001Good evening everyone. I would like to call the meeting to order and acknowledge that Twater School District sits on the ancestral land of Mwali Swatson Island and people. I thank these caretakers of the land who lived on and continue to live on the land since time and please rise as I move flag. Superintendent, have there been any changes in addition to the agenda since it was published? >> There are no changes. I do just want to point out that earlier in the week, we did add some documents to the action item on the GM boundary resolution. So, I did send that to the board ahead of time, but I did want you just aware that that was added after the initial published last was not a change to the agenda. >> All those in favor
002of approving the agenda as presented, please say I. >> Oppos. Approved. Moving on to meeting minutes review. The minutes from the July 24th and August 14th meetings have been distributed to the board. Are there any changes or corrections? Seeing None. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed. >> All right. Minutes are approved as presented. Now, moving on to the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda been provided to the board. Any questions or discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say I. I. >> Consent agenda is approved. Thank you. We will now recess the regular meeting at 6:03 p.m. to enter into a public hearing regarding the 2526 budget. Assistant Superintendent Ben Raric and financial services director Kira Aker will
003present. After the presentation, we'll hear public comments regarding the proposed budget. Each person will have three minutes to read their statement and 15 minutes will be reserved for these comments. Good evening. So, this is the second of our two hearings. Um, as you know, we had our hearing back on August 14th of first hearing. Um, the the slides on the presentation that we have um is the same there. Um, the content there's just a lot of content here. Um, I'm not going to go through each one of the slides. Um, but there are a few additions and a few changes that I do want to point out. One being the um there is um included in your packet is the P schedule that um has been the same pretty much every year. The only change
004that we added this year was the um the helmet rental the helmet rental fee at the middle school and the high school which is $25 for middle school and $40 for high school. Um so that is an increase and we've talked about that um the last couple of of meetings but that is one addition um to you can schedule which is different than past years. Um, another thing is we've had we I did add a slide on um on our levy certification. We had some questions about that and so I did add a slide and I'm happy to go into that if you want to go into that um afterwards with our um question answer specific questions about the slide then we can go into that as well. Um and then there was three there's
005a few technical uh changes based on the technical review that we received from the ESB. One being in our debt service um the expenditure authority changed um just based on uh our bond payments that what we um posted in our our original version. And so that expenditure actually that level actually went down a little bit expensive went down in debt service and then also in our capital. Um this the evaluation the timber evaluation changed just slightly and and both of those changes were very immaterial. Um, but I wanted to make you aware because it is a change from our last hearing and um a change in the F195 itself and and the F95 that is in your packet that's posted now is um those changes are are noted in that in that F195. Okay. Also
006included in your board resolution tonight is the um the resolution to actually um approve and adopt the budget. Um there are what are what the resolution actually does is allows us to you're you're giving us the authority to spend um a certain amount in each one of our funds. And so um really the resolution matches this fund summary that we've um presented the last few in our past presentations. So the expenditures about halfway down um in that the second half of our um of that slide there um the expenses for each fund those those will each match what's on the resolution and you're authorizing us to um to spend that amount for this year. If we go over that amount then we have to come back and ask for a budget extension. So um we're
007doing our do our best all year to stay within that budget. main thing that you know with this slide when we look at um the work that we've done this this year in the general fund um to to set our goals and to get to where we want to get if everything comes to fruition the way we plan um for this year where our enrollment comes in where we are hoping to believe there aren't any unexpected um unanticipated expenses then we will put 2.3 million back into our our fund balance and that's going to get us closer to our goal um and um get us in line with with all the conversations that we've had um up to this point. Other thing that I wanted to point out is um if anyone at home is
008listening and hasn't been following along um and has specific questions about our budget process, we have links to all of our budget presentations um back all the way back to October when we started this process And so there's just a lot of content and a lot of information we've provided all of that here to be able to go back if people have any additional questions or want to see the process that we went through. So that being said, I like to open up if there's any questions or any discussions that we'd like to have regarding the budget. Any questions from members? Talk about >> uh so can you can you just talk about the you know the bill passed allow us to increase our our levy. Please talk that through and what that means um
009when we pass this budget the expectations that you have as a budget writers about this particular issue. >> Sure. So when you're passing this budget, you're passing the the ability for us to spend um what the budget is listing. So um that's you're not author in this budget process, you're not authorizing um the ability to collect our um our levy funds. That process actually happens in um the fall. In fact, usually end of October, first part of November. That's something that we've done every that we do every year. Um and and we come back to the board and actually ask you to certify the amount that we have um have put into the budget. So um so >> what are what are revenues in this budget that we're passing? What are our revenues based on?
