School Board Regular Meeting - February 19, 2025

001Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our regular school board meeting. Wednesday, February 19 at 6:00 PM. Can you please all stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States, to the Republic for which it stands. One nation-- Thank you very much. Roll call, please. Director Alvarez. Here. Vice President Tidholm. You're muted. Present. Thank you. President Van. Here. And to the left is our superintendent, Dr. Duran. Thank you, Vice President Tidholm, for joining us. I know you're taking care of family, so I appreciate you joining us via Zoom tonight. Any calls or changes or additions to our board meeting agenda this evening? I have none. All right. Thank you very much. 1.5. Some reassignments of director liaison roles. At the beginning of the year, we had assignments of our

002director liaison roles with our two directors stepping down. That opens up additional committees to cover. So I would like to get these committees covered with that. First one is our Capital Facilities Advisory Committee. Prior to that, Director Petrini was appointed for that role. Directors, either of you guys would like to be part of this committee? I'll be more than happy to go ahead and take on the Capital Facilities Advisory Committee. Thank you, Director Alvarez. I appreciate that. Next one is the Capital Projects Oversight Committee. If you don't mind, I would like to continue on with this. I've been on this for the last two years, and the continuation to ensure that our buildings are built on time and under budget. So if you guys don't mind, I would like to continue on with that. It

003is all yours. All right. Thank you. Please. WIAA. Director Alvarez, if you don't mind, just stay on that as you initially had. And our Highline Schools Foundation. Director Tidholm, would you still like to be on that one? Yes, I can stay on the school's foundation. All right. Thank you. Highline Forum. Director Hagos was assigned to this one. If you guys don't mind, I'd love to jump in on that one. I have no objections to that. OK. And our legislative role. It was Director Petrini and Director Tidholm. So Director Tidholm, we're going to keep you on that as well. Want to. OK. Just to solidify everybody here, the Capital Facilities Advisory Committee, that would be Director Alvarez, Capital Oversight Committee, that would be myself. WIAA, that would be Director Alvarez. The Highline Schools Foundation, that would

004be Director Tidholm. Online forum, that would be myself. Legislative, and that would be Director Tidholm. With that said, can I have a motion to accept those positions? I'll make a motion to accept these positions. I'll second that. All in favor. Aye. I'm sorry. We'll do a roll call vote for this. OK. Even better. Vice President Tidholm. Yay. Director Alvarez. Yay. President Van. Yay. This motion passes three to none. Thank you very much. All right. We have quite a few recognitions this evening, as well as a school presentation. First up is CTE month. Can we get Dr. Benitez and Juan Lozano come on up? And then Director Alvarez is going to read that and then have you guys-- [APPLAUSE] So I have a recognition for him first, and then the CTE. Well, I'm going to go

005ahead and take the liberty, since he's up there. First I want to-- we were supposed to-- oh, could you-- Dr. Benitez. Don't try to steal my thunder here. Calm down. All right. While they're doing that, I just want to-- we were supposed to do this last month, and I'm glad that it's CTE, because now we have the majority of the CTE staff here and take the liberty to also recognize you, Juan Lozano. Not only is it CTE month, but last month we were supposed to, our last board meeting, just recognize you for just becoming the administrator or principal of the year. You know, it is not that-- how can I put it? There's a lot of principals that could have gotten this, and you were picked. And what an honor, you know? And coming from

006not just our district, but from a skill center. You know? And so I just want to go ahead and take the moment to recognize. Actually, I'm going to stand and give you a standing ovation because as of-- we salute you today. We're giving you administrator principal of the year. [APPLAUSE] You deserve it. So with that, whereas the month of February has been designated Career and Technical Education Month by the Association for Career and Technical Education, whereas profound economic and technological advances necessitate a capable and educated workforce with career ready skills, thereby placing new and additional responsibilities on our educational system. And whereas career and technical education connects Americans with potential careers and is the backbone of a strong, well-educated workforce, which fosters productivity in business and industry and contributes to American leadership in the international

007marketplace and fill the growing skills gap. And whereas career and technical education offers individuals lifelong opportunities to learn new skills which provide them with career choices and potential satisfaction. And whereas the ever increasing cooperative efforts of career and technical educators, business and industry stimulate the growth and vitality of our local economy and that of the entire nation by preparing graduates for the career fields forecast to experience the largest demand in the next decade. Now, therefore, the school board and superintendent of Highline Public Schools do hereby proclaim February as the Career and Technical Education Month in Highline and urge all Highline citizens to become familiar with the services and benefits offered by the career and technical education programs in our district. And so here we honor you all today. So thank you. [APPLAUSE] Sorry. Can you

008hear me? So thank you so much for the acknowledgment. But yo know, I couldn't do it without my staff. So if my CSSE staff could stand up. Stand up. [CHEERING] So the reality is I am just a director slash principal. I make decisions. Like, I told the staff today that I may own the insurance for the car, but they run the car. And so without them, we couldn't do the magic that is CTE. And I think that's the thing that I really want to hopefully resonate with everybody is that we're preparing students for a future regardless of what pathway you choose. Like, we do a great job of developing skills and our staff, bringing that to the table. And I think that happens at skill center, that happens [INAUDIBLE], it happens across the nation. So

009I just appreciate the acknowledgment. But I'm just here supporting great work. That's all I do. So thank you so much. Thank you. So it's picture time. So if we-- Have you and staff come on up, that would be great. [INTERPOSING VOICES] Our next recognition is School Counselors Week. So our recognition be read by Director Stephanie Tidholm Can we please have Melissa Poynter, Janet Blatchford, Val Allen? Come on up, please. All right. Director Tidholm, would you like to read the recognition? I will. And first let me say I am not a mental health clinician, but I do work in mental health, and I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the work that you guys do. I work with adults, but the work that you do with our babies is so incredibly important at their

010young stages where they're growing and figuring themselves out. So greatly appreciate the work that you do. And as for my recognition-- forgive me. Multitasking on the computer. OK. Whereas school counselors are employed in our schools to help students reach their full potential, and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development, and whereas school counselors help parents or guardians focus on ways to further the educational, personal, and social growth of their children. And whereas school counselors work with teachers and other-- excuse me. And other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves, and whereas, school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help

011students become productive members of society. And whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school. Now, therefore, the school board and superintendent of Highline Public Schools do hereby proclaim that February 3 through 7, 2025 is National School Counselors Week, and urge all Highline citizens to join us in honoring and recognizing the dedication and hard work of all school counselors. [APPLAUSE] Thanks. This year's theme for National School Counseling Week is school counselors helping students thrive. As a long time school counselor who is now in a specialist role, I have the tremendous opportunity to see the work that school counselors are doing in order for that thriving to happen. I am going to share with each of you board members, as well

012as Dr. Duran, some results reports that demonstrate student growth in academic mindsets, career development, and social emotional learning as a result of some of our tier one counseling lessons. I'd also like to highlight that among our ranks, we have an elementary school counselor that will be given the Washington School Counseling Association Equity in Action Award at our state conference next month. And we have a school counseling team that was recently written up in the Seattle Times by a student that said, the counseling small group that she was a part of made her feel seen and represented. I could go on and on, of course. I'm so proud of our Highline Public Schools school counselors who, every day, are truly helping students thrive. And I'd like really briefly to pass the mic to Jen Truong, one

013of our fabulous counselors at Tyee High School. Thank you for giving me a moment. As someone who has had the privilege of holding space for so many students and families to share their vulnerable realities, especially in the last several weeks, I want to thank you, Superintendent Duran, and board members, for valuing school counselors. By supporting school counselors, you are directly and indirectly honoring the emotional wellness and mental health of our students. We want to appreciate you all for seeing us and so intentionally leading our district in ensuring that our students and our families are also seen and valued. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. With that, I want to have you come on up for pictures. [CHEERING] Thank you. And the next recognition is for Black History Month. Final recognition tonight is recognizing Black History Month.

014This February, we're celebrating the voices and contributions of Black leaders right here in Highline. Black History is not just about the past. It's happening now. It's shaping our schools, community, and future. This month we are spotlighting our own staff, sharing their inspirations, cultural pride, and hopes for the future. Their stories remind us that Black History is a movement, not just a moment. I encourage everyone to visit the Highline website and social media to read the stories and learn more. So can we just do a quick round of applause. [APPLAUSE] I know that that was the last recognition, but for February 2025 recognitions, alongside these recognitions showcased tonight, we have many more throughout the month of February. We invite you to visit our website calendar to explore these additional recognitions. Love the Bus Month, Black Lives

015Matter at School Week, Love Teaching Week, and Public Schools Week. So please jump on to our website and check those out. And then we have our community partners presentation tonight by Arts Corps. Mr. Abebaw will introduce. Evening, Dr. Duran and board of directors. My name is Endelkachew and I'm the partnership manager here at Highline. I had the privilege of recognizing and highlighting youth guidance [? Bam ?] last month. For this month, we have the opportunity to recognize Arts Corps. Arts Corps ignites and continues to sustain the creative potential of our students-- nearly 100 of them across four schools North Hill, White Center Heights, Hilltop, and Mount View. By championing culturally engaging arts learning experiences and reducing barriers to art education, this program inspires the next generation of creative leaders who will transform our schools, neighborhoods,

