instructional materials,
[1:50:09] and that would be matching grants and technical guidance to help schools
[1:50:13] adopt state aligned high quality instructional materials.
[1:50:17] And there is some of this already existing in literacy in Missouri,
[1:50:22] but I think the thinking may be to expand it and also
[1:50:25] assist districts in selecting quality mathematics instruction
[1:50:29] materials. Having high quality materials is
[1:50:34] foundational to effective practice
[1:50:39] And then there was a thought about having a type of
[1:50:42] civic patriotic education program, and there has been one of
[1:50:46] these in the past.
[1:50:48] It was not funded beginning a year or two ago.
[1:50:52] I think this may be a little different
[1:50:55] take on civic and patriotic education.
[1:50:58] There is a current DESE
[1:51:01] framework available online from the past program,
[1:51:05] but this may be a little different take about
[1:51:08] engaging students in terms of constitutional literacy,
[1:51:13] patriotic heritage, and even economic systems.
[1:51:18] Okay. Now, other requests that I wanted to highlight for the board.
[1:51:22] There is a request for funding for early childhood
[1:51:26] special education.
[1:51:29] State is
[1:51:33] required to reimburse school districts for costs for early childhood special
[1:51:37] education, and that is services for eligible three and
[1:51:41] four-year-olds, and there actually was a lawsuit about this back in
[1:51:45] the '90s,
[1:51:46] and these state costs must be provided via a specific separate
[1:51:50] appropriation.
[1:51:52] In the '26, fiscal year '26 budget,
[1:51:56] there was not enough money to cover all the requests for funding,
[1:52:01] all the bills, and so the supplemental requested
[1:52:04] for current year, fiscal year '27, of
[1:52:07] 56.76 million would cover those
[1:52:11] shortfalls, and the fiscal year '28 new decision item
[1:52:15] would be to provide funding for the increased costs that we are projecting.
[1:52:20] Okay.
[1:52:21] I think we are going to take a break here.
[1:52:23] Okay.
[1:52:24] Is that okay? Yeah. We're about halfway through this,
[1:52:28] right?
[1:52:29] Actually, we're close to the end.
[1:52:31] Oh, okay. If we're close to the end-
[1:52:32] Close to the end
[1:52:33] ... more towards the end.
[1:52:34] I need special education fund, very similar statutory
[1:52:37] mandate, and there was a court ruling in '04, and it requires
[1:52:41] reimbursement of school districts for special ed costs that
[1:52:45] exceed three times the current expenditure per
[1:52:49] average daily attendance. So if a school's spending $11,000 per student
[1:52:53] and a special education student exceeds $33,000,
[1:52:58] then the state's required to pick up the amount beyond $33,000.
[1:53:02] Similar situation, we had a shortfall to pay all the bills from last year,
[1:53:06] so there's a supplemental to cover that.
[1:53:08] And then the '28 NDI addresses projected
[1:53:12] cost increases.
[1:53:14] And then there is a request to fund
[1:53:17] a required grade level equivalence data.
[1:53:22] Basically, right now our student test scores, MAP scores,
[1:53:27] students get a rating of below basic, basic,
[1:53:30] proficient, or advanced, and we're required to implement
[1:53:34] a band of grade level equivalence, a
[1:53:38] fifth level. And so that does require some changes in programming
[1:53:42] and scoring in order to make that happen.
[1:53:46] And that actually is where I'd planned to conclude the presentation.
[1:53:51] On this sheet, you'll see the total of
[1:53:55] supplemental requests if you go through the entire list, not just the
[1:53:59] ones I described already, but the ones that are below this slide in your slide
[1:54:03] deck. Many of those are federal fund
[1:54:06] requests or appropriation authority requests, and I'd be glad to
[1:54:10] answer any questions you have offline about those.
[1:54:13] But supplemental requests, if
[1:54:16] every request
[1:54:18] got through the gate, and that won't happen, we know that, but if every
[1:54:22] one of these got through the gate, it would be 222 million
[1:54:26] in supplemental requests and 689 in new decision
[1:54:30] items. And again, we realize many of these will not get
[1:54:34] through the gate, but we want to present them all for your consideration and
[1:54:38] feedback, and I'll be working with the finance committee and
[1:54:41] commissioner to help discern which
[1:54:45] ones will fit the state board's priorities and the ones that you want
[1:54:49] to advance, and in what measure for the final budget request.
[1:54:54] So, that concludes my part at this time, unless you have
[1:54:58] additional questions or would like to explore additional items.
[1:55:00] We have one. Mr.
[1:55:01] Just, I'll catch him later.
[1:55:04] I'm good.
[1:55:05] Okay. Mr. Matusik.
[1:55:06] Yeah. Thank you. So just to clarify,
[1:55:10] the
[1:55:13] $689 million,
[1:55:16] so that's $689 million more
[1:55:20] than we asked for last year or received last year, in the
[1:55:24] last fiscal year?
[1:55:25] That is correct, although I don't believe that full amount is all GR.
[1:55:28] Received or asked for?
[1:55:30] Sorry.
[1:55:32] So the-
[1:55:32] 642 in GR is more than we received last year,
[1:55:36] correct.
[1:55:37] Okay. So
[1:55:38] it's baseline from what we received, not from what we requested.
[1:55:41] Correct.
[1:55:43] And again, that's if every single item got through the gate, and we
[1:55:47] are quite clear that's probably not going to happen.
[1:55:51] Mr. President, if I could. Thank you,
[1:55:54] Kyle.
[1:55:56] I know we're the cart before the horse here because we're still
[1:56:00] forming a lot and getting our sequencing down.
[1:56:03] Things are happening, new board members coming in, et cetera, forming a committee
[1:56:06] so that we can do this heavier lifting, and that's just
[1:56:10] the state of the reality of where we're at today.
[1:56:13] So the question I have to the team is,
[1:56:17] your feedback's really important.
[1:56:20] We have raised it in different meetings how we want to have a voice in the budget.
[1:56:24] We want to be able to put in our new ideas.
[1:56:26] We know we want to scrutinize the money that's already
[1:56:29] in the core budget for this program or that program.
[1:56:33] What are the results of the program? Does it make sense?
[1:56:36] All of that is good work yet to come
[1:56:40] That we've been talking about somewhat at a committee and beginning to look
[1:56:43] at.
[1:56:45] But we are faced with the reality that we do submit a budget in
[1:56:48] September,
[1:56:50] or October 1st, I guess, based on our approval in September.
[1:56:56] And we know that this can't happen in the future.
[1:56:58] We need a longer time to work with it, but our reality is we've had a
[1:57:02] shorter time to work with it this year.
[1:57:05] And so you're seeing this in pieces for
[1:57:08] its first time, but we do need to talk about it.
[1:57:11] We can spend time here today,
[1:57:14] agenda aside. So I need to ask the
[1:57:19] vice chair where we are on our timing on the agenda,
[1:57:22] and should we open this up for bigger discussion today, or how we take
[1:57:26] it forward to have discussion with each board member
[1:57:30] collectively in a separate call to talk about, give you time to think about it,
[1:57:35] and then we can have a good discussion about what either changes
[1:57:39] we would want to make
[1:57:42] now. You might even have a different idea, a new item that we would want to
[1:57:45] include in there. So get the ideas in, make sure we
[1:57:49] have everybody's thoughts, have a good discussion, and
[1:57:53] so then we can come back in September with an
[1:57:57] updated version based on those discussions to have our
[1:58:00] approval. We don't want to wait until September, I don't think, to discuss it.
[1:58:05] Yeah.
[1:58:07] I guess since you specifically asked me,
[1:58:10] I think we don't have time, in the interest of time, to try to discuss all that
[1:58:14] right here. But I would recommend that
[1:58:18] we take the feedback that we received, the we being the finance
[1:58:22] committee-
[1:58:22] Mm-hmm
[1:58:23] ... take the feedback we received,
[1:58:25] have a really short turnaround meeting
[1:58:29] in the next week.
[1:58:30] Mm-hmm.
[1:58:30] And then really do a better job of
[1:58:34] communicating with the rest of the board and say, "Hey, look
[1:58:38] at this presentation. This is what we need to approve."
[1:58:42] And then we can have a virtual meeting in the interim that's just talking about
[1:58:46] this. It could be public, open to whatever, but
[1:58:49] that way it gives you time to go, you being the board,
[1:58:53] time to do some homework and look through these.
[1:58:57] And if you have questions, you can either answer them on your own or follow up with
[1:59:00] staff. And then
[1:59:02] when we come back and we have an hour or two virtual meeting
[1:59:06] to just talk about what we want our budget to look like and what we want
[1:59:10] to be in position to approve on that
[1:59:14] October 1st deadline. That's what I would recommend.
[1:59:17] Right. No, I think that's the right approach.
[1:59:18] And we did try to do that to a degree.
[1:59:21] We sent out an email prior to this meeting asking you specifically to take a look
[1:59:25] at this, et cetera, in preparation for today's meeting.
[1:59:28] Again, we're forming or what do they say, changing the engine as the
[1:59:32] airplane is flying. So,
[1:59:35] I think that's what we'll do.
[1:59:37] I support that recommendation.
[1:59:39] So
[1:59:40] we don't have any motion on the floor at this-
[1:59:42] No, this was all just discussion. Yeah
[1:59:44] ... discussion. Okay, so I'm going to do this.
[1:59:47] I think it's time for a break, and let's go to break, and if we have
[1:59:51] further discussion afterwards,
[1:59:53] we can take it up then. But we'll leave it as an open item right now.
[1:59:57] Go with the-
[1:59:58] Yeah
[1:59:58] ... those are our next steps-
[2:00:00] Okay
[2:00:00] ... as we leave it here.
[2:00:02] Okay.
[2:07:54] Okay. In conclusion, I would simply like to thank the state board,
[2:07:58] especially the finance committee, for their
[2:08:02] feedback and for being a part of the budget process.
[2:08:05] I know this is a lot, and I know the board has some
[2:08:09] major decisions to make, but I appreciate the way this
[2:08:12] board is participating in the budget process and thinking
[2:08:16] carefully of how the decisions here affect students.
[2:08:20] And I'll be glad to answer any other questions you might have.
[2:08:24] Mr. Otto?
[2:08:25] Yeah, just to, I guess, reiterate or
[2:08:29] make sure everybody's in agreement that we're going
[2:08:32] to
[2:08:36] have a little homework for ourselves and review this presentation and these
[2:08:40] budget line items particular-- or these
[2:08:43] asks, I guess. And then I think at the end of this presentation,
[2:08:47] there's some core budget information line by line if
[2:08:52] that's helpful to look at it that way, but
[2:08:55] Definitely take a look. If you have questions, I think we can
[2:08:58] address those offline. And then I think we'll look at your calendars.
[2:09:02] We'll circle up via email,
[2:09:05] and set a virtual date sometime between now
[2:09:09] and,
[2:09:12] October 1st. So might be before, might be after our
[2:09:15] September meeting, I don't know.
[2:09:17] Ideally, it will be before our September meeting-
[2:09:20] Okay
[2:09:20] ... because we will then plan to be ready with a final product
[2:09:24] to vote on in the-
[2:09:25] Oh, we can then-
[2:09:26] ... September meeting.
[2:09:26] Okay, so we need to vote it.
[2:09:27] Yeah.
[2:09:28] The October 1st date is... Okay, that makes sense.
[2:09:30] Yeah.
[2:09:31] Yeah. So,
[2:09:33] that's going to be coming up pretty quick here in the next couple of weeks, and we
[2:09:36] have the Labor Day holiday as well.
[2:09:37] So just look at your calendar, let us know some dates, or
[2:09:41] shoot some dates that you can't do it, I guess, and we'll get something
[2:09:46] scheduled
[2:09:48] just for a couple of hours virtually, and we can
[2:09:51] go through this budget in greater detail.
[2:09:55] Yeah. I think we should try to establish that date before we leave here today, just
[2:09:59] if we could.
[2:10:00] That's fine, too. Yeah.
[2:10:01] I'll work with Brett, and we can figure out a way to get it around to everybody.
[2:10:05] Well, and if I can suggest,
[2:10:08] just in the conversations that I've had in the last
[2:10:11] 15 hours or whatever-
[2:10:12] Mm-hmm
[2:10:13] ...
[2:10:15] the agenda
[2:10:17] that I've heard people express in private conversation and publicly,
[2:10:21] we're not going to get this done having this board meeting once a
[2:10:25] month. And rather
[2:10:29] than trying to coordinate schedules every
[2:10:33] so often, can I suggest we think about setting
[2:10:37] a time for a two or three-hour
[2:10:41] block of time? And if we don't need it,
[2:10:43] then we don't have a board meeting.
[2:10:45] But if we do need it, we've got the time reserved, and
[2:10:49] we're not trying to work it out on people's schedule every time
[2:10:53] there is a
[2:10:54] sense that we've got... We just have an enormous amount of work to do
[2:10:58] here, and I wish I'd known this before I said yes.
[2:11:03] And
[2:11:04] I would add to that, because in my observations, there are many states
[2:11:08] that have two-day, there's even one state that has a
[2:11:11] three-day board meeting,
[2:11:14] not necessarily eight hours-
[2:11:15] Yeah
[2:11:15] ... but over the course of three days.
[2:11:18] As well, they will have a separate working session in
[2:11:22] the course of the month leading up to the board meeting.
[2:11:25] So I think, again, as we're forming, we may look at that
[2:11:29] and my recommendation is just see what works
[2:11:33] and change it as we need to.
[2:11:35] Yeah, I think the analogy of
[2:11:38] building the plane while we're flying it, we're all new, relatively
[2:11:42] speaking, and so there's not been this level of governance
[2:11:46] at this state board
[2:11:48] before, at least that I'm aware of.
[2:11:51] And so with committees and things like that, I mean.
[2:11:54] And so,
[2:11:55] yeah, no. That's why we talked about in the governance committee is maybe
[2:11:59] having multiple meetings a month.
[2:12:01] Mm-hmm.
[2:12:01] I just don't know if that's logistically feasible, but at least in the short
[2:12:05] term with things like this and getting everybody up to speed, maybe having a
[2:12:09] one-off meeting with just one agenda item particularly, that's a
[2:12:13] couple of hours,
[2:12:15] is prudent. And so,
[2:12:18] that said,
[2:12:19] our next board meeting is September 15th,
[2:12:22] which is a Tuesday. So I don't know if you guys want to meet that week
[2:12:26] before,
[2:12:28] like a Thursday or... I'm looking at my calendar now.
[2:12:31] Monday the 7th is-
[2:12:32] Board member Otto?
[2:12:33] Sure.
[2:12:34] We would need this meeting to be pretty much as soon as we can.
[2:12:37] We have meetings coming up with
[2:12:40] different entities near the end of this month.
[2:12:43] So I don't know if there's a way to work that in sooner or not.
[2:12:46] Okay.
[2:12:46] Could I recommend we just allow ourselves to go offline a little bit on this topic-
[2:12:50] That's fine too, yeah
[2:12:50] ... and before the meeting ends, we'll wrap around.
[2:12:54] Get with Kyle and-
[2:12:55] Yeah, because maybe during lunch we could-
[2:12:56] Brett
[2:12:56] ... meet offline and look at some-
[2:12:57] And we'll bring it back.
[2:12:58] Yeah, that's probably a better use of the time.
[2:12:59] Yeah.
[2:12:59] So yep.
[2:13:00] Can I have one other question related to the budget, if I could?
[2:13:09] The idea that we've got continuing
[2:13:12] programs
[2:13:14] and that we sort of take that as the base, and that
[2:13:18] we add on from there.
[2:13:21] Mike's not here, but that's what I sensed from his
[2:13:24] comments, that we've got to go back
[2:13:28] to
[2:13:30] 1,000 years ago when I was in the mayor's office, they called it zero-based
[2:13:33] budgeting. And you just start off assuming nothing
[2:13:37] goes from this year to the next year.
[2:13:40] Everything has to be justified. There's a lot of process associated with
[2:13:44] that. I think we've
[2:13:47] got to make an effort to try
[2:13:51] to implement that thinking. Yet this year, I
[2:13:55] doubt we can get all the processes in place, unless they're already
[2:13:59] there, and I just don't know what's internal in your
[2:14:04] functionality at this point in time.
[2:14:07] So,
[2:14:09] I
[2:14:11] mentioned during the break, I'm going to have to get educated on this.
[2:14:14] But I
[2:14:16] also have heard from a number of people about this subject,
[2:14:20] about the budget just
[2:14:23] sort of rolling on one year to the next,
[2:14:26] and I think we've got to develop some processes to get upstream.
[2:14:32] And by the way, the
[2:14:35] chart that they showed yesterday,
[2:14:37] provided yesterday, it's excellent layout of the
[2:14:41] data and the sequence of events. It was very useful.
[2:14:44] Thank you.
[2:14:45] That's what I was trying to say in my finance committee remarks,
[2:14:49] that it's lopsided. We have a very short window to
[2:14:53] create,
[2:14:54] and then there's this very long window to justify over to the legislature.
[2:14:58] We can't change that long window, but we have to have a much longer window
[2:15:02] for creation of the budget. And in this short ...
[2:15:06] window that we've all come together on.
[2:15:09] It was just impossible to create a longer window than is on the calendar.
[2:15:13] So, for the '28 budget, that's why we're trying to...
[2:15:18] We've been digging. We're trying to parse it, but at the same time,
[2:15:22] we're going to be doing it differently.
[2:15:23] Even with the '28, while the budget will be submitted, we'll be using the '28
[2:15:27] budget to really pull it apart and work on it so that we're
[2:15:31] prepared, and we develop that process in the course of these
[2:15:35] next several months.
[2:15:38] I'm brand new here, still learning, and
[2:15:45] probably already talking too much.
[2:15:48] No, I appreciate the question. It's a great question.
[2:15:51] Just to give you guys a little bit of background that you might not be aware of,
[2:15:56] the department does a lot of work behind the scenes.
[2:15:59] So when the budget process does start, all these program managers that
[2:16:03] you see over here that are running these programs, they do take a hard
[2:16:07] look at what they're spending their money on, how things are being processed.
[2:16:11] There are core reductions that we do ask for in the budget process.
[2:16:15] A lot of times those are tied to federal dollars.
[2:16:18] When we have a federal grant that might be expiring, we look at that, and we ask
[2:16:22] for a reduction in that federal appropriation, that spending authority, if we
[2:16:26] no longer have the dollars to back it up.
[2:16:28] But there is a process behind the scenes, but I do love that the
[2:16:32] board is interested in taking a look at that.
[2:16:37] Other questions or comments?
[2:16:40] I have
[2:16:41] just a couple.
[2:16:44] First of all, I think you guys, the information is much
[2:16:48] better and easier to understand, and the discussion, than it was, I think, a year
[2:16:51] ago or whenever it was. Absolutely.
[2:16:55] It's still hard to... We're talking about
[2:16:59] billions of dollars, right? And it would take me
[2:17:03] probably a couple of years to go through each of the
[2:17:06] programs that we're funding and figure out what they are, and
[2:17:11] I don't know that I could do it, right?
[2:17:13] It would be tough, I think, for anybody, really, any of us, to go through the
[2:17:17] budget and be able to explain exactly what's in there.
[2:17:22] Part of me just thinks a pause, I don't know if that's the right word,
[2:17:26] is maybe appropriate, right? We're redoing our strategic plan, looking at
[2:17:30] our legislative priorities, doing some updates like that.
[2:17:35] Or maybe,
[2:17:36] I don't know, is there outside people that can help us look at this
[2:17:40] stuff or-
[2:17:41] And-
[2:17:42] I don't know what the answer is, but-
[2:17:44] And that's what we're recommending, Mike, that as we are going to be digging
[2:17:48] into the budget, we'll bring in the experts as needed
[2:17:51] to address... We're going to work with the department.
[2:17:55] We've already asked for all the program- Not all, but that we'll do
[2:17:59] the work. But
[2:18:01] we've already started to get the education on where is this data existing,
[2:18:05] the access to the links of information around justification
[2:18:09] for different projects, different programs. What are the results?
[2:18:13] And that's exactly what the committee's going to be doing and
[2:18:17] looking at where do we want to bring in an expert.
[2:18:19] I'm going to use just an example, literacy.
[2:18:22] Now, looking at the results we're getting, how we're spending the money, using an
[2:18:26] expert in literacy, is this the right way? Are we doing the right thing?
[2:18:30] And we'll look at that across all the budgets.
[2:18:33] On that note, I would-
[2:18:33] That's what the committee,
[2:18:36] we spoke about in the very beginning of our charter, let's get our feet
[2:18:40] grounded and understand and start to get the information better
[2:18:44] organized, better presented, so that the board can better
[2:18:47] understand what it is we have today, and then we'll start to
[2:18:51] tear it apart, and that's what the committee is doing.
[2:18:54] I would weigh in that I think a significant amount of the information you'd like to
[2:18:57] see is actually in the yearly budget books.
[2:19:01] For each of the items in the budget, there is information about what that budget
[2:19:05] line item does and how much money was spent, how much was
[2:19:09] lapsed. So that's in the budget request each year.
[2:19:12] There's also a program descriptions book that we provide each year and update
[2:19:16] each year, and that has more in-depth information about most of the
[2:19:19] programming. So we-
[2:19:21] And that's what the committee-
[2:19:22] And, uh-
[2:19:22] ... has started to take a look at as well.
[2:19:23] Yeah. So I think that'll provide a solid basis for the board to
[2:19:27] really dig in and gain a full understanding of what's in the
[2:19:31] budget and what you believe should stay and what you believe should perhaps go.
[2:19:35] Is that something we could send out before this next ad hoc meeting that we have?
[2:19:39] Yeah. We've provided the links before, but I'll send them again.
[2:19:42] Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
[2:19:42] Sure. Happy to do it. We have the fiscal year '27, the past
[2:19:46] year,
[2:19:48] the one we're in currently. That budget book from last fall is
[2:19:51] available, and the program description book from last fall is available,
[2:19:55] and the new ones are being developed at this moment, and they go in October 1st,
[2:20:00] but I'd be happy to send those links back out.
[2:20:01] Yeah, no, and we get tons of links and there's tons of-
[2:20:04] Exactly
[2:20:05] ... information overload, so yeah, just-
[2:20:07] Will do
[2:20:07] ... the specific request. We'll
[2:20:10] meet as a finance committee and formulate a communication email that'll go
[2:20:14] out prior to this next
[2:20:17] special meeting.
[2:20:21] Any other questions?
[2:20:23] No, we're going to work out a date.
[2:20:25] We'll have that date-
[2:20:26] We're working
[2:20:26] ... settled before the end of the day, end of this meeting. Yeah.
[2:20:30] May I make a suggestion?
[2:20:31] Sure.
[2:20:32] Something that you might do. The timeline on the budget is
[2:20:35] so awkward because we're waiting right up until it's signed before
[2:20:39] truly digging into thinking about the next one, but
[2:20:43] it wouldn't hurt for the board to have some preliminary
[2:20:46] conversations in the late spring, early summer,
[2:20:50] especially because the strategic plan will be new and thinking about what your
[2:20:54] priorities are. And maybe this is the discussion and you
[2:20:58] You can give your feedback to your two finance committee members so that
[2:21:02] then as they are refining those details, just to give you a little bit
[2:21:05] earlier start on thinking about some of these things.
[2:21:08] Because I think now we're just trying to turn them around so fast-
[2:21:12] Exactly
[2:21:12] ... because the folks across the street are going to be asking us for our budget
[2:21:15] really soon. But we could start having some
[2:21:18] conversations about what are the
[2:21:21] priority discretionary items that you are
[2:21:24] interested in should we be able to ask for that.
[2:21:27] And we can give you a heads-up about
[2:21:31] these are some things that we're going to request based on what the
[2:21:34] statute calls for. Either the
[2:21:38] board can make a recommendation on how much to scale that back, like the funding
[2:21:42] formula recommendation, or we let the legislature do that.
[2:21:46] We have just not as a department wanted to say, "Well, we're
[2:21:50] going to decide that we should only ask for half of that." Because that would just
[2:21:54] seem arbitrary, and that's really your decision.
[2:21:56] So it seems like a huge number,
[2:21:58] but it's to put in front of you just so that you can decide
[2:22:02] what you think of that we should actually ask for,
[2:22:07] if that makes sense. But I think what I'm trying to say, some of the conversations
[2:22:10] about what are the priorities, what are the new priorities, we could have those
[2:22:13] conversations just earlier, just as a discussion, just
[2:22:17] a point of discussion.
[2:22:18] And I would add onto that, they should be a part of every meeting.
[2:22:20] It's a part of all the agenda items we talk about.
[2:22:23] But it was clearly an agenda item in our retreat as well
[2:22:27] to look at our priorities, how did that feed into the budget, how did it feed into
[2:22:31] legislative priorities. So I think, again, we're trying to get there,
[2:22:35] and that's what we've been starting to build towards.
[2:22:38] It's just as we're forming and continue to receive new board members, that
[2:22:42] we kind of take one step forward, a step back, and go forward again.
[2:22:46] So I think that's right on target,
[2:22:49] Stacy, to suggest because...
[2:22:52] Any other questions?
[2:22:56] Hearing none. Thank you very much for your time.
[2:22:59] Thank you.
[2:22:59] Thank you.
[2:23:05] Mr. Reed.
[2:23:10] Mr. Reed has been with us a very short time, right?
[2:23:14] He has
[2:23:17] just short of a month.
[2:23:18] Why don't you introduce him, if you wouldn't mind?
[2:23:24] So, for the board members, again, this is Luke Reed.
[2:23:27] He is our chief
[2:23:32] governmental relations officer. We've had some conversations about that.
[2:23:36] Anyway, he has worked with a couple of other state agencies
[2:23:40] and is very familiar with the legislative process, so we're very excited to have
[2:23:44] him be able to hit the ground running knowing those things.
[2:23:47] And he's been doing a great job getting up to speed on the education
[2:23:50] issues and really put in a lot of time on getting to know what these
[2:23:54] programs are all about. But I'll just let him tell you a little bit about what his
[2:23:57] plan is going forward.
[2:24:00] Yes. Once again, I'm Luke Reed. It's great to be on board.
[2:24:03] I'm excited to work with each of you, and I've had conversations with
[2:24:07] many of you. I look forward to continuing that in the immediate future.
[2:24:12] I'm developing a work plan. So right now,
[2:24:16] my focus is on getting up to speed on what this department
[2:24:19] does in a static sense, and then
[2:24:23] looking forward to the legislative agenda.
[2:24:25] I've had conversations with our chair of the legislative group, Mr.
[2:24:28] Myers, and I look forward to speaking with Mr.
[2:24:31] Matusik and Dr. Scholl,
[2:24:34] and we'll be forming the legislative agenda.
[2:24:36] And on this list, we have some priorities, and I want to make sure that these
[2:24:40] fit with what this board wants to prioritize,
[2:24:44] so...
[2:24:48] Are those the carryover?
[2:24:50] The carryover, I also have the '26 legislative agenda, which would be a
[2:24:54] good place to start, and there are six priorities on this,
[2:24:58] including early learning, literacy, mathematics, success for
[2:25:02] today's students and workforce development, educator attention and
[2:25:06] recruitment, and providing access to quality schools.
[2:25:09] But perhaps this board may want to look at being
[2:25:13] more focused and more
[2:25:16] action-oriented. I'm not sure, but those are conversations I look forward to having
[2:25:20] with you all.
[2:25:21] So the '26 were just broad concepts of, "Hey, we would like
[2:25:26] you all to focus on workforce development," or whatever.
[2:25:28] Yeah, and-
[2:25:29] Nothing, no specific legislation or particular aim?
[2:25:34] That's what 2026 was.
[2:25:35] Okay.
[2:25:35] Yes.
[2:25:38] So could you remind us, maybe a good place to start is the end.
[2:25:42] When do we want to have our legislative priorities submitted into
[2:25:46] what do you need from us so that then the board can build backwards the committee
[2:25:50] and make sure that we have those proper discussions and bring
[2:25:54] forward legislative priorities?
[2:25:56] And I appreciate that question. And August the
[2:25:59] 28th is the deadline for the governor's office submittals,
[2:26:03] but-
[2:26:05] August the 28th of this month, the deadline to
[2:26:09] submit our legislative priorities for the next legislative
[2:26:12] session? In the past, it had been that we
[2:26:16] wanted to submit them in December because legislate-
[2:26:19] I think that step is fairly new in the process.
[2:26:23] We have not always done that. And when we're talking about legislative priorities,
[2:26:27] they want to know if there are bills that we intend to file-
[2:26:30] Yeah
[2:26:30] ... things that we intend to pursue.
[2:26:33] Advocating for money that's in the budget, that kind of thing,
[2:26:36] or
[2:26:38] responding to proposals that are out there, things like that,
[2:26:42] those we have time to think about. But just if we have bills
[2:26:46] that you intend to file, which
[2:26:48] nothing came to mind when we were talking about that.
[2:26:51] Really you have pretty broad statutory...
[2:26:53] Any of the things that we've been talking about do not require new legislation for
[2:26:57] you to implement, so-
[2:26:58] Yes
[2:27:00] Anyway, sorry, Luke
[2:27:01] Oh, no, I appreciate that. And yes, Mr.
[2:27:03] Myers and I had the conversation. The threshold would be,
[2:27:07] is there anything this department cannot do without a change in
[2:27:11] statute?
[2:27:13] And
[2:27:14] aside from that, I believe we would have till really December to
[2:27:18] finalize
[2:27:20] the 2027 version of the legislative
[2:27:23] priorities. And that would be
[2:27:28] a separate process,
[2:27:30] and
[2:27:32] this board has a separate authority from
[2:27:35] other departments, so that August 28th is a bit different.
[2:27:38] Okay, good.
[2:27:40] But said similarly to the finance discussion,
[2:27:44] we are still building that. We're flying already,
[2:27:48] but changing the engines at the same time.
[2:27:51] So as the different
[2:27:55] committees continue to do their work, there could be a
[2:27:58] bill that we would want to propose, and we just deal with that at the timing
[2:28:02] and whether it's possible or not.
[2:28:07] But the goal would be anything legislative priority-wise that we do
[2:28:11] want to communicate would want to be done by,
[2:28:14] and approved by, the board to be submitted in December.
[2:28:19] If it's specific legislation.
[2:28:21] Yeah.
[2:28:21] If it's just
[2:28:23] what you want to make sure that your focus is on.
[2:28:26] And things will come up during the session, too, that maybe we are not
[2:28:29] anticipating, and you want to have a chance to be able to say whether or not the
[2:28:33] board is going to take a position on specific things that come up.
[2:28:37] But as
[2:28:39] Luke was saying, they've set the threshold of,
[2:28:43] is what you want to do, does it require legislation?
[2:28:47] And if it does not, there's every reason not
[2:28:50] to go that route. It's not an easy hill to climb, and so if there are things
[2:28:54] that you can do without doing that, that's always the first option.
[2:28:57] And we first have to define what we want to do.
[2:28:59] Exactly, yeah.
[2:29:00] Which will come through a lot of the committee work, like the strategic plan, et
[2:29:03] cetera.
[2:29:04] I just had a question. I know we had talked,
[2:29:08] maybe not directly, but in meetings and definitely offline, about certain
[2:29:12] administrative things that are in the statute that-
[2:29:15] Oh, yeah
[2:29:16] ... may or may not. If we change it, it may allow us to do things.
[2:29:19] They're just either silent in the statute or it's worded a different
[2:29:23] way. So
[2:29:25] I consider that low-hanging fruit, non-controversial type stuff.
[2:29:28] So is that
[2:29:30] August 28th deadline, or if-
[2:29:33] No, I'm of the opinion we probably won't have
[2:29:36] anything for that August 28th deadline.
[2:29:39] Okay.
[2:29:39] But there is a sort of middle ground that you and I had briefly touched
[2:29:43] on, that I inherited from my predecessor, Perry.
[2:29:47] It's a list of around 8 to 10, and it's a living document, I
[2:29:51] continue to add them, but fixes that we would benefit from as a
[2:29:54] department.
[2:29:56] Got it. Okay.
[2:29:56] Whereas-
[2:29:57] I want to make sure we had time to nail that down so that we don't have to wait
[2:30:01] another year to get that in there.
[2:30:03] And we're talking just fairly simple-
[2:30:05] Yeah, in my opinion, but yeah
[2:30:06] ... uncontroversial.
[2:30:07] You open up a can of worms, I don't know.
[2:30:09] Yeah.
[2:30:09] Everything is non-controversial.
[2:30:11] Yeah, and to speak to the commissioner's point about
[2:30:15] filing a bill,
[2:30:17] we would be at the mercy of the general assembly.
[2:30:20] Right.
[2:30:20] And in these cases, these fixes would be much more
[2:30:24] targeted and limited, and we wouldn't be leading the
[2:30:28] charge necessarily, but rather if a legislator had a bill that opened
[2:30:32] up this specific chapter,
[2:30:34] or this specific section really,
[2:30:36] that we would work with the bill sponsor to include this fix.
[2:30:40] Okay.
[2:30:41] So like a-
[2:30:41] I want to make sure we had time, that's all.
[2:30:43] Yes, and-
[2:30:44] We have a couple of months at least.
[2:30:46] You are correct.
[2:30:46] Yeah.
[2:30:48] So biggest part of your job will be watching the bills as they
[2:30:52] are filed to see if it's something we need to weigh in on either side,
[2:30:56] and if there's some window to put some of these other changes on.
[2:31:00] That's a big
[2:31:02] part of what your role is, right? Come from
[2:31:07] starting in December?