010>> So the revenues are based on the the higher we have um here on this slide you can see the um in in orange you can see the voter approved amount of uh 26.7. That's what was approved back when the body did pass. Um the new authority um that we are given with the levy lid is the 25.3. So we've been given an additional capacity of 1.7 million to be able to collect. Um and that is a change from the 22 million um you see in that that that line that shows the difference. There was no change made at the legislative during the legislative session then we would have collected the 22 million. It's important to understand that this is calendar year. It's not school year. So um we would we will collect a um
011it's 52% almost 53% um of that new amount in the spring. So that is it a total of about of 1.71 million um in increase from what we um would have received without the the money. So if if the legislature hadn't passed this bill, we would be collecting 22 million kind of I'm presuming then we would have had to make cuts. um who wouldn't have been able to to add to our fund balance. Yeah, we would have $2.3 million to add to our fund balance. Correct. So even though we're not vote we're not voting on the that levy authorization in this meeting. This budget is built on built on the fact that we should be voting for that in November. Otherwise the budget has to change. If we don't approve the increase of collect. >>
012If we don't approve the increase to collect, then we will we will collect 1.7 million less. Okay. And then and we wouldn't add to our 2.50 million. Okay. >> When you say add to the 2.3, that's the addition to the correct. Question board members. >> Is there anyone who is public? >> Okay. Thank you so much. All right. With that, we will now reconvene the regular meeting at 6:13 p.m. and move on to public comment. Comment. >> All right. Next, we will have reports to the board. Megan Dawson, assistant superintendent, will present on policies 2230, transition to kindergarten program, 3143, notification and dissemination of information about student offenses and threats of violence or harm, and 3210 non-discrimination. Thank you. Um, the first thing I thought I would just let you all know is that WASDA
013um made a small change to how they label their model policies. Um, they're now um ranked as either critical, important, or discretionary. Um, so I'm going to be reviewing three policies that are marked critical. Um the first one is transition to kindergarten. Um as you can see in my memo um this policy has been revised to align with RCW and our WAX to ensure that equitable access to early learning and preparing um students for success in kindergarten. Um as you know we ran a transitional kindergarten last year with two classrooms and this year we're running one classroom. Um, and when districts have rolled these out, um, it's that sometimes they've made mistakes and, um, luckily we had Miss Pinkle running our program. So, she knew how to roll it out in an equitable manner for
014not only students and families, but also with careful um, communication and care taken to all of our local daycare providers. Um, you want when you roll out a transitional K program, you want to be sure that you're finding the student that have the most need um who haven't had access to early learning opportunities. Um, but you also don't want to um like take or steal kids from local daycarees um because you you want everybody to have equal access. Um, so when the state um gives us a TK grant, we to follow all of their guidelines and this policy um echoes all of those uh guidelines. So in the key highlights, it talks about inclusive access, community consideration, um state compliance and program structure. And then down below it talks about who is which students are
015eligible to enroll in a TK program and then how do we as a district assess and report out on the students that we have in our program. The um the progress that they've made during their TK year. Um and then following that is just the model policy for um 2230 which is straight from WA. Um do you want me to stop in between each policy for time to talk or do you want me to go on to the next one because the next one is um 143 >> I think it would be good if we stopped. >> Yeah. So any questions about 2230 which is transition to kindergarten. >> So we're going from two last year to only one this year. What's the number of kids differential? Um, I think we went from 36 >>
016to 16 mostly due to declining available money or it just >> Oh, it's the state the state um only allocated us based off of our um FT student FTE last year and we had only started TK last year. So most of the time when a district starts a TK program, you start in January. So our funding was January to June and they the state um is we intended to run two classrooms this year um starting in the fall. Um so almost a year round program for two classrooms, but um the state uh only gave us the funding for the funding that we had last year. And I think you probably saw the emails and the um the discussions that we had with the state. I mean we were like emailing Chris Real and other folks
017like this because we had started a TPA program last year. It just put us in a um a really vulnerable spot where we couldn't build our program. >> It's very unfortunate. >> I don't think it was intent for the legislature to do what happened to us. They wanted to maintain programs that existed. I just don't think they expected kind of took into account districts that were adding the program and not starting like this year we'll be starting our the program that we have on November or mid October October 20th or something like that their first date. Um and so they didn't anticipate like us being in the situation and we did a lot for them to understand. We are committed. You wouldn't see this policy. If um if we weren't continuing with TK, we wouldn't
018probably be going this forward. Obviously, we have it. We want to continue it. The goal is to expand TK. Um my vision of TK would be to have it at every elementary school. Um I think this is certainly classified this area as a they call it like a childare desert. So, there really isn't enough. There's way more kids than we have spaces to provide. So, um, we'll continue to look at expanding when the opportunity arises and this policy will help sort the guide and make sure we have a lot of. >> So, it it sounds like we don't have to make you don't have to too many changes to what we had already implemented this policy change in the environment. >> Not at all. In fact, um this uh this policy like exactly echoes the
