001if anyone would like to speak um please sign in and I think everybody did oh ABS thank you it is 605 and I am calling the meeting back to order April 25 regular meeting um and we're going to do land acknowledgement thank you we respectfully acknowledge that Vashon Island resides on the ancestral lands of the pp tribe we pay our respects to the P people whose cultural heritage and deep connection to this land have shaped its history and continue to en Rich our community today and we're going to continue with our uh public comments and we have let me guess up and before we start I just want to welcome everybody and thank you for being here thank you for taking the time uh and energy to um come in front of us we appreciate
002it we uh are listening we wna we want you to know that we are listening we may not be able to um engage in a conversation but we are taking notes and we care we we really want to hear what you want want to say um we also want to acknowledge that there's many people on island who would like to be here but they may not be they may not be U comfortable or they don't feel uh they can be speaking in public um or they don't have the language English to speak in front of everybody and that's also a constraint and it's very intimidating but we want to acknowledge that there are out there and um the this configuration is very different it feels like you and us but we really want to mention
003that is really not like that it's you and US are as a team thank you for for understanding that and we need to be here because there are many of you so that's the only that's the only way we can do it um anyone would like to on the board board members would would you like to address the public anyone at this point is just adding the only pie in here is that we're going to want to ask each of you questions we're going to want to engage with each of you in conversation but there is no way we can hear all of the voices here if we do so please don't take our silence um as not as an absence of De deep engagement um because we want to and we want to hear
004um so I just wanted to put that out there thank you okay and let's call okay so um we have two microphones set up right here when I call those who have signed up and uh to the mic I will point to the mic where your where your name is and then I'll point I'll have I'll call the second name so kind of like an on deck and so uh that will help folks you know um so when I call your name you can come up to the first mic and when I call the second person you can come up to the second mic um and when I call the you know so I'll keep the uh hopefully the system will will work I'm not sure it will but uh and then I will have
005a timer here uh that has actually uh 3 minutes on it and um you know once you begin speaking I will hit the start button and it should be loud enough to where you will hear the the chime um I don't know if that's actually true because we haven't you know tested that out right now um and then that's uh if you are if you are still speaking at that time and you hear the chime then that would be a great opportunity just to kind of close uh your comment we are not going to stop you you or or you know kind of cut you off but we want just to be mindful that everyone you know shares a a three minute commitment right now uh to public comment and hopefully that's a natural way
006to to um to create a common expectation for us okay okay so uh we have Kathy Leverett over here please welcome and then we have Kristen you've told me this name for melness yes uh over here please and then actually Aaron Simmons you'll be on deck deck so so we'll start with Kathy thank you for coming tonight oh thank you um do I have to adjust yes let's make sure um um maybe Mr Stanton our director of Technology can make sure that we are live and we just get everything set up mics are ready so just uh move it right in front of your mouth that's the way you're going to be heard best okay and uh speak about two inches away from the microphone it's cool okay all right my name is Kathy Leverett
007I have move I moved up to Vashon four years ago my two grandsons go to chitaka I'm a retired teacher I taught kindergarten fourth grade fifth grade and Alternative High School and so um just kind of randomly somebody asked me if um I feel felt appreciated um being a volunteer at chiaka and I was kind of taken aback by it so I went into the classroom where I normally volunteer and I said to the teacher that this happened and we started talking talking and we thought it would be a nice idea to ask students what they appreciated about chataka so um the people they appreciate Mrs Preston Maria Jose and the interns Mrs Kangas Mrs Fox Mrs Bennett and substitutes um teachers who help me which include the intervention teachers and other students friends friends
008show loving and kindness my friend is my school day um Solutions and problems be part of a solution not part of the problem learning soccer math math groups math groups math groups reading groups PE PE PE PE PE art art art art art um writing and free choice um I feel I appreciate being part of a learning community and being part of student growth throughout the year and I especially feel blessed that I can do that here at chiaka and I appreciate it when I receive so much kindness for my peers and to talk with students I love their smiles and joy when they realize that they can do something that they didn't think that they could do before and oh and if you want any data about what um I collected on the Post-it
009notes it's right here thank you thank you thank you and if people if I could ask the people speak uh a little louder or closer to the mic um that would be great thanks I'd love it Kristen and then Aaron thank you Kristen hold just a second I would love to say it's um some of you may be making remarks that you did not send into the board or the superintendent prior to right now um like you Kathy could you please send your remarks to us you mean my notes or you want me to type out my speech whatever is easiest for you well here this is sort of a br we don't want you to do more work thank you bring it up hello my name is Kristen meles I am a mother of
010two students at chiaka elementary school um I'm here tonight to um to let you all know that and express my great distress upon hearing that re Lisa Radford the student support specialist at chiaka may see a reduction in her hours next year at at chiaka um she will not be able to continue in her position if she does not have enough paid hours each week speak Lisa Radford has made such an enormous difference in my son's life over the past few years she has patiently helped him understand some of his behavioral challenges and has worked with him to learn to make good choices in the school setting she has gone above and beyond to create a deep bond with my son and allow him to continue to thrive in what is sometimes a difficult setting
011for a highly active boy Lisa Radford does not simply show up at work and deal with issues that come into her classroom she proactively creates plans with individual students and believes that each of them can make progress in spite of their impulses and difficulties I have been in her classroom multiple times and marveled at the compassionate yet tough way that she relates to children as they come through her door in fifth grade my son has had a difficult relationship with his classroom teacher he started feeling extremely negative about school and acting up frequently the new admin ation brought many new rules and punishments into the school and Theo got caught up in a negative cycle Lisa Radford stepped in and made it possible for us to keep our son going to school every day her
