001platform platform. Thank you everyone for being here tonight for our school board meeting. Uh Madame President couldn't be here today, so I'm filling in. Um so welcome to the meeting. Do we have any needs for translation services? Okay, we'll keep going. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make a motion. >> I'll second it. >> Motion and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. Thank you very much. We will go ahead and move on to the student representative reports. >> Okay. So, we just finished um Buff Puff. Well, Midwinter Madness. Um it wasn't what the leadership expected. We could have done a lot better, but just because we were too focused on husky for a day, which was very successful, I loved it. I met like a person who
002wanted to do who wanted to become a student board rep one day. And it was amazing to create new connections with the eighth graders. Um kind of like giving them advice with what to expect at the high school or what not to do. It was very fun. Um we we have a basketball game tomorrow. It's a elimination basketball game. It's against East Valley. Um we're excited for that. It's at 600 p.m. tomorrow at OHS. Um the CTSOs, which which is all of like the CTE um clubs like FFA, um FCCLA are all hosting um Cupid Cinema at OHS in the main gym on Thursday, February 13. Um 12, sorry. This week we're also celebrating FCCLA week. So every week there's a new like um theme for each of the CTE. Um it's just kind of
003to like let get them give them exposure what's what the club is. Husky opportunity night was on Thursday February 5th. It was well attended and a lot of running start students um gave their experiences and then we also had like more exposure to like what OHS offers. >> I don't have anything to report. Can we have some more explanation on what Husky for a day is? >> Yes. Um, Husky for a day is when the eighth graders came for like um two hours and they kind of like were like oh students for the day. So what we OHS students did was we dressed up as like we made like a theme um for like the first day it was husky pride and then we all OHS students wore husky pride and so did the eighth
004graders kind of like make them feel like like it and then it consisted of an assembly a tour counselor presentation and like a Q&A and like club and fair sports that's what it involved it was 60 students per hour or Oh my gosh. 12 120 students a day, but then it was broken into two sessions a day. >> Thank you. >> And wasn't there a cheerleading event this recently? Can you tell us about that? >> Um, so yeah, the cheer team, they competed this Saturday at Battleground Washington. Um, and we in our category, we placed ninth place, but we still tried our best. It was a tough competition, but we put our blood, sweat, and tears into everything and it was a really good experience. So, I'm glad to have experienced it and I'm glad
005we all got to do competitive cheer because this is our first year and this is our first time going to state, which is just a huge accomplishment. So, I'm very proud of it. >> You said it was the first time we sent a team to this, right? >> Yeah. >> So, you're making history then. >> Awesome. Anything else for student rep report? >> No, that's it. Okay, thank you. I just want to provide one uh clarification. There is a basketball game tomorrow. I believe it's the girls game which will be away at Topenish High School, it looks like. And then the boys game is on Wednesday at 6 p.m. home. So there the there are two games. So you got it right. But in case you want to watch our boys play at home, that'll
006be Wednesday at 6 o'clock. >> All right. Thank you. Um we'll go ahead and move on to our recognition. So we'll turn the time over to Dr. Pres. Yeah, I'd just like to invite Carlos Gonzalez, the district athletic director and director of student engagement to come forward and have some special guests here this evening. >> Good evening everyone. Can you hear me on this? Uh, thank you for having me here tonight to be able to recognize our our wrestling team. Um, over the years, as you guys are aware, Oll wrestling has always had us the amazing tradition of just strong wrestling throughout the state of Washington here in Oll. Um, but also it's evolved where girls are have a very active presence in wrestling too and they are continuing to build on the amazing wrestling
007tradition that we have in our community. So, at this time, before I go in to share how our teams are doing, I'd like to invite our teams up. We'll have our girls here on my left with head coach Sammy Roachcha and invite Ruben Lopez, our head coach for the boys, and the boys out this way on my right. Um, what I'm going to do is just share how we're doing so far this season. It's been an wrestling is hard for one. A lot of sports are hard, but the the wrestling season is long and hard and you know, injuries happen, but through everything that our kids go through, they they persevere. They have that mental toughness, they show grit, and um they step up to the challenge. So, uh ladies first, what we have so
008far for the girls this season, they have a 7-1 SEWAC dual record. Currently in ended up in second place in the SEWAC behind Tophenish. They were the East Mont Lady Cats Kickoff Classic Champions, team champions. They also won the Kenowick Lionist Wrestling Tournament as champions. They placed third at the Hammerhead Wrestling Tournament in Breton, the Pack Coast Tournament. They were also team champions. The Braided 64 in 15 place, 15th place in Kelso. The Bring Home the Beef Quincy, that's the name of the tournament. Bring home the Beef. uh in Quincy sixth place uh the Lady Huskies Invitational seventh Washington 2-way state duel second place and they're currently according to Washington uh state wrestling uh and I mean like coaches and other people insiders in the sport have us currently ranked first in state going into
009the postseason but what I always say and the coaches would agree anything can happen in the postseason so it's just rankings we appreciate it uh we love the reputation but we still have to get out there and and and finish and represent. And uh what's interesting too is that of the top 10 schools in the in the state, five of them are SEWAC schools. That just shows how tough the SEWAC is when it comes to wrestling for girls wrestling. Oll being ranked one, top finish two, Ephraa 3, Grand 4, and Quincy six. And so it's an we have amazing competition here in our league to keep us sharp. Uh, speaking for the boys, um, they are six and two SEWAC dual record, currently tied for second place in the SEWAC Deer Park Invitational, third place.
