April 10, 2025 VISD Board Meeting

001agenda to include section D on decision which is discussion and possible action on the process for selecting an interim superintendent which Juniper RB will be presenting for perfe. Would anyone like to uh propose to amend the agenda as I would like to Oh, just approve the agenda. Agenda. As amended. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We would like to approve Make a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Second. Thank you. Uh all those in favor. Any opposed? Great. Thank you everybody. While this is loading. Um there we go. Sorry everybody. I'm really I'm here. Um uh so I'm on deck for uh the land acknowledgement. I um I think about these things um more than a person might expect. Um I was spending some time on the field tribal language.org site recently um and in their

002section why acknowledge the land. Uh while the term land acknowledgement is fairly recent, the practice of acknowledging the land and the people who have stewarded it since time immemorial is an indigenous practice. Here in the Puget Sound, our people have the protocol of asking permission to come ashore. When our ancestors traveled by canoe to another territory, it was our protocol to stop offshore to announce our arrival, offer respect to the lands and the people, and ask permission to come ashore. our people continue this practice today both on and off the canoe. Um I'm I'm gonna tread gently here. Um that I think there are that this school, this campus, this place for children is a sacred place. And when I think about uh this land acknowledgement and someone who wanted to come ashore or come

003to the land sort of announcing themselves uh and their intentions, um I certainly was reminded of some of the many letters we've received recently and concerns um around the safety of our our immigrant students and families. Um, I also think about the um the epidemic of gun violence in schools and and I just I I was thinking so much about the sacredness of this place and sacredness of places for children to steward children and and what a what a massive responsibility that is. And I I just found um it to be quite interesting to think about um sort of the uh this practice this practice of sort of how we approach a place and approach a people. Um and that um but that that deserves a different level of um consideration in the way that

004um the way that we do that. I don't know that that's a fully formed thought, but that's my Um we're going to um move on to public comment. Um before we do that, I just want to remind folks um as we often do that public comment at um at these meetings is an opportunity for us to hear from the public. It is not an opportunity for us to dialogue with the public. A schoolboard meeting is a meeting of the school board that happens in public, not a meeting with the public. Um, and so while we are here and we are, I just want to assure you that we are listening. We may take notes. We may not. Um, but we will not be engaging in back and forth or asking you questions or responding to

005comments or questions tonight. That is not the purpose of public comment, but we are listening. If there are action items tonight, we'll make note of it. Um, and um, yeah. So, I just want to be clear on that. I know sometimes people, especially if they're new to the public comment, um it can seem a little rude or odd that people have often poured their hearts out to us and we just sit there and say, "Thank you." But we are listening. Um and with that, um we do have a second public comment period at the end. I know last time we had a large showing. There were some people who wanted to wait until the end to make their comment. If if we call your name and you would prefer to wait until the end, please

006just say as much and we will sort of bump you to the end of the meeting. Some people speak twice. Um, great. I think this is how things are in order. And if we've gotten it wrong, um, we'll carry on. Um, and if I can't read your name, give me. Um, and everyone has three minutes. Um, and you may not seed your time to someone else. Uh, Evan Justin. Hi. Good evening board. Dr. McShie, thanks for this opportunity. Um, I rise to voice to my concern about the implementation of policy 4300. Um, apparently we're lacking signage that has been in the possession of the administration and the board for a while that's been vetted by several august organizations like the ACLU and um I don't know if you noticed in the Seattle Times today uh

007West Seattle Middle School had um reported ICE vehicle parked across the street on school district property which caused the principal to run out and hurt everybody. body in and try to keep them safe and off public grounds because restricted grounds, they don't have to be owned privacy, requires a legal that is a judicial warrant specific to properly spelled names and addresses and what's being searched for. That's a huge safety feature we could easily implement with science and I want to speak to that. I hope that's something that becomes uh more evident. Um, I'm also concerned about the opportunity for staff to practice their training and I'm aware from my career that CDBs are an excellent opportunity for people to get together and get things out about classroom policies and practices and I want to bring

008that to the for that's a welcome place for staff to practice their training and to better learn how to integrate their actions [Music] And oh yeah, I was a little bit concerned about Pacific law, which I'm assuming is the district standing council. Um how readily they will be available to examine any um uh forwarded documentation that's purported to be a judicial warrant. you know, if they're not on site or they're not available or by call or by Zoom, that's not really a plan. So, thank you for hearing. Love the t-shirt. Good night. Thank you, Amanda Curtis. Oh, I just signed Oh, sorry. My bad. Uh, Jenna Jenna Hi, I'm Jenna Riggs. Thanks for having us tonight. Um, uh, first I want to thank Superintendent Mashidi and the board for funding the emergency training in the

009last three months to prepare all staff for potential ice present on school grounds. I understand that taking training that doing training takes time, but there are parts of the plan that are not being fulfilled as urgently as our current situation calls for and I worry that all of our students and families could be harmed by these delays. As a parent of two students who went through Vashon schools and as a daughter of two teachers, I know about this time of year that the heart and the brain start heading towards summer. With this in mind, I urge the board to move ahead with urgency to ensure that full training of all staff and set clear deadlines and progress updates so the community can trust that these policies will be fully realized before the end of the

010school year. I would also like to highlight the many enthusiastic committee um community members, many who are here tonight, who are dedicated to creating an inclusive and um welcoming island, including supporting all of you to ensure the Vashon schools remain places of belonging, safety, and learning for all. And if we can help in any way, please tap into our energy and our willingness to assist. I know the board will be extremely busy in the next few months searching for our new superintendent, but we ask that you please use every available tool to ensure the policies are quickly enacted to keep Bashan strong and safe. Thank you. Um, I'm going to stand over here because I don't know if you know when people stand here, you can't hear back here. So, if that's okay. I know

011this is for you, but I also want my Um, I'm here actually to just tell you really great news. Usually people come with problems, but I worry that sometimes you don't get the good news. And the good news is about the leadership at Shiakqua. Um, I teach third grade at Shiakwa and I've been here for I think it's around 10 years. Been teaching for about 25 years prior to this in Seattle public schools and I have never had a principal as amazing as Julie. And sometimes some of the things may not be visible to you and so I just came here to tell you just how amazing a leader she is. Um we've had some recent big decisions to make as a building and she has made sure to take the time to truly listen

012to each person's voice and to be open to be willing to change her mind um to engage in honest and sometimes hard dialogue. Um, she even got teary at a meeting at the burden of making the decision. So, we knew how genuinely she was going through this. And she knew, like most big decisions, you can't actually please everyone. And I just wanted to let you know in the building, I've never seen this building so positive, um so full of joy, so full of um feeling supported and um it's just a great feeling in the building. Even with troubles that come up, we know Julie has our back. Um I want to encourage the board to think about the role of the board and the role of our leadership because I'd really love to see us

013to go back to being more decentralized building based decision- making. When I came here, things were very very building based and so the and by building I mean not giving one person but the entire building voice in what goes on in that building. Those are the people that know best the children in that building, what's going on, the priorities, the u many challenges you have. And as I've been here in 10 years, it's become more and more uh centralized decision- making and the decision-m has not been the high quality it was when I first came here. And so I think the more that we can take a leader that's a great leader and trust them, if there's a leadership problem, that's where we need to get you to get involved. if in one of the

014buildings or in a particular function things aren't going well, absolutely we need the school board to be involved to make sure we have the leaders that are necessary. But when you've got a great leader in a building, I just want to really encourage you to let the leaders make those decisions. Um, when it doesn't happen that way, it can feel so demoralizing and it's not just to the leader, it's to everyone in the building. So, we really just need you to know that we are the professionals. We have a lot of knowledge. We um put a lot of time into these decisions and the more that we can decentralize those I think the better um schools you will have as a school board. Thank you. Uh Molly, that was awesome. I like that. I like

015that idea standing over. Um, I just want to tell the board that I have unlimited energy to work with you, to work with the teachers and the principles and parents to make sure that everyone knows how to exercise their rights right now and how to protect students, um, how to inform parents about the policies, how to lead ICE drills to make sure frontline staff are comfortable and confident in standing their ground, to teach all students about their rights and how to respond to ICE at home as well as at school and channel immigration lawyers to families that are in need. also to dispel any myths. Um to take the advice of OSBI and the attorney general, which is partner with the YFS or partner with other community groups or community organizations, leverage those those positive

016um resources we have to to work together right now to make sure our schools are safe and to continue to offer um guidance to impacted families. I do confidential um legal clinics right now um for for families. So, I want to keep this message positive. I've written a lot of emails to the board and the superintendent um on action items. I have 11 questions that I think are really important to answer in order to implement the policy. Uh so, I'm not going to go into that tonight because you all know what they are. Um, but I do want to say something specifically to Superintendent Mchi. Um, I encourage you as you move forward in Breton to pause and reflect when you are working with a male attorney who has 20 years of experience and you