016and communities. So it's my honor to extend a welcome to Shawn Roberts, the executive Director, Arielle Campos, program manager, and Sorel Nica and Zaira Fernandez from North Hill Elementary, who are our educators. [APPLAUSE] Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. We have-- thank you. Our school has been around since the year 2000, and our relationship with Highline has been going on for a little over 10 years. Every year, we're so excited to see how we're going to partner. We have both after school programming as well as arts integration. If you're not sure what arts integration is, it is integrating varied art forms of dance, theater, visual arts, spoken word into the current curriculum. And so we're absolutely honored. We have a few of our staff here. But we have a staff of

017nine, and we have a team of teaching artists of 25. And we really love to work in that gap in access of arts education, to really get to those kids that don't have access to arts education. So we are so honored to be able to partner with Highline. Thank you for this recognition. And here is Arielle Campos, who is one of our program managers. Hello. Thank you for having us. It's an honor. Honestly, it just blew my mind when Endelkachew just sent that email. Like, wow, I love this partnership and I love that, I don't know, people are seeing us. And I feel deeply privileged to work with you all, to work with the communities and to work at our children's. And it's an honor to work with my teachers. So tonight I brought Sorel

018Nica and [? Zava ?] Fernandez to talk a little bit about the program they work with. It's at North Hill Elementary. Thank you. My name is [? Zava. ?] I've been [INAUDIBLE] starting last quarter and this quarter. Really, I feel so privileged to be able to be there and really help all these kids out. A lot of them don't have a lot of [? concentration ?] in art or are able to access programs like these. And being able to foster these different values of helping them to have more confidence in their creative abilities has been just really touching for me personally. Last quarter I was developing curriculum on my own, and this quarter I've been developing it with my other teacher, Sorel Nica. We have a really fun curriculum this quarter where we're talking about--

019where we're kind of, over the week, having the kids create their own [INAUDIBLE], which touch into Mexican folk art, the origin of those. And we do a lot of different, smaller activities throughout the week to build upon that curriculum, getting them thinking about patterning, getting them about not only two dimensional art, which is what they're most used to in their classrooms, but translating that into three dimensional art, getting them introduced into sculpture and thinking more about these types of art that maybe they see out in the world with forms of public art, but they don't ever get to create themselves. And so being able to empower these kids to really have them realize, your ideas matter, your ideas are important. The ideas that you think maybe you keep to yourself, that maybe not everyone around

020you has time to hear, you can actually create those, and all of your ideas are valid. All of your ideas are worth exploring and creating. It's really a great time. I really am so happy to be part of Arts Corps and to be working with North Hill. Is it working? Oh. Sorry. I'm a little shy, but I was just going to say it's also been really cool seeing how we can combine different disciplines with art. Like we were saying before, we do a lot of work verbal skills across different disciplines. For example, we were talking about different perspectives, and we talk about [INAUDIBLE]. Talk about geometry a lot. I don't know. Having kids think about the way that arts is integrated, but. Yeah. It's awesome working with Arts Corps. [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, I've been working with

021Arts Corps since-- really fulfilling. [INAUDIBLE] All right. Thank you very much. Can I have you come on up for a picture? [APPLAUSE] Sure. We get the honor of having Midway Elementary School come on up for a school presentation. Sarah Talbot, come on up. [APPLAUSE] Hello, and thank you so much for the honor of being able to share a little bit about what's happening at Midway Elementary. I'm going to introduce Lyon Terry and Marco Martinez, the leadership team from Midway, who have come in last year and done some just remarkable work with focusing on instruction, especially around literacy. So I'll turn it over to them. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you for the board members and Dr. Duran for welcoming us here. It is a real honor to be here today. We are super proud of

022the work we're doing and we are here representing the students, staff, and families at Midway and we have many of them on videos to share with you the great work that's happening at Midway. So we are really, like the previous principal said, just the facilitators of the great work that's happening. There we go. All right. I want to share our promise. Every student in Highline Public Schools is known by name, strength, and need, and graduates prepared for the future they choose. You may recognize this picture. This is a picture that's been used many times over the years. The person on the left, her name is Jessica Bedoya Mendoza. The future she chose was being a teacher at Midway. And she's a graduate of Highline Public Schools and was the ASB President there, and now she's

023a teacher at Midway. And we are very fortunate to have her. She's in her second year and doing amazing. A little background about Midway. The students at our school speak 28 different languages as their love languages, as their home languages, and they represent-- they were born in 31 different countries from around the world of the 560 students at Midway. We're one of the largest elementary schools in the district, and we are very proud of this cultural richness that we have at Midway and all of the different languages and cultures that come to our school every day. We have totally bought in to the strategic plan goals, and today we want to talk about two in particular. The first is the culture of belonging goal. We are trying to create a culture where all are welcome,

024valued, and safe at Midway, and we have many strategies to do this. But our priority goal for the year was that students would report an increase of safety, belonging, and the ability to regulate their emotions as recorded in Panoramas student survey data to above the district average, because it was below when we arrived. Well below. And the data, we also want to show the reduction in the gap between our Black students and other students who report in the race categories. And I have a quick video here from the Yacoubi family. This is Rahmatullah, the father of Sana, Sama, and Rabi. They arrived at Midway in 2022 from Afghanistan. And they're talking about how welcome they feel at Midway. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - I mean, all the colleagues that are working here, they are so supportive and

025so kind. I'm proud on all of them. So I mean, my kids always told me or tell me at home that, you know, they are feeling like home and, I mean, feel so safe, you know, the security. Everything is so nice and well here. And eventually, you know, I'm really proud that, you know, my kids are studying at Midway. [END PLAYBACK] And we are proud-- His kids are doing great. One of the strategies we have, which we really love-- and this was carried over before Mr. Martinez and I arrived-- is called Family Art Friday. And we have a partnership this year with the Seattle Art Museum. And every first Friday of the month, parents and students come to our school and do art together that our teachers and staff have learned from the Seattle Art

026Museum. And it is not a little thing. And this year, our music teachers have started having short performances to show off-- [MUSIC PLAYING] [CHILDREN SINGING] It's just a brief glimpse of the December-- the first Friday in December performance and the art that our students did there. That's just one of the strategies we've used to try to create a culture of belonging at Midway. And our data is supporting the fact that we're improving. We are close to the district average now, whereas last spring we were at 56% of our students representing that they're feeling a sense of belonging. Now up to 65% And we are confident in our ability to continue to grow our sense of belonging. We have MTSS systems and PBIS systems that we are really rolling out to support our students and their

027families to feel like they belong at Midway. And we have work to do. There are still discrepancies between some of the races that are recorded in the Panorama data, and we feel like we are still working to bring up and have our Asian and Hispanic and Native Hawaiian and Black African-American students feel more on par with their other students in terms of their sense of belonging. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Martinez for our next focus on bilingual and biliterate. Our other focus-- let me get it adjusted-- is to align with the bilingual and biliterate goal that's in the strategic plan. In our AAP goal, we wanted to focus on literacy. One of the things that we focus on is 60% of our students will meet the end of year biliteracy benchmark on

028IRLA and [INAUDIBLE]. But IRLA being an independent reading level assessment and [INAUDIBLE] being [SPANISH]. And thinking about our goal, I wanted to show this graph to everybody here. Just thinking about the power of dual language-- two way dual language programs. Thinking about the power, also the challenges that come with DL programs. But I want to focus on the graph and share one of the big important things that Thomas and Collier highlight in their research study. That students that are part of DL programs really have a high achievement in closing the achievement gap. And also, DL programs really help students, especially English learners, reach other students academically. And so we see a lot of those higher achievements later on in their academic careers. And one of the challenges that we notice is that students in the

029K-3 grade levels do progress at a lower rate, at a slower rate. But also we start seeing those girls after the third grade and beyond. And here we want to share one of the stories, one of the family stories of Midway Elementary to really highlight the power of dual language programming and the impact that it has on our families. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - What language does your family speak at home? - At home, we learn only [INAUDIBLE]. We don't learn English. Because back home is a territory of the US so we also learned English back in school. So learning Spanish also is a big plus for my kids since we don't speak Spanish at all. So I really love how they learn Spanish in school too. [END PLAYBACK] So is that a family's experience with our

030dual language program. And here, this other lived experience of our families also shares not only the impact of the programming, of dual language program, but also the sense of belonging that they get from the dual language program here at Midway. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - [SPEAKING SPANISH] [END PLAYBACK] So this video has two messages that I want to highlight. One, the student really has progressed a lot in their learning both English and Spanish. And two, the family sharing how they feel this sense of belonging being at a school where they can communicate with Spanish speaking teachers and feel that sense of welcoming and that sense of being heard. And going back to our goal of 60% of students reaching the biliteracy trajectory, I want to share this data point right here, this middle of the year data

031point. When we look at the green part, yes, we have 41% of our students reaching that biliteracy zone for both Spanish literacy and English literacy. And again, there is work to be done. We realize that, and that we are making plans to reach our goal for this year. And just one more testimonial from one of our students here. We have a video here from a fourth grade student who is sharing with her father. Her name is Amira and her father is Mohammed. Well, you'll learn she's from Somalia. And she's been in our dual language program since she was in kindergarten. And this is her sharing her bilingual identity with her father during conferences. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - You can go with that hello. So say yo hablo. - [SPEAKING SPANISH] This technically means I speak-- this