019work that needs to do. >> Okay. The next policy is 31 43 which is notification and dissemination of information about student offenses, effects of violence or harm. Um this uh policy pulls together several different um policies that were either outdated or they were conflicting with each other. And this caused school districts to have confusion about their legal responsibilities and concerns about when they can share information about um a student offense, like if a student enrolls in your school district, enrolls in your school. Um and when the state audited um how this was handled across different school districts um there were not consistent procedures. So um this is part of House Bill 1191 which eliminated unnecessary notifications. Um it clarified that sensitive juvenile offense information is exempt from public disclosure and it introduced a right of
020appeal for families when principles decide to share controlled substance violations with staff. Um we uh when was wrote the policy um it was in collaboration with educators, law enforcement, legal advocates and auditors. Um so like I mentioned they merged several policies together. It gives districts a cohesive framework for um how to disseminate notification about juvenile offenses and threats of violence. And it supports compliance. It protects student privacy and it ensures that staff are appropriately informed to maintain school safety. Um so I know we're just reviewing it um this month but um hopefully both of these next month would be you guys have questions about um 3143. So, in summary, we're beefing up things. Say that in >> Yes. It um clearly states um in the policy um um it goes through different offenses that students
021have committed and um when principles, it reminds principles of when they're required to tell staff and the safety procedures they need to put into place. Um it also talks about um collaboration with law enforcement and um there are times when principal has discretion about whether they share the information with the entire staff or certain staff members that um supervise the students. Um, and then it references the public records act. Um, and how students can be assigned to certain classrooms if they have committed an offense, for example, against a teacher or against another student, like where which classes that student can be placed in. >> One thing you'll probably notice is that there's not a marked up version of this. And partly it's we did we haven't updated this policy. This is one kind of prior
022to to my arrival, Megan's arrival in the district. There's been some updates that occurred over the last number of years. Those weren't those weren't there. And so then the most recent one that we're looking critical up is like completely different. Like there was almost no way the markup would have been like kind of really crazy to look at. So we really just gave you the current policy in one and then the draft is in the other. So I just want you to be aware of why you typically see a markup at this stage and and in this case it really we're just recommending adoption of the new model the model policy like this through that that comes into alignment then with state law policies a little a little unusual in this case. So instead of
023the markup, you have the 2013 version and the proposed 2025 version. >> This says that outdated policies are getting rid of policies. >> Yes. I don't have them written here in my notes, but I think there's three um outdated policies that recognize that >> I think those and then to resend those. I think we probably come back for your approval to resend those after you approve this. So, we'll probably kind of come piggy back those together uh next month. >> Is there a procedure that goes with this new policy? >> Um yes. like do we currently have as well? >> Yes, we will need to update our procedure so that it follows the model was procedure. >> Do you think this will go a long way toward progress that had a lot of concerns by
024things lasting function doesn't help that problem. Yes, I think it um gives us and principles a clear pathway for how information is communicated about students questions before we go to 3210 non-discrimination. Um 3210 is also marked as critical and um We are updating it. The you'll see the markup version has the red words for the updates from um I think that was July and then the blue are the most recent updates. Um so protected status um was defined as sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin. Uh veteran military status, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, uh the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability. um protecting folks who use a trained guide dog or service animal. Um and then it added in ethnicity, homelessness, immigration or citizen citizenship status, and neurodeivergence. And so you'll
025see um those referenced throughout the market version. So, this is one that has been back here several times and um we're finally at the place of getting it settled. So, I just want to make sure I'm fully tracking everything and the evolution of it. So, this is the one that there was a suggested change like at the end of the fall or December or January or something. that came forward and then the state pulled that back and said no don't do it that way this way instead we talked about it like February so that's the information that's in red because that's the change from there and then the blue is the result of house 1296 and the changes that happened there and those are in effect immediately there was an emergency clause for some on
026that bill. And so what we are now including is including the second change in the red and then the next change in the blue and we should be done now. Yes, that is an excellent summary of what has happened. Thank you. So, we really don't have any choice if we're going to follow the new laws, right? >> It would be my recommendation that next month we approve it. >> And I would just say like we've been we we would follow we would follow state law whether our policy is updated. We we're so obligated to follow state law. And so that law is passed. It came into effect on July one. any non-discrimination that included those different categories, we would like to apply the same process. So, I mean, we want you to pass it, but