017ask his counsel, I I encourage you to self-reflect before you ask him for prior sources. for um emails or what research that he's done to offer his input and um I need to put that on the record. Thank you. [Applause] Sorry, Sarah Day. Uh, for those of you that don't know me, um, I have worked with Latino families as a nurse for over 20 years on the island. So, I feel very strongly about making sure that families feel safe. It's a terrifying time right now with families having to figure out what they will do with their children if they're separated. Uh, just this week, ICE came to two elementary schools in LA. So, uh, that's happening now. So, I would really like to see that signage up. I would like to uh see that uh

018staff are getting some drills and and practice with with what to do uh if ICE does show up. And Slade, you got my number, you got my email, I'll come out, I'll help you. So, yes. Thank you. Uh that's it. [Applause] Bailey, did you want to say something or not? I don't see your the check mark. Did you want to No. Okay. Thanks. And I know a couple people came in since we took the signin sheet. Did anybody else want to make a public comment before we move on? I'm here. Public comment. Oh, did you want to make a public comment yet? Okay. I didn't think so. Okay. This is a beautiful school district. Doing great. Uh, great. Um, can you go back to the agenda, please? Thank you. Um, great. Moving on to the

019consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as is? I move to the agenda. Thank you. I second. Thank you. All those in favor. Any opposed? Great. Consent agenda passes as great. Moving on to the superintendent report. All right. So, uh, Julie Kangas, our principal here at Shitakqua, is here to share with the board an update around some programming changes for next year, uh, specifically around multi-age. So, thanks for coming tonight. We really appreciate it. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you all here tonight. So, one of the things that is a really important piece of what we do at an elementary school in the January through the end of the year is the student placement that we do and what what where we put students um into classes for the

020next year. And a couple of things that go into helping us determine placement are what our enrollment will be. And what we know about our enrollment next year is that we're going to be um we have four fifth grade classes right now. one of those that those will be moving on to the middle school and we um so there will be one teacher in there that um doesn't have a class is without a class, right? And then we have we have four kindergarteners that are moving up, but right now our projected enrollment kindergarten is always a difficult one because sometimes they come out of the woodwork in August, but we try to do our very best to encourage um registration early. Um, and last year we had an amazing registration early. This year it's a

021little bit slower. So we we are really looking at three kindergartens for next year. So what that does is that decreases our enrollment from about 450 now to about 415 for next year. And that that does mean um one fewer staff member. So we have 20 classroom teachers this year and then there's a need for 19 in the next year. So that's one of the considerations that we think about at placement is the number of enrollment. And then the next thing we look at is we look at um thoughtful placement of the staff that we currently have. We have such a rich resource in our building in our staff and um we want to be thoughtful when we are particularly when we're looking at having to move staff from um a grade level that they've

022currently taught to a different grade level. And so those are the two things that we're looking at. And um so in January we started those conversations. So in our PLC leads we took information about the enrollment numbers that we had. We looked at configurations for what possibly it could look like for next year and even into the future years. And then um we had a couple of teacher resignations happen um after that. And um while um resignations are um any change can be challenging, right? There's just something that goes along with any change. And even though there can be positive things about change, change is hard, you know, and it's it's one of those constants in life. And yet we still can struggle with what that change means. And there's there can be some grief

023in change and what we're leaving behind, but there can also be positive things moving forward. And so one of those changes was that one of our um wonderful teachers um who has has taught multi-age for several years is going to be our music teacher next year. And that's a really really exciting change and yes thrilled about that. So that's Gil who is going to be moving from multi to be teaching music and as a music teacher myself for 24 years. It was very exciting when she came to me with that possibility and option. Um, one of the other resignations was also in our multi-age program and um, currently our multi-age program covers three grade levels for second and third grade. And that that program has been um, a longstanding soaka celebrates its 30th 30-y year

024anniversary this year and multi-age, right? That's pretty exciting. It happens to coincide with my 30th wedding ann. But um so we are we are celebrating our 30th year as a combined school of Burton Elementary and Dashon Elementary and also a a multi-age program that has been um had that same sort of longevity in the school. And so there are so many benefits that we have seen from the multi-age program from strong student teacher relationships, the peer continuity being with the same teacher for three years and the leadership development that we see in our students in that. And we deeply appreciate the dedication of teachers and families who have supported this model over the years. And we know that there are families that talk so highly out in the community and the impact that that program

025has had on their lives. In fact, I had a great conversation this afternoon with Glenda Berliner, who is one of our other multi-age teachers um who has recently retired about um there's just a deep sense of um care and compassion and love that that program for the multi-age that has brought and um um and as our school continues to support all of its learners and deal with um enrollment fluctuations. So, that's one of the things when we are a single elementary school, we have enrollment fluctuations and we have classes that can sometimes be at 95, which are um fifth grade is this year, and a class size of 52. And so, we've got to continually be looking at how do we best serve those students given the staff that we have and we make the

026best placement decisions possible that we can um for our students and families. and also how do we provide the best support for our students as they're moving forward. And in the past several years, we have really worked with a multi-tered system of support in schools, which is where we um we talk about three different tiers. Tier one being what all students receive. That's their core academics, their um their core social emotional learning um that everyone has access to. And then we know that there are some students that struggle in one or more areas. And so we try to provide an additional layer of support for them. And then um and that is generally when we look at tier 2, we're talking about small groups of five five or six students that have similar needs and

027we group those students together and and provide additional support beyond what's happening in the classroom um for them to reach their learning. And then there's tier three support, and that's when we get it more individualized. When we know that something isn't quite working, and we may need to write an individual plan for students for a 504 plan or simply a behavior plan or even an attendance plan, but it's something that's individualized at those things. And as we um the more support that we're offering, it it adds complexity to our day, to our schedule, and and um in order to try to meet the needs of the variety of needs that we have for all of our students. And when we look at all of those pieces together um and the transition that we're looking at,

028we really were left with with two different options for this year. we could continue with the same three grade level multi-age classes along with um planning for three kindergartens, four first grades, two third grades, three fourth grades, and three fifth grades. So that's 19 teachers. And in that model, we would need two additional teachers to go into multi-age and one additional teacher at first grade. And then we looked at a second model which um has so it's similar in some ways to that model but it it instead of retaining the multi-age at one two three it it is a multi-age of 2 three and so it takes the current students who are in the multi-age model and it keeps them in that setting and it um so it keeps um three classes at kindergarten, four

029classes at first grade, two classes at second grade, two multi-age classes of two, three, two third grade classes, three fourth grade classes, and three fifth grade classes. And what that requires is one additional teacher to go into a two grade multi-age and then um an additional two teachers to be in first grade. And um after many individual conversations, group conversations, whole staff conversations, family placement or parent placement meetings, um we feeling the consensus of the building, Karen and I made the decision that option two was really the best move forward for us. knowing that um there's going to be some grief and letting go of that three grade multi-age process and also knowing that we we don't necessarily need to say goodbye to it forever. What we are doing is still keeping some of the

030benefits of that multi-age program while allowing for a little more flexibility for that multi-tered system of support. It does free up our scheduling a little bit to have two grade levels rather than three that we're serving in one class. And having two multi-age combined with it does allow us to maybe put those two multi-age classes with two third grade classes. So their specialist, their lunch and recess are happening at the same time. So it allows a little more peer interaction that way and also allows um for a little more um crossgrade level support. So, um I appreciate all of the hard work and thought and care and um grief that has gone into this process and I really um I so value the staff that I have at Chiakqua and my assistant principal Karen and

031I um and moving forward. So, but I wanted to present that to you tonight. I know it's going to be a difference and but we're excited about the possibilities that it might provide for us looking forward. [Applause] I just want to understand you do have a multi- second third together. Yes. So what is okay? Because I I was confused but okay. Thank you. Yes. You're welcome. Yeah, two groups of two groups of Yeah, we want to pair them together because um having a single one makes it very difficult to really meet the needs of both grade levels. But when you have a pair that that teacher collaboration is so valuable at every grade level, but particularly when you're teaching multiple grades and our multi-age team is one of the highest functioning collaborative teams right now.