010Leonard Shudy Memorial Tournament, team champions. They also participated in the the amazing Tri-State tournament, which is probably the toughest tournament in the entire Northwest. Uh, the Raleigh Lane, we had Mason Russell participate in the Raleigh Lane. It's a 64man bracket and that's incredibly difficult to in Boise. He had that experience. The rumble in the valley is probably one of the toughest tournaments we have in the state here in Proer in the in the valley and we placed third place there. Uh they were second place at the Matt Animal in Quincy. They earned second place in the Washington 2A state duels and are currently ranked third in Washington state behind Oring and Toppenish. And in the SEWAC there are three schools ranked in the top 10. Topenanish 1, Oll 3, and CILA 5. And so uh
011these guys are and ladies are keeping the tradition alive here in Oll doing an amazing job. They're getting ready to go into the postseason with districts. The girls are going to be in Grand View. The boys in Toppenish. These are two-day tournaments where wrestling begins at 3:00 4 in the afternoon. It'll go till 9:00 9:30 at night with weigh-ins having to report for weigh-ins at 7:00 a.m. for an 8:00 a.m. weigh in the next day and and then they do it all over again that next day. So, um I'm going to hand it over to our head coaches so that they introduce who their wrestlers are and answer any questions that you might have. So, I have three lovely ladies here with me. Sometimes they're lovely, other times they're not. But I have seniors Angie
012Monday right now. She's probably ranked number one in the state of Washington. Last year, finished third in the state. I have our little Janisa Barrera. She's our little 100 pounder. Uh, and right now she is just about as fast as anybody can. You don't want to mess with Janicea's speed right now. She's probably like peing as far as like speed. And this one is Brisa Galves. Now, what you don't know about Brisa is she had her appendix removed uh right at the end of November and she took about four or five weeks off and ever since then we brought her back in and she's just been grinding to get back in shape. She's lost what? 10 pounds. >> She lost about 10 pounds to get back into She's back into wrestling shape. She placed six
013in the state of uh Washington last year. And now that their appendix is removed, we're ready to roll. So, all right. For the boys, I have Xavierone. He's down at the end. Four-year senior. Last year's a state alternate. Um this year, I believe he's ranked sixth right now. Uh, next to him is Camilo Mendes, the third. He took second last year, fourth the year before, and he was a state participant as a freshman. Um, currently ranked fifth, I think. Then next to him is Mason Russell. Mason Russell as a freshman took third, sophomore took fifth, and then last year he took third and currently ranked second. Daniel Gonzalez was state participant, fourth and third, and he's currently ranked second. And then Miguel Zuniga, um, state participant for the past two years. Um, and also he's
014ranked third right now. >> So before I hand it off to him, I just want to say thank you to the school board. I I I'm sure you're aware that you got us two new mats, you know, and we desperately needed those mats so badly because of the junior high. They have 40 wrestlers over there. The boys have 40 or 50 wrestlers. We have 40 or 50 wrestlers and we were all just kind of like trying to share mats and it was very impossible. So, because of your contribution, you're making you just made life easy for us. So, I wanted to say thank you. I want to start off with that. And I I think it's also important to mention that wrestling is probably one of the more expensive sports. And I mean because of
015the travel, the team registrations at every tournament that these guys compete in, ladies and and the guys. And but I would say the reason why these teams are so competitive and why they do so well is because they are very strategic about what tournaments they do participate in throughout the year. They intentionally find the toughest competition in the state to expose our kids to see the best competition out there so that it'll best prepare them for February when it matters the most. Um, so aside, you know, from getting through injuries and getting through a long wrestling season, what we also try to do is we host a tournament. I think it's also important to just say thanks to the community of Oll who has volunteered their time and effort to contribute to the Leonard Shudy
016memorial that we host in December where those team registrations help support the team funding to be able to travel uh cuz lodging is expensive and so is the travel itself. We hosted the Lady Huskies Invitational uh two or three weeks ago um with where we had 46 teams come to Ollo High School on seven mats. And so we also host the 2A the Washington State Coaches Association, Wrestling Coaches Association 2A state dual tournament as well and back-to-back weekends. hosting back-to-back weekends is is it's hard, but um I'm really grateful to the community of Oll, the obviously the support that we get from our school district, but especially the community that we have, especially around wrestling to volunteer their time, to take care of the hospitality room with the table help that we do get and
017just to make everything run smoothly. It's a it's a beast and we did it three times in a season with the Leonard Shudy Lady Huskies and the two-way state duels. And so all of that to support our kids in the program and the to raise the money that it requires so that our kids can see the best competition in the state. And so thank you to the board. Thank you to the community of Oll for all your support. And it just seems appropriate that we we would like to have all of our teams here, but we're talking 20 to 28 kids that are going to districts on each team. So we wouldn't have enough space in here. So we thought it appropriate to invite our seniors to represent each team. So thank you to our
018teams and we wish them the best of luck this weekend in Grand View and Toppenish. And if the board has any questions, you're welcome to to ask uh our head coaches or the kids. >> I've always heard of the interesting things that wrestlers do to make weight, but having your appendix removed is is next level. So, yeah, great job. Um I was able to attend one of the tournaments and it was great. There were so many teams, a lot of coordination. Thank you for all the work you do to put that together. I know director Petta was there and got to do some of the behind the scenes work, too. So, what did you see at these tournaments? >> Just for me, it was amazing to see the community all come together. um come out
019and watch you guys sport. Um it's always fun. It's just I'm going be honest. I'm kind of biased. I actually I've got to see every one of you guys' coaches wrestle at once in my in my life and I know how hard it is to cut weight to try to make it and it's a long season. So, uh if birdie will let me with all them, uh I'd like to donate when you guys get back. I'll feed all you guys, both teams and their parents, and I'll see if I can get Classic Going to uh cater and I'll take care of it because I know it's a long season for you guys. You guys don't get to eat. >> Mac and cheese sound okay, >> but hey, great luck out there. I hope you guys
