June 11, 2026 VISD Regular Board Meeting

001my system all put together. I'm going to offer a brief land acknowledgement. Um I often uh use the one with credit from the Vashan Island Heritage Museum. Uh the Vashan uh school district stands on the ancestral lands of the Swash or Swiftwater people who inhabited Vashan Mori Island for millennia. The donation land claim act encouraged large numbers of settlers to claim land even before the medicine creek treaty of 1854 extinguished native claims to it. The swash were imprisoned on Fox Island during the Puet Sound Treaty Wars by the territorial government and later relocated onto the Puallup reservation. We acknowledge the people and partnership of the Pual tribe whose stewardship of and relationship with Bashan Mory Island continues today. As a district and as individuals, we commit to amplifying the voices of indigenous people, making space

002for them to tell their own story, both past and present. Thank you very much. Um, at this point, we are going to move on to public comment, which I suspect will be robust. I'm going to give a little um sort of reminder which is a little wordy but so I'll I'll um ask for your grace and forgiveness on this. Schoolboard meetings are business meetings which are held in public. They are not meetings with the public in order to permit fair and orderly expression of comment. The board is provided time to hear appropriate comments from anyone attending the meeting. However, the school board does not respond to questions during the course of the business meeting. The board values and welcomes civil, respectful statements and clear, concise communications that inform its deliberations. The board uses public comment

003uses the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to citizen concerns but not debate issues or enter into a question and answer session. No person addressing the board should initiate charges or complaints about individual board members or employees or students of the district. Such charges or complaints should be presented directly to the superintendent. If a charge or complaint is about the superintendent, please send your concern in writing to the board or request an inperson meeting or phone call. Um, please uh adhere to our three minute time limit. Um, as a rule, we um limit this to 15 minutes, but we understand there is a great deal of public interest in some of the items on our agenda this evening. And so, uh, we will ideally hope to hear from everyone. We do have two

004public comments uh periods during the meeting. We have one at the start which I'm about to initiate and also one at the end. People are welcome to make two public comments if you like. You may not uh seed your time to someone else or speak for someone else this evening. Um uh but if you would like to not do public comment at the top and I read your name, you can let me know that you would prefer to be um called upon at the end. That is clear and seems fair. Um at this time uh I'm going to start with uh pure letters and if you would when you come to do public comment please stand at the podium and address your comments to the board and the timer will appear on. >> Okay. This

005is part of my comedy act here tonight. Um so uh my role is um uh this year has been partly at McMurray, partly at the high school and two class at McMurray. um three at the high school and next year I'm just going to be at McMurray and I think that uh speaks for how important this issue is for me right now and um and this might come as a shocker but uh McMurray doesn't come without challenges okay but uh one challenge they don't have is uh um their phones okay the distraction their phones are and um during break and lunch um kids are um shooting pool uh playing pingpong, playing have fun uh take someone's hat and run around with it game. Um shooting hoops and being kids. Um the policy uh current policy

006at Bashon High School, however, has a a slight the door is slightly open and um um the phones are within reach. Um, maybe they're listening to music. Maybe they need their phone for a calculator. Um, maybe their uh Chromebook isn't charged. Um, uh, they might have a burner phone when they go to the bathroom. Okay, that's a that exists at Bashan High School. And, uh, breaks and lunch at BHS um, are largely spent strong. Um the current policy at BHS is exhausting as a teacher. Um and we pick our battles as teacher and just uh reminding kids um continually to put their uh phones away um is very tiresome. Okay. Um and um I think um obviously when phones are within reach they are a distraction. um in a a way for the day policy

007um at VHS would um u greatly help u not just teachers but kids and u I think goes without saying that kids would um be more engaged in the classroom and most importantly um talk with their friends they'd be kids okay and while there would be a struggle at the start um the uh social interaction between high school kids would uh greatly um better. I'm not sure the the the best term for this, but it would be much better for kids and that's what we're shooting for. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Hannah Harper. Hi, I'm Hannah Harper and I'm the lucky parent of a third grader at Shitaka and my youngest will start kindergarten in the fall. I'm also a nurse practitioner at the neighbor care clinic at Bacham High School where I've worked

008for the last eight years and seen students of all ages. Since I've been at the high school, I have personally seen how more and more students come to our clinic with symptoms of anxiety, depression, sleep issues, self harm, and suicidal thoughts. I have so many stories about students I've seen and could talk for hours and hours about how their mental health struggles affect so many aspects of their lives, including academics and relationships. I have seen firsthand the negative impact of cell phones and social media on our students developing brains and bodies. I have also experienced how it's actually getting harder and more complex to treat anxiety and depression in our teens. It requires a lot of energy and support from not only medical providers but therapists, families along with school staff and school counselors. I

009spent a lot of time talking to teenagers about phone use in the clinic and I continue to be shocked by the huge amounts of time they're spending on their phones. Students frequently tell me that they are on their phones pretty much all the time, including throughout the school day. I've even called students during the day intending to leave a message about results and been surprised when they answered during class. So, as a medical provider and a parent, the cell phones have become an urgent topic for me. It's very clear that what we're doing isn't working and we need a dramatic shift. Now, this is actually an exciting opportunity because our schools can play a pivotal role in helping to redefine expectations around phones for students. By removing phones from our schools now, we would be

010making an investment and acting proactively, which can actually save time and energy in the long run and lead to better outcomes. And if we're to have a true cultural shift, I think we as all the adults here also need to do a better job of modeling healthy cell phone use for our kids and teaching digital literac literacy to help them think critically about their phone use. When I talk to parents, I hear that setting limits around phones is hard. But I also hear that boundaries are most effective when set early, clearly communicated, and enforced consistently. So that's what I'm encouraging us all to think about. Can we set a clear, consistent boundary across all our schools to take cell phones out of our classes, put learning and in-person connection back at the forefront. Thank you

011for all of your thoughts and works on this. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, Kimmy Healey. >> Hi, my name is Kimmy Healey and next fall I will have a freshman and a senior at Bashon High School. I stand before you tonight in support of a bell-to-bell away for the day phone policy in all three schools starting in September. I've been following the phones at school situation closely and was thrilled to hear Governor Ferguson announce his support for a ban on phones in schools and I attended the technology forum held at high school in May. I heard support from parents and teachers and resistance from student from high schoolers regarding any potential change to the current off and away phone policy. I've heard the same resistance from my two boys about the proposed change. However,

012with numerous studies showing that phones at school are detrimental to student learning, brain research time anxiety to phones, as well as the in-person peer-to-peer interaction that gets lost when phones are present at lunchtime. This feels like a situation where the adults need to make the tough decision to enact and a way for the day policy for the benefit and well-being of our students. Parenting my two boys has been the most challenging job I've ever had. My husband and I are constantly making decisions that our boys don't like in the moment, but they benefit from in the long run. We take our boys to the dentist for cavities to be filled. We set early bedtimes when they were young and curfews when they got older. We limit screen time. This is parenting with love. Doing what

013is right, even when it's hard. Eliminating phones at school is an act of love. Enacting a district-wide away for the day policy isn't an easy decision and will initially be met with resistance from high school students. It's my belief that after a short period of time, the students will adjust and flourish just like they've done in McMurray. The past two years, my eighth grader has spent his lunch break playing sports and interacting with his peers. Let's give these same screenfree lunchtime opportunities to next year's senior class. I realize there aren't many days between now and the start of next school year to figure out the logistics and funding for implementing a new policy, but I have no doubt that it can be done. The Vashon community has repeatedly shown up to support causes we believe

014in. And if parental help was desired, I would like to be one of the first to volunteer to serve on a committee to help administrators figure out how to implement a policy at all preschools starting in September. Finally, I'd like to thank the board for listening to the parents and teacher voices and proposing a policy that gives our students and teachers the opportunity for fun preschool. >> Thank you. If we could hold applause, that would be great. Um, I want to take this opportunity to also say that if I mispronounce your name when I call on you, I'm very sorry. Uh, Anna Picos. Okay. So, first of all, thank you. Thank you for listening to our voices and thoughts um and the ability to address the board. So, I have a seventh grader at McMurray

015and I have a 10th grader at the high school. Um, and I have had the great joy of seeing my my seventh grader get to go to a phone free school. I very much am thankful for that. And I come to you today with the concern for what I see as a silent tragedy of something uh under the umbrella of all this, which is that I really don't think our kids are learning to listen to each other. And I believe that lunchtime at school is a tremendous opportunity for them to be able to listen attentively, listen presently, and be there and teach each other that they matter. Um, as we all know, kids need to be listened to. They need to be validated not only just for their emotions, but also for um for their

016many good ideas. Um, and it's hard for us as adults to do that as we, you know, can all admit that it's hard to listen attentively to our children when we live in this current world of of distraction everywhere we go. Um, at school, it would be great to know that at least during lunch they're friends. They're getting those little little mini opportunities to really look at each other's eyes and talk to each other about what is important to them. Um, I uh do think that this is reaching a crisis level outside the classroom. I know that this year at DHS um there have been some issues with with um phone incidents and I think that the bigger incidents are a lot of them are actually invisible. They're those little mini interactions that those kids

017are not getting every day. Um, and I have been talking with a number of parents and they're reporting that while their kids may not want to get rid of phones at school at the moment, they are also coming home with stories of, "Hey, I tried to have this conversation with my friends at the lunch table and nobody looked up from their phone." Um, some of these conversations are personally important to these kiddos. So, I would just really like to see kids looking up, talking, interacting, um, listening. I know that um in an ideal world, I would love to see all of us as parents not allow our kids to go to school with phones. I think that would be fantastic. Um I don't know if if that that barge can be turned around in the

018amount of time that we have and I think our kids need to change more quickly. Um I feel like that's that barge is kind of like a ship with 500 different captains. Um, and thankfully in this room we have this amazing vessel of people who um, we have a captain, we have a crew, and we have a lot of parents who are here to jump in as well and help and roll up our sleeves to help um, help make this go well for our our kids and our families. Um, I know they've done a lot of studies about schools that have already done these away for the day plans um, at various schools and I not one school has said, "Oh, that was terrible. Let's bring the thumbs back." um they're all functioning well. Yes,

019there were some issues those first few months, but all even students all reported that their time um that their school environment was improved. So, uh thank you for your time. I hope you have a vibrant um fully engaged group of lunchroom students in the future. >> Thank you, Gemma Langland. >> Hi, my name is Gemma Langland. My family has lived on Vashon for almost 10 years now and we have three children in the Vashon school district. I have been very concerned about the increasing presence of cell phones in our children's lives and I am here tonight to voice my support of the board enacting a bell-to-bell ban of cell phones in all Vashon schools K through 12. According to research published in JAMAMA pediatrics last year, studies found that students are spending an average of

020one and a half hours every day on their phones during school hours, which comes to approximately 23% of the 6 and 1/2 hour school day. And that one and a half hour per day adds up throughout the year to 41 instructional days lost to cell phone in schools. Currently, 31 states restrict student use in schools. And of those, 22 have a bell-to-bell ban. Washington, on the other hand, has fallen far behind in these statistics and was given an F on the National Report Card for school cell phone policy. On Tuesday this week, Governor Ferguson made the long-awaited announcement that he will be making a legislative priority to create a statewide cell phone ban during school hours. He will be going with the now common away for the day policy which will ban smart devices and

021smart watches from the first bell to the final bell in all K through2 public schools in Washington state. Along with Governor Ferguson, Superintendent Raikdall and the WA teachers union have voted to prioritize this as well. Representative Santos, chair of the House Education Committee was specifically mentioned during the governor's press conference as well. So with such wide-ranging support, we can nearly presume the bill will pass in the 2027 legislative session. And Governor Ferguson hopes to have the new policy up and running by the 2728 school year. But to me, the 2027 school year is not soon enough. We are ready now. We've done the research. We've surveyed the students and staff. And we have two years of data collection from McMurray and have determined that Bashanites are overwhelmingly in favor of a cell phone. The large

022majority of parents who have contacted the board support a bell-to-bell ban. The McMurray Teaching Force has implemented it already and supports it and at least 50% of the high school teachers feel it is necessary. We don't have to sit and wait for the state to enact a law. Our school board has its own powers and we are able to move faster than the broader government system. We have the opportunity to get the program up and running this year. The gears of larger government are slowm moving, but we are more nimble and able to move quickly and efficiently in our small community. And we don't have to just sit and wait for the state to help us on behalf of our children or to help our children on behalf of us. I do understand that making