027it's not like there's not an urgency for you to like we want you to pass this today. We would still be in compliance this first month of school. We will follow sort of the spirit of this law that doesn't necessarily quite at this time. Not quite the emergency. I think um I think present on policy for 16 facilities. Okay. So, this pertains to uh policy um governing our facility use uh parameters in terms of members of the community using our facilities. And these changes are strictly log the model changes and they are listed um and they're restricted only to the beginning section of that policy. Um, it strikes an entire first sentence I think is probably seen as redundant. But the more significant change is in the second bullet where there's a list of characteristics
028of organizations that can use our facility without regard to. So it makes clear that the district does not discriminate on the basis of a series of different characteristics and this policy adds this provision adds to the original list. So the original list now includes um ethnicity, gender, homelessness, immigration or citizenship status and neurodeiverse. And these are not these are not these are straight from these are not district staff. >> Yes. >> So I'm not a doctor. So what is neurodeiver? >> Um I'll give it a shot. Oh we we have an expert. Um, I've never been more happier to defer to uh my colleague Chris Bergman. So neurode divergence is just a another name for students who have disabilities such as autism or ADHD or those types of diagnosis that can't really do a blood
029test for but they may have some neurological differences. So this appears to be related to again the passage of protection updates to the RCW with respect to non-discrimination. >> Agree. >> Is are we going to have are we going to have more I was looking at these and like do we have more policies that include an element of non-discrimination David do you think? >> Um I'm looking at because I think we think of have they guaranteed all of the ones that were changed here. They're not discrimination like we included all those. That's why you see some they're not redundant, but they kind of make the same changes. I'll just add on the neurode divergence. I think Chris can maybe kind of confirm this that it isn't something that someone can just claim. They're going to
030have to have like a like a diagnosis of something related to neurodyivergence. So, it's a broad category, but they're going to have to have um an IP, which means they also have a medical condition that would be documented that we would have that would openly treat this discrimination or anything under that category. Would that be accurate? It's not just someone claiming to be in your own diversion. You have to actually have >> that you would have some documentation that would it's not just you citing someone saying I'm neurody diverent. You have to have some kind of documentation that say that is true. >> Yes. For us to probably do an investigation under discrimination under that category. So, as I was again reading all this stuff and getting up to speed, um there is a so
031within RCW where these things are definitions and so they'll translate it over to new definitions for groups. The one for neurodeiver says means neurological differences including but not connected to autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, neurode divergent individuals may or may not identify as disabled. So again, all of these categories that are now in this very large list, which is the extension of non-discrimination, there's a completely different stat, you know, by itself. And then this is the expanded group. There's there's quite a bit of language in here. So >> in this particular case, it's just We would not be able to group our facilities. overall question just um not particular but just overall like where are we in the announce talking about the non-discrimination so >> um and I know that we
032did a lot of Wendy's policy last year where are we on the other ones to make sure we're not so far off I'm looking at all of these like 2015 over 10 years. >> Yep. No, we're doing we're doing sort of a a review and doing all of them that are out of date and by department. So, they're all taking time to do that and then we're trying to prioritize. I know Becky is taking um kind of just organizing that for us as a team, but I know each department head is looking at those. And so, you will see starting and we're kind of going back like, "All right, let's make sure we're getting all critical ones updated." Um and then kind of some of the other ones that are outdated that aren't critical but
033are you know kind of essential and then down to the last more. Um so that's what you'll see again kind of trying to figure out with kind of board leadership around how many can are we capable of dealing with on any given medium. So you will see a steady stream of updates over this person. >> All right I think we are ready to move on to action items. So we'll start with aer to present resolution 012526 the 202526 budget adoption. Okay. So, as I mentioned um in the hearing portion of the this evening's presentation, um the resolution just outlines um exactly what we are allowed to spend in each fund. So, um, when you vote to adopt the budget, you're you're adopting the expenditure authority um and allowing us to go up to a certain
034amount of um expense throughout the year. And um this resolution lists those for each fund and um recommendation. All right. Is there any additional questions? I will entertain a motion for exit. >> I move we adopt resolution 1256. >> I second. >> Any further discussion? >> All right. All those in favor please say I. I. Right. Resolution is approved. Thank you. >> Okay. Next we will have Ben present on resolution 022526 the request for boundary change. >> Good evening board. Um so this is purely a procedural matter. So you've been engaged um in this process of the boundary review with the school district the superintendent along with one representative board member has met with they've been going through this process and in that process they they achieved the the formal designation of agreeing to disagree.
035And so at that time the that's one of the literally one of the options in the regulations to agree to dise basically represent on behalf of the board that that was the position. Um, I guess the ESB sub right now that the attorney general or the deputy general insists that each respective board take a resolution formalizing that that is their so you're not being asked to really you've already kind of made this decision and you've communicated that through the but now you're formalizing it as a body and so my understanding is that your also has been asked to do this and that the boundary review will not mess their process until both boards have something. So there's no new information, no change in position, just a procedural formality in terms of the next step process.