032is like introducing the topic because it says that I speak Spanish, English, some Arabic and Somali, and also my mom speaks most Somali, so I have to translate her to other people that speak English because I'm translating stuff. - Right, right, right. - [SPEAKING SPANISH] So this means that my mom speaks Arabic because she was, like-- - She grew up in Egypt. - Yeah, she grew up in Egypt. And also I speak some Arabic because she-- - Learned from her. OK. - [SPEAKING SPANISH] - OK. - Multilingual means I'm multilingual. - Right, more than three languages. OK. - Yo. This means that I-- this repeats what I said in the first. - Right. So yo hablo inglés, because. - I speak-- - Spanish because? - English and Spanish because this school is a bilingual school

033and it teaches mostly English and Spanish. And that's why I'm multilingual. - Very good. [END PLAYBACK] [APPLAUSE] Yeah, so we are super proud of Amira and all of our students. You can see that by the time kids are in the program for multi years, their multilingual identity really comes out and it's working. It is really making a difference for our kids. And Amira and many of her classmates are just going to change the world. So we really believe in them. So thank you for your time. I've been told that we have a list of questions. Preguntas? Thank you so much. Directors, any questions or comments? I'm going to start with you, Director Alvarez. Just congratulations, because I think her pronunciation is a lot better than mine, to be honest, in Spanish. And I grew up

034speaking both, I think. But, you know, in all seriousness, I think that even her multilingual-- not even being bilingual, but multilingual. And I think we talk a lot about, you know, the sense of belonging and the being bilingual, biliterate. And there's a lot of research that shows that learning not just your own language, but being bilingual, the ability to use the both sides of your brain, that helps you incorporate into not just reading but just the way you use your brain in all other areas of the aspect. So be curious to see-- by the end of the year to see the rest of the students and the growth in reading. We know that our students just-- they're just like sponges and absorbing. So congratulations for you all to continue this work, having that task with

035all other students. And it goes to show a lot of times-- I know I've heard at the beginning when our district was starting, I remember when it started becoming the dual language program, we had a lot of pushback that we should have it in multiple languages. The reality is that we struggle even to get Spanish speaking teachers to as we were growing it, and through all the grades. And now to see just the fruit of seeing this incredible student just speaking in multiple languages to see the like, you know, going and changing the world as she grows. But just thank you for showing us. We hear about it, but to see it, those little clips around what our students are capable and more. So thank you again. And I had another question. I'm sure it'll

036come back, because I didn't write it down. I was just so in awe with my mouth, just because of seeing how incredible to you both. Credit to-- thank you for all of that. So I'll pass it back to you. Thank you. Director Alvarez. Director Tidholm. Questions or comments? Yeah, that was really lovely to see. As many of you know, I'm a huge dual language advocate. My baby is in dual language and has been for a few years, and I was on the task force at White Center Heights to work to get Somali in there. So really excited to see all the work that you're doing. I think it's great. The dual language, when their brains-- our baby's brains are still developing, and just how research has shown the neuroplasticity and how it helps them learn

037other subjects knowing these other languages is super excited to see. And then baby girl speaking a handful of languages already at that age was just really great. Yeah, I just appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Thank you and keep it up. Thank you, Director Tidholm. I just want to echo what our two directors said. To hear her say this, multilingual, that is amazing. Thanks for really calling out that there's still work to be done. That is really, really important, and to hear you say it and put things into action. On the slide of sense of belonging, you stated that there are three groups that you would like to raise up. So what strategies are you going to use to help elevate that to make sure that they feel the sense of belonging? Yeah,

038good question. You know, one of the things that-- the key elements that we're working on this year is every student is greeted by name when they enter the building and when they enter a classroom. And one of the things we're teaching our teachers and many of our staff members is greetings in multiple different languages. So when our students from Afghanistan show up and they speak Dare or Pashto or Persian and we say, assalamu alaikum, or when they leave and we say [INAUDIBLE], our students are seeing us elevating their language and their identity and helping them. That's just one of the ways we're helping our students see that we are valuing who they are and what you know, that they matter to us by elevating their language and their culture. That is amazing. Thank you. Any

039other follow up questions or comments? That'll do it. Greatly appreciate coming and presenting. Thank you so much. Yep. [APPLAUSE] Now we're going to be moving to our scheduled communications. On behalf of the board, we sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join us in sharing us your thoughts this evening. You'll notice that our norms and guidelines are displayed on the screens for your reference. Please remember that you're addressing the board and there may be students present who are watching, who are listening very carefully to what you say. Please note that while the board is unable to respond directly to your testimony during the meeting, we value your input. Thank you again for being here and speaking with us. First up is Deborah Lipp. Hello and welcome everybody. It's good to see so many people here

040tonight. I'm a SeaTac resident of 35 years and I have two at Midway, grandkids. And I love the dual language. They've been learning since preschool at three and four years old. So tonight I was going to talk about budget. Last time was DEI. We didn't have the meeting. I think we know where our budget is going if we keep DEI, sanctuary cities, and now vaccine being mandatory. Should be a choice. So I think we're going to lose a whole lot of federal money, and that's really all I want to say. Thank you. Next up, Calvin Allen. Good evening, President Van, Dr. Duran, members of the board. I'm here today to address some community members' concern that this board and this district in general have restricted freedom of speech. Watching the board meetings the past six

041months, I can tell you that is far from the truth. What these community members do not realize is the beauty that is our Constitution. Yes, you are free to say anything, even if you what you want to say is explicitly or hidden in subterfuge, racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or a combination of the aforementioned. But the beauty I mentioned earlier is that the Constitution does not guarantee you freedom from accountability of those words from your peers, from your community, or from our future that is our children. I will add on to what this board has said. Children are listening. Well, so are their teachers, administrators, counselors, nurses, paraeducators, and all other school personnel. We will hold you to account. For in the end, we will always strive to ensure our students feel belonged,

042loved, cared for, and safe in our classrooms and schools. Now, tomorrow, and forever. I am proud not only to be an employee of this district, but a resident and a taxpayer. Thank you for your time. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Next up is Crystal German. Evening. My name is Crystal German, and I have two students here at Highline Schools. In October of 2022, students from Big Picture formed a tree team to continue stewardship of a forest near campus created and designed by Wells students. For one hour each week during the school year, this committed group of students removed weeds, planted native trees and shrubs as needed, learned about the importance of tree canopy, and spent much needed time outside of the classroom moving their bodies. During the first summer, some students gave up their vacation days to

043water the fledgling trees, volunteered their time with a plant nursery to replace any trees that perished over the summer, and volunteered at restoration events with well-established stewardship groups to learn the proper way to maintain an urban forest. The student-led team has worked over 1,000 hours, rain or shine, over the past few years maintaining the forest, networking, attending restoration events and meetings with organizations like the City of Burien, Green City Partnerships, Conservation Districts, and the Department of Natural Resources. Through all of this hard work, a relationship was formed with the Snohomish and King Conservation Districts, and funding was brought back to the site, only to learn in an email that the Highline School District declined to continue the contract, thereby forfeiting the money given by DNR to complete the project. We learned this through our partnership

044organization. Not a single school district representative invited any of our student leaders to that meeting, or gave us any reason for this decision. It is disappointing, to say the least. The students deserve more. They deserve to know why this decision was made, and why they were not invited to the table, or given opportunity to rework a plan that would benefit all. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Next up, Jenny Williams. Good evening, board. I'm Jenny and I'm a second grade teacher at Parkside Elementary, and I've been teaching at Parkside since 2013. I'm here today to celebrate the diversity of Parkside, and to show gratitude to the many Highline employees that have supported me in teaching our diverse learners. 57% of Parkside students are multilingual learners, and there are 26 different languages spoken at our school. I

045want to first thank the language learning specialist team for providing GLAD trainings that have made a huge impact on my teaching, and these strategies have helped me to provide access for all of my students. These tools build bridges to help students understand the rigorous literacy topics we learn and discuss, and I utilize many strategies that I learned from these trainings daily. Many members of the language learning specialist team also taught alongside Seattle University professors for an ML endorsement. This Highline cohort inspired me to get my Master's in educating non-native English speakers, and both of these experiences that the language team provided transformed my classroom and teaching. I also want to thank the administrators at Parkside. Bobby and Dylan have supported the work that teachers do, and understand the importance of allocating time to work on

046GLAD strategies. They provide team days in which we can plan and create GLAD resources to enhance our units, and the time we are given further reinforces our ability to tap into many of our students' needs. Bobby has also allowed my teammate and I to departmentalize so that I am able to focus on English language arts while my teammate teaches math and science, and this allows us to get to know double the students and really hone in on in on our particular subjects. The students are benefiting greatly, and they have two adults that care about them and can help them achieve their goals. Great things are happening in Highline here. Yay. Way to go. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Next up, Joseph Lipp. Board members. In the '60s, there was a prayer that was said each morning in

047the public schools that consisted of 22 words. And there's a movie coming out that I think everybody in this room needs. Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on thee. We beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country. Why wouldn't that be something we want to do every morning? Remember, and don't ever forget that this country, America, was founded on God, no matter how it offends. Everyone's inalienable rights come from God. The God who holds the universe in his hands. Not from man, not from God, not from government, not from schools, school boards. If we can embrace the truth that we are all equal in the eyes of God, there is one race, the human race, but many ethnicities, cultures. We have so undermined our school systems to accommodate everyone from everywhere.