032We want to make sure that we carry that forward. Um, Julie, I just wanted to say as someone who really believes in this kind of educational philosophy that I I appreciate the nuance that you have taken, the time that you've taken with your staff. Um, this is a much more hopeful outcome than I thought I would hear. Okay. Um uh also it uh it allows I assume from what you said flexibility to expand that if the enrollment uh fluctuates. So thank you for I mean it's hard to come up with something that is a nuance solution to problems that we're facing right now. So thank you for your hard work. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you for meeting with the teachers and making this a whole process with everybody. We just heard this week

033and it's hard for us for the community and we represent the community. Absolutely. You know, it's just Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate the time. Yes, I also want to say um appreciate the process and the nuance um and I really appreciate the creative solution and that that does leave a a potential because I think my one of my fears was this has been a signature program for 30 years and if we remove that would we ever be able to re you know reinstate that? Um and you know and I also partly just want to say and acknowledge because I see some of our educ educators here that it like it does make me grieve and I because I also want to say that um the educators in this room for multi-age um Gilan are

034phenomenal and I have had the gift of getting to experience directly the incredibly transformative impact um and the impact of that model that I actually feel is the most critical foundational stone that my own child will have moving forward in education. And so I'm incredibly grateful and I'm I am incredibly sad and I respect the process and decision. Thank you. change and I know you also are a traveler so here no one take offense thank you for your time thanks for being here too I was going to start my thank you both thank you Julie Shen thank Um, great. Uh, let's move on to hear from our mighty student board representatives. It's actually me. Yeah. Oh, I thought Sorry. I thought I thought that was the extent of your Never mind. I'm just going to

035echo uh the sentiments that were shared uh for Julie and Karen. Um the the that leadership team has been, you know, rock solid and Um, you know, the entire leadership team is just so uh an amazing group of all sorts to work with and certainly ones that I'm going to miss dearly. And then if you haven't been in a risky or Shannon's class, uh, those are amazing places to be. And so, um, get it while you can, basically. I know I'm going to. Um, so yes. So, I was invited last week, uh, to be the new superintendent for Breton. Um, before I kind of start talking about that a little bit, I'm just going to give uh a huge thank you to my wife Kelly and my two boys, Hank and Gus, who kind of

036um, you know, I want to say I don't want to say, you know, suffered through the transition from moving Hawinson to background, but it's a big thing to kind of move yourself and even though my kids are going to be away, both of them, um, home is still home and it means, you know, a lot to them to kind of have a place. And so, um, you know, currently we're looking for threebedroom places because those boys will still have a home and we'll keep the light on for them at all times. Um, just some, uh, I'll probably give some more comments, you know, maybe towards the last board meeting, maybe in June that I'm at, but um, just some, uh, technical transition things on my end. You're welcome. You know, we're there's obviously an agenda

037item in the future, so you can share more about that. But on April 17th, um I'll be at the Birminton board meeting where they'll be taking action on on my contract. There'll be kind of a short introduction, welcome to that community. Uh and then uh following uh it's tradition that or best practice that we have some transition days between districts. And so um I'll be expected to spend probably three to four days in Breton u between now and the end of June. um as part of my you know developing an entry plan for for that district similar to what I did here when I came here from Hawinson. Um, and so, uh, another thing that we're doing to prepare for this transition and to to gather some information for the board that will help inform

038your search, um, is that I've asked the leadership team um, I've shared with them that they'll be asked to kind of provide, um, three to five top exit items um, that they would like to see kind of, you know, take an action upon or try to see maybe to a conclusion before I leave for Breton. and then three to five kind of entry items for the uh new leadership here. And so uh they'll get a survey probably tomorrow. I've been really busy today. Haven't been able to get that out to them, but they'll get that tomorrow. And I know they'll be able to fill that out pretty quick. Um and actually student board reps, I'll be giving you that same survey. So look for that. Okay. Um and uh and so that information will be

039super helpful. you know, there's much more process involved as well that I know that you know, search firms like to engage with, you know, boards, but that's a that's a start. Um, and then, um, you know, as, uh, as as the board works, I know we have a a work session scheduled April 22nd, um, where we'll be, um, meeting together um, and taking a look at some of that knowledge transference. I think that's how you label, titled it. So, we'll be doing that. And then um in terms of more upcoming events, April 24th is our next regular board meeting um where we'll have more budget information presented. Um and in terms of transition, it's it's an exciting time. Um this feels like a natural time since Gussy Gus is is graduating and um and going

040off to uh New York City uh in the fall. He got congratulations from you. So that was very appreciated. Um, and then my son is my other son Hangster is uh really trying to figure out where he wants to be next year. He was originally going to be in Cork Ireland, but it might be that he's actually in Dublin court. So, um, he's figuring all that out really as this meeting is happening. So, um, I just want to say, uh, you thank you to everybody. It's been a a great seven years. Um, and, uh, I couldn't have asked for a better place to land in this in this role. and uh I've learned and been taught a lot um and learned from an amazing group of folks and u some of them left already and

041some of them are still sitting in front of us. So um with that I'm going to uh leave it off. I think I caught all the upcoming events and I'll just turn it over to the board reps to uh the student board reps to carry on. Yeah. Well um hello um my name is Laura. If you guys don't know me I'll be I am a senior at Bashon High School. Um just some current events that we have to share with you. Um we're on our final stretch here for all grade levels. Um so we have about eight weeks left for me. I think it's like nine for her. Um but but we're we're finishing it up. Um and then we're also going we're also going to start testing soon. So, that's going to be standardized

042testing and then all of our AP tests, which I'm not participating in, but everyone has to have a good time. Um, uh, also we just finished up spring break, so lots of travels, lots of stories from different students, um, and faculty members, uh, as well. I talked to Sabrina Kovatch about her spring like plans this today, and that was so fun to hear about. Um, and then of course we have spring sports. Um, and then also college decisions for our seniors are coming up. So along with Gus, he'll be going to New York, but I'll be going to Washington State University. Um, and everyone's just figuring out as they come along with the due date of May 1st. So if you know a senior, maybe wait till after May 1st because the response you're looking

043for, but other than that, I'm going to hand you over. My name is Hazel. I'm a junior. Um, so we are working on a cookie for your thought and I kind of talked to you guys last board meeting about our goal this year was to just spread like voice down to the lower end and do something by the end of the year. And so we decided we're going to do a cookie fair thought with the high school as well because we just wanted to hear from them. Maybe they will change something up here as well. I got all the um surveys back from the elementary school and it was really encouraging hearing some of the stuff they had to say. It all I was like, "Oh, what's not going well?" And it's all like a

044bunch of little stuff. I mean, there's some kids who are have big stuff, but it's it's really fun and they're all It's fun hearing how well we're doing from when I was down there and it's just sweet. Um yeah, we're really excited for Dr. just like to be moving on. Not we're going to miss you, but congratulations. Congratulations. Oh, and um the Japan trip, I don't know if you heard about that, but there was a group of students who um went to Japan during spring break. It sounded fabulous and super fun. And I think is there's Japan Japanese students coming up here in May? I believe so. I think it's next next next year very similar to our next year. Um I feel like I can probably safely speak for the rest of us that

045if if with the cookie for your thoughts process or any of these times if there's ever an opportunity where you would like a board member to come and either field questions or just have a listening session. I think all of us would be super honored to participate in that. if that if that's we won't intrude, we won't force ourselves upon it, but if that was ever interest forum and so we'll talk then that could be a really um good time to have you guys there. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. That's all for us and congratulations. Thank you. Uh Stephanie, we'd love to hear our facilities report from you. Howdy. Sounds good. Today's Thursday, right? It is. Happy Thursday. Happy spring. I think we're officially coming in spring or we're in spring. Um thank you for uh

046having me here today and present a couple things for you guys. Um so hopefully you guys have a report here with you guys before. try to do it as most nicely, less verbiage on here. So, it's a little so confusing per se. I tried to add the highlight main points I'm working on. Um, first I'll go into grants. Um, we have good news. We have a grant approved in facilities. My first grant for island school district. So, this stuff on the back. Um, we it's an indoor air quality assessment. So, building conditions uh for the buildings. It's like the the first um main factor needed to go after grants. You know, uh OSPI when they approve grants, when they're looking at who to assess grants to, they look at building conditions also in EGMS, uh

047EOS, and a lot of that has to factor how your current building is being reported in the system. And so, in order to do that, we have to have every six years um a contractor company to come certify your buildings to make sure what you are reporting is accurate and what they're reporting is accurate in the systems. And so that costs the moola and that was approved for 105 $105,000 and that will help cover the cost of contractors who come for your buildings to continue the assessments. We have been working with um Donald Miller for about almost a year and they've been assessing our buildings thoroughly to go over um HVAC system, plumbing, conditions, vents, foundation, the whole meat and potatoes. That makes sense. Um and I am happy to say that we're applying for

048another grant based on the outcome of our first grant. Um we need to officially complete our assessments for the school district including sorry I saw this morning as I said I respond back. Um student links is also part of our buildings. Right. So all we the whole uh building assessment to be completed so we can go after the 252 which is also an indoor air quality assessment for the districts. um that is up to two million. So that was a more thorough assessment and we could partially use some of that grant too to help us assist another um building condition assessments per se. Um I am busy working in every thing possible and I'm also my focus is to get as much grants as possible to help us assist with our building conditions so they

049can be ADA compliant, we can have safety features or anything possible. Um and um we have some bad news. I say bad last. So the small school district modernization grant that was up to $2 million due to current um funding and educational costs going um with the state. They are changing how they are um going after school districts to apply for these small modernization staff. There has to be enrollment less than a thousand and we are a little over that. So it's okay. Um, at the end of the day, we got I mean, for me, the more important grant was the one to get our assessments done officially, so when future grants come out, we can go ahead and be qualified for them and apply because we already got the big hard work done, submitted.