023the rule is the easy part. There may be road bumps with implementation, but cell phones are a big new problem in our society, and we all need to work together to find a solution. I guarantee the majority of parents on this island will support the teachers and the school district in implementing this new policy. Whatever they need, we will work with them. And if it's anything like we've seen at McMurray, the kids will be surprisingly on board as well. Thank you for all the work you put into this issue and for putting our kids well-being above everything else. >> Thank you, Maria Porter Stewart. Um, first I'd just like to really thank you all for all that you just put into this. I know we only see a fraction of the work that you're doing

024and that this is only one of the many difficult uh issues that you are contending with and we just really appreciate each of you. Um, this is a comment written by a father in our district who can't be here tonight. It poignantly captures a critical component of why this issue has struck such a deep cord with our community and why we are so grateful to see the board moving to support our students and teachers with a draft delta bell policy in tonight's board documents. He writes in response to the New York Times article titled There's a good reason you can't concentrate. This is the line that stuck with me. Stop viewing distraction as inevitable and start treating thinking as something worth defending. It forces a shift in perspective. If thinking is valuable, attention isn't just

025a resource to spend. It's an asset to protect and cultivate. When we look at it that way, everything changes. For individuals, reading a book isn't just entertainment. A walk without headphones isn't wasted time. And sitting with a tough problem isn't an efficiency. These are the exact moments where we exercise the actual machinery of thought. For schools, it means foam bands aren't fundamentally about enforcing discipline. They are about fiercely defending the environment kids need to develop sustained attention. When we look at education through the lens of this asymmetrical fight, phone bands cease to be optional. Without them, schools have no way to defend deep focus against the trillion dollar algorithmic empires built specifically to exploit and monetize student attention. With the policy proposal in front of you, this board has the opportunity to defend thinking. You

026have heard from so many parents, many of whom are packed into this room and many teachers too. We all want our children to think, to learn, to imagine, to develop. We are working on this issue within our homes and are eager to find a partner in our schools. This proposal is the right step forward to support these goals. Thank you for offering this proposal and I hope that you vote yes and move this forward to become our policy. Thank you. Michelle. >> Yeah. My name is Sunder and I am a pair educator in the Working at Shiakwa Elementary School as a special ed PAR educator has been the most satisfying profession of my life thus far. However, I've had to resign my position as a tier three specialed PAR educator because my job does not

027pay a living wage. It absolutely breaks my heart to leave the students, to leave my colleagues, many of whom are standing behind me, to leave my broader colleagues in the schoolhouse, to leave my parent team, to leave the responsibility. However, my monthly salary does not even pay my rent. My monthly salary does not even cover my basic housing costs. If satisfaction paid, I'd be so rich. However, satisfaction does not buy food for my family or pay the utility bills or pay the remainder of my rent due. I do a job that asks fulltime attention and full attention. full attention of me for less than full-time pay. I do a job that requires specialized skills honed over time. However, it pays unskilled wages. When it becomes a privilege to work in the public schools, we need

028to ask ourselves if public education is meant to be accessible, is it also accessible to the educators who provide it? Yes, there are larger systemic limitations and there will continue to be. And in light of those funding limitations, it is imperative that the Vashon Island School District get clear about its priorities and take actionable measures to make those priorities a reality. We cannot have excellent education without excellent educators. If the larger system makes it seem impossible, then we ask ourselves, how can we make it possible for our community? This is the job. This is the responsibility. Once again, the only reason that I am leaving my job as a PAR educator in the special ed department at Shitakqua is because I am not paid a living wage. For my colleagues, for anyone here who is

029impacted or knows someone who is impacted by special ed services and needs a parah, I invite you to raise our hand. You raise your hand. Let us trade privilege for potential. You have to do it now. Please. Thank you. Uh Heather Bald. >> Um I would like to speak at the second one. Great. Uh Erin Simmons. >> My name is Aaron Simmons. Tonight in this comment, I'm speaking on behalf of someone whose voice was silenced because of the privacy violation that occurred in the bathroom recording incident at VHS. that parent while remaining anonymous to protect the privacy of their family is in this room right now. From that parent, quote, "My daughter is currently a freshman at VHS. A few weeks ago, a classmate used a phone to record my daughter while she was using

030the toilet. In a place where she should have been safe, a schoolmate used a phone to record her at her most vulnerable state and completely violated my daughter's privacy. My daughter's sense of safety at VHS was shattered in seconds by a device that has no place in a private space like a bathroom. She was very lucky that a good Samaritan found the phone and handed it into the office to prevent the video from being distributed. We all know that that is rare and in most cases these videos end up recordings online haunting our children forever. While I appreciate the district's often away policy at BHS, it simply isn't enough. Relying on teachers and staff to monitor device usage is an impossible task. They are educators, not the phone police. Implementing a campuswide phone ban during

031school hours is the only solution. It will level the playing field for every single student in the building. When no student has a phone, the pressure of digital isolation, fear of missing out, and social exclusion disappears. A schoolwide ban makes compliance a lot easier, allowing staff to immediately spot and correct the few outliers who violate the rule. We often hear that banning phones is too difficult to enforce. But as a parent, I ask you, is enforcement more difficult than the fallout of a privacy violation? Is it more difficult than the legal and emotional consequences of digital harassment on your watch? When we allow smartphones in our schools, we're allowing unmonitored cameras into our children's private spaces. We're prioritizing convenience over the physical and emotional safety of the students we're sworn to protect, serve, and treasure.

032A school should be a sanctuary, not a place where students have to worry about being recorded in a bathroom or mocked online. Please, let's align our district policies and implement a complete phone ban. We owe it to our kids to do everything we can to protect them so another incident such as this doesn't happen again. Thank you for taking on this challenging task to update the district's phone policy while keeping safety as a priority." End quote. And I'll close back to me, Aaron, with a thank you for the current proposal that you're considering. Um, thank you for using your voices and your vote to support all day away Blair. Good evening. My name is Chrissy Blair and I'm here tonight wearing a few different hats. I'm a chiropractor with 20 years of experiencing specializing pediatric

033work and I also am a volunteer at McMurray and at Shiakwa here and most personally I'm a parent of an upcoming eighth grader and an upcoming sixth grader. Um, and I want to speak to you about something I see every day in my practice and something I've also witnessed firsthand in the hallways. Over the past two decades, I have watched a quiet but significant shift in the physical health of the children I treat. The rise of smartphones has corresponded directly with an alarming increase in postural dysfunction in kids. I'm seeing more and more young patients presenting with forward head posture, reverse cervical curves, meaning the natural curve of the neck is actually straightening or bending the wrong direction, and early signs of scoliosis. These aren't minor conveniences. Chronic poor posture leads to nerve irritation and

034muscularkeeletal problems and it can follow children into adulthood. For every inch their head tilts forward over a phone screen, the effective weight on the cervical spine increases dramatically. We are loading young, still developing spines without stress for hours every day. And then there are the headaches. 15 to 20 years ago, it was rare for me to see a child presenting with chronic headaches. And today, nearly every single pediatric patient I treat over the age of 10 reports them. That shift is not a coincidence. This isn't a theory. This is what I see on my table in my office week after week in children as young as 10 and 11 years old. But this is only a picture of what I want to share with you tonight. I have had the privilege of volunteering at the

035middle school during the lunch on a handful of occasions. And because phones are already away at the middle school, what I witnessed was kids actually being kids playing, running around, inventing games, laughing loudly, having real conversations with the people sitting right next to them. There was noise and movement and genuine human connection happening. Um, I also had the opportunity to speak informally with a small group of anonymous, they want to be anonymous, middle schoolers about how they feel about the away for the day policy. And I want to be honest with you, they grumbled. Of course they did. But when I pressed a little, sever several of them admitted something important that if they had their phones available during lunch and breaks, they would almost certainly be on them. They knew it about themselves. These

036kids are not unaware. They are just like all of us, susceptible to a device that is engineered to be impossible to put down. That honesty from those students matters because it tells us that this policy isn't punishing kids. It is genuinely changing behavior and redirecting that time towards exactly what childhood should be like. I want to close by saying directly I am so grateful to McMurray um for implementing this policy and allowing my daughter to be able to have genuine conversations and friendships with her people and I would be devastated to see that go away in high school. Thank you for considering this. Thank you Mickey. Hello everybody. Um, I'm here as one of the presidents of the restaurant island education support professionals and I apologize my notes are a little haphazard and not as

037polished as I would like them to be. Things at this time of year the schools are a little crazy. Um, I want to speak up on on something that's a little buried in the um, board dogs today and it's about cuts to hours um, for about 30 of our union members. Um, and I just want to following Cinder and Heather. While these cuts are not great in hours to most of you, an hour and a half a day, once three times a month is a lot of money for some of our employees. and it's hitting some of the poorest employees in the district hard to lose any money at a time when as everybody knows prices are going up horrendously for everything. Um I do above and beyond the financial hardship it gives to some

038of our people. What it does for our um our paras is it takes away the collaboration time they have with their teachers. It's the only time in the week they have to plan with their teachers, strategize over incidents, um get get just talk things through and plan and prepare. We get to school 10 minutes before the kids arrive and we leave 10 minutes after the kids leave which means teaching time goes until for me ata 3:40 my job's over at 3:50 but in those 10 minutes I'm taking the kids to the bus and take them home. So in reality that's that's the reality for a lot of my the people in our union. They do not have time after school to talk things over. We cannot and are not allowed to talk about individual kids

039in front of other kids. It's a they're confidentiality concerns and there's there are things you just don't do. I would like you to consider when you think we are going to find time to to talk to our teachers. We have no time. These hours, these cuts are layoffs for our people. Per our contract, they're considered layoffs. While Kathy and I, the presidents were informed of this, our members were not until they got their um notices of assignment and it hit a lot of them hard and they felt very they felt hurt that they weren't told before and they felt very undervalued. I would like you to consider these things. >> Thank you, >> Christopher Stone. Hello, my name is Christopher Stone and I am the president of Ashon Education Association and I'm a teacher at

040the high school. We as teachers understand the detrimental impacts of phones can have on students and their education. We also understand that each building in our district has made huge gains in limiting cell phones, cell phone use, and centering the day on learning and education. While I'm not here to advocate for one proposal or another, I am here to encourage the board to adopt a policy that is flexible for each building in our district to create a procedure that works best for that building. When teachers can work with building administrators, policies can be tailored and the focus can remain on teaching and learning. Um, Derek Churchill. >> Um, thank you. Uh, it's Derek Churchill and I have a daughter at McMurray and this is a sixth grader and she definitely tells me, you know, privately

041that she appreciates uh not having the phone at school and all of the distraction and social tension that that that would bring. Um, so I again I want to thank the board for your service in a large larger sense, but but especially on this issue. It's it's a really challenging one. And I just uh wanted to contrast uh two conversations I've had. One with a close friend who's a teacher at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle and they have a period by period cell phone policy. And he said he spends usually on average two times a day where he has to sort of go to battle with a student. a student refuses to put their phone away or takes it out in class. And so he regularly has to basically become an enforcer. He says

042not only does that take time away, but it shifts his whole energy because sometimes the students like argue back and or they want to go to the bathroom and and so he's spends a lot of his time like just distracted and pulled away from teaching and then has to try to go back and that's like an average of two times a day um that that you think he should be spent on teaching. And I want to contrast that with the Mets Valley High School. Uh I have a close friend who has a daughter in high school there and they implemented a bell to bell away for the day policy in in 202024 and there's a newspaper article about it. all sent to the board and it's it's amazing to read the article because they went

043through a process of designing the procedure um working with the teachers and others and it's been incredibly successful and the principal said everyone was really surprised at how smooth the implementation was and yes there's been problems but they anticipated a lot more challenge and it's actually gone really well and there's a quote in the paper saying that the superintendent saying this has honestly been transformational uh for the school um and And I just want to say lastly, you know, I think we hear sometimes and it's true, like our kids are going to have phones and we need to teach them how to use phones and how to interact and how to have a healthy relationship with phones. And to me, the biggest thing we need to do that is time away from our phones, right?