012positive reinforcement and total belief in his goodness um has made a huge difference to our son Lisa has taught our son incredible lessons about how to persevere through a difficult period in his life I cannot thank her enough and can only advocate for her to be kept on in her current capacity at CES thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you next we'll welcome Aaron and then uh Amy please oh I'm not speaking oh sorry are you right I I will pay better attention to that thanks Amy and then El Johnson would be next at this mic thank you Aaron good evening superintendent mikii and members of the board for the record my name is Aaron in Simmons and I have four children currently enrolled in the Vashon Island School District Two at
013shiaka one at McMurray one at family link to whom much is given much is expected superintendent mshi much responsibility has been given to you and lack of adequate planning and foresight has brought VD to the point where we now face a $1 million plus million doll budget shortfall every time School District budget issues are mentioned in recent years your immediate response is to point the finger at inadequate legislative funding while few would disagree with this it doesn't relieve you of your responsibility to work within the confines you have been given whether you believe you're entitled to more or not and I'm tired of that line I would love more money for my job but I work with what I am paid you need to do the same you need to work with what we have
014it isn't clear to me why you haven't provided alternatives to the staff Cuts you've proposed for the board's consideration while it is clear the impacts the proposed staff Cuts we'll have on our children and families it is not clear how commensurate cuts to administrative and business office staffing would impact the district I believe it is incumbent on on you to provide this analysis to the board for their consideration I would ask like to ask board members to please keep a close eye on family link and student link budgets it is my understanding that the formula previously used to fairly allocate dollars per student is no longer in effect with no reason given as a family link parent I want to strongly point out the safety net that family link and student student link provide to
015students who otherwise would likely leave the district it is a safety net and a much needed alternative education resource for our small island its budget was already cut this year with no indication it will be restored in our four years as part of family link we've observed a slow erosion of District support toward this program and I wanted to highlight this to board members and ask for your advocacy on behalf of family link and student link instead of cutting the McMurray counseling staff by half down to one person to manage the academic and mental health of students I believe we need to see cuts to Administration and the business office in the district instead of cutting library hours at McMurray by half and cutting library hours at shiaka by point2 FTE due to a leave
016of absence request and I'd like to point out that vhs's Librarian Is Not a certified librarian and what does this say about our commitment to literary education and access in our district we need to see cuts to Administration and the business office instead of cutting nurse Brandy greenage from the front lines of our nursing staff we need to see cuts to Administration and the business office I also noted that we have eight director positions it isn't clear what the eight directors do but it is clear they haven't done enough to anticipate the type of budget situation we are in now let's look at cutting directorships before we cut the positions of some of the most needed staff who are the very face of the district to parents like me and who carry out the Vashon
017promise director alannis is suggestion of executive furlows is excellent and I support that move how about cuts to your salary that of Kim Meyer Amy cicer and others only one cut in the current plan affects the B business office of 6 FTE okay superint intendent mhei thank you for forgoing your salary boost that is prudent and an appreciated step forward but it doesn't go far enough the portion of your salary that's earmarked towards retirement should also be stricken from this year's contract there is no place for boosts or bonuses to you or other administrative staff when we are over a million dollar in the red next year thank you thank you next uh we welcome uh El Johnson and then Margie butcher you'll be on deck I am L I am a seventh grader at
018McMurray and I have type 1 diabetes I also have several petitions from both the McMurray school and the elementary school to not cut nurse Brandy so as someone with type 1 diabetes my lows feel weird I get confused and just the other day I got I didn't know what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go while I was low um I called my mom and I had to go sit in the office with nurse Brandy being without an adult in a office while I am in a life-threatening situation would not be good um and I worry about others who are in similar similar situations to me um there are other diabetics and there are other medically fragile people within the school district so cutting Brandy would not be smart I
019also don't think it'd be cut to Smart to cut people like Miss schul who have supported people like me and these last couple years have been rough and I do not know what I would have done without them so I appreciate them deeply and would be very upset if they were cut thank you than thank you El next is Margie and then we'll uh welcome Gavin Watson please my name is Margie Butcher and I teach third grade at shiaka um I really appreciate the hard work you and we all are doing in this tough time of budget cuts I was very glad to hear you're reconsidering some of the cuts so we're not focused on cuts to services and programs for our most vulnerable students there were some discussions at last week's meeting that I
020felt like needed some elaboration from those of us with boots on the ground I don't expect any of you to have the level of detailed knowledge that we have about the programs and the actual impacts on students that's why you have us when decisions are proposed like these it makes me realize we need to help you to better understand some of these programs and the incredible impacts they're making today I had lunch with two eighth graders who reached out to me they were students who really struggled when I had them 5 years ago one talked about how it was only because of her person in walk to read that she is where she is today the other student honestly probably spent more time with Lisa Radford in PB than with me when he was in
021my class 5 years ago both now have the social emotional and academic skills to be thriving at McMurray and next year at VHS in my letter that I wrote I focused on programs not people because that's what we were told to do but I realized I need to name the people it's because of their heart and their talent that these cuts are feeling so terrifying to so many of us cutting back Lisa radford's position in PB is the most scary to me Lisa does not quote unquote support Christina Miller which was said at last week's meeting she supports students Lisa helps students with ex Lisa helps students with extreme Behavior challenges she runs small groups with students at highest risk to build their skills she is the glue in our building we cannot decrease her