050You just go and move forward from there. Um, and that was per legislator legislation and uh there's a PSC uh lighting incentive program that I applied for that will help merge old lighting fixtures to LEDs which will be a lot more energy efficient for us to help us save ultimately the PC uh bill which is pretty bad at times but that's normally difficult right but I try to save everything we can and be more conservative on cost and that um had an assessment too uh for first floor here at Shakqua. Um we have a lot of the old LED sorry the old lighting that we try to convert to LEDs. We're filling our first floor that got missed. Um and that's about $18,000 and um we just submitted that two days ago. So we're waiting

051for the outcome, but the outcome sounds very promising. So we should be able to get that as well. And last but not least, the Washington State Risk pool has their own grants as well that we can apply for. and I am planning to apply for the playground grant which would be updating um our playgrounds to see if they're safe and compliant. Um they would issue out a representative to come and do a walk through with this playground here. The backyard one um I call it the back to take a look at it and see where we're at and if anything we can improvise and see you know it's $15,000 we can go after $10 off that. That's what I've been working on. Grants um capital improvements. So, I am ordering uh new wood chips for

052the back. Thought you were raising your hand. You guys s um I'm ordering uh chips for the back uh for playground which is in dire need. I'm very aware. Um and that is about $22,000 um roughly. I'm working right now to try to coordinate and get that going before terrorists start coming in. Um terrorist is a big factor right now. So to kind of move forward with the improvement of passing a slate on what we can order. Um if you notice there's a fence being built behind facilities. I don't know if you guys know what facilities is. If not show you. It's a pretty small place but we're there and we're trying to get uh fencing behind there. The total cost so far has been 7,000 and we've got all the materials fencing materials everything

053needed. It's in house. Um so we're just saving a lot. Uh the reason behind of it that it's a concern I have we have a lot of students um community outsiders they cross do a lot through that back part and my concern is sometimes with vehicles someone can fall the bushes um blackberries some can really get hurt I do not think people should be cutting through there does not mean they won't blow around the greenhouse I realize that but to an extent um if you do cut through there's a big ditch so that's you know the risk uh something that's kind of relies on. But um I think this will help a little bit prevent say we shouldn't be crossing back there. And for safety, there's a gate, too. Um if you cross over, although

054I don't think the homeowner really likes that part of the gate, but it's it's up to code. Um that's that. Um I'm receiving bids for the high school court, uh tennis court. It has um some repairs needed. We are looking at bids, which we selected a company toward. And the repair won't start until mid January um until mid August. And I say because I have received a lot of um questions, hey, when are we going to repair? What's going to be done? And I work with Slay and Cassie over costs. Um and it's something that not only benefits the high school, but community members too a lot of these high schools. So we finally do with the bid and we'll be going through that. That's estimated 31,000. We obtain full permits for a lost septic

055system, sewage system. Not sure if you guys are familiar with that, but we do have it at the high school and that has to be managed and controlled by a company and reported to Department of Health. When I um obtained a position, we needed to pull some permits and get in compliance and just move forward some things. Not a big deal, but was able to get all that done. And the company that originally managed it um no longer wanted to manage these raw systems just because it was a big thing that keeps me off burden. It's a big trip for them. Um they really have to send two people out the whole day for here and back community XYZ which is understandable. Um so I went out to get some bids and what we used

056to pay was a lot more um manageable financially compared to the quotes out there. So, I took my time looking at that and um we got a um contractor who took on the system who actually manages a lot of law systems out there on the island as well. And I'm very excited for that because um he's already it's familiar with department of health code. It's not an easy task. You have to pick what you calculate, submit testing, XYZ. So, he's knowledgeable and we're moving forward. Um I received bids for the interior exterior matting. Um the first school gets a lot of sand coming in from the back. So kids bring in a lot of tracking sand. And I've noticed we have old outdated matting which doesn't help prevent the sand from staying out. So we

057are getting quotes right now and looking what's more cost effective if we rent or buy out. In my opinion, anytime you buy out, you have to do the math. So I'm currently looking at math, comparing the bids, seeing what's best. At this point, I think buying out the mats. So, I'm calculating that because right now, um, we received a bid which looks promising, but there's tariffs coming in. So, we decide the sooner the better. Right now, I'm looking at a lot of tariffs. So, I'm trying to really focus on getting what we need before any tariffs may come. Um, I lost myself. Sorry. Entrance cameras. Yes, there we go. Entrance cameras. Uh, McMurray High School are having their installation of entrance cameras. Now this is a project where um tech and facility are working together.

058It's not a one department project helping each other with the task. Uh the cameras have been uh ordered and I believe we received them. We are now working together just to run um the connections and service to them to get them up and running. We don't have a new TA check in with tech to see on their part, but they're already going live. So I've already system, you know, seen in the Ricarda system. So that is very close. I'm sure by the end of the year they'll be completely installed and ready. So Stephanie, yes. When will those be installed and running, do you think? No, I do see them in uh the Carter software system already implemented. They're just not live. Okay. I would check in with John. I can shoot an email and just

059say, "Hey, where we're at. Last I knew that we were waiting for the cams to install physically." That was last week. I think we received them this week. John that we received them. So a rough estimate I would say in a month and a half. Thank you. You're more welcome. Is this coming hand in hand with the locks that are going to be placed in the entrance of the buildings? You know, like you have to both the car system um the new ones being installed, the cameras. So they do go hand in hand. You do have the ability to have access to the to the camera. So there's like you push the button like down here, it will unlock the door for you. I'm pretty sure that's going to be the system installed here at

060schools. Um, all schools that have them have that availability. I'm pretty sure that's going to be it. But I can double check for you guys. See, I know when I worked with that feature, it just was it was just they're all like that to lock it. It's very helpful. What do you think will be done? you know that system walking the buildings letting people in people like the camera installation you know with the cameras all these package that we I think a month and a half I'm sorry a month and a half just like Mar say the completion of the installment with the cameras would be a month and a half but for sure I believe at the end of the year just we're already there the parts have arrived they're being installed I've already

061seen them live on our system so it's not long to just get electricity going through the bunch recording of it and networking which they're hiring a professional for that. I know we have inhouse folks that can do it but I want to make sure it's done right. So I think that we're comfortable just going with the professional. I just want to make sure um um that we are having this as a priority like it's a safety priority for students and if we talk about this maybe a month ago or I had the idea that this was going to be done now by the end of the spring break and I we understand yeah I wish I can put it like up in the list. Uh yes definitely I can go check in with John on

062that. I know that sometimes parts we can't control that part. Uh they are not coming from the state. They come outside from their product and that takes time on shipping. I know uh yeah they're they're customs but I know Spring Bake a lot of people are off. So I'm not 100% sure you know players that needed to be in this project were privately there. Would you please follow up with us on that timeline and that it does also control walks just so we have that information? Yeah, I can definitely follow up and let you guys know. I'll include later in the email as well, just to let you know where we're at with it, but it shouldn't take that long. Thank you. As long you just received very welcome. And can I just ask a

063point of clarification? You said this word that I think sounds like ricotta. Is that the vendor? Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. That's the system that runs the software for the cameras. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. I've actually worked with them when I work with Chrome. They're great. Um, but they're not local, so I know parking has um so the high school parking lot currently has a leak if somebody may notice maybe. Um, by the tennis court is facing the tennis court. Um, and it's right in between, I would say, the aisle where you can have a car go on towards the stadium. Um I'm aware of a leak. We are working on that. Uh repairs start today's Thursday, right? Yeah. Sorry. Thursday. So we have Friday will be coming in morning at 8:00 to

064start working on the repair to see where we can find the repair needs to be made. Um looks like leak is um common. It's happened before. I think it's more like the materials we have aren't wearing off. So it's a decision making decision. Do we put another bandaid on here or especially take care of the situation? In my opinion, I would wait until summer right now just to interrupting graduation. It's a hazard. You know, there's going to be a hole there. We're going to put plywood over it. Make sure kids, you know, the cones, but we never know. So, I thought project in the summer, but for now, we What's leaking? Water. Yeah, it's leaking of the asphalt. That's the most important part. It's what's leaking. Yeah, got a couple emails and concern even the