044We need some time where I don't have my phone. I can't have my phone so I can remember mentally how how to be without without my phone all the time, right? And so I think for our kids that is the biggest thing we can do to help them deal with smartphones is give them clear time away every day uh where they can learn and interact uh without without phones. So thank you very much >> did you sign up twice? >> I didn't mean to. I just when I signed in I didn't >> there's nobody else here with that same checking. Didn't mean to call attention. Uh, John Decker. >> Good evening. Thank you. I'm John Decker, a parent of a sophomore at Beck High School. Um, I am here to express my support for a

045belt bell ban on cell phones. Um, our son was not given a phone until he was in 10th grade. There were outliers in this. The phone that he has is disabled from the hours of 8:00 in the morning until 2:45. He cannot use it for surfing the internet or viewing social media. So we have um restricted his use of phones and we think that it's uh something that's important. Um, I think one of the things that's really important here is to understand that these trillion dollar companies are sending notifications to your students during the school day to get them to interact with their applications. They're encouraging them to take photographs of their classmates and post them on Snap or various other media channels. Um, these people have thousands, tens of thousands of employees that are

046creating algorithms to addict our children to these devices. And you are a small organization, 150 people going up against these trillion dollar companies. The battle is asymmetrical and it's not one we can win unless we decide to remove the the phones from school. Um I want to also reiterate a quote that someone else brought up earlier that we have to stop viewing distraction as inevitable. It's not inevitable. We have to start treating thinking as something that is worth defending. A phone ban is not about defending uh the it is about defending the environment the kids need to develop sustained attention. These devices are teaching our kids to think in 30 second snippets. Our teachers don't teach in 30 secondond snippets. We need to rethink this. And I think it's really important that you guys stand

047up to these companies and ban phones in our schools. You already have 25% of the kids coming in next year who are used to this. There's only going to be three grades that aren't. I think you should do it now. Thank you for your time. I appreciate all your work and good luck with this. Uh, I know there were several people arrived after we took the signing seat. Are there folks that would like to make a public comment at this time? Uh, I'm going to That's the hand I saw first and then Andrew, I'll come to you next. If you would state your name so I can write it down. I see you there also. Sarah. Okay, great. >> Vanessa, if you would come to the um the podium, please. One, two, Sarah's three, four.

048Great. questions start. >> Hi, I'm Vanessa Richtor. I have three students in the district and I have three points I wanted to make. One is leadership can be lonely. You are all leaders on behalf of us. And I'm sure right now all the messages you've heard. Maybe there are some people who haven't had the courage to stand up and say they want the cell phones in the school. But I'm sure you're hearing many different things. But the beauty of leadership is that you have to make a decision and that you make it on behalf of the people that elect you. And there are so many of us here that are asking for this. on behalf of our students, on behalf of our community, because there every single person came up here with like nothing that

049can even be refuted. There's no research that says it's good for them. There's nothing. My favorite thing to quote is People magazine, if you know me. Jennifer Garner says to her children, "Bring me a study and I will let you have it." There isn't one. Because it's distracting us, all of us. School is sacred. This is my second point. So you are all you are all leaders and I'm sorry that you are going through this process because it must be hard in a small community. But we elected you because we know you can do it. There are so many times where you have stood up before other laws were passed for equity issues for for our immigrants for so many things where Bashan said we are going to be first for COVID. Remember we were

050making the swabs and New York Times was writing about us because when Bashon puts their mind to something, nothing stops us. That's what's amazing about this place. Look at all these parents. I am a fool. I will sign up to volunteer for anything. You can write all our names down. I am sure that administering this will be challenging. I am a manager. I hate telling people a new thing we have to do. It's hard. People don't like it. But we do adjust. We do it because it's the right thing to do. There are so many of us here that would do it. That's why we live here. We believe in this place and we have come together so many times for things that seemed impossible. This isn't impossible. It's coming right in front of us.

051I want Vashon to be like, "No, we're not going to wait. We don't need the governor and the legislature to tell us we're already here." That's what Bashon's all about. The last thing is when I look at the data, there's so many teachers that said something that really stuck with me. That's it's hard to be in a small community where you don't want to be the harsh teacher and we're making the teachers be the harsh teacher if they follow the current policy or want their students to not be distracted. That's not fair. We should take that away from them. It's not their job. We did the wrong thing as a society. We left these things around and it's okay to say we were wrong and let's take them back. Good luck. >> Uh, Andrew Cassad.

052>> I'm Andrew Cassad and I joined Mr. Stone in being in the extreme minority of folks that uh think that the policies that we implement should really be building based uh rather than district based. Um, I'm a teacher at OD High School and four years ago we implemented with our freshmen uh a uh phones away per class period. So each student comes in, places their phones in a numbered phone caddy and we take attendance based off of that uh piece. So if their phone's not in their numbered space, they're marked as absent. They figured it out really quickly. Um so we have pretty high uh compliance with that. Uh after the first year of doing that, we asked about whether we could roll that out to the whole of the school. And so we gathered

053together a number of our upper classmen and basically talked with them about what they would get on board with. They basically told us they would not get on board with an away for a day piece that they would just put up a burner phone and they would be holding a fake phone or they'd be holding an active phone in their backpacks anyway and they would just basically turn in a fake phone. But that they felt that learning in an uninterrupted learning environment was really important and they wanted to have a phonefree classroom environment. So we rolled out that policy throughout the whole of the school. So for the last three years, every student coming into every class at OD puts their phone in their numbered pocket. We take attendance by it. Every single teacher follows

054the same policy. Now occasionally a substitute doesn't, but following that uniform policy has really been the key piece that has enabled us to uh get student buy in as well as to protect that uh learning environment space. So I just want to say that um we I think want all the same thing. We want a distraction-free environment where our students can learn. But I think what we maybe are missing as we're thinking about how we move to a uh a safe environment for that learning is are we creating a situation where the tech is the enemy and we're providing external control rather than equipping our students to make good decisions about how they're going to interact with their tech. Now, a parent of a of a middle schooler rising into high school as well as

055of a junior. The difference between an eighth grade boy and a junior girl is substantial. I'm very grateful that McMurray had an away for a day policy and I think it's been very effective for my eighth grade son. I don't think it would be very effective for students who are driving, for students who are uh having changes to their schedule constantly thrown at them for athletics and other pieces. And on top of that, as we move into uh college preparation, all the communication is app-based. We might not like it, but that's how it rolls. And this is a high priority for some of our high achieving students. And I see that they do have the capacity to set aside their tech uh when it is important for learning, but that they're able to use that

056during breaks. So again, I don't have a concrete policy to recommend, but I would encourage the board to consider letting the buildings decide what the best policy is for each age appropriate and developmental appropriate space rather than impose a single uniform policy. >> Thank you. Uh Sarah Powell. >> Hello. My name is Sarah Powell and I teach at the high school and I am in total agreement. I feel like the transformation that we have had in the last three years at the high school has been absolutely incredible. It was really hard at the beginning and we continued to have bleedth through around the edges that last minute or two of packing up in particular or getting class started. But I think that's part of it. I think that we need to have students become aware

057and be able to as they move away from us into whatever they're doing next be able to use their phone and their time appropriately and understand that um it's like it's like knowing when it's okay to leave to take a bio break, right? Like maybe when the teacher is lecturing is not that moment, but you have to learn to make those choices for yourself at some point in time. Um, and I would advocate for perhaps, you know, away for the day and gradually releasing some of that. Um, I would also say that if we're going to stay away for the day and what we really want to do is foster um, interpersonal relationships and have things to do that maybe we start leaning into that first as opposed to having the students um, learn how

058to reinvent it. at the high school, we still have a number of students who are suffering from the COVID, I don't know, miasma. Um, and so providing options and providing education are going to be key steps forward in my opinion to them being able to use their phones and interact interpersonally as adults. Um, and I personally don't want to be responsible. I don't want somebody's thousand iPhone. I do not want 30 of them in pockets on the door where something could happen. I don't want to have to regulate it. So maybe the policy just gets stricter. Maybe it's not a warning and it's on my desk. Maybe it's like it's away for the day and if I see it then it's locked up in the safe forever after. But please take it away from teachers,

059whatever decision you make. Thank you. >> Uh to Chris Fisher, >> thank you for having us. Um I don't have anything scripted. I'm not a great public speaker, but I feel compelled to just I think to say to the whole room, but to you, um I am I am advocating for an away for the day policy for sure. Um I appreciate the uh desire to equip our kids with tools to learn how to use the devices to you know be you know help them in these processes and I I don't know the half of it so I don't know maybe there's a different policy that makes more sense but I will second what John I think we have to be thinking more largely and higher than these companies that are designing these phones. We're not

060talking about learning to use tools in a toolbox. We're not talking about picking up a measuring tape. We're talking about devices that have applications that I'm sure there's college applications on there too and that is like that's a separate issue and maybe we have to figure out how to navigate that. But what these kids largely are having these devices do is distract them from what they need to be doing in school academically and socially. And I guess I would say the thing that struck me at um you know I was able to talk to some of the students at the um gathering in May and I have a son who is a freshman who has a phone um but does not have social media and it is a battle and it is constant and it

061is not easy and you have to say no. But I think that what has made th that easier and tolerable is that it's not just us saying no. Like these are our children. They are almost adults. They are partners in understanding how to navigate the future. They are the future. It's not about us telling them no. It's about us protecting them and having conversations about why this doesn't work and why we need to make something that does work for them, that does have the tools that they can access their college applications, that we retrofit whatever it is we need to retrofit in our schools so they have everything they need, but we're protecting their brains. That's it. And we have to be the adults to do that as a community. And and as as many

062have said, this is a really big task. and I admire you for taking it on and we're all here to support you, but we have to do the hard work to take it on. And that's all. I don't know what to say, but thank you. Uh, thank you everybody for your participation, for being here tonight. Um, we are going to move on to the remaining items of the agenda. You are most welcome to stay. >> Please stay. >> We have a lot of things that also affect your children every day. uh they're learning the extraordinary folks that work for this district. Um that is also on the on the agenda tonight. >> Um that being said, uh we're going to move on to the consent agenda. Um this being a small district hearing no objections

063or need for anything to get pulled out, I'd like to recommend that we um uh approve the consent agenda as written. Any objections? The consent agenda passes as written. Thank you. Uh, moving on to the discussion portion. Uh, the Japan trip authorization. Eric Mortonson, please. >> Yes. Thank you for having me. Um, I have an updated itinerary. If you haven't had the chance to look at it, it's very much the same, but if you're interested, I have one for anyone who might want to look that over. Um, we are traveling in April 2027 to Japan. We are going to walk the Nakasendo way which is an ancient trail between Kyoto and Tokyo. It was the road upon which people were made to go pay tribute to the to the shogun in Tokyo. And we expect

064that this will walking these hills of this traditional way teach our kids about Japan's traditional ancient culture. And the contrast that they will see between modern Japan coming and going, transiting to this experience should show them how much things do change and how much things sometimes stay the same. Uh that's our hope. We're going to have between 12 and 16 kids. No more than 16 because we want to respect the 8 to1 ratio and not to have to include another chef uh chaperon on the trip. Um so anywhere between 12 and 16 travelers going uh two chaperones and then one tour guide. We're going to work with a company called Walk Japan which was essentially the pioneer in this kind of hiking tour uh around Japan. uh they specialize a lot of times in these

065off the-beaten path kinds of tours. Um the last time that we went two years ago, we traveled uh mostly through the cities. So we're trying to contrast it this time with a largely rural trip. Um the cost we had expected to be 6,000. That was just an estimate. Uh, I'm happy to report that with the proposal having come in from Walk Japan, it's probably more in the range of $4,500. Still expensive compared to what we experienced just two years ago. Um, probably due to airfare, fuel costs, and inflation. Um, I'll anticipate that you might have concerns about insurance. You may have read in the proposal that I sent to you that uh we're expecting to have the students foot the bill for a rider to our general liability policy just for that portion of their

066trip where they're in transit where they're traveling cover baggage to cover the in unfortunate event that flights should be cancelled and and additional costs incurred. Um that sort of travelers insurance we need to bear. Walk Japan covers everything in Japan on the ground. All right. Um, I've probably touched on the major issues that I think you might have, but I welcome any questions. >> I would love to have a copy of that future. >> I'll bring them around. >> Um, >> I didn't make a zillion. >> I can also get it electronically. That's >> Thank you so much. >> Um, any questions? >> Oh, they might be done before I get >> Oh, go ahead. I I do wonder if um >> if cost which is not insignificant >> is a barrier to students. >>

067Yes. And I >> regardless of their participation in free and introduced lunch. I'm not sure how all of that shakes out. In in the proposal that I sent to you, I did acknowledge that we recognize that the state law uh requires that travelers um at any means can go and we use uh free and reduced lunch as a criterion by which we decide who does and doesn't then qualify for assistance. Um, I think that, uh, in having talked with Jackie Merrill over at the high school, um, we feel that it's probable that we'll try to work out sort of a tiered schedule where we'll ask families to contribute what they can and we'll make up with scholarships the difference. Those scholarships will have to be paid for out of uh, funds raised by the fan

068club. We are actively trying to recruit parents into the booster club that we have. I don't know if you're aware that we have a booster club which is attached to the well attached to no separate entity but acts in support of the Japan club. Uh we're trying to get more of this the students parents involved in our activities and our efforts to fund this. Uh that'll help them to appreciate too that um their students are at some risk of not traveling in the eventual possible condition that some students cannot go and we can't pay for that. We're prepared to deliver that unfortunate news and lose our deposit if we have to. We don't want to. And this is why we'd like more involvement from the student parents. >> Any questions for Eric? Thank you. Appreciate