022time with students it will be like a house of cards at chiaka and it will follow them as they go to McMurray and they go to VHS without Lisa these students cannot not access the academics and then they make it so the rest of the students cannot access their academics and there will be most more costly effects Downstream my second biggest concern is walk to read Ashley Christopherson and Jen Salsbury are the two CS who share this position they are experts in Reading intervention this proposed combined math reading C position has been brought up several times over the years to multiple people who have all said they rather quit than take this no-win position the idea that one person could be an expert in how to help struggling readers and at the same time be
023an expert in those who struggle in math is just unrealistic our walk to read program is very successful every year we graduate out so many students no longer needing extra support and research shows an elementary years reading competency is the most essential academic area to invest in as it imp imps all others and is most highly correlated with virtually all other school related measures I will try to wrap up quickly Reena brownley and Lance Morgan have been in our walk to read as Paras and they are incredibly talented you might not you might not know but this year our walkt program took a big hit with Paras it didn't come up because it wasn't a riff these Paras were moved part part of their time is move into our ml program because we needed more
024Paras to support our increase MLL needs rather than hiring additional Paras we took them away from walk to read and it hurt our program next year's proposal does more of the same moving resources from tier 2 into MLL it does not show up as a riff but it is a huge negative impact on essential successful program we are all here ready to help those in the front line want to be part of planning as we know firsthand what has the greatest impact and the highest impact on our highest need students thank you we'll welcome Gavin and then Jen Salsbury my name is Gavin Watson and I have a child with a medical disability enrolled in this District uh please reconsider your current plans to significantly reduce the nursing support for the children next year when
025we received the news about our child's medical diagnosis 2 years ago our world was forever changed his medical condition requires constant monitoring and potentially the need for Urgent And Timely medical interventions for the rest of his life while he attends school in this District he relies on the nurse team to be there for him we've been so grateful for the work of the district team and in particular the nursing staff every step of our son's reintroduction to the school was wonderfully supported nurses an Liz and Brandy quickly became not just part of our child's successful return to school but compassionate knowledgeable and skilled members of our son's Extended Medical Care team especially over the last year Brandy greenage has extended herself to understand our son's needs not just to be safe and healthy while at
026school but to thrive emotionally and socially while here too she embodies the best of an educator and a nurse diligently supporting our 504 plan with a watchful eye on our son's censor readings offering him friendly text reminders and encouragement during the day when he needs it and warmly welcoming him into the nurse's office when he needs help never making him feel like a burden or anxious about his condition not a week goes by without Brandy closely coordinating with us and our son to make sure he's able to pursue his education safely we are so glad to know that during the school day Brandy is there for him including being literally just a few minutes away from administering a potentially life-saving intervention if our son needed it and I guess that's just how we expected to
027continue as our child progressed through the middle and high schools you can imagine our distress to hear about plans to reduce nursing staff of the district leaving only one on-site nurse to cover an entire campus as our son starts his high school Journey next year our understanding is that the current plan would have no nurse in the building with him daily with our son's condition we deal with uh situations that if not promptly detected or corrected could involve losing Consciousness and needing to be revived medically if such a situation occurred at the school waiting 15 or 20 minutes for the nurse to arrive from across campus would place these children in grave Danger we understand that the budget shortfalls require very painful and unpopular decisions regarding Staffing and program reductions but health and safety should
028simply be non-negotiable we are after all on an island and urgent medical help is simply too far away nurses are a valuable resource for all Vashon students but they are critical for young people who are living with medical disabilities I get that the budget shortfall is damaging to the educ ational mission of the district I believe in the resiliency of the Vashon School District faculty and staff to persevere through these budget challenges reducing reducing nursing staff however poses a clear and present danger to the most vulnerable young people in your charge thank you thank you we welcome Jen and then Brandy will come to the mic please okay we'll invite Brandy last week I was in complete and utter shock and disbelief as I sat and heard more details about the proposed cuts to shaka's
029tier 2 reading program this week I stand before you ready to advocate for the students and families I serve for an introverted lover of books whose audience is mostly children it takes a lot to get me up here but here I stand strengthened by the solidarity of my peers and community at large for those of you who do not not know me my name is Jennifer Salsbury and I am the tier 2 reading intervention teacher I along with an incredible team serve students in grades K through five who are reading below grade level these students include multilingual Learners students with dyslexia and students who need additional reading instruction for a variety of other reasons think priority Equity groups the proposed plan to cut tier 2 what is now named as CI bu's 6 position undercuts
030Direct Services to kids and should be [Applause] reconsidered Slade presented some of Dr Stephanie Spencer's suggested Staffing at last week's meeting for those doing the work it was our first time hearing this more formulated plan it was hard to receive this information in a public forum but anyway we were told that instead of having a math certificated lead and a reading certificated lead that more duties would be placed on a 1.0 oneperson certificated staff who would effectively be responsible for both interventions subjects this teacher while splitting time teaching these two subjects would be managing 1.8 classified staff 1.0 for reading and point8 for math this model moves the certificated teacher farther away from Direct Services to students as our district puts more instructional responsibility onto our classified staff it is imperative that the cuts of