065water district. I think the water district contacted me really nice parents like hey I work here just want to see an observation when it was raining no but now it starts to see a big old puddle of water that's going on over there. So it's not dry season yet. Sorry. You said spring and I looked behind me and it was pouring down. Definitely not spring yet. Um I submitted a I would say a reimbursement to the um the risk pool through the high school feeder waterline repair that we did that estimated was $68,000. Um through the risk pool they're still conducting investigations. That took time. I'm very hopeful to receive maybe some of that back. But either way we went through those shirts. Right. So, they're determining what caused that leak essentially and whether or

066not it's covered. Yeah. Determining what was the real issue behind it, why did it flood, and then um what was going on with the the backup pretty much. Um we've given them examples, pictures, and when we put a camera through there to take a look and see what happened. So, what caused it? What do you think caused it? At this point, I'm not 100% sure. There's a couple factors in there. So, to look at submitted all evidence documentation needed to it. So, we'll go from there. If I know any updates, I'll let you guys know for sure. The playground um the playground needs some upgrades to their swing sets. The seating is a little worn out, so we are working on um putting new ones. We just made an order to that part um two

067days ago. So, working on that once you receive, we'll be upgrading it. They're pretty worn out. Kids really have fun down the street. I'm currently collecting bids for a generator um for the motor. It is going out. Um so far I've gotten two bids and it's close to 8,000. So it is a big ticket item, but it's very needed. Um they'll receive those out. Um it, you know, it's needed here to run the backup software and IT systems. And I'm sure you guys know it runs district offices and a certain amount of lighting in the school district and And that generator was factored into our budget, right? Perfect. Oh, that's awesome. Two years away. $80,000 is not a surprise. Oh, all right. And the kitchen, the high school kitchen grease trap does need a cleaning.

068Um, has not been done in a while, I believe. So, I'm getting a quote from HHO, which is company working in the past. See how much that is. I plan on doing that summer. It's a little ridiculous and very smelly. It's disgusting. Yeah. Do you not want to have one of the worst smells you ever encounter in your life? So, when it's only time to do that, take care of it. And that's so far big issues. Um, trainings. I was at a mo leadership training. I'm not sure if you guys know what is a lot of school district directors and facility managers, facility staff in general from all school districts that can go uh go to trainings on leadership. um they go to trainers on how to work together with um circumstances that might come

069up through their employees um systems in the school community. Um it's very helpful because you meet other school districts that have similar issues as yours. You network, you collaborate together. They always have presenters that come out and present. We have a superintendent from California talking about issues you dealt with, how he worked with several factors in regards to staff facing community, um issues in the building, teachers. It's good to hear and just know and kind of experience it from another state or other superintendent. And then you meet other employees there that you can find common issues you can collaborate with. And networking just I've so I love networking. I love meeting other individuals. Um and you can reach out to them and have questions. We have like our own email thread per se and just

070reach out for questions like hey I need a testing for water. How did you guys get your tennis court? Especially networking for like because on the island it's one thing I know is difficult is to have someone come out and get job done that's actually certified to do this job right um that is that can I ask have you did you go to that in your previous yes ro I've been going to event that's great and it's always nice to see the same people but you know what do you do now so it's like seeing where they're transitioning um I just met um Brian nine months ago Brian Humphre used to be the facility manager your preferred way and we got the other school district character facilities position. So it's good to see how within

071ourselves you transition and promote yourself and I I like and so they had a they always have their events in the east side of the mountain. So it was in Spokane and a recent one in so that was kind of cool to go out there and just get away. I wish it could happen a little more on this side of the mountain, but that's totally um and a VCA, a building conditions assessment. I just became certified through OSPI on a training with team water this Tuesday. I took Mark Fry, our lead facilities um employee, and we went through, I think, a rigorous training how to really assess a building and its conditions and what improvements are needed and what could weigh, what's a priority, um and how to fill out the information on AROS and

072our EGMS systems that can help associate to future grants and how, you know, you're taking on this certification to be an honest assessor, not to just say the whole building is that we need funding. um because that is also not good and anyone who comes from the state to do actual audits to say okay this building condition is like 30% that's really bad take a look and it could be really having that certification is helpful um because you are certified although you can never certify your own building but you can help other districts so now that we know other districts are in the same shop I network and that phone numbers will need certified buildings for us if we can't find someone so very proud of having that certification with Mark and that would help

073us out too. Better analysis our um per quarter checkins on our buildings. Um I work with slaves to make sure we're checking um doing analysis ourself building assessments to make sure we have our own accountability building and then every six months to make sure we have our own certified building assessments. Thank you so much. Um, one I just want to say the um how incredibly impressive in terms of the grants that you've reached out for, how thorough and the assessments and the ways um in which you're taking care of our districts incredibly grateful. Sorry. I'm also really grateful to hear you talk about um you know foreground aspects tied to the tariff in terms of tariffs and thinking about that. Um appreciate you raising that and it um you talked about one piece where it's

074a partnership with tech um in the district. Um and I feel like that's actually a conversation we should be having across the board in terms of things that we're looking at for next year and those pieces. And so I would also appreciate at another point in time if there's if there's more in that regard that you feel like we should be looking at and the ways in which it might be impacting how we budget and where that's going at I would love to hear your thoughts because yeah that in general that um coming from Tacoma we actually have security department right security not culture safety department and so they would handle that type of project because you really don't have it. I think it's nice to have that double corporation of tech and a facility

075because in my thoughts I thought you know should we run these projects but that's also tech. So it it's helpful to have them both hand to hand but it wasn't for you had a bigger school district tech would be security. So it's both those cameras are both coordinated together. If something goes out someone says hey I found a broken key finger and then the networking part is being big on tech because they help run software. They're running out of camera installation. Thank you for the show. We know this is just some of the main factors. As always, I love the school district. It's pretty nice. Um, you know, as any school district, everyone has, you know, pros and cons, and we just take the consider whatever it takes to make sure might not get to

076like that, but I will get to Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We know you are also a traveler, so if you need to hightail it off, I could be okay. I'd like to see Kathy. I'm fine. It's a team. It's a team work. I love that. We are very lucky to have you. So, I do want to take one moment and just point out while we move on to this next section with Cassie, there's some text which I appreciate. I'm not sure if Peter or Slate if you're responsible for getting this on there just because at some other point tonight we we may have a different process for moving through sort of the the way that we approve things that um that there's a first read and then we generally do a

077second read and the second read often is a time for discussion, amendment, and final consideration. Um, but the board may suspend a second reading by unanimous consent when members of the public are unlikely to be interested in the issue when the issue has previously been discussed by the board or when delaying a decision that would have an adverse impact on the district. So, I appreciate whoever decided to articulate that tonight. I think it's useful to be as transparent as possible about how we make decisions, why, and sort of what circumstances are other than sort of. With that being said, Cassie, you'd want to hear about electronic funds transfer. Okay. Hi everybody. Um, so something that's come up several times over the course of the audit since we started in the summer is that we don't

078have an official electronic funds transfer policy. And so really this is language that really just puts into writing what we're already doing. Um, and it really just satisfies that the auditor wants us to see an official policy. Um so that way when they're doing testing of you know payroll transactions or other um accounts payable transactions that we can submit this policy to them so that know that we're following this and that's really all this is is putting into writing what we're already doing and have been doing um but putting it in official policy 627. Does anyone have any questions at this time about this? Great. Um, so we are going to uh I'd like to first move that we someone should make a motion. Someone should make a motion. I would recommend that someone makes

079a motion to approve policy 627. But do we first need to since this is the first that we've heard it that we first need to agenda. Okay. Uh would someone like to uh move to approve 6217 as written? I motion to approve 627 as written. I second. Thank you. Um first we'd like to hear from the students for the student advisory votes. Do you have any questions? Um you know I think you're doing a great job and I trust your judgment. Uh yeah. So, you get a yay from me. Yay for me. Outstanding. Thank you. I think we've in the past we've asked the students after we voted. I'm really hoping from y'all first in case you had some sort of glaring red flags. We're like EFT transfer. What? This sounds good. Great. All right.