069you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh at this time, we're going to move on to discussion of uh resolution 831, the 2026 2027 budget. >> Thank you. Um, I'm really glad that that you've all stayed and really appreciate all the work that you've done around um your sharing your concern around cell phones. And I would ask you wholeheartedly to keep that momentum around lobbying the legislature for adequate funding for public schools. Because what you're going to hear tonight is going to indicate to you that our budget next year, this one is difficult. The one that's coming next year will be even more difficult. And so I appreciate that the governor came out with a statement around cell phones. And I don't want to be cynical and believe that that was a

070distraction from the real issue of what the financial picture in our state looks like. because just prior to that announcement, we got an email from the governor telling us how dire it is and not to expect any increase in funding. Without further ado, I want to uh introduce Cassie Ziza who's going to who is our director of finance, business and finance to talk about the budget for the upcoming year and the work. Is it possible for folks to find another place to stand since some of our employees are standing here with uh their laptops open and doing district work? If we can find something, but okay. >> No, no, no. I No, I know. It's just a um Please don't leave. This is important. >> Yeah. If we have I don't know if we have

071other chairs that we can make off the wall. Yeah. Okay. I just I It wasn't an invitation to leave. I just having people stand behind uh folks while they're working. So, it's >> got a couple more chairs, folks. >> So, I'm going to present our budget recommendation for fiscal year. We have the budget book there printed. Um, I pulled out the most important pieces for us to talk about this evening. Um what you'll see up there right now is um just the amount of time that we've been spending on this budget. So the process began all the way back in December where we began development of our enrollment projections. You can kind of see that we just continued that work um all the way through the end of May and um we anticipate that we

072will adopt the budget later on. Here you'll see the appropriation level that we have for each of our pride funds. Um our general fund amount for 2627 is 30,5352,816. $35,000 to our interpreter for policy 798. We have umated $20,65 for transportation vehicle fund, $1,395,000 for capital projects, 4,35 service, and 69,483 for our associate student body. Enrollment is one of the biggest drivers for the revenue for the district. And so I just wanted to provide some historical information and a reminder that our projected enrollment for 2627 is 1,313 a provided some historical data here going back to fiscal year 2017 18. And you can see by the trend line that we are seeing a consistent downward trajectory since that time. We've had our sharpest decline in most recent years. And so it really shows that we

073have to be very stable with our forecasting to ensure that we are really good at our enrollment correct so that we can be budgeting for the correct amount of students for the district. This here is um the financial position by fund category. So up up there you will see the projected beginning fund balance, total projected revenue, total expenditures, the net change to our fund balance and the total projected ending fund balance for each of our funds. I won't go through each of the numbers, but I will point out we do have net changes that are positive for debt service associated student body and transportation vehicle fund. Um, our capital projects is really forecasted out through the end of our technology levy. And so that net change there is intentional to make sure that we are

074tracking all of that spending and having our expenditures line up so that we do end that levy with a positive amount in our capital projects fund. But what we really need to pay attention to is the negative net change in our general fund. Um what you see there is just over a million dollars in the red and that means that we have budgeted more in our expenditures than we have in our revenues by over a million dollars. So for 2627 um we are still projecting that we will have a positive ending fund balance, but a million dollars um in a $30 million budget is significant and it's something that we need to pay close attention to. This here shows our total budgeted resources by percentage. So the majority of our revenue does come in from

075the state. Our local levy is our second highest funding source at almost 20%. Federal funding is about 3% and our fund balance in 2627 will also need to cover just over 3% for um our revenues to make up the difference in those expenditures. Um we have some other revenue that also comes in. Um the biggest one is the very generous donation from schools foundation and so that's what's included in our other revenue. Here we can see the percentage of expenditures. Um we do spend the bulk of the expenditures in our regular instruction 12.87% is in special education. Vocational education is 4%, categorical funding is about 3% and other is approximately 4%. I want to talk just a little bit more about our support services. Um that includes our food services program and we have staff

076that makes from scratch breakfast and lunch for our students every day. It includes our people transportation, our district operations, maintenance, utilities and insurance. Um and the other category would be our programs like EAP but When we kind of combine those together, you can see that 73% of our expenditures are really spent on um expenditures that directly support our students and classroom instruction. This here gives a little bit more detail on exactly where our expenditures are budgeted. So you can see that the majority is in certificated staffing. Um and then you can just see from there um we have about 5.2 million in classified staffing and 7 in benefits, supplies at 1.3 million, purchase services at 5.6 million, and travel at just under $100,000. Um, we can see that we have a pretty big decrease in

077our supplies for next year. And um, that is a strategic decision to trim in other places because we had to make room to try and mitigate the cost of the increased um, services that are vital to the district operating. So, one of the largest expenses we saw that go up is the premium for um our risk pool and that went up by 38%. We're seeing an increase um for utilities anywhere from 7% to 15%. Um that is also the category where fuel would be charged to and so we've done our best to try and trim other places to make room for those items. With travel, it looks a little bit significant. I just want to call out that we do have language in our collective bargaining agreements um that provide ship work for our staff

078members who commute on island every day and that is what the bulk of that budget goes to as our dairy costs. This here is a comparison of our 2526 budget to our 2627 budget. So you can see that we're increasing in the general fund. We have a little bit of a decrease in capital projects, a significant increase in debt service and that because we did pay off our police in December of 2025 and that is no longer on our books is increasing a little bit and then there's a slight decrease in our transportation and I know the board knows this but the funds in one category can't be used to pay for things in the other. So that's why they're separated that way. >> This is a projection of our fouryear general fund budget. Um

079I want to call attention primarily to 2627 and 2728. Um, this assumes an approximate increase of 3% in both revenue and expenditures. Um, but you can see there's a lot of red up there on that slide. And for 2627, we are projecting to have the attending fund balance. But again, there's a very large delta between our revenue and our expenditures. And essentially what we see here is that if we don't make a strategic reduction in our budget moving forward that we are going to be in significant financial distress. >> So I'm going to stop you there and put that one into very basic language. So this year and you'll see the expenses we we talked about at at the beginning of the slideshow all the work that went on this year. We reduced our administrative

080staffing by over two and a half positions. We reduced our uh teaching staff by more than two positions. We reduced as you heard uh our uh classified staff by 37 and a half hours for about 30 folks um over the course of the year. So there has been reductions across the board and yet the revenue has not kept up at the state level. Our revenue is actually declining and so we have to dip into the fund balance that the board has mandatorily set aside which is low. Right? you're saying that you want cash for at least 27 and a half days or basically a month and there's a reason for that because sometimes the state doesn't pay us and so like last year they didn't pay us in June yet we had to make payroll.

081So had that cash not been in the bank we wouldn't have made payroll. So now we're saying with all the reductions we did with the declining enrollment we're still dipping into our fund balance for next year. If we don't do something dramatic when we prepare next year's budget and everything remains the same, which is why you're all so important in your help to lobby for adequate funding. If something doesn't change, I love the Vashon Schools Foundation. They raised $350,000. It's helped us mitigate the impact. We can't ask them to raise $2 million, right? So, there are things that we can do to help. One of the ways that we get revenue is making sure that everybody on our island that is supposed to pay taxes pays taxes because we get a big portion of our

082funding through the levy. And we know the cost of living has gone up. We know it's a hardship, but not everyone is able to pay their taxes. So, that's a piece of it, too. So, I just wanted to stop there because it it just looks like numbers here, but those are people in positions and next year the million dollars that we're dipping into the fund balance now doesn't come back. So, if we do nothing different, next year it would be two million and there's no money there. So, next year we have to make again all things being equal, even more significant reductions. And so it's not a good picture. It's a good picture to get us or a decent picture to get us to next year, but we really have to think critically about what

083are we going to do. Um so not to interrupt. >> Yep. That's okay. It's actually closer to $2.5 million, but >> there you go. >> Okay. Um so the next slide, um Dr. Moa, I just went through these. So it's just um what we have made um Excuse me. They're the staffing changes that are assumed in our budget. Overall, it was about a total savings of $873,000. >> And what's not there, and I'm going to talk about in a little bit, um that hopefully will go back to our fund balance, is some changes in transportation to mitigate that cost of $1.6 million that we pay to first student to transport our students. So, we'll talk about that in a little bit. This chart here shows um our staffing cost versus versus our material supplies and

084operating costs. So as you can see here, staffing does make up the majority of our budget at almost 85%. And our MSO costs are just at 15%. I do want to note that in Bashon we do have several um items that we have under contract, but they are in l of direct hiring and those items are listed up there as our AO tutors, our people transportation, our athletic trainer and many of our special services including um speech language pathologist, physical therapist, vision specialist. >> Explain MSOC. >> Um so those are anything that is not a staffing cost. So >> material supplies and other >> other costs. Sorry, I think I said operating other costs. Yeah. So we're talking about um contracts, professional development, gas, um >> insurance. >> Yeah. So anything really anything that is

085not associated towards staffing is falling into that category. This is a historical look at our um district operations and funding. So this takes a look back to fiscal year 2223. Um just noting that the actuals are for the years 223 through 2425 and we're just looking at budget because we have not quite closed out this fiscal year. Um what really stands out here is that we've been able to build our fund balance a little bit and have that positive change, but 26 27. Again, there's that million dollar deficit. And so, it's important that we um really keep that in mind because it is a very significant um difference between our projected revenues and our projected expenditures. So, as I said before, our local levy is the second largest revenue source for the district. We anticipate

086that we will get just about $6 million or about 19 and a half% of the budgeted resources in 2627. I've also provided some historical collection information there for us. Um there was a legislative outcome that will allow us to collect a little bit more and that's why the amount has gone up in 2627 which is good for us. And I'll also note that the collection rate for all of our funds is 94%. This shows our federal um special purpose funding. These are funds like special education, our title grants, food services that um comes in from federal dollars as well as their commodities. Um these can be a little bit all over the place. There's been quite a bit of uh turmoil especially with um the title grants and what's going to happen and there's still

087a little bit of a question mark. So we'll be keeping a really close eye on that. However, they did um keep them essentially in the same form for this fiscal year. um that was a tiny bit more revenue that we had been counting on in case it did go away. So, we'll be paying close attention to that as we look into future years. And we do expect for the revenue for USDA commodities to go up as well. This year, we have implemented breakfast at a slightly different time than in previous years. Commodities are determined based on prior year, the amount of meals essentially. And so, with breakfast having increased so much this year, we do expect that that will have a positive impact as This >> Yeah, you want to take it? >> Yeah. This

088one is something that I think folks are uh might be surprised about because we often hear that we get money for our enrolled students. We do, including our commuters, right? We get $11,89 per student that's enrolled. We spend $18,564 per student. That's inclusive of all that work that Cassie has done to show you where our expenses are. So that delta is what's covered by the levy. So the state funding is at this level and that change in the funding is covered by the local levy and all of the other funds that come into it. So, it's it's a pretty dramatic difference and we often hear um about uh how we get paid by the students and we do and we provide a really robust education with lots of offerings at our very small high school

089that are really commendable and um what we do here on Vashan it's not because of those courses but because of all the things that go into a budget the price of gas, the price of insurance, the price of staffing, it it costs more than the allocation. >> I cover all the points on that one. >> I think you hit them all. >> All right. >> So, we do have um policy 6022 which says that our budget will include commitment of at least 27 27 and a half days of cash on hand of the current year's operating expenses and these are to be in our unassigned accounts. I will note that the state auditor's office told us during our audit exit that they actually prefer to see 60 days of cash on hand. Um, which seems

090like a big lift. Um, that is what they feel makes a district. Our projected uh ending fund balance for 2627 is about $2.2 million. Based on the expenditures that are in this budget, our minimum fund balance needs to be 2.5 million. And what this really shows that For us to do that, we have to try and not expend $346,200. Um the amount that is budgeted there is approximately 8% of the total budgeted expenditures in 2677. Our financial outlook is one that we really have to pay attention to. We do have a million dollar projected operating deficit. Um we are unless we are able to cut some spending we likely will not meet that minimum for policy language and policy 222 and we are really in a vulnerable a vulnerable spot um with our finances. So

091there's a lot of effort that we need to do to ensure that we are making decisions that will provide fiscal stabilization for the district. >> So we have done currently we have a hiring freeze in place. We have some folks who have resigned. We have positions that have not been filled and we're holding. Um, and it's really in an effort to see what we can mitigate. Doesn't mean we won't fill those positions. Um, but we're trying to recapture any funding that has not been spent at this point to try and build that fund balance back up so that we are not dipping into it by a million dollars. Um, and again, that gap just to keep the board's minimum is over $300,000. So, we're trying to recapture some of it. Uh, this is not a

092cliff that we didn't see. It's just bigger than we thought, especially based on um it was a really big hit to go from what was predicted to be an 18% increase in our insurance cost to a 38% increase just in our ESD alone. And I believe we talked about this at the last meeting. It's over $60 million increase that all of the districts have had to endure. our portion of that is $100,000 more than we thought we were going to have to increase. So, it's a significant change. So, I wanted to call that out to you because we all recognize the impact um that our budget has on those folks who are working in the district who have been directly impacted. Um, and we worked hard and we let our um, our BEST folks know

093that we've tried very hard not to touch that group at all for all the reasons that you heard tonight, but it just became untenable. And so that's why that's why that has occurred. So here you can see um we are making um some decisions here that will hopefully help us build that balance back. Um we are looking to reduce some of our transportation routes that will hopefully have an outcome of $150,000 savings. >> Yeah, we'll talk about that under transportation policy when we get there. >> On hiring and then just the continued work to ensure that um we are aligning our staffing with our projected enrollment every single year. We will also continue to conduct analyses of all of our programs to try and identify efficiencies. We will continue to prioritize resources on student learning

094and um my personal favorite monitor financial performance and adjust spending as needed and then continue that work to develop the long-term strategies to ensure that we are budgeting our revenue over our expenditures. I do want to say that while everyone presenting this budget, a lot of very difficult work by a lot of people. A lot of them are here at this table and so it's been a very collaborative effort. Um the timeline kind of makes it look like it's small, but we really did start the middle of December and we spent um the equivalent of weeks really combing through every detail of the budget and um I just appreciate um all of the hard work that everybody has. >> Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Cassie or anyone else involved process at this time?