020do well and I know that Otello's supporting you guys. So, >> yeah. And I can I just ask a question? Um since I know not very I I just I don't know anything about wrestling. Sweat and and slings. That's what I know. Um if you were to tell somebody who didn't know anything about wrestling, what skills do you learn on the mat that you would bring to your life? >> You guys are always >> um I would say um just work hard. I don't know. It's It's very tough. Like, it's very tough and it's not for everyone. So, you have to be like mentally brave and everything. >> I would say to not give up either. You know, it's it helped me not not on the mat, but off the mat, too. Um, it's mentally
021you have to pass it. And, you know, it's helped me through a lot. I think it's like helped me stay composed and like even through the losses, you know, you just got to have that grit and you know, just go through it and it just helps me like not give up too. >> Take it back. >> What do you guys think? >> Well, I'd say that wrestling teaches you for me as a young man is to understand the grit and be mentally and physically tough. And I feel like um starting wrestling as a freshman, never wrestled my entire life. I felt like I was just like prey. I didn't win a single match my freshman year. And you know, it it shows you how to be tough physically and mentally. It's something that I've always
022will stick with me and it's something that I will always remember uh as I grow into become a young man. So I feel like those two things are something that I've learned. Um um well with wrestling it's mostly like um a mental sport. Um it's hard but most of the time everybody's like freaking out and like having like a heart attack basically. And so it's really taught me the how to stay like as she said composed and mentally like tough and how to just try hard. >> Um like Veil said it definitely teaches you to be mentally tough, mentally disciplined because you got to learn how to push through. But it also teaches you both how to be self-reliant and work together with other people. Uh, wrestling taught me just hang in there. Uh, last
023year districts I lost in the semis and I I was down mentally and then the next week I was I made the state finals. So just just keep on working at it and that's just never give up. >> Wrestling taught me um how to get beat up and then get back up and try harder and not get beat up the next time. >> What else? What else? That's it. >> Thank you. >> I I do want to add one point. I was not a wrestler. I uh wrestled in middle school, but I had too many other talents and I just couldn't spend the time in wrestling. But u I have a good I met a friend in u my principal program 15 or 16 years ago and he was a high school wrestler and I
024thought he had the best description and they shared some of it. Part of it is that you are part of a team. We're meeting teams tonight, but you're out there by yourself under a light with very little clothing on. And wrestling exposes you at your weakest moments when you lose and when you win and how you how you react as a winner and um those those experiences when you think about your roles as employers or employees when the lights shining on you, are you ready? When things don't go your way, how do you react? Uh when you win, do you not celebrate too much? there's so many good lessons to be learned in in the wrestling room that and these are really fine examples of kids learning those lessons. So, um it's true of most
025sports, but wrestling is unique in that way in the high school experience. So, thanks for representing us so well. And and so to finish and again, thank you for this opportunity opportunity to acknowledge and recognize our kids and the amazing work that they've done this season. Um but I also have to thank our coaches. There's so much time and effort and planning and just perseverance through a season that everything with everything that can happen in a season. You know, I I'm so thankful to have these guys as head coaches and that represent our program in the best way possible. It's not just putting a a good tough team out. It's it's doing it the right way and and they are doing that. And so, um, thank you to our coaches. And something to add on
026to what all of our kids talked about, it's really preparing them for life, too. Wrestling teaches them a lot about life. And something Wayne Shudy always taught me was just he kept saying staying pressure forward, pressure forward. And so no matter what life throws at you, you just keep pressuring forward. And and that's something I'm still trying to do today. And so uh wrestling will do that to you. But again, thank you for the opportunity to highlight and celebrate our kids and we wish them the very best, uh in this postseason coming up this weekend and next weekend at state. Thank you. We'd love to take a picture before you go and um welcome anybody unless you're not a Seahawks fan. I got to sleep in. Thank you. Best of luck in the week at
027week weeks ahead to our wrestlers. Thank you for being here. >> We just did them a favor. They they sat here and didn't have to go home and eat. I'm pretty sure they want to. Okay, great. We'll go ahead and move on to board member discussion. Um, I do have some legislative stuff, but before that, I did want to mention I was able to go to the McFarland um, career fair, and there was a there was a ton of people there. There was a lot of community members there. Every classroom was full of someone presenting for the students. It was really great to see the the community um, you know, willing to take time out of their day, out of their workday to to be there. Will, do you know how many how many people
028we had there? It was there was a lot of people. >> Yeah. But all but all the all the all all the classrooms were full of of people there to present for the students and yeah it was great to see the community um step up for that. Um I did want to mention legislative report. Um so the session is moving right along. The of course the millionaires tax was um proposed last week. So that'll be interesting to see where that goes. But they keep telling us that even if it does pass that we wouldn't see anything until 2029. Correct. Um so we'll see where that goes. they some of the deadlines um have already passed for the um policy committee and the fiscal committee. So any policy um policy and fiscal bills that haven't made
029it past that mark are are now dead. And so we only see the ones that have made it past and are going to move forward. The WASDA is still um pressuring any bills with unfunded mandates. Um, for example, there's one right now, one bill right now that's kind of going through about requiring schools to um include a financial literacy portion to your graduation requirements, which is great, but it does become an unfunded mandate because it requires schools to do something. It requires them to spend money to do this. And so that's one that WASA is actually opposing. One another thing that um has had some attention is the substitute bill they that they passed last year. At the time they said it was going to be exclude education services from that um but it didn't