080So, um all those in favor? I I any opposed? Good. The motion passes policy 6217 electronic fund transfer is approved as written. Do you have any audit updates? Oh yes, the audit update. How could I forget? It's such a big part of my life right now. Um I had a couple meetings with the auditor this week. They were both yesterday. So, we had a meeting to kind of review um what happened to the King County Treasurer and what the auditor is using as far as their um their like internal spreadsheet. And there's a little bit of a discrepancy over how they're looking at it versus how the county does it. So, we're trying to resolve that. And I have Justin and Stephen helping out because it's become um it's been going on for a long

081time. um they're particularly concerned about some inter fund transfers and so um the numbers are all there. It's really just that we kind of need to decide um where they look at them and where it gets removed because it's already been accounted for in some of the other financial documents. Um and other than that, I think we're pretty much closing um closing the loop with nutrition services side of things. Um and there's a a few requests that are still outstanding that we're working on. Thank you to Dr. Spencer because she provided a very long list and three years worth of documentation that they had requested that we were oh sorry four years sorry three years in one file that I uploaded in one year and another. Um so I think that once we can kind

082of the rest of special education and wrap up the King County treasure um discrepancy that we will hopefully be moving towards our exit um meeting. That's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Um, I was curious the other day on the OSPI uh monthly webinar, someone came on to make a pitch for the WBO conference in May and similarly to Stephanie going to her kind of peer leadership conference. Is that something that you're going to be doing? Yep. I will be going to WBO. Yes, it's in May. So, is the uh Washington Association of School Business Officials. I also do a lot of training with them. So, this will be the white first conference that I'm going to, but um I've done ASB classes with them. They have a lot of great references. There's kind of um

083a really great resource that reminds us monthly things. So, they're a great reference. Justin and Steven will also be there. So, just an added an added bonus in Spokane, right? In Spokane, yes, Tiffany Rice will also be going for the payroll side. Um but we like to make sure that we still have somebody in the business office. So I believe that they go back and forth. So it should be back on this side next year where maybe a few more of us can attend and um there'll be a lot of important legislative updates that there should be information on. So um it'll be really interesting to see how I um do all of that learning and get the budget ready on time. Also, we have all the faith in the world. Thank you. Yeah. No,

084she really made a compelling pitch for it during that webinar. So, um, I was eager to hear if that was signed up and ready to go. Outstanding. Great. Uh, moving on to these three policies that we are retiring and reinstating 32051. If there's no more further discussion, I would recommend before we take action on these. Great. Uh, separately or uh, you can do them all. Let's do them. Great. We're going to retire 3205, 3206, and 5011. Do we need to vote on that separately or then? And then we are going to uh approve ideally 3205 sexual harassment of students prohibited and 5011 sexual harassment of district staff prohibited. Um, can I get a motion to approve these as proposed? I would move to approve these as proposed. Thank you, River. Uh, all those in favor

085student advisory vote. What? Now I've got a question. Great. So reinstated and retired. You're retiring 3205, but you're also reinstating 3205. So that is me assuming that you've changed the wording on it. Right. There's all this. Yeah, the red and the That's what we presented last time. Yes, I wasn't here. Um, I believe in you guys. Hazel, how do you feel about it? Well, I was here last time and I read it and so I actually Okay. Support it. Team Ginger is really representing here. Okay. Um, great. Thank you both. Uh, all those in favor. Any opposed? Great. Uh, the All right. We are next moving on to resolution 820 uh where we present the 180day waiver that we submit every few years. Uh if there's no further discussion, I would recommend that we make

086a motion to approve this resolution 820. Great. Can I get a motion to approve uh resolution 820? I motion to approve resolution 820. I get a second, please. Thank you. Students, how do you feel about this one? The 180 days. Wow. It's a lot of days. Um you know, it's that's the law. Yes, that's But I'll agree with you guys once again. Thank you. I agree as well. Great. All those in favor? I I Any opposed? Great. Resolution 820 passes as written. Thank you. Um All right. So, this next one is me. Um uh again um policy 1320 suspension of a policy um we may what? Right. It's because we didn't place this on the agenda prior to the meeting that the board will I will be recommending that the board actually um take action

087on suspending policy 1400 that policy that was up there before. And so this is going to be a two vote kind of um two motions that that I'll be recommending. The first one we recommend that you suspend policy 1400 which then allows this board uh when when you unanimously do that then you can then move on to take action on this particular item you just hear in the decision part of our agenda. So there will be a second motion for this. So for context, this is um we had a um a very productive and positive work session the other night sort of um figuring out our path forward as we are um looking to um have a new leader in the district. I think we had general agreement though we certainly did not make any

088initial decisions that probably a an interim superintendent was the way to go. Um any of you want to sort of explain our thinking on that? Just take the m 40 minutes. Sure. Is it okay? Um, normally uh districts start the polic the the process of um a superintendent search. This is your typical timeline. In the fall um for a superintendent, you uh begin to talk with the community um all the stakeholders. you get um input um by December about the first or second week no later you put out the uh call and the agency will do this because all districts hire an agency for candidates you start getting candidates um submitting their you know resumeumés and all so that you can look at it by February um usually narrow that candidacy and begin to bring

089in the candidates. Um, and hopefully by the end of February, you've made a decision. Um, we are late in the game, uh, by a long shot and we take this very, very seriously as the whole community does. So, in order for us to have a thoughtful, transparent, upfront, and careful uh selection process, we want to hire an interim superintendent, which means that we will be looking at agencies that um do this for school districts that um offer candidate that they have, you know, on their roster that serve as interims before we even begin the final process. So all of this is going to be uh a short time frame. We intend to get up and running a little sidebar on your website for the you know when you go to the the website for the

090school board section there'll be an update that you can click on and we can tell you what we're doing and what where we're at in the process all the way along. But it just seems prudent with something this important that we don't rush it. And that's why we are really thinking of an interim. Thank you Martha. Yeah. So we're um the the task of finding researching and finding a search firm um is really paramount and that there we have sort of lit lit lit a fire on that. there is a sense of urgency to find um a firm that we want to work with who ideally will have you know a bench or a roster of um available interims and we can move that process along fairly quickly so that we can um be thoughtful

091um and really um really robust in our outreach to as many constituent groups um as we can um so that we really can um have sort of a package of information about us so that a potential new leader would would know who we are, what our values are, how we want to move forward as a community. Um, so really we're it's it's a lot, but I think we're well positioned to do that. We really had a a very productive um overwhelmingly positive meeting the other night. Um, so with that being said, we we'd like to um we're proposing um because this is district money that will have to get spent and we don't have an exact budget for it yet because we're in the interview process of just sort of reaching out to various firms

092to understand how much they charge for this process. Right. We didn't have we haven't had money earmarked in our budget for a superintendent search. That isn't part of the sort of the budgeting. Um yes, I have a question. Just curious to know for intern positions that consider or look at anyone that has currently a superintendent certification within the district. Just curious. I don't think we're ruling out anything at this point. I think we're ruling in the fact that the community needs a say so in what happens next and that takes a very thoughtful longer process. So we're not ruling out anybody. Everybody can apply. That's fine. But right now, we need somebody temporarily to step in. Is she maybe suggesting that be your temporary? Um, I think we're not prepared to answer specific questions about

093who might fill the role. No, but we talked about we talked about how as a mentor we prefer not to have anyone from the district and for for someone to apply for the long term then anyone from the district will be welcome to apply. I think that would be the best way. Yeah, we we don't want to rush anything and at this late day also if if people to shift personnel while people are figuring out enrollment and bargaining and all the other things. It just seems to be a rush. Um and that's that's another consideration. No, she nailed it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. But also for details, look at the video. Like we recorded our conversation and it so I recommend that everyone you have question look at the video. Um so

094logistically I'm first going to I I would recommend I would recommend that the board uh make a motion to suspend policy 1400. Great. I move to suspend uh policy 1400. Can I get a second, please, to suspend? Second. Thank you, Marissa. Uh, student advisory. No, student advisory. Sorry. Okay. Um, all those in favor of suspending 1400. Any opposed? Great. We're going to suspend 1400 and go directly to a uh vote. Right. Next, I would make uh recommendation that the board uh make a motion to um begin a process that will identify a search firm who will then identify candidate for you or help identify an intern. Great. Would someone like to propose that we begin the process as he described? I don't need to I don't need to repeat what the metric said. I have

095a motion to begin the process to find a search form that will also help us find a candidate. Thank you so much, Jessica. Thank you, Lucia. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Fantastic. Let's get to work. Um, thank you for walking us through that. Not if you would have any fluency. There we go. Thank you. Um and so I know next on the agenda is national policy update discussion and so we began this part of our agenda I think just one board meeting back um at the same time uh Chris Rachel has been um providing us with some regular installments where he will share any updates regarding the um you know kind of the landscape on national policy. Um I believe Juniper and I was anybody else happen to um be on that. So