095>> Uh just a comment question. Um because I want to echo what you what you said earlier, Joe, in terms of needing this much force for lobbying um at the state level and that yes, the you know the governor came out in terms of cell phones, but also this week I'm talking to the WADA uh legislative individual, their their strategic advocacy person today. Um the governor also came out to say very clearly um in a less public way that that they are expecting and requiring significant cuts in the upcoming legislative session and that that will have more consequences just wanted to add than this previous one. The previous legislative session was a short session. So that's kind of adjustments than the budget versus the foundational two-year budget. Um and so it's looking at significant cuts

096there which you know this is a force we can't contend with it now. But the other piece to it that I don't know how much is in there is that we receive regionalization dollars which helps uh make sure that we um that we at least are trying to pay a wage that allows people to live within this community within the community that they're working within. Um and that that's also under review that regionalization piece and I don't know where I know they uh refund districts between 1.2% 2% another up to 12% I don't know where we are within that but that that's also a site of charity >> we are on the higher end of that um and it was a big conversation actually at law school as well so that's something that's coming up

097and um there is a big push from the group of um you know budget managers all over the state and um particularly in our region I think um to have them look at that formula because it's not keeping up with what we need to do as a state really is not fulfilling their duty fully fund education and so it is something we need to keep a close eye on because that could have a significant >> I I think it's this is a a particularly important year to apply the pressure that the best possible pressure we can because um yes he literally came out with his expect huge reductions um and we're already experiencing that and so there's going to even less then we have to reduce even more and it doesn't mean that we don't

098have the kids to educate and the needs here um and and preaching of the choir >> any other questions or comments for this time >> so this will be on your agenda for the next meeting there will be a budget hearing that evening and then it'll go to the board for a vote Um, next item is uh resolution number 833, the 202526 budget extension. Is that for you or Cassie? >> It it's for both of us. Um, this is a just in case because we have to close the books because we're migrating to Q and that's happening >> um in July. Okay, that's happening in July and that's when you would normally hear a budget extension and the difference really is that well Cassie you explain the budget extension that's why it's on your agenda

099tonight for discussion >> Dr. Dr. said this is really just as a just in case. I'm tracking, excuse me, tracking expenditures pretty much daily at this point, but we are not going to have access to our system uh for most of July. And so, um, in order to make sure that we are not going to exceed the appropriation that we have in our original budget, we are asking for an extension here. Um, I'm very hopeful that we won't have to use it, but in this case, um, we will have done all the proper steps. Um, not being able to really track July is going to be very tricky for us because when we come back um we're not only starting school on August 31st, but that's also the last day of the fiscal year. And

100so there's a a lot of crossover there. Um learning a new system and not having access to it for month is going to be a little bit tricky. Um so I did consult with the ESD and um they recommended that this would be the right thing to do just in case um especially just really not having access to our information for a pretty significant. >> I mean the only changes is it stops us from getting an audit finding because we miss a deadline because the deadline for a budget extension is in July >> and so we're just making sure that in the event that we needed it we have the appropriate board approval for it. >> Any questions or discussion on this item? >> It's pretty clear. Thank you. >> Thanks. U moving on to

101a new policy discussion uh 6600 transportation. So we actually don't have a current transportation policy and uh when I started working with first student who provides our transportation I went to them um and said basically we're paying you $1.6 million and our buses as I noticed them and I want verification ride heaven. uh we have lines out the parking lot of people picking up and dropping off their children. And so there must be something we can do to ensure equity for our students so they get to and from school, but that we can recapture some of that effort that parents put in to take their students to and from school. So, I asked them to do a root analysis. Um, and they came back with and I also said to them, "We need to find

102$100,000 because that's what essentially at that moment it was like I I don't know where we're going to find that." And so, um, they came back with, uh, yeah, I don't think we can do this. And I asked them to go back again because we do have roots that are on top of other routes that ride half empty. So they did come back with a restructured um plan that would reduce by two routes and um it's an effort to be more efficient. We think based on writership, based on what we see, based on the way the island lays out with the roots that we can accomplish this, but it won't be without hiccups. Um, and so we'll do a lot of work communicating with families, but based on this report, uh, we're look at looking

103at potentially saving $146,000. Um, so our initial expectation was to pay them 1.6 million. It's going to be about 1.45 million. Again, it doesn't meet what our actual deficit is, but it it helps. Um, but there may be some stops that change and some field trip coverage that either may be delayed or have to be uh re figured, right? You can't necessarily go this Thursday. You might have to wait until a different day. Sports trips may be impacted. Um, I don't know what the bumps in the road will be, no pun intended. Um but our intention is to if we reduce the routes, we don't have they have two spare drivers on hand at all times. We would go to one spare driver on hand. Uh I don't know if the board is fully aware

104that it is our responsibility as a district to pay for the same SE benefits for our bus drivers as we do for our staff. And the other thing I'm not sure if everybody's aware of even if our employees who qualify for the most part all of them qualify for benefits but even may not even take those benefits doesn't matter. Our district is responsible to pay the state the full amount of what those benefits would be. And we do the same for our transportation folks. That's part of the agreement. And one of the things that is being lobbyed for at the state level, which again, as a human being, I want everyone to have health insurance, but it will become a district expense if the lobby for substitutes to get benefits is successful because then anybody

105who subs here would also get benefits at the district's expense. So, these are difficult conversations, but What I'm trying to share with the board is we need a policy in order to have um something to to look back on. Right? Typically districts have policies that say if you're outside of um a mile from the school district, we're not going to provide a bus for you unless it's a hazardous stop and then we'll make the exception. If you are a student with special needs that require a bus or can't walk or non-ambulatory, there will be a bus for you. This is about the general education routes that cover the island. We currently have eight of them. We're going to go down to six of them. So again, this policy doesn't do anything differently than what we

106currently do, but And it's also the opportunity for me to talk to you about this transportation change. Um, and I'm recommending that we go with it, that we try it and that we respond in the fall if for some reason it doesn't um, work the way we hoped it would. Um, but given the amount of traffic that we have at arrival and dismissal and the fact that our buses run at about 40% capacity, I think this will work. It's another effort to reduce our expenses. I would like to just make a comment, a question. Um, this is a great audience of Islanders who truly care about our district. Um, it is obvious that if our buses are running at 40% that many parents are picking up their children. If parents wanted to create their own

107car pools so that their children were consistently picked up throughout the year and did and those parents who normally do not use the buses don't use the buses and work with each other to make sure that that reduction in pickup doesn't affect the kids that really have to take the bus. Is that a way that our community can save money and support the system? I mean, this is one sort of idea. And it's an idea I'm just throwing out there as one way that our community can be created in the face of this uh uh steamrolling of uh devaluing education in at the state level. um one local way we might be able to respond. >> Yes. And I'm not sure um what would be needed yet. We would know more if, for example, we're

108running a bus and it's overcrowded or we're on a route and we need to change something. Um yes, I I think those are the kinds of innovative things to think about. districts. Again, I'm not suggesting this, but districts aren't required to provide transportation except for those students who would be unable to get to school because of a disability. Um, it's not a required service anymore than school lunches, but we don't want to do that, right? We don't want to not give people the ability to come to school, not give people the ability to have meals. The fear I have is that those are the That's kind of the snowball effect that I don't want us to be the poster child on that one. I want us to lobby, right, to say it. We're not adequately

109funding our schools >> and we're all getting into this hamstrung position that we are not the only district that by any means. If you look at what's happening across the state, district after district is financially unable to meet needs. And so I doing the best I can with this team to mitigate that so that we can live another year. But we can't keep doing the same thing and think something different's going to happen. >> So yes, Martha, innovation I'm all about. I I mean I would like the entire population of Washington to rise up and demand the kind of education I got in a state that fully funded education in a state that was far poorer than Washington. And I mean don't get me started. So again, I you know, I I think it's an

110opportunity for us to work with River, who's the legislative rep, um and our student representatives and and put an effort together to say enough. And there are districts around the state doing that. I mean, we all heard about McClary when it happened. Um there are other so it won't be clear, it'll be another name doing the same thing. I just don't know if we can get left in the stone either, right? So, I will get off my soap box. We have a long night to continue on to move on everyone. >> Great. Uh, moving on. Uh, another, um, hefty one potentially. Uh, new policy 2026, uh, artificial intelligence or AI in education, a human AI human approach. Is this for you or Dr. Spencer? >> Dr. Spencer. >> Okay. >> Please. I will just say

111it has been since the beginning of April, so I might be a little rusty. And as you may already know based on comments and energy and stuff that's going on, we've had a lot on our plate. So um we started this work way back at the beginning of the school year. Uh it was uh John Stanton and myself largely initially attended some ethics um webinars getting really familiar with all of the work that OSPI conducted and then meeting with uh director um and talking through kind of the tips and for having something that would help guide our district in this cutting edge of what we do to keep up with technology. There's no specific guiding um policy yet know tomorrow um from WASDA um they updated policy 2022 which is the responsible um comput computer

112use and so forth. We felt it was important to have a standalone policy to address some of the issues. So we are very much at the heart of human AI human approach which the idea is there that obviously uh human generates the content the prompt whatever it is AI might offer suggestions might decide it depends on how you want to use it in the classroom it can vary classroom to classroom also um vary perhaps by grade level right we don't we don't have all those details worked out we wanted to leave as much um autonomy and control for teachers to make the best decisions in their content areas working with our PLC teams um but also provide some basic guidance on um how you might use that. So there's a number of supporting documents in

113here that we've worked through. Um so we we did that and then we worked with our um our leadership team and several months of kind of working through that. they shared it with PLC leads to had feedback and so that's kind of where we arrived and then we also hosted I think towards the end of March third week of March we had a community forum and originally the plan was following that forum that we're going to be having a work session tonight on um AI but as you heard there are many other items competing for our interest but we believe this is a a good policy a good place to start we believe um it's very doable we wanted to have better structure heading into the new school year. Um, and uh, we'll continue to

114kind of fine-tune. We have a heavy emphasis on protecting students privacy. So, there's specific tools our tech team helps us vet to make sure that they meet the requirements. So, that's kind of where we're at with it right now. Those tools are Notebook LM and Gemini. Um, and we've played a little bit with Brisk, which is an educationally focused AI that meets privacy requirements. >> Is Brisk also a Google channel? >> Uh, no, but it works with Google. We one when this two years ago, three years ago, timeline now. It was one of the first ones that we work with in our district because it does a really nice job of leveling texts for people. So, um, Then Google developed and also which allows you to I modeled that in the public forum of how

115you can dictate which resources it uses so that it's not just going out and grabbing whatever so you control the content that it's creating. So yeah, and then I don't know I I did put you all on as commenters. I haven't had a chance yet to see if you diligently jumped in there and made comments. um on the policy, but I can also, you know, uh if it's going to be River or somebody else that wants to take the lead in making edits, if there's edits that want to be made, we just need to look that up. So, >> thank you very much for all that work. Any questions or curiosities from Dr. >> Have um have you done any research into the tools that are used for special education regarding AI specifically? I I