030and so now they're trying to go back and fix that for education and that's actually making some progress. It's looking looking good for that one. So we're excited about that. Um but yeah, the session is moving right along. Those are my main updates I had for that. Any questions about any of those? Okay. Um anything else for Oh, also for board member discussion, we were going to talk about the schoolboard workshop, correct? >> Yeah. And maybe it's appropriate to wait till we have our other two board members. Uh there are some items in superintendent informationational items that I'll touch on, but they're just to prompt your thinking and to get feedback on. So nothing that needs to be approved or or determined tonight. So we can save it till that that piece. >> We had
031a schoolboard workshop this last week. Um all the schoolboard members were there and all of the district office team was there and it was it was really really helpful for all of us. And like Dr. Pre said, we'll be sharing some of the some of the goals and changes that we talked about in that meeting um in the coming weeks. Uh, anything else for school board uh discussion? >> No, I was just Are we still all set still for April for the uh SBA? >> Yeah, as far as I know. >> Still moving forward with that? Yes, >> that's in Houston. >> Uh, San Antonio, I believe, >> in San Antonio. That'll be April National School Board um conference. Okay. Um, if there's anything else for um schoolboard discussion, we'll go on to required approvals.
032Can I get a motion to approve the required approvals? >> A motion. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I I Okay. Thank you very much. We will move on to superintendentformational items. Dr. Press. >> Yeah. Two items listed there, two documents uh in response to the conversation that occurred at the board workshop. Uh those two documents are related to um the first one would be a flexible school calendar, schoolboard meeting calendar and I know some conversation came as one of your goal areas and continuing to strengthen the partnership particularly with the city of Oll as maybe our first effort into um thinking more carefully about partnerships in our community. Uh there are some options presented there. Those aren't all the options available to us certainly and and maybe we just stick with what
033we have and get more creative about who represents the school district at these particular events, but there's some draft items for you to look at and I think when we get the full board together in the coming weeks, we'll reference this document and and it'll cycle back as we develop the agenda with uh with Lindsay and with Aaron and and uh put those items on there. So, just some things for you to consider and think about. The second item is uh really a a summary of the experience from a goal setting perspective. I know there were some interest from the board to come up with some self-improvement goals based on the self- assessment that you took. And so this is just our first shot at what we heard, what we thought we heard you say
034and again a chance to review it and think about what you see there and then have a broader uh public discussion about those items at a future board meeting. again, information for you to see, information for the community to see, and perhaps provide you feedback around in the coming weeks, and then we'll cycle back to it at a later board meeting. Okay. >> Thank you again to Dr. Perez and Marissa and our administrative team for putting that together. It was super helpful, and we're looking forward to the things that are going to come from that. Anything else for superintendent facial items? Okay, we will go ahead and move on to the preschool board report. Uh, gonna need some more chairs. Jennifer, thank you for this opportunity to share school. I have Paulo Lane who is
035our the early childhood then Nikki Wilkins who's the district a lot of time this year working with oh sorry she spent a lot of time this year working with um last year and this year working with preschool so I've asked her to um share some of her work with you tonight also so the ne oh I have it sorry um so the first slide is just kind of a little bit of history about um preschool. So in 1617, that was before I took over as the early childhood director. So we had we were at the building that is just right across the street from Scutney. We had um one classroom, they had three sessions, so they had 25 kids in each session. So we had one classroom. Um they serviced about um 75 kids. And
036then we had two special ed classrooms um with certified teachers and a parah in each one. And then we had an OT specialist and a speech pathologist. Um I took over in 1718 and every year from there we um have kind of built up our program. So we currently have um five certified teachers that teach our what's called transitional kindergarten classes. Those are full day classes. We have um three half-day classes. One of them is at Ludaka and that's our dual language class. And then we have the other ones are at the we call the preschool village right there behind um um MMS. So before the first year I came on staff I or I started I had 14 staff members and we've increased over the time that we now have 31 staff members. Um
037all of our classes have increased. Our special ed we still only have two classrooms though even though our special ed numbers have increased every year. Um but yeah we have we've grown quite a bit. We went from about 75 students to in our gened classes we have about 176 but total including our special ed um we have um almost 210 just over 200 students right now currently. So we've grown quite a bit in the last eight years. This is just a snapshot of what our current um staffing is. We are mainly staffed with par profofessionals. Um some of them are what we call lead paris. So they take the lead in the classroom. They're almost like the teacher and then the other paris supports them. And then in our special ed classrooms and in our
038transitional classes, we have certified teachers. Uh we went from just having a secretary. We also now have a parent parent coordinator. And then Paula came on as our instructional coach. Um this is just a statement from um what's called NAI, the National Association for Education of Young Children about just the importance of what kind of a center you're running. Um whether you have a inhome pre u daycare or preschool program or um a sitebased program, a school-based program, this is what the national association says is would be leads to a quality program. Is it developmentally appropriate? Um is it hands-on? Are you allowing children to explore and to wonder and to find joy in those experiences? Um so this is kind of just also where did we start? So um in 1617 we traveled to