096um essentially the the biggest piece um that uh the last uh installment for that he shared with us was regarding title six um which is a most which is regarding the the civil rights um a bit of a surf versus har you know surf versus Harvard or anyway what it really means is that um 52 states superintendent recently received a saying dear colleague letter um from department of education saying that they need to reertify that they are now in compliance with the civil rights um title six laws and um Chris made it very Chris right made it very clear that we have already we provided certification that we're following uh the federal law and we will not be providing a secondary authorization back to the the educa department of education it's not required like we

097are already in compliance uh with the federal statutes and there's no need to do anymore. Um what the what they're what the leverage point the the new policy is saying though that if you don't comply um or aren't you know kind of in compliance with these federal laws regarding title six new civil rights um that you will have federal funding potentially withheld um and so states uh as I understand New York uh Washington are basically working in concert together those state superintendent and sending the same letter back to the feds saying, um, we're not going to be participating in that process. We've already done that process. Um, Chris ultimately feels like this will be played out in the courts. Um, which is, you know, probably more likely than not. Um, and so he will continue

098to keep us informed. He gave us some updates around, you know, kind of federal budget, I mean, in the state budget, kind of where we're sitting with that. Um right now I believe it's still a lot of unknown uh at least until the bianium ends. Um which we'll be giving more you know so as we get closer to that end of the benium in a few couple weeks we'll be giving sharing more information but I think you know we're still not seeing house budgets matching with senate budgets matching with the governor's budget. a lot of work to be done on that. But essentially that was the kind of the main thrust of of our Tuesday um you know meeting with Chris Rael. I'll let you kind of add in or share or illuminate. Yeah. I

099mean this time he bumped sort of the partner groups to the front like the WVO um group and WASDA and other statewide partners to talk about various opportunities and trainings and reminding people that these um resources are available to everybody. Um, you know, as before, I'm I'm broken record about this. I feel we are in excellent hands. Um, that he is so clear about both values and statutes and how they align and as Washingtonians that that um he's he's holding the line. He's standing firm and he does not identify places. I I don't get the sense where he's worried that we're out of compliance with our own state laws. We're very much in compliance. And for those of you that are um keeping up with news across the state, there are states that are going

100to the feds, sorry, districts saying uh we we want to be in line with the feds with either their anti-trans stances or we want to be with the feds on this, you know, decimation of the of DEI. We're kind of stuck here. Someone please help us. So, um, some of that may be sort of the the mechanism by which some of the legal action happens is some of these, um, districts asking for help from the feds to protect them against great woke. Um, so I think um, there wasn't a whole lot that um, you know, the the sheet that Dr. Mashidi shared with all of us and I think maybe is maybe available in the district uh, is full of good stuff. I didn't actually know you were going to be here, Dr. Spencer. At

101some point, I would love to understand, you brought up this um and this is not meant to be a surprise. I honestly just curious, the universal high school and beyond. I'd love to understand something about that. Does that mean something to you? What what's happening is what what's happening is that we're moving away from Skyward for students to do their high school and beyond plan and we're moving to a new system called Skylink kind of like Terminatorish. Um but it is called Skyink and um and it's a essentially it'll be another free program for us and the migration from Skyward over to that is for us going to be 2627 school year. Um he was just kind of noting that there are some districts right now who are kind of at the forefront of that

102making that migration for high school beyond plan. It's more of an update. Okay. Sorry to the other update that um I think is important to share is that WIAA with the amendment seven and eight to move those to advisory votes only. And so uh essentially um I think WIA concluded that uh if they were to if any amendments seven or eight were to be implemented that they would be in violation of state and federal laws. And so rather than take action on uh what is in all appearances an illegal uh motion uh they decide to make it an advisory vote um which is also causing some unrest in some of those districts that you're talking about. So now there's police WIA to you to move it to a real vote instead of an advisory vote.

103But it does seem for a moment that that kind of effort has stalled um while you know while we seek out again what more plays out. Yeah, I think that's in right in effect of saying like if if we vote on something that's illegal sort of what's the point, right? Um but people some districts with a more conservative stance or whatever word is appropriate on that um are looking for coverage to enact policies that are discriminatory and anti-trans and um super glad that again um the the folks are paying attention to what is legal uh and what is right. Then a few more updates regarding policy 4300. There will be temporary signage that will be going up um hopefully tomorrow. Just let you know. Um and then uh in terms of the security, so there's

104two companies, FULA and Vicata. So Vicarda is the kind of um camera operating system and FULA is the door actuator system and the fob control systems. And so um it is true that we are waiting on parts. It is true that they're trying to go through customs. And so while we were anticipating completion during spring break, uh the delay uh through customs etc is now pushing that out. And so um I can certainly ask John and we can get a clear idea. He is kind of more the lead on this. I appreciate you following through, but he is more the kind of more the lead, you know, kind of person on that one working with Stephanie. Um but yeah, so we'll it is it has been a priority. Um we we moved it up. We've

105always been thinking about, you know, those front door entrances actually for quite a few years. And so I think given the national policy concerns, we did move that as a as a priority. I think we began talking about it maybe in late December, mid December is when I first started saying, "Hey, we need to get to quotes and John and then of course where's the budget for it, etc." So um next just letting you know that um the video tool training tool that we were provided from Molly Peach Matter the uh that was distributed out to the frontline staff actually all of them um with also a form to fill out an attestation um I see Jamie back there. How you doing? uh you know he spoke earlier about the importance of you know make

106sure that you're you taking taking account of who's you participated or who has participated in training. So um and so right now that that form is out there being collected and uh they were directed to to complete it before April 25th. So that's the timeline on that. In terms of staff training, the staff uh refresher training, I think we still have some questions around what was uh the PowerPoint that was provided and we'll you know, we we'll kind of confirm and clarify, you know, the direction around that. Um but board uh principles are planning on their in their staff meetings this month uh to refresh the um you know, the uniform response plan training. I have a question. Whoever has the answers, they great answer it. Um, but I I'm just curious about the uh

107entrance cameras at McMurray and VHS. You said the front doors, but I know at least seven other doors that you can walk through. There's more than that. Well, I No, I'm talking about the big ones, right? You know what I mean? So, what we're doing is actually You're absolutely right. And so, these are conversations that we've had, you know, with building admin. And what we're doing is starting with the main entrances which we can actually um physically take action on right now to do the other types of moves that you're thinking about like how would we control egress and ingress through all those different portals you know because the high school wasn't built with that kind of security in mind. So that would involve um lots of different stakeholders, you know, instructional staff, students, how

108do we manage flow of students between the gym and back and forth and so so right now our main priority is getting the front entrances secured. U McMurray is much, you know, has a much smaller footprint in terms of exits and entrances, but we are putting new fobs in the back of McMurray as well right now so that, you know, staff can have better access and it's much easier to secure with the fob rather than try to go with keys. Um so um we have priorities and then what we have is kind of a long longer term view of what you know that's going to look like in the future that will require a lot more stakeholder engagement and and puzzle solving because um to completely secure a building is very difficult to do um

109and it really you know how your phys you know what your physical structure is limits what you can do immediately but um if you get enough people in the room and all the create you know kind of creative solutions that could be you know have surfaced and you start to put together a better I've got going in my head trying to count as you're speaking at least 20 so I don't know just want to chime in just previous not this district but I think what Dr. said is right um I managed 68 schools at Tacoma public schools and a lot of them have just the main entrances the camera and then like Dr. She said a lot of respect. So just the main entrance behind the camera. So sorry to to clarify. Yeah. And I'm

110not sure who can answer this. Let's say there's some number between seven and 20 doors. More than that. I just used Sure. Seven plus doors. Seven plus doors. One of them will be locked or the others will be locked but there will be no there are locked but we're what what the the largest problem for the high school right now is the gated entrance between the gym and the main building. So we have a lot of classes that are outside and how do we manage ingress and ingress through those through those doors? The same with the kindergarten door over here. And so this is a something that we're working on a solution for sooner than later. So, we're really just taking them one at a time and trying to figure out what's what are the

111solutions that we can put in place. Is there a potential to have a timeline? It doesn't need to be a promise, but of when some of these things might meaningfully be addressed for greater security. Yes, I would say number one for me in my opinion budget a big deal if they're not cheap. budget for sure. We can we can we can put together something report that I see a hand over here. Okay. Thank you for surfacing that. I appreciate it. Um great and I think that's is that everything on your list? Okay. Um, this is an opportunity for a second round of public comment. If there's anybody here that would like to make a public comment, we're available for that. Jamie, and then Laura, go ahead. Laura, would you like to go first? No, Jamie,