[2:31:08] Yeah.
[2:31:08] Watching the bills.
[2:31:09] Yeah. December the 1st is the first day that legislators can pre-file legislation.
[2:31:14] And it is a strange thing, but new legislators who aren't
[2:31:18] sworn in can pre-file legislation.
[2:31:20] Which that was a question, I don't recall who asked me.
[2:31:24] Yeah.
[2:31:26] So December the 1st is when the
[2:31:29] department will receive new bills to start, and then
[2:31:33] legislators have till the end of March, I believe, to file new legislation.
[2:31:37] But they can, of course, amend things in committee or on the floor after
[2:31:40] that.
[2:31:42] But yeah, my job will be to be on top of all the bills that are
[2:31:45] filed and work with our budget team
[2:31:49] to make sure we understand them and understand how each bill will affect this
[2:31:53] department.
[2:31:54] Got you. Thank you.
[2:31:56] Mr. Matusic?
[2:31:57] Yeah. Thank you.
[2:31:59] Just a couple of thoughts for the board.
[2:32:03] Those who've been on over the last year have probably heard me say this,
[2:32:07] but the legislative
[2:32:11] priorities
[2:32:13] document that we have now, I do think it's just a lot of
[2:32:16] broad
[2:32:18] position statements.
[2:32:20] When I think of legislative priorities,
[2:32:24] I think of it in a few ways. One, when we have a strategic plan,
[2:32:29] what sort of legislative action might we need to
[2:32:33] implement that plan? Right?
[2:32:35] Whether that's changes to statute, whatever it might be.
[2:32:40] And then, I think most of our legislative priorities should
[2:32:44] reflect our strategic plan.
[2:32:47] Not all, right? For example, one of the issues we discussed,
[2:32:51] I think at our work session or whenever it was,
[2:32:54] we've talked about
[2:32:56] hiring a commissioner, and does the commissioner have
[2:32:59] a multi-year contract, and does the board have authority to do that?
[2:33:03] You can read the statute. You could probably interpret it a couple different ways,
[2:33:07] but that may be an example of a legislative priority if we think
[2:33:12] for the long-term of the department, not just the next couple of years, but 20
[2:33:16] years from now.
[2:33:19] As commissioners come and go, and if we think
[2:33:23] that
[2:33:24] finding the best candidate and retaining the best candidate means we need to have a
[2:33:28] multi-year contract that lays out X, Y, and Z, then maybe that's something
[2:33:32] we add to the legislative priorities document,
[2:33:35] make our case to the legislature for a clarification statute.
[2:33:39] But
[2:33:41] I voted against this in December of last year.
[2:33:43] I think I was the only one, which is fine.
[2:33:45] If we're all agreeing on everything on every time, then something's probably gone
[2:33:48] wrong. But
[2:33:50] when I develop a legislative priorities document, it takes years to build
[2:33:53] that. It's not just something that we throw on a piece of paper.
[2:33:56] And so to me, to wrap it up, I think the
[2:34:01] strategic plan should come first,
[2:34:03] and then the legislative priorities document comes after.
[2:34:07] That's just my opinion.
[2:34:12] Do we have... Okay. I just want to say I agree.
[2:34:15] I don't know, given the flow of events and the
[2:34:20] schedules and whatnot that are set in law already, I'm not sure we can
[2:34:24] get that done right away. But conceptually, you're exactly correct.
[2:34:29] And I think we're faced with the same issues with the
[2:34:34] budget and
[2:34:36] we've got a lot of catching up to do.
[2:34:39] So the question is, do we submit legislative priorities now?
[2:34:43] Not now, but maybe a thought of consideration to Mike's point is, we
[2:34:47] don't.
[2:34:49] Since we're not specifically asking for any one thing, we're just letting them know
[2:34:53] what we think is important in education,
[2:34:56] do we take a hiatus on legislative priorities for this year to
[2:35:00] build the specific details of
[2:35:03] legislation that we want? And I'm not saying we
[2:35:07] answer that here. Or do we want to continue to just
[2:35:10] certainly emphasize to the legislature those
[2:35:14] specific areas of focus that we have that are
[2:35:17] broad? They're more direct than they used to be, but they're still
[2:35:21] broad. And what approach should we take?
[2:35:25] And I guess that's the guidance we should look for from the legislative committee.
[2:35:29] Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Brooks.
[2:35:31] No, I'll call on Dr. Pruitt.
[2:35:32] Oh, sorry.
[2:35:33] You want to-
[2:35:33] You want to follow up on her-
[2:35:34] Oh, yeah. I give you my answer now. I think we should wait.
[2:35:38] I don't think we need to submit a legislative priorities document
[2:35:42] to the legislature for this next legislative session.
[2:35:45] That's my opinion.
[2:35:46] I think that's something to take under consideration in the committee.
[2:35:49] Absolutely. My two cents.
[2:35:51] So my comment was going to be, something that you might think about is
[2:35:56] retitling what that's called, and maybe that's policy priorities.
[2:36:00] And so that if something does rise to the level of you need legislation to be able
[2:36:04] to carry it out, great. Maybe it's a change to an administrative rule that makes
[2:36:08] something more specific. Maybe it's an internal policy, but it's just
[2:36:13] based on your strategic plan, saying what you're prioritizing and what do
[2:36:17] you need to do to accomplish it. I think legislative priorities leans us to
[2:36:21] think we need to come up with legislation, and we don't necessarily
[2:36:25] always need to do that. There may be other types of policy
[2:36:28] initiatives that could accomplish that. So just a thought.
[2:36:32] Yeah. No, I think the legislative priorities list, as you build that over
[2:36:36] time, I don't think it's going to be a big list.
[2:36:40] I think you focus on a few things, see what you can get done, and then continue
[2:36:44] to add to it and build that agenda based on the strategic plan,
[2:36:48] based on the budget.
[2:36:51] What those realities look like. I just think this is kind of like a cart before
[2:36:55] the horse type of thing.
[2:36:59] So thank you.
[2:37:01] And you're referring to the budget on that?
[2:37:03] No, the legislative priorities.
[2:37:05] Oh, okay.
[2:37:06] Yeah, I don't really see a need to have one this next year.
[2:37:10] I think Luke would stay busy just reading and interpreting-
[2:37:13] Language
[2:37:13] ... the hundreds of bills that the legislature introduces.
[2:37:18] But as far as us sending over priorities to the legislature, I
[2:37:21] don't see that as a necessity this year.
[2:37:25] And I will, from city and county governments,
[2:37:29] most of the time when our legislative was trying to kill legislation-
[2:37:32] Yeah
[2:37:32] ... that was going to hurt us-
[2:37:33] It was
[2:37:34] ... as presenting something new, is there'll be stuff over there
[2:37:38] that we will see that's not good.
[2:37:40] Yeah, playing defense.
[2:37:41] And playing defense.
[2:37:42] That's exactly what was going through my head.
[2:37:44] Mm-hmm.
[2:37:45] Yeah. Okay.
[2:37:47] So where are we at on this very lively
[2:37:51] discussion?
[2:37:52] Important discussion.
[2:37:53] I think the ball's in my court.
[2:37:54] I think it does.
[2:37:55] And so
[2:37:56] thank you. And we will take all that-
[2:37:59] I'll pass the buck
[2:37:59] ... into consideration.
[2:38:00] Yeah. Okay. That would be great. And we didn't do much last year.
[2:38:04] And of course, I was chairman last year, so it's all my
[2:38:07] fault. But it sure is nice kind of getting our arms around it.
[2:38:12] And one of the things
[2:38:14] I was a little frustrated with last year
[2:38:17] was we really didn't have a priority.
[2:38:20] And I don't know if Kyle's still in here, but we didn't
[2:38:24] know going through the year what was important to us
[2:38:28] because we didn't have priorities
[2:38:32] within our group here to say this is what we want to
[2:38:35] support. But for me, I think
[2:38:39] you always keep it in front of people.
[2:38:41] And you need, I think, asking for resources
[2:38:45] for a project is critically important to show that we
[2:38:49] are moving forward.
[2:38:51] That's my two cents, and I-
[2:38:53] Mm-hmm
[2:38:53] ... think that's a little bit different than what you've done in the past.
[2:38:57] We've always kind of waited for everybody to turn something in,
[2:39:01] and maybe we need to just identify what we need to do
[2:39:05] in our priorities.
[2:39:06] Mm-hmm. And I would stress the importance of not siloing legislative
[2:39:10] budget and all that. I think they all have to talk in unison-
[2:39:14] Yeah
[2:39:14] ... to inform our strategy in the capital.
[2:39:17] Mm-hmm.
[2:39:17] I think that's absolutely
[2:39:19] What I'm hearing.
[2:39:20] Yeah, I think so.
[2:39:22] I
[2:39:23] saw some of those requests were $100,000, and
[2:39:27] my question was,
[2:39:29] how do they really impact? What kind of impact
[2:39:33] can you expect for 100,000? And so
[2:39:36] legislatively, do we have to change how we're set up to address
[2:39:40] that or anything that he may
[2:39:43] attune to?
[2:39:47] There's a blank, so I'm-
[2:39:50] I think we're kind of settled in-
[2:39:52] Okay
[2:39:52] ... our next steps.
[2:39:52] I think so. I, again, just would emphasize to think
[2:39:56] about legislative priorities broadly, and Luke stated that very well, that
[2:40:01] a lot of the priorities that you want to execute depend on whether or not they can
[2:40:05] be funded. And so some of our advocacy may not be for new
[2:40:09] legislation or even against legislation.
[2:40:12] It may be about making sure that those priorities that you
[2:40:15] have
[2:40:17] get the resources they need. It's all part of the same strategy.
[2:40:21] Okay.
[2:40:22] And to the local government folks' point, that's more defense.
[2:40:26] Budget is defense to an extent.
[2:40:29] Yeah.
[2:40:30] And things like we was talking about earlier,
[2:40:32] trying to fix the four-day school problem,
[2:40:37] putting something in legislation with an ongoing fiscal dollar
[2:40:41] amount in it,
[2:40:42] puts us
[2:40:45] behind the eight ball because it's there, we can't change that.
[2:40:49] And so some of the times when they have something they want changed and they
[2:40:53] put ongoing money on the budget on it,
[2:40:56] that really hampers us.
[2:41:01] Michael?
[2:41:02] I was going to say, you talk about the four-day week problem.
[2:41:05] If they're getting good results, is that a problem?
[2:41:08] I'm just saying the legislature,
[2:41:11] by their action, determined they wanted to have less four-day
[2:41:14] schools and encourage
[2:41:17] that. So on the evaluation of that, I'm
[2:41:21] going by their actions.
[2:41:22] Sure.
[2:41:23] Yeah.
[2:41:25] Any other comments?
[2:41:27] Okay, hearing none. Thanks for your time.
[2:41:30] Thank you.
[2:41:30] And welcome to the school board.
[2:41:33] I appreciate it.
[2:41:34] You bet.
[2:41:39] Okay.
[2:41:44] Yeah, why don't we stop right here?
[2:41:47] We have food is available.
[2:41:49] Food is available, but we can also-
[2:41:54] It'll probably be a longer conversation with you, won't it, Lisa?
[2:41:58] We're talking two or three hours, but I'm
[2:42:02] going to call a break here and for us to take advantage
[2:42:06] of the meal that's prepared for us.
[2:42:08] What time should we come back?
[2:42:09] What do you think? Can we eat 12?
[2:42:13] Or how about 12:15?
[2:42:15] Let's go do 12:15. Yeah, 12:15. So we'll
[2:42:19] return back into session at 12:15.
[2:42:21] Okay.
[2:42:21] Thank you.
[3:17:08] Okay, so it is
[3:17:10] just a couple of minutes past our allotted time here, so as much as we
[3:17:14] want to stay on schedule,
[3:17:16] we'll go ahead and get started here, please.
[3:17:18] All right.
[3:17:20] Thank you, sir.
[3:17:22] This is Lisa Serino. I am Deputy Commissioner of Learning
[3:17:25] Services. I am here today with Shawn Bates.
[3:17:29] He is the Standards Curriculum and Assessment
[3:17:33] Coordinator in the Office of Quality Schools.
[3:17:37] Office of Quality Schools does not presently have an assistant commissioner, so
[3:17:41] I'm going to be filling in to support Shawn, if
[3:17:45] needed in this presentation.
[3:17:47] He's going to talk to you about our
[3:17:51] preliminary statewide assessment results, and I'll turn it
[3:17:55] over to Shawn.
[3:17:56] Oh, good afternoon, and thank you for your time today.
[3:18:00] We will be looking at our preliminary results of the statewide assessment that
[3:18:03] occurred between the fall of 2025 and the spring of
[3:18:07] 2026, because the EOC does our end-of-course assessments, sorry,
[3:18:12] do have three administrations.
[3:18:15] These results, as Lisa said, do go to the Office of Quality
[3:18:19] Schools. A lot of these results become products of the
[3:18:23] reviews that we do as a state.
[3:18:26] So this is where a lot of questions come about the data being so
[3:18:30] late at times. Our data needs a lot of cleaning.
[3:18:33] Our schools are still making appeals on their data, especially the students who
[3:18:37] have transferred may have had incomplete assessments before they
[3:18:41] moved. So there's a lot of cleaning processes that do
[3:18:44] occur. On that note, our data was
[3:18:48] delivered to the schools on June 26th.
[3:18:50] So the schools have had their data.
[3:18:52] It's very raw, but they can work with it. They have all the results.
[3:18:56] Also, they have their parent results that is available for the parents to
[3:19:00] come and get. Most of them have made notice to the parents of when they
[3:19:04] will have them available, either through school orientation,
[3:19:09] some go all the way to October into their
[3:19:12] parent-teacher meetings. But that data
[3:19:16] is available, and they can definitely work with that, and we encourage
[3:19:20] them to be working with their data right now.
[3:19:22] On the other side, where it's more of the accountability process, it does
[3:19:26] take a little bit longer. There are multiple entities also that support the
[3:19:30] Office of Quality Schools, and especially our accountability team, to
[3:19:33] process this data and get it out and make sure that we're accurate with that
[3:19:38] data.
[3:19:39] So we'll move through there, and please
[3:19:43] bear patience with me. Hopefully, I don't skip slides.
[3:19:45] I'm a little clicker happy at times.
[3:19:48] But why do we administer the statewide assessments? It's always the big question.
[3:19:52] A lot of our teachers are always like, "Why do we have to do the state test?"
[3:19:56] The top one, as you can see, for accountability purposes, it meets a lot of
[3:20:00] requirements with our Every Student Succeeds Act, which is our
[3:20:03] federal education act, all the way to our statutory requirements
[3:20:07] within the Missouri Constitution and legislation.
[3:20:11] The other big piece is really about the reporting.
[3:20:14] It's all that we need to be making sure that we're reporting to our constituents,
[3:20:18] our parents, our legislators, our school boards.
[3:20:22] And one of the big pieces now that we'll be talking about in the next session is
[3:20:26] our A-through-F report cards, our grade cards.
[3:20:29] Those will be coming out, and this data feeds into that.
[3:20:32] There are multiple things that go through how we use the data, but the last
[3:20:36] one is the big piece is about the application.
[3:20:39] And that's where we talk about the schools and having their data.
[3:20:43] Teachers having their data, starting looking through that, looking at their item
[3:20:46] analysis reports, looking at students' performance, to
[3:20:49] reporting domains and categories about what supports do we need,
[3:20:54] or the bigger piece that I try to remind them about their data, it's a validation
[3:20:57] tool. It should really be validating everything that you've done this year,
[3:21:02] and put the kudos on your back that you've done a really good job.
[3:21:05] These are the things that we did see.
[3:21:07] These are things that we need to continue to work on.
[3:21:13] So just a quick reminder, and it was brought up in Dr. Cruz's presentation.
[3:21:16] Currently, we have four performance levels.
[3:21:19] Our biggest
[3:21:21] reporting is always the top two, which are kind of a little bit different here, how
[3:21:25] we have them presented. The advanced and proficient, that's what we also have
[3:21:29] to report at a federal level. So we report our top two
[3:21:32] levels. We do have two other performance levels, our basic and below
[3:21:36] basic. One of the big things that we try to always continue
[3:21:40] to remind our educators,
[3:21:42] and just remind the public in person, basic students, below
[3:21:46] basic students, have a lot of skills.
[3:21:49] They're just not performing at full proficiency, which we would think almost
[3:21:52] independent learners, where they can take a lot of the instruction and move
[3:21:56] forward. These kiddos, when we look at basic and below basic,
[3:22:00] the kids have skills. Our performance level descriptors identify a lot of
[3:22:03] those skills. They just need supports and hopefully, where they can start
[3:22:07] looking through that data and identify this is a path that we need to help and
[3:22:11] support the student as they grow and throughout their
[3:22:15] career before they graduate, we can get them back on track.
[3:22:21] So initial observations. Everybody's kind of like, "How does the data look?"
[3:22:24] Well, one of the big pieces is we're very proud that our schools are
[3:22:28] participating, our students are participating.
[3:22:30] We're roughly about 99%.
[3:22:33] We must keep 95%, so we have done a very good job of making
[3:22:37] sure our students are participating and giving us good data points.
[3:22:41] Overall increases, we saw overall increases in all four
[3:22:45] content areas. Now, social studies is only assessed at high school,
[3:22:50] but all four content areas did see improvement.
[3:22:54] Nothing huge gains, but we do see gains, and any gain from
[3:22:58] when I was back as a principal, way back,
[3:23:01] any gain means our staff did something good, and we need to cherish
[3:23:05] that.
[3:23:07] For ELA specifically, all the grades really showed
[3:23:11] improvement except for five and six.
[3:23:14] And that is always an interesting piece.
[3:23:17] Grade six is that transition in our academic standards, our Missouri
[3:23:21] Learning Standards. And I hopefully don't use an acronym, but you may hear
[3:23:25] MLS. Missouri Learning Standards, that is when a
[3:23:28] transition really occurs in English Language Arts, and
[3:23:32] that is when we start looking more at informational text, and those kiddos are
[3:23:36] needing to comprehend some pretty complex text at times. And that's a jump.
[3:23:40] That is a big jump for some of those kiddos.
[3:23:42] So they kind of that first year
[3:23:45] may have a little bit of stumbling, but that's where the teachers are working at
[3:23:47] it. And if you look at the data when I present it in a few minutes, you'll see
[3:23:51] where seventh and eighth grade start picking it back up, where the kiddos are
[3:23:54] performing.
[3:23:55] For mathematics, again, another great year for our students in math.
[3:23:59] We are showing improvement. It was our first assessment or our
[3:24:03] first content area when we came out of COVID that was actually
[3:24:07] showing improvement. And give that all to our
[3:24:10] teachers and all the opportunities, making sure that our students are
[3:24:14] doing math. I think it's very interesting when we saw a little
[3:24:18] bit of a dip in there,
[3:24:20] and I can just attest, I'm not a very good online learner.
[3:24:24] I think when the kiddos are in the classroom with the teacher, and they're working
[3:24:27] through those problems, and talking about the problems, and the steps, and the
[3:24:31] methodologies, that the kiddos are getting that.
[3:24:34] And we have to put a lot of emphasis on our teachers and the work that they've
[3:24:38] done.
[3:24:39] Our last two, biology and American government, showed improvement.
[3:24:42] That's been our two kind of EOC, our end-of-course assessments in high
[3:24:46] school that have struggled.
[3:24:49] But they are now finally getting into that uptick of where the kiddos are starting
[3:24:52] to apply the science and social studies concepts.
[3:24:55] And again, a lot of that our curriculum team has done a lot of
[3:24:59] work in the last year, year and a half, of really looking at
[3:25:04] those two content areas are not alone.
[3:25:06] We support a lot of English Language Arts.
[3:25:08] We support a lot of mathematics. How do those two support each other?
[3:25:12] Especially being Missouri is very
[3:25:16] proud for almost 30 years of we always have constructed response
[3:25:20] items where we critically look at students' responses and get
[3:25:24] into their thinking. Tell us how you think, and those kiddos really did
[3:25:27] some really good job this year on those type of item types and making improvements.
[3:25:34] So, any questions before we jump into our data
[3:25:37] set?
[3:25:40] Mr. Mattison.
[3:25:41] Thank you.
[3:25:43] Could you just go just spend a minute,
[3:25:46] when the students do the MAP testing,
[3:25:50] I know districts can appeal some of the data if there's
[3:25:54] transferring students-
[3:25:55] Yeah
[3:25:55] ... in or out of the district. And I recall that being an issue when I was on the
[3:25:59] local school board. But
[3:26:01] why the lag? If they
[3:26:04] do the MAP testing, what, end of April, early May, something like that,
[3:26:09] and then what
[3:26:13] happens with that data next? I know you mentioned it, but
[3:26:16] why does it take months basically to
[3:26:20] get all of this data pumped out so we can see--
[3:26:24] I guess parents, right, don't see MAP scores until
[3:26:28] the end of September usually, even though their child took the
[3:26:32] test three or four months ago.
[3:26:35] So again, the districts receive the parents reports.
[3:26:39] This year, they actually got them on June 26th.
[3:26:41] We've been able to shorten up our timeline and bring some of that data back into
[3:26:45] the house.
[3:26:46] We're trying to definitely get it before new contracts or that
[3:26:50] little summer break that a lot of the administrative offices would have at the
[3:26:53] local school. So that data is available, and
[3:26:57] it's up to the school at that point. We have never set a rule.
[3:27:01] I ask the schools within 15 days of receipt
[3:27:06] to tell the, or promote how they will provide those
[3:27:10] reports to the schools.
[3:27:12] So the data is actually coming into the department sometime in June.
[3:27:16] So we've pushed our vendors, our partners pretty hard
[3:27:20] so they are able to turn that data in less than 30 days.
[3:27:24] But there is a little bit of difference between what you would have
[3:27:27] in products that schools would buy because this data is used on
[3:27:31] multiple variances of accountability, and
[3:27:35] we're accrediting schools, and we're really deep diving into the data
[3:27:39] to interpret if there's good things or bad things.
[3:27:42] So we want to make sure that data is absolutely accurate, and our partners want to
[3:27:46] make sure of that is also because having to redo the data
[3:27:50] pushes everything continuously back.
[3:27:53] Where it really becomes maybe why we're not getting it out is we also
[3:27:57] are dependent upon a lot of other partners
[3:28:00] when it comes into house, and then getting all the data set into
[3:28:03] tables, and get it into the
[3:28:06] servers.
[3:28:06] Takes time to do all that, okay.
[3:28:08] It does do that, and then the cleaning process.
[3:28:10] Once then the schools can have that opportunity to make the appeals.
[3:28:14] Every time, and I will say Lisa has pushed me,
[3:28:17] when it's time for our contract renewals,
[3:28:21] what can we shave? What can we push our partners?
[3:28:24] And we keep continuing to do that.
[3:28:27] There are some things that we could consider in the future once more safeguards,
[3:28:31] i.e., if you were looking at AI scoring.
[3:28:35] We could move into that. I'm still very confident with our human readers
[3:28:39] of keeping a very high rate of reliability
[3:28:43] when they're scoring the constructed response items.
[3:28:46] But again, we always continue to look at that.
[3:28:50] Thank you.
[3:28:52] Anything?
[3:28:54] I have a follow-up on the same subject.
[3:28:59] I
[3:29:00] can't understand what anybody does with data for 30 days.
[3:29:06] I just don't understand, and I'm not being critical
[3:29:10] of it, I just can't get my head around.
[3:29:13] Kid takes a test, it's in an electronic format,
[3:29:17] goes to somebody else's computer,
[3:29:20] and it sits there for 30, 60, 90 days.
[3:29:24] I just
[3:29:26] can't understand that.
[3:29:28] Anything you can do to help me understand that would be appreciated.
[3:29:32] And I would ask a clarifying question, which process?
[3:29:35] What we do for schools, or what do we do as far as the
[3:29:39] department in reporting-
[3:29:40] Schools. The feedback, the delivery back to the school.
[3:29:44] Right.
[3:29:45] I'm sorry. That's been my experience.
[3:29:47] Absolutely. Very good question. For high school,
[3:29:51] and there's some psychometrics, and it's how you calculate and you're looking at
[3:29:55] data and creating the scale scores for our students.
[3:29:59] So for high school, we use a very simple method.
[3:30:02] It's a one-parameter method, a raw score to scale.
[3:30:06] So districts do, in five business days, when they close their district
[3:30:10] window, they'll get an aggregate report or a student-level report.
[3:30:14] It's very raw scores. There are no scales to
[3:30:17] that. Because what we do want to do at the conclusion
[3:30:21] of the state window,
[3:30:23] our partners will take all of the data and evaluate, did
[3:30:27] the items perform as predicted and expected?
[3:30:31] Because every item has had previous data to make sure that
[3:30:34] this is what we expect this item to do.
[3:30:37] And you don't want to really say this, but it has to discriminate between a
[3:30:40] proficient and advanced student, and this item does this.
[3:30:44] I might interrupt you for-
[3:30:45] Absolutely
[3:30:45] ... just a second. Item means test question.
[3:30:49] Okay.
[3:30:49] So when we talk about test items, that's the questions that are on the
[3:30:53] test. And I might jump in and kind of
[3:30:56] amplify what Shawn's saying, is a couple of things just to keep in mind
[3:31:00] that
[3:31:01] what we do with our current MAP testing, it's an
[3:31:05] end-of-year summative test, so it's meant to be administered at the end of
[3:31:09] instruction. And because of our test security and concerns
[3:31:12] about not letting those questions get out to students who
[3:31:16] haven't tested yet, we're not providing results back until
[3:31:20] the end of the statewide test window for
[3:31:25] the grade-level assessment.
[3:31:27] As Shawn was saying, when districts are done
[3:31:31] administering their EOC, their high school assessments, they get some
[3:31:35] raw data back that they can use within five business days.
[3:31:38] But it's still, because of those kind of test security concerns,
[3:31:42] they still don't get it until the end of their test window.
[3:31:46] And that's a feature of this end-of-year summative test
[3:31:50] design. Very different from some of those
[3:31:54] commercial products or our foundational reading assessments,
[3:31:59] where the results are instantaneous. They get the results right away.
[3:32:04] Yeah. I've got some studying to do.
[3:32:07] I don't understand this yet, but thank you.
[3:32:09] No, they're really good questions, and these are questions that educators ask
[3:32:13] us all the time.
[3:32:15] And one of the biggest pieces that we keep trying to remind them is when we give
[3:32:19] you this data, we want you to feel confident with that data.
[3:32:23] And so, we clean, we scrub, we make sure that that report is
[3:32:27] as accurate as possible, and
[3:32:30] we always hold our partners accountable for that.
[3:32:33] And so, yes, they do have that, but also our partners do
[3:32:36] present a lot of reports for our schools.
[3:32:39] It eliminated a lot of work that would take months here at the
[3:32:43] department, and resources that our partners can do.
[3:32:47] So the districts are getting pivot tables where they can play with the
[3:32:50] data and make a quick presentation to their boards.
[3:32:54] But all those data tables, but then we also create PDFs.
[3:32:58] All of their individual student reports, all of those are
[3:33:02] electronically available, so that means there's a lot of spot checks making
[3:33:06] sure everything is accurate, right name, birth date,
[3:33:10] and the data is actually correct on those students.
[3:33:14] So there is a lot of the Q&A-
[3:33:16] Is that-
[3:33:16] ... of quality checks. I'm sorry.
[3:33:18] Is that a human being that's sitting there checking that data, or that
[3:33:22] is another data...
[3:33:26] There are quite a few adults or humans that are still
[3:33:30] touching all of this and making sure that it's accurate.
[3:33:32] Okay.
[3:33:34] Yeah.
[3:33:35] Thank you, President Brooks. To build on what Board Member Shamel is
[3:33:39] saying or asking, have we done any comparison of
[3:33:44] Missouri's process to other states
[3:33:48] and their process and timelines and vendors used
[3:33:52] and ways to just advance ours to be more
[3:33:56] efficient and effective?
[3:33:59] Most of my counterparts, we're probably about on the same page.
[3:34:02] There are a few who actually
[3:34:05] have within their contract do most of all of the data production,
[3:34:09] where we still do quite a bit of the data production within the department.
[3:34:14] The
[3:34:15] long pole in the tent, as I would say, in our whole process is what?
[3:34:20] Which step is the longest in our process?
[3:34:24] Again, I would need a clarifying question. Which dataset?
[3:34:27] For schools or for the department's production of the data?
[3:34:32] Both
[3:34:33] Both.
[3:34:35] For schools,
[3:34:37] what we could probably pull on there is,
[3:34:40] Lisa indicated, is that summative and how
[3:34:44] much data can we actually give out while others are still testing?
[3:34:48] So you always have a little bit of the test security on that.
[3:34:51] So if the state window, if we could get it down to about 10 days,
[3:34:56] maybe somewhere along that line, we could actually shave it, I think would be
[3:35:00] very successful.
[3:35:01] So I think it's really the department, because the perception or the
[3:35:05] concern always raised in the community is: Why does it take until
[3:35:09] November to get our MAP results, or the fall?
[3:35:12] And schools, even though they know they've gotten earlier data, it's still
[3:35:16] waiting for that fall
[3:35:19] data. And so I think it's the department data that's most important
[3:35:23] out there. That is of the biggest concern, not the most important, but is the
[3:35:27] biggest
[3:35:28] concern from a timeline.
[3:35:31] So what can we do to improve that?
[3:35:33] Right.
[3:35:35] We're going to talk about this a little bit in the next presentation,
[3:35:39] about shaving timelines on data processing.
[3:35:42] So if you would
[3:35:45] allow me to put that particular question in the
[3:35:49] parking lot.
[3:35:51] Yeah.
[3:35:52] Yes, Commissioner.
[3:35:54] Just before I turn it back to Lisa and Sean, one other
[3:35:58] thing to remember historically, why maybe you had heard
[3:36:01] people talking about how long it takes to turn data around, I'm
[3:36:05] thinking back to my last time with this department, and there was a
[3:36:09] series of years where, for various reasons, there was a new test every
[3:36:13] year. And every time there's a new test, there's a whole lot of
[3:36:17] quality assurance checking and things that has to happen that doesn't happen
[3:36:21] once you've established yourself.
[3:36:22] So when you're hearing people say, "Oh, we don't see it till September,
[3:36:26] we don't see it till October," that used to be true.
[3:36:30] It's not now. As Sean was saying, you see it at the end of June.
[3:36:33] It may be that APR production piece, then that happens later
[3:36:37] in the fall.
[3:36:39] And I think it's a really important point.
[3:36:41] As a board, what we have to be able to do is separate.
[3:36:44] There is data that schools get. Now, is it fast
[3:36:47] enough?
[3:36:49] Not casting a point on that, but schools get their data
[3:36:53] before we see it rolled up at state levels.
[3:36:57] Mm-hmm.
[3:36:58] So when you're talking with
[3:37:01] groups or people, that we have to understand what they're speaking about,
[3:37:05] and also the purpose of the data. But that'll come later in
[3:37:09] a later discussion, I'm sure.
[3:37:11] Yeah, and I'll just reiterate one more time.
[3:37:15] Schools have had the parents' reports since June 26th.
[3:37:20] They're electronic now. If they order paper, they just came in a couple of weeks
[3:37:22] ago.
[3:37:25] There are some large districts who have that printed for them.
[3:37:28] But it is available electronically, so they could always
[3:37:32] be able to give that to the parents, especially if they were going to move, or they
[3:37:35] just really want to know how their child to do.
[3:37:37] And that's why we recommend, once you have the data, set up a
[3:37:41] procedure of how you're going to tell the parents when it's going to be available,
[3:37:45] and if you want it sooner, how
[3:37:48] could I get that data sooner?
[3:37:50] And it's not the
[3:37:51] individual student data that gets quality checked-
[3:37:54] Oh
[3:37:54] ... or ends up changing. It's all of the evaluation of the
[3:37:58] data that goes through all the quality checks. Is that correct?
[3:38:02] Well, everything is quality checked,
[3:38:05] both sides. What we give to the schools-
[3:38:07] Meaning once the schools have it June 26th-
[3:38:10] Mm-hmm
[3:38:11] ... they can trust that it's accurate data.
[3:38:14] It is. Then it's on the backside where it is for the
[3:38:18] APR production and our accountability production is all the cleaning
[3:38:22] processes and the
[3:38:24] appeals.
[3:38:24] So the question becomes, since they get their data June 26th, why does it take
[3:38:28] us July, August, September, October-ish,
[3:38:33] four months plus, to get our data at the state level, and then be
[3:38:36] able to break it down by school, and that's what you'll speak to, so.
[3:38:39] So, it might be helpful to just
[3:38:42] level set here that when we're talking about preliminary data, that
[3:38:46] means they're validated data.
[3:38:51] They are final scores for individual students.
[3:38:54] It's a record for every student that was tested.
[3:38:58] And that's what we're looking at now.
[3:39:00] There's a difference between that and the accountability data, which
[3:39:04] is sorted and sifted according to lots of
[3:39:08] procedures, and among them are some statutory requirements for what should
[3:39:12] be in those accountability measures.
[3:39:14] So that's one of the differences between what Sean's presenting
[3:39:18] today and what we will see-
[3:39:22] Yeah
[3:39:22] ... in the annual performance report and some other accountability
[3:39:26] reports in the future.
[3:39:31] Any other questions at this time?
[3:39:34] Okay. We will move forward and start looking at our content areas.
[3:39:38] So English Language Arts 25-26, you'll see on the screen here,
[3:39:42] we have our performance levels for each of the four performance
[3:39:46] levels all the way from grade three through English 2.
