This information includes highlights of information received by the Ladue Schools Board of Education at the September 13, 2021 regular Board of Education business meeting. This is an unofficial record. Official minutes of each Board meeting are posted on the district website and are available for viewing at the Administrative Center after the Board approves them, typically two weeks after the meeting.
Click here to view a recording from the September 13 Board Meeting
Board President Remarks
I don’t have much tonight but we did have a good workshop this past weekend along with Dr. Wipke and Dr. Zielinski focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training
Superintendent Remarks
Thank you to the Communications Department and Marteana Davidson for sharing that video
I want to let the Board and community know that our start to school has been very eventful and fulfilling on many accounts. Students started the year in-person and have gotten to participate in several familiar events including sports and activities. I know that means a lot to our students, parents, and staff. The start has not been perfect - we have had a few quarantine situations with students and staff - but our numbers are decreasing since the first week of school and it looks like the mitigating measures we have put in place are helping to drive down the positivity rate in our district. You can see all of our up-to-date COVID information by going to the district website.
We’ve had a very slow start with our transportation. I want to personally apologize to our community as we have not served our parents with the level of customer service that our students deserve. We’ve looked at many different solutions and are working out the issues with our routing and transportation vendors. I want to recognize Dr. Geoff Macy who has done an excellent job managing our transportation efforts.
I want to talk about a few highlights from these first several weeks: I’ve had the chance to talk to our new teachers as part of their first professional development with us, ride a bus on the first day of school and visit with our students and parents, take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Reed, observe the Prop L work progressing, watch the instructional coaches do their job and help many of our staff, have quality discussions continue with our educational support counselors, see many students participating in sports and activities, and attend our retreat from this past weekend focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
You will see more information related to the Strategic Planning process released in the coming weeks. You can expect to see a survey by the end of the month and more info on our upcoming community engagement events. We are becoming more future-ready with our buildings and want to do the same for our entire district.
The City of Creve Coeur will hold a re-dedication and community celebration of Dr. H. Phillip Venable Memorial Park on Sept. 18 from 1 to 4 p.m. It’s open to the public and you are encouraged to attend. You can park in Spoede’s parking lot and take a shuttle to the event.
INFORMATION ITEMS
Director of Facilities Mike Noonan recommended placing movable partitions back into the new architecture designs at both Old Bonhomme and Spoede.
Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Dr. Geoff Macy discussed changes to local property assessments and valuations and how they relate to the 2021 district tax rate. He introduced the operating levy for each sub-class of property that will be recommended for 2021.
UPCOMING MEETINGS
The next Board of Education meeting will be a regular Business Meeting on Monday, September 27, 2021. The meeting will be live-streamed using Zoom and the Meeting ID will be posted on the Featured tab of BoardDocs when the meeting information is officially posted.