031both certificated and classified staff be considered together last week we were provided with program reductions of both certified and classified positions we realize that there are more immediate time constraints on the certificated position positions however given the interdependence of classified and certified roles these Cuts should be discussed simultaneously to understand the true impact on student learning it is important for the school board to know that the tier 2 reading program has already undergone cuts to our classified support this year one par educator from the tier 2 reading program was reassigned to provide support through the multilingual program meaning our program has already been cut by one par educator a third of our staff for the coming year the additional Cuts proposed are essentially a gutting of our program the reduction we experien this year resulted
032in fewer qualifying students receiving Services as well as a reduction in the time and intensity of support provided to students the newly proposed Cuts take those losses to the next level if the board approves the point6 cut of Cali bu's my role the remaining 1.0 certificated teacher is now responsible for math in addition to reading effectively reducing the certificated reading specialist position to 0.5 this reduction would mean that our reading Intervention Program will be staffed to provide only half of the support we have had in previous years to spell this out more clearly that's going from a staff of three to 1.5 our team is left wondering how we will do our jobs well we think about our students and what this will mean for them we are Gra with many questions we are seeking
033answers for our students families and staff how will we thoroughly know and meet student needs and report on response to intervention over multiple subjects at a reduced FTE how will we provide classified staff with adequate oversight support and guidance since classified staff will provide more student facing intervention time than certificated staff how will interventions be scheduled to allow for collaborative support while allowing us to teach teach how will classroom teachers be supported with increased needs that they will be required to serve in their classrooms what is the plan to support teachers and families through the dyslexia screening process when tier 2 services will no longer be available and able to shoulder these efforts and to serve many of the students identified how are we holding ourselves accountable to the state and to parents if we're
034not able to support these readers adequately in school it's my hope that these questions will be answered they matter to our students our families and our staff reading is at the heart of learning it's at the heart of what we do thank you thank you Jen great job Randy and then Kareem I'm sorry who was the second person kareim okay all right hello I'm Brandy grenwich sorry I have a loud voice I'll back up I'm Brandy grenage I'm the district nurse currently um I am here to speak about the position being reduced to a 1.0 essentially taking away my full-time position and splitting it between two part-time people um currently we are at 1.6 FTE and the goal is to take away 6 which would essentially take away from me because I'm the um unseasoned
035nurse so to speak on campus we are funded by Washington state by 2.3 but it is not being used completely for us so I don't have an answer for how to fix our budgeting problems but I do know the state is funding us for that and I wanted you guys to be aware of that and that's why I sent you the information that I did it is not safe to have one nurse on campus every Thursday and Friday every Thursday and Friday I risk my license being here to make sure that someone is here for their students I am alone by myself because I only have one part-time nurse that works 3 days a week I would like like to have another one with me so I can have a full-time nurse the entire time
036because we will like Mr Watson said have a student at a separate school where we need a nurse fulltime to be there just in case of emergency he has been witnessed he's witnessed my the emergencies that I've been there to take care of and so has El L I'm proud of you for getting up and speaking because I know that was hard for you I know each and every last one of our fragile students I know most of our medically complex and I am there for every brand new concussion and brand new cut and brand new Burn to learn and tell these kids and explain to them their bodies what is happening and why they can or cannot do things I take the time to do that you're not going to find someone to work
037two days a week who's going to be willing to do what I do and that's not even saying what the district nurse is supposed to be doing that job by itself is a whole another list of things and you cannot ask someone who's here three days a week or two days a week potentially to be responsible for immunizations health plans and staying up on top of creating these health plans they won't know how to do it no one will be there to teach them how to do it because they will never meet up whoever's here 3 days a week won't see the person who's here for two days a week and so we lose continuity of care I am also the head track coach so I also help teach my athletes the importance of being
038on top of it just this past weekend I had a student who went down the count and I watched him because his body was going in the shock and I communicated and talked to his mother until she got there so she could take him to the hospital and he's still sick but had I not been there anything could have happened and that's what where I'm afraid will happen if you get rid of this position there won't be a full-time nurse to be there in case something does happen we've had a couple of close calls we've had calls where I've been in one building and something's going on in the other and I had to make the decision because it was a Thursday or Friday of which one to go to First and that shouldn't be
039but if you go down to one nurse they will be every single day and if you're okay with that you sleep with that but as a nurse you can't I've been in the hospital I've worked in the hospital for 11 years and there are certain things that you don't forget the close calls and the ones that actually don't make it it is not fair to anyone to put that on them put that kind of stress on them and that unsafe thing not to mention that they could lose their license if anything happens and then they can't practice anywhere that's their livelihood so I'm asking you today to please reconsider the funding is there it's being put somewhere else and it's not being given to us so please someone investigate and figure out how we can
040get that money back us because we need it until the students and the safety thank you thank you Brandy thank youy thank you Brandy we'll welcome and then Jill R Schneider to the mic please my wife is the district nurse she is not in the district office she is not in the district office because she is SP filling a slot that someone else is supposed to fail so she's not doing totally her job she's doing a subordinates job I am here to speak on a position in the district office not for my wife I'm working in the district office with these folks here I'm here to speak on behalf of a colleague our office is made up of individuals that wear many hats to make sure the district runs smoothly a reduction in bodies and/