036Questions? So we have young citizens who would like to be part of the Tom school district >> and Tai represent and they're not accepting the superintendent of email as a formal >> act of the questions for them. >> Just be clear on these. That is correct. And I I apologize for skipping to the end. There's probably people listening wondering what I'll do. Um this goes back a bit. Um um early actually this was I believe in the fall of this year. One of the first things I remember coming before the board is we budget issues. Um any group of citizens um can uh come together and take action and petition to um the reboundary if you will from one district to another as long as they meet the um requirements and wax 38234207. Um so
037you know just can't have one person show up at vision. There's a process. You got to certainly assign and so the citizens um out by drive southeast met those requirements um sign that petition send and ESD has a entire formal process and actually a committee with members um that essentially arbitrate these disputes. um and you've been going through the steps of that process including you in the district with so school district hasn't done anything we haven't sought these people out we didn't you know recruit none of that whatsoever but once they signed the petition we have to take an act by law so this was not sort of a aggressive act on our part this was just well once that petition is signed we're required by law to respond to it and we've made very
038clear to the district, but we regard them as a quality school district. There's no there's no issue. Um, but we don't have a choice at this point now that his citizens um have petitioned to move. Um, and we've basically said or you all have basically said our behalf that our buses go out there. We'd be happy to service them if that is their will, but we also don't want to do any harm to the school district. So, we'll see what the committee does with this um for out of our hands. more questions. I'll entertain a motion for action. >> I move that we adopt resolution 18256 request for any further discussion. All those in favor of adopting resolution 02526 say I >> I resolution approved. Okay. We will now move on to the superintendent report.
039I I want to start with um maybe something new that you'll see. This wasn't in my initial report that you saw, but I know we'll be talking about our strategic plan quite a bit this year, mostly through work sessions, but even on this and I want to just sort of highlight some things that aren't necessarily like a direct impact to a goal, but we're our our challenge to our team. We're we're going to try to recognize students who are demonstrating um aspects and different parts of the portrait of graduate when they're exhibiting our promise. And so I want to just share some different things that we start to notice as we're out in schools and want to share with you. And so here's just one example. We haven't started school yet and this is beginning
040of Tom Water or one of our sessions at Tom Water. This is Dr. Maria Be. And we I just wanted to share you kind of see her standing next to and this is a little bit different portrait of a dropout. She challenged us that the portrait of a graduate is sort of ends up or can be sort of words on a page. They're really aspirational and really this end outcome that we want for all of our kids. And we all kind of go, "Yeah, those those all those attributes, great. We agree to them." Um, I did highlight these a little bit so you could just see sort of what that means. Those five topics are the same. We want a critical thinker. And what she says is here's like let's take a look at this
041a little bit different and understand our kids who are struggling, which is really what you're trying to do here. getting all kids to this aspirational outcome of right a a graduate and when what's the portrait though when we think about who doesn't graduate they are struggling to be critical thinkers and analyze problems in that and so she was really challenging us to really like accept these these portraits in this portrait of a graduate but understand that this really has real life application and impact um on a day-to-day basis and then she did a great job um so she's coming from Texas she has a book that she shared and a number of our schools are using her um to kind of do some work and it's seven steps to a language rich interactive classroom. She
042did a crosswalk of her seven steps to this um with our um strategic plan that we sent to her ahead of time. So thanks to Megan and Missy Missy and those they all connected and so kind of prior to her arriving they adopted strategic plan and then right away at Tom Water you were kind of intersecting and you're doing a bunch of stuff with this and I just thought I wanted to share this. It really stood out to me as sort of this is coming to life in different ways and owned by different people in in ways that I can't predict and I think this is one of example today. So, I just wanted to share that before I got to the rest of it. And I will continue to share little strategic spotlights with
043every board meeting and just give you little glimpses of things that are happening that may not be our goals and different things. So, um, another thing I just want to share, each year a huge number of people in our community come out to do stuff with us. And this year was no different. And, um, there's a huge group of dedicated folks that came, local partners, hundreds of Tomar students. So, we had students um from both high schools come out. Um they had their helmets out there at the street collecting money. Um it was truly a district-wide event. Um so, we had football players, cheerleaders, dancing. Um they collected donations. So, huge thank you goes out to our transportation director, Hina Jordan. Um human resources director Wley, their leadership coordination. They made this hugely instrumental and
044a huge um a huge success. Um they also partner up so they they gather supplies on August 9th at Waterfride Fire and Safeway. So they continue to do that and that's been kind of a a pattern over the number of years. Um the district also has a partnership with Riverwood Schoolhouse. And so that's a community issue. They do a radio day that happened a couple weeks ago. They raised almost $25,000 this year and that benefits not just tongue water benefits. They spread that resource out across the region. And so once supplies. That all comes to district office. We had this whole room filled with backpacks and all kinds of supplies. You see some still out in the hallway. And so they come and they got to stuffing more than 400 backpacks this year. So with