048Every adult in this room went through the school systems as it was. Yes, there was hard times. Yes, there was people that were mistreated. But every one of us thrived. We were all-- yes. You can shake your head no, but we all thrived. There are so many people that have thrived. We have people in the government that are there because of the school system. All I ask is that we get back to teaching our kids the way they need to be taught. 25% of the national average is a hypocrisy. Thank you. Michael Stein-Ross. Good evening, board. Back in 2021, I led the Wells students in a forest planting project as part of a big DNR and Green City Partnership grant to increase tree canopy in Des Moines, Burien, SeaTac. The students researched, interfaced with the

049community, then designed and planted an acre forest on the Woodside campus. And through it all, the Wells teachers skillfully integrated academic content. It truly was gold standard project based learning. Soon after, Wells was dismantled and Big Picture students, led by Lachlan German, have done their best to keep the forest project going. We'll hear from Lachlan in a minute. My message today is about following through on commitments. Since the initial planting, mostly what we've experienced is adults not following through. First, in 2022, Forterra dropped the project due to internal upheaval. Undeterred, though, for nearly a year I kept putting pressure on the DNR and eventually they found about $100,000 to replace the lost grant money. With Highline's blessing, both the Snohomish and King conservation districts were contracted to complete the original student vision, an outdoor classroom,

050an ADA accessible trail, and a full restoration of both the original Forest Grove and the new forest that students planted adjacent. Throughout this current school year, Highline leadership, however, first denied the outdoor classroom. Can't do it, they said. Then the ADA accessible trail. Nope. Can't do it. And now I recently learned the last remaining piece, that habitat restoration effort, was also axed by Highline. Why would the school district want to throw away a free, no strings attached $100,000 to finish an inspiring, student-led project that would, according to a mountain of research, continue to support student mental health, academic progress, and connection to place for years and years to come? No ADA trail? What about our inclusion priorities? We have a lovely land acknowledgment, but can't help finish projects that actually turn that language into action

051by helping? [AUDIO OUT] You to think [AUDIO OUT] [APPLAUSE] Hi, my name is Ervin. Next to two schools and a food bank, there is a forest. A forest that is a work in progress. I am one of the former Wells students that helped plan and lead, and I put all the love and effort I could into this forest. Back when we first started making the forest, I was one of the many students that worked on it. I helped plan it out, I led others, and while working on the forest, many students and teachers from Big Picture joined in on the fun and many of them didn't know how to plant. Me and my peers had an honor-- were honored to teach these students how to care for plants and our environment and teach them why

052it's so important for us to take care of our Earth. As I went from student to student, I couldn't help but notice how much fun the students were having and the glimmer in their eyes when they learned something new. As I led, I was proud-- as a lead, I was proud. And as I looked around, I could tell that their teachers were too. Because even if the students didn't realize, they were part of something bigger. This forest that they were planning isn't just a silly school project. It's a safe place for everyone to enjoy and a place to learn and grow. I was surprised by how working on this forest brought whole communities, teachers, students, and families to work together to create something that is just that meaningful to the community. And the ultimate goal

053is to create a place for families and communities, students, et cetera to enjoy, because that is what everybody deserves. Because of this forest, I learned that I want to continue to keep supporting our community, families, and students that need it. So now I work with the City of Burien as a recreational leader, working hard to offer a safe place for students to join and have fun, interactive, and challenging free after school programs at Seahurst and Hazel Valley. I hope to one day come back to this forest with my family and tell them the stories on how I helped shape out the forest and how-- yeah. [APPLAUSE] Quincy Gill. [CHEERING] Thank you. OK. Thank you. Good evening, directors and Dr. Duran. Great follow up. I want to commend Highline schools on the excellent job we do

054at acknowledging our teaching and learning on stolen Indigenous land. But that said, it is high time that we do more than simply acknowledge this fraught history. We must engage in reciprocity with the land to ensure that it sustains our students. One act of reciprocity would be for the district to develop a climate action plan. Our existing conservation policy was approved in 1993 and revised in 2011. Even in the past five years, science and technology have accelerated our ability to reach climate neutrality significantly. As a district, we're behind. Major school districts like Seattle and Portland have robust climate action plans. Portland has an exemplar climate justice and sustainability report co-authored by students, staff, district personnel, and community based organizations. Even more comparable districts like shoreline have climate resolutions that blend the goals of set forth by

055the numerous jurisdictions that they serve. And I don't mean to discount our successes. Sustainable new construction, the advent of electric buses, those are important first steps in this work. But we need policy. As an example, eligible schools should have solar panels by default. And shout out to the Highline students that brought the-- that got the solar panels on their school. But the onus should not be theirs entirely. Right? We need policy. A livable future is what our students need to thrive. We can equip them academically, but we also need to take sustainability measures to ensure that they have a livable future. This would represent a tangible demonstration of our intent to honor this land. We're here to help. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Next up, Marley Summers. Hello, I'm Marley. I'm a teacher at Big Picture, which

056is a choice school in the district. I'm often tempted to call it a non-traditional school, because I think that's language that we use a lot in education. It's the choice school. And one of my coworkers always stops me and says, no, Marley, we're not non-traditional. We're not comprehensive. We are a traditional model. We are a place where teenagers and middle schoolers and high schoolers alike can come and learn and have authentic relationships with adults in their community, and learn through doing and exploring their interests in really authentic ways. So we're a non-standardized school in Highline. We have students who are-- I don't know if you all have come for a visit. I actually just want to invite you to come. I'm going to talk a little bit about our school. We have so many wide

057ranging interests for our students. I mean, we have students who are interested in automotive, in photography. We have someone who just started interning with Mel at Highline, our photographer. We have a student who's always been really interested in biology and art and now is interning with a taxidermist, which the mentors have said is a dying art, and they are really worried that no one is going to pick it up. And they're like, and now we have a high schooler who is our captive audience to learn mammals and birds alike. And we also have students like Lachlan, who's going to speak in a little bit. But our students do really phenomenal work, and they're really authentically engaged with everything that they do. So I just want to invite you all. This next week is our exhibition

058week, so students will be giving exhibitions on their learning where they get up and they present on the learning that they've done over the last three months. We're not on a semester schedule. We're on a trimester schedule. So they'll present on their learning, not just to their teachers, to their peers, and also their mentors, if they have them, and their families. And it's just a chance for them to give and receive authentic feedback, and I think it's the best way to learn about what our school does. So next week is high school, and the week after that is middle school exhibitions. And we would love to see you there. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE] Alex Myrick. Good evening, directors. I have heard and read Highline Schools claim to have a culture of belonging many times.

059I suppose it began as a sincere intention. I know there are many teachers and staff members who believe in a culture of belonging and do their jobs well and in good faith. A few of them are in this room. The problem is the leadership. You have usurped the right to decide for yourselves who belongs and who does not. I see a couple empty chairs on the dais. We elected two directors who advocated for a modicum of accountability and transparency. You saw they were different from yourselves and harassed and vilified them. I have a long history of supporting teachers and their unions, but corruption has taken hold in this district. It is reprehensible for administration to tell union leadership to order daughter teachers not to cooperate with the duly elected and sworn director, to order them

060not to answer her questions. You buried them with FOIA requests and hounded them out of office. You got what you wanted, but there is a price to be paid. The curtain has been partially pulled back, and more people got a glimpse of your bigotry. We know what will happen next. You will recruit and appoint two new directors who share your aversion to accountability and transparency. Two people who share your ideological bigotry. Board meetings will return to being scripted. All the superintendents motions will again be passed by five to zero votes. Tens of millions of dollars will be spent with no oversight or accountability. You do not truly believe in a culture of belonging. Too often, you have permitted and even encouraged the district to be run by intimidation, slander, and cowardly backstabbing. A culture of

061belonging? I will never be able to hear or read that phrase again without being reminded of the staggering hypocrisy surrounding it. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Next up, Lachlan German. I promise I'm also the last person to talk about. Esteemed members of the board, I am Lachlan The Big Picture high school and leader of the tree team that maintains the forest. I come to you tonight with expression of confusion and disappointment, mostly. A few weeks ago, I was informed that we had access to the funds secured with [INAUDIBLE]-- thank you. The conservation partnerships. And as of now, we still do not know why this choice was made. Indication regarding this has been spotty as myself, the students, and other major contributors to this project were never contacted directly about it. Tree team and the forest site means

062a lot to me, as I've spent the last two or three years of my time in school dedicated to tree team, its students, and the environment. It helped me secure a position as a paid-for steward with the Green Burien Partnership, and even got me a scholarship from Western Washington University since I included it in my application essay. It would mean a great deal to me if someone in the district reached out to us and told us why the decision was made, and what it means for the future of the forest. Thank you for having me, and thank you, everyone, who participated and helped the tree team over the years. That's all. [APPLAUSE] Thank you very much. Patricia Bailey. As a retired teacher who regularly attends board meetings, I was encouraged by Director Petrini's steady advocacy

063for effective literacy programs. This emphasis is urgently needed, since 50% of Highline students are three grades behind. I witnessed some demeaning comments toward this dedicated director at various times, but was hoping this was not entrenched behavior. Apparently it was. I was discouraged and incensed by what I heard at the January 22 board meeting. Director Petrini, a trusted and highly capable board member, elected by Highline voters, explained that she could no longer remain in her position due to other people making it impossible for her to do her job. She stated that she had been systematically excluded from communications, as well as being called a whole variety of misleading and incendiary names. The following must take place. If anyone on the board or in administration willfully withheld information from Miss Petrini, they must resign or be fired