039Harlem to what was called the Harlem Children's Zone. And one of the books that we were asked to read before we went was called the 30 millionword. And it's about the 30 million word gap between children that are um raised in in or in poverty or second languages versus um children that come from homes where they have lots of exposure, lots of experience um and just the gap that is created from the time that they're born. And so we visited the Harlem Children's Zone. group of us went. Paul was part of that. Pete was part of that. Um, and some other community members and some other members of the school district. And just a couple things from that book is again just talking about the word gap and then how important having a rich langu
040language exposure. So, not even just reading to your kids, that is a huge part of it, but also even just the talking to your kids and the exposure of hearing that language, whether no matter what language it is that parents are speaking or family members are speaking, but um how that plays into all areas their of their life, not just reading, but so many other important factors. Um, so this is just kind of some of the why behind why we feel that early child education is important to give kids kind of that boost or that jump start into getting ready for not just kindergarten but their whole K12 journey. So we're cultivating the building blocks. So those are the foundational skills, not just the academic skills but their social emotional skills, their adaptive skills, um
041their physical skills, all those skills that are important um to develop. Inspiring lifelong learners. So starting them on a journey where they enjoy it, they find delight, that wonder, that excitement about school. Um, ensuring school readiness. So kind of preparing that groundwork again those foundational skills that are going to get them ready to find success on their journey through K12 education, but then also beyond that and then laying the future foundation. Um, just finding that success and the joy in that process. So at preschool, one of the these are kind of the areas that we have in the have focused on to closing that achievement gap, closing that language gap, and getting kids ready for kindergarten. So we focus a lot on social emotional skills. Um we've always focused on language and literacy, but the
042last two years we've really taken a heavy focus on language. Um because the district had three goals that they we have um was focused around feedback, professional learning communities, and then our multil- language learners. And so the last two years we've done a lot of work with Nikki around um language development of math and numeracy their physical devel development so their fine and gross motor skills their core skills and then their cognitive and inquiry skills. Um we base our instruction around the walk kids. So the walk kids is an assessment that they take in kinderg every kindergartner in Washington state has to take the walk kids assessment. um they take it in the fall and then they take it again in the spring before the end of the school year. And so um it came
043about partly just because they're good standards and they're kind of developed the whole child. But um also our T our transitional classes, our TK classes, they have to also take the walkids assessment. Um and so so that we were all unified and all on the same page, we all of our classes whether half day or full day um follow the walk standards. So, the Watkins standards have the math, the literacy, um, but they also have the social, emotional, the physical, and the language um, standards. Also, um, we're super adamant about being developmentally appropriate when we're focusing on those foundational skills. And so, we make sure that, um, all of our activities are hands-on and that they are play-based. So, those are really important. And if you read through the Watkins standards or the NIA standards,
044they're all going to talk about being developmentally appropriate. So, um you'll be hardressed to find a worksheet in um our preschool classrooms. Um we try to make everything as as much as possible something that they can hands-on. So, they're really exploring and they're getting all the different senses. You know, they're touching it, they're seeing it, they're feeling it, there's all those different senses. Um so that it really gets ingrained in them. And then being playbased because they really are learning a ton when they some people just see it as they're playing and know what are they doing, what are they really learning, but that's when they're problem solving. That's when they're questioning um that's when they're exploring all those important skills. That's when they're having to communicate. They're building that language with one another. Um
045in 20189 is when yeah we really um focused a lot on what did we have in a worksheet and how do we turn that into a hands-on activity. So, those are just several pictures. You can see kids practicing a variety of skills. Um, but not just getting out a paper and a pencil and completing a worksheet or a packet of worksheets. Um, in 2019, um, mostly Paula did a ton of work around the our curriculum and so she developed story cards. So, we have seven now or nine. Seven. We have seven story carts now. And these are the kindergarten standards that they align to. And those were some areas that kindergarten teachers shared with us that kids struggle to do when they come to kindergarten. They can sit, they can listen to a story, but
046to, you know, talk about the different parts of the story, the different elements of a story, to retell a story. Um, that's something that they're expected to do in kindergarten by the end of kindergarten. And so, what could we do in preschool to start preparing them for those skills? Um, so we have several story carts. Um every cart has several activities that are around u mathematics and numeracy, several activities are around literacy, language, and then fine and gross motor activities um to build all those skills. So Paula put a lot of time and effort. So this is just some examples from our um Jack and the Beantock story card. We have the three little pigs. We have the three little kittens. Again, these are just some pictures, some snapshots of some of the activities they
047do. We have the three billy goats, so we have lots of threes because um learning some kids to even learn to count to three is a really really difficult skill. And so even getting staff to understand you don't go to five until they've got three, and you don't go to 10 until they've got to five. Um so we have lots of threes. And then Goldilocks and the three bears. Um, another important part of preschool, um, like I mentioned before was, um, purposeful play, playing with a purpose, not just just doing random things, but it really is intentional. And it's a time of the day when the teachers are expected, the pair professionals, the leads, every the adults in the room are expected to be not just sitting at their desk, but engaging with the kids