045Becky Parsons, Cammy Bogat, Alicia Estrada, Molly Brown, Amanda Curtis, Stephanie Bernell. Um they took a full day to stuff backpacks and bag them up and get them out to high schools at all of our schools um so they're ready to go before school starts. So huge thank you to make everyone um And there is so many supplies and it was just amazing to see. So kudos to our supplements folks. Oh, there's a little bit of pictures of backpacks. I forgot we had two in there. So yeah, this is like a lot of work and a lot of donations. And um and this year they actually did kind of they put out some jars, collected um over $2,500 just in cash and then they went out and bought a bunch more supplies. So people were super
046generous, not only just getting supplies, but then money so that hey, we don't have enough. I don't think you know, it's like we don't have enough things that people want to put their backpack, so we should go out and buy $300 worth of pencils. So awesome. Um I do we are excited to announce uh Detective Seth Staer has been selected as our new school resource officer and so he will be serving the Black Hills region this district. So um he is a 2016 Tom Motor High School graduate. uh a detective stopper joined the come police department in 2019. Spent the last six years preparing just for this role. Um inspired by his own positive experience with his school SRO, he brings a strong commitment to building relationships, supporting students, the selection process, including the panel
047review in August with participation from our high school principal, uh Mr. Myers, Tom Waterman School, assistant principal, the repair scan, the principal center for Michael T, and our current SRO's um well, one former SRO, retired SRO, Ross Roman and Tyler Bowling. So, we thank him for their thoughtful input. Um, detective suffer starts on Monday, August 25th. However, we have already seen him at Water. And so, he was out he was at our rally and interacted with our staff and so we've already seen him even though prior to I guess that was his first day, August 25th. So, I guess correct. Um, I'm like we're like looking back in time here. Anyway, so yeah. So, welcome. Uh we look forward to having him joining our team and we're excited to have this is what happens when
048you write this like a little bit ahead of time. Um I do want to give a little bit of update on on this. Um I don't know if we've really talked about this at the board level but we have completely we successfully we are migrating I'd say successfully migrating this summer from Skyward's legacy system to cumulative or formerly known as Q. It's the latest version of Skyward's educational management system. So this is a new new platform that offers improved user interface, enhanced functionality. It's new modern cloud-based design that supports greater efficiency across our district operations. It integrates key areas such as student information, uh, finance and human resources into one system. So it does provide some real-time data access, some customizable dashboards, some stronger reporting tools. I already saw we I was at a principal's
049office today. They were showing us how they have these tiles and they customize them and they can kind of create some things that they want to see on a daily basis and so they all look a little bit different and kind of the information that they want to see. So they were kind of excited that I rarely had anyone show that share that with me before. So that was happening today. Um so this transition we are of ESD this is happening um on ESD wide. We're I think we're in year three of transitioning 42 school districts into this. So, we got to learn a lot from our partners across the region who um when I was here my first year and North are going through this and we're sitting here today, they're like, "This is
050terrible. This is going awful. Um you need to do a lot of work to prepare for this. You guys are doing this next year and beyond." Um and so we took that and we brought back information from our team around some really importance around data cleanup. That was sort of an essential component of this. And so really we've been doing really data clinical preparation for this for more than a year and and I think that all helps in this transition and of course I can look through this and there are still issues and there are still challenges and it's new and like anything like it's going to take a little bit there's going to still be some bumps in the road including like rolling out to parents as they um have to kind of use
051it to connect with kids. >> That's what I was going to ask. So a doesn't go skyward anymore. >> Yeah, it is still considered Skyward. So, this is just their newest version. So, it's sort of we don't call it we're not going to call it Skyward anymore. It's called cumulative and it's just kind of tapping on this view and there's a there is access right on our dashboard um on our front page of the website and there's been some information already shared with parents um like quite a bit of support provided to them to really help them with access and I know um I can I can confirm that there has been protocols and additional information going out to just sort of help parents um make sure they're prepared for this change. >> Okay, that's
052that's wonderful. I haven't access parents who like um maybe you don't know quite yet if you haven't logged into that yet. I think high school schedules get released tomorrow. So that might be the first time our our our high school folks might be wanting to get in there and take a look at things. So, we're all hoping everything will start to all work next week. I'm guessing as we do strong start and we begin high school, there'll be probably more conversations going along this week. >> And I already mentioned a little bit about Tamoru and I just want to just recognize, you know, that we did kick off our welcome back staff this year, Tomu. It's a two-day professional learning environment was at Tamar High School this year. started on Monday and Monday and Tuesday.