041or hours would have a detrimental impact to the timeliness accuracy and financial loss with regard to payroll accounts payable substitutes federal state county reporting grants Audits and many other areas that support the faculty those roads that would be cut would have to go to someone else because the requirements of those jobs do not go to away so some payroll Duties are handles bank accounts deductions tax information retirement federal state reporting payments and taxes reconciliation payrolls and Reconciliation and payments to payroll vendors I.E scbb and union dues Etc the allocation usage and sharing of Staff leave now the executive assistant to the superintendent his duties are parents Square Communications writing articles highlighting District programs for the beach comr tracks office spending manages district and school building websites works with the direct of teaching and learning to
042order curriculum materials each summer mckin vento liaison which is homeless youth fossil care liaison and a public records officer these are just some of the many hats we all wear in the district office some admin assistant duties substitutes work hours processing monitors employee records per state laws onboarding and background checks of new staff back backup for conference room scheduling accounts receivable deposits from the schools special education and Food Service duties this is one person ensuring individual health plans are on time non-compliance loses funding monthly reports to support claiming for monetary reimbursement processed National School launch program applications that qualify students for free and reduce meals process special education invoices maintain special education employee contracts funded many of these duties were held by multiple bodies in years past multiple bodies they have been Consolidated to one
043position by previous boards in the interest of saving money we're doing the same thing again but you can only go so far that's with all these positions we have to figure out where the money is going because you can only cut so many bodies the work has to get done by people okay that's all I have we welcome Jill and then next up will be Jennifer Ginger thank you I'm Jill rif Schneider been teaching for over 20 years I came to Chaka six years ago um before launching into my budget concerns I would like to note something um I must leave chitaka for personal reasons after this year but I am especially saddened to do so because I leave at a time when I'm working for the best administrative team in my 20 plus year
044career I hope in my absence that the board and Community will fully support Julie Kangas and Karen James and all they do they are [Applause] Stellar okay next um so six years ago I arrived at chiaka and at that time art PE music Spanish Library they were all thriving programs we even had a garden supervisor and a science teacher and I marveled at how cha reflected our community values and then it's been cut cut cut cut cut cut cut and now before those cuts I marveled at how at Chaka 6 years ago there were not enough par Educators to help children who had needs in the classrooms currently parent Educators seem to be programs seem to be pitted against each other the par Educators for the multilingual program and for the tier 2 of treating
045Support Program have been juggled and our reading program now has less and our multilingual program needs them um our multilingual teacher appears to be spread thin working between schools our nursing program is spread thin working between schools um and now I've already already my special education teacher that I work with is part-time my tier 2 spe teacher is part-time those teachers stay after their work hours in order to plan and talk with me about students they support who are in my classroom because my planning time is after their work hours and now we're talking about cutting them more I'll end on Word words spoken by our Slade in an email recently that says the district is facing another year of significant budget constraints that will necessitate difficult decisions and then he adds that those decisions
046those decisions that go much deeper than we've ever done before I'll note at a time when we've never had less he notes in this is in direct conflict with the goals of our strategic plan and what we know is best for kids thank you Jill thank you Jill uh next is Jennifer and then we'll welcome Kenny Alton to the mic please thank you Jill my name is Jennifer Ginger and I am a resident of ason Island School District by children are students at shiaka McMurray I was writing in response to the district cuts for student contact positions was surprised and appalled that cuts that go directly against the mission of Vashon Island School District's promise claiming that every student is known treasured and graduates confident and competent to thrive in a future they imagine how
047can this possibly be true if the proposed plan is to cut from student stents who need it the most and to cut mental health relationships with students that need it the most and to expect more and more from current staff while not providing and respecting the time and money that it takes to make good on this promise the teachers and staff on the front lines are the ones that directly impact our students all of our students if a child is struggling with academic Behavioral or mental health issues these are the children that need the most support I've seen personally the impact that nursing counseling and school support have had on my children and I'm disappointed that the discussion has not focused on our topheavy executive positions as a way to support the district without causing
048harm to our students we will not be able to give our children the education they deserve without these supports in place these positions support us all because they directly allowed our children to be seen and to be cared for so that they can map out a future for themselves The Promise is for all students and when all students feel that they are cared for then they then they can be successful the idea of asking teachers to do more is ridiculous if these cuts are made the classroom teachers will be asked to pick up the slack and that is abhorent as well there is no more bandwidth available for our teachers and asking them to do more puts their own health and the health of their families that risk the idea that the needs of the
049students will go away when the support goes away is ridiculous the idea to leave students in the dust who we promis to treasure is abhorent my own children are worried as they see what they and their friends barely have access to being taken away this is another way there is another way to balance our budgets without taking it directly from our children for these reasons I asked the board to get creative and to look at some ways that just furls or restructuring executive positions so that we can look like a true community that are all valued for the work that is done in the district I returned to the island two years ago after a few years of wait in order for my children to have that kind of childhood and education that vason uniquely