048um to really maybe they're questioning them or helping them with the conversation piece, ask teaching them how to um ask to take turns or ask to asking to wait for something or asking for help. All those important skills. So this is a quote everybody knows Mr. Rogers that says, "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning, but for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." And so, just how important that we have um anywhere from 40 to full hour of purposeful play each day that the kids um there's different center, you know, different areas of the classroom that they can go and explore and engage in. I'd say probably one of the biggest things they learn probably during purpose of play is the language
049piece. just learning to talk to each other and how to ask questions and answer questions. So, this is a um example of the different stages of play that children go through from birth all the way through early childhood of learning um first, you know, just observing their surroundings, watching other kids play, sitting next to somebody while they're playing and maybe mimicking or copying how they're playing to trying to engage with them. um and then eventually being able to actually play with another peer. And again, like I said, it's just one of the foundations for language that leads to literacy and learn leads to their um math development. So just how important the very beginning stages of learning to communicate and to talk to one another. Even you know obviously as adults sometimes people have hard
050times communicating and so just trying to give kids all those opportunities to build that language. Um in the earliest years of life, language lays the foundation for everything that follows. Emotional resilience, cognitive growth, social connection, and academic success. So again, here's just a couple examples of um students having to talk to each other to share the the manipulatives to work together on whatever the task is. So even our shy ones, we do have some that are very extremely shy in the beginning. We have some that are mute that won't talk. Um but it really is our goal to get them um speaking and talking to the teacher and then to their peers. So, I'm going to turn the next couple of slides over to Nikki because like I said, she last year we started working
051with her on um how we could beef up our language development with our preschoolers and what more we could how we could like enhance the things that we were already doing um to make it more rich for their experiences. >> Hello. Um, so last year we got together and we started discussing what they already had like the story cards and there's also a phmic awareness program that they use that goes into the elementaryaries as well called Heggerty. And so um, after we visited the WAB conference, the Washington Association of Bilingual Educators, we came back understanding that there's a lot of science of reading that's always going to be applicable because it's the science of reading and it's how we learn how to read. But when we add additional instructional strategies, we're better able to help
052all of our students participate. And so the first year last year when we were working together, we were looking at those things on how to add some extra strategies or some extra visuals to ensure that all of our students would be able to participate fully and make those meaningful connections in their mind. And that goes to this visual here where when we're trying to develop language, especially when you have multiple languages in your background, it's what we like to call comprehensible input. So there are some times where it is appropriate to translate. But in education oftentimes when we're trying to increase their language, so we're trying to add words instead of substituting then we want to use comprehensible input because it will help them grow their vocabulary and include English along with their home languages.
053And so this image was one of the first images that we discussed um Paula and I led a PLC together that first year of we need to have visuals with all the stuff that they're already doing to ensure that they understand but then marry it with the things that they were already doing really well at which is their play time. Right? That's the low stress opportunity that kids need in order to work really hard and make that meaningful connection in their mind. So the other part was starting to learn as a staff on what the can do descriptors are. So WEDA is the English language development standards we use that Washington has identified as our English language development standards and the can do descriptors really give you an idea at this proficiency level what can
054you expect the student to feel comfortable in and gives us an idea of what do we work on next to help them to continue to grow. And so as a staff, we looked at that so that we could understand that there's six levels in our standards and kind of just get an idea of what does that mean? Because at preschool, we're going to have students at all different levels. So when we look at these standards and we see a five and a six means bridging and reaching, those are supposed to be comparable to a native English speaker because we know our multilingual students often are developmentally on time, but their vocabulary is across multiple languages. So it looks like not as many words when you're only measuring in English. And so that kind of helps
055us keep this in mind that when we are instructing in English and measuring in English, this is what they can do. Um, again going back to what they had already had in place was their phmic awareness. And so one of the first things we did was look at, okay, here's a curriculum that we know help our students get ready for kindergarten that they're going to continue using. phenemic awareness and their ability to master some of these skills are the best predictors of writing success in fourth grade. So, we knew it was an area that we wanted them to start getting really strong practice in in the preschool. So, Paula went ahead and took some ideas and she took the rhyming boxes and added more visuals to it and then also coached all of the educators
056on taking the script and then also adding in gestures. We talked about this at our board visit. So, every building kind of has a different flavor, but Heerty will also partner hand movements. That way, students that are like, "Oh, the teacher's doing a lot of talking." They get coached on, "Oh, I remember when she does this, it means that we're going to rhyme." Even if they don't understand all the directions word for word. Um then we went ahead and this year we've been really intentional on aligning the standards. Do you want to share a little bit about these? >> Oh, so these are again they're the walk kids standards um that we already assess in the spring and the fall and then again uh kindergarten assesses on these same standards but they're specifically around language
057development and speaking and understanding language. And so since we already had the story cards, we had the rhyming boxes, it was then again like how do we even become more intentional with these standards to make sure that we're really giving kids an um like a high quality experience with with that. And so we specifically pulled these out and actually even our our classes that are not our transitional classes, our our transitional kindergarten classes, our half day classes, they still assess on these also. They don't do the formal assessment that gets turned into the state, but they turn in all their results to us. And we've been tracking that data last year and then this year again to see um are the things that we've been doing with Nikki and training our staff on is it