053Social time started a little bit at 7:30 a.m. and we officially kicked off some things um some remarks from Assistant Superintendent Megan Dawson and myself highlighting our continuing commitment to the district strategic plan. We also celebrated um accomplishments from across not only all of our schools but all of our departments. Um so kind of a quick little celebration and spent 30 minutes um on that before we moved off to sessions. And this year's sessions were built around the themes of connection, wellness, instructional excellence, and innovation. Part of that is kind of mandated by the state. Um this year is really a focus on wellness. And so each year the state has a theme and so that was part of the theme this year. On day one, they attended a human together. It's an inspiring session
054with session with Amy Naylor focused really on personal wellness for our teachers purpose and belonging. And in the afternoon they all participated in camp training and um spent quite a bit of time really diving into that with really without access to kind of their current staff and kids. So there's you know kind of doing some initial training but until we are kind of at day one they can't practice um doing attendance and they can't see some things. So they still have some learning to do around just the first day around getting in there and doing it when their actual classes get into um aligned. And so um a little still work to do in that. Um but day two included a whole bunch of learning opportunities aligned with content. We started off again I think
055you saw Dr. Marie V talking about seven steps to language rich interactive classroom and then there was a whole bunch of sessions all done by teachers and one of the things I'll give you know assistant superintendent credit on this is she also really when they started looking her whole instructional services team when they're looking at like hey we asking for presenters on things that are relevant to us teachers and staff. what are those things and as you send in your presentation um or uh what you want to do is we want to see how it's aligned to district. So every session needed to show alignment and so that just continued to be sort of a theme that we kind of just pushing through as we go through all those and I gave a list in
056my report. I won't go through those. I could give you a longer list because I don't think I think it's longer than the bullets I'm put on here. Um but it it included a lot of great sessions by some of our really strong teachers, including teachers and support staff from the ESP that kind of wanted to share and present. So um a lot of great things. A huge thank you to our student learning team and all of our staff members who work behind the scenes to make that all happen in a really positive, productive way. And really it's it's more than just professional development. I think these are things that are celebration of learning. it's collaboration and the shared commitment that we have about students that we kick off every year. So again, it was
057great to have our initial kickoff. We invited every staff member included um custodians, office workers, everybody kind of close offices just for this half hour or hour in the morning to come and and get a unified message and welcome and and let people know how important they are to our district. It was a good start to the year and next week it's even a little bit crazier as we strong start first day of middle school and high school in our alternative program. So away we go. We'll now move on to board member reports. Adams legislatively. So the summer is a big time for a group that's called the state school director assoc association that's what we call law and um that's where they gather together different viewpoints and things are going to be components of
058for the state legislature coming up in January. Um so it's a big deal. Um they came out with the tentative proposals and then kind of firm that up a little bit. Um, and then the big meeting is September 20th and that's when that the different delegates will be voting on things. So, I kind of chose some highlights just so that as board members and as uh school administrators, etc. parents that you're uh knowledgeable about what some of the areas of focus that they're uh kind of try to get some view points on. So uh one of the the things is that they start off with uh policy and procedure development. One of the actually several of the school districts were proposing more public comments allowed in different things coming up with policies and uh the
059uh they are recommending do not pass just to kind of know. So that's something where people might want to look and see what that is. They said that there are more than 60 policies each year and have more public comments with overburden them, they never get the job done. So that's their viewpoint. So again, if anybody wants to have their own viewpoint, it might be different. Um, other big focus areas are budget stability, we want that. That's important. They do pass uh full funding for basic education, which that's another area that every year we hear about that one. Uh transition to kindergarten. So again, ask the legisle to support that better, but that's two pass uh emergency funding, equitable prek through 12 school funding, and funding for early learning. So they're proponents of increasing that
060sort of stuff. Um, another area that has always been, you know, important to me is uh making sure that we have school safety. Okay? And I think some of the stuff that we're working on there will help to improve that. um multilingual learning. Uh again, another research kind of more ideas of stabilizing district budget. I think they're talking about having uh the funding coming in at more consistently, not in big booms and like it goes what two or three months where you don't have anything coming in. And then we have that big drop down. Oh my gosh, we're not having enough money. So, they're going to try to have some sorry, work with the legislature to um try to stabilize the funding. Um the uh one that comes out of to me it's important is
061the um parent rights. Okay. So they're actually recommending do not pass uh uh the proposal that came out of uh Manson School District and Ferndale school district. Uh the changes that would be proposed that they would go from that parents and families are important stakeholders what they wanted to do is make it so that they're the primary stakeholders and uh thought that was too great of a change to go from important to primary. Um they also wanted to make sure that the proposal would omit the word families, change it to guardians and uh was wanted to keep families as part of the description. So I thought that was something that you know different people might have a viewpoint on. Um the other thing that uh is as far as focusing on curriculum some that they're