064immediately. These individuals are working against the well-being and education of students. Secondly, if anyone instructed others to not communicate with Ms. Petrini, a duly elected official, they also must resign or be fired. They are enemies of democracy and our election system. And finally, if anyone participated in disregarding the federal FERPA law, they too must step down or be fired. Their behavior is in violation of student privacy, the rule of law, and the function of a civil society. The most fundamental code of conduct, the golden rule, is to treat others as you would like to be treated. Apparently this is not a value of Highline leaders. Thank you. Next up, George Stowes. Good evening. I'm George Stowes. I'm a parent of two students in Highline School District. One at the CHOICE Academy located at the Woodside

065site. I hope you are aware that the heating and cooling system at CHOICE is offline due to broken pipes. According to Principal Sita, he is in communication with facilities about a resolution. My intent to stand here this evening is to ask the board to prioritize the needed repairs and/or replacement. For the last two years, my child has been in classrooms without proper functioning heat during the coldest periods of the winter season. The boiler supply lines are buried under the floor and run throughout the building. When they break, the classrooms flood. In order to restart the boilers, the broken pipes have to be isolated with shut valves. Therefore, the heat in affected rooms are non-existent. This is affecting the students in ways that they cannot be in a healthy, safe environment because of the cold, especially

066the last two weeks. It is true that electric space heaters have been used and provided by the district. However, parents are sending their children to school with long underwear, extra layers of clothes and heavy winter clothes just to keep their kids warm at school. Please provide a safe learning environment that includes stable and reliable heating during the winter months by elevating the needs of repair and/or replacement of the heating system at CHOICE Academy. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. And our last speaker is Julie Fry. Hello. Thank you, board members and Dr. Duran. This is my first board meeting, and I came more with a question. But what I did want to share and what was kind of reaffirmed tonight, hearing about Midway and just the great programs that we have in the school district. We

067moved from Seattle when my daughter was five and my son was three. We were really excited to start my kids at Mar Vista. My kids both went to CHOICE. My daughter goes to Aviation and my son goes to Mount Rainier. One of the things that our family is really grateful for is the diversity in this district. And I thank every day that my kids are exposed to different cultures, different backgrounds. Just, diversity is what makes our world special. And with the executive orders, my reason for coming here was to hopefully hear from Dr. Duran about what the intention is for the district with some of the executive orders that are coming down. So I didn't really have a prepared statement. I just wanted to let you know how important I think the diversity that we

068have in our district is and will continue to be. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Well, that concludes our scheduled communications. Thank you, everybody, for coming out and speaking to us. Next up is our superintendents update. Dr. Duran. All right. Thank you, Director Van. Yes. I just want to start. Like, February has been very busy. We've been dealing with some weather issues, you've all seen. So I just want to thank everybody for their patience and flexibility as we just navigated some of these weather challenges. I have a few updates here I want to just hit on, but one that I think is so important is that we recently held a foundational leadership training with our school and central office leaders, focused on providing the knowledge and skills to effectively respond to emergencies. We found that to really be

069more effective, we really need to reset and do some different prioritization and ensure that we're in alignment with national and state standards around emergencies. Our students and staff safety is our highest priority. So I really want to thank the planning team and Claire Gilady, the Director of Community Safety, for organizing the meeting, providing critical information to our leaders. It's really important that we stay on top of this type of work. I attended a Black History month reception with Kisa Hendrickson, hosted by King County Executive Dow Constantine and King County's Office of Equity, Racial, and Social Justice. It was a powerful event featuring the nationally award winning American history traveling museum, The Unspoken Truths. Students from Beverly Park have also had the opportunity to visit this exhibit. As you heard during the recognitions tonight, there is

070also a celebration of the voices and contributions of Black leaders and educators in Highline on our website and social media this month. I really want to thank our communications department for putting it together, and I encourage everyone to explore our leader stories, as I've heard from one of our African-American leaders that Black History is my history. So in today's world, there are lots of conversations around DEI or diversity, equity, and inclusion. And as I think about these terms, I think about our schools and what we would want as we're working towards achieving our strategic plan and our promise. Diversity is the presence of differences among students and staff, including race, ethnicity, gender, abilities, identity, socioeconomic background, and learning styles. Equity ensures justice by providing each student with the resources they need to succeed, recognizing that

071not all start from the same place. Equity is not about treating everyone the same, but giving each student what they need, whether that's alternative learning space, extra time on assignments or tests, or differentiated instruction. Inclusion creates an environment where every student feels valued, respected, and empowered to participate fully. Inclusion goes beyond physical presence. Inclusion fosters belonging by addressing biases, using inclusive and diverse curriculum, and amplifying student voices. I see examples of inclusion in this room and this building. Microphones to ensure that everyone can hear the discussions. Our entryways that are accessible to wheelchairs. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging are all in direct alignment to the Highline promise. So these are my definitions, and I really encourage everyone to think about what they mean to you and to come up with your own definitions to think about

072how they can be applied to your lives every day. Highline stands for the rights of all members of our community to live free from harassment, discrimination, and bullying, regardless of their identity and personal characteristics. I will address that we are waiting for some guidance from OSPI, in particular from some of the orders that have come down at the national level. We are expecting that tomorrow. But I think it's also important to note that as we think about funding and resources, we will continually go back and rely on the law. We know that any kind of changes to our Title programs will require an act of Congress, and so we will continue to monitor and learn from this information. Right now, I would like to invite Jeb Binns, the Highline Education President, to come up to

073the podium to share a few remarks. Welcome, Jeb. [APPLAUSE] Good evening, President Van, Dr. Duran. My name is Jeb Binns. I'm the proud President of the Highline Education Association. I just returned back at 2:00 AM on Monday from a week in Washington. I attended a rally on the Capitol steps to try to help save and salvage public education. Confirmation hearing of World Confederation Star. was disheartened. Was a little bit concerned with the concept that IDEA would be-- that IDA would be potentially under the charge of RFK [INAUDIBLE]. So here we go. So I got back home and I said, you know what? I am full of angst and I'm full of concern and I need to find some joy. So I said, you know what? It's School Joy Week. So I decided to go out

074and visit some schools because where else can you find some joy but in some classrooms. Cruised over to North Hill and I hung out with Hannah Davis' kindergartners. And I played a game called Race To Trace, where we were rolling dice and tracing numbers and trying to figure it out, and I got into heated competitions with a bunch of kindergartners who destroyed me. Which was good. We played Magic Number, where it was a really fun game where you start at a random number, you go up to a random number, and if you happen to be that one, you sit down and you're out. I did not win. Again. But that's OK. I cruised over to Leah Stevens' music class. I listened to first graders sing and dance, and I had three kids come up and

075try to teach me to dance correctly. My wife has been trying to teach me to dance correctly for years. These kids did a pretty good job. Sorry, Vicky. But the joy in that classroom, let's go see it. Jeffrey Bradshaw's ILC class. Working on finding tens and coins and working with kids with all kinds of needs. One of the things we work on in our inclusion work to bring students in there and to watch case management. Totally appreciated that. Cruised over to Tyee and saw Brian Hewitt's shop class. Kids working on their diverse choice projects. They were ridiculously proud of and saw some stranger walk in, and they wanted to show me what they were. So I appreciated that opportunity. Cruised over to Highline High school. Talked to Cliff Ellis and the leadership team, who are

076busy planning various events and assemblies and prom. All the things that are going on. To see that and to see the student leadership and the way he's fostered that is great. Chelsea Hindley's class in yearbook, right? Lots of fun working out, figuring out ways to sell some ads. So I said, hey, you know what? The Highline Education Association is going to support yearbooks by buying ads in each one of the schools who has a yearbook at the end to thank our graduating seniors, right? To go through to thank the students for doing the work and figuring out a way that we can support great programs. Over at Cedarhurst today, this fifth grade class, they just came back from a field trip to the Seattle Art Museum at Pike Place Market, and the kids were thrilled

077to tell me about the things they saw, the artists they learned about, and the thriving culture that is the market and the new construction that's there. This is the joy. My colleagues who are here today are here to remind us all of why we're here. We're here for each other. We're here for our students, and we're here for the wonderful things that are happening in Highline Schools. Appreciate you. Thanks a lot. [APPLAUSE] Thank you, Jeb. And now I'd like to invite Clint Sallee, the Highline Association of Washington School Principals to the podium to share a few comments. Welcome, Clint. Good to see you. Thank you, Superintendent Duran and school board directors. You actually stole my thunder, Dr. Duran, in shouting out Claire Gilady. So I mean, when I was trying to think about the comments

078this month, I was really thinking about the complexity of school leadership. And one of those being that we're not just instructional leaders, we're building managers. We're emergency responders when things go wrong. And I've been really pleased in working with not just Claire, but Steve Grubb, Holly Ferguson, Tova Tupper throughout the year in trying to think about what kinds of training and resources we should provide for school leaders beyond instructional leadership so they can feel equipped to respond effectively when the unexpected happens. And the meeting we just had over Zoom just two weeks ago, that was disrupted, I think twice. The initial meeting I had with Claire was in response to some events in October. We anticipated our foundational leadership happening in November, and then that got this-- the unexpected happened there, and it happened again.