[3:39:51] Just a real quick note on English 1, that is a
[3:39:54] voluntary assessment, so not a lot of schools participate, but those
[3:39:58] who do find the value in it being a predictor for English
[3:40:01] 2.
[3:40:03] Usually, conversations with the previous boards, it's always been third grade.
[3:40:07] So let's just talk about that one real quick.
[3:40:10] That number you see at the bottom, that 30% at
[3:40:14] below basic, is a usual trend number that we
[3:40:17] see. What we always want to look at is that
[3:40:20] following year, look at how much about half of the students move out
[3:40:24] of that category.
[3:40:27] And we attribute a lot of that to this is the
[3:40:31] first assessment that they're going to have to the Missouri Learning Standards
[3:40:36] Which is a lot different than some of our literacy assessments, which really
[3:40:40] focus on the first four pillars. That comprehension
[3:40:43] pillar is what all of our standards are really based on.
[3:40:47] That's a lot for a kid to move towards.
[3:40:51] And that I believe a lot when you see at the end of third grade, there's a
[3:40:55] maturation point, that maybe these kids just don't have all of it
[3:40:59] yet to put together for the reading comprehension, and when they get into
[3:41:02] fourth grade, it really starts to click.
[3:41:05] Because you also want to, as I talk to our schools, look at your data
[3:41:09] and not hyper-focus so much, but look at where you start these kiddos in grade
[3:41:13] three, where do you end up in grade 10, or
[3:41:17] English two.
[3:41:18] We have moved a lot of kids out of those two bottom levels and
[3:41:22] up into the upper echelon of advanced and proficient.
[3:41:25] So we are moving kids. Our kiddos are able to read.
[3:41:29] They're just needing a lot of support when they are struggling earlier grades.
[3:41:34] That wouldn't... May I speak?
[3:41:37] Thank you.
[3:41:38] That would not be reflected here when you look at it.
[3:41:43] If you have 30%
[3:41:48] in grade three below basic
[3:41:51] and only com-- we'll just use eighth grade.
[3:41:53] Mm-hmm.
[3:41:54] Eighth grade, it's 16%. That reflects, hey,
[3:41:58] kids have progressed, even though it's not the same cohort.
[3:42:01] However, when you look at
[3:42:04] basic, it wouldn't do that. It is
[3:42:08] not at all that same trend. So that tells
[3:42:11] me that
[3:42:14] some kids are moving, but just as many are going back in and
[3:42:18] dropping down then. We've got, what,
[3:42:21] 58% and 59 eighth grade?
[3:42:25] Yeah.
[3:42:27] 45%, 55%. So we're basically making
[3:42:31] no difference,
[3:42:33] is the way the data's presented here.
[3:42:36] If we could see it by cohort, which I know you'll get to in a little bit of it, but
[3:42:39] we're not seeing it by cohort over the years.
[3:42:42] Mm.
[3:42:43] And so this does not show us that we're
[3:42:46] making any progress.
[3:42:49] I hear what you're saying. You're telling us, "Oh, don't worry." That's not
[3:42:53] how you're saying it, don't worry.
[3:42:54] But, even though it looks bad in third grade, it gets much
[3:42:58] better. But it doesn't get much better when you look at that.
[3:43:03] It's a very good point, where we're trying to follow the kiddos.
[3:43:07] But again,
[3:43:09] teachers are making a good difference.
[3:43:11] Where I would say is we see a lot of progress
[3:43:14] or a little bit of progress
[3:43:16] in four and five, and then grade six, again, that's where we have that little
[3:43:21] change in the standards, a little bit more of a rigor of the text
[3:43:24] complexity, and then we start that move again.
[3:43:29] I would also add to the observation that so this is just
[3:43:33] one year of data, right? We're going to see a little bit.
[3:43:36] We're going to see some trend data here in just a moment.
[3:43:41] This pattern, what we see in grade three, the distribution
[3:43:45] is not unusual to see that high a
[3:43:48] number in ELA at below basic.
[3:43:52] And that's one of the things that we're always concerned about, is
[3:43:56] how many students we see in that below basic
[3:44:00] range.
[3:44:01] It's great to see changes, improvements in the percent
[3:44:05] proficient or better, but we can't lose sight of what's happening
[3:44:09] at that below basic range, too. So I think the point
[3:44:13] is that if we looked at these slides over the years, you would
[3:44:16] see that similar large number in below basic
[3:44:20] in grade three.
[3:44:21] But that's unacceptable. It may be
[3:44:25] normal to see it, but it's not normal to
[3:44:29] allow it.
[3:44:30] Which is-
[3:44:30] It's unacceptable
[3:44:31] ... Right, which is why the literacy initiatives
[3:44:36] are so important, the things that we've been implementing.
[3:44:39] And we're starting to see movement in some areas.
[3:44:44] It's the top-line measure here that's the stickiest
[3:44:48] one, but this is what we have to look at.
[3:44:50] We don't start testing with our statewide assessment
[3:44:54] program until grade three.
[3:44:58] Just taking the same data set,
[3:45:00] what would this look like if we took the top 10%
[3:45:04] performing
[3:45:07] districts,
[3:45:09] took them out of this data,
[3:45:13] and just looked at the 90% below?
[3:45:17] What would that look like? Do we know?
[3:45:21] I have not done that analysis yet.
[3:45:23] Good question.
[3:45:25] A very good question.
[3:45:26] My concern is that we've got some districts across the state that are performing
[3:45:29] very high.
[3:45:31] Mm-hmm.
[3:45:31] And
[3:45:35] ...
[3:45:36] Oh, I'm sorry.
[3:45:39] We've got some districts across the
[3:45:43] state that are very high-performing, and then we've got some districts that
[3:45:47] are very low,
[3:45:49] and we're looking at an aggregate number
[3:45:53] or number set here, and I'd like to see this kind
[3:45:57] of data sort of like, okay,
[3:46:00] if we took the top 5%, top 10%,
[3:46:03] take them out, how bad does it
[3:46:07] get? If we're looking at this from the standpoint of where do we have to do
[3:46:10] improvement?
[3:46:12] There are some districts that are doing all the work and really producing good
[3:46:15] results.
[3:46:17] I think we've got to start looking at how bad is it, and sort of
[3:46:21] then put our strategies together around that.
[3:46:24] There isn't a lot here that we can do to help the Leduc School District.
[3:46:27] They're doing pretty well. And
[3:46:31] so I think the question is:
[3:46:34] Can we get data that really kind of zeros in on where the-
[3:46:38] And we do,
[3:46:40] as a next tranche of data, have that ability where we start seeing it at
[3:46:44] district levels, but that's going to be one of the great
[3:46:47] benefits of the A to F ... grading card where we'll
[3:46:51] begin to see just a focus on academic
[3:46:55] outcomes and the other-
[3:46:56] Mm-hmm
[3:46:57] ... the criteria that's built into A to F, but we'll see it at
[3:47:01] a building level.
[3:47:03] And so you might be, I'm not-
[3:47:05] Yeah
[3:47:05] ... picking on Ladue, I don't know, but you might be surprised.
[3:47:08] Ladue could be an overall great district, but have some issues within it, and
[3:47:12] that's what the A to F will identify.
[3:47:14] Sure.
[3:47:17] All right.
[3:47:17] Yeah.
[3:47:17] We'll move to mathematics. Or I'm sorry, English and language arts.
[3:47:21] What Lisa alluded to is kind of looking at the data, we
[3:47:25] always look at performance
[3:47:27] indicators, or advanced and proficient.
[3:47:31] Another way that we look at our data is we actually look at the mean score or the
[3:47:34] average score of where the students are performing, and that's where we can look at
[3:47:38] a whole cohort,
[3:47:41] and we can start looking at are they making movement as a whole?
[3:47:45] The status numbers of proficient, advanced may not move as much.
[3:47:50] But are we actually moving the mean?
[3:47:52] And that's when I think that we feel confident that there is some really good
[3:47:56] things happening, and is indicated there's some things that we still need to
[3:48:00] focus on.
[3:48:07] And this is looking at our student groups.
[3:48:10] I know that's always the big topic is how are our student groups
[3:48:15] doing? And that first set of column there, their student groups, that's where
[3:48:19] we include our Blacks, our English language learners, our free
[3:48:23] reduced price lunch students,
[3:48:25] our Hispanics, and our IEP students.
[3:48:28] We put them all into one big bucket,
[3:48:31] and this is how we evaluate how their performance is versus
[3:48:35] the non-students of the white population, and
[3:48:39] then how are all the students put back together.
[3:48:42] Sean, why
[3:48:44] those groups of students?
[3:48:47] Those are the ones that historically underperform
[3:48:51] the population as a whole, correct?
[3:48:53] Most of those students would be somewhere identified as at risk at times,
[3:48:57] especially with our IEP, our individual education plan students, or students with
[3:49:01] IEPs.
[3:49:03] Um, and free and reduced price lunches.
[3:49:06] A lot of those indicators, the socioeconomic status sometimes of those kiddos are
[3:49:10] at risk.
[3:49:19] All right, we'll move on. Oh, I'm sorry.
[3:49:21] Just a clarifying question.
[3:49:23] All students take the same assessments?
[3:49:26] English language learners, IEP students, they all are taking-
[3:49:28] Absolutely
[3:49:29] ... the same assessments.
[3:49:29] In this data set, and I did not allude earlier, and I do apologize,
[3:49:34] we do have an alternate assessment.
[3:49:36] It is a Missouri Assessment Program Alternate.
[3:49:39] That is for our 1% population. They do take a different
[3:49:43] assessment. Their standards are at an
[3:49:46] equivalent for that set of population of students.
[3:49:50] Generally, they're identified as severely cognitively challenged.
[3:49:53] They are included in this data set.
[3:49:56] It's a very small number.
[3:49:58] Less than 1%.
[3:50:00] So far, we've been under the radar of the federal government.
[3:50:04] We're keeping right with the law, keeping it at 1% population.
[3:50:11] Oh,
[3:50:12] I'm sorry. I told you. You let me drive.
[3:50:16] Oh,
[3:50:17] for mathematics, again, we see our
[3:50:20] performance here on mathematics.
[3:50:22] I do want to indicate
[3:50:24] two things here. For seventh grade
[3:50:28] and eighth grade, we did wrap the data back in together.
[3:50:32] We had students who are advanced mathematics,
[3:50:35] so roughly seventh grade, we had about
[3:50:37] 667 students who took Algebra 1,
[3:50:41] so we put their results into that cohort to represent the whole cohort.
[3:50:46] And then grade 8, we had roughly over 10,000 students who took
[3:50:50] Algebra 1.
[3:50:51] So
[3:50:53] when other data sets come out, it may look a little bit differently as we look at a
[3:50:57] whole, but we wanted to put all of the students together and not just isolate that
[3:51:00] grade 8 didn't look very good when you've got all these students in Algebra 1,
[3:51:04] because these students perform very well when they take the Algebra 1
[3:51:08] assessment.
[3:51:10] But as you can see, the trend is continually across there, but
[3:51:14] as we're looking from cohort to cohort each year, we are seeing
[3:51:17] improvement,
[3:51:19] and we can see that on the next slide
[3:51:22] where we start looking at the mean.
[3:51:24] And presented last year,
[3:51:26] Lisa did present that
[3:51:28] almost all of them, if not all of our means, are
[3:51:32] above pre-COVID. So we are at least
[3:51:35] starting to get there that we're
[3:51:38] above where we even started with this new assessment system.
[3:51:42] As you can see for eighth grade, at 441 is when we
[3:51:46] set the cut is the mean. They're now at 443.
[3:51:51] It's a small gain, but it is a gain for each of those cohorts.
[3:51:55] I got a question.
[3:51:59] So
[3:52:03] just for example, if you're looking at, I'm just picking one out of the blue, so
[3:52:07] 2002
[3:52:08] or '22,
[3:52:10] the green line, which is grade five,
[3:52:14] those kids then for '23 would be moved up to grade six.
[3:52:17] Is that right? It's not the-
[3:52:18] That is correct
[3:52:19] ... same kid. Okay.
[3:52:19] Yep.
[3:52:21] So it's just the grade then, and not necessarily that particular student group.
[3:52:25] Right.
[3:52:26] So you would have to kind of start articulating up where you were asking how do we
[3:52:30] look at this, not at a district level, but at the state level.
[3:52:34] You would look at exactly as you said, 2022, they were fifth
[3:52:38] graders. In 2023, they were sixth graders.
[3:52:41] That cohort made a two-point mean gain
[3:52:46] from the previous cohort.
[3:52:49] Got it
[3:52:53] And so again, looking at our student groups and non-student groups and our
[3:52:58] all students in mathematics,
[3:53:00] we do see a bigger discrepancy between that and the ELA
[3:53:04] of students needing a lot more supports in mathematics.
[3:53:18] Science.
[3:53:21] Science, we finally did get to see some movement again.
[3:53:25] Our grade eights made an increase, but also our
[3:53:28] biology. As you see, physical science is a very, very small
[3:53:32] population that did participate in the assessment, but we are very
[3:53:36] proud of our grade eight in biology, and again, I put a
[3:53:40] lot of emphasis on our curriculum staff, all of them, all the
[3:53:44] way from ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies, of having this unified
[3:53:48] conversation about students being able to write and being able to converse
[3:53:52] and put their thoughts down. I think this is really where we're seeing that with
[3:53:55] also with government,
[3:53:57] of students being able to feel confident and to apply their knowledge.
[3:54:05] And we don't do a mean for that because they are assessed only
[3:54:09] one time in elementary, middle school, and high school.
[3:54:12] So we opt out not to do the mean scale, but if you ever
[3:54:16] want it, we could produce that for you.
[3:54:18] Again, we look at it. Again, we still see a huge discrepancy
[3:54:21] between the student groups and the non-student groups in
[3:54:25] the bottom two tiers. That's where we still need a lot of supports for those
[3:54:29] kiddos. And when you start thinking about for science,
[3:54:33] some of that may be opportunities where we have a lot of places where they just
[3:54:37] don't have the opportunities to visit museums or science centers
[3:54:41] or having a lot of industry that can bring in some of those
[3:54:44] opportunities, which I know our CCR, our College and Career
[3:54:48] Readiness group, where we're looking at trying to get more apprentice programs out
[3:54:52] there and trying to make those connections to really help these kiddos
[3:54:56] get an opportunity.
[3:55:00] For social studies, American government
[3:55:04] did make a gain this year. It's one that when it first came out, or
[3:55:08] we finally were able to set standards in 2022, have
[3:55:11] been kind of just status right at the mark, not really losing
[3:55:15] students but not gaining any. This year, we were able to gain 2%
[3:55:20] of our students moving into proficient and advanced.
[3:55:24] And that's a lot of work, I think, on our curriculum team, again, is really getting
[3:55:27] out there and helping support our teachers about
[3:55:31] the academic standards, which are not just memorization of
[3:55:34] facts. For many of us who went to school, you memorized
[3:55:39] how many amendments there are. It's really now they have to discuss and be
[3:55:43] able to have critiques or opinions about the
[3:55:46] Supreme Court laws and how the amendments are interplaying with that.
[3:55:50] So these kiddos are doing quite a bit.
[3:55:56] So we'll quickly jump into demographic analysis.
[3:55:59] I know that you've got a long agenda.
[3:56:04] There's a lot of data here so we truncated this down
[3:56:07] to the last four years. Our ethnicity.
[3:56:12] We always want to look at our groups.
[3:56:13] Our three biggest groups are the white group, our Black and
[3:56:17] non-Hispanic, and our Hispanic populations.
[3:56:20] Those are our three largest, and then right behind that is our multiracial.
[3:56:25] But this is their performance against where we look at
[3:56:29] that. Again, our Black population is one that
[3:56:33] we want to continuously look at and making sure that they're getting the right
[3:56:36] supports
[3:56:38] in that process to make sure that they're on track to graduate.
[3:56:44] And this data set is wrapped all of it.
[3:56:47] We put all of the scores together on that.
[3:56:49] So I want to apologize if it
[3:56:52] looks a little bit like that.
[3:56:56] So our free and reduced lunch, all the content areas, again.
[3:57:01] Free and reduced price lunch. We want to make sure that we're looking at
[3:57:04] that difference here. Again, free and reduced price
[3:57:08] lunch went up another point. We were at 49.5
[3:57:12] last year. We're now at 50.5, so we've crossed over the halfway
[3:57:16] threshold of our students receiving these services.
[3:57:23] I'm sorry, I wasn't looking over. There was a question?
[3:57:24] Oh, no, no. You're fine. You're fine. Continue. I just have a tech thing.
[3:57:32] And we look at our individual education plans, what we call our IEPs.
[3:57:36] Most of these students would be identified in our special education department.
[3:57:41] You can see where these students, they're roughly about 14% of the population,
[3:57:45] have an IEP.
[3:57:48] And this would include also our 1% population.
[3:57:51] So you would see a spike in there where those kiddos are
[3:57:55] performing. But again, there is a bigger discrepancy between them
[3:57:59] and the non-population.
[3:58:06] And our English language learners are our multilingual learners.
[3:58:10] These students,
[3:58:12] on top of taking their access assessment, which measures their English language
[3:58:16] acquisition, they also are required to participate in the statewide assessments.
[3:58:21] Their data isn't used at times until three years, but
[3:58:25] they do participate, so we can keep track of that to where how they are to their
[3:58:28] peers in acquiring the Missouri learning standards.
[3:58:33] As you can see, theirs is a little bit smaller,
[3:58:36] but they are still behind
[3:58:39] in the population. And there's always the barrier that we think that is
[3:58:43] the biggest case.
[3:58:48] So in closing, and thank you for your time,
[3:58:51] what do we take out of this? What is the department looking at?
[3:58:55] One of our biggest pieces is we always look at attendance.
[3:58:58] And my granddaughters, I keep telling them, "You got to be in school.
[3:59:01] You got to be in school."
[3:59:03] And that's one of the biggest pieces, I think, as a previous
[3:59:07] administrator, was always trying to make sure my kids were there, my
[3:59:11] kids are learning. And that's where we're trying to really, how can we help the
[3:59:15] schools keep that going and making sure that we make that as an
[3:59:19] emphasis of being in school is a good
[3:59:22] thing. Yes.
[3:59:24] Quick question. When in the timeline of things would we
[3:59:29] receive an understanding of what our
[3:59:33] attendance has been this last school year?
[3:59:35] We don't need to wait until January for that.
[3:59:38] That data should be in sooner. So when can we learn
[3:59:42] about our attendance results?
[3:59:44] We can bring that back to you this fall.
[3:59:46] That's part of the data set that we look at with the annual performance
[3:59:50] report and those analyses-
[3:59:52] Right
[3:59:52] ... and as we're adding new information.
[3:59:54] I think-
[3:59:56] But we don't need to wait to see it as part of the full report.
[3:59:59] We can look at it separately sooner.
[4:00:01] Yes.
[4:00:02] Mm-hmm.
[4:00:02] Yes.
[4:00:02] And I would like to ask that it's presented to the board as soon as possible.
[4:00:07] I have roughly some dirty data, or it's not fully cleaned yet,
[4:00:11] but roughly the state was at a little over 80%
[4:00:15] attendance rate. 80.3, I think, is the overall-
[4:00:18] Mm-hmm
[4:00:19] ... average for the state, and then some subgroups were much lower.
[4:00:23] We might just unpack that a little bit.
[4:00:26] So that 80 point what rate? 80-
[4:00:28] 80.3%, I believe.
[4:00:30] That means that 80.3% of our students
[4:00:34] statewide attended school 90%
[4:00:38] of the time or more. Okay? If you're absent
[4:00:41] 10% or more, you're considered chronically
[4:00:45] absent. So that's why we use that
[4:00:48] mark there.
[4:00:50] So it doesn't mean that 83% of our students were in school all the time.
[4:00:54] Mm-hmm.
[4:00:54] Just want to make sure that's clear.
[4:00:57] Or 80%.
[4:00:59] 80%.
[4:00:59] There we go.
[4:01:01] The other one that's been brought up quite a bit today is our Missouri Read
[4:01:05] Lead Exceed. It's always continued to push that initiative,
[4:01:09] support that initiative. This will be our foundation to
[4:01:14] not only, and I want to say this, not only for English language arts,
[4:01:18] but for all the content areas and all of our career areas.
[4:01:21] Students need to have that acquisition and be able to read, so we all
[4:01:25] know that. And so with that is one of our biggest pushes to make
[4:01:29] sure our students are career ready.
[4:01:32] Educator recruitment, retention, Paul is always working on that
[4:01:36] to make sure that our schools have the right teachers, certified
[4:01:40] teachers, teachers who are ready to walk in and start teaching.
[4:01:44] And that's been a couple conversations I could hear through here, professional
[4:01:47] development, making sure our teachers are equipped.
[4:01:52] As a previous educator, I know that I walked in,
[4:01:56] I really didn't know a lot of how to do certain things.
[4:01:59] I could teach it, but to really understand how to teach this when a student's
[4:02:03] struggling, those are some of those things that we really need to focus on in
[4:02:07] how we can help our educators. And the biggest one, which I
[4:02:11] think always attaches to the top, attendance, is making sure our schools
[4:02:15] are safe and healthy.
[4:02:16] Why do kids want to come? Because it's safe.
[4:02:19] They feel safe, there's healthy schools.
[4:02:21] They feel confident being at school, and that really does help
[4:02:25] raise your attendance rate.
[4:02:32] So I'll open up any further questions that you would like to ask.
[4:02:39] Mr. Matousek. Just one. So looking at the
[4:02:44] MAP results, how would
[4:02:48] you summarize those? The way I look at it, over the last eight years, for
[4:02:52] example, it just appears largely flat, right?
[4:02:54] It went down the COVID years, and it's kind of come back up.
[4:02:57] But
[4:02:59] most of it is within a few points one way or another, and I
[4:03:03] would sort of summarize it as flat over eight years, but...
[4:03:07] I would, too.
[4:03:09] I would say that an important thing to
[4:03:12] understand... Well, let me just say this first.
[4:03:15] When we looked at those disaggregations
[4:03:19] by our student groups and the ones on the left-hand side of the
[4:03:23] slide, that group at the bottom, that percentage is
[4:03:27] so high, we should all be jumping up and down and saying, "What can we do to
[4:03:31] address this today, now?" Right? So
[4:03:34] knowing that that's where we are,
[4:03:38] right? Also step back a minute and look
[4:03:41] at large-scale assessments of this type, it's
[4:03:45] very unusual to see year-over-year
[4:03:49] changes that are significant in size.
[4:03:52] It's really unusual. So when we see things like a
[4:03:56] 3% change year-over-year, well, first of all, I want to see a
[4:04:00] trend, right? I'm
[4:04:03] initially skeptical no matter which direction it is.
[4:04:06] But when we're starting to see it's slow and steady
[4:04:09] gain,
[4:04:11] then we believe that it's real.
[4:04:14] Yes, Board Member Matousek, you're right that by and large it
[4:04:18] looks flat. We've had a little bit of this kind of thing.
[4:04:22] We think we are starting to see some impact of our Read Lead
[4:04:26] Exceed initiatives.
[4:04:29] We're not seeing it in the top line
[4:04:32] necessarily yet in our percent proficient and
[4:04:35] advanced, but we are starting to see that when we look
[4:04:39] at districts and buildings that have high levels
[4:04:43] of saturation of letters training, and participation in the
[4:04:47] other portions of Read Lead Exceed.
[4:04:50] We're starting to see movement in their foundational reading assessment
[4:04:54] scores.
[4:04:56] We're starting to see movement in those most vulnerable
[4:04:59] populations in the MAP scores.
[4:05:05] And when we look at Lexile scores across our foundational
[4:05:09] reading assessments
[4:05:12] At grades two and three, we think we're starting to see
[4:05:15] movement there that is a result of Read, Lead,
[4:05:18] Exceed.
[4:05:20] When can that data be presented to us?
[4:05:23] You'll see that later this fall.
[4:05:26] The Office of College and Career Readiness and Heather and Travis will be
[4:05:30] presenting the literacy data this fall.
[4:05:33] We'll also later be seeing the results
[4:05:36] of
[4:05:40] our letters training,
[4:05:43] and
[4:05:45] program evaluation
[4:05:47] that will follow on the literacy. So we'll be able to
[4:05:51] unpack some of those. So there are some, what
[4:05:55] I'm calling little glimmers of encouragement
[4:05:59] that
[4:06:00] we've looked at the evidence from around the country that has moved the
[4:06:04] needle in other states. We've been applying those things here, and where
[4:06:08] they've been applied with fidelity and consistency and in a
[4:06:12] systemic way, we think we're starting to see movement.
[4:06:16] When we look at the results
[4:06:19] across from year-over-year results, there are some places
[4:06:22] where
[4:06:24] it really is pretty flat. Even though the numbers might be green,
[4:06:28] they might show a little bit of improvement year-over-year.
[4:06:31] Until we hit that 3%
[4:06:34] difference between this year and last year, I'd
[4:06:38] say I'm not sure they're real changes,
[4:06:42] but
[4:06:43] when we see trends year-over-year.
[4:06:46] Not what we would like to see, which is
[4:06:50] significant improvements year-over-year for all of our
[4:06:53] students that we can sustain.
[4:06:57] So we have work to do, clearly. Just a
[4:07:00] reaction to your
[4:07:03] thought. I agree with you.
[4:07:04] Yeah. Well, and I ask that, I can't remember when it
[4:07:08] was, but DESE had put together a
[4:07:12] little flyer. I don't remember what it was.
[4:07:16] It was a scorecard or something, whatever it was, and
[4:07:20] I ask that question just because when I first saw that, it was, I
[4:07:23] think, late last year-ish.
[4:07:27] I can't remember. Do you guys remember what I'm talking about?
[4:07:30] Oh, the snapshot.
[4:07:31] Snapshot.
[4:07:31] The snapshot, yes.
[4:07:32] Yeah. When I read that or looked at it, it
[4:07:37] painted a picture,
[4:07:40] to me, that is a little different than what we've just
[4:07:43] seen. In terms of, I think it was like 90% of
[4:07:47] students or districts or whatever it was.
[4:07:49] I
[4:07:52] don't have the words for it.
[4:07:53] I think that was APR.
[4:07:55] I think there were some
[4:07:58] materials that talked about percentage of
[4:08:02] students in LEAs that were at that 70%
[4:08:06] or above mark on the APR. I think that's what you
[4:08:11] might be referring to. Which
[4:08:14] it's... Yeah.
[4:08:15] Separate, but when I look at that, what I generally see
[4:08:19] is more than half of students across the grades, across every
[4:08:23] subject area,
[4:08:25] are below proficient. Right? So more
[4:08:29] than half of students in every grade that's tested, in every subject that's tested,
[4:08:33] more than half of the students aren't where they should be. Right?
[4:08:37] And you have the other half that are above where they should be.
[4:08:40] And it's
[4:08:41] like
[4:08:45] you said, it's alarming, right? But I
[4:08:49] feel like that's not
[4:08:50] what we hear.
[4:08:54] If we can't acknowledge that we have challenges
[4:08:58] like this, I don't think we can fix them.
[4:09:01] And I don't think it's a bad thing to say or to
[4:09:05] acknowledge and just say, "Hey, half our students,
[4:09:08] we need to fix it."
[4:09:12] I don't know what the solution is, but
[4:09:15] when I was on the local school board for three years, I never had one parent come
[4:09:18] up to me and tell me that school was too tough.
[4:09:20] Not one. There's a
[4:09:24] gap
[4:09:27] between
[4:09:30] how some people would describe public education in the state of Missouri
[4:09:34] and maybe where it sort of actually is, right?
[4:09:37] And I think that gap needs to close
[4:09:40] if we're going to actually make some progress.
[4:09:44] And so...
[4:09:45] Member Casey.
[4:09:47] Thank you, and building on Mike's points there,
[4:09:52] I realize data has to come in
[4:09:56] when it's available, and a full story just can't
[4:09:59] instantly be
[4:10:01] presented to us. So we're getting our first glimpse, and there'll
[4:10:05] be more data to be shared from more
[4:10:10] aspects as well, A to F grading cards as well as
[4:10:14] MAP score data,
[4:10:16] reading assessment data possibly, et cetera.
[4:10:19] There are so many ways in which to look
[4:10:23] at this, and
[4:10:26] I feel like sometimes it's just a whole bunch of data is always given to us
[4:10:32] without
[4:10:36] department recommendations of, "And now here's what we're recommending
[4:10:40] you do." Now, I think the committees are
[4:10:44] picking up, and the Student Success Committee will be a part of that process to
[4:10:48] help form some of those recommendations as the data is looked at.
[4:10:53] And I feel like I'm just kind of thinking out loud here as I couldn't
[4:10:57] agree more.
[4:10:59] This view of the data is unacceptable.
[4:11:03] Other views of the data show improvement, and we'll be eager to see
[4:11:07] those. But the question is, is that improvement enough?
[4:11:10] Now, it's never enough, so not to assume it could be, but how does it compare
[4:11:14] to other states? What more could be done? What's working? What's not?
[4:11:18] We need more than just data
[4:11:20] We need insights.
[4:11:22] Mm-hmm.
[4:11:23] And I know that takes time and resource to work with, and
[4:11:26] hopefully the committee will help you with that.
[4:11:28] But that, I think, is what this board is missing.
[4:11:31] We struggle to draw conclusions from a bunch of data
[4:11:35] that's provided to us, other than to say it's good or it's bad, and it's
[4:11:39] certainly not good.
[4:11:41] And so we need more comparison, more insight, more direction, more
[4:11:44] recommendations,
[4:11:47] and
[4:11:51] proof. Just justification for what's working and
[4:11:55] what's not. Because then that begins to inform priorities
[4:11:59] and budget, and everything else.
[4:12:02] Amen. Well said, Carrie.
[4:12:07] Any other questions or comments?
[4:12:09] This is a little bit more in the weeds, but
[4:12:12] some
[4:12:13] additional resources that at the classroom level we'd love to have.
[4:12:19] Practice materials are always beneficial.
[4:12:22] I know like for the EOC Algebra 1 assessment, there
[4:12:26] is a practice test on the website,
[4:12:29] and that's great, but the more we can get, the better.
[4:12:32] I think last year some EOC testlets were
[4:12:35] distributed.
[4:12:35] We were able to release testlets.
[4:12:37] That was helpful.
[4:12:38] And we have Algebra 2 and Geometry coming right after Thanksgiving.
[4:12:41] I did want to let you know, that was great. Thank you for that.
[4:12:44] Anyways, yeah,
[4:12:45] the more stems, question stems, that can replicate the kind of things they're going
[4:12:49] to see on the actual assessment, the better.
[4:12:52] So I appreciate that, wanted to let you know.
[4:12:54] Thank you for that, and keep them coming, if you don't mind.
[4:12:58] Two, when we receive the data, if there's a way to
[4:13:02] understand, and it may vary from year to year, test to test, but the number
[4:13:06] of items per standard would be really helpful.
[4:13:10] And I don't believe we receive that level of data.
[4:13:13] We receive scores per standard.
[4:13:17] What percentage of students mastered or got correct each standard,
[4:13:21] but we don't see this particular standard had six questions.
[4:13:24] This one had one.
[4:13:27] I'm sure that data exists, I'm just saying on the district level, we don't receive
[4:13:30] that data, and it would be very helpful from a teaching perspective.
[4:13:32] Because not every standard is of equal importance.
[4:13:36] I hate to say it that way, but there are some very core standards, and there are
[4:13:40] some more ancillary standards, and it's helpful when we instruct and
[4:13:44] test prep, to be able to have that granular level of data if it's
[4:13:48] available.
[4:13:49] We never really get down to the granular level. We do have at the domain level.
[4:13:53] Mm-hmm.
[4:13:54] So how many items would be on there, like six to eight items within the
[4:13:57] domain, which then you would be able to know these four or
[4:14:01] five standards may be assessed.
[4:14:05] I think there is a way, though, in your data set.
[4:14:08] You're kind of data rich in a lot of things.
[4:14:10] Mm-hmm.
[4:14:10] It's just what gets distributed out to the teachers a lot of times is
[4:14:14] sometimes
[4:14:16] a barrier, or other people are looking at your data, and you can
[4:14:20] always ask them to see just the whole data set.
[4:14:23] Okay. I'll follow up. We've spoke at our district-
[4:14:25] Yeah
[4:14:25] ... level data coordinator and according to him, he didn't feel like he had
[4:14:29] that level of data. Having said that-
[4:14:32] Well, we can definitely look at that
[4:14:33] ... guess I'll go back.
[4:14:33] And that's when, please call our office-
[4:14:36] Yeah
[4:14:36] ... the assessment office or our curriculum team.
[4:14:39] They have access and be able to help you with that.
[4:14:41] Thank you. I appreciate it.
[4:14:42] Thank you.
[4:14:44] Any other questions?
[4:14:48] I apologize, I got L and M backwards there.
[4:14:50] So now we're ready to
[4:14:54] move to A through F.
[4:14:56] All right.
[4:14:56] Thank you for your time.
[4:14:57] Thank you guys.
[4:14:57] Thank you. Appreciate it.
[4:15:20] Okay. Are we ready?
[4:15:24] For those of you who may be listening to the live stream, this is still Lisa
[4:15:28] Sarino, deputy commissioner for learning services.
[4:15:32] I'm here to share with the board,
[4:15:36] an update on what we have been calling the grade cards.