116have not um taken a deep dive into those that are there currently. >> Do you feel like the policy still allows for that tool to be an option? >> I think so because as long as it meets our requirements, if we feel like it's a product that is affordable and meets the criteria for what we we would allow for use in our district, then we would have our tech team vet that and would be added as a a resource. Does that work with I essentially the state also offers some technology assessments for children who need additional so that would work in Indian with that too >> and assisted technology >> that's what I was getting at >> yeah yeah >> thank you >> um there was one thing in here I was just kind of

117curious about and I apologize I didn't ask ahead of time around um professional development um around um the it almost felt like a little bit of um is tenuousness a word? Ten tenuousness around um around PD like that it might it I think the word was may >> um and I I very much have come to understand the limitations on PD hours and how they are already allocated. Um I'm just curious about sort of where and obviously fine if you don't have the answer to this now where sort of in the stack of PD opportunities because I know there's obviously such a wide variety of comfort and um fluency with some of these tools. There's you're right. I mean obviously we what's nice about our school districts is that we do have builtin time for

118professional development but like all school systems there's many required things that we are supposed to cover and and um do our best to do that but currently we use um staff meetings at the building level we use building directed PLC time PLC's often will schedule their own PD for their PLC time that's directed we have our teaching learning days. There's two of those each year. Um and and and then sometimes we actually provide release time um in a day. That's become a little bit trickier because the subs and the cost around subs and all of that. So there are um places that are built in, but you're right, it's there's a stack of requirements of things that have to be covered. So we try to those other pieces in >> for context at some point

119and I don't think this ever made it into notes from the lunch. It was an idea I think I brought to Joe like if there could be almost almost like a PLC lead around AI, someone that was kind of the the ambassador for um for knowledge around this subject who could be counted on by their peers. But that's as with all PLC positions that has to come with additional compensation. >> As we just saw, there certainly is no additional anything. >> We actually >> we had conversation at the uh at the leadership level about that very thing. And it really um it it's a financial thing, right? We talked about having a teacher lead and or a teacher on special assignment around it. Um there's there's a lot of competing interests. >> Yeah. >> Um

120any questions or comments about this? Um this is just obviously uh the first conversation we're having about this. There'll be ample time to discuss further. Um >> how do you want to handle I'm sorry edits are >> I don't think we can all be in there. Uh >> I can provide comments to uh Dr. Spencer, >> I don't think we can all be in the dock at the same time, >> but one person could be. Yeah. >> If you have a you know, River's the policy lead. Um or you can individually send your comments to Stephanie and uh she can take care of that. It's it's really you're right. You don't want to have conversation across a document. Um but you if you have specific comments, you can provide them to her. >> Okay. I

121saw it riverand first and then but I want to ask if you can repeat the two the AI2 >> Gemini >> and um notebook LM and then the other one which is not really officially in use right now. >> Thank you. >> Um I mean one of the things I'm about is the fact that education educators are having to adapt the technology as it's unfolding right in real time and um and hold simultaneously the possibilities of that and the potential as well as the dangers. Um, and so I was looking for guidelines in terms of safety and I I see that where it says the district prohibits student use of AI that X Y and Z. Um but I trying to think um I'm thinking about some of the things I don't I'm will put

122it in a comment tagged that attention. Um, at this time we'll move on. Item F, update to policy 3245, students and telecommunication devices. The moment everyone has been waiting. >> So, um, do you mind if I start since it was my task to provide you with a recommendation? I have I feel like I have um been to Roman back because I have I have gone round and round on my own. I've gone round and round with staff. I've talked with teachers. I've thought about a lot of things around the logistics. And I had to stop thinking about the logistics and really step back and ask the board to you make policy and we'll figure out how to implement it, whatever it may be. Um, appreciate the folks that have stepped up and said, "We'll help."

123Um, we have a school year that's just ending and it's pretty high pressure. For those who are in schools, they understand that. But for those who aren't, there's a lot of things that happened in these last few weeks. And so I talked with Mr. Ericson today and reassured him that I wasn't going to talk to him about this until the 22nd of June because we just have too many things happening. Um, so really I I know that people appreciate the logistics are hard. uh anytime you go to CATAC and have to wait in the TSA line, you know, logistics are hard and they really are the things that get in the way. And so we want to do this right. Um so and we will. But really what I want to do at this point

124is tell you that um River put this policy in front of you. I did not because I've gone round and round with what's the best thing and this is the NEA National Education Association draft. Um so I would support the board's uh deliberation on this and you tell us what you want and we will do it. >> I'm going to say thank you Robert. Um, so the points that changed in this most recent draft were exactly what I was looking at going up because it didn't protect our all of our kids. It protected some of them from phones, but some of our kids also need personal devices as tools to access the world. Like my child can use his phone or iPad. He doesn't have a phone. He's eight, let's be real. But he has

125an iPad and he can use it to read the sign in front of him that he can't read and will never be able to see. And that's an important And I felt like the original draft didn't lay out those tools as an option for still accessibility because later as he gets older it would be a phone or something else just whatever he's going to need to access that because that access is important for all of our kids. So, thank you for this new version because it did lay that out clearer as a protected protecting point and also thank you for the community reaching out because I wasn't on board fully, but you're right. We're here for the public and you guys have really reached out. folks who also like to be heard on this. >>

126I have my own personal biases which I try very hard not to influence me. Um but there is one that I will not let go of ever and that bias is that the teachers have to be consulted. Um, I am very loathed to do top-down decisions that impact our staff without their input. And this was the only real sticking point I've had with this entire thing is that um my belief and I I I believe that decisions particularly when it comes to implementation well large decisions that impact imple implementation made by people who are not within the classroom sometimes have very ugly consequences. uh witness all the unfunded mandates that the state has visited upon our school system with really detrimental effects. So in my role as a uh director, I really was struggling with

127the idea that we were going to be telling one building and only one building that they are not setting their own policy when other two buildings set the policies that they did. And so my concern was one does this send a message from the top of disrespect to staff to what they are going to be doing in the logistic piece which is not our job nor our expertise. and two, were we not listening to a really specific constituency? I've changed. I've evolved in this as I have seen communication from students, from staff, and from parents. It's really clear what the students think. That's unequivocal. It's mixed as to what the parents think. If you look, even though the majority of the people who have have talked to us are in favor of this particular policy,

128when you look at the surveys, there is a substantial group that either want their kids to have the phones available at all times or want the current policy. And then this there is the staff sur survey where 50% of the staff are on board with this kind of policy. That's one piece of the decision making. The second piece of the decision making is the public health model. We all know that cell phones are addictive, insidious and disgusting. I mean on on many levels. >> Show me your bias. >> Yeah, that is my bias right there. As an as a Neanderthal, I have the right but um I have a cell phone and I use the cell phone. I was uh I'm not so old that I didn't have to compete with cell phones in the

129classroom. So I have seen it from both ends. Just like we have banned smoking in public places and plenty of adults and teenagers smoked and resented it. I feel on from a health perspective banning cell phones um for the day is the way to go. So you got these two competing thoughts and I just wanted to tell you that is what I've been t thinking about. It's that's all I have to say. >> Um, probably the most important thing that I want to say is that Joe, thank you because you here, you hear your people and you are this magic maker. you are somehow you come in very difficult times and you help us and we are a unique island. Um and I think you know it from the very beginning when you started u

130you know commenting with us and um thank you thank you I feeling safe to speak up. Thank you. >> And I support the policy. >> I don't need to have the last word. So, can I say something? And then I want to make sure you have room. Uh, one thing I think is worth mentioning um that some of you probably know is that when McMurray made the decision to go to Away for the day, it was, and this is my understanding, I'm sure other folks will speak up if this is not true. a unified voice from the staff saying something has got to change this. We can't we can't have these phones. They are a scourge. They are a distraction. It was a different kind of grasp. We see some grassroots movement making in this

131room. It was grassroots from that building saying we have to make a change. And so Dr. Allison brought it to us. He didn't ask us. He said, "This is what we're going to do." Because that it was a building level decision. Um, you know, it is worth mentioning, and I'm not here to fight against this. I'm just I It is worth mentioning, we have not had that same uproar from our high school staff. We just have not. We've heard from a few people for sure. We've also heard from some teachers saying, and I'm broadly generalizing here, it's not that bad. like it isn't it isn't the thing a lot of these constituents are um suggesting both things can be true both things can be true um it it makes me think a little bit you

132know we recently had a bunch of work done on our house and and it's like we said about the bathroom whatever it takes we need to have a regular functioning bathroom by November we can't live like this whatever it takes and then you get the and you're like, "Oh, no. I didn't mean like that." And I do wonder to some extent the um the the cost of this and I know I've heard many a lot of push back, very reasonable, very well-reasoned push back that there we talked earlier about the ways in which we have cut our administrative staff hours. We have made other cuts. We have been trying to get I mean Cassie and Joe and everybody else has been squeezing the towel and trying to squeeze out every drop of money that we

133can. And so there is no extra anything. There's no extra supervision hours. There's no extra ability to manage how whatever we end up doing. And I think we all agree we don't want it to be on the backs of teachers. That is absolutely not what they have. It's not appropriate. Full stop. So, I do I do wonder if at some point if you know it may it may well happen that we said, "Well, we're going to need the bathroom done by November. We need these cell phones banned by all means possible." That there will be other places where there will be a oo not like that. I don't know. But we because we don't know that the true um human administrative and potentially financial cost of what it might take to enact this. Um and

134I guess lastly the thing I would say also is that someone said to me we could also if we let let's say we decide we're going to take the plans from students at the beginning of the day or we return them at the end of the day like we do at McMurray something very similar. Um we could also look at it like a pilot. We could say, "We're gonna try this for a year." And Mr. Ericson could come back at us and say, "That took an a number of hours and staff morale and staff whatever. It was untenable the cost of this." Or we might come back at the end of the year go, "Wow, it worked. We did it." Or a million things in between. So, one thing to always remember is that when

135we enact policy, it's not forever, right? We could we could come back in two months and say, "Oh, change your minds. We're going to rewrite all the policies we have." We're never going to do that. But um that there is no policy has to be forever. That if we implement something and we it is a raging success or it is a flaming disaster. Um it doesn't have to be forever. >> It doesn't. And the the other thing I wanted to point out with this particular draft, which as it goes through the things that aren't allowed, when we spoke at the high school, and I'm getting into logistics, so I'm not questioning. We talked about, you know, if you're going to do cell phones, cell phones and headphones, because if there's headphones in the ears, then

136there's cell phone in the pocket. But then it goes on to smart watches, tablets, and all of the pieces of that. And that is where it starts to get like a little unpenable, right? I I wish there was a way to just block the signal, right? Just >> Anyway, um >> I looked into it. >> Yeah. No, it's illegal. You can't do it. And there's cellular coverage. the kids that need communication devices for >> anyway it those are the things that we we really need to grapple with is what does it look like how are we going to do it can we do it you know do we what do we invest in or not so what we are doing is um I've already started conversation with Mercer high school and the other places where

137they have done this and it's not all roses right we know that Mercer High School in particular, they bought all the yonder pouches and now they say they're largely symbolic that they just don't see cell phones. Kids just don't have them out. They don't know what I mean, they know that kids are still carrying them, but they just don't see them. And that was the that's what they wanted, right? And so when when I originally talked about it before all the arrows hit me right in the heart, I talked about doing off and away, one and done, right? Turn that cell phone off. We see it. We're taking it. Um there was some buying around that with staff. Um because then it makes it very clear, this is our expectation. This is what it is.