079And what was an in-person meeting became a Zoom based meeting, or Teams based meeting for four hours. But it's so clear. She's been a great thought partner, and the team has been a great thought partner in trying to think about ways to make sure school leaders, both principals and assistant principals, feel equipped and have good partners to work through some of the challenges that go beyond instructional leadership. So I just wanted to shout that team out and we look forward to continued partnership. Wonderful. Thank you, Clint. All right. One more. Now I'd like to invite Jackie Bryan, our CFO, our Chief Financial Officer, to come up to the podium and offer her monthly budget update. And as she's coming to the podium, just a reminder, our community and members of the audience that we are

080doing this in the spirit of transparency to ensure that people understand where we are as a school district. And rather than just do it one time a year, we're going to be doing this on a monthly basis. So welcome, Jackie. Thank you. Good evening. So I'm here tonight to talk about our monthly budget update. So all of the numbers you'll see tonight are January, end of January numbers. The month is not closed, so these are all preliminary numbers I'm going to share. Oh, there we go. So February enrollment is looking positive, as it has throughout the year. So we're up about 534 FTE over projection over our budget. So that is fantastic news. Slight difference from January's enrollment, but we're trending about 500 over as our annual average. So that is very positive news for

081our budget and budget planning going forward. So our year to date numbers. Our revenue has come in at 144.5 million to date. And again, that is preliminary January numbers. Not everything has been entered yet for January revenue. But that's what's currently projected. And then expenditures are 154.7. So this is very typical of what we would see for February numbers. Nothing alarming about these at all. So our year to date revenue. Again, this just breaks down the different types of revenue that we receive. So local, again, is our levies. And we receive those dollars twice a year in big lump sums and then a little bit throughout the year as well. So we received our first kind of large sum in October. That makes up most of that 26.3 million. And then we'll receive it again

082in April to total, we believe around $68.7 million a year. And that's not just our levy. That includes other things that fall under local that are non-tax related as well. State funding. We are trending higher in revenue because our enrollment is up and is increased. So we've received 109.2 million to date. We will continue to do projections throughout the year of where that will land. But we believe if enrollment continues to trend as it is, we will make up the gap that we had projected for the year. Federal. We've received 7.7 million. That's our Title I, Title II, Title III and IDEA programs. And then other is just our grants and other donations and received about 1.3 million. So all of these are pretty standard what we would see for January numbers. And we will

083continue to track these and monitor these. Expenditures, again, same story. Very typical for what we would see this time of year. Regular instruction is trending, where we would see with 75 million. The one that I would call out on this that is trending slightly higher is special education, and that is common. We've seen that every year. Special education is just expensive, and hopefully our legislature will come through this year and help us with some of that. So going on to '25, '26 budget development. We are well on our way in budget development for next year. So some of the activities we've had in January. We had our bond sale. I think you've seen that a few times now. But January 28, we had our bond sale to finish Evergreen and Tyee and to begin construction

084on Pacific. It went very, very well. We had strong interest rates, because it was a very competitive sale. We have a strong credit rating, which is fantastic. A lot of districts have not been that fortunate due to their budget issues. So we have remained with our credit rating that we've had for the past few years. And they contributed that mostly to just proactive budget management, and our strong, strong fund balance. We also had our Capital Oversight Committee. This picture is from a couple of meetings ago, so it's not from last week. But this committee meets every couple of months-- so four times a year-- to review all of our capital projects and ensure that we are on time, on budget, and also review any other projects that have come up as critical needs. The other

085big event that's coming up for budget development in January, February, and March. Those three months are really dedicated to our resource alignment process. So this is when we work with each and every school individually to determine their budget and their resource allocation and their staffing for the following year, as well as all our central budgets. So January 27, we sent our enrollment projections off to schools. We had some training right after that for school leaders. And February 14, Valentine's Day, we sent out all of the tools that school leaders need to start thinking through their budget for next year, and that's their resource alignment-- resource allocation sheets. So it tells them all their staffing. And then the categorical planning tool, which is, you know, Title, LAP, and STDP funds, and then some other tools that

086will help them as they plan throughout the year. So February 24, we have drop-in meetings for all our school leaders to look through the tools, help them plan. And then our meetings, March 11th through the 20th, is with each individual school. So what's next? We're busy. You'll see September, October, and November, month end reports on the consent agenda tonight. Those months would typically come to you in January. We were a little bit behind this year because of the tech outage. And so we're catching up. We're almost there. By next month, we will be caught up. You'll receive December next month. We're typically about a month and a half to two months behind because we're catching up with revenue each month. And we want to ensure that the month is closed before we present it to

087the board. March 5, we will have our second work session of the year. So I'll be presenting a lot more detailed information about next year around enrollment, where we think this year will end, some possible legislation that will potentially contribute more revenue, and any other questions that you may have. So that will be coming. As I said, we have resource alignment meetings, central resource alignment meetings. We are continuing to monitor legislative actions and bills that would affect our revenue for next year and beyond. And we're continuing to advocate for those as well. And we will continue refining our year end projections. And next week we have our next CFAC meeting Monday, and then following that, we have our FAC meeting, which I will attend. And we are starting a budget subcommittee on that team. I'm

088happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much, Jackie. Directors, any follow up questions or comments? I have a question. The CFAC, what time is the CFAC committee? It is 6:00. OK. We'll send you the invite. OK, thank you. And then the other one. How often do you have the resource alignment meetings? Is it usually just during the budget season, or do you have it periodically? We do. So the large meeting where we have the school leaders and then representatives from the central office occurs once a year. So that's during the budget development session. So usually in March. And then we have the training and drop-ins before that. But our team is answering questions throughout the year with school leaders, and we will answer questions and work with school leaders as they refine their categorical

089plans as things change throughout the year. OK. Yeah. Yeah, because I know that we've been, these last couple years, just getting better at that, at our resource alignment. And I'm just wondering how-- because I know that we've-- well, anyways. So I'm glad also that you're offering that during the year to see if they need any more support as they're maybe not using their money, who else needs it along the way that could be using it. Well, then-- I mean, March is not so far along. We'll get another work session, so we'll get more details along, because I know that we don't know what's coming down the pike. I mean, things are changing. I mean, all these executive orders. I mean, I think that at midnight, usually everyone, it drops at midnight almost every other night.

090So we'll be knowing more as things come. But March is around the corner, so. And then as things come. So I don't have any other questions. Thank you very much. Director Tidholm. No questions, but thank you for your presentation, Jackie. Thank you. No questions from me, Jackie. Thank you so much for presenting. That concludes my update. Thank you, Dr. Duran. That concludes our superintendents update. Moving to our school board reports, our legislative reports. Director Tidholm. Yes. So things are looking positive for our big three with special education funding getting a lot of interest thus far. Senate Bill 5189 for competency based learning is slowly moving forward. It's a bill that would ensure that our schools that use competency or mastery models are fully funded. There's still a lot of time in the session, but we're

091feeling positive so far. So crossing our fingers that the state will fulfill their paramount duty to fully fund education. And that's all that I have. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then we're going to move to our director's report. So I'm going to start with Director Alvarez. So just another shout out for Juan Lozano for being named our King County admin of the year. But also want to just thank everyone. I know this is a time right now as we come together, we're just supporting one another. We don't know as to what comes down with executive orders. And I think everyone, our educators all just supporting one another, we don't know what's happening. We don't know as far as executive orders that come down. So just thank you, everyone, for your patience in

092supporting one another and just holding each other as to keeping each other just in mind. So I don't have very much. Just wanted to name, again, honoring Juan Lozano for being named our admin of the year. And you know all his being recognized by CS peers as well. So I don't have very much to add. That's the end. Thank you very much. Director Tidholm. Yes. Cascade Middle School and its Vietnamese dual language program hosted the Joyful Tet, or Lunar New Year Celebration with music, dance, games, and food. Unfortunately, I didn't get to make it. It was at the same time as our board meeting, but my baby went and had a grand old time. The Cascade students and families participated, along with some alum from Cascade, and the students performed some traditional dances and played

093music as well. And that is all that I have. Also apologies for not being there in person. As President Van noted, I'm taking care of a family member who's unwell right now, but hope to see all your faces in person soon. Thank you so much. It's my turn. Good evening, everyone. It's great to see everybody. Dr. Duran shared with us that February started off with some really cold weather, so just wanted to share our staff was out early checking roads, keeping school-- and our schools keeping everyone everyone's safe. I was on calls at around 4:30. I was being texted earlier than that. But making sure that we made the best decisions together. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Safety will always come first. I just want big thanks to our operations, communications, transportation teams,

094our school leaders, and most of all, our families. This past month, I had the chance to attend some great events. I joined Dr. Duran and Kisa Hendrickson at the state of the Port of Seattle, where we learned about the exciting future of our maritime and airport industries. It's inspiring to see what's ahead, so that was really great to be there with the electeds. I also want to thank our HR and recruiting teams. Director Alvarez and I had a wonderful time at the Highline job fair, meeting building leaders, potential candidates. It was really energizing to see so many eager people wanting to join Highline, so it was really great to be there. But also special thanks to Dina Russell for inviting us to celebrate our teachers who earned their National Board Certifications just recently. We recognized