[4:15:40] The A through F school and district grade cards,
[4:15:45] resulting from a resolution out
[4:15:49] of the state board of education in December of last
[4:15:52] year, asking
[4:15:55] the department to put these grade cards together,
[4:15:58] and an executive order issued by Governor Kehoe in
[4:16:02] January of this year. In fact, it was the first executive
[4:16:05] order of 2026,
[4:16:08] EO 26-01.
[4:16:11] And what I'm here today to
[4:16:14] tell you about is
[4:16:17] how we're thinking
[4:16:21] about using the grade cards to
[4:16:25] help us think a little differently about school improvement, and
[4:16:29] addressing some of the very issues that you all have been bringing
[4:16:33] up
[4:16:34] in our presentations and our discussions so far.
[4:16:39] From the beginning, we wanted to create a
[4:16:42] strong model for the framework for the grade
[4:16:46] card that would meet the criteria in the EO,
[4:16:50] in the executive order, and also set it
[4:16:53] apart from the existing
[4:16:56] accountability structures that we have in place.
[4:17:00] For example,
[4:17:02] what we're calling our annual performance report, here comes the
[4:17:06] acronym soup, the APR, the annual performance report,
[4:17:10] under our Missouri School Improvement program.
[4:17:13] And the APR is what we use to
[4:17:16] accredit school districts. Its focus is
[4:17:20] primarily at that district or local education
[4:17:24] agency level. So for school districts
[4:17:28] That's where we're
[4:17:30] focusing.
[4:17:32] The grade cards will be different from the annual performance
[4:17:36] report, and you'll see as we go through the presentation.
[4:17:40] I'm going to tell you a little bit about
[4:17:42] that.
[4:17:45] But let's start
[4:17:48] back at the beginning with the requirements
[4:17:52] in Governor Kehoe's executive order, which was
[4:17:56] issued, and it asked the department, with the State Board of
[4:17:59] Education's approval and authorization,
[4:18:03] to create a grade card for every public school
[4:18:07] district, every public school, and every public charter school
[4:18:11] that assigned...
[4:18:13] Oh, okay. Sorry, I thought I saw a question.
[4:18:15] That assigns a grade
[4:18:18] of A through F, and the executive
[4:18:22] order actually provides definitions of what each of those grades
[4:18:26] mean,
[4:18:27] with C being satisfactory results, and F, of course, failing.
[4:18:33] Features of the grade cards or the executive order
[4:18:37] called for that at least a 95% participation
[4:18:41] rate in the required statewide test.
[4:18:44] So those are the Missouri Assessment Program tests that you just heard about, the
[4:18:48] grade level in grades three through eight, and then the end-of-course tests
[4:18:52] that we administer to high school students.
[4:18:55] And if
[4:18:57] that test participation rate wasn't met, the executive
[4:19:01] order said that grade
[4:19:04] would then be lowered by a letter. Right?
[4:19:06] So,
[4:19:08] we don't really have a concern about this at the district or
[4:19:11] the LEA level in Missouri. We've always had high
[4:19:15] test participation in the state of Missouri.
[4:19:18] The executive order also calls for us to allow
[4:19:23] an opt-in for any private school. So, if
[4:19:26] a non-public school
[4:19:29] calls us and says, "Hey, we want to participate in that grade
[4:19:33] structure," then
[4:19:35] we would have an ability for them to submit the data that
[4:19:39] they could do so. There's already a mechanism for
[4:19:43] private schools who might wish to administer the Missouri Assessment Program
[4:19:47] test to do so.
[4:19:49] And we would use the same criteria to grade any private schools that would
[4:19:53] ask us to opt in.
[4:19:56] The executive order calls for a continuous
[4:20:00] improvement component, which means that if we get to a
[4:20:03] point where
[4:20:06] almost two-thirds or 65% of our, more of our
[4:20:10] schools are getting an A or a B,
[4:20:14] then we move the bar up. Right? We raise
[4:20:18] that
[4:20:19] for the next year, each of those cut scores by
[4:20:22] 5%.
[4:20:26] In the executive order, it gives us some criteria for
[4:20:30] reporting. The department is required to provide,
[4:20:34] once we get started,
[4:20:36] schools and districts with an embargoed look at their
[4:20:40] grades two weeks before they're released
[4:20:44] publicly. So, the executive order says that
[4:20:47] September 15th is when that happens.
[4:20:50] And then at the end of September, September 30th,
[4:20:55] districts and schools will publish their grades,
[4:20:59] and we have a mechanism for supporting districts and schools in
[4:21:03] doing that. And then the department will publish a statewide
[4:21:07] grade card that includes summary information and what those
[4:21:10] distributions of grades look like.
[4:21:13] So, for some of you, you've heard me say this a few times.
[4:21:16] So, for those of you who haven't heard me say this, I hope I've given you enough
[4:21:20] background about what's in the executive order.
[4:21:27] So,
[4:21:29] how did we go about
[4:21:32] creating the grade card framework?
[4:21:35] I think it's important to understand
[4:21:38] what are some of the key assumptions.
[4:21:42] The executive order itself says
[4:21:46] these grade cards should be clear, they should be simple, they should be
[4:21:50] easy to understand.
[4:21:53] They should be able to be used by all of our stakeholders.
[4:21:57] And we have taken that parent as the primary
[4:22:01] audience for the final product of these grade cards.
[4:22:05] We
[4:22:06] have a lot of data available at the
[4:22:10] DESE website. And as Board Member Casey mentioned,
[4:22:14] Board Member Moduzyk, we present you all with a lot of data.
[4:22:18] Sometimes you have to dig for it and dig for the meaning.
[4:22:21] So, we want to make these grade cards simple and
[4:22:26] clear for parents. As I mentioned,
[4:22:30] although we will be producing district-level grades for each
[4:22:34] district,
[4:22:36] the emphasis we want to place is at the building
[4:22:40] level so that we can use these grade cards to
[4:22:43] help support our school improvement work.
[4:22:47] So, focus on those schools that are
[4:22:52] scoring Ds, those schools that are failing, and
[4:22:56] also for those schools that are in the C range that need to
[4:22:59] improve and want to improve. We want to use this
[4:23:03] information, again, to help highlight
[4:23:07] where there are issues, perhaps across what
[4:23:11] subject, and then focus resources.
[4:23:14] Also help identify
[4:23:16] where great things are happening so that we can learn from them and replicate
[4:23:20] those things throughout the state.
[4:23:23] I mentioned that we wanted to meet the criteria in the executive order,
[4:23:27] and so what we're doing is trying to keep it simple in
[4:23:31] the idea of clear and easy to understand, and
[4:23:35] sticking as close as possible to the language in the executive
[4:23:39] order and trying to interpret that
[4:23:42] as simply as possible.
[4:23:46] For most people who might read that
[4:23:49] language.
[4:23:51] So that's what we're trying to do. Although the executive order
[4:23:55] does ask us to do some new things with our data,
[4:23:59] it doesn't require any new testing.
[4:24:02] So we will use information that comes from the Missouri Assessment Program
[4:24:06] tests, and we will use information that comes from the
[4:24:09] foundational reading assessments.
[4:24:12] We'll use other data that we're already capturing.
[4:24:17] The high school grade cards will include what's called a Success
[4:24:21] Ready Graduates Measure, and will include
[4:24:24] ACT data and
[4:24:27] data like that. We're already capturing this
[4:24:31] information.
[4:24:34] So we won't have to capture new data, but we
[4:24:37] will have to make some adjustments to our
[4:24:41] structures and systems, the expectations that we have for
[4:24:45] ourselves at the department, and also expectations
[4:24:49] for schools and districts in the way and the timing
[4:24:53] in which they report data to us.
[4:24:56] Administrative rulemaking is something that the executive order said,
[4:25:00] "Hey, Dessie, if as you are
[4:25:03] planning to prepare these grade cards, please include in
[4:25:07] your plan any rulemaking that might be necessary to
[4:25:11] implement them." And there really isn't any administrative rulemaking
[4:25:15] that's needed.
[4:25:19] So, okay. Just in time and space, what
[4:25:23] have we done so far? There's obviously a lot of background
[4:25:26] behind how we got from mid-January to where we
[4:25:30] are today. I'm happy to provide any
[4:25:33] detail. You can see our response to the
[4:25:37] governor's executive order that lays out some of that background
[4:25:40] information,
[4:25:42] but any time in the future I can give detail on that.
[4:25:46] We did respond to the governor's
[4:25:50] office on time, on June 30th, with a plan that
[4:25:53] outlined what the framework for the grade cards would look
[4:25:57] like. And the executive order calls for bringing
[4:26:01] them to you for your review and approval before we
[4:26:05] implement. So we're doing this in two stages.
[4:26:09] We have today to have this discussion, to
[4:26:12] get your questions, to ask you a few questions on some
[4:26:16] decision points.
[4:26:18] We'll come back to you in September and ask you
[4:26:22] to approve the framework so that we can implement.
[4:26:27] In this process, I wanted to mention the stakeholder engagement.
[4:26:31] So we have opportunities coming up for
[4:26:35] our stakeholders,
[4:26:38] to our educational stakeholders,
[4:26:41] to help them understand what the plan is, where the framework
[4:26:45] is at this point in time, provide comment and feedback.
[4:26:50] We're scheduling a couple of virtual sessions.
[4:26:52] The first one of those will be next week, and then a small
[4:26:56] number of in-person sessions to capture feedback from
[4:27:00] stakeholders.
[4:27:01] This is just at this phase. We've done
[4:27:05] additional stakeholder engagement since we
[4:27:09] began this process. So our groups
[4:27:13] of
[4:27:14] advisors that have come together in various ways
[4:27:18] have provided us with feedback at multiple points along the way.
[4:27:23] So we will
[4:27:26] be able to summarize that feedback for
[4:27:29] you when we bring the final recommendation to you next month.
[4:27:34] And then at that point, we can begin working with our partners on the
[4:27:37] final production and implementation of the grade cards.
[4:27:41] I'm going to talk to you a little bit about timing later on.
[4:27:46] Was there a question?
[4:27:48] Well, it is relative to timing, and bearing in mind you don't have to
[4:27:52] answer it now, but if you'd answer it when you get there, the executive order calls
[4:27:56] for this to be our first card.
[4:27:58] Obviously, there's a lot of work and you've done a lot of
[4:28:02] work, and I want to recognize that.
[4:28:03] This sounds simple, but it's a heavy lift.
[4:28:09] The executive order requires that we produce our first,
[4:28:15] call it a rate card, but grade card, excuse me, by the end of September,
[4:28:19] and it doesn't sound like that's what we'll be doing based on some of
[4:28:23] this update. So I think that's a point of concern that we need when you're
[4:28:27] talking about timing.
[4:28:28] Sure. I'll go through
[4:28:32] a little bit more background and framework-
[4:28:33] Okay
[4:28:33] ... and then we do have a slide where we talk about timeline.
[4:28:35] So, we can do that. I want to
[4:28:39] say that in putting the plan together for
[4:28:43] using data and framework, that
[4:28:46] we started not only from a position of keep
[4:28:50] it simple in terms of interpreting the executive order, but
[4:28:54] also
[4:28:55] try to minimize confusion and additional
[4:28:59] expense by using the data processes that
[4:29:03] were already in place,
[4:29:05] and to the extent that it was possible, carry forward those data.
[4:29:10] So, those are the assessment data and the other
[4:29:14] pieces of information that come in that we use for other purposes,
[4:29:18] like the annual performance report or our federal
[4:29:21] identification of schools. So,
[4:29:25] we have used that as a starting point.
[4:29:29] Just want to mention that
[4:29:33] Okay. There are two pieces, two
[4:29:36] requirements in the executive order for the grade card
[4:29:40] that really haven't shown up in our work in
[4:29:44] quite this way in the past. And the first one is a
[4:29:48] literacy measure that is required to show up
[4:29:52] in our K through eight, or elementary
[4:29:56] and middle school grade cards.
[4:29:59] And then the second is a calculation of growth, growth
[4:30:03] to proficiency. That also shows up in the
[4:30:07] elementary and middle school grade cards.
[4:30:09] So I want to just talk briefly about each of those.
[4:30:14] And here, this is the language lifted directly from the executive
[4:30:17] order,
[4:30:19] that you've got literacy bolded there, and you see literacy shows
[4:30:23] up alongside English language arts,
[4:30:26] math, and science.
[4:30:29] So we're going to see that.
[4:30:32] Again, this is for only those schools that
[4:30:36] have grades within the kindergarten to eighth grade range.
[4:30:40] We're going to use the Lexile measures that are already
[4:30:44] captured in both our English language arts
[4:30:48] assessments, in our MAP program, in the grade level
[4:30:52] program, and also in the foundational reading assessments,
[4:30:56] for grades one and two.
[4:30:58] Lexiles are widely used in schools.
[4:31:02] They're often included in information that's shared with
[4:31:06] parents.
[4:31:07] They help parents, families identify reading level for
[4:31:11] students. And so they're giving us an indication of are students
[4:31:16] reading on grade level.
[4:31:21] The second new element is this growth to proficiency calculation,
[4:31:25] and again, here, this is the language lifted
[4:31:29] directly from the executive order,
[4:31:34] also for just those elementary and middle
[4:31:37] schools.
[4:31:40] If you think about what that means,
[4:31:43] we want
[4:31:45] a measure for every student that we have to have at least two
[4:31:49] years of test scores for the student, and we want to evaluate if
[4:31:52] they're on track to reach that grade level proficiency in
[4:31:56] three years. So if you imagine for a moment
[4:32:00] what that looks like,
[4:32:03] and tried to visualize it in a very simple graphic,
[4:32:07] I hope that this gets close to what you might be thinking.
[4:32:12] On the left-hand side, we would start with a
[4:32:15] non-proficient score.
[4:32:18] So for any students in the system that haven't hit
[4:32:22] that proficiency yet, we're looking at on their
[4:32:26] scale score, on their MAP test,
[4:32:29] will they be able to hit the goal of
[4:32:32] proficient three years from now? So in order to do that,
[4:32:36] we have to know are they on track. So we'd be looking
[4:32:40] at last year's data compared to this year's data to kind
[4:32:44] of set a trajectory to see
[4:32:49] in year one, do we think that if they grow the same
[4:32:53] amount
[4:32:54] next year that they did this past year,
[4:32:58] are they going to be on track?
[4:33:01] So the growth to proficiency measure does that.
[4:33:06] I think it's important to point out that the way we interpreted the
[4:33:10] executive order was really that this was to focus on
[4:33:14] moving those students who are not yet proficient, to
[4:33:17] focus attention and effort and a measure
[4:33:21] on that kind of movement. So our
[4:33:25] current assumptions would only look at, are
[4:33:29] those non-proficient students on track to reach proficient?
[4:33:33] Right now, there isn't a calculation for a
[4:33:38] student that's already proficient.
[4:33:41] And then this measure would reset each year.
[4:33:44] So we would look at where is each student, each year,
[4:33:48] and do we think they're on track based on the information that we have about their
[4:33:52] performance.
[4:33:54] Question.
[4:33:55] Question.
[4:33:57] It strikes me that
[4:33:59] there's going to be a lot of concern about when the data is available
[4:34:04] to the schools to be able to arrange for interventions.
[4:34:08] I'm assuming that what we want to do here is rally all the
[4:34:12] districts to start investing in the
[4:34:15] proficiency growth.
[4:34:17] That's going to require them to assemble intervention strategies, fund them,
[4:34:21] et cetera.
[4:34:23] They've got to get that data early enough at the student
[4:34:27] by student level to be able to know-
[4:34:32] Sure.
[4:34:32] Good. You're nodding your head. I'm-
[4:34:34] ... glad you're on.
[4:34:35] That is-
[4:34:36] Thank you
[4:34:36] ... that is tracking.
[4:34:37] Getting
[4:34:43] data back
[4:34:45] as soon as possible has been a priority for the
[4:34:48] department, and we have shifted that work.
[4:34:52] We're still bound by the end of the statewide test
[4:34:56] window and some
[4:34:59] within a three-week window for the vendor to be able
[4:35:03] to turn that data around,
[4:35:06] at a statewide level. So we're still working within some of those
[4:35:10] constraints.
[4:35:12] If I could add on that or
[4:35:16] another perspective though.
[4:35:20] Because this is using MAP data, summative data at the end of the
[4:35:24] year, yes, available within weeks
[4:35:28] to the individual school, but the kids are out of school at that point.
[4:35:31] Sure. Right.
[4:35:34] Isn't it the assessments that are
[4:35:37] being administered during the year
[4:35:41] that are forming the interventions that are needed?
[4:35:44] Because as part of the assessment process, there's
[4:35:48] also,
[4:35:50] and I'm probably getting it wrong because maybe it's associated with MAP
[4:35:54] results, where individual success reading
[4:35:58] plans, is that what-
[4:36:00] Reading success plans. Yes, ma'am
[4:36:01] ... reading success plans are also required to be developed.
[4:36:04] There's so many angles and pieces on these things, and to
[4:36:08] me, this is used for the school
[4:36:12] just like a MAP,
[4:36:14] an APR rating is that comes out later in the year, and the MAP results that
[4:36:18] come out in the fall that make up part of the APR rating, is to say it's
[4:36:22] that dipstick. Where are we as a school? Where are we as a state?
[4:36:27] But the building of the data needs to be based on individual results, and we're
[4:36:31] trying to drive the right behavior, but this tool
[4:36:35] will be a reflection at that point in time of how they're doing,
[4:36:39] but the purpose of it is just that, to give
[4:36:44] a parent, the parent is the audience, that view
[4:36:48] of
[4:36:50] how the school is performing,
[4:36:53] not how the student is performing and what interventions are
[4:36:56] needed. That comes through the assessment process in the course of
[4:37:00] the school year. Is that correct?
[4:37:02] Yes. So, the statewide assessment is a
[4:37:05] snapshot at one point in time, and we use it for
[4:37:08] these high level view, the bird's eye
[4:37:12] view. To really get into the
[4:37:15] instructional space,
[4:37:18] we have to...
[4:37:21] Districts have to, not we. We're not in the school
[4:37:25] buildings. But districts,
[4:37:28] instructional leaders at the building and other levels,
[4:37:33] coaches, teachers, need to be using their local data,
[4:37:37] and they are doing that. And
[4:37:40] we encourage them to use that as part of a coherent system,
[4:37:45] which includes the large scale, the big picture,
[4:37:49] and their local data along the way.
[4:37:52] But I would add,
[4:37:55] for the team to understand,
[4:37:57] the department has established four or five
[4:38:01] assessment tools that align to our
[4:38:04] standards that therefore have alignment to the ultimate MAP test-
[4:38:08] Mm-hmm
[4:38:08] ... that we recommend or require all to
[4:38:12] use. But not all schools have invested in that yet,
[4:38:16] but they have a deadline of doing it.
[4:38:19] Just correct me on all this, but this is where the board/the
[4:38:22] department could do things better.
[4:38:25] Why did it take five years to get some schools there?
[4:38:28] Why weren't we getting more insight into how many schools are at what
[4:38:32] level and getting these better tools
[4:38:36] implemented more timely to get to results quicker, to get to the
[4:38:39] interventions? And we stay at the high level, but we need to
[4:38:43] understand-
[4:38:44] All of the-
[4:38:45] ... the progress along the way. And I'll turn it over to Stacy because she can
[4:38:48] speak to it better.
[4:38:50] I'll start and then let Lisa jump in.
[4:38:54] I think the thing that you were referring to in that one is the foundational
[4:38:57] reading assessments, which we give kindergarten through third grade, in some
[4:39:01] circumstances fourth and fifth grade, but that's the beginning of the year
[4:39:04] assessment, the end of year assessment.
[4:39:06] That's where we had
[4:39:08] vendors
[4:39:10] submit their tests to be considered whether or not they were aligned to the
[4:39:13] standards. We selected-
[4:39:14] No, but there are also reading assessments required through Senate Bill
[4:39:19] 681 or 727.
[4:39:19] Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
[4:39:21] Foundational reading assessment.
[4:39:22] But also third grade and beyond, where assessments are
[4:39:26] required, not just the first initial grades,
[4:39:30] right?
[4:39:31] They're required for all students in grades K through
[4:39:35] three, and for students who are newcomers
[4:39:39] or at risk, if they have reading success plans, if they're determined to be at
[4:39:42] risk
[4:39:44] for not being able to read-
[4:39:47] Mm
[4:39:47] ... then we're going up through fifth grade.
[4:39:51] Yeah.
[4:39:54] But again, these are tests that are administered
[4:39:57] locally by the schools themselves.
[4:40:00] Correct.
[4:40:00] We require those under state law?
[4:40:03] They are required under state law.
[4:40:06] But they're not reported to-
[4:40:08] They are reported to the department.
[4:40:10] We call them the foundational reading assessments-
[4:40:13] Mm-hmm
[4:40:13] ... part of the literacy initiative.
[4:40:16] We have four vendors that are on the qualified vendor list
[4:40:20] currently, and districts may select
[4:40:24] the vendor from that qualified vendor list.
[4:40:27] The results are reported directly to the department, so we
[4:40:31] capture those data and we're able to evaluate those,
[4:40:35] and we're going to use those for our literacy measure
[4:40:39] in the grade cards.
[4:40:42] I always thought that we required...
[4:40:45] I
[4:40:47] didn't think that it stopped at third grade,
[4:40:50] and that assessments were required up through
[4:40:54] eighth grade.
[4:40:55] And so not to further discuss it here, but I would say that is a number
[4:40:59] one priority of the department. Because
[4:41:03] that's where you get immediate feedback.
[4:41:05] That's where you can do interventions and where you can get assessments student by
[4:41:09] student.
[4:41:10] And what can be done by the department to
[4:41:14] establish policy in that direction versus what is
[4:41:18] required from a legislative standpoint to
[4:41:22] ensure that it happens?
[4:41:25] That's a light bulb for me. I
[4:41:29] just really thought that we were doing assessments beyond third grade.
[4:41:33] And if they're only waiting for MAP scores to come in, granted I know they do their
[4:41:36] own testing, but-
[4:41:37] They do
[4:41:38] ... if it's not consistent, if it's not aligned, if it's not a-
[4:41:42] There's just opportunity here for improvement.
[4:41:44] So, I think I can confidently speak for most
[4:41:48] LEAs, that if they have selected a particular
[4:41:52] foundational reading assessment to use to meet that
[4:41:55] requirement at K through 3, they're using that or
[4:41:59] something that connects to that all the way up through,
[4:42:04] so that they have coherent systems in place.
[4:42:07] Most LEAs or districts will be doing that.
[4:42:11] We're just not capturing that data.
[4:42:13] Right. So, I think about it, and I have been talking about this since
[4:42:17] I was here last time, but those summative assessments, that MAP score,
[4:42:21] that is for us and for you and for LEAs, like Lisa said, at the big
[4:42:25] 30,000-foot level.
[4:42:28] Local schools don't just use that to guide instruction.
[4:42:32] They are using these interim assessments and more informal
[4:42:36] local assessments to guide instruction throughout the year.
[4:42:39] If someone's waiting for the MAP test to tell them how to teach,
[4:42:43] then
[4:42:44] that's not what that's intended for.
[4:42:46] And so Lisa's saying with the foundational reading assessments,
[4:42:50] we're able to use that as a metric for first and second
[4:42:54] grade, because right now we don't have anything, because the MAP tests don't start
[4:42:57] till third grade. And those foundational reading assessments that are
[4:43:01] required have a pre-test and post-test requirement.
[4:43:04] So, for that particular one, we're doing it twice a year, once at the beginning,
[4:43:07] once at the end. But again, at the local level,
[4:43:11] we're strongly encouraging, and they are implementing best practices of testing
[4:43:14] throughout the year. It just isn't something that's collected at the state level.
[4:43:20] I just think-
[4:43:21] This is great-
[4:43:21] ... we have a lot of opportunity here.
[4:43:23] Great to dive right in. Let's go swim in a different part of the pool.
[4:43:28] So,
[4:43:30] as I mentioned to you, we're going to come back to you next month and ask
[4:43:34] you to vote to approve our proposed framework for the grade
[4:43:38] cards. And I just want to say, the next few slides, I'm going to give
[4:43:42] you a look at the framework and what we're calling the framework.
[4:43:45] And it's made up of the scoring structures
[4:43:49] for, and the
[4:43:52] relative emphasis at the
[4:43:55] elementary/middle school level, so that's the K through 8, and at the high school
[4:43:59] level, or 9 through 12, and then at the district level.
[4:44:03] And then that, combined with the grading scale, makes
[4:44:07] up the framework.
[4:44:09] So, let's take a look here for a minute.
[4:44:12] So, this says K through 8, so kindergarten through eighth grade
[4:44:16] scoring structure. What does that mean?
[4:44:20] That means that this is the basis,
[4:44:24] this is what's called for in the executive order.
[4:44:27] It calls for an academic achievement level, which
[4:44:31] we tend to call status. So,
[4:44:34] that's based on those performance
[4:44:37] levels that we just looked at in the MAP results.
[4:44:42] It also wants a value-added growth measure, which
[4:44:46] is what we're already using. We call it the Missouri Growth Model.
[4:44:50] It's been operational in Missouri for more than 10
[4:44:54] years. It's well-researched,
[4:44:58] and it is peer-reviewed.
[4:45:03] We feel like it's a
[4:45:06] very valid measure. It's called out in the executive order.
[4:45:09] We need to continue using that value-added growth measure.
[4:45:13] And what's in green, those are new.
[4:45:16] So, remember I told you that growth to proficiency is a new
[4:45:19] calculation? We just looked at what that would be.
[4:45:24] So, that's new. So, why are these things on
[4:45:28] the K through 8 structure? It's because the executive order says,
[4:45:33] "Include those three things," and at the
[4:45:37] subject areas that were called out.
[4:45:39] You'll notice also that literacy is green, because that's something that's a
[4:45:43] new element. So, English language arts and
[4:45:47] math show up there in three places,
[4:45:51] and their emphasis is the same. So,
[4:45:55] ELA is emphasized the same in each place where it shows up
[4:45:59] on this grid. Same thing with math, and same thing with science.
[4:46:03] And that's why the overall percent or emphasis
[4:46:07] is
[4:46:08] different, because we have
[4:46:10] four things we're looking at in academic achievement, three in
[4:46:14] value-added growth, and
[4:46:17] two in growth to proficiency.
[4:46:20] Right. Now, why aren't we doing science in growth to proficiency?
[4:46:24] Because growth to proficiency, in order to do that, we have to have at least two
[4:46:27] consecutive years of
[4:46:31] scores,
[4:46:33] and we need to see year-to-year change.
[4:46:37] In science, we don't test every year.
[4:46:39] We test at grades five and grade eight, and then again at
[4:46:43] high school. So, we can't really calculate that growth
[4:46:47] to proficiency very well
[4:46:50] with just a grade five and a grade eight science score.
[4:46:54] Question.
[4:46:55] Yes, sir.
[4:46:57] So, the percentages on the right-hand side
[4:47:02] is 38% for academic achievement level.
[4:47:05] Why not 33% for each of the
[4:47:08] categories? Is it that's the
[4:47:11] most important indicator or data of this group?
[4:47:16] Well,
[4:47:18] no,
[4:47:19] not because it's most important. We didn't make that kind of value judgment.
[4:47:23] But what we did was said, "Okay, let's pull over how we look
[4:47:27] at data in other structures." We weight
[4:47:31] equally English language arts and math wherever they appear.
[4:47:35] So, that gave us a basis. Then we moved over-- We
[4:47:39] have more tests in English language arts and math than we do in
[4:47:42] science, so the weighting for science is less than it would be for
[4:47:46] math or for English language arts.
[4:47:49] And so, as we started building that emphasis out,
[4:47:54] it's just because there's four things in academic achievement
[4:47:58] level, and there's only three in value-added growth, and two
[4:48:02] in growth to proficiency.
[4:48:04] Thank you.
[4:48:05] That makes sense, but
[4:48:11] to me, I think growth to proficiency should be greater weighted.
[4:48:15] But I'm not saying that what you've done is wrong.
[4:48:17] It just strikes me as
[4:48:20] what we're trying to drive here, in terms of behavior,
[4:48:24] back to Vince's question, get interventions in there quickly.
[4:48:27] How do we drive growth, is what tells us, at the
[4:48:32] individual student level.
[4:48:34] Sure.
[4:48:34] The more emphasis you put on that, the more action,
[4:48:38] and therefore results you'll get.
[4:48:41] Sure. So this is a starting point, and let me offer a couple
[4:48:45] of things there. So the students that are already proficient
[4:48:49] and advanced are showing up in status. Right?
[4:48:52] They are showing up in
[4:48:56] status. In order to get
[4:48:59] the full measure of evaluation and status, we are
[4:49:03] looking for
[4:49:05] what would equate to be an average proficient or
[4:49:09] higher score. So we're emphasizing
[4:49:13] them in status. Value-added growth levels the
[4:49:17] playing field, meaning that whether students'
[4:49:21] scores
[4:49:25] from either end, all along the
[4:49:28] scale, we're looking at how much are they
[4:49:32] meeting their expected growth or their predicted
[4:49:36] growth. So we could get high growth from
[4:49:40] advanced students, from basic students,
[4:49:43] proficient students, or below basic students.
[4:49:46] And then growth to proficiency is really reserved for
[4:49:49] measuring those students moving to
[4:49:53] proficient.
[4:49:54] Okay, so you are able to pull in data from those
[4:49:58] who, say, are in basic but have potential to go to advanced.
[4:50:02] Because if you don't move the needle on those children,
[4:50:06] you're really not doing them a service. Then you're failing that child.
[4:50:10] So we do have an ability to track that-
[4:50:14] To measure the-
[4:50:15] Their growth.
[4:50:16] Yes. Yeah.
[4:50:18] From proficient or basic to advanced.
[4:50:20] Yes. So that's going to show up in two places.
[4:50:23] It will show up in the value-added growth, right?
[4:50:27] And
[4:50:28] any student in any level will show up in that value-added growth,
[4:50:33] and any student's score at any level will show up in the
[4:50:36] academic achievement level, or the status measure.
[4:50:42] That was-
[4:50:42] And-- Oh, I'm sorry. Dr.
[4:50:47] Scholl, if the example was
[4:50:50] will we see credit for that student who was at below basic and got to
[4:50:54] proficient or advanced in one year? The answer is definitely yes.
[4:50:57] They would show up in that bottom.
[4:50:59] If they don't move, we would see it in this data.
[4:51:02] That's right.
[4:51:03] Okay.
[4:51:03] Yes.
[4:51:06] Carrie, did you have another question?
[4:51:07] Similar to Gretchen's concern.
[4:51:14] I feel like our model, I feel like it might be there, but
[4:51:18] it's not obvious, and it's not recognized in a
[4:51:22] way that
[4:51:24] gives us a focus on have we
[4:51:27] aided those students, even though they're already
[4:51:31] proficient,
[4:51:32] and therefore not failing, which is great, but have we done the
[4:51:36] best service for them as well and moved them as-
[4:51:40] Yeah
[4:51:40] ... and seen their growth. And I feel like that this
[4:51:43] obfuscates it. I can't say the word.
[4:51:47] Forget the word.
[4:51:47] If you would allow me to
[4:51:50] parking lot that one until we get to the questions at the end, because I
[4:51:54] think that's one of the things we want to ask you for your
[4:51:58] input on, is just that.
[4:52:04] Okay. Just for your reference, when we talk about how many
[4:52:08] schools, and this is, again, at the building level, there are
[4:52:12] about 2,200 schools
[4:52:15] in Missouri.
[4:52:17] And the number and the distribution kind of changes a little bit from year to
[4:52:22] year because things happen in school districts, construction projects and that kind
[4:52:26] of thing. There are about 1,600 of them that would
[4:52:29] be in some kind of configuration that's going to fall under this
[4:52:33] framework. Now, the
[4:52:38] way that this emphasis falls out
[4:52:42] is going to change depending on what grades are in that school.
[4:52:46] So if, for example, we had a school that is
[4:52:50] kindergarten through fourth grade,
[4:52:53] we're not going to see science. We don't test science until
[4:52:57] fifth grade for those students.
[4:53:01] And so, the relative emphasis, instead of
[4:53:05] 38%, is going to be 36%
[4:53:09] academic achievement,
[4:53:11] 32% value-added growth, and
[4:53:14] 32% growth to proficiency for a
[4:53:18] school that's
[4:53:20] kindergarten through fourth grade. Just as an example.
[4:53:23] There will be some flex in that. We have
[4:53:27] lots of different grade configurations for schools in Missouri.
[4:53:31] Mr. Otto.
[4:53:32] I just have one question. Can you clarify, I know it's in the materials, but can
[4:53:36] you just give a high-level summary
[4:53:40] of the difference between English language arts and literacy?
[4:53:44] Yes. So English language arts is based on
[4:53:47] the MAP test, on our scale score, and
[4:53:51] those performance levels. So below basic, basic, proficient, and
[4:53:55] advanced. The literacy measure is the
[4:53:59] Lexile,
[4:54:01] and that comes from our English language arts MAP test
[4:54:05] at grades three through eight, and it comes from the foundational
[4:54:09] reading assessment at grades one and two.
[4:54:12] And the Lexile score is a measure of our students
[4:54:16] reading on grade level. So that's the literacy measure.
[4:54:22] Commissioner.
[4:54:22] I think maybe-
[4:54:23] Oh, did I misunderstand your question?
[4:54:26] ELA is a broader category.
[4:54:27] Yeah.
[4:54:28] So literacy is very specifically reading. ELA captures other things.
[4:54:32] Is it a subset?
[4:54:33] Literacy a subset of ELA?
[4:54:37] Reading is.