112you go first. Hi everyone. Thank you for your service and your commitment, community members. Um, you know, I've been thinking a lot today in particular because I don't know if you've watched the news, but there was a a gay man who was uh who is a legal US citizen who was arrested and taken into uh one of the horrific prisons where they're sending people. And they had video of this individual today getting his head shaved. And I can imagine what that human is going through being there. Uh it brought back memories for me that go back a long time. So, some of you may know that I am a former probation officer. I was a probation supervisor, our training manager, went to FBI school, and now I run a training organization where we train between

1135 and 10,000 people a year, law enforcement, teachers, primarily probation officers. But I want to tell you a little personal story. So, I was uh supervising DPO. There were 40 of us that were working and I was managing the camps at the juvenile hall and we had a little girl come in and she was the first it was the first time we'd ever had a transgender student kid that ever came into juvenile hall and we had no training about this. We didn't know I of all people had no idea anything about this kid. Uh and so what happened was she came to my unit and I ran the boy's unit. I said she can't be here. She's not a boy. So shift her to the girls unit. Then they put her in solitary confinement. Then

114they sent her off to these other places. Um, and without belaboring her story, what I'll tell you is that the harm done to that child, not just in retraumatizing her, but ultimately putting hands on her and shaving her head, which brought this back up for me again today, so that she could be placed in a boy's camp. this story. Even though I had said she can't be in my unit, if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would have intervened, which in law enforcement, you don't get another supervisor's business. You stay out of their business. You do you. But I would have known what to do. I would have gone in. I would have challenged all of this. And what I want to speak to is the fact that I'm

115not seeing signs out. And as a former law enforcement person who trains law enforcement, I can tell you that if I came to a school and I was current law enforcement, and god forbid I would never work for ICE or anything like that, but it would give me pause. I would stop. I would read the sign. I would think about what it says. I'd probably call my supervisor just to be sure that we were in line. So, I would like to press again that I don't know what the holdup is. And quite frankly, I don't want to sound rude. I don't care. the signs need to be up uh and in place as soon as possible. If you give them five minutes of pause and then they come in, you know that they're there five

116minutes earlier, right? So, you have time to react and it gives people time to put their head together. Uh the the other piece is about training. While I I'm really grateful that Molly made the videos and that they're watching the videos and thank you for that documentation. That's brilliant. It's not enough because what people will do, I've been doing this business for 30 years and literally tens of thousands of people and in trainings I watch people freeze and these are highly trained people about all of this stuff but under stress they freeze. In fact, the law says that there's certain trainings we have to do where we introduce stress. And I just introduced the tiniest bit when we did the first day here. And I saw several reactions and that was the only live one

117that I was involved in where people got super activated. And that was nothing of what I promise you will happen. Back to the little girl. I think about this little girl almost every day. I love to tell I don't love to I hate to bother you uh or interrupt you. Your time is up. If you can you I can I can give you 10 seconds. I don't want you to be 60 year old 60 years old like me thinking about that little girl or that little boy or that little non-binary student or whomever that had you taken the action and had the student the teachers had the hands-on stuff and the signs would have been out there it could have changed everything that it it traumatized me and I don't want anyone especially a teacher

118or other children to have that experience. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi um Lord Winter Green. This is really a followup on the earlier testimony but also the superintendent mentioned that he was going to be asking all of you for input on exit and entry um items. And I would encourage that immigration and safety for all students be prioritized on your list of exit and entry. And in alignment with that, today I got something from the National Immigration Center. And it talks about just basically five steps to keep schools safe for all students. One, establish a clear protocol for responding to law enforcement at schools. Train all staff and ensure they understand and follow the policy. Thus the practice they understand and follow it and that they um

119that that is fully documented. Two, define and mark private school areas anything past the visitor side of the school desk in the parking lots the students fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Three, require all guests, including law enforcement, to pass through an administrative office. Officers must present a valid judicial warrant. your staff having been trained in assessing what is valid um or subpoena for review. Um and then four, limit the information that is collected from students and their families. Avoid collecting information about immigration status in birthplace. And then five, provide the know your rights materials, posters, and trainings to educate immigrant students and families and their rights. And again, as you watched the news, it was on the news before I came here today that the current president of the United States opened

120the family detention centers, again, two of the family detention centers in um Texas. And I have to assume you're all knowledgeable people and it was horrific to see what existed before during the last term that this president had and um they were closed down and now they're reopened and how children were in cages and it's just atrocious. So we need to make sure to protect the children here. Thank you. [Applause] Anyone else at this time for public comment? um or director remarks. Anything my colleagues would like to speak to? I think uh I just say um thank you to everybody for coming. Um I want to echo the thanks for people um in terms of coming. I want to um thank the community for their fierce and dedicated advocacy um for our students, staff and

121families. Um I want to thank the work within the district whether it's um uh I know the decisions uh shared earlier in terms of um multi-age I want to thank for that process and the challenge in that process um and the ways in which some much of that has been done um and also just um to echo the seriousness with which um with which I take the the current place in which we find ourselves and what um is needed to ensure the safety um of the children and families in our community. I know for me that is a priority um I would like to ask the schools if we could please have drills or in case ice comes and what would be the I don't you know CPR and then what happen when you do

122CPR every year you do CPR every year and then someone is dying and you don't know what to do so it's exactly the same that I'm asking here let's have drills so these teachers don't just freeze when ice comes. Like they could have it in their memory muscle and kind of manage the situation because if it happens and it comes and we are not prepared, we we we've done all the technical parts and everybody knows and we need and and the teachers have the training through other um staff members because we're not even having trainings for teachers from professionals. But if these are coming from staff members, at least we have drills. I really um want to ask for that. I just want to thank you all for coming. I want you all to know

123that we hear you. We see your emails. We read those emails. We understand what you're asking for. You're asking us to protect our babies. We are here for that and we are doing the best that we can under the restrictions that you're given as well. So just know that you are heard and you can keep pushing. We will keep reading your emails. We will keep listening. But but we are doing everything we can right now and we will continue to do that. Yeah. Um I being at these meetings that I've been to for the past year and a half, two years. Um something that I'm constantly reminded of is like the people in this room and the people in our community, the people sitting alongside of me right now, we all care about the students

124of this school district. We care about our staff, our community, and we all want the same goal to keep people safe. uh there are restrictions and there's things that lead to different happenings, but we're all working towards the same goal. So, just be patient is my thought. And that I have full faith and trust in everyone in this room that we will make a difference that needs to be made. um it's just going to take time and so it's my only piece of we just cut that of course of course but it's just something to be aware of that we're all working towards the same goal I think one thing that I really appreciate you can always think of here um one thing that I really appreciate with the um robust amount of um community

125engagement that we've heard around this issue. Um, I think sometimes there's um what I've sometimes heard referred to as bash on exceptionalism, that certain things can't happen here or that we're all so lucky and everyone's so liberal and all the things. Which isn't to say we aren't also those things that we aren't that we don't take care of each other, that we don't look out for each other, and that we don't um hold um hold each other sort of in our in our hearts and that we that we owe something to each other. I think sometimes though when when like recently there was some sort of gun incident on the island but and a a friend of mine from off island was like you know those things never happen on Bashan. I was like no

126it happens on Bashan. Things happen all the time here. Terrible things happen on Bashan all the time. We're not we're not that special. And and when I hear, you know, when um uh when Evan spoke earlier about the incident at West in West Seattle where I have a colleague who's on the board at the South Widby School Board and they had a incident a couple months ago where ICE was there, surveiled a family on school grounds and then followed them to a laundromat and spooped up an undocumented parent. And um there literally is no reason why that can't happen here. And um I think I I just want to name that I am so appreciative. It's really hard right now to know how to temper your own engagement and titrate your own consumption of the

127horrors that are happening in the world and how we manage that in order to still stay present for our families and still stay present for our community. Because I believe if we actually took in the degree of horrors that are happening right now, we literally would never get out of bed. And so you have to titrate and practice some self-care and some self-management in order to continue and be useful. And I see the ways in which this group of of community activists and citizen activists want to be useful and want to make a difference. And so I just am I hope people are practicing some self-care. Take a break when you need to. drink a lot of water. If you're like me and my mom, you lift a lot of heavy weights at the gym

128and and then you come back in to the fight. And I am so grateful for all of you because the complacency sometimes that is also at play in a community like this sometimes is also kind of um unbelievable. Yep. Because it's gonna I don't know if it's going to happen here and obviously I hope that it doesn't, but there's no reason that I can't. Thank you everybody. And with that, uh, there was a list of commitments tonight. Um, oh, I wrote one down. Are you going to get us a timeline on the building sort of security and locks and what that'll look like? Were there any other commitments that folks made note of tonight? Uh, signage is going to be up by tomorrow. Tomorrow. Anything else? Okay, thanks everybody. Uh, it is 8:51 and I

129call this uh, sorry, 7 I don't know. So I came in before we started.