062proposing a do pass on uh stronger climate change uh education for students. Um and they want that to be due pass. Um and then the rest of the stuff is uh unemployment compensation for ed educators etc etc. So those are kind of the highlights and again we have uh the big meeting is September 20th. So if anybody has any comments you can email me and I'll put that in when I have to do my voting incorporate that questions or comments concerns. So, Jill, did were you able to review the spreadsheet that was sent out where we we did give our our input? >> No, I I didn't have a chance to review it and I had to go to New York for a family crisis. >> So, I didn't review it, but I figured I
063would have that done before the September 20th. >> Anybody else? >> I think um you talked about the um >> uh yeah the public comment. So I think I don't I've been watching this I I don't know that people have problem with public comment. I think the problem is that this becomes a bylaw rather than a policy. And I think that is because I know that is why there's an issue with it. Um is for a bylaw. Uh, and it makes more sense for that to be a policy that the board would consider rather than putting making it about bylaw. That would be why it just because it be too unwieldy um to do there are some cases where you're not going to go and get public comment about whether for example like to have
064everything. It's like there are times in which I think we all policies public, you know, publicly public comment and making this a bylaw requires LASA to get public comment on all of these all of these policies when it's not really when I think that would um be difficult. People won't comment anyway and it wouldn't get the those new policy changes to us in a timely manner to do that. I don't I don't think laws is against but I know they're not against public comment. The problem is that this would be part of the bylaws instead just thinking as a policy. So that's what I would assume that employ So we don't have we don't have another if needed we could have more discussion at the end. Yes. >> Thank you. >> All right. We done
065with our bulk of our agenda and move on to board comments early. Anybody want to jump in first? Um, so today marks one year for me on the school board. My first meeting last year that was fun to walk into learned a lot over the past year. I'm excited for this summer to be over. looking forward to getting back to the focus on on the students getting to back in person as appreciate everyone's present. Okay, I guess I'll go. Um, I was at Big Day yesterday with the bus drivers and this is really warm. Um but the bus drivers are really excited and they um and it was also momentous because all the all the routes were taken. They didn't have any empty routes. They didn't have a driver which has been a long time.
066Um and they were celebrating that. They were celebrating all sorts of things um yesterday and it was they're really excited. I wanted to say let's remember this in December, but I didn't want to bring my mood. Um because once those kids get on, it will it will get harder. But they were really excited and we're really lucky to have this guest. >> So I guess I just want to say um excited about school upcoming. Uh it's always nice to see clean faces, not dirty faces of kids playing outside all the time. Um, and uh I'm looking forward to kids learning. Uh, I think that's a good thing. Um, and again, I'm glad to be back in public again. Um, you know, for a long time I was shelocked by the isolated. Um, and so it's
067nice to see faces again to real living bodies. Um, so that's a good thing. Um, and I'm encouraged that we did make our journey through the budget. Okay. And it looks like there were a lot of sacrifices that were made, but it looks like that the finished product is something that is very workable for students and parents and educators. So, um I'm hoping that the tough toughest part is over. Um that we can have a budget that is healthier. Um and that we can attract more kids to our district. >> All right. Um also wanted to follow up and give a huge thank you um to the financial team for all of your work on the budget this um year ago. We kind of found ourselves and sticky situation and it's pretty evident how much
068work and thoughtfulness has gone into developing this and putting us in a much better place and um it's really encouraging to feel the uh the stability around it. You know, there's there's a couple of other like undercurrents that kind of go along with it that you can you can just kind of tell are are starting to settle out. So, very much very much appreciate that. Um, I also wanted to just give a little shout out to um, you know, communications and to again for the intentional focus on the strategic plan, you know, getting the the district emails, you know, as a parent and whatnot, you can already see it stamped all over everything and that's just it's wonderful to see. It's really exciting to see that that's getting grounded so early on. So, that is
069that is great. Um, the last thing I wanted to to mention or throw out there in case there is anyone who is watching is um to follow up on the the discussion about the love collection um earlier. So this is something that I would really really encourage everyone everyone not just people who work in the district or have kids in the district but live in the district to learn about what this means um this you know new collection authority. So yes we have been authorized to collect a certain amount of money um but we not been able to because of rules set by the legislature. Those rules have now been dismissed and so we can collect that money. Even though voters approved it, we haven't been collecting it. If we are going to collect it,
070it is going to mean an increase. It's hard to say how much. Um, but with everything else that's going on with property taxes and whatnot, I really would like to hear public feedback on this one. Probably more than any other time I can think of in recent years. I really would like the public to learn about this and let us know what you think before we, you know, take that that particular vote. So, highly encourage emails, um, come and give public comment. Just we need to hear uh what people think and again, this impacts everybody in this particular district and it's it's a um, yeah, there's just a lot going on with respect to people's finances and so we want to be very careful and thoughtful at this point. All right. wraps us up. No
071more business coming before the board. We are adjourned at 7:09 p.m.