[4:54:40] And the Lexile score that she's talking about is
[4:54:43] embedded in both of those. It's a very-
[4:54:46] Both
[4:54:46] ... test.
[4:54:47] Yes. Both tests.
[4:54:48] So we have that in the MAP test for grades three through eight,
[4:54:52] so that Lexile will be what's measuring the literacy, but that
[4:54:56] overall ELA score will be what's in the ELA
[4:54:59] portion of it.
[4:55:00] They're in the-
[4:55:02] So-
[4:55:02] Yeah. They're in the same row on the chart, just to show
[4:55:06] that they are the relationship. That they're-
[4:55:09] Is it a double count, though?
[4:55:11] Yes.
[4:55:12] Yeah. So-
[4:55:13] Yes
[4:55:13] ... if I'm good in literacy, I get
[4:55:18] more benefit because I'm also good in ELA, even though ELA is broader.
[4:55:22] But you're double-counting literacy-
[4:55:23] Yes
[4:55:24] ... results.
[4:55:24] Yes.
[4:55:26] Is that what you want?
[4:55:28] It's in the EO.
[4:55:30] Okay.
[4:55:31] EO literacy
[4:55:32] If we go back-
[4:55:33] Mr. McDonald
[4:55:34] ...
[4:55:35] to-
[4:55:35] That literacy also includes not just data from the MAP, it's also
[4:55:39] from the other testing as well.
[4:55:40] Foundational reading assessment. Yes.
[4:55:42] Because ELA is solely from the MAP, correct?
[4:55:44] Correct.
[4:55:44] Okay.
[4:55:45] Yes.
[4:55:45] So they're-
[4:55:46] It's pulling from multiple sources-
[4:55:47] Yeah
[4:55:48] ... to establish that literacy score.
[4:55:50] Yeah.
[4:55:50] You just pull some of the same source data.
[4:55:52] Some are duplicated from the MAP-
[4:55:54] But-
[4:55:54] ... but then also, like your i-Ready score-
[4:55:55] They become two different things
[4:55:56] ... some of those other assessments that students take.
[4:55:59] Exactly.
[4:56:00] I don't think... So-
[4:56:02] Wouldn't... Is
[4:56:04] ELA's-
[4:56:05] Hold it, Jordan. Let's go to-
[4:56:06] Oh, go ahead
[4:56:06] ... John first and then we'll get you, okay?
[4:56:08] Oh.
[4:56:08] I didn't see your arm.
[4:56:10] What is the
[4:56:12] Lexile then, since we're talking about it?
[4:56:14] Is that a separate assessment or you said it's part of-
[4:56:17] No. It's embedded in many tests. So
[4:56:21] many
[4:56:22] reading tests, lots of like
[4:56:25] Renaissance, the STAR, the i-Ready, a number of tests that
[4:56:29] are administered at the local level include,
[4:56:33] in addition to what's my overall score on the
[4:56:37] test, they also provide this additional measure
[4:56:41] that's called a Lexile. And the company that
[4:56:44] produces that Lexile has worked with the
[4:56:48] test developer to
[4:56:51] create those data pieces so that when the student takes the
[4:56:55] test, and if they get a
[4:56:59] 57, whatever that means, on the overall test,
[4:57:02] that there's some kind of corresponding Lexile score.
[4:57:06] And Lexiles then can be used, there's a
[4:57:10] set of charts that you can look up your child's Lexile score
[4:57:14] and determine are they reading on grade level.
[4:57:17] Oftentimes, Lexiles are used to
[4:57:21] help...
[4:57:22] A book will have a Lexile score on it, and then you can look up the Lexile
[4:57:26] score and, "Oh, well, that book is at this
[4:57:30] reading level for this particular grade." And it helps
[4:57:34] parents and teachers and families pick books for children.
[4:57:39] Okay.
[4:57:41] Wait. Go ahead.
[4:57:42] No, Jordan, go ahead.
[4:57:43] I got the answer now. I've-
[4:57:46] Okay
[4:57:46] ... heard it.
[4:57:47] Okay.
[4:57:48] I think maybe just to say one more point on that, so the executive order
[4:57:52] included both literacy and ELA. So we're
[4:57:56] trying to find a way to distinguish between those two things.
[4:58:00] The Lexile represents literacy pretty well, because that's just
[4:58:04] reading, and then ELA is a broader,
[4:58:07] captures vocabulary and writing and those kinds of things.
[4:58:11] Okay. Yeah, that's what I was...
[4:58:13] Yeah.
[4:58:13] Okay.
[4:58:13] That's what I was-
[4:58:14] I'm sorry, John. I might have made it more complicated than I needed to.
[4:58:17] Excuse me, Vice President Otto.
[4:58:20] Oh, that's all right. That's all right.
[4:58:21] So-
[4:58:22] Thank you
[4:58:22] ... so the ELA is reading, writing,
[4:58:25] speaking-
[4:58:26] And listening
[4:58:27] ... and listening. And the literacy is just strictly reading.
[4:58:31] Correct.
[4:58:33] And in our MAP tests, our English language
[4:58:37] arts tests, you're correct that the standards include
[4:58:41] reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
[4:58:43] We don't assess listening
[4:58:45] in...
[4:58:47] I'm sorry. We assess listening, we don't assess speaking in our MAP test.
[4:58:56] Okay. Moving on.
[4:59:00] Okay. Now,
[4:59:02] here's what that structure would look like for our high schools,
[4:59:05] and here we're talking about
[4:59:11] 300,
[4:59:13] 350-ish
[4:59:16] high schools, depending on the year to year
[4:59:20] statewide. When
[4:59:24] we look at the categories on the left are different.
[4:59:28] Again, these are specified by the executive order.
[4:59:31] This is what it called for, and there's nothing else included.
[4:59:36] So academic achievement status
[4:59:40] for those three subjects, value-added growth for those three
[4:59:44] subjects
[4:59:45] Then they included what's called a Success Ready Graduate Measure,
[4:59:49] and we look at that in other places
[4:59:53] in our annual performance report, and we report that in other
[4:59:58] ways in the other data. But that includes
[5:00:03] quantitative measures of readiness for what comes
[5:00:06] next. So ACT score,
[5:00:10] and when we evaluate those, we look at did the student's
[5:00:14] score meet that college-ready benchmark
[5:00:18] that's established by ACT?
[5:00:21] The work keys for students that may
[5:00:25] be seeking
[5:00:27] to go directly into career. And again,
[5:00:31] the test publisher has designed
[5:00:34] multiple thresholds in work keys that
[5:00:37] say students are ready if they
[5:00:41] achieve this score. So we're not just looking at did they
[5:00:45] take the test, but do they have
[5:00:50] a qualifying score?
[5:00:53] Advanced placement test scores would be included in
[5:00:56] that category.
[5:01:01] It's not new, graduation rate, we look at that in the annual
[5:01:05] performance report. We look at that in some federal evaluation.
[5:01:10] The difference here is the executive order specifies that four-year
[5:01:14] graduation rate. In some of the other metrics, we look at a longer
[5:01:18] period of time for students to graduate.
[5:01:21] So this is a
[5:01:22] more stringent measure here.
[5:01:32] Now let's carry that out to the district level. Right?
[5:01:36] So what goes into the district grade card, and it's all five
[5:01:40] of those things, depending on what grades we
[5:01:44] see in the district. So this would be a district that had
[5:01:50] at least grades one through 12. It might be K through
[5:01:53] 12 or pre-K through 12, but that's what it looks like.
[5:01:57] Again, you see the new
[5:02:01] elements in green,
[5:02:04] and we see them carry forward. And you see what happens to the relative
[5:02:08] emphasis, those percents on the side, as we start
[5:02:11] adding measures.
[5:02:15] And we have about 550 some
[5:02:19] districts and charter LEAs in the state,
[5:02:24] and each of those would receive a grade
[5:02:28] card.
[5:02:32] I would
[5:02:34] like to see the literacy component
[5:02:38] amplified.
[5:02:39] Sure.
[5:02:40] I know it's already been double-counted
[5:02:44] from earlier comments, but
[5:02:47] to me, if we want to move schools out of those bottom tiers,
[5:02:53] it's
[5:02:55] literacy and-
[5:02:56] Mm-hmm
[5:02:57] ...
[5:02:58] so anyways, a comment.
[5:03:02] Yeah. Okay. So how do we assign a grade to these
[5:03:06] things, right? Once we have the measures together and we
[5:03:10] have a score,
[5:03:13] here is the proposed grading scale.
[5:03:16] Now, why it looks a little odd. Right?
[5:03:19] Not what you might expect. Why does it look the way it look?
[5:03:23] Well, in order to maintain
[5:03:26] consistency with what we have in
[5:03:29] our classification of school districts,
[5:03:33] that threshold for unaccredited status is
[5:03:37] below 50%. So that's where that
[5:03:41] failing cut is. At below 50% is
[5:03:44] failing. And then it's really just a simple
[5:03:48] distribution of the remaining points.
[5:03:50] So we have each category is a little bit
[5:03:53] bigger than the 10% range that you would
[5:03:57] normally typically see.
[5:04:00] This
[5:04:02] allows us
[5:04:04] to use this universally across those three
[5:04:07] structures for each building, each
[5:04:12] LEA that we would assign a grade to.
[5:04:14] It also would allow us to adjust the thresholds if we
[5:04:18] hit that 65% or more
[5:04:22] district score A's or B's. Then each of these
[5:04:26] thresholds could be adjusted upwards as the executive
[5:04:30] order calls for.
[5:04:33] All right. So
[5:04:35] framework.
[5:04:37] Remember, when we come back, this is what we're going to ask you
[5:04:41] to approve next month, the
[5:04:44] framework for K-8s, which would be elementaries and middle schools,
[5:04:48] the framework for
[5:04:51] the scoring for high schools, for districts and charter LEAs,
[5:04:55] and then the grading scale. So taken all together is the framework.
[5:05:02] Question?
[5:05:04] Thank you, Lisa.
[5:05:06] Have you done any modeling
[5:05:09] using data that's available today?
[5:05:12] I don't have any that's available today.
[5:05:15] So I think before we can approve anything, I think we have
[5:05:19] to understand what the expected outcome could look
[5:05:23] like.
[5:05:24] Mm-hmm.
[5:05:24] Especially
[5:05:26] if you start at the end and you look at the A through F
[5:05:29] distribution.
[5:05:32] I would love to think that all our schools would be A's, but we know they won't be,
[5:05:36] but we don't want them all to be Fs. And I just think
[5:05:40] for us to really grasp is this
[5:05:44] framework correct, is to look at some
[5:05:47] expected results.
[5:05:52] And I know that might play into the timing, because we've had some conversation
[5:05:56] about how we could begin to look at this.
[5:05:58] So maybe I'll just leave that thought.
[5:06:02] And if we could move on and talk about timing before we talk about
[5:06:06] approving-
[5:06:08] Very cool
[5:06:08] ... what we have to approve.
[5:06:10] On the K through eight.
[5:06:11] Yes.
[5:06:12] So a school district, will they get one report card
[5:06:16] for K through eight, or if they have four different campuses, do they get four
[5:06:19] different report cards?
[5:06:21] So there would be one grade card for each building, for each
[5:06:25] individual building. Right? So if there were, yeah, four
[5:06:28] different schools, then each of those four schools would get a grade card.
[5:06:35] Question. Is there a plan in place for
[5:06:38] the schools that do reach an A?
[5:06:42] Is there a continual aim for them to
[5:06:46] get even better?
[5:06:47] Or is it just, hey, they've reached, this is kind of where we want to keep
[5:06:51] them consistent, like momentum there?
[5:06:56] And for schools that receive an F,
[5:07:01] I guess I want to know
[5:07:05] how long or short is their runway to
[5:07:08] essentially
[5:07:14] become much better than what they've scored-
[5:07:16] Sure
[5:07:16] ... before their...
[5:07:19] I guess I'm trying to find out what the recourse is for someone who
[5:07:23] continually receives an F.
[5:07:25] Right.
[5:07:26] So that's the kind of so what question, right?
[5:07:29] We can do all this and have a lot of reports, and we're just kind of
[5:07:33] admiring the problem or the situation if we don't have
[5:07:37] plans for support.
[5:07:40] I think we'll have another conversation where
[5:07:44] we will detail this,
[5:07:47] which is how are we going to support the struggling
[5:07:51] buildings?
[5:07:52] We have a framework for
[5:07:55] a protocol in place. If
[5:08:00] they're struggling, if they knew exactly what to do,
[5:08:04] right, and had the resources to fix it, then it
[5:08:08] wouldn't be a problem. Right? So as the department, we've been
[5:08:12] looking at what levers can we pull, what is our role,
[5:08:15] and what is within our authority and your authority
[5:08:20] to help these districts. The
[5:08:24] grade cards, as I mentioned, we're going to be focusing on improvement
[5:08:28] efforts and identifying what you need to
[5:08:31] do to get from where you are to a better place.
[5:08:36] The consequence regarding classification or
[5:08:40] accreditation is at the district level, and that's a different
[5:08:44] process. You'll see they'll line
[5:08:48] up, and that's why we set the grading scale where we
[5:08:51] did. But that consequence for lowering a
[5:08:56] district's classification, that happens in a different
[5:08:59] process than this. That happens with the annual performance report.
[5:09:04] And just your initial question is, I'll
[5:09:08] rephrase it, or I'll answer
[5:09:11] a rephrased question, which is, yes, we expect
[5:09:15] that all schools and all students, no matter where they are, should
[5:09:19] be striving to improve.
[5:09:22] We want to have that problem where we have all A's and B's
[5:09:26] on a criterion-reference
[5:09:29] grading scale.
[5:09:31] Okay. It's time to go to the next presentation.
[5:09:35] Right? So I get the last word, isn't it 2:00?
[5:09:39] Yeah, but we're going over a little bit.
[5:09:42] Yeah.
[5:09:42] Because we still-
[5:09:43] So do you want to-
[5:09:43] We got decision points at the end.
[5:09:45] Okay. So my question is, do we need to keep going then? Okay.
[5:09:49] Good enough.
[5:09:52] Yeah, let's keep going.
[5:09:52] Okay. So I want to show you just really quickly, we
[5:09:56] have some design concepts. This is just an early
[5:10:00] concept of what the ultimate grade card would look like.
[5:10:03] Now, this is not the this fall look.
[5:10:07] This is the next fall look or concept.
[5:10:10] So I want to level set the expectations.
[5:10:15] And this is just to give you a flavor of working
[5:10:19] with a
[5:10:20] vendor who's given us some high-level
[5:10:25] concept designs.
[5:10:27] What you see here is what you might see on a computer screen in
[5:10:31] that gray scale. So,
[5:10:33] here is a sample of a grade card, and
[5:10:37] you see this one would be for
[5:10:40] an elementary school, because it has
[5:10:44] achievement, growth, the value-added growth, and then growth to proficiency.
[5:10:48] It's got an overall score on it and a grade, and then
[5:10:52] some indicator of how that school did on each
[5:10:56] one of the component measures.
[5:10:59] There's a way to compare.
[5:11:02] So this particular design would allow you to kind of toggle
[5:11:07] between. If you wanted to see between and among these three, you could
[5:11:11] select schools to compare
[5:11:14] and toggle the one to the front.
[5:11:17] I just have storyboards here, so my
[5:11:21] display here is not super impressive.
[5:11:24] But you get the idea of the look and the functionality.
[5:11:27] And then you could dig into just a little bit more detail about, "Hmm,
[5:11:31] how do I compare
[5:11:34] to other districts, other buildings in my
[5:11:37] region?"
[5:11:39] And here's just that next level of data.
[5:11:42] Again, we're trying to keep this
[5:11:45] simple
[5:11:46] and easy to use.
[5:11:49] Before we get to a final version on this, of course, we'd like your input.
[5:11:52] We also will be conducting focus groups with parents.
[5:11:56] And we've said parents we want as our primary audience, so we want to
[5:12:00] get their input on, is this really useful to you?
[5:12:03] Does this communicate what would be helpful?
[5:12:07] And then
[5:12:08] it's responsive design, so it would be
[5:12:13] easy to use and read across tablets, laptop,
[5:12:17] telephone.
[5:12:19] Okay.
[5:12:21] Next steps. So I promised you we would talk about timing.
[5:12:26] Once we get started, right, we're going to be on for
[5:12:29] operational
[5:12:31] rollout of these reports, we'll be on that September
[5:12:35] 15, September 30 timeline.
[5:12:39] We were really struggling because we can't do this by ourselves.
[5:12:42] We have to work with the Office of Administration, which is another state
[5:12:46] agency, and their IT department. We don't have
[5:12:50] that IT capability inside our
[5:12:53] agency, and they have limited resources just like everyone
[5:12:57] else. So they have a role to play in helping us
[5:13:02] actually create, produce the coding, and
[5:13:06] ultimately roll out the reports.
[5:13:09] So rather than go through that process, which
[5:13:13] connects all of our data to the
[5:13:17] secure reports that DESE already
[5:13:21] provides to schools and districts so they
[5:13:24] can go in and evaluate their student-level data, that's a
[5:13:28] huge infrastructure backbone. That's why we need to work with
[5:13:33] the Office of Administration and their IT department.
[5:13:36] So rather than do that, which takes a lot of time,
[5:13:40] we decided that we would look back at the frozen
[5:13:44] data from last year, from, well, year
[5:13:48] before last, '24, '25,
[5:13:51] and create a draft grade card to give our
[5:13:55] schools and districts a look and all of us a look
[5:13:58] publicly. Let's see how do these grades fall out?
[5:14:02] Now, that first look would exclude the literacy
[5:14:05] data.
[5:14:09] What we're not so sure about, we're still working with our colleagues over in
[5:14:13] OA IT, is to get the timing
[5:14:16] for the '25, '26 draft. Again,
[5:14:20] it will exclude literacy, and so we've been in
[5:14:24] conversation with them about when that would be.
[5:14:28] It will not be before the first of the year.
[5:14:31] We know that, certainly. And then once we get to kind of
[5:14:35] the first operational, which is on
[5:14:39] this school year's data, the '26, '27 data, that will
[5:14:43] go out September of 2027, and that will
[5:14:46] have all of the elements, including literacy.
[5:14:51] Mr. Matusik.
[5:14:52] So just to reconfirm, so between now and
[5:14:56] the fall of next year,
[5:14:58] we'll have three
[5:15:02] report cards, if you will, for...
[5:15:05] And so the one in the fall of '26, using the '24,
[5:15:09] '25 data,
[5:15:11] I know the
[5:15:13] sort of timeline or required timeline is the end of September.
[5:15:17] Mid-September, and then end of September.
[5:15:19] So is that
[5:15:21] even-
[5:15:23] We're going to get as close as we can.
[5:15:25] Now, you're not approving the framework until mid-September,
[5:15:29] so I don't think we're going to hit September 15th and
[5:15:32] September 30th. We don't know at this moment exactly what that
[5:15:37] timing looks like, but we are shooting for as close as
[5:15:40] possible to those dates.
[5:15:44] Just to let you know, we've stayed in regular communication with the governor's
[5:15:48] office about how we're doing with this timeline, and actually, it was one of our
[5:15:52] stakeholders, when we were realizing we weren't going to get anything by September
[5:15:56] of this year, just given all the things that have to go into production,
[5:15:59] said, "Why don't you take your '24, '25 and just do a test run and see what it
[5:16:03] looks like?" And so that's what we have decided to do.
[5:16:06] That should be able to be produced on time, and we've
[5:16:10] had this conversation with them, and they seem to be
[5:16:13] comfortable with that at this point.
[5:16:15] But like I said, they know we're doing everything we can do within our
[5:16:20] power to do.
[5:16:21] But the data from 2024 or 2025,
[5:16:25] you think that'll
[5:16:27] be before the end of September?
[5:16:28] Mm-hmm.
[5:16:29] Okay.
[5:16:30] I-
[5:16:31] No.
[5:16:32] Optimistically.
[5:16:33] We're going to do every... I don't want to promise that because of something-
[5:16:38] You may ask. We don't want to overpromise
[5:16:39] ... you may want us to make some changes that we don't anticipate between now
[5:16:43] and when we come back to vote on the framework in September.
[5:16:48] If I could ask-
[5:16:50] We're going to do everything possible to hit that September 30
[5:16:53] deadline.
[5:16:55] So
[5:16:57] you're not going to wait until our approval to at least build it
[5:17:00] out with what you've got here using the-
[5:17:03] Correct
[5:17:03] ... '24, '25 data.
[5:17:04] Correct.
[5:17:05] All right. Number one. You said a stakeholder, so we will go
[5:17:08] outside. We won't look with... Well, a partner.
[5:17:12] Well-
[5:17:12] We won't use OA.
[5:17:13] Well, no. As Lisa had mentioned,
[5:17:17] we've been taking input from people since the beginning, and I say, well, they.
[5:17:20] I came in at the 11th hour, but yes, they have been taking
[5:17:24] input the whole time, and that was just one of the comments that came up from-
[5:17:28] Mm-hmm
[5:17:29] ... someone that we were talking with and said, "Why don't you think about doing
[5:17:32] this?" So-
[5:17:32] Right
[5:17:32] ... we're actually able to work with our colleagues who help produce the growth
[5:17:36] model, and they're working with us on drafts.
[5:17:38] So we have data in hand that we can do that with, but like Lisa said,
[5:17:42] it's not going to be that nice,
[5:17:45] slick-looking... It really is a draft.
[5:17:47] Just we want to see how this all works out.
[5:17:49] But it's first look.
[5:17:51] Yes.
[5:17:51] So-
[5:17:51] It's a first look
[5:17:52] ... it's expected that we may not have all of the finishing
[5:17:56] touches to a particular-
[5:17:59] Yes
[5:17:59] ... report card
[5:18:01] draft, et cetera, but the data will be there, and it'll be presented with results.
[5:18:06] Mm-hmm.
[5:18:06] The polishing of the look of the report could come later.
[5:18:11] So-
[5:18:13] I think it's acceptable to put that
[5:18:17] target in there. Things happen, and you can come back to the
[5:18:21] board and explain what happened if we can't meet it.
[5:18:25] But if we don't put that target in there, we're not going to meet it.
[5:18:29] We've got to set a goal and do our best to meet that goal.
[5:18:34] That would be my first
[5:18:37] suggestion.
[5:18:39] And then with that data,
[5:18:43] ideally, you would even have that data for us to look
[5:18:46] at with more time in the September
[5:18:50] meeting to see it modeled out along with our approval
[5:18:54] process.
[5:18:55] Yeah.
[5:18:56] And then we'd be meeting the governor's deadline of September 30th.
[5:19:00] So I can't approve something without seeing what the data will
[5:19:04] look like,
[5:19:05] and so we've got to get it anyway.
[5:19:08] Do we have any schedule to get together as a committee
[5:19:12] or to kind of
[5:19:14] look at this before the September meeting?
[5:19:16] Well,
[5:19:18] yeah. And if we could, that would, I think, be through the Student Success
[5:19:21] Committee. That would be the logical committee to, I believe, look at it together.
[5:19:25] Well, wasn't there webinars or something like that?
[5:19:29] Or is that something different?
[5:19:31] So that's for another stakeholder
[5:19:34] engagement, so what I mentioned earlier.
[5:19:38] The webinars would be for-
[5:19:40] Oh, not the-
[5:19:41] Yeah. Not-
[5:19:42] But yeah. So I guess if you guys need to meet.
[5:19:45] Mm-hmm. I mean, we'll be having committee meetings, so we absolutely can
[5:19:49] run it through that committee.
[5:19:52] And then
[5:19:54] what is the
[5:19:56] consumer purpose of this? I mean, I'm assuming it's so
[5:20:00] that parents can have this information so they can decide
[5:20:04] where they want to send their children.
[5:20:06] And I assume it's for internal use at the schools to say,
[5:20:10] "Hey, we've got to get better here, here, here, and here."
[5:20:16] If I'm a parent and I don't get this data until the fall
[5:20:20] each year,
[5:20:21] and I find out that I just enrolled my kid in a failing
[5:20:25] school, I'm going to be kind of annoyed.
[5:20:27] Is there a way to get this out in a different
[5:20:31] timeline where
[5:20:35] parents and people making decisions about
[5:20:38] schools...
[5:20:40] I mean, is the fall the optimal time to put it out?
[5:20:42] It just strikes me as an odd time.
[5:20:47] If you're going to use end-of-year data.
[5:20:49] That's-
[5:20:49] If you're going to use current data.
[5:20:51] Right.
[5:20:52] It makes it difficult.
[5:20:54] Okay.
[5:20:54] Yeah.
[5:20:54] Mm-hmm.
[5:20:55] Or another reason to advance the data timeline.
[5:20:58] Yeah.
[5:20:58] And
[5:21:00] we'll talk offline, but-
[5:21:01] Mm-hmm
[5:21:02] ... I still don't understand it, but I'll figure it out.
[5:21:07] Let's take a minute, because we can't do this by
[5:21:10] ourselves, I mentioned. So let's take a minute
[5:21:14] to just let me run through
[5:21:17] the high points here. So I mentioned we need to collaborate
[5:21:21] with the Office of Administration so we can have that
[5:21:25] IT work and that support done
[5:21:28] to connect the infrastructure.
[5:21:31] We have to have input and data from our school
[5:21:34] districts and our charter schools.
[5:21:37] We capture the data in our Missouri Student Information
[5:21:41] System, what we call MOSIS, and core data several times a
[5:21:45] year, and we need that data from
[5:21:49] the districts in order to create the grade card.
[5:21:52] And
[5:21:54] so we need money and people, right?
[5:21:57] We always need resources
[5:21:59] to not only do this programming
[5:22:03] and publish the grade cards, so it's internal,
[5:22:07] and then it's contractor work. We need vendors to do the
[5:22:11] display. Those concept designs are not something that came
[5:22:15] to you or to me from internally. That's a vendor.
[5:22:19] And then most importantly is to support those school
[5:22:23] improvement efforts. So,
[5:22:25] that's what in the new decision item around the grade cards,
[5:22:29] it's not just the calculations, the staff,
[5:22:33] and the reports. It's some support
[5:22:37] for those struggling schools.
[5:22:41] And then finally, we have to make changes to our existing
[5:22:45] procedures, and that's us at the department.
[5:22:48] That requires our IT colleagues. It also
[5:22:51] requires...
[5:22:53] We're shifting expectations to our
[5:22:57] schools and districts. We're trying to get better. We've moved things.
[5:23:00] We're asking them to get better with data.
[5:23:03] We have moved timelines on data submissions
[5:23:07] and cleaning. We have shortened
[5:23:11] corrections and appeals windows,
[5:23:14] I think, to a pretty significant extent.
[5:23:18] So that's the data collection and validation.
[5:23:21] The other thing we're finding that we're going to need to do in order to hit that
[5:23:25] September 15, September 30 deadline is
[5:23:29] in the assessment window earlier, the Missouri Assessment
[5:23:32] Program, so our grade level and our end-of-course test windows.
[5:23:37] Right now, those windows run through the middle of
[5:23:41] May, and in order to hit this timeline for the grade
[5:23:45] cards, we're thinking we're going to need to end those test
[5:23:49] windows at the end of April.
[5:23:51] So
[5:23:52] what does that mean for our schools and districts?
[5:23:56] It puts them in a difficult position because we're going to put a stop time on
[5:24:00] the assessment window, and there's a state
[5:24:03] statute that limits how soon they can start
[5:24:07] school in the fall.
[5:24:10] And this year, the earliest day they can start school is August
[5:24:14] 24th, which is next Monday.
[5:24:16] So, and that's a statutory requirement that
[5:24:20] is, what is it? No more than 14 days before the
[5:24:24] first Monday in September.
[5:24:27] And so it floats a little bit each year.
[5:24:32] We've heard feedback from stakeholders.
[5:24:34] They have concern about instructional time, and
[5:24:38] depending on their practice for testing.
[5:24:42] We had,
[5:24:44] just between last year and this year, or between '25 and
[5:24:48] '26, we had shortened the assessment window by nearly
[5:24:52] two weeks.
[5:24:54] And
[5:24:55] it was open until
[5:24:58] right before Memorial Day. We had very few
[5:25:01] districts or students who were
[5:25:05] participating in testing in the last two weeks of May.
[5:25:08] The story's a little bit different when you look at the first two weeks of May.
[5:25:14] Is it fair to say that some of those challenges, as important as they are,
[5:25:18] are part of the kind of longer-term
[5:25:21] implementation plan here? It's not those...
[5:25:25] We can sort that problem out however it is, but it doesn't have to be sorted out
[5:25:30] by this September 15th.
[5:25:32] Well-
[5:25:32] It's important, but it can be done in parallel to getting
[5:25:37] this model up and running.
[5:25:38] Yes, it can be done in parallel.
[5:25:42] Several right to the early
[5:25:45] model,
[5:25:46] getting the '24, '25 data.
[5:25:48] The first look-
[5:25:49] The first look-
[5:25:49] ... data
[5:25:49] ... out.
[5:25:50] Yes.
[5:25:50] But there are important decisions and changes that the department is
[5:25:54] needing to make
[5:25:56] so that we get them in the cycle for the '26,
[5:25:59] '27 school year-
[5:26:01] Mm-hmm
[5:26:01] ... so we can be on time next fall.
[5:26:05] Yeah.
[5:26:05] Okay.
[5:26:05] Makes sense.
[5:26:07] So decision points, finally.
[5:26:11] These are some of the things I mentioned we've had, stakeholder
[5:26:14] engagement. We've had different conversations over time with
[5:26:18] some of you all on the board.
[5:26:21] And we have convened
[5:26:25] ad hoc and other groups of advisors
[5:26:28] who advise us on other things, like our MSIP advisory, for
[5:26:31] example.
[5:26:34] And certain things, questions have kind of risen
[5:26:38] to the top as being of concern, and
[5:26:42] these
[5:26:43] were three
[5:26:45] that really got a lot of airtime that we think is important.
[5:26:48] We'd like to hear from you about these.
[5:26:50] The first is should all schools receive a grade card?
[5:26:55] Now,
[5:26:57] sure, the executive's order says one for each, right?
[5:27:01] And that's our plan. That was in our assumptions.
[5:27:04] But if we zoom out just a little bit or dial
[5:27:08] in,
[5:27:10] we have a number of school districts that
[5:27:14] we only have
[5:27:16] data for literacy for grades one and
[5:27:20] two. We have some schools that are pre-K through
[5:27:24] second grade, or kindergarten through second grade, or some
[5:27:28] combination. So we don't have a map score.
[5:27:33] All we would have would be that literacy,
[5:27:36] that Lexile measure from the foundational reading assessment.
[5:27:40] There's about 75 of those buildings
[5:27:44] right now that would fall in that category.
[5:27:47] So the question kind of came about, is that enough
[5:27:51] information to create a grade for those schools?
[5:27:53] So 75 buildings, how many school districts are we talking about?
[5:27:57] 75 buildings across
[5:28:01] nearly 70 school districts. Yeah.
[5:28:05] But other buildings in that school district could be getting a report card.
[5:28:09] Yes.
[5:28:09] Okay.
[5:28:10] Yeah.
[5:28:10] It's like we have to walk before we run here.
[5:28:13] There's another thing that you might want to think about, too.
[5:28:16] Sometimes we think about, well, what's the cell
[5:28:20] size? We talk about that a lot. Well, that means how many students in the data
[5:28:24] set.
[5:28:25] So, if we kind of look at the distribution, there
[5:28:29] seems to be a break point at 50 students.
[5:28:32] We have about 60 school buildings that have fewer
[5:28:36] than 50 students. So,
[5:28:38] those don't, or very few of them, fall into
[5:28:42] that 75 where they only have the literacy data.
[5:28:46] So they might have all data across several grade
[5:28:50] levels.
[5:28:52] Is
[5:28:54] 50 students enough? Or is 30 students enough?
[5:28:59] Most of our schools are going to fall in that population between
[5:29:03] 50 to 500 students in a building. That's
[5:29:07] about 1,600, and then the remainder of them are
[5:29:11] over 500. Most of those are high schools.
[5:29:15] But that's another way to
[5:29:18] think about the question, should all schools receive a grade card?
[5:29:22] How much is enough data to say that's enough to
[5:29:25] produce a grade?
[5:29:28] Doug, do you have a question?
[5:29:29] I was just going to say, are we ready to answer that?
[5:29:32] I think that, in my opinion, one, it would be helpful if we
[5:29:36] actually saw some samples of what a grade card would
[5:29:40] look like for some schools, because that would drive more questions, I think.
[5:29:44] But for this particular one,
[5:29:48] because how many buildings do we have?
[5:29:50] Is there 500-something in the state?
[5:29:54] So we have about 2,200 schools.
[5:29:57] Okay, so-
[5:29:57] Yeah.
[5:29:57] So out of those, those schools that have sufficient enough
[5:30:01] data should receive a grade card, and then the ones that don't,
[5:30:05] they should receive something that's not sufficient information,
[5:30:09] or some kind of asterisk that's only those particular schools.
[5:30:13] And then it's not really punitive, it's just then ...
[5:30:16] whoever's looking at that can then look and say, "Oh, the reason why they're not
[5:30:20] receiving a grade is because X, Y, Z," like you said-
[5:30:23] Mm-hmm
[5:30:23] ... not enough students or they don't...
[5:30:25] To me, that would be the most prudent-
[5:30:27] Mm-hmm
[5:30:28] ... way to have that.
[5:30:28] And I think that's kind of the question to you, is how much is enough?
[5:30:32] How much data is enough to produce a grade card?