138I don't want to see it. If I see it, I'm taking it. And your parent has to come get it. And then there was, you know, if they can't get it for two weeks for you, right? And that included earbuds. We see earbuds. Give me the phone. Give me the earbuds. You're done. So again, we we are looking for the board to say we want this is what we want. You figure out how you're going to do it. So, and and Chris actually spoke to it in his uh statement of, you know, give the building the opportunity to figure out how it's going to do this. Um, but I hear it loud and clear, right? Last time the board talked about it, there was a lot more like of this, which is why I said

139I would come back with a recommendation and then we got pummeled, right? And that's okay. That's what happens, right? the people spoke. It's just it's still back to the same issue of we have to figure this out. We have to get staff to help us figure it out. That doesn't mean it's on their back. It means they're invested in we're with you on this. And until we get there and and one of the comments Jess actually made to me was, you know, come back in September and tell us what you think or what's happening or give us a report back. Um because there is no systemic energy right this minute to figure this out. Make sure you have an opportunity. Um well I started I I feel like I have said most everything. So I'm

140trying to find the balance between rearticulating things that I think are critical and also being redundant. And I also feel like I have been uh living and thinking about talking about researching all of that non-stop. Um so try and kind of pull up a couple of pieces and I I appreciate this discussion. One of the things that I want to say at the outset is no matter from where we were all coming about this policy, right, and and how it has all unfolded in those discussions, what I can say universally that is core and was core here with our superintendent is that people were coming from a place of caring deeply about the district. and and I hear right and we do have very real challenges facing our district. Um and I do not I

141I have a high regard for the degree to which people are invested in the well-being of both our students and our educators um across the board. I see some of the things differently. Um, and for me, some of the re the the research and the exploration of places that have implemented policies that are are critical, which is one, I really want to say, um, I know how much that holds our teachers experience and I value that. Um, and I've said to many people in the public, I uh we can't have a mandate in terms of what defines a seat on the board, but I actually think it is a really critical thing to have someone who has been an educator in our district as a representative on the board. Um, it keeps us accountable in

142really clear ways, and I really appreciate that. Um, I I know what I'm about to say some of our educators might disagree with. I when I read the survey and when I've had other conversations with educators and individual emails and individual converations, I read support for bell to bail policy and I know some people are looking at it differently. Um, and the question that Martha referenced that was so critical to me was the question about what creates the most effective learning environment for our students and 50% of the high school teachers said the kind of full belltoell and then it dropped to 25% for the current policy. Um so basically you can tell me if my numbers are wrong like 14 15 educators fourfold bell to bell sevenish eightish educators for as is and then

143it broke down the other 25% in other ways. Um, but I I didn't feel I care deeply to not impose as well from a top down or from an outside in. Um, and I did not feel that the teachers were all 100% unified by any means. Um, but I also felt support through how I read the comments and how I looked at the data. And I know and I hear some of the educators here who who've spoken in support of a different piece. Um I I think there two last pieces that I'll say. You know, a core thing for me was looking at research studies that were comparing the effectiveness of different policies. And I know this one has been talked about, but one of the studies in particular that was striking to me was

144one that looked at five different policies. And essentially it said that if the opponent's right here, there was no there was no no there was a negligible effect in terms of the academic or the mental health or the creating of a sense of belonging that folks were still tethered to that to that device and that where and then it followed some kind of in a hierarchy and that where you had the the positive effect was when it was truly away. And I and I do think that we can revisit a policy. One of the other things though that that has come up pretty universally is that the first year's really hard and there is resistance and it is that is understandable. Um that compliance is very difficult but that each year that that has increased

145uh the compliance has increased and it's gotten easier. So in my estimation I I would hope for two to three year evaluation to see the effect as it becomes normalized in our district if it does. So um I also want to acknowledge that in terms of workload this might be in my analysis so I know some teachers might come back at me but I've also had teacher support. Um I I look at this policy as hopefully reducing workload for teachers. What I want to acknowledge though is it increases it for administrators and we are um as Joe pointed out with the budget earlier right we have cut a great deal in terms of our administration and so I don't discount the effect they feel like it because of what I would vote for but I

146do not discount that effect anymore to acknowledge it and then my last comment is um yes I guess a public model has has driven this for me because I've heard a lot about parental accountability. And so the last thing I'll say is that when I think of working with this and as I talk to parents, which for me has been really definitive, I think about the fact that I can have my policy for my own child, that I can actually regulate that in terms of playdates and sleepovers and what that is and have conversations with those parents. But that right now, if my child were walking into the high school, that would feel like the least safe place. not because of our amazing educators, but because they're potentially at a table with four other people

147looking at things on a device that I don't know what it is um in terms of exposure. And um and when I look at what that exposure can be, that makes me nervous. And so for me, this is about making the schools safe for all our kids from the time they arrive to the time to the time they leave. And I don't know how to make the decision not have a lived impact for what it means to adapt the policy that I feel strongly about the policy. >> Any comments at this time? >> Um, there's a title on this one. Um, I'm going to start with thanks to the administrator and Dr. um being affected by this and we appreciate your time support um you I mean your passion of students and their wellbeing. So

148thank you. >> What is the what is the next step as you see it? >> Um well I that policy draft is it's certainly not in the format we use Um and uh you know it's it's a draft. Uh so River's your policy person. Um I don't know what the board direction should be. >> Is the is the and obviously we're making zero decisions here tonight but as as to how to move forward. is the is the proposal on the table that as a district we are banning cell phones during during bellto bell because that's a that's a board policy decision right if we are saying I mean this actually still has some little bit of wiggle room so are are we in fact saying as as a district the phones will be collected. >>

149That that wiggle room's there, right? If you this particular part of it says during the school day bell to bell, students are restricted from unauthorized access to and use of their personal devices. While students may bring a personal device to school, the device must be silenced, turned off, and stored in the storage option determined by the school. >> Correct. Which could be a backpack. But if you go above well if you go above the definitions for each of those things storage options. So the wording that is used in the rest of the policy is defined under those definitions at the outset and there it says storage options identified place determined by school administration where student personal devices are stored away from the student and their belongings during the school day and students are able to

150access and retrieve at the identified appropriate time. This this looks like this was changed from the original language that the font changes in the middle of it. >> The um the part that was changed or the part that was the wording was changed from the yeah away from the student and their belongings. So yes. >> Okay. And that was based on their recommendations and where their policy is. >> Right? Because here I just want to go back to the original text here. It says storage options in the actual policy from NEA. It says identified place determined by school administration where student personal devices are stored during the day and students are able to access and retrieve at the identified appropriate times. This could include but is not limited to a student's backpack or locker, a

151locked pouch or other designated school space. >> That was not cut. the policy draft that I had and so I was working with someone there. The policy that they sent that part was not cut. The part that was the piece that is in that different font was at was added there and that was um tied to the states with whom they've been working who have who are having this full bell policy but I did not cut the other part. I'm sorry. Any edits in here? And the only the only I think other edit was in the second paragraph and my draft has I had inserted the Bashan Island School District recognizes the importance of and I don't know why when it got exported that Fashion Island School District, but those are the only two edits

152from the draft that their individual shared with me. What I didn't get a chance to do which may be helpful and I don't know if they have a policy reaching out to somebody mentioned Metau Valley. I didn't know they did. I got a >> yeah a couple >> or no it was >> a couple of recommendations. Mercer being one and the other one I sent to you. I can't remember the district but maybe I'll reach if I reach out to those districts. Mercure does not have a policy because I was in touch with their schoolboard chair. >> So they did it by the building level. >> Yeah. >> But I think this policy and the storage options that we are represented with, they speak and represent what the community wants, which is >> they do.

153I just it it it's important for us to >> talk with our teachers about what's feasible. There are lots of options. You're getting into the logistics. Tell me what the what is. Right. You need to get to the what. You're diving into the how. >> The what to me. The what to me is that the devices are away. Bellto bell from the start of the day to the end of the day. And by a way that it means not on the students person in their backpack or in their locker. that it is away in whatever format, device, process, implementation. >> I'm inclined to support that. I don't think passing periods and lunch, there's any reason for a carveout. And if a child, sorry, a student has the device on their person, we will not be

154able to uh manage for that. And it would then have to be something that our teachers would have to manage and that's unacceptable. Um, so I think it does have to be a matter of and this word sounds very harsh but confiscation effectively surrender just surrender. >> Do you I have to >> Can I hear and I'm happy to work on the revision of this or the adjustment I because we were going to be looking at one and then given the governor's um press conference etc. So, I pulled this in, but I'm happy to put it in a format that aligns with our format. Um, I didn't want to go through doing that if it, >> you know, if it was dead in the water. And what I don't want to do is, you know,

155call out our teachers in the audience tonight. It's too much on the spot. What I want to have the opportunity to do >> is I go back to the same thing again. It's the end of the year. It's the end of the night. It's really difficult to figure out logistics on the fly. I hear what you're saying. I just would really like to allow Mr. Ericson and his team and I'll be present, but we need to talk to the people who are actually going to be in the space with this policy. >> So, can I suggest then that we've all said that we the bell to bell is the way to go. That's definitely what the community has told us. That's what we all agree to. >> So now we have to figure out how

156>> could we come back at the next meeting with a clearer version of this policy that's crossed all in our format. Um and perhaps you will have a little bit more logistical knowledge. I realize that's only two weeks and like graduation and >> No, but the 25th at least is after school's out. >> Exactly. No, that was my thought. give just a little bit of time to come back to the table with what that looks like now that we've said felt about that's the way we're going to go. How are we going to make that happen before school starts on August 31st? >> Great question. I think the question lies on can they have it in their personal under belongings or should we really focus on as the research shows as the community speaks up

157that they it need to have it in the like in Oregon they the principal said it's a a cell phone hotel right or um and I also want mentioned that the support for the McMurray policy to copy that I think we don't need to reinvent the wheel if they are doing it and it's working and now they're making it even better I think we could follow >> I guess I say one last piece which is can I say one there to me there are two two components to the policy that are critical and that allows for how to implement. There is one guard but it is the elabell and it is away from the person and belongings and I guess one of the reasons that is a critical piece to me is is not only

158the research about you know what it is but we have the largest corporations in the world being held accountable for the fact that these are designed to be addictive. So to me, it's like putting heroin in the pocket of a heroin user and saying, "Just don't pull it out when you know it feels good, right? You know, it's going to make you feel feel momentarily good. You're going to get that instant hit, but just don't pull it out and carry it around all day." And and I look at academic, mental health, all of the effects. That's a critical component to me of a policy. I >> hear you. I think we're starting to go circular again. >> Um I I don't want to argue the merits. >> We hear you. I I'm asking for time.

159>> Thanks for hearing this, Joe. Can you see what we can make happen and we can talk about it on the 25th with a more finalized version of this policy? Does that sound like a plan? >> Yeah, we certainly can do a more finalized version of policy by then. Um I just Yeah, sure. >> So, is that mean does that mean we would work with River or um >> I I'm going to work in the house to figure out more around the how >> you figure out the what. >> Yeah. So what we we're format of the policy and it is pretty darn obvious that the board as a majority want a bellto bell >> understood and that is understood and then the question just is how do we put it into language that is

160um compatible with our other policy language. I mean I I don't let's just be real. >> Yeah. The base here is the board decides what it wants in policy. The administration figures out how to do it. And this is one of those times where uh I'm going to defer. I'm not going to give you my best advice because my best advice doesn't agree with what you think. >> So you decide what I'll decide how with the T. Well, I guess I mean one of my pieces and so there would be two streams moving at the same time, right? So you'd be working with your team and this would be simultaneously that and I want to hear from the board that there is enough um consensus that this has some essential elements that if I convert

161it into the format that we use it doesn't mean that we will necessarily adopt it but that there's um that there's will to go ahead and >> I think you and Martha should work on it. >> Perfect. Okay, >> that's fine. The other piece I guess I I want to say and is we have the June whatever meeting for a policy to go and in fact it takes two readings. >> this is the first read. >> Y >> So we have another policy read of the revision which is the next time or do we vote? We have vote on the reision. >> That's okay. River, you want to go for it? You and I could uh see if we could um tidy this up and make it >> use right arm to wrestle. Use your

162left. >> Uh are we okay with that? >> Is everybody okay with that? >> Outstanding. I I feel like you're not done. Can >> I'm okay. I I'm just verifying in my head that this counts as the first reading so that whatever we do within the next one >> carries us into the year, >> right? And you can still tweak it. Board members can say, you know, I want to amend it or whatever before you vote. >> But yeah, this is you've already this is actually your third time talking in depth. >> Please do not inundate. I with all due respect, you are welcome to do what you want. Please, could we let these two brilliant minds? >> We don't need to be convinced. >> We want We want to make sure everyone heard that.