050offers I know there is a deep Care on this board and there is so much knowledge and wisdom and creativity which will result in the outcome that is best for all of our students thank thank you Jennifer next we'll welcome Kenny and then we'll have Leanne thanks Jennifer hi for those of you who don't know me my name is Kenny Alton I uh work at vashan Youth and Family Services as a counselor I uh work for journeyman one Village as a facilitator and run circles at McMurray I've I've run circles at all schools in the past I just want to say before all that and I and I started the orbit music club and the uh Creative Arts Club at orbit I been thank you I've been working with kids since I moved to the
051island six years ago as uh as volunteer and as a paid person before all that I was gifted to uh substitute as a par and a substitute teacher in the school district one of the things I saw is that the teachers are at capacity mentally and emotionally and I I just want to applaud them for doing what they do as a facilitator working with kids I know that what is most most important is the ratio of adults to Children is the most success um and to cut more bodies at uh in this in this school district is just not healthy mentally or emotionally for these kids four out of five of emergency visits now are mental health related um I really think the last thing that needs to be cut is humans and human bodies
052since Miss Lisa was brought into the room when you cut her hours you are not just cutting her you're cutting the multiple roles that she does in the school every one of these teachers these parent educators are not just doing one role they the nurses they are doing multiple roles and they're at capacity you can't cut any any more bodies you can't cut any more humans and if you do cut you're not cutting a position you're cutting a psychological and emotional connection that these teachers these par Educators these nurses are giving to the students on this island of ason thank you thank you Ken thank you Kenny uh welcome Leanne and then Ashley Ashley Smith um hi my name is Leanne mcken I have two students right now at shiaka um when I was talking
053about this yesterday they both really wanted to come and speak tonight I'm going to say a few words and I'm going to let them say in their own words what they feel about this because one's going to be going into sixth grade next year my other one is a second grader currently um first of all I just want to talk about the fact that our students struggle academically you know when you look at the data from 22 23 59% of our students at shiaka are reading below grade level of those 59% not all of them are able to have Services because of lack of Staff of our reading 50% of our students are below grade level again we have two people doing a job one at a 6 the other one at a08 but then
054they're also helping in the lunchroom for one and a half of those hours when I sub in the room almost half of my classroom if I'm subbing in at shiaka goes out for reading for math support I mean more for reading actually and when they come back in like they're they're being reintegrated into their classroom with their classmates having knowledge with them like it it it is important it's very important my oldest did have two years in the reading program and if he hadn't had that he would be detrimentally behind his peers we know foundations matter the foundation of math and reading is very important and I strongly urge that we do not take Direct Services from our students they need those Direct Services lastly I'm going to say my kiddo was really looking forward
055to having his own counselor next year in fact Christina Miller had to already talk to him because he's had to use that Touchstone a lot at shiaka he was excited to walk over and meet her when he heard me talking about it he got pretty distressed at the idea that that wasn't going to be his person anymore mental health matters we need to know that we're supporting our kids so they can academically have success lastly Lisa Radford has come to many room service calls for me in the building of shiaka and she does a phenomenal job of seeing that student and being there for them I'm going to turn oh last but not least sorry Brandy I get nervous talking in public I'm probably red as a tomato which is odd because I'm kind of
056an extrovert but um nurses oh my gosh my wife's anmp um we have a a lot of students in our building that 50 I believe I'm going to get that number right that have life-threatening conditions I would hate on a small island that has very lack of res resources to not have that person be there for those times if my kid were to get hurt on recess so bad that they went unconscious I want an RN knowing exactly what to do next cuz it matters I'm going to turn it over to these two young men SA mcken and [Music] Salinger hi for all the people who don't know my name is sa mcken I am in fifth grade I am completely stressing out here it's only the fact that all of these people you're planning
057to cut are here I'm I don't want them cut I've been to Miss Lisa I'm almost crying it's okay it's okay you guys I'm almost crying never mind it's okay you want to take a break no no okay it's okay you all right say your time we're right here with you sa a deep breath and whatever else you need to say the fact that this could happen is putting me to tears in front of your eyes I've been to the reading groups I've done it without it I'd be in third grade reading literally I'm not kidding the fact that you are thinking about doing this it hurts me right in here I'm moving into middle school next year and I'm worried if I don't have that person I don't know what I'll do at Sho
058we have 500 kids and three people supporting of the fact that one person could have to do 347 children astonishes me that you guys are actually thinking that they could handle that [Applause] I'm I'm here on the side of nurse Brandy cuz I want to know that I have a nurse that knows a lot of fair Medics for if I trash her my phones or break a bone on the playground that I have somebody who can help in the school sorry thank you Salinger thank you so much thank you both so much thank you sa thank you Sal thank you Leanne uh nice job guys we'll welcome Ashley and then right now it looks like uh that's the last person who has signed up for this uh public comment we do have a second public
059comment at the end of the meeting um thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is Ashley Smith and I'm a fifth grade teacher at shiaka um it's my 11th year teaching but my third here um I'm writing to the board for two reasons um first I just wanted to highlight the wonderful leadership and the positive changes that have come about since Julie Kangas and Karen James have come become our administrators they've implemented numerous new systems and structures across the building that have made teaching and learning in our building more effective safe and positive Julie and Karen are clear and consistent in their communication with staff students and parents they share their positive energy and also follow through with their commitments to students and staff for example Julie began a fifth grade