[5:30:35] Well, I think that has to be-
[5:30:36] Okay
[5:30:37] ... statistically proven-
[5:30:39] Right
[5:30:39] ... not that we would be able to pull a number out of the air and determine that.
[5:30:42] So you have to come to us with a recommendation, but we shouldn't let, what do
[5:30:46] they say, perfect stand in the way of the good.
[5:30:49] Let's just move forward, and for those that don't
[5:30:53] initially have a grade card, we work through whatever the
[5:30:56] challenge is, and ultimately they may get one.
[5:30:59] But we shouldn't stop the process to make it
[5:31:03] 100%. If we get
[5:31:05] 98%ish, I think we're doing the
[5:31:09] right thing, would be my recommendation.
[5:31:12] Michelle?
[5:31:13] Yeah. I think even if you have a statement that says inefficient data, that allows
[5:31:17] for a conversation for a parent to say, "Well, why?
[5:31:20] What's going on?" And just have that conversation.
[5:31:22] Yeah, there could be answer-
[5:31:23] So even if it's not a letter grade
[5:31:24] ... notes or whatever onto that particular thing.
[5:31:26] That makes it a little easier.
[5:31:28] Exactly.
[5:31:28] How much opportunity for feedback from districts
[5:31:32] and other stakeholders have we had in this process so far?
[5:31:35] I know
[5:31:39] you're operating under a strict timeline here, but I
[5:31:43] was curious.
[5:31:44] So we've had
[5:31:47] this topic before. The commissioner has an advisory
[5:31:50] council that meets about four times a year.
[5:31:53] This topic has been before that advisory council
[5:31:57] twice. We have what's called an MSIP
[5:32:00] advisory, our Missouri School Improvement Program.
[5:32:05] That has been before, I think, that group
[5:32:09] at least twice. And in both
[5:32:13] cases, we've asked for structured feedback, so
[5:32:17] provided information.
[5:32:19] We've presented at our administrators conference last
[5:32:23] month, ran a couple of large sessions,
[5:32:28] our cooperative conference for school administrators.
[5:32:31] We've spoken to other groups that they've invited us to their
[5:32:35] various conferences.
[5:32:37] And then as we come down to the...
[5:32:42] I guess before I get to the very end, we've had, as I mentioned,
[5:32:46] I would say at least half a dozen conversations, perhaps
[5:32:50] more, with various stakeholder groups,
[5:32:54] that we've convened to ask them for feedback.
[5:32:58] And then we've pulled together groups of technical
[5:33:01] advisors, so folks who are kind of in the weeds on
[5:33:05] the measurement,
[5:33:07] and received feedback from them. So we've had
[5:33:11] feedback from various stakeholders, and then as we come down to
[5:33:15] the meeting in September,
[5:33:18] as I said, we have a couple of virtual sessions scheduled and
[5:33:22] we'll be doing a couple of onsite
[5:33:25] sessions to capture that.
[5:33:27] If we do this
[5:33:32] preemptively, and I
[5:33:34] don't know how I'm going to vote on this, but
[5:33:35] you could do a lot of damage
[5:33:39] here if this isn't done, if we don't do this carefully.
[5:33:43] And I'm thinking
[5:33:47] specifically of the
[5:33:49] charter schools in the city of St. Louis.
[5:33:53] I don't know what happens to their enrollment.
[5:33:55] I don't know what happens to the enrollment at SLPS,
[5:33:59] if we don't do this
[5:34:03] carefully. And
[5:34:06] so anyway, I know we're under a deadline.
[5:34:08] I'm not sure anything can be done about it, but I would just...
[5:34:16] Potentially here, we could do a lot of damage if we're not careful.
[5:34:24] Certainly.
[5:34:26] Okay.
[5:34:28] So
[5:34:30] two more questions. Kind of we would
[5:34:33] like to hear what you all are thinking about them.
[5:34:36] So should growth to proficiency include already
[5:34:39] proficient students? So as I'll remind you, the executive
[5:34:43] order says that it wants a measure
[5:34:47] to determine for each student that has
[5:34:52] two consecutive MAP scores
[5:34:55] to determine whether they are on track to
[5:34:59] reach grade-level proficiency in three years.
[5:35:04] As I said, the way we interpreted that language
[5:35:08] was that it would focus only on those student
[5:35:12] scores in the non-proficient range.
[5:35:15] And we evaluate them every year, so we
[5:35:19] look at where those scores are this year,
[5:35:22] and then no matter what they did between this
[5:35:26] year and next year, we'd look at everybody's scores again next year.
[5:35:30] So
[5:35:31] we had some conversation about that, I think earlier.
[5:35:36] I have a question for clarification.
[5:35:38] When you say grade-level proficiency, first of all,
[5:35:43] proficiency as it's defined within the MAP rating, not the
[5:35:46] grade-level implementation. We have all these words being mixed
[5:35:50] together.
[5:35:51] So proficiency
[5:35:55] at
[5:35:56] that particular grade level. So we will define
[5:36:00] proficiency. If they're in second grade, then it's
[5:36:04] proficiency... Well, at third grade, when we're measuring it through the MAP
[5:36:08] scores, we see that they're below, and
[5:36:12] we're saying, as you demonstrated three years out, which would
[5:36:15] be third, fourth, fifth, fifth grade, that in fifth grade, they need to
[5:36:19] be proficient- At fifth-grade level proficiency.
[5:36:23] Mm-hmm. Yes
[5:36:23] That's-
[5:36:23] Yes
[5:36:24] ... just for clarity-
[5:36:24] That is correct
[5:36:24] ... and up out of the way there each way.
[5:36:26] Yes.
[5:36:26] Okay. All right. You were going to say something. I just wanted to clarify that.
[5:36:30] I have an opinion, but I'll-
[5:36:32] I was just going to say, we were kind of talking about this earlier, and
[5:36:37] I thought maybe Dr. Schill kind of brought up a point about it, but we
[5:36:41] tabled it, but I can't remember now the details of what it was.
[5:36:44] But I think it was something about
[5:36:48] measuring students who are already proficient-
[5:36:50] Mm-hmm
[5:36:50] ... or if students are
[5:36:53] really low, but they've improved, but they're still below or something like that,
[5:36:56] to capture... Like a weighted type measure.
[5:36:58] Mm-hmm.
[5:36:59] Does that make sense or-
[5:37:00] Right
[5:37:00] ... at least I think that's what you were talking about.
[5:37:02] Because you kind of said it would be captured in the other elements of the
[5:37:05] reporting.
[5:37:06] Right.
[5:37:06] Right.
[5:37:07] So for any students that in the current year, if their score
[5:37:11] is proficient, any score is proficient or above,
[5:37:15] we're not going to see them in the growth to proficiency measure.
[5:37:18] They've already hit proficient. We will see them in the value-added
[5:37:22] growth, we'll see them in the academic achievement.
[5:37:27] And then I think the other part of the question was, well, what
[5:37:31] happens if a student was at that below basic level
[5:37:35] and they grow to proficient or advanced even?
[5:37:39] Those will show up in that,
[5:37:45] we will recognize that movement.
[5:37:52] My opinion
[5:37:54] is that we should include growth to
[5:37:57] proficiency,
[5:37:59] should include those students that are already proficient.
[5:38:03] I think we should be looking at growth of all students, bottom line.
[5:38:07] And yes, they'll get credit when they're in status,
[5:38:11] in that level, and then they'll get other credits.
[5:38:15] But
[5:38:16] we want to incent the behavior that all
[5:38:20] students achieve excellence,
[5:38:23] and it gets lost if we're only looking at
[5:38:27] it through status. You don't see it,
[5:38:31] but you'll see it here in growth to proficiency.
[5:38:33] Maybe it shouldn't be called growth to proficiency, it should be called growth,
[5:38:37] or it's maybe weighted differently, to John's point.
[5:38:40] When you're below proficient, there's a greater
[5:38:43] weighting than when you're already proficient.
[5:38:47] You're still getting credit, but you get more credit when you're on the way up
[5:38:51] to proficiency.
[5:38:52] And I would just add onto that, not to beat this to death, because I know
[5:38:56] I had earlier statements, but I won't go through specific details, but just
[5:39:00] through personal experience,
[5:39:04] I question if things like dyslexia get missed in certain patients who
[5:39:07] are proficient, but yet they have struggles and
[5:39:11] would still benefit from EIPs, et cetera.
[5:39:14] So that part makes sense to me then, that we still need
[5:39:19] to include them if they're already proficient, and we need to look at their growth.
[5:39:23] Mm-hmm.
[5:39:24] So.
[5:39:26] Okay, so.
[5:39:27] Okay. Because I would say the counterargument there is if you are proficient in
[5:39:31] third grade and then you're proficient in fourth grade, you grew.
[5:39:34] Mm-hmm.
[5:39:34] The fourth-grade assessment's more difficult than the third-grade assessment.
[5:39:37] Mm-hmm.
[5:39:37] Now, if you grew-
[5:39:39] But you-
[5:39:39] ... at a larger rate than you were expected, that's captured in value-added growth.
[5:39:43] Mm-hmm.
[5:39:44] So you now get proficiency value on that element, and you
[5:39:48] get value-added growth as a plus residual versus a negative
[5:39:52] residual. So I think your growth is being captured in two spots,
[5:39:57] and then growth to proficiency is kind of a, "Okay, you didn't make it,
[5:40:00] but are you improving?"
[5:40:02] Is my read of that. Right? So that seems like that's why that's a
[5:40:06] new piece. Hey, we have kids that didn't make it, but are they improving?
[5:40:11] Which is a new study. But the kids that are making it, they're doing what they need
[5:40:14] to be doing. Correct?
[5:40:15] The way we interpreted that as, and the
[5:40:19] reason that it does not include already proficient
[5:40:23] students, is that when you look at the status measure, it's a
[5:40:27] blend. It's an average, right? It's a blend of everybody.
[5:40:30] So it can mask low performance.
[5:40:34] If you have a lot of high performers, that average can mask
[5:40:38] the low performing.
[5:40:40] I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, I'm just explaining that's how we
[5:40:44] interpret that. And this is why we've heard about this.
[5:40:47] We've heard some differing opinions, which is why we're bringing this to you
[5:40:51] for discussion.
[5:40:52] I would
[5:40:54] counter what you're saying, Mike, in that
[5:40:57] if our target audience is our parents,
[5:41:00] is why we want to do this, we want clarity, we want
[5:41:04] parents to be able to determine
[5:41:07] the quality, if you will, of the academic outcomes in the school.
[5:41:11] If my child stays at grade level, yes, he grew,
[5:41:15] but only within grade level. Meaning, he was
[5:41:19] satisfactory in third, he's satisfactory in fourth, and again in fifth.
[5:41:22] He's not growing. I want him to be advanced.
[5:41:26] And so that's the measure of growth that we're trying to achieve.
[5:41:29] We always say we want excellence in education for all students.
[5:41:34] Well, is excellence in education achieving going above and beyond,
[5:41:38] achieving your best? And if they stay at grade level, to me as
[5:41:42] a parent, that's not achieving your best.
[5:41:45] So that's why I promote that they be included in the
[5:41:49] growth
[5:41:50] component, but just with that appropriate weighting.
[5:41:53] We really do want to focus on our underperforming
[5:41:57] students and help them to get to at least the minimum, what I'd
[5:42:01] say, of satisfactory, and then we want everybody else, and to continue
[5:42:05] to grow beyond it.
[5:42:07] That's what I'd say, is what you're describing is exactly what value-added growth-
[5:42:10] Mm-hmm
[5:42:10] ... is designed to communicate.
[5:42:12] Mm-hmm.
[5:42:13] Because it sets a trajectory based on where you are in past performance, and
[5:42:16] then you exceed that trajectory, you get a positive value-added
[5:42:20] growth.
[5:42:21] Mm-hmm.
[5:42:21] It's already built in there
[5:42:24] But maybe value-added growth is a concept that's hard
[5:42:28] for the reader to understand.
[5:42:30] Mm-hmm.
[5:42:31] And maybe a simpler measure is better. So I'll certainly concede that.
[5:42:35] Okay.
[5:42:35] Because I had to read up on what value-added-
[5:42:37] Yeah
[5:42:37] ... growth was. As I've taught statistics, I understood the explanation.
[5:42:41] If I didn't teach statistics, I don't know if I would've.
[5:42:43] You probably understand it better than I do.
[5:42:45] So, in conclusion, can you tell me what the...
[5:42:49] I mean, what's the timeline here? It seems like things are
[5:42:53] slow-
[5:42:55] Yeah
[5:42:55] ... right now as far as getting this up and going.
[5:42:58] Would that be-
[5:42:59] I-
[5:42:59] ... accurate or?
[5:43:00] We feel like we're moving pretty quickly and being able to
[5:43:04] stand up, coming up with an alternative to
[5:43:07] use the '25 data to stand something up this fall.
[5:43:11] We're feeling-
[5:43:11] Mm-hmm
[5:43:11] ... pretty good about that.
[5:43:14] I think a lot of work has been done in the last six months.
[5:43:19] Eight months.
[5:43:20] Yeah. But we've been talking about using the
[5:43:24] 25-year data for what seems like almost the whole year,
[5:43:28] and
[5:43:30] we just don't seem to be moving forward, in my opinion, as
[5:43:34] rapidly as we should on this topic.
[5:43:36] Because when do you think that it will be implemented into the
[5:43:40] classes in the schools? I mean, what's the plan
[5:43:43] there?
[5:43:45] I think we'll have,
[5:43:48] as soon as possible after the September board meeting,
[5:43:52] we'll have those grade cards available.
[5:43:56] I think we can take a lot of this conversation and the comments that you all have
[5:43:59] made and use the '24, '25 data to run the
[5:44:02] simulations to see what the impact of some of these different decision points are,
[5:44:06] so we can bring that back and show you in September.
[5:44:09] Yeah.
[5:44:09] That would be-
[5:44:09] Be helpful.
[5:44:10] Yeah.
[5:44:10] Is that good?
[5:44:10] Sure.
[5:44:10] Mm-hmm.
[5:44:11] And to answer your last question, I say no, but we can answer that question later.
[5:44:16] And I agree.
[5:44:17] After we see some examples.
[5:44:18] Yeah.
[5:44:18] Well, while we're here, why don't we discuss that?
[5:44:20] Tell us-
[5:44:20] Yeah, I think we should
[5:44:21] ... what-
[5:44:21] Sure
[5:44:21] ... conversation brought that up.
[5:44:23] So, I think that the conversation was
[5:44:29] should the framework adjust for demographic characteristics?
[5:44:32] So what about our most vulnerable student populations?
[5:44:35] So those charts that Shawn showed you that had the student groups
[5:44:39] in them, particularly students in poverty.
[5:44:42] So, the ones that
[5:44:45] participate in free and reduced-price lunch, or we identify as students in
[5:44:49] poverty by what we call a direct certification process,
[5:44:53] of income or income status.
[5:44:56] So those, when we look at the test data, those students
[5:45:00] tend to be the ones that are underperforming.
[5:45:05] We see that historically. It seems to be
[5:45:08] difficult to
[5:45:12] move that group,
[5:45:14] performance of that group as a whole.
[5:45:17] So there was a question about
[5:45:20] should we
[5:45:22] highlight or use the framework in some way, the grade card
[5:45:26] to
[5:45:27] shine light on the performance of that group of students,
[5:45:32] or those groups of students?
[5:45:34] Should we somehow adjust in the way we score,
[5:45:38] and consider those student groups?
[5:45:42] In the annual performance report,
[5:45:46] the overall evaluation looks at
[5:45:50] the group of students at a building or a district as a whole,
[5:45:54] and then it looks at those student groups as its
[5:45:58] own population, and considers both in the overall scoring.
[5:46:03] So I think, may I follow up on that? I think one of the reasons that we're looking
[5:46:07] at this question is because unlike the APR, that specifically does pull
[5:46:11] out student groups and let you look at that separately,
[5:46:14] the executive order's not charged us to do that.
[5:46:17] In fact, it charges us to keep it simple.
[5:46:19] So
[5:46:21] if we start disaggregating by student groups and reporting that way,
[5:46:25] to acknowledge that there are differences, then,
[5:46:29] well, one, it doesn't become simple anymore, and we
[5:46:33] get into schools with really small cell sizes, and we end up suppressing more
[5:46:37] data than we're able to use. So we're wanting to keep the concentration of
[5:46:40] students as big of a pool as we can so that we can report out on
[5:46:44] it. But those are a couple of reasons why we're thinking about
[5:46:47] if we want to consider it, is there a way to embed it as opposed
[5:46:51] to a separate calculation the way MSIP does?
[5:46:55] Is that fair?
[5:46:56] Mm-hmm.
[5:46:56] Terry.
[5:46:57] I think we should have the same expectations for all students.
[5:47:00] Agreed.
[5:47:01] And therefore,
[5:47:03] measurements should not be determined differently.
[5:47:07] Everybody should
[5:47:09] work to achieve the same standard.
[5:47:12] We have other ways of addressing the needs and concerns
[5:47:15] of students that are struggling, maybe because
[5:47:19] of a particular demographic background of sorts.
[5:47:22] So, we're working here to deliver education to
[5:47:26] children, and every child is capable of achieving.
[5:47:31] We should have the expectation the same for all children.
[5:47:35] Okay.
[5:47:35] Is my vote.
[5:47:36] Can I go Robbie and then-
[5:47:38] Yeah, I don't see putting in an artificiality and inflating that
[5:47:42] is not giving good data to the parents, and it defeats the
[5:47:45] purpose of what the simple report card is.
[5:47:51] Respond. Any response?
[5:47:54] Okay, John.
[5:47:55] Yeah, I was just saying, I think at this point, at this stage,
[5:47:58] my answer would be just not right now.
[5:48:01] I mean, if we get report cards out and we see that there's...
[5:48:05] I mean, obviously we will know based on building some of the
[5:48:09] demographic characteristics just by common sense.
[5:48:12] But,
[5:48:13] I think then if we did need to
[5:48:16] adjust it, I don't even say adjust it, just flag it or something, or put a
[5:48:20] footnote, just like how we were talking about school buildings that might have
[5:48:23] insufficient data. And maybe you could add a footnote to say, "Oh, by the
[5:48:27] way, this particular building has 100% free and reduced
[5:48:31] lunch," or something like that. And so that, it's like an asterisk on that
[5:48:35] particular school because I don't-
[5:48:38] I recognize that there are differences, but we want it to be the
[5:48:42] same level
[5:48:48] of
[5:48:50] expectation for everyone, but that
[5:48:54] there are other factors that weigh in, and I don't want
[5:48:57] people just look on the surface. Like I said, for the most part,
[5:49:02] common sense looking at it is like, "Okay, this school is based on location or
[5:49:06] whatever." But I think down the road, once we
[5:49:10] start to perfect this grade card system, that's when we can add
[5:49:14] stuff. I think for right now, though, it's just get something simple out there, and
[5:49:17] if we need to adjust it later, then we can do that.
[5:49:20] Yeah. So we'll get something simple.
[5:49:21] And I think really the underlying point with that is we don't want to
[5:49:25] produce grade cards that end up just being a reflection of the
[5:49:28] socioeconomic status of the community.
[5:49:31] That's not informative to parents.
[5:49:33] So, that's the consideration there, but I understand, and I think
[5:49:36] we can run simulations.
[5:49:39] Yeah, that would be-
[5:49:40] Trying different things and seeing what we come up with.
[5:49:46] Okay. Anything else?
[5:49:49] Just say one more thing. On the prior slide, you discussed potentially moving up
[5:49:52] assessment windows two weeks prior.
[5:49:55] Yes.
[5:49:55] And I understand you want to get data as soon as possible.
[5:49:57] Yes.
[5:49:57] A little concern over that-
[5:49:58] Mm-hmm
[5:49:59] ... being a classroom teacher. We already don't go to the
[5:50:03] end of the year or the end of the semester, right?
[5:50:05] If you're
[5:50:07] assessing the first two weeks of May, we lose the second two weeks of May, and now
[5:50:10] you're saying we're basically going to lose the month of May.
[5:50:14] A lot of our classes are semester-long classes, actually.
[5:50:16] So you're losing
[5:50:18] maybe 20% of your class time. So it's a concern.
[5:50:22] I understand you want to get data as soon as possible.
[5:50:26] Weigh that concern, I suppose.
[5:50:27] Yes. And
[5:50:29] you're echoing what we've heard from stakeholders, and the
[5:50:34] impact will not be trivial. We've
[5:50:38] looked at, quantified it.
[5:50:41] Happy to share that information if you'd like to hear me talk
[5:50:44] longer.
[5:50:48] Okay. We're going to stop right there.
[5:50:51] We're going to have a quick break of 10 minutes.
[5:50:54] We do appreciate your presentation.
[5:50:56] Thank you very much.
[5:50:57] So come back at 3:00.
[5:50:59] Yeah.
[6:00:57] Right on time.
[6:00:59] But we're about an hour behind in the meeting.
[6:01:01] So-
[6:01:03] What'd you expect with this group?
[6:01:04] We'll go from there.
[6:01:08] So if I could get everybody's attention, we're going to start through this.
[6:01:14] Yep.
[6:01:16] Now we have the assistant, uh, commissioner with the Office of Childhood, uh,
[6:01:20] Childhood-
[6:01:21] Childhood
[6:01:21] ... Childhood with us, and, uh, we welcome, it's Jocelyn
[6:01:25] Schluss?
[6:01:25] Jocelyn Schluss, yes.
[6:01:27] Okay, very good.
[6:01:28] Yeah.
[6:01:28] It's a little bit of a unique last name.
[6:01:30] It is, it is. It's a mouthful. Um, yes.
[6:01:33] My name is Jocelyn Schluss. I'm the assistant commissioner for the Office of
[6:01:36] Childhood.
[6:01:38] I am finishing up my second month in the position,
[6:01:42] so here to give you just a quick overview of our office and talk
[6:01:46] to you about a few items that you may be hearing about.
[6:01:49] In a nutshell, the Office of Childhood really builds the foundation of our
[6:01:52] K-12 schools.
[6:01:54] Our efforts are to set up all children in Missouri for success.
[6:01:58] So I'm going to talk to you briefly about, um, how the Office of Childhood came to
[6:02:02] be, and then our three kind of larger areas or programs.
[6:02:07] That's very nice.
[6:02:07] So the office was formed five years ago this month, actually, we're
[6:02:11] celebrating an anniversary, um, by Executive Order
[6:02:14] 2102. The intent was to bring all early
[6:02:18] learning, all services for children birth through five and after-school
[6:02:22] programming into one spot, one office, to make it a little bit
[6:02:25] easier for stakeholders to access.
[6:02:28] So prior to the Office of Childhood being in DESE,
[6:02:32] it, it brought together three, um, three agencies
[6:02:36] and offices that were housed there.
[6:02:37] So in DESE, there was the early learning,
[6:02:40] uh, from Department of Social Services, Child Care Subsidy,
[6:02:44] and then Child Care Compliance and Regulations came to this office from the
[6:02:48] Department of Health and Senior Services.
[6:02:51] The idea, like I said, was really to kind of form a one-stop shop for all
[6:02:55] people who are interacting with early childhood initiatives and care.
[6:03:04] So this is our kind of high-level organizational chart.
[6:03:08] You'll kind of see those three divisions or three programs that came over
[6:03:11] from the other agencies. So to the side, you'll see
[6:03:15] outreach. Our outreach section really services our
[6:03:19] entire office, so they report directly to me.
[6:03:23] But essentially, they focus on communication.
[6:03:25] We have a program called Community Leaders that also supports Missouri Family
[6:03:29] Resources, an app, and Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
[6:03:33] In addition to our outreach section, we have those three larger programs, like I
[6:03:37] said, that came over. So early learning is about 22% of
[6:03:41] our staff, um, and they focus on all
[6:03:45] quality initiatives, um, early learning initiatives, all of
[6:03:49] those types of things. And they support school districts, childcare providers, and
[6:03:53] families. The Child Care Compliance program is
[6:03:56] about 43% of our staff. That's what came over from
[6:04:00] Department of Health and Senior Services.
[6:04:03] And then Child Care Subsidy came from DSS, and that's about 30% of our
[6:04:07] staff.
[6:04:15] Um, so this slide just shows all of the different programs or
[6:04:19] initiatives that are housed in early learning.
[6:04:23] You'll see a lot of things that, uh, support parents, support childcare
[6:04:27] providers, and support school districts.
[6:04:29] Early learning's focus really is on early childhood development and
[6:04:33] school readiness. These programs help build the foundation for our future
[6:04:37] K-12 students. Um, the emphasis in early learning is developing
[6:04:41] the whole child. So, um, we look at physical
[6:04:45] development, social-emotional development, academic, cognitive, all of those
[6:04:48] things across the board for every child.
[6:04:51] And many of the services and initiatives that are housed in early learning
[6:04:55] are small pieces of a larger puzzle for our early childhood
[6:04:58] programs, um, school districts, and care providers.
[6:05:04] You have questions about any of those?
[6:05:06] I'm going to talk about a couple that you maybe are hearing about, but while
[6:05:10] they're all kind of up there in front of you, does anybody have questions about any
[6:05:13] of those specifically?
[6:05:17] I didn't realize there were so many, uh...
[6:05:22] I just didn't realize it.
[6:05:23] Yeah. Lots of things that-
[6:05:24] No questions, just a comment.
[6:05:25] Yeah, lots of, um, things that target families specifically, trying to
[6:05:29] support in-home. Um,
[6:05:32] also initiatives to improve the quality of our childcare facilities and
[6:05:35] preschool programming across the state, curriculum resources.
[6:05:40] Um,
[6:05:42] yes, lots of things. Um, I should probably note the Program Integrity section in
[6:05:46] here really serves as a kind of checks and balances for subsidy and
[6:05:50] how those federal dollars are, are, um, implemented.
[6:05:54] So Program Integrity is housed here, but really serves as a checks and balances of
[6:05:58] some of the other programming in the office.
[6:06:04] So the things that you're maybe hearing about, most recently,
[6:06:08] we awarded, um, after-school grants and MO QPK
[6:06:12] grants, which are preschool spots across the state.
[6:06:16] So, um, I'm going to read some of this to make sure I don't miss anything.
[6:06:20] Uh, a small but important part of early learning are these grants.
[6:06:23] So we have three after-school grants: 21st Century Community Learning Center,
[6:06:27] School Age Community, and Missouri Comprehensive Afterschool Learning.
[6:06:31] The data from these grants shows improvement for our students that participate in
[6:06:35] reading and math, and definitely an increase in engagement.
[6:06:39] Over 90% of the students that participate in those after-school grant programs
[6:06:42] are reported to have increased engagement at
[6:06:44] school. Having those after-school opportunities
[6:06:48] really are, um, helpful, safe, enriching activities for children
[6:06:52] whose parents are still working and need that before or after-school
[6:06:55] care. Um- The graph really is
[6:06:59] about the Missouri Quality Pre-K grant.
[6:07:02] So this year, there was an $11 million less
[6:07:05] appropriation to MO QPK for childcare centers and
[6:07:09] 20 million less for school districts or LEAs.
[6:07:13] Plus, an additional $6 million was restricted.
[6:07:16] So as you can see, this has resulted in fewer grants being awarded,
[6:07:20] which then in turn reduces the total number of preschool spots available,
[6:07:24] or districts and providers have to pass that cost of preschool pre-K
[6:07:28] spots onto parents or their providers.
[6:07:33] From 2023 to '24 to
[6:07:36] 2025-26, MO QPK grew from
[6:07:40] 2,500 spots up to just under 7,000 spots.
[6:07:44] And then for this current school year, we're awarding right at 5,000 spots.
[6:07:48] So you can see the difference that that reduction in funding is making for this
[6:07:51] coming school year.
[6:07:58] The next kind of large program, again, subsidy came to us from
[6:08:02] DSS. The subsidy program focuses on family
[6:08:05] eligibility, provider contracts, and payment, as well as childcare
[6:08:09] data system.
[6:08:11] Subsidy
[6:08:13] came to us from DSS, I've already said that, sorry, but DSS still houses
[6:08:17] other programs that are determined by income eligibility, and this can be a
[6:08:21] hurdle for us because we're trying to verify and gather data to make sure
[6:08:25] that we're
[6:08:26] offering subsidy to the right families and that we're reducing fraud,
[6:08:30] spending the dollars efficiently and effectively, that kind of thing.
[6:08:37] This program does a lot of work on determining family eligibility,
[6:08:41] issuing provider contracts, and provider payments, and they do a
[6:08:45] great deal of work with that data system.
[6:08:48] We have a team that provides training and technical assistance and operates a
[6:08:52] call center, and that work in that particular section with the data
[6:08:55] system is going to continue to grow.
[6:08:58] As that system is developed, things are added onto it, and then we're going
[6:09:02] to try and take ownership of that and provide that maintenance and operation moving
[6:09:05] forward for that system. Questions about
[6:09:09] anything in subsidy?
[6:09:14] So the things that you're probably hearing about, what we've been in the news
[6:09:18] about recently for childcare subsidy, is about the wait list
[6:09:22] and provider rates. So the wait list had to be implemented on March
[6:09:25] 1st of this year.
[6:09:29] The table breaks down the number of children served and the total payments, as
[6:09:33] well as the wait list numbers for the last half of fiscal year '26.
[6:09:37] A total of
[6:09:38] $174,791,000
[6:09:43] was paid in childcare subsidy during the last half of fiscal year '26.
[6:09:50] An additional piece of this that we're getting ready to take a look at is subsidy
[6:09:54] payment rates are very complex. There are multiple factors that
[6:09:58] determine how much a childcare is paid for each child that they care for.
[6:10:02] The base rates for providers are determined by market rate studies
[6:10:06] that our office conducts every few years.
[6:10:08] The rates differ based on cost and the geographic region that the
[6:10:12] provider is in.
[6:10:14] The rates have fluctuated over the years, and so a hold harmless policy was
[6:10:18] implemented to ensure that providers were never paid less, as their
[6:10:22] market rate study indicated maybe their rates had reduced.
[6:10:27] In addition to those base rates,
[6:10:31] Missouri has offered rate enhancements to increase the quality and
[6:10:34] availability of providers. So we're trying to increase the number of
[6:10:38] spots for children who receive subsidy, and we're trying to incentivize
[6:10:41] providers increasing their quality and the services that they offer through
[6:10:45] these rate enhancements. But as you can see, the cost over time
[6:10:49] to operate this program has increased, and then that in turn limits the number of
[6:10:53] children that can be served with the subsidy.
[6:10:59] One of the tasks that our office has been
[6:11:02] working on is trying to make sure that we're serving as many children as
[6:11:05] possible while also being fair to providers.
[6:11:08] So,
[6:11:11] we explored paying on enrollment versus attendance.
[6:11:14] A lot of providers ask for that. It helps them
[6:11:18] have a better... They can depend on what kind of income's coming versus paying on
[6:11:22] attendance. We did that with a beta group of children, and it was
[6:11:25] much more cost prohibitive than what we had expected.
[6:11:29] So we have returned back to paying on attendance versus enrollment.
[6:11:33] Another thing that providers have asked us to look at is the number of
[6:11:36] allowable absences that they can bill us
[6:11:39] for. But again, all of those decisions, while they may help providers,
[6:11:43] they impact the number of children that we can serve.
[6:11:46] And so that's something that our office is always kind of trying to take into
[6:11:49] consideration when we make those decisions about rates and enhancements
[6:11:53] and how many kids we can serve.
[6:11:57] In fiscal year '27, House Bill 2 introduced language that
[6:12:01] directs us to form a stakeholder group to look directly at
[6:12:05] rate enhancements and provide some feedback for the general assembly about
[6:12:09] our rate enhancements. So we are working right now with the governor's office
[6:12:13] on that stakeholder group. We actually have our kickoff meeting tomorrow, and
[6:12:17] we'll have those recommendations ready for the governor's office and the general
[6:12:20] assembly by November 1st.
[6:12:26] The last kind of larger program or section in our office is
[6:12:29] childcare compliance and regulations.
[6:12:32] And again, this table just kind of shows the different sections and the things
[6:12:36] that compliance and regulations teams looks at.
[6:12:40] This program came from Department of Health and Senior Services.
[6:12:44] DHSS still regulates medical care and facilities
[6:12:48] through safety and health standards, which is primarily what our compliance and
[6:12:51] regulations are about. They also work closely with the other
[6:12:55] programs in our office to support our mission of increasing
[6:12:58] accessibility to high-quality programs in
[6:13:02] early childhood education. They work on licensing new
[6:13:05] providers, they do compliance inspections for licensed
[6:13:08] providers, and they do complaint investigations.
[6:13:12] So as anyone can call in or file a complaint about a
[6:13:15] provider, and so our investigators go out and take a look at that and determine
[6:13:20] if corrective action needs to be taken or that kind of thing.
[6:13:24] This team also reviews the background screenings of childcare workers.
[6:13:28] So we recently stopped paying for background screenings to help reduce
[6:13:32] expenditures, and because that code had gotten out there, I think there was a lot
[6:13:35] of extra screening happening that wasn't coming back to
[6:13:40] increase our workforce in childcare.
[6:13:42] So we stopped paying for that, but this team still reviews that and
[6:13:45] determines if those people are eligible to work in our childcare
[6:13:49] facilities.
[6:13:55] The big project right now, their big news in compliance and
[6:13:59] regulations is Executive Order 2515.
[6:14:02] The order directed DESE and the Office of Childhood to review and revise
[6:14:06] Missouri's childcare licensing rules.