163We We We hear you. >> Heard. Heard. >> Start working on your legislative action. >> Yes. >> Not around phones. They're going to do that one. >> Yeah. Yeah. They don't have to pay for it. >> See? Yeah. That's the trick. Uh are we prepared to move on to our uh >> we got more >> loan uh decision item for the night? >> Yes, Graham. Thank you. Moving on. Decision uh single item instructional materials committee. Um folks, can I get a uh motion to approve the instructional materials committee, please? >> I would like to move to approve the instructional materials committee item. >> Thank you very much, Martha. Can I get a second, please? I >> thank you so much. All those in favor of approving say I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Oh,

164so sorry, honey. Pause. Advisory vote. >> Hello. Hello. >> He's still here. >> You're still here. You're so very much still here. Uh, do you have would you like to cast off or another an advisory vote? >> I would. Yeah, I would. I would say yes. >> Thank you. Appreciate you being here, Mike. Uh, great. Uh, all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? >> Great. The, uh, instructional materials committee passes. Uh, part two of public comment. At this time, because she was first, um, I'm going to call on Heather Baldwin and other folks would like to be heard. After that, we will uh, take a show of hands and make notes on who wants to be heard. >> It's okay. I can't compete with cell phones. So, >> it's not about competing with

165cell phones. We want to hear from you if that's what you wanted to say. Okay. My name is Heather Baldwin. I have been um working as a special education para educator um at Shitakqua for the last nearly 10 years. And I got laid off recently. I experienced a partial layoff. Um I would like to call it what it is. No one wants to say that. You didn't want to say, "Oh, we were hours reduced." I just want to say what that means to my family. My daughter, I had one child who is still in the district. It means a lot to her. Um, it's a little more important to our family right now than the cell phone policy because we've been living on Okay. So, I'm hearing that not only are you cutting my hours,

166but now I you're not replacing the people I work with that have left because they can't afford to work at the school district. So, I have to do more and I can't please I I really am going to want some idea of how I can do my job because I'm an I'm a pareducator, not a certificated special education teacher. So, I need to have time to receive instruction materials. Um, I need to go to a meeting and meet with my supervising teacher and so do all of my colleagues. And the time we have for that is when children are not present. And I know a lot of people who, you know, work at a desk think, okay, well, just when you're checking your emails or something do that, but I work with very highly impacted

167children with special needs and I have to make sure they're not doing things like eloping or biting or like it's very it's very intense and just like Sundra said before, I love it. I wouldn't want to work with any other kids. Um, I of course I love the general education children too, but I my hires a special education. I have two children with special needs who went through the Bashan Island School District. So, I've been here for a long long time and I feel like every sing every single instructional um para educator in the district experienced a layoff and I feel like you guys let us down. We should we have been working hard for you and for your most vulnerable students for years and years. And one of the great things is that we

168why we have a good team that's so experienced that has done a lot of PD on our own time, not paid for by the district. We bargained to get professional enhancement from the district, but it's like pulling teeth to be able to exercise that right. I I mean, yeah, you're you're letting us down. When McCclary happened and the Bashon community promised us a living hourly wage, not a living wage, a living hourly wage, that was promised and that has that happened and then COVID happened and you asked us to come into the schools when no one else was here to work with the most impacted children. That's our job. Okay. But we risked our own families. We came to people's houses to deliver materials. We filled in and we did what needed to be done.

169And we're probably going to continue doing that. We'll probably meet on our own time. And um it's a lot of talk in the district about gift of public funds. We don't want that to happen. But what we've never talked about is how you take our time, you take from us, and it's not sustainable, but that's public education. Everybody has to do more than their job to make it the best for the kids. Thanks. >> Is there anyone else here that would like to speak for public comment? I see Michelle and then Amanda. Anyone else? Okay. Thanks. This is Michelle. Um, parents, now it's our turn. I've heard a lot of honesty and bravery throughout these meetings, and I want to pull on a few threads. At the community meeting, a steer a student leader who

170had been defending the current policy listened to the concerns at our table and finally asked, "If these are so harmful, why did our parents buy them for us?" And at the last board meeting, a parent on the board said openly that they regretted buying their kid a phone. It's in this environment and um and level of honesty that's rare and it's part of why change can happen like tonight and it's also why this island is such a good place to live. At the same meeting it was almost unanimously acknowledged that a phone free school would be a good thing um and welcome but parents keep sending their phones to school. These threads all point to the same place. This is not primarily a school district issue. It's a community and cultural issue. We are asking

171something of our board, our administrators, and our teachers. But we as parents are the first domino. One thing also worth naming, the device in your kids's pocket today is not the device you bought. AI is changing these phones on practically a weekly basis. And most of the concerns voiced in this conversation has had a 2025 boy um device in mind. We need to separate what a cell phone is from what this thing is becoming. So I'm asking two things helping think this through. For younger families who haven't bought a device yet, what would it look like if we collectively delayed and when the time came, we just bought a phone and not a dopamine machine? for families who have already purchased one. Could we make it normal to trade down to return smartphones and replace

172it with just a phone? That students question deserves an answer. And I want ours to be, "We didn't know what we were handing you." And when we learned, we changed it. Parents, let's keep this conversation going outside of school hours and build the culture we want for this island. I get it. We're gonna try not to applause. Uh Amanda Curtis, I just want to thank the board and all the admin that were here tonight. I know it's been a very very heavy meeting tonight and the last multiple meetings. Um, there's so many different subjects I could talk on and I'm actually going to talk on one that I wasn't planning on talking on, which is our parent educators, many of whom my son has worked with are sitting behind me. My son could not come

173to school, could not safely access his education for one, but could not safely be in the building if it weren't for the amazing pair of educators behind me and that aren't here tonight. My student is valuable. him being in this district is valuable. When our paras are consistently cut and they are consistently overworked and our special ed staff is consistently overworked, not only does it not value our amazing sped team because we have incredible sped teams, it devalues our special education students. So, I really want and I know I know we're not funded and it's I could go on and on and on about that. And I know you're having to make really difficult cuts and cuts that no one wants to make, but please, when you're looking at where these cuts are, I've watched

174it time and time again in the few years that my son has been in this district, be the sped team. And it hurts. It hurts staff morale. It hurts parent morale. And it hurts kids morale. And I just I want to bring that because we have incredible incredible sped teachers and paras and incredible gened teachers in this district and we want to keep them because some of our students could not safely come to school without them. And if they're having to leave because they can't afford to stay in the job that helps protect our most vulnerable students, what what message are we sending to those students worth if those that help them aren't being valued? And I know you guys are in impossible situations in multiple different ones, but just something that is has been

175heavy on my heart for a long time now, but especially after learning that one of his parents is leaving this year because she can't afford to stay and she's an amazing para and we're going to lose more paras if we don't support them. Um okay. Uh moving on to the superintendent report. >> I have nothing left. >> Uh colleagues board director remarks. >> Ditto. >> Anybody? >> I would like to see. Um so it feels kind of odd that we just had a conversation about AI in our schools and cell phones at the same time. Let's acknowledge that. That feels a little weird, right? Um, but I think that speaks volumes of our community. Um, and how we recognize that technology is important for our children, but only when used correctly. Um, and I want

176to say thank you to the community for standing up for what you felt was an incorrect use of technology in our school systems. and we heard you really loud and I have to say I am impressed at the number of emails you guys have managed to get and people that have showed up today and how our community has stood behind that. When Joe first came on, we had something come up and I go, "Well, ask the island. They'll figure it out." We always do. We always figure it out together. And that is part of what I think makes this island very, very special. Um, so thank you for stepping up. For those of you that I did acknowledge that brought very important concerns today, you've been heard. >> Um, point of order. I'm going to

177actually pause this not because of anything you said. Oh god. >> I just realized looking at our agenda that there was no opportunity for our student board rep. And Henry, I'm so sorry. I feel like especially after the the um conversation and interviews this afternoon, I just wonder if I don't know if I need to amen the agenda at this point or we can sneak it in. Let's just >> I will defer my superintendent comment to >> Okay. Is that okay? I would like to just go ahead and um if you you've been here, >> I can do kind of a small thing. Um so two of our like board reps are leaving. said it's 13 years. So, we started interviewing some candidates for the um take on the role today and we have some

178good options. So, yeah, that's good. And we also um are working with students and like communicating like the um civil policy changes and like doing some research there. And I think like I have I have something but like I think it's kind of too late. I mean, it's not late, but it's like everyone's kind of tired and I can just save it. But no, it's fine. Honestly, I think best like is there better place next meeting or like at a smaller like meeting? >> Well, so at our next meeting which is June 25th, the school year will be over. >> Yeah, I can still come. >> He's going to come and point our >> Okay, great. I didn't want to make assumptions about your availability and your your plans to attend. >> Um I I

179do want to take a quick moment and just give you a a serious shout out. You have shown up so hard in in your level of organization, the initiative that you've taken, um the thoughtfulness about this process about how we onboard and attract great new student reps. It's a new way of operating um that we haven't had before. And I just um I know the other I I have lots of great things to say about Hazel and Oscar as well, but um you know for the last several weeks it's been the Henry show and you have um really shown and I just want to um take a minute to really thank you for um your hard work, your fantastic attitude and the diligence with which you serve in this role. I also want to say

180that not only has Henry showed up here, but he showed up at the bond meetings >> listening to a whole bunch of stuff about construction costs and things to glaze over, you know, your eyeballs. He's always there. He's always attentive and he doesn't have to be. So, thank you. You notice there's no cell phone. Um >> Henry, tell them what you're doing this summer. >> This summer I'm going to the um East Coast for uh to look at colleges and see my family in Brooklyn >> and I'm going to do this like summer program at um at TUS like international relations. >> So cool. He had to apply for it. It was competitive and he got it. Nice. >> No surprise. Well done. Thank you for the pause in uh director remarks. Colleagues, um ditto,

181>> I just want to say that the boys soccer team won the championship >> for uh three and it wasn't hero mash. It was >> federal and uh a lot of people showed up, a lot of um community support. It was really fun. I think you were there. >> Yeah, it was really fun. Yeah, just >> um I guess one of the pieces I would want to say is that public education works best with an engaged public. And so I am grateful and I would I would rather have the waterfall than a deafening silence and that there are communities where the public doesn't show up. And so yes, it can make it more difficult in some ways. Um but it to me, at least for me, I we arrive at a better place for our

182community. And I want to also say that in part to hopefully harness that. Like I I look around at at the individuals in this room and I see people out in the community and doing and acting and folks are right. We have a lot of things on our plate and so we do need the lobbying and Henry was there in Olympia lobbying too. So I don't actually know how you go to school. No. Um, but we need folks to show up and to lobby and to be creative and and that lobbying is also I hear you in terms of our para educators and um so that is uh that has a particular heaviness and been priority there. Um, but I actually believe that we are an incredibly creative and inventive and res resourceful community. And

183if we can have these community dialogues, then hopefully we can show up collectively to address the challenges for our Paris, for our budget, for cell phones, um, as well as our celebrations like going to Japan and those opportunities. So, thank you for being an engaged community. >> Marissa, anything for you? >> The only one thing I want to say two two things. Hopefully they're short. Um when when we moved to the island and my kids were little, um I uh made a commitment to myself that I would ask people where my children went um if there was a gun in the home. And if there was a gun in the home, how was it stored? And it was um very nerve-wracking for me to ask people this. There is a surprisingly high rate of gun

184ownership on this island. And so I had a um I had a a babysitter and I would practice with her and and I practiced with her and I practiced after all. She was like, "Are we are we ever going to be done?" And I was like, "No, I'm so nervous." It felt like I was asking invasive questions about their personal life or about their finances. I was really it it it made me um quite nervous. Um but I figured out how to do it and I still ask, "Do you have a gun in your home? And if so, how do you store it?" because that's a matter of safety and now I feel great amount of comfort. So what I'm asking all of you is to gather your village. Make it normal to if we're

185going to do this in our schools, normalize. Hey, my kids come to your house for the afternoon. Can you tell me about what your your screen time policy is? Hey, I heard that your kid is bringing a burner to school. What's up with that? Right. be the infrastructure and the scaffolding that we're all going to need for this. Hands on deck. All hands on deck. If this is going to work, it's not just what happens when you drop your kid off at the school building and are we're all going to hope that it's going to be beautiful and elegant and seamless, right? It has to be a wider community commitment. Everywhere these children are, how do we want to be with each other? What are we expecting of each other? I'm not saying your kid

186should be narcing on the kids sitting next to them at lunch. And also maybe they should, right? We have to have expectations. This is something we're all in on and we hold we all hold each other accountable for it. And you can start practicing now. We don't have to wait until the fall. If this is a thing we're going to ask our administrators and our teachers to own, what can we do as parents and community members to normalize saying, "Yeah, we don't we don't do that. That's this is not what we're about." Like I've been to so many public settings with kids gathered and everyone's huddled around the phone. Probably someone in their household said explicitly replied that that was okay. Are we going to collectively all now say yeah let's move away from that

187in all settings so these kids can be kids right so that's an that's my ask of you've asked a lot of us appropriately understandably that's my ask of you tonight um one other thing I want to say well Spencer this is your last night with us uh she has dutifully patiently sat through these meetings uh for a very long time. Lilith is going off to Western. This is her last meeting. We appreciate and salute you and we wish you so many good things for whatever you want for this next chapter of your life. So, thank you so much. >> I don't think we've made any explicit well the commitments we've made tonight. Martha and River are going to meet together to uh beautifully, elegantly hammer out a policy that we're all going to be really

188excited about. We're gonna uh call it a night. Thank you everybody. It is uh 8:48. Good night.