060student leadership team that meets regularly and performs tasks such as organizing spirit week and putting on a school spirit assembly under her guidance she helps students and Staff feel safe during emergency protocol drills with clear directions over the PA when we practice and give students and staff the proper training and time to prepare for PR to to prepare for practice drills this has not always been the case before our fire drills used to be loud and unsafe and are now silent for for safety which helps students and Staff feel more prepared and calm additionally Karen leads our students in being empathetic towards their peers and being more accountable with their words and actions she consistently checks in with my class and specific students to praise positive behaviors and address behaviors that need support in following
061class and school expectations students have reported to me uh that they feel more supported and heard this year and also feel happier at school because they know they are adults in the building that care and will help them when there's a problem both Julie and Karen are responsive to parents their team players they have an open door policy uh they hold high expectations for our staff and students and also provide positive feedback and appropriate support to meet or exceed the expectations I've worked in three different schools and districts in my career and I'm very grateful for their knowledge expertise and hard work um in addition to praising our amazing leadership team my second reason for writing is with concerns about proposed budget cuts to Personnel especially at CES having staff filled the positions of nurse
062MTH support counseling andal are integral to the well-being of all students even those who do not always receive the Direct Services these positions ensure that all students can access their learning and have their needs met whether it's physical social emotional behavioral we need these staff members Karen James Brandy greenich Lisa Radford Cali buuse our reading support um so many uh to support students with varying needs which in turn supports our entire student body um this year alone I had a student with severe life-threatening medical needs that required the nurse to interact with my student and myself three or more times daily I'm not a trained Medical Professional and could not have done this without you I can't um I just it's scary it's super scary uh for me to even imagine what that would have
063looked like um I lost my spot dang I know I have three minutes so I'm hurrying um anyways I would feel for my safety of my student their family myself I also have had many students needing social emotional support daily multiple times per day from Karen and Lisa um I can't do my job without them um and I can't do my job for these students or my class uh and without their daily support the math support my students received this year from Cali and Mandy Davis has been so wonderful and I can't imagine how you guys will share in that load with reading support and spreading it across a varying degree of people um and sorry I lost my spot again um it enabled them to get more targeted support which also allowed me to
064give support to the people that remained in my classroom um to draw a comparison um and I'm almost done uh run uh a car sorry to draw a comparison a car runs effectively and efficiently on four wheels if one wheel is flat or a triangle shape it might move if push really hard but it can't really run effectively if the car has only two to three wheels it won't move or it might just scrape by at a snail's pace our school needs all four wheels on the proverbial bus to run effectively and smoothly and I'm worried that without all of these staff members I can't really do my job well or to the level I feel is necessary to give my students what they deserve especially if class sizes increase I recognize the cuts are
065not um a like you don't want you don't want to be doing them and they're forcing our district to make hard decisions and it's not what you would do if the money was not an issue but I also think it's important that you understand the difficult position and deficit we're putting our staff students and families in if we continue to take away Services we absolutely need to effectiv effectively teach and support everyone thank you [Music] for thank you Ashley thank thank you everybody for coming forward especially the students savier I'm sorry about the name s and sa Sav and sa and L thank you so much because it's very um and let's continue it's hard to just pass from these um presentations to what's next in the in the agenda but we have to we
066must and we appreciate that you're here thank you Lucia yes May can I ask again please if you have not emailed your comments to us please do cuz it's a lot of information and we'd love to be able to refer back to them I think I can speak for all of us so please please do yes thank you okay and we are going to do superintendent um yeah report right exactly so uh once again yes thank you everybody for sharing your your your comments with us tonight and uh please keep sending any information to the the rest of us uh as we are moving through this um period of taking in information and trying to make decisions that we know are impacting each and every every one of you and and our kids out there
067so we appreciate the feedback uh we can't make the best decisions without that feedback and so it is critical we get it um in my superintendent report we we were going to be welcoming uh uh Stephanie blomgren from Bashon uh Center for the Arts who does our vashion arts in schools program and she'll be joining us in May in instead of this evening so uh if you're interested in that program if you uh don't already know how wonderful program that is from from VCA and how and the services that Stephanie provides and how she supports our teachers then come uh to our May 23rd meeting um I have just uh upcoming events and then uh and then some recognition uh May 8th uh I've invited the board to join me the Washington state fairies is
068hosting um an open house and providing information around what the font looy terminal uh construction is going to be uh what that's going to look like and what the impacts are going to be for our district so I hope to learn more for that I'd encourage any of our students to attend it's a virtual um there's an evening one I'm attending the 12 to 21 but I'll send you a link okay great and then we have a May 9th board meeting that's going to be a special meeting uh we'll notice that meeting on on Monday hopefully and then we have May 23rd which is a a regular board meeting I do want to mention it's not uh that early too early to mention graduation uh the graduation uh date this year is June 15th that's
069a Saturday and um we started a tradition four years ago during the pandemic with the parade and we'll be doing that from 12:00 to 1 and then uh 5 to 7 is the ceremony and so uh it is one of the largest if not the largest event on the island and and we hope to see as many people out there and it's not time for that yet okay you still have some weeks to go still have some weeks to go and then uh many of you may not know uh who our videographer is who does our uh video uh production for for our board meetings but I thought since we're in this since we have more people here this evening uh it might be a good time to recognize uh ivy in the back there
070who uh is our videographer she's reliable and um you know easy to get along with and I love showing up and not worrying about that part of our program and so thank you Ivy if you don't know she participates in many other sports great wrestler I believe you're playing softball now y absolutely came straight from practice so uh many talents uh there thank you Ivy then I'll turn it over to uh back to Lucia thank you um let's continue with the student board representative remarks and I don't know who would like to start but here they are make sure make sure you bring your mic right down to where your mouth is so every meeting I have been to I have heard the phrase put the students first and I'm asking you guys to hear