[6:14:09] The order's goal was to reduce the rules by at least 10%
[6:14:13] and make licensing more practical and accessible so that we can, in turn, expand
[6:14:17] the availability of licensed childcare across the state.
[6:14:20] The regulations and compliance team has been working to complete that executive
[6:14:24] order, and they're getting there.
[6:14:25] So very soon, they're going to be ready to come talk to you about the new rules
[6:14:29] and all of the rules that they want to rescind.
[6:14:32] To date, right now, they have already reduced by more than 10%, so
[6:14:36] we feel very good about the new sets of rules that they'll be bringing to you.
[6:14:41] They're going to rescind all of the existing licensing rules.
[6:14:44] There are currently two sets of rules, one for childcare centers and group
[6:14:48] homes, and one for family childcare homes.
[6:14:51] So the new sets of rules that they're going to bring to you are, again, two sets of
[6:14:54] rules. But one is going to be all of the
[6:14:57] family childcare homes and centers, and then the second one is going to be about
[6:15:01] school-age childcare, so for before and after-school programming.
[6:15:05] They think that it's much more readable, going to be much easier to
[6:15:08] navigate for people who are working to get licensed.
[6:15:13] Additionally, this initiative has recently become part of the
[6:15:17] Governor's MO Great Initiative, trying to streamline processes and cut
[6:15:20] out red tape for people. So, we recently submitted a report
[6:15:24] about this work to MO Great as well.
[6:15:30] So, that is a very brief overview. Tried to highlight just the high
[6:15:33] points, things that you might be hearing about.
[6:15:36] Thank you for the opportunity to share with you today.
[6:15:39] I am happy to try to answer questions, or if there's something you want
[6:15:42] more information about, I'm happy to
[6:15:46] gather that and get back with you.
[6:15:50] All right. Go ahead, John.
[6:15:52] I just had a quick question.
[6:15:53] Yep.
[6:15:53] If you could go back to slide number five.
[6:15:58] I'm looking at the year-over-year
[6:16:02] pre-K spots requested and then pre-K spots
[6:16:06] funded.
[6:16:08] It looks like for this year coming up, not even
[6:16:12] half of the spots were funded.
[6:16:16] Does funding come from somewhere else, or do
[6:16:20] those kids just not get to go to daycare?
[6:16:22] It depends.
[6:16:23] So this is about preschool, specifically pre-K, so the four-year-olds
[6:16:27] right before kindergarten entry.
[6:16:30] So the LEAs that are requesting it, some of them are going to fund it if their
[6:16:33] budget allows, but lots of them are going to not have that option.
[6:16:37] And so those spots won't be offered through those school districts for many of
[6:16:41] them. The childcare providers will likely still
[6:16:45] offer those spots, but that cost will go back to the parent.
[6:16:48] They'll have to pay for that slot.
[6:16:50] And then if the
[6:16:54] LEA doesn't have the funds to offer that spot, then
[6:16:58] those kids or parents would then have to go to the
[6:17:02] childcare centers?
[6:17:03] They would have to find another option for preschool, or unfortunately, their kiddo
[6:17:07] wouldn't have preschool.
[6:17:09] Okay. And just for going back to our budget,
[6:17:13] this fund comes out of our
[6:17:16] budget, or is this a grant from somewhere else?
[6:17:18] I need Kyle to-
[6:17:19] It's our budget.
[6:17:20] All right.
[6:17:20] I think I know the answer, but I don't want to speak incorrectly.
[6:17:30] These lines, Kyle Kruse, deputy commissioner of financial administrative services.
[6:17:34] These lines are in our budget, and our budget request was
[6:17:38] reduced during the legislative process, and
[6:17:42] a resulting impact is the fewer
[6:17:45] spots being funded, both for LEAs and at childcare providers.
[6:17:50] Okay.
[6:17:51] We should put a pin in this
[6:17:56] when we talk about our budget for when we have our special budget
[6:17:59] meeting. Because to me, this is the foundation stuff that we always talk
[6:18:03] about. It's scientifically proven that pre-K helps
[6:18:07] kids do better.
[6:18:08] Absolutely.
[6:18:08] If we're cutting funding, it's-
[6:18:11] May I-
[6:18:11] ... shooting ourselves in the foot, it seems like.
[6:18:13] And definitely adding onto that discussion,
[6:18:17] Kyle, mentioning that we no longer will be paying on
[6:18:21] enrollment. We're going back to paying on attendance.
[6:18:25] For childcare spots.
[6:18:27] If I could expand a moment on that situation.
[6:18:30] Yeah.
[6:18:30] Historically, childcare subsidies have been paid on attendance, and that
[6:18:34] is when the kid's in attendance and for up to five
[6:18:37] absences per month, the childcare provider could bill and receive payment.
[6:18:42] There was an effort,
[6:18:45] the federal government
[6:18:47] basically instructed states to move towards paying on enrollment, which
[6:18:51] is paying for all the days of a month for a kid to be
[6:18:55] there, and there were minimal requirements for students to actually be in
[6:18:59] the room. But,
[6:19:02] with the change of the administration, the pay-on-enrollment push
[6:19:06] has been rescinded, so it's no longer really a
[6:19:10] push of the federal government. There had also been a move to
[6:19:13] pay on
[6:19:16] prospective pay, pay at the beginning of the month instead of the end of the month,
[6:19:20] and that's also been taken back. So through the legislative process
[6:19:23] this year-
[6:19:25] The Missouri legislature actually
[6:19:27] has essentially stated, "We're going to stay with pay on attendance."
[6:19:31] If funds are available, DESE may have some leeway to
[6:19:35] move from paying for a maximum of five absences per child per month
[6:19:39] to six or seven, up to 10. However, there are budgetary
[6:19:43] constraints on what is actually possible.
[6:19:46] So we are working very hard to stay within the, I think
[6:19:50] it's a total $343 million budget for these childcare subsidy
[6:19:54] payments.
[6:19:55] And when you serve more kids, there's only so many ways to get
[6:19:59] that paid for. You either have to reduce rates, or make some changes
[6:20:03] to enhancements, or some changes to other parts of the
[6:20:07] program. And I think
[6:20:09] what Jocelyn referenced also was the budget language has
[6:20:12] instructed them to create a group to study rate
[6:20:16] enhancements and see what is the appropriate level, and report to the
[6:20:20] governor.
[6:20:22] Commissioner Priest.
[6:20:23] That's actually just what I was going to point out, is that that group that
[6:20:27] Jocelyn is working with, they've been charged with, "You have this pot of money,
[6:20:31] make it go as far as you can." And so that's what they're going to be doing is
[6:20:35] really examining the rate enhancements that are given to providers to try to get
[6:20:39] more children off that wait list and being served. So...
[6:20:43] Thank you.
[6:20:43] Mm-hmm.
[6:20:44] And while timing is everything, the output of that is not
[6:20:48] yet... The budget amount is
[6:20:51] what the budget amount is within our current budget.
[6:20:54] We have asked for additional
[6:21:00] budget for childcare, if I look back.
[6:21:03] We'll not go into that, but I guess the importance of that
[6:21:07] exercise and how it plays into what we ask for in the budget.
[6:21:11] If you could look at that very closely to see if there's anything else we need to
[6:21:15] address based on that review.
[6:21:16] We'll be watching very closely.
[6:21:18] Yeah.
[6:21:18] Yes.
[6:21:20] Is that all state general revenue money?
[6:21:23] I believe this one is. The childcare subsidy is not
[6:21:27] entirely state general revenue. I would need to go double-check this one.
[6:21:31] But I believe it's all or mostly GR.
[6:21:34] You mean MO QPK is mostly GR?
[6:21:36] Yes.
[6:21:37] Yes. The childcare subsidy is substantially federal.
[6:21:40] Correct.
[6:21:40] There is some state match as well.
[6:21:43] Mr. Petusek.
[6:21:46] So,
[6:21:48] I
[6:21:49] know a school district that has a
[6:21:53] half-day pre-K program, and there's 40, 50,
[6:21:57] 60 students in it, and it's relatively small.
[6:22:00] There's a wait list, I think, to get in it, and it's not a full-day thing.
[6:22:05] And I think the rate is
[6:22:08] not a market rate, right? So it's whatever,
[6:22:11] let's say it's 500 bucks a month or something.
[6:22:13] District can set...
[6:22:15] And there are lots of different ways that districts can pay for their preschool
[6:22:18] program. So for example, the district that I was at, we used Title I funds,
[6:22:23] and we had a half-day program. We didn't charge.
[6:22:26] I know there are other districts that'll put them on a sliding scale, so they'll
[6:22:29] set a daily tuition rate, and they'll charge the parents based on that sliding
[6:22:33] scale and their income. And then there are some that are able to offer
[6:22:37] it free of charge. And that, I think, that's the intent of MO
[6:22:40] QPK is trying to increase the number of full-day spots.
[6:22:43] That's a lot of the feedback that we receive.
[6:22:45] Those half-day spots are hard for parents to navigate.
[6:22:49] So trying to increase the availability of pre-K, but also a full-day
[6:22:53] spot and fund it.
[6:22:55] Schools can also actually
[6:22:58] turn in some pre-K attendance for formula dollars, and
[6:23:02] that is, they're allowed to
[6:23:05] claim for formula dollars up to 8% in
[6:23:09] number of their free reduced lunch population as pre-K students.
[6:23:12] So there is some formula money available.
[6:23:15] But as Jocelyn said, it's a mixture of ways in which districts
[6:23:19] fund pre-K.
[6:23:22] So
[6:23:23] if the
[6:23:25] rate in a school district for whatever their pre-K
[6:23:29] program is, is say, $500 a month, right?
[6:23:32] I'm just making numbers up. Is that 500 paid from
[6:23:36] this? Or do the parents pay that 500, and this makes up
[6:23:40] the difference to the district for what it actually costs?
[6:23:44] If they receive this grant, they're probably using it to make up the difference
[6:23:48] of what that cost-
[6:23:48] To make up the difference.
[6:23:49] Mm-hmm.
[6:23:49] So if it's going to an LEA that has a half-day or whatever their pre-K program
[6:23:53] looks like, this is making up the difference between what they're charging and what
[6:23:57] it actually costs. Okay. Thank you.
[6:23:59] This grant
[6:24:01] is separate from childcare subsidy.
[6:24:04] So the subsidy is going to pay... That's birth through school age
[6:24:08] and beyond, for after-school care that children are eligible for, and then
[6:24:12] the rate is paid per kiddo.
[6:24:16] The provider gets an extra rate if the child has a special need, that kind of
[6:24:19] thing. But the childcare subsidy is separate from
[6:24:23] the MO QPK.
[6:24:25] And that is separate from the formula claiming for pre-K.
[6:24:29] They're all separate pots, and they're not supposed to overlap. No double-dipping.
[6:24:34] Thank you.
[6:24:37] How important is pre-K?
[6:24:39] It's extremely important.
[6:24:41] Why?
[6:24:41] You guys,
[6:24:42] that's where their brains are developing. They're learning to regulate.
[6:24:45] We talked a little bit earlier about behaviors and the increase
[6:24:49] there. We talked about literacy, all of their
[6:24:53] development, their language skills, their early literacy skills.
[6:24:56] All of that's happening before they turn five, and so they need
[6:25:00] lots of exposure, lots of conversation.
[6:25:04] They need to be around peers that are giving them appropriate models and
[6:25:08] that interaction.
[6:25:11] Early childhood is so important, and
[6:25:14] I don't think that we have enough of it.
[6:25:16] And I don't know that that's an easy solution.
[6:25:20] But coming from a school district, I know that that was crucial.
[6:25:24] You could tell,
[6:25:26] halfway through kindergarten, it was still obvious who had had some good
[6:25:30] exposure and early childhood experiences and who had not.
[6:25:37] Yeah. I wanted you to come here
[6:25:40] because- ... I believe in it as well.
[6:25:43] I think it's extremely important.
[6:25:45] But it kind of came from a question from Mike Matusik, because he was
[6:25:49] doing, on your committee,
[6:25:53] the strategic plan.
[6:25:57] You asked me the question, where does early childhood go,
[6:26:01] and is it part of the strategic plan?
[6:26:04] Remember that you asked me that?
[6:26:05] Yeah.
[6:26:05] I think that
[6:26:07] because we've never had you in here, because we weren't really clear
[6:26:11] of the relationship that existed-
[6:26:13] Sure
[6:26:13] ... and things like that, I thought it was important for us to have you come in.
[6:26:18] Put a face with a-
[6:26:19] Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity.
[6:26:21] I think,
[6:26:24] as a state, no matter where our kiddos are, we can't mandate where
[6:26:28] they're at before they are school age.
[6:26:31] So, I think that's a lot of the work in our early learning division, in our office,
[6:26:35] is trying to make sure that no matter where they're at, they have opportunities to
[6:26:38] learn. So, we have programs that work with parents.
[6:26:41] So, if they're a kiddo who's taken care of at home, that's great.
[6:26:44] But how can we support that parent so they understand how to help their
[6:26:48] child grow, how to make sure that their child is receiving those language and early
[6:26:52] literacy skills that they need for the rest of their school career.
[6:26:56] And then that's the work also with the childcare providers.
[6:26:59] Our school districts recognize, I think, the importance of early learning,
[6:27:03] but the funding isn't always there for them.
[6:27:05] So, that's different by district, what they can afford.
[6:27:09] And then learning to navigate the different funding sources that are available to
[6:27:12] them is sometimes tricky for school districts.
[6:27:15] And then our childcare providers, when we're thinking about regulation,
[6:27:19] licensing, that's the minimum standard of health and
[6:27:22] safety. But what we really want to get at is making sure that they're offering
[6:27:26] great early learning experiences, and that they're working to develop that whole
[6:27:29] child, so that when they get to kindergarten, they can regulate
[6:27:33] themselves. Their brains are ready to learn.
[6:27:35] They have some of those early experiences to connect new learning to when
[6:27:39] they get there.
[6:27:44] Well, thank you for your presentation.
[6:27:45] Yep. Thank you.
[6:27:45] Very much appreciate it.
[6:27:47] Thank you.
[6:27:55] Up next, we have Lisa Sereno with regards
[6:27:58] to school safety.
[6:28:21] All right. We're going to give you
[6:28:25] control. Okay. Thank you. Again, Lisa Sereno,
[6:28:29] Deputy Commissioner for Learning Services.
[6:28:33] I would like to just give you a brief
[6:28:36] introduction for our presentation here
[6:28:40] this afternoon regarding unsafe schools, and the
[6:28:43] definition, or school safety and the definition of persistently
[6:28:47] dangerous schools. I would like to thank the
[6:28:50] board, in particular Member Matusik, for
[6:28:55] raising this to our attention.
[6:28:59] School safety, as we all are aware, is so important,
[6:29:03] and that safe and healthy environment, so that
[6:29:06] students
[6:29:08] can learn and teachers can teach.
[6:29:12] There are a number of provisions,
[6:29:16] laws,
[6:29:17] policies that cover school safety in
[6:29:21] Missouri and around the country.
[6:29:24] Today, our presentation is going to focus on some requirements in
[6:29:28] federal law and how we interpret them here in Missouri.
[6:29:33] So,
[6:29:34] just to give you a little bit of background before I introduce our
[6:29:38] guest speakers.
[6:29:40] I just want to give a little framing.
[6:29:43] We're here to talk about what's called the Unsafe School
[6:29:48] Choice Option. It's a provision in federal
[6:29:51] law. The No Child Left Behind Act
[6:29:55] in 2002 first
[6:29:59] required states to define persistently dangerous
[6:30:03] schools. So, that's been around for a while.
[6:30:07] And then the Every Student Succeeds Act in
[6:30:10] 2015 added some requirements onto
[6:30:15] that to provide options for
[6:30:18] students who either were a victim of violence in
[6:30:22] school or who attended schools
[6:30:26] that had been
[6:30:29] designated as persistently dangerous, to give them an
[6:30:33] option to attend another safe school.
[6:30:39] The federal law leaves the definition of
[6:30:43] what's persistently dangerous up to the states,
[6:30:47] and each state defines it a little bit
[6:30:50] differently. Not very many states actually
[6:30:54] have definitions that result in designating persistently
[6:30:58] dangerous schools. So, that's what we're going to hear a little
[6:31:02] bit about today.
[6:31:06] Also,
[6:31:08] over
[6:31:10] the years since these federal provisions came into
[6:31:14] effect, our colleagues at the US Department of Education
[6:31:18] have periodically reminded us of our responsibility as
[6:31:22] states. And we did receive, last year from
[6:31:26] the US Department of Education, that reminder that,
[6:31:30] "Remember, periodically, take a look at this definition.
[6:31:34] Take a look at the data."
[6:31:36] All with an eye toward making sure that our students are safe in
[6:31:40] schools. So, with that little bit of
[6:31:43] preamble, and thank you for your patience with that,
[6:31:47] I'd like to introduce Corey Codell and Rhiannon Lee.
[6:31:52] And they're here to just give us some background, talk about the
[6:31:56] data that are available, and some thoughts on that definition of
[6:32:00] persistently dangerous schools.
[6:32:03] Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everyone. Some familiar faces, some folks I haven't met yet.
[6:32:07] It's
[6:32:08] nice to be here.
[6:32:09] I'm Corey Codell. I'm the Education Policy Director at the Show-Me Institute.
[6:32:13] I'm also a professor at the University of Missouri.
[6:32:16] Lisa did a nice job covering
[6:32:19] some of the basics, so I can maybe go a little faster over some of this stuff.
[6:32:22] But the Unsafe School Choice Option is a provision of federal law.
[6:32:25] It requires each state to establish and implement a policy to ensure students
[6:32:30] who attend persistently dangerous schools have an alternative option.
[6:32:33] So, the goal is to not trap kids in schools that are
[6:32:36] dangerous, which seems like a very reasonable goal.
[6:32:41] Do you guys have handouts for me? Did that happen, Stacy?
[6:32:44] Stacy's looking at me like I'm crazy for asking her.
[6:32:47] Did-
[6:32:47] I included some handouts that should've been in your packet.
[6:32:50] You shouldn't be able to read this slide.
[6:32:52] I see you guys flipping, but maybe...
[6:32:55] If we didn't, we will take care of that. I didn't get anything coming to me, so.
[6:32:59] Okay. I-
[6:32:59] It was in the books.
[6:33:01] Okay, maybe you have it.
[6:33:02] It is?
[6:33:04] I apologize if you don't. I actually have copies in my car, but that's not doing us
[6:33:07] much good right now.
[6:33:09] Blue folder.
[6:33:11] So, I did-
[6:33:13] Oh, the blue-
[6:33:14] Oh, this stuff's closed session stuff.
[6:33:15] Yeah.
[6:33:16] No, this is just letters, right?
[6:33:18] No, it's not.
[6:33:18] Yeah.
[6:33:18] It's not.
[6:33:19] Correspondence is the blue folder, so.
[6:33:20] Well, this is a bust.
[6:33:23] No, it's...
[6:33:24] Okay, the handouts were never delivered. Okay. I have them in my car.
[6:33:27] Maybe I'll go back and get them after I talk, and I can at least distribute them to
[6:33:30] you. So for now, you'll have to just take my word because there's no way you can
[6:33:33] read this slide. But this is the first page of the letter that
[6:33:37] Lisa was referencing that the federal government sent to all the state school
[6:33:40] chiefs last May. You'll have the letter by the end of the
[6:33:44] day one way or another. Two main things about the letter that I want to point out
[6:33:48] to you, and you're welcome to look at all of it.
[6:33:49] One is, as Lisa alluded to, a big push of the letter is
[6:33:53] that most states are essential--
[6:33:58] Well, how do I want...
[6:34:00] I'll say that they're circumventing the law by
[6:34:02] setting a definition of persistently dangerous schools, which no school is
[6:34:06] ever identified. And Missouri is one of those many states.
[6:34:09] And so, since 2002, we have never had a
[6:34:13] persistently dangerous school identified in Missouri.
[6:34:16] So that doesn't hold a lot of face validity to me, and it's true of a lot of
[6:34:20] states. I believe there's only five states that have actually identified a
[6:34:22] persistently dangerous school. Another thing in the letter that's notable given the
[6:34:26] Missouri context is it urges states to consider using
[6:34:30] definitions of a persistently dangerous school based on violent incidents
[6:34:34] and not responses to violent incidents.
[6:34:36] So, a violent incident is an assault, bringing a weapon to
[6:34:40] school, something like that. A response is a suspension or expulsion.
[6:34:44] So we want to capture the incidents, not necessarily the responses.
[6:34:48] And so, that's going to feed into my next slide about what Missouri's doing.
[6:34:51] So, Missouri's current definition of a persistently dangerous school is a
[6:34:55] "and" condition, so there's two requirements.
[6:34:57] One, there must be a gun-free schools violation or act of violence each
[6:35:01] year for three consecutive years, and there must be a certain number of
[6:35:05] expulsions that are determined based on the size of the school, so
[6:35:09] some sort of enrollment-based thresholds.
[6:35:11] The fundamental issue is Missouri schools don't expel kids in any meaningful
[6:35:15] numbers, and so, that's the reason that no schools are ever identified as
[6:35:19] persistently dangerous. That's the piece of the rule that's never catching any
[6:35:23] schools. It also goes against this best practices idea of not
[6:35:27] using the policy response to count issues.
[6:35:30] It's rather you want to count incidents.
[6:35:32] So, the bottom line is we're not designating any persistently dangerous schools.
[6:35:35] We're not alone in this, but we're not doing it.
[6:35:38] This part of the presentation, what we were hoping to do, is present to you some
[6:35:41] data on what kind of incidents or violent incidents are happening in schools
[6:35:45] across Missouri. I've had some nice conversations with
[6:35:49] the folks at DESE about this, but the data right now just don't seem reliable,
[6:35:53] and we were reluctant to put the data up on the screen because hard numbers
[6:35:56] gives this sense of confidence, and we didn't want to give a false sense of
[6:35:59] confidence. So, there's a lot of weird inconsistencies in the data.
[6:36:03] I spent a lot of time doing data analysis work.
[6:36:05] I'm very used to looking at data, and I just didn't quite trust the data.
[6:36:08] But I will say, there's some indicators in there that there's some schools with
[6:36:11] some violence problems. So University City Senior High is an example
[6:36:15] of a high school that seemed to have pretty reasonable data.
[6:36:19] Over a three-year period, 51 violent incidents and 21 weapons violations.
[6:36:23] That does not sound like a very safe school.
[6:36:25] There's other indicators outside of the data.
[6:36:28] So,
[6:36:29] the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered a petition that staff
[6:36:33] and teachers at Vashon High sent to the school district about safety,
[6:36:37] talking about the conditions aren't suitable for learning for the students.
[6:36:40] They don't have clear policies in place, they don't have consequences for
[6:36:44] behaviors, and they don't have effective building leadership.
[6:36:46] So, there is concern, there's indication out there that there's some safety
[6:36:50] issues. And this is where I'm going to pass the talk over to my colleague,
[6:36:53] Rhiannon Lee, here. And she has worked as an advocate in Columbia for
[6:36:57] many years, and in the absence of hard data, she's talked to a lot of people,
[6:37:01] and she's going to talk to us a little bit about what she's heard on the ground,
[6:37:04] and then I'll jump back in with the presentation.
[6:37:07] Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak.
[6:37:10] Like Corey had mentioned, the data on violence in Missouri schools is not
[6:37:14] reliable, so we aren't really feeling comfortable about sharing those hard
[6:37:18] numbers with you right now.
[6:37:20] But as an advocate in the Columbia area,
[6:37:23] I have heard from families, educators, and students about incidents occurring in
[6:37:27] our schools that go far beyond what should be happening or considered normal
[6:37:31] for childhood behavior. For example, since approximately
[6:37:34] 2022, advocates in the area have encountered reports involving
[6:37:38] students and staff suffering serious injuries, including
[6:37:42] fractured skulls, broken jaws, broken teeth...
[6:37:45] chemical burns, stab wounds from a hypodermic needle,
[6:37:49] lacerations, scalp lacerations, including that needed stitches,
[6:37:53] and broken ribs. I also have reported a report from a teacher in
[6:37:57] Columbia who shared with me that in separate incidences, she had been choked while
[6:38:01] pregnant and also had a student hold up scissors to her stomach to threaten to cut
[6:38:05] out her baby. The same teacher told me that she, along with the other
[6:38:08] educators she worked with, have physically intervened in at least 30 fights
[6:38:12] since 2023. School safety is an important issue, and we cannot
[6:38:16] expect students to learn if they are not safe.
[6:38:20] Thank you for taking on this issue.
[6:38:23] I should mention we're both available for Q&A if you guys have questions after.
[6:38:26] So,
[6:38:28] basically I'm going to go on and talk a little bit about what this body, DESE, can
[6:38:32] do to address this issue. But any serious effort to do this
[6:38:36] is going to require dealing with the fact that we don't have good data right now,
[6:38:39] so we're going to have to have some sort of response to that to fix that
[6:38:42] fundamental problem. If we can get some data that we can
[6:38:46] trust, what can we do about this? We can change the rule of how we define
[6:38:50] persistently dangerous school in Missouri to protect children who are trapped in
[6:38:53] these schools. A smart rule is going to be based on incidents and not school
[6:38:56] responses, and it's going to take a careful approach not to over-identify
[6:39:00] schools. I just want to be clear. I think right now we're erring on one side, and
[6:39:04] we're not identifying any schools as dangerous, which I don't think is the right
[6:39:08] place to be. There can be a knee-jerk reaction to overreact in those kind of
[6:39:11] settings and maybe set too strong of a rule and cause a lot of disruption we don't
[6:39:15] need to
[6:39:16] cause. So,
[6:39:17] we need some care with this.
[6:39:19] So,
[6:39:21] with the caveat that we're not legal experts, and again, it's going to be bad
[6:39:23] because I was counting on a handout for you guys, but I have a handout again that
[6:39:27] I'll make sure I get to you before the end of the day, with a suggestion
[6:39:30] for language you could use to adjust the rule.
[6:39:34] So, the language we're suggesting is that a persistently dangerous
[6:39:38] school will be defined as a school that in each of two consecutive years
[6:39:42] has a gun-free schools violation and has a certain number of
[6:39:45] violent incidents based on enrollment.
[6:39:48] And so the rule that we have in mind is two incidents per 100
[6:39:51] students
[6:39:53] up to a cap of 750 students. And so if you go
[6:39:56] to 750 students, that would be 15 incidents, and our thinking is
[6:40:00] anything over 15 incidents is just going to be a dangerous school, even if you have
[6:40:04] more than 750 students. I would love for these to be
[6:40:08] data-driven recommendations, but since we don't have data we can trust, they're
[6:40:12] not. If nothing else, they're a starting point for you guys to think about how you
[6:40:15] might want to do this. But these are the numbers that seem reasonable to us.
[6:40:20] The acts of violence and violent behavior, these are terms that you have to
[6:40:24] define. It turns out they're already defined in the core data in
[6:40:28] MOSIS reference manual. There is another sheet in the hand-- Oh, there's another
[6:40:32] sheet in a handout. Maybe the handout's going around now. Excellent. Look at that.
[6:40:35] All right. On maybe the back of our recommendation, there
[6:40:39] is the page out of the MOSIS reference manual where
[6:40:43] violent incidents, let's see, acts of school violence and violent behavior are
[6:40:47] defined. They're synonymous with unsafe school
[6:40:50] violations. And so you can see the full list that's already in the manual.
[6:40:53] Our idea is you would just use that list as it already exists.
[6:40:58] If you look closely at that list, you will see there are some
[6:41:01] transgressions on there that we could quibble about whether it's violent,
[6:41:04] dealing drugs and things like this.
[6:41:07] So you could use a subset of the list, and then you might change the
[6:41:11] counts for the instances you'd want to use for the recommended numbers we give
[6:41:15] here. But give-- Yes.
[6:41:17] So I'm pulling up the statute right now, but
[6:41:23] looking at it,
[6:41:25] would a violent, an act of school violent or violent behavior--
[6:41:30] It doesn't look like it. I don't know.
[6:41:35] Would that be like your run-of-the-mill school fight?
[6:41:38] So-
[6:41:38] Or would it be if a fight sort of escalated to
[6:41:42] something where a student was seriously injured, or a weapon was
[6:41:46] used?
[6:41:46] I think there's a fair
[6:41:50] amount of discretion in some of these instances where-- And I'm not
[6:41:54] an expert on what people at school personnel are going to do.
[6:41:56] Certainly, there's some level where a fight would elevate to an assault, and
[6:42:00] there's probably some level where they would decide it didn't.
[6:42:04] But I do think there's going to be some discretion on an incident-by-incident basis
[6:42:08] as to what school personnel are going to report.
[6:42:11] This may or may not be the source of your question, Mike, but it could be feeding
[6:42:14] into the question of how are we going to develop reporting guidelines that we can
[6:42:17] trust.
[6:42:19] There are certain thresholds where you could require reporting, for example, if the
[6:42:22] police have to be called or if certain types of things happen
[6:42:26] that require notifying building personnel and things like that.
[6:42:29] But there is going to be a gray area in this about what a violent
[6:42:33] act is. I don't know.
[6:42:34] And local school boards would generally have a policy in place that says when the
[6:42:38] administration is supposed to contact-
[6:42:41] Enforcement
[6:42:41] ... yeah, law enforcement. That's
[6:42:44] for the most part, or?
[6:42:45] There are some statutory requirements for reporting to law
[6:42:49] enforcement, and then there are also some requirements for board
[6:42:52] policy around other reporting and disclosures, yeah.
[6:42:59] Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about Arkansas.
[6:43:02] Arkansas, and
[6:43:03] I guess I'll say... Oh, are we okay?
[6:43:06] Arkansas, I think, is the only state I'm aware of that
[6:43:10] is implementing this with some degree of,
[6:43:15] I want to say fidelity. I can't even say that much.
[6:43:17] They're the only ones that are meaningfully identifying unsafe schools.
[6:43:21] I'll get to some numbers in a second.
[6:43:23] I'll just say them now since I'm thinking of it, but I believe in '23,
[6:43:27] '24, 25 schools across the country were identified as
[6:43:30] persistently dangerous. 15 of those were in Arkansas.
[6:43:33] So they have a real rule. And they do things a little differently
[6:43:37] than what we're suggesting, and again, it's a soft suggestion because we don't
[6:43:41] have great data, but they have a narrower definition of violent incidents.
[6:43:45] You could certainly take the list that you're starting with DESE, and you could
[6:43:48] pare it down and kind of mimic their approach there.
[6:43:52] The other thing about Arkansas, the top bullet there is some numbers
[6:43:56] on there identifying persistently dangerous schools.
[6:43:59] The language we provided to you follows in the language that we already had in
[6:44:03] Missouri, which is a trigger to identify a persistently dangerous school.
[6:44:07] If you have a certain number of things happen, you're a persistently dangerous
[6:44:09] school. What Arkansas does is their criteria trigger a
[6:44:13] process. So if you have a certain number of incidents that
[6:44:18] are problematic, then the superintendent and local school
[6:44:21] board can submit a letter to Arkansas's Department of Elementary and
[6:44:25] Secondary Education. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reviews
[6:44:29] that letter, talks to other LEAs, and makes some sort of decision.
[6:44:33] So the events trigger a process, not
[6:44:35] a hard hit. And going
[6:44:39] back to the question earlier, you might have a situation, maybe there's a big brawl
[6:44:42] at school and 30 kids get charged with assault, but things
[6:44:46] don't usually happen that are bad.
[6:44:47] Maybe that's an incident where you would have a special circumstance where a school
[6:44:51] might meet the number, but not be something you'd want to designate as persistently
[6:44:54] dangerous. At any rate, something like that could be done.
[6:44:59] You just want to maintain a rigorous process that does not allow persistently
[6:45:02] dangerous schools to continue to get a pass.
[6:45:04] And that is all we prepared. There's our contact information, and we're happy to
[6:45:08] take any questions if folks have them.
[6:45:13] Yeah, just a couple of comments really for the board.
[6:45:17] I think we all talk with people
[6:45:21] about any number of issues all the time, right?
[6:45:24] And
[6:45:25] I know I've had a couple of conversations with Corey over the last year about a
[6:45:29] number of issues, and
[6:45:31] this was one that
[6:45:33] really got my interest. I thought, well, here's this
[6:45:37] requirement that there's never been a designation of an
[6:45:41] unsafe school in Missouri and most states, right, as Corey
[6:45:45] said.
[6:45:49] So part of adding this to
[6:45:53] the agenda was I thought it was something that the full board would be
[6:45:57] interested in at least hearing about,
[6:46:00] and then also show the board that we have a process now where any board
[6:46:04] member can add something to the agenda, right?
[6:46:06] If you're meeting with someone and you think it's an issue that the
[6:46:10] board should hear about,
[6:46:12] add it to the agenda, and that's kind of part of this.
[6:46:15] But one of the things that Corey and I, what really got me was I think
[6:46:19] our initial discussion was,
[6:46:22] well, if a school has expelled 10 people,
[6:46:26] is that a dangerous school, right?
[6:46:28] It's more maybe the schools that have these incidences
[6:46:32] that are not expelling students. And I
[6:46:35] think that is what Corey and
[6:46:39] Rhiannon are kind of getting at here is
[6:46:42] how do we
[6:46:45] find a balance there, right? And I know Corey and I were talking about these
[6:46:48] numbers, and it's just a starting point, right? It's an idea.
[6:46:52] It could be tweaked if it ever goes to a rulemaking or whatever that
[6:46:55] process looks like. But again, I thought this was an interesting one.