058making an impact on their language development and their ability to speak with others. So the first thing we did is Paula, Jennifer and I, we sat down and we took the three little bears and one of the things that we've learned is when students are assessed, that is the way our standards are measured. And then if we work backwards from that, we're better able to implement the instructional routines to support them to get to that finish line. So students in transitional kindergarten are provisionally qualified in our multilingual program and they will take the WEDA screener so that we know where they're at going into kindergarten. This screener also means sometimes they don't qualify for services because their language is um they're in the five to six range and they don't need the support of the
059program to have success in their learning in English especially in a community like ours where a lot of families are bilingual and our students have a lot of English knowledge as well as Spanish or Miss Deco and mom. Um, the three little bears became the starting point and it's continued to grow. You can see examples of how our teachers have really taken it off and we have the three little kittens anchor chart in there. But most importantly, some of those skills that they're going to need to be successful. You see the students turning and talking right now. And then although our students are not necessarily reading word for word, they're starting to learn to look at those resources in order to know how to be successful and not always depending on the teacher, but learning
060to depend on themselves. In fact, today one of the TK teachers shared with me that her student wasn't necessarily reading word for word, but the teacher asked her a question and she went up to her sentence stem and acted like the teacher and pointed to each word. and she had already memorized the script, but she was very proud of herself that she didn't have to ask the teacher to echo. She was the teacher. Um, so it was really neat to hear the teacher being like, "It's working." Um, the teachers are also growing these opportunities and you can see how they're starting to make it more visual. So, it started off with Paula, Jennifer, and I giving them some mustd dos and then offering some mayus, and the teachers are picking up those mayus and adding
061more charts and more visuals and stuff on their own. So, that's kind of um some of the steps that we've taken regarding our multilingual. So, if you're in our classrooms, you're going to see a ton of visuals, lots of pictures, lots of realia, as much as we can get realia, the real objects for them to work with. um lots of initiatives and lots of singing and lots of gestures. Um so they really are working our teacher our teachers and our staff are working really hard to make sure that kids are every way possible getting that input so that they can really develop those um language skills and it can stick with them and we can start closing that uh 30 million word gap. This is um so um four times throughout the year we give
062an an assessment that is a district created assessment that we've used ever since I've been in the program. They even used it before. It has um changed and developed over the years to make sure that it was really aligned with the standards and what we wanted to see academically um you know the math skills the reading skills those skills that to show that kids were ready for kindergarten. And then like I say, we also have our other part that's tied to the walk kids that is more the um motor skills, the social emotional skills, the adaptive skills, those skills. But this one is pretty academically heavy, but it's worth a hundred points. We give it the four times a year. And um so this is just showing Oh, the blue is looks black. Sorry, that
063bottom color is supposed to be blue and it has really high numbers there. Um so what we set the benchmark as is if um if they score at least 50 points then we feel like they are pretty ready for kindergarten. Um and so the green starts the 50 points and above and then the blue we decided if they got 70 or 70 points or above like they were for sure really ready for kindergarten. So that's actually what the blue represented. Um, so between the, you can't see the blue, but between the green and the blue, we have 103 kids in January that were ready, technically ready for kindergarten academically. Um, and so, so that's about almost 60% that we're at sitting in January. So, we have the next half of the year to get the
064other 40% ready to go to kindergarten. Um, anyway, those are just really good numbers and just really showing the growth that they're they're making. Uh we also give um we'll give the weed a screener and then like I said our traditional kindergarten classes have to do the full-blown walk kids assessment um in the beginning and the end of the year. Um these next slides are because these aren't part of the 100 point assessment. These are the ones that are a little bit more a little bit harder to um have just like a set paper pencil test type to it. They are these are so these are your social emotional and your cognitive skills. What you want is you want to be in a uh for the end of the year preschooler on the scale that
065they have, you want to be at a six. It has nothing to do with age. It's just how the scale for the Walk Kids assessment is. Um so you can kind of see in the different categories how many of our students, this was clear back in October, end of October, early November when we gave this assessment um where our students were at. So for the beginning of the year, not too bad for how many kids we had in the in the level six already. So this was their social, emotional and cognitive skills. This was their physical development. So kind of their gross and their fine motor skills. So you can see like, you know, they have to be able to jump and to skip and hop and bounce a ball, throw a ball, hold a
066pencil, write, um those type of things. And so again, you can see um how many students were in like a five six range at at the beginning of the school year. And then we'll give this again at the end of the year to see if we've moved more kids into that 56 range. Um, and then this is their language and communication. And so again, that's been a huge focus for us this year. So again, hopefully that will be um we'll see some significant growth there also. But really not too bad for the beginning of the year. And that is what we have to share with you tonight about the things that are happening in preschool, the changes that have happened. We Paula and I have been in preschool for the last this is year eight