095about 35 educators, 13 earning their certifications for the first time and 22 maintaining their certifications. This recognition reflects their dedication to excellence in teaching and commitment to our ongoing professional growth. So appreciate that. Finally, I just want to thank everybody who applied for the director appointments, and to our community for participating in the thought exchange. We have some outstanding candidates and your input is helping shape this process. So just wanted to share with you what our next steps are and process updates. The new directors for District 4 and District 5 will serve until the directors elected in the November 25 election to take their oath. The appointment process is guided by state law and Highline board policy 1114 and procedure 1114. It was important to the board to gather community input. Therefore, we invited community

096members to nominate candidates and encouraged interested individuals to apply for the open board positions. And we also sought feedback on the candidate interview questions from the community. Thank you for everybody that applied. We will be interviewing candidates on February 26 from 4:30 to 7:00 here at central office. The interview will also be livestreamed. So the board anticipates voting to appoint two new directors on March 5, with members taking their oath on March 19. So more information can be found on Highline's website. And to end that, I'm just thankful for this community and all the work we do together. Thank you again and looking forward to what's ahead. And that concludes our director's reports. Then moving to our consent agenda. Just a point of clarification that on our consent agenda, this includes agenda items from our

097February 5, where our regular board meeting-- where we canceled it because of the weather. So can I please have a motion to approve our consent agenda? I'll move to approve our consent agenda. Oh, there it was. It was stuck. Need help? I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. Thank you very much. No items were removed from the consent agenda. OK. We have a couple action items this evening. 8.1. This is motion to approve revisions to board policy 6000, financial management for equity. Any questions or comments? I just have a comment. I know that at this-- we had a work study session. I'd just make a comment that I know at this particular work study session, one of our board directors wanted to make sure that we had changed language for this

098particular board policy to make sure that we aligned it with our district strategic plan goals. So I'm glad that we finally got around to it and it's bringing brought to the major changes to-- or the only changes to this particular board policy is that it's aligning with our strategic plan, and it's the only language that is being changed. So that's the only comment I have. Thank you. Director Tidholm, any comments or questions? No. Thank you. With that said, can I please have a motion? I'll make a motion. Let's see. Let me look for my language for the-- so I move that the Highline School Board amend board policy 6000, financial management for equity, as indicated in the attachment. I'll second. Roll call, please. Director Alvarez. Yay. Director Tidholm. Yay. President Van. Yay. This motion passes

099three to none. Thank you. 8.2. This is motion to approve Evergreen High School replacement project. Approval of contractor, Cornerstone General Electric. General contractors, change order number two on PO, number CP 240080. Any questions or comments? I do have a question. Who would I ask? Jackie's going to be running down. Jackie, does this have anything to do with the insurance claims or anything for the incident that happened at Evergreen? Yes, that's what this is for. OK. Yes. This is to complete the remediation work on the Evergreen campus due to the vandalism. Since I didn't see insurance or anything, I thought, OK, is this new or what is happening? OK. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Hearing and seeing none, can I please have a motion? I'll move that the Highline School Board approve change order

100number two for Cornerstone General Contractors on PO number CP 240080 in the amount of 1,430,000. Did I say that right? Bringing the total revised purchase order to the amount of $9,202,891.10, plus Washington State sales tax. I'll second that. Roll call, please. Director Tidholm. Yay. Director Alvarez. Yay. President Van. Yay. This motion passes three to none. Thank you. That concludes our action items. We have a couple intro and action, and it looks like we have presentations as well. This 9.1, motion to approve salary increases for classified substitutes and coaches due to newly implemented minimum wage requirements for Burien, Washington. Thank you. I am very pleased to say that we've worked diligently with our labor partners and with our unrepresented employees to make sure that we offer wages, but we also have communities that we serve that

101are also making their decisions about what competitive wages should look like, and occasionally that interacts with us. And in the case of some of our substitute employees and our coaches, the new Burien raise in minimum wage, we didn't meet that threshold. And so what you have before you is bringing our classified substitute salaries and our coach's salaries into-- our wages into compliance with the new minimum wage. And what I'd like to point out, and I'm not sure if you noticed it. With our coaches, we did come up with a formula so we can be responsive in the moment without bringing it to you every single time one of our different municipalities might make a change in the minimum wage would then impact us. Thank you. Directors, any questions or follow up? I do have one.

102And based off of the minimum requirements for Burien, this was passed by city council. I know that they just went out for another election. So does that minimum wage-- this should take care of that, correct? This will take care of that, because that basically expanded the previously asked minimum wage to smaller organizations. So we were already covered. Thank you for the clarification. Appreciate that. With that said, any other-- since there's no other questions or comments, can I please have a motion? I move that the Highline School Board approve the updated classified substitute salary schedule and athletic coach's salary matrix, which has been updated to reflect an automatic adjustment to hourly rates adjusted to the legally required minimum wage impacting the Highline School District. I'll second. Roll call, please. Director Tidholm. Yay. Director Alvarez. Yay. President

103Van. Yay. This motion passes three to none. Thank you. 9.2. Another intro and action. This is motion to approve the Synergy Student Information System renewal. Deshawn, you're up. Excellent. So good evening, President Van, board, Dr. Duran. Thank you for the opportunity to do a brief overview of the reason for this motion to approve the Synergy contract renewal. So Synergy has been an excellent student information system solution since the 2019-2020 school year. And I say that in comparison to being involved in the last four student information systems that we've had here. And in comparison, Synergy does a tremendous job in supporting us. We benefit from an active participation in a consortium of neighboring school districts, which include Bellevue, Federal Way, North Shore, and Tacoma. And in addition, this platform has also been adopted by the state

104of Oregon for the entire state for well over the last decade, which gives us a lot of opportunities to push on features that need to be done with a local context. There was a specific ask for modules that are being used and approximate percentages for those modules. I'm going to walk through some of the larger modules that we use. So Parent View, which is the portal that parents view schedules as well as grades, report cards, and those types of things, about 80% of our families use parent view. 60% of our students use Student View. And Student View is used to close the feedback loop for students to be able to look at their own student data and know where they are in real time. We have completed our standards based grading across all grade levels

105and transition to both elementary and secondary report cards, which are also available in Parent View. Teacher View. 100% of our teachers use Teacher View with the grade book that I just mentioned. Online registration and verification. 80% of our current families use the online registration for verification of information, current and as information is updated. And 100% of our returning and newly enrolled families use the online registration and verification for address. Master schedule builder. 100% of this module is used at our secondary schools for master scheduling, which usually starts around this time of year. We also mentioned earlier in the year-- mentioned in the work session earlier we also use MTSS module and our Early Warning module to support these initiatives that we talked about a little bit earlier. We have been using these modules for the

106last two years, and we're also supporting continued use of those modules. Additionally, over the last couple of years, we've been doing pilots with the eHall Pass module, which allows students to be able to check out a hall pass and then to have that Hall pass approved electronically, and also keep queues of students to make sure that we can support school safety initiatives by supporting hall pass and knowing where students are, again, in real time. The check-in and check-out module that was also mentioned in the work session. We have 58% of our schools using that check-in and check-out module. We expect that to grow as our MTSS initiative grows. And we also have some soon to be used modules. So over the next year, we're going to be implementing a couple of pretty significant modules, moving

107from some older legacy software onto the Synergy platform. So we have our health services. So the health service office screens, which are available in Synergy MSIS, will be 100% available transitioning in August. And also Synergy special education, we're going to have 100% of the inclusive education tracking occurring in that same system. So our continued use of Synergy supports all initiatives that rely on student data. They provided exceptional support over the last five years. We recommend that we have an additional renewal. Thank you so much, Deshawn. Directors, any questions? There it goes. I have a question. For Parent View, does it come in different languages? Yes. Parent View does come in different languages. I believe right now we're working on additional real time translation, but it does come in at least-- we know English and Spanish

108for sure is 100% completely accurate. They are also implementing more AI translation, which has become a little bit more-- best way to put it. It's become more trusted within these spaces. Because again, remember, years ago, Google Translate was not your best friend. So AI's a little bit better. Yeah. Well, I check say not just for parents, but for our multilingual students who are just coming in as well, for students as well. Yes. OK. Thank you. That was it. Director Tidholm, any questions? Thank you very much. Deshawn, thank you so much for breaking down the modules. That was the question, and part of the bar, you showed the Exhibit A where it broke down the individual modules and what the cost was. So that helped me look at it. I was wanting to make sure that

109we're getting the most bang for our buck, that more than 75% of our schools were using all of the modules, and that we were just making it effective. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. OK. With that said, can I please have a motion? Oh. Thank you. I move that the Highline School Board approve the renewal of Synergy Student Information Systems for a five year contract in the amount of $1,690,368 that will include applicable Washington State sales tax. I'll second. Roll call, please. Director Alvarez. Yay. Director Tidholm. Yay. President Van. Yay. This motion passes three to none. Thank you very much. That concludes our intro and action items. Thank you so much for the presentation this evening. We have, it looks like five intro items with a couple presentations. So get those

110started. 10.1. This is motion to approve resolution 01-25, requesting a waiver from the state. High school graduation requirements for Maritime High School. Good evening, board. We turned on here? Yeah? Yeah. Great. I'm here with our principal. Hi. Jamille Gordon. And I'm going to talk just a little bit about this process and where we are in the process, and then Principal Gordon will talk a little bit about the development of the school. So I stood here, let's see, back in 2021 when we launched this process for the school. And the State Board of Education has a process where this waiver renewal comes up on a regular basis. It's similar to the waiver-- or it is the same waiver that we have at Big Picture, as well as Innovation Heights Academy, which you saw last year. And