[6:46:59] I agree completely. If you don't have a safe
[6:47:04] learning environment and you have fights or assaults or people
[6:47:08] bringing weapons to school, how the hell can a student learn in an environment like
[6:47:12] that? And so,
[6:47:14] we know that little disruptions in the classroom, right, create a lot of
[6:47:18] issues for everyone, and some of these where there is violence involved.
[6:47:23] So I thought it was an interesting issue
[6:47:25] that they brought up, and that's why I wanted to put it on the agenda, just so
[6:47:29] people could hear it. And in my opinion, it's something we really have two
[6:47:33] choices, right? We just do nothing and leave it where it's
[6:47:37] at and sort of disregard or ignore what
[6:47:41] the federal requirements say,
[6:47:44] or we actually take a look at it and see if there's a way we can look at what other
[6:47:47] states have done and address it in some meaningful way.
[6:47:50] So that was really why I thought this was a good agenda item,
[6:47:53] and want to thank you both for coming and presenting on this.
[6:47:56] I think it's a good issue.
[6:47:59] So,
[6:48:01] Mrs. Case.
[6:48:02] Thank you. First of all, Corey, great to see you again, and very nice to meet you,
[6:48:06] and thank you for the presentation.
[6:48:07] Mike, I think it's great, and thank you for driving this.
[6:48:11] And it definitely just underscores, even from a budget discussion,
[6:48:15] what we need to do about student behavior in the classroom.
[6:48:18] While there's
[6:48:22] overlapping between just general student behavior
[6:48:26] and things we need to address there versus the safe
[6:48:30] school initiatives and the rule that we're talking about here.
[6:48:34] But it also coincides with what we mentioned earlier we're seeing in other
[6:48:38] states that are addressing bullying.
[6:48:39] Again, only one aspect of what's going on in schools,
[6:48:43] potentially. So it is an area that's very important, and everything
[6:48:47] is connected, and I'm grateful that you brought it forward.
[6:48:51] Yeah.
[6:48:53] Dr. Shaw.
[6:48:54] Just a thought for conversation.
[6:48:57] When you mentioned Arkansas and what they were doing, just from a healthcare
[6:49:00] perspective, it kind of reminds me of quality and safety committees
[6:49:04] and the system and organization. We talk a lot about
[6:49:07] quality, and this is the safety aspect.
[6:49:10] So in a hospital structure
[6:49:13] that has a bigger tier,
[6:49:15] you'll have a patient fall or someone have
[6:49:19] a low blood sugar or a seizure,
[6:49:22] name your issue or outcome,
[6:49:25] and then
[6:49:26] if you do it right, that event happens, you have a team either on the
[6:49:30] floor or the hallway or wherever that comes together and has a huddle
[6:49:34] that minute, and then later talks about it, takes it up the flag
[6:49:38] pole, says, "Okay, what could we have done? How did this escalate?
[6:49:41] Why did this happen?" So if it's a fight,
[6:49:44] what's the deal with that kid? Behaviors previously.
[6:49:47] Is it a hallway encroachment? Did the kid bring a weapon to school?
[6:49:50] How could we have kept that from happening? Is it a doorway issue?
[6:49:54] 20,000 things, but it's just a system approach that
[6:49:57] maybe it would go to legislative priorities committee or something else
[6:50:01] to kind of start that conversation.
[6:50:04] Yeah, absolutely. And as a parent with two kids
[6:50:08] in school, school safety is-
[6:50:11] Mm
[6:50:12] ... every day I drop my kids off at school, right?
[6:50:14] I want to be sure I can pick them up in the afternoon.
[6:50:17] And I'm fortunate that we were in the Platte County School District,
[6:50:21] pretty safe school district. We live in Park Hill, right?
[6:50:25] Probably has their share of fights, but it's
[6:50:28] what, 14,000 students or something. So it's a big district.
[6:50:32] You're going to expect fights and things like that, but
[6:50:35] I imagine... To me, this was like
[6:50:39] accreditation in a sense, and I'll tell you why.
[6:50:42] So,
[6:50:43] the
[6:50:47] worst-performing school districts in the state are
[6:50:51] unaccredited, right? Generally speaking.
[6:50:53] And this is kind of the same thing, right?
[6:50:55] There's going to be schools that are dangerous, and they've
[6:50:59] never had that designation, and students are just stuck.
[6:51:04] And maybe in Kansas City and St. Louis, it's a little
[6:51:08] different because there is that charter school option already.
[6:51:13] But
[6:51:16] I just think this is a worthwhile issue.
[6:51:19] I think it's something... It doesn't require legislative action.
[6:51:23] It's something that the board could direct DESE to.
[6:51:25] I'm not saying that's what we should do, but
[6:51:28] for consideration and for next steps, it could be something the
[6:51:31] legislative committee takes a look at, or one of the other committees,
[6:51:35] to see if this is something that we want to try and clean up.
[6:51:39] And what kind of a lift it is, how much does it cost?
[6:51:42] How long does the rulemaking process take?
[6:51:44] I just think this is something that I think
[6:51:48] is worthy of our consideration. So, and I would leave it with, it'd be nice
[6:51:52] to leave here with
[6:51:55] not any sort of guarantee on anything, but a potential next
[6:51:59] step, right? Is it the committee looking at it?
[6:52:01] Or is it, maybe in a couple of months, we just kind of revisit it to see if
[6:52:05] people have had time to think about it, and so...
[6:52:09] Yeah, just to follow up. I think this is a good example of kind of
[6:52:13] more of the administrative or quote, unquote, "boring stuff" that DESE is
[6:52:17] responsible for. But,
[6:52:19] no, I think 100%, this is something that the legislative committee
[6:52:22] should
[6:52:24] discuss and then come to the board
[6:52:28] with a recommendation at one of our next meetings and say, "Hey, we looked at this,
[6:52:32] we did some research, and we think this is
[6:52:34] something that we should fix." And then we would just direct the
[6:52:38] department to go through the regular rulemaking process, which
[6:52:42] we have outlined. And that's when we
[6:52:46] reviewed one today, for example.
[6:52:48] I'll visit with Commissioner Priest to see if we need legislation.
[6:52:51] I don't know that we-
[6:52:52] No, there isn't that.
[6:52:52] I don't know that we need it to enact, but I'll work with the commissioner on that.
[6:52:56] Yeah. No, we don't, and I was just going to say one thing.
[6:53:00] Were you finished?
[6:53:01] Yeah. No, I was just saying that that's kind of what our rulemaking-
[6:53:04] Yeah
[6:53:04] ... process that we- ... don't really talk about that much, but that's one of our
[6:53:07] big duties with... Like I said, it was on our agenda earlier.
[6:53:10] We reviewed one. So this would fall under that
[6:53:13] umbrella.
[6:53:14] So,
[6:53:15] Deputy Commissioner Serino and I met with Dr.
[6:53:18] Codell, actually, to talk about this a little bit, and I had a couple of big
[6:53:21] takeaways. One was,
[6:53:24] being able to identify as persistently dangerous, one of the problems is
[6:53:28] that a lot of definitions rely on expulsion, and schools don't do that
[6:53:32] anymore. So that ends up being... So talking about identifying based
[6:53:36] on the incident and not the punishment, right?
[6:53:39] That would be-
[6:53:40] Right
[6:53:40] ... a good first step. I think determining, there are some
[6:53:44] numbers on your page as a place to start, but
[6:53:47] how much is persistently? What kind of ratio are you looking for to think
[6:53:51] about that? And then the other big takeaway I had was we will work closely with
[6:53:55] our LEAs on better data submission and making sure that we have clean
[6:53:59] data, because we're not going to be able to do anything with this if we don't
[6:54:01] really know what kinds of things are happening.
[6:54:04] So that's all I would say.
[6:54:05] And that's a question I had. Do we get incident
[6:54:08] reports from school districts too?
[6:54:12] Not individual incident reports, no.
[6:54:14] Do you want to talk just a little bit about how they report?
[6:54:17] Sure.
[6:54:18] Right. The individual reports would be things that if they're
[6:54:21] required to report to local law enforcement.
[6:54:24] So that would be between the
[6:54:27] LEA and local law enforcement. They're required to
[6:54:31] report incidents to us in the June
[6:54:35] core data submission. So we would see reports of
[6:54:39] those incidents each year for the prior school
[6:54:42] year,
[6:54:44] and that's how we're capturing the data.
[6:54:46] On that screen 32, or I think it's screen 32, but
[6:54:50] on one page of that handout, that list,
[6:54:54] we would capture those once a year from school districts.
[6:54:57] Okay.
[6:54:58] Can I interject one thing? So those are the data that are not very reliable right
[6:55:02] now. So something would have to be done to work on how to
[6:55:06] get the data sent in reliably to DESE.
[6:55:08] And why is it
[6:55:10] not? Is it just under-reporting or not reporting?
[6:55:13] Or why is it not reliable?
[6:55:16] So I, without speaking for Dr. Codell,
[6:55:20] when I looked at the data, I just saw anomalies in the data that didn't make sense.
[6:55:25] In a few places, I think the same things that you saw.
[6:55:29] So an extreme example, you see schools that have five violent
[6:55:32] incidents one year and 186 the next year.
[6:55:36] I think there's a lot of data elements DESE collects from all these LEAs.
[6:55:40] They're all, it's individual people at each LEA
[6:55:43] submitting this information, and I think it's a data element that we
[6:55:47] haven't paid much attention to. And so I think data elements like that in DESE's
[6:55:51] system, folks at DESE can probably communicate this better than me, but those kind
[6:55:55] of data elements where no one's paying attention to them often are not as reliable
[6:55:59] as the data elements that everyone's looking at
[6:56:01] I think this particular element is not
[6:56:05] like some of those that
[6:56:08] there's a correction window or an appeal window.
[6:56:11] So the data are reported, we see an
[6:56:14] anomaly. Someone picked up the phone in a
[6:56:18] couple of cases when we were comparing notes about the data.
[6:56:22] And so our staff had previously looked at those data, picked
[6:56:26] up the phone and asked the district, "What's happening here?"
[6:56:29] And in both cases, the district said, "Oh, well, we
[6:56:34] misreported." And they over-reported
[6:56:37] by a whole lot.
[6:56:39] But we didn't have a mechanism for correcting that
[6:56:43] data after the fact in our system. So that's a
[6:56:47] flaw in our system. And then certainly, that
[6:56:51] regular validation on our part, training
[6:56:56] district folks who are responsible for
[6:56:59] entering that data
[6:57:01] is something else that we can improve on, too.
[6:57:06] Would this be a big administrative burden for a district to
[6:57:10] better report?
[6:57:12] I
[6:57:12] hate
[6:57:16] to speak for our school districts.
[6:57:18] I think it
[6:57:19] should not be.
[6:57:22] But in the big scheme of all the data that they're reporting, I think a lot
[6:57:26] of it depends on the size of the district and the
[6:57:29] resources that are available to them.
[6:57:32] We know that our larger districts have staff that are just dedicated
[6:57:36] to these types of things. And then in some of our
[6:57:39] smaller districts,
[6:57:42] it's somebody who is wearing a lot of different hats and may
[6:57:46] not have a sense that, "Oh,
[6:57:48] I'm entering this number,
[6:57:52] and it's way out of range." They don't have context for
[6:57:56] it.
[6:57:58] So I think it wouldn't seem
[6:58:01] like it should be a huge lift.
[6:58:04] As a former teacher, I would say that I would've loved for it to
[6:58:08] be reported so that resources were given.
[6:58:11] And to kind of give you a different instance of relevance as well,
[6:58:16] we've been here for a few hours listening and I'm hearing about the grade card
[6:58:20] coming up for schools. And as a former teacher, I can tell you that your
[6:58:24] schools that'll come in on your lower grades will probably be your most
[6:58:27] violent schools that you have.
[6:58:30] And I was drilled in university that Maslow's hierarchy,
[6:58:34] right? Our kids have to feel safe and secure before they can
[6:58:38] even learn. So really, this is a root of how you can grow to make sure
[6:58:42] that all of those grade cards are coming in as As.
[6:58:48] So,
[6:58:49] is there any other comments?
[6:58:51] Yeah, just one clarifying thing. So I kind
[6:58:55] of just shoved this under the legislative committee, but
[6:58:58] we can skip that step if it's something that we can
[6:59:02] directly talk-- It sounds like you guys have already been working on it, and so
[6:59:05] if that's just something-
[6:59:07] Yes. Mm-hmm
[6:59:07] ... that, yeah, we don't even need to have-
[6:59:08] Yeah.
[6:59:09] You know.
[6:59:09] We can certainly bring something back for a proposal.
[6:59:11] Yeah, that's what I-
[6:59:12] We'll do the legwork and bring it back.
[6:59:14] Yeah, I think that would be helpful, so...
[6:59:18] Very much so.
[6:59:19] Yeah. Thank you both for coming, and this was very good. Thank you.
[6:59:23] Thank you.
[6:59:23] Thank you.
[6:59:24] Thanks for your time.
[6:59:24] Thank you.
[6:59:29] Megan Fork.
[6:59:34] Welcome, Megan. It's good to have you here.
[6:59:52] Hello, my name's Megan Fork. I am chief counsel for
[6:59:56] Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
[6:59:59] I have one item
[7:00:02] for the agenda about licensure. Before I get
[7:00:06] into the item, we do have some new board members, so I want to
[7:00:09] clarify what we are going to be talking about when I talk about licensure with you
[7:00:13] and how that works a little bit. I know we are late, and so I'll be
[7:00:17] as brief as I can.
[7:00:20] So,
[7:00:22] 168.071 is the statute that grants
[7:00:26] you guys, the board, the power to refuse to issue
[7:00:30] licenses, to revoke or to suspend existing licenses.
[7:00:34] It also grants you guys the sole authority to
[7:00:38] grant licenses when there is a felony or a crime of
[7:00:42] moral turpitude in their history.
[7:00:44] So we essentially will bring to you three types of cases.
[7:00:48] The first is where we have denied a license
[7:00:52] based on
[7:00:54] their criminal history. They have the opportunity to
[7:00:58] appeal our denial to the commissioner, and then that
[7:01:02] appeal, they can then appeal that to the board.
[7:01:05] We also will bring you
[7:01:08] discipline for a license where someone has committed a
[7:01:12] felony or a crime of moral turpitude while holding a
[7:01:16] license. When that happens, that is
[7:01:20] first brought as a complaint
[7:01:22] on the behalf of either a school board or DESE.
[7:01:26] That complaint is brought to a hearing officer.
[7:01:29] The hearing officer will issue their decision.
[7:01:32] That decision is just a preliminary decision.
[7:01:35] You all at the board have to approve that decision.
[7:01:40] And then finally, we will also be bringing you
[7:01:44] licenses where we are recommending that you
[7:01:48] grant a license despite the fact that there is a felony or a
[7:01:52] crime of moral turpitude. Um, it's also a
[7:01:56] little confusing sometimes because I will talk to you in open about some of
[7:02:00] these and in closed about some of these.
[7:02:02] That just has to do with whether the crime that we're talking about,
[7:02:06] whether the felony we're talking about,
[7:02:09] is on their official record or not.
[7:02:11] The statute allows us to take these actions whether or not sentence has been
[7:02:15] imposed. And so if they have a suspended
[7:02:18] imposition of sentence,
[7:02:21] that is not something that is public, so we would talk about
[7:02:25] that in closed. We also might otherwise close if there's
[7:02:28] something else about the crime that is sensitive, that
[7:02:33] it's been expunged or something along those lines.
[7:02:37] So that is the background of licensure.
[7:02:40] I have
[7:02:41] one to discuss with you all first.
[7:02:44] Yes, absolutely.
[7:02:44] So this,
[7:02:46] maybe you said it, but the vote on these has to be unanimous.
[7:02:51] Correct.
[7:02:51] So if any one board member
[7:02:55] disagrees with it, then yeah.
[7:02:57] And that vote will happen by roll call.
[7:02:59] Yep.
[7:02:59] And has to be unanimous for us to act on it.
[7:03:05] So the first one I'll bring to you guys is
[7:03:09] the case of
[7:03:12] Sheridan Powell.
[7:03:14] She has a content substitute teacher
[7:03:18] certificate, which is set to expire in September of
[7:03:21] 2027.
[7:03:23] She pled guilty to a Class A misdemeanor of fraudulent
[7:03:27] procurement of a credit or debit card,
[7:03:31] and she was sentenced to 60 days in Green County Jail.
[7:03:34] She had a suspended execution of sentence,
[7:03:38] which is different than a suspended imposition of sentence,
[7:03:42] but essentially means she is on probation.
[7:03:45] And then if she violates that probation, then she would serve that sentence.
[7:03:52] She had a hearing in front of the hearing officer
[7:03:55] about
[7:03:57] this issue,
[7:03:58] and she
[7:04:00] admitted to her fault in this incident,
[7:04:04] and had testified that she had already completed the
[7:04:08] community service. That was verified as well.
[7:04:12] It is the recommendation of the department that we
[7:04:16] suspend Ms. Powell's certificate for a period of one year
[7:04:22] preceding that hearing, which was in March of 2026.
[7:04:26] And so that is the recommendation of the board for this
[7:04:30] one. This is a little bit different than those other ones.
[7:04:34] So we are recommending a suspension in this case
[7:04:38] for one year,
[7:04:39] given the
[7:04:43] breadth of the crime as well as her actions since
[7:04:47] that has taken place.
[7:04:50] Question, what would the period of the year be, beginning from when to
[7:04:54] when?
[7:04:54] It would begin from the date of the
[7:04:58] hearing,
[7:04:59] which was March of this year, through March 24th,
[7:05:03] 2027. That also gives chance for that
[7:05:07] probationary period to pass as well.
[7:05:11] She is on probation through October of this year,
[7:05:15] so we would know that she has successfully completed-
[7:05:17] If we suspend for one year, does it come back before review at the end
[7:05:21] of that year? Not necessarily to our level, but come within
[7:05:25] the process for review again by appropriate team
[7:05:29] members at the conclusion of the year's suspension, or is it
[7:05:32] automatically?
[7:05:35] So it depends on whether or not that
[7:05:38] person's certification expired during the
[7:05:42] suspension. If it expired during the suspension,
[7:05:47] then that person would actually have to apply
[7:05:51] again, and everything would be reviewed at that point.
[7:05:56] If the certification
[7:06:00] would have normally been maintained
[7:06:02] during that period of time,
[7:06:05] we would
[7:06:07] just turn it on again,
[7:06:10] basically, reissue.
[7:06:13] And it appears that her
[7:06:15] teaching certificate would expire September 29th of 2027.
[7:06:19] So it would automatically turn on as-
[7:06:23] It would require a reapplication at the end of that.
[7:06:25] It would not.
[7:06:26] It would not. Because we're going through March-
[7:06:27] March
[7:06:27] ... of '27, and it doesn't expire until September of '27.
[7:06:32] But if there's obviously another infraction-
[7:06:34] Certainly
[7:06:35] ... crime appropriate, it comes through the process.
[7:06:38] So I've got a question. I believe due to alphabetical order, I'll
[7:06:42] probably have to go first. So I just want to make sure.
[7:06:45] You set the tone.
[7:06:46] Well,
[7:06:47] so
[7:06:49] as the gentleman explained,
[7:06:52] you're suggesting a one-year suspension.
[7:06:55] And if everything goes well,
[7:06:59] because she's still under contract, or her certification, this will
[7:07:03] exist until 2027, there will be
[7:07:07] no coming back to the board for a revote,
[7:07:11] essentially. She'll just be able to continue on with employment.
[7:07:15] So this vote is just for
[7:07:18] suspension for a year based on the crimes. Okay.
[7:07:23] I'm
[7:07:27] struggling with this one a little bit.
[7:07:29] Usually, these are pretty easy.
[7:07:34] So she stole a debit card.
[7:07:36] Correct.
[7:07:38] So
[7:07:40] according to the documents and the criminal charges that were
[7:07:43] reviewed,
[7:07:45] we
[7:07:47] do not have evidence to say that she's the one who stole it.
[7:07:50] She received a stolen debit card from someone and
[7:07:54] utilized that card
[7:07:56] It is unclear how much she knew about where that card, where that
[7:08:00] came from.
[7:08:01] And I was trying to scroll through this, but is there a dollar amount
[7:08:05] of how much? Any idea?
[7:08:08] 550 bucks. I
[7:08:11] don't
[7:08:17] want my debit card stolen, and nobody does.
[7:08:22] I don't know if I can wrap my head around
[7:08:26] suspending
[7:08:27] basically part of her livelihood, presumably.
[7:08:31] But maybe that's ignoring the person who's had their debit card stolen, too.
[7:08:36] This one I'm struggling with.
[7:08:37] I think,
[7:08:39] if I may, these are heard in front of a hearing officer, and so I am
[7:08:43] inputting my--
[7:08:46] trying to think through what he was thinking, right?
[7:08:49] And I think my impression is that
[7:08:53] Dr. Neal was probably struggling with the same things you are, right?
[7:08:57] And I think that's why, typically speaking, I have seen
[7:09:01] either we
[7:09:04] take away their license altogether or we do nothing.
[7:09:08] That's typically what I see and what I think we typically
[7:09:11] do. And so I think that Dr. Neal was struggling with the same things you are
[7:09:15] in saying, "Okay, so let's
[7:09:18] do a middle path on this one."
[7:09:21] Which is the suspension, but is
[7:09:25] that a middle path?
[7:09:26] Thinking
[7:09:31] about some of the other certificate issues we've dealt with,
[7:09:35] whether it's reinstating or whatever, I'm
[7:09:40] having a hard time seeing this as more serious
[7:09:44] than other stuff.
[7:09:47] Has there been any recommendations?
[7:09:51] Where is she currently working? He or she.
[7:09:55] Let me check.
[7:09:57] And my question is, have there been letters of
[7:10:01] recommendation received from that as part of the case,
[7:10:05] if you will, in the case review from
[7:10:09] either her workplace, her church, or the community in
[7:10:13] support?
[7:10:15] And I will say I'm trying to find them currently-
[7:10:19] Mm-hmm
[7:10:19] ... but that is part of the record that is reviewed-
[7:10:23] Uh-huh
[7:10:23] ... by the hearing officer, and that is those
[7:10:27] letters.
[7:10:27] Yeah. Normally we hear about them.
[7:10:29] It kind of
[7:10:31] expands on our understanding
[7:10:34] of the person in the case, not just the fact of the
[7:10:38] crime.
[7:10:39] And how long has she had her
[7:10:43] license?
[7:11:04] Why are you looking at Robbie?
[7:11:05] Yeah. And this is more educational as opposed to
[7:11:09] presenting this forward. Do we have to go up or down on what was
[7:11:13] recommended, or could we say we want her suspended till her
[7:11:16] probation's over? Do we have that option?
[7:11:20] Yeah, you can change the amount of time.
[7:11:22] It was 1,100 on the card.
[7:11:24] Yeah. It was 1,100.
[7:11:27] 1,100.
[7:11:31] Is she a substitute teacher, did you say?
[7:11:33] That's correct.
[7:11:36] So if I'm understanding this correctly,
[7:11:39] we can suggest or recommend a new
[7:11:42] suspension time.
[7:11:45] So we can say,
[7:11:47] "Hey,"
[7:11:49] I'd say,
[7:11:51] "I'd like her to be suspended for a month,"
[7:11:54] and that would have to then, what,
[7:11:56] go through our vote, and would it go back to the drawing board for
[7:12:00] another hearing, or that's it?
[7:12:04] No.
[7:12:05] So the hearing is essentially
[7:12:08] the department's review and us making a recommendation
[7:12:12] to you. You can
[7:12:16] adopt that recommendation. You can alter that recommendation.
[7:12:20] You can toss it in the trash. All of those are options available to
[7:12:24] you.
[7:12:25] You could unanimously vote to... Or
[7:12:29] sorry, not unanimously vote. You could vote for her to continue
[7:12:33] without any discipline. You could vote for her to
[7:12:38] have a harsher discipline or a lesser discipline. Yes.
[7:12:41] Okay.
[7:12:41] So being on probation,
[7:12:45] if we voted so she could go
[7:12:48] teach tomorrow, even though she's under probation, if we so voted.
[7:12:52] Is that accurate?
[7:12:54] Yes.
[7:12:54] How long's her probation until?
[7:12:56] It is through
[7:13:00] September. Oh, sorry, through October of this
[7:13:04] year.
[7:13:04] October 1st, is it?
[7:13:06] October 21st.
[7:13:07] October 21st, so like two months from now.
[7:13:09] She's had her license for three years.
[7:13:12] It's a substitute license, right?
[7:13:13] So is she working-
[7:13:14] Since '23
[7:13:15] ...
[7:13:16] right now? I don't know if you
[7:13:19] know that, but...
[7:13:21] While she's on probation, can she be teaching?
[7:13:28] Mm-hmm.
[7:13:28] Yes.
[7:13:28] Okay.
[7:13:29] Absolutely.
[7:13:29] Makes sense.
[7:13:31] On probation.
[7:13:35] Can you bring this back to us and check out these answers and come back to us in
[7:13:38] September?
[7:13:39] Yeah.
[7:13:40] We'll help.
[7:13:43] I do have their letters.
[7:13:47] She has a letter from the Monett School District.
[7:13:51] She says that the person who writes it is the
[7:13:54] superintendent, and he states that
[7:14:00] She has been open and transparent with the district throughout the process.
[7:14:04] Um, she self-reported the situation promptly and continues to keep the district
[7:14:07] informed as the court proceedings.
[7:14:11] He says her honesty and willingness to communicate demonstrate professionalism and
[7:14:15] accountability during a difficult circumstance.
[7:14:18] I move that we take no action.
[7:14:21] Second.
[7:14:22] Well, I don't think we need a motion. We just vote no on the recommendation.
[7:14:27] Is that right?
[7:14:27] Which is-
[7:14:28] Yeah
[7:14:29] ... what I'm saying-
[7:14:30] Yeah
[7:14:30] ... take no action.
[7:14:30] Yeah.
[7:14:30] No on the recommendation.
[7:14:31] Oh, oh.
[7:14:31] Yeah, kind of thing.
[7:14:32] Yeah, just-
[7:14:33] You're right.
[7:14:33] Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.
[7:14:34] So she's just allowed to work on October the 21st?
[7:14:38] Mm-hmm.
[7:14:38] Yeah.
[7:14:39] No, she would be allowed to work now.
[7:14:41] She can go back tomorrow.
[7:14:42] Okay.
[7:14:42] Yeah.
[7:14:43] Okay, so her probation is over.
[7:14:44] Right now.
[7:14:45] Got it.
[7:14:45] Yeah.
[7:14:47] I think-
[7:14:47] So is this something that needs a roll call vote, or is it just
[7:14:51] the same as taking no action, or does it-
[7:14:53] We need a roll call.
[7:14:54] It needs a roll call, yeah. It needs a roll call.
[7:14:55] It's a roll call vote, and even one no would kill the recommendation.
[7:14:58] Yeah.
[7:14:59] Gotcha.
[7:15:00] No pressure, Jordan.
[7:15:02] Mr. Bradberry?
[7:15:04] Aye.
[7:15:04] Hold it, hold it.
[7:15:05] Hold it. We should make sure we have a proper motion on the floor.
[7:15:08] Yeah.
[7:15:08] Okay.
[7:15:09] Well, we don't need the... You're voting on the recommendation-
[7:15:13] Yeah
[7:15:13] ... which is to, for the one year. So you either are in favor or not.
[7:15:15] And my motion is that we decline
[7:15:19] that recommendation and do not-
[7:15:21] Oh, no.
[7:15:22] But I think you just-
[7:15:24] Well, somebody just do the motion to-
[7:15:25] It takes it.
[7:15:27] So moved.
[7:15:29] And then second, and then we vote, and we all vote no.
[7:15:32] So restate the motion as it-
[7:15:34] Yeah
[7:15:36] ... as a motion.
[7:15:36] I think the recommendation is one
[7:15:40] year. If any one of you says no, then that
[7:15:44] recommendation won't be followed. So you don't need a motion, it's just a vote.
[7:15:48] So just no takes away-
[7:15:51] One no takes away the recommendation
[7:15:52] ... and then she can go on to work-
[7:15:54] Correct
[7:15:54] ... tomorrow if she'd like.
[7:15:56] Correct.
[7:15:56] Okay.
[7:15:57] Mr. Bradberry?
[7:15:59] Aye.
[7:16:03] I'm sorry.
[7:16:04] You were going to say, "I needed a minute."
[7:16:07] Yeah. It's a lot. I vote no.
[7:16:10] There you go.
[7:16:13] We've got to-
[7:16:13] We still do the roll, I think, don't we?
[7:16:15] Probably.
[7:16:15] Ms. Casey?
[7:16:16] No.
[7:16:16] Mr. Matusik?
[7:16:17] No.
[7:16:17] Mr. Miller?
[7:16:18] No.
[7:16:19] Mr. Myers?
[7:16:19] No.
[7:16:20] Mr. Otto?
[7:16:21] No.
[7:16:21] Mr. Shamel?
[7:16:23] No.
[7:16:23] Dr. Scholl?
[7:16:24] No.
[7:16:26] All right. And I do want to...
[7:16:28] Eric Avon, the gentleman behind me that we keep turning to, is the head of educator
[7:16:31] certification. Conduct investigations is under him.
[7:16:34] They're the ones that pour through all of the records and the details, so I want to
[7:16:38] make sure you know who he is.
[7:16:43] We appreciate your work. I think we just-
[7:16:46] Yeah
[7:16:46] ... saw a little more compassion, too.
[7:16:51] Should do those at the beginning.
[7:16:55] I want to raise just a rules process. No one made a motion.
[7:16:59] The recommendation was there, but you still have to make a motion and second it,
[7:17:02] and then vote. You just can't vote on a recommendation.
[7:17:06] So I think while we-
[7:17:08] It's usually a motion to accept the recommendation or-
[7:17:11] And that's what I'm saying.
[7:17:12] Yeah.
[7:17:12] I made a motion to-
[7:17:13] So I have-
[7:17:13] ... decline the recommendation. So either way, we can accept the recommendation,
[7:17:17] second it, and all vote no, or we can-
[7:17:20] Which is what we just did.
[7:17:21] Yeah
[7:17:21] ... no, but no one made a motion.
[7:17:22] Yeah, I thought you-
[7:17:23] No.
[7:17:23] I thought you made a motion.
[7:17:24] I thought you had-
[7:17:25] But it was-
[7:17:26] You said so moved.
[7:17:26] I said I moved.
[7:17:27] Right, but
[7:17:29] you all said that wasn't needed, and it was not the motion.
[7:17:31] You're right, you're right. We needed a motion.
[7:17:33] Just to clarify.
[7:17:34] If I could weigh in.
[7:17:36] A motion to not do something is not generally considered
[7:17:40] appropriate. You make a motion to do something.
[7:17:43] So in this case, I would suggest the motion would be to approve the recommendation-
[7:17:47] And then vote against it
[7:17:48] ... and then you vote against it.
[7:17:49] So can we just-
[7:17:50] It's okay to make a motion and then vote against your own motion.
[7:17:53] Yeah.
[7:17:53] That's-
[7:17:53] So can we just let the record reflect that Carrie
[7:17:57] moved-
[7:17:58] I seconded it
[7:17:59] ... he seconded, and then we all voted no.
[7:18:00] And that's the clarity we needed.
[7:18:02] Yeah, I think that is the correct procedure.
[7:18:04] Thank you.
[7:18:04] Thank you.
[7:18:06] Okay, second item you have?
[7:18:08] Uh, I do have a second item. That we have gotten some new
[7:18:12] information, we need to move that to closed.
[7:18:14] Okay.
[7:18:15] Very good. So that's where we're at right now, and
[7:18:19] I'll excuse the gallery from the next closed session.
[7:18:24] Oh, hold on.
[7:18:24] We need to meet-
[7:18:24] We need to meet. I'll make the motion to go into closed session.
[7:18:27] I'll second.
[7:18:28] Second.
[7:18:28] Well, now I have to read it. Sorry.
[7:18:30] No.
[7:18:30] There's a more formal process for this one, so.
[7:18:33] Yeah, yeah.
[7:18:33] I move that the State Board of Education go into closed session as posted
[7:18:37] by the executive assistant to consider the following items: legal actions,
[7:18:41] causes of actions, litigation, or legal work product relating to the State Board of
[7:18:45] Education and the Department of
[7:18:47] Elementary and Secondary Education, as well as any confidential or privileged
[7:18:51] communication between those entities and legal counsel, individually
[7:18:55] identifiable personnel records, performance ratings, or records
[7:18:59] pertaining to employees or applicants for employment, and criminal records closed
[7:19:02] by law.
[7:19:04] Is there a second to that motion?
[7:19:05] I'm not seconding to that.
[7:19:08] Yeah.
[7:19:08] We didn't-
[7:19:08] I'll second that.
[7:19:11] All right. Now we need a roll call.
[7:19:12] Mr. Bradberry?
[7:19:14] Yes.
[7:19:14] Ms. Casey?
[7:19:15] Yes.
[7:19:16] Mr. Matusik?
[7:19:16] Yes.
[7:19:17] Mr. Miller?
[7:19:17] Yes.
[7:19:18] Mr. Myers?
[7:19:18] Yes.
[7:19:19] Mr. Otto?
[7:19:19] Yes.
[7:19:20] Mr. Shamel?
[7:19:21] Yes.
[7:19:21] Dr. Scholl?
[7:19:22] Yes.
[7:19:24] All right.
[7:19:25] Okay, so we've moved to closed session.
[7:19:27] And the teacher riveting