067for us and we're both changing at the end of the well Paula is retiring at the end of the year and I have changed positions um mid year this year. Um anyway, so we just wanted to share with you some of the progress and the growth that the program has made over the last eight years as we move on. So if you have any questions for us about any of those slides or anything regarding transitional kindergarten or preschool or special ed. >> Um I have a question on the foundational skills. What can you give us an example on makes a good decision? What would that look like for a preschooler? What kind of decisions would they be making? >> Yeah. So yeah, I mean a really good example is we say safe body. Um so
068I'm angry, I'm mad, I'm upset. So am I going to make a decision? I'm going to hit Nikki or do have I learned how to take some deep breaths to calm down and to um either walk away, go get a teacher. Um so yeah, we say or we teach the kids to say please stop >> or please stop. Um, and so that's that's telling the other kid like you're bo either you're bothering me or you're hurting me or I don't like that or whatever. So we we teach them please stop. Um, we we say to them all the time, safe body, safe hands, safe mouth. So if they're if they want to say a bad word, which we have in preschool. Um, so that's an example. Or um, if I want to play in that
069area, have we taught them how to like go up to the students and not just take the toy, but to say, "Can I have that?" And the student can reply in a minute when I'm done. or you know what or yes come join me. So teaching them kind of those social skills of a lot of it is how to handle those emotions when I how do I make a good choice when I have different emotions. When I'm sad, do I scream and yell or you know I can go to the quiet calming corner and settle down. >> And traveling would that be like restroom or >> No, traveling is the traveling skills are actually um like jumping, hopping, skipping. Okay. >> Walking on a balance beam. Kind of those balancing skills more. >> Okay. >>
070All right. Thank you. So do these numbers for the found foundational skills come from come like a formal test or is this just observing the students or how did how do these come about? >> So this is teacher observation. So um a lot of these is yeah when they're during purposeful play the teacher will be observing and taking notes. When they're in different centers they'll observe and take notes um when they go out to recess. So it is it's teacher observation. It's not a formal assessment. I mean, they have it's formal in the sense that there's a a continuum that they can look and kind of see where they are developmentally, but it is the teacher watching and taking the notes on that and giving an overall score. >> Well, we love coming to the
071preschool. Yeah, it's it's our our favorite place to to be to visit. We got to see a lot of a lot of the gestures, a lot of the posters. We learned a song. We learned about opposites. We Yeah, it was a great visit. and you and your staff do such a good job caring for the students and >> each and every one of them preparing them for school. So, thank you so much for all that work that you do. >> Thank you. I do want to share a little bit of a bit of data um that's about the ESD and our region and this might be new for um director vot and and and the data certainly will be new for the other two directors as well but the Olla school district uh last year
072we had uh 44 migrant kinder students. Oh okay. Um Pasco had 42. might surprise you a little bit, right? Uh Kenowick had 84. So the number of kids who came in kinder ready in that migrant grouping, um Oll had the highest percentage. Almost 40% of our kids, migrant students, were ready for kinder and they've shared with you that those are the students that 30 million word gap is real for them. Uh we were the highest performing in our region. Richland was higher than us, but they only have 11 migrant kids. And I'm not I'm not sure Spanish is their language. And but then here's the I think the rest of the story that's important to tell which is now they track migrant students as they move through our system third through 8th grade when they
073take the Smarter Balance assessment and then in 10th grade when they take it again. And on last year's assessment um 34% of Richland's students passed migrant students passed those assessments across all those grades. they were the highest and although was 32 we were just below them. So that persistence of things that happened in in our I think it's an example and evidence of if we can get them a good start we're doing really well compared to our region. Uh the last one is around math because I know director Prenada has asked us about that before. Um when you look at math in three through eight and then in 10th grade for migrant students last year was the highest. Um the only one that was close to us was Prescott and that school district no longer
074exists. It was it was so small. So um Oll we we doubled up Kenowick. We doubled up Pasco. Um we beat Richland by about 10. Uh so some really good things happening for kids who don't have those language skills when they arrive here in in our preschool. But it also persists through our elementary and middle school. So really exciting information for folks who do that work every day. Thank you. >> Thank you again to the preschool for being here today. Okay. Um we'll move on to public comment. Do we have any public comment scheduled for today? No. None. Okay. Um, now we go to the board self assessment of the meeting. Um, >> what? >> That was that before this including upcoming events. Um, so February 13th through 17th, there's no school for mid-winter break.
075Then another board meeting on February 23rd and on March 9th. And then our next board site visit will be at Haywa on March 16th. Any other upcoming events we can think of? Good. >> Pete mentioned the basketball games for the kids. >> Yes. Upcoming sporting events. All right. Okay. Um, now on to the board self assessment of the meeting. Um, yeah, it's always unfortunate to not have the entire board here, but thank you those of you that were here. >> Yeah. Um, loved seeing the uh, wrestling team and just all the work that they put in and um, and seeing just the legacy of our wrestlers. I was trying not to be biased for the preschool, but Mike the son that goes there and so I get to see them every morning when I drop
076him off and you guys are amazing. Your staff is amazing and thank you for everything that you do for those little guys. It's uh it's funny how you guys can coordinate so many of us grown up parents that already have an agenda to get to her in the morning and you you get our kids on and off. So, thank you so much. want to congratulate our chair team. >> I mean, I think you were a little hard on yourself, but kudos to you guys. It was really good. >> Thank you. >> Reminder to everyone that the ballots are due tomorrow. Has everyone got their ballots in? You? You. >> I get mine in. >> They've already been filled out. I just got to drop them off. >> All right. We'll follow up with you. >>
077All the rest of you got your ballots in. Okay. >> I put it in my Facebook story to go vote. Okay. Anything else for self assessment? Okay. We are going to adjourn into executive session for 30 minutes to discuss the performance of a public employee and the sale or lease of real estate. Thank you for being here. The meeting is adjourned.