111so this is a renewal of that waiver that continues the program model. It does not signal any kind of shift in program model or the way that students are graduating. So what you see in the materials is what the State Board of Ed will receive and review. And then with your resolutions signed, that's a necessary piece of support for the State Board of Ed to consider this moving forward. And then we'll have approval from the State Board of Ed, if approved, in April, which is necessary to continue operating the school as operating. So with that, I'll ask Principal Gordon to tell us a little bit about what's going on at the school. OK. I think this is not cutting out, is it? OK. So today we had a staff meeting in thinking about just the

112operations of the school. And so we are finishing up our fourth year. And so thinking about this is really the time to renew, reflect, and think about what we've done. Because each year the school was just 9th grade, and then 9th and 10th. And so the cohesiveness that could exist doesn't exist quite yet. And so we're really talking about vertical articulation, making sure there's a through-line from 9th grade all the way to 12th grade. We already have students who are getting into college, and I know that was a big deal. People were worried about that. But we have one student who has been accepted to six colleges. We have a student-- and I mention this because a student who received special education services has been accepted to four colleges, three Washington State schools and one

113out of Montana. And so we're only getting stronger with regards to ensuring that students have even more of a cohesive, comprehensive education and ensuring that we're sticking to our values or what we promised around ensuring that there's caterers, that we're teaching essential standards that all Highline High Schools are teaching. And so we're only improving and getting better. And we were talking today as we were thinking about our projects and making sure and understanding that the waiver allows us to be a little bit more creative with what we do, because traditional grading kind of changes the ability to have these really, really cool projects. Right? And so we rely on this creativity and flexibility to continue to be innovative, but still recognizing the need to have a strong educational background. So we look to folks in

114teaching and learning and our district content specialists to ensure that we're doing everything so the students could get a comparable education at Maritime High School. Thank you so much. Directors, any follow up questions or concerns? Need help? Thank you. Welcome. The only thing-- just, as I was reviewing, it just talks about-- or it states that the box is marked around community engagement required. So when that is marked, what does that mean? Are you going to be hosting around involving community in this, or what does that really mean? So with regards to some of the curriculum stuff, we have to get something together before we can involve the community. And so what we're really looking at is we've done some good things. We need to tighten it. And then we're going to get definitely industry involvement.

115And then thinking about how we strategically pull in families and students. Students have been a major part of our master schedule building and helping us get into the portion of RAM. But with the curriculum stuff, we just started it today. And so we haven't fully fleshed out what that looks like. But that definitely is part of the process. OK. Perfect. Thank you very much. Well, that concludes our your presentation. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, motion 10.2. It looks like we're going to do one presentation for 10.2, 10.4, and 10.6. I'm going to read that out loud here. And 10.5. So I'm going to read those out loud so it's in record. 10.2. This is motion to approve the original Beverly Park change order number one with Forma Construction on PO CP 240096.

11610.4. This is this motion to approve change order number two with McKinstry Assessment of facility condition. 10.5. Motion to approve the Beverley Park at Glendale roof replacement and restoration contract with Garland DBS roof project. As well as 10.6. 10.6. And 10.6, motion to approve transportation building replacement project, site work award of contract. So, Jackie. That's me. Let's go. Thank you. I will address each bar separately and then pause for questions if that works for everyone. So the first one is the approval of the change order for Forma Construction with the original Beverley Park site. So this is the first change order that we have for this contract. If you remember, there was an emergency contract that was put in place with Forma when Southern Heights had the fire and we had to quickly find a

117home for our schools. Forma agreed to the task of trying to get that original Beverly Park site up and running for our students, and they accomplished that goal. It was amazing. And so this, once the emergency contract was complete, we said we would come back and talk about any additional work that needed to be done to the site past that kind of date of the emergency. So this is the first time we're coming back to inform you of additional work that we had already planned but that needs to occur now in addition to the previous emergency contract. So it's a change order to that contract. The things that would be included in this are ADA compliance. So ADA bathroom, ADA walkways. This was something that we actually-- we received our permits, even though this wasn't

118done with the understanding that we would do this as soon as we could. So that was the work here. Some additional security is included in this as well. And then updating all the water systems in that building as well as the heating system. The boiler is quite old, so we're going to do some updates on that as well. So that covers this change order. Happy to answer questions. Directors, any questions? Have none? Next. The next one is the McKinstry Assessment of facilities condition. So this is phase two of a project that capital has undertaken in master planning. So as we go through and do some capital master planning, we'd like to be much more proactive in that planning and what we see coming as far as replacements of our large systems. And so McKinstry has

119agreed to go through and do an assessment of all our sites. So this is phase two. We've already gone through and completed phase one. Phase two will include additional middle schools, our high schools, as well as some of our support facilities. And not only will McKinstry go through and evaluate all of the large systems at each of those sites. It will also do asset tagging, so that will enable us to track all of our large assets and also know when those are due for service and replacement. And so that's what these are for. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Go ahead. I just have to-- got it now. I just got to do that now. So this basically is-- so how does this compare to what we have already? Like, the CFAC had done the

120original report. So this is updating, basically, that? It is updating that. It's also a little more in depth. So it's going through each kind of-- each building, but then each big system within the building so that we can track our boilers, we can track our plumbing system as a whole. OK. Yeah. Thank you. Director Tidholm, any questions? None for me. I'm not going to turn it off. We're almost done. Perfect. OK. Next, roof replacement at Beverly Park, Glendale. This is a continuation of roof replacements that we had begun last summer. It was a large project for several roof replacements. This is just to start to open the PO for the planned repairs and restoration at Beverly Park at Glendale. And so we need to have this started. This will occur in the summer when there's

121no students on site. But we need to have the PO opened in April so we can start that work. Thank you. Any follow up questions or comments? Hearing and seeing none. We're good with that one. And finally, we have the transportation replacement. We've discussed this. The first phase of this was to bring a contract forward for the modular building. And that was approved and that has started. The next phase of the project is to get the site ready for the modular building. So this PO-- or I'm sorry, this bar is for all of the site work that needs to occur prior to us bringing in the modular building. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Hearing none. I'll have one question here. So a lot of these are exed out in regards to dollars. When would

122those numbers be inserted so we actually take a look at-- Those will be inserted prior to the next board meeting. We're hoping as soon as possible. We're waiting on some bids still for most of these. OK. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you. It looks like we have one last intro item. This is 10.3, motion to approve resolution 02-25. Our schools, our promise. A stand for every student. Any questions or comments on that resolution? Holly is doing a presentation. Come on up, Holly. Thanks. Thank you very much. I want to give a little bit of historical context. I thought I was really close to-- Holly, you have to keep it real close. Close? All right. Well, I still want to give a little bit of historical context for this resolution. There's been a

123lot of language in the last few weeks about executive orders and orders coming down from the president or the governor explaining their thoughts. And I want to make it clear that we don't get to do executive orders. School board gets to do resolutions, and resolutions are really your opportunity to state what Highline believes-- going in and out and I apologize. State what Highline believes and put that on the record for our community. I think I might-- So 83 years ago today, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which sent thousands upon thousands of Japanese and Japanese-American people to internment camps. Many people from Washington State, from right here in Highline, were subject to those orders, and many people lost everything on their return. That order was based on fear and hate, something that we're seeing replicated

124today. And the intergenerational impact of that negative action is still being felt today. Another historical context, but different. 50 years ago, in another time infused with fear and hate, Washington State took a different tact. In April of 1975, then-governor Dan Evans welcomed the first Vietnamese refugees to Washington State. That was a time when other states, including other states here on the West Coast, were saying, don't come here. We don't want you here. Washington State didn't do that. We stood up and we said, come to Washington. You belong here. You are welcome. And the intergenerational effects of that positive action are also still being felt today. So 2025, another time of fear and hatred, another time when executive orders are being used to target people and to other them. With this resolution, you uphold the ethos

125that Governor Evans embodied, an ethos that says that everybody belongs. You repudiate the fear and hate that are coming from many people, some elected, some self-appointed, some far away, some right here. With this resolution, you further our goal of a culture of belonging for our immigrant community, for our LGBTQIA+ community. This resolution is a step towards ensuring that people of every race, color, religion, all people know that here in Highline, they are supported, they are protected, and they know that Highline stands for them. Thank you for considering this resolution. Thank you, Holly. Any follow up questions or comments? Hearing, seeing none. Thank you so much. With that, I'd just like-- a point of privilege. I just want to thank Jackie and Andrew with our finance team. We had an audit exit with the Washington State

126auditors team a few weeks ago, and they did a great job, so I just wanted to thank them. Great work. It's eight months worth of having an auditor be in-house looking at all of our numbers and stuff. So thank you very much. All right? With that said. I'm sorry. Here. Any items that you would like to be added to the consent agenda? I don't think we really have any items to move because we don't really have any numbers in there. OK. No. OK. Sounds good. Director Tidholm, any other follow up questions or anything to the consent? Thank you very much. With that said-- Nope. Go ahead. OK. With that-- I just said nope. Sorry. OK. Delayed reaction. With that said, I would like to have a motion to adjourn. I make a motion. I will

127make a motion to adjourn. I will second that. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none. Thank you very much.