Mexico 59 Board of Education Update

Support Staff: Jennifer Nicholes is the Secretary to the Principal at Mexico High School and has been with the district for one year.

Per Board Policy KH: All gifts accepted will be reported to the Board of Education, publicly announced and appropriately acknowledged. The donor will be officially thanked in the district's name.

The following donations were made:

• Edward Baker donated $1,000 to the Heather Brandow Memorial Scholarship
• Members of the Union Baptist Church donated $84.00 to the Ray Heaton Scholarship
• Edmonston Foundation donated $2,500 to the Special Olympics
• Consolidated Cares donated $300 to the Special Olympics
• Griffin Family Foundation donated $500 to the Special Olympics
• Miller Tire donated $150 to the Special Olympics
• Julie Lower donated $100 to the Special Olympics

• Morenet Service Agreement. The District is maxing out the bandwidth daily. We need to upgrade to 2.5GB in order to continue to have enough bandwidth to operate. We are currently at 1GB bandwidth. The bandwidth requirements and usage will increase when student testing starts in the spring.
• TherapyLog 2023-24 School Services Contract . As part of state and federal requirements for Special Education services, Functional Behavioral Assessments (FBA) may be required for individual students. FBA's are a process for identifying behaviors and developing interventions to improve or eliminate those behaviors. There is no one local that can provide these services.
  
• Music and Arts Commercial Application. Our Music Department needs to purchase items from Music and Arts. The company requires the commercial application to be completed and returned prior to the district purchasing items.
• Foster Grandparent MOU. Eugene Field currently hosts the Foster Grandparent volunteers. Their Memorandum of Understanding needs to be updated every three years.

Hart Career Center offered a building share this month. Mr. Denham spoke about the current programs and how they fit into the Career Clusters. He also discussed strengths, challenges, and current efforts at HCC.

Recent improvements include:

• Cosmetology salon renovations
• Welding program expansion
• Computer Science upgraded laptops to include AR/VR and added processing power
• Bingo's Biscuits in marketing/COE
• PLTW Engineering received an A+ grant and hopes to integrate a 3D printer in design and prototypes
• Ag welder replacements

Future program considerations:

• Construction - expanding large project opportunities
• Fire/EMT/Law Enforcement (exploratory stage only)
• Teacher Prep/Grow Your Own (exploratory stage only)

Bulldog staff are encouraged to read their Individual Building Reports as well:

• MELC
• EF
• HAW
• MMS
• MHS
• MEC
• HCC

Climate & Culture Survey Results: Stakeholder groups participated in the district's climate and culture survey on October 16-31. The results were sent to staff on November 16, offered to the board at the meeting, and included in the board packet as item #7C. The results are outlined in this document, including the three questions required by DESE.

Board Candidate Filing. Board filing for the April 2024 election is open from December 5 - December 26. Lennette Brown, Keith Louder, & Michelle Stephens have expiring terms. We will have two three-year terms and one two-year term open.

Holiday Reception. The annual holiday reception will be held on December 19, 2023 in the Board Room at Central Office.

• 4:15 PM Holiday Reception will begin
• 4:45 PM Pioneer Awards will be presented
• 5:30 PM Board of Education Regular Session will begin

HR Exit Interviews. A motion was made and approved to provide exit survey results to the board of education.

The board approved the hiring of the following individuals:

• Skylar Adams, Permanent Sub
• Kara Grantz, Paraprofessional
• Randall Tollett, Custodian
• Brittany Couch, Paraprofessional
• Susan Parrish, Permanent Sub

Rate changes and extra duties were also approved.

Informational personnel items were also offered to the Board.

Approval of the updated 2023-24 support staff pay document. The district recommended to add a support staff pay section for nurse aides with CMA certification (Certified Medical Assistant).

Strategic Plan/CSIP Update - Student Performance on State and Local Assessments (CSIP 14)

Dr. Miles presented a report on the district's iReady data. The report consists of 2023-2024 performance and compares it to the state average as well as to 2022-2023 performance.

The 2023-2024 assessments and results are valid and allow us to use the results to:

◦Create state mandated Reading Success Plans for students

◦Focus on learning acceleration for students

◦Provide evidence-based professional learning

◦Combine this data with state data to create profiles of student performance

Observations from the results:

◦Mexico #59 results are slightly below state results in both math and reading

◦Fall 2023 math and reading results are very similar to Fall 2022 math and reading results

◦2022-2023 math and reading results showed significant growth

The full PPT is available in the board agenda item #9a.

The district's facility team will meet this week and finalize/prioritize facility needs for each building.

Facilities Solutions Group (FSG) will have a final project list for a board vote at the December meeting. It is expected that the ballot language for an April 2024 bond will also be offered for approval in December.

As part of the district's CSIP, the board of education should determine a superintendent evaluation tool. An informational work session was held on November 9 with EGL to review the options for alignment with the evaluation tool.

The board of education discussed SMART goals from the 18 goals within the board-approved strategic plan. At least three items had to be chosen as areas of the superintendent evaluation; two of which are required to be aligned with student learning. A PPT with options for the tool is available as board agenda item #11A.

The board considered the past evaluative tool, long-range district planning, the district's strategic plan, and the DESE MSIP 6 requirements. The board made a motion and approved to evaluate the superintendent on the following areas from the strategic plan:

• Goal 1: Prepare for the long-range facility needs of the District.
• Goal 11: Create and sustain a positive culture and practices to retain and reward highly qualified personnel.
• Goal 12: Create explicit systems regarding student wellness, teaching, assessment, and learning in order to provide consistent and equitable learning opportunities across the District that propel student achievement, participation, and post-secondary options.
• Goal 14: Student performance on state and local assessments will continue to improve.
• Goal 16: Establish a plan to update curriculum offerings in order to engage students in career exploration.

In the Missouri Superintendent Standards, which form the basis for the Superintendent’s SMART goals, three additional categories are included in the Superintendent’s evaluation. The Board of Education determined they will evaluate these three additional categories (Relationship with the Board, Stakeholder Relations, and Professional Responsibilities) on a four-point scaled rubric of: Emerging, Developing, Effective, and Highly Effective.

The superintendent evaluation is completed in January each year.