071what like this is how to put the students first all righty I'm a very emotional person so bear with me um hello my name is cor Murphy I'm a junior at VHS um normally we use this time to share what's new within our School socially and recent within recent events although we will get to that later we would like to take this opportunity to share what the students have to say about the recent proposed budget cuts We Believe As a student rep that is important to talk about the majority so we conducted a stud a cookie for your thoughts during lunch today we sent out a schoolwide email to hear from all different groups to hear from all different groups and get different responses we got 144 responses regarding their experiences with 152 152 as
072of right now uh regarding electives counselors mental and physical health we ask questions regarding electives and the importance of them within our school district students reported that their favorite electives as of anything from Walk and Run for Fitness art Ceramics and the more rigorous classes that are offered such as AP and AP chem AP Gov and AP Statistics the seemingly more sporadic sporadic data rather than showing us that the classes that we can easily cut instead shows us the diverse and interests of our students taking classes not only for fun but into but also to improve their mental health we want to support their Futures and help allow them to get into colleges and take AP classes with only two negative responses out of 52 what is that 150 positive responses sented around students feeling
073calmer because of the electives taking in the period considered as a break from the other strenuous and school core classes we understand that we are three high school students sitting in front of you um but today we want to mention the fact that we have all gone through the middle SCH school system and we have and so have many of our peers and our high schoolers today we asked our high school peers what their experience with middle school counselors was were and how often they used them the data is exactly what you would expect from a diverse group of students some need the support and others not as much but many of the students found a need for the counselors this data did not state that all students us utilized the counselors all day every
074day but the that is an unrealistic idea instead those students who needed had the opportunity and cutting and limiting the counselors would remove that middle school is a crucial time for students and emotional developing but developing development coping with social and familial issues if not properly dealt with that could impact them not only for the rest of their education but also their lives as the student body is speaking up we believe that the reductions create an unsafe environment for my peers and I before I am done and hand it over to my friend Hazel I would like to mention the fact that I'm a part of the track team and I'm grateful to not only know nurse and Coach Brandy but I've seen in action on numerous occasions when nurse Brandy has been there for
075not only my friends teammates and peers I could not be more grateful I beg you to reconsider okay we're not handing it over to Hazel I'm going to go first um so before I talk about budget stuff I do have to do current events as I always do so we had a cookie for your thought which went amazing we had 152 responses that's more than we've ever gotten more than more and I got last year um I went around to almost every lunch table and just started yapping to all the kids and it was it was amazing I immed imely got responses I immediately got people jumping out of their seats wanting to write wanting to tell uh the board what they thought and wanting to share their stories um cor and Hazel they ran
076their first meeting today they really wanted to do a cookie for your thought and I had ASB stuff to do and they took the reins and got everyone together and managed to pull together a cookie for your thought in what 2 hours yeah 2 hours or something Oreos were on Deck there were signs there were QR codes printed out they had everything perfect we learn from the best you guys are incredible yeah and then I I think they have typed out beautiful things I have not typed out beautiful things um but I want to thank the students that came and shared I think that's one of the most impactful things you can do as a student is share your story um I also just I kept hearing the comment of that's going to make me
077cry the like having this is just a cryfest everyone this is just that's okay um like H having your person at a school okay don't laugh okay having your personal school is so important it's it's what got me through Middle School stop doing that there we go having a li a librarian having a counselor someone you can just go to you can talk about anything you can I know I use that counselor quite a bit my dad can attest um and then the librarian I moved here in seventh grade I didn't know anyone I showed up and I heard about this showcase you could do in the library where you could bring in a collection you had and you could just show it off to everyone and I was like oh boy do I have
078a collection and I brought in all sorts of old knickknacks I had gotten at thrift stores I had gotten with my grandma I had all this cool stuff and Miss jaffy was so excited for me and she she welcomed me and she was like you should totally show this and she was my first step into uh joining the Middle School community and I got i' made some friends from it I had some people ask me about my stuff I just it's just super important yeah I think that's it you ready yeah okay this is what happens when you have girls do this um no it's not hold on a second dad's crying my that's trying too it's fine we're new let give us a break please I just want to start by saying that we
079have 60 lifethreatening cases at our school district right now 33 of them are at our high school loan by reducing the Ft we're not just by reducing jobs we are gambling the student safety I don't know if I'm making trou this um as you know right now we are reducing the staff um the nursing staffing by 6 but may some of you may not know but we're redu we're getting rid of our District staff alone and District nurse Alone by reducing Brandy Green's job to two days a week we are getting rid of her entire job because by staying is a risk to her license and her entire career as cor mentioned we've talked to over 5 150 students today at the high school and we SP we spoke to him about these reductions especially
080nursing one this ma raised many questions and concerns one question on our survey list was how have you or someone that you know had a medical emergency at C McMurray or Bashan 83.4 of the students picked yes or I'm not sure for me these numbers scare me not just as a student but someone who has seen multiple classmates have major health complications in Halls without nurs is in the school I saw a girl who had been my friend since fourth grade pass out in the Halls right next to me and this time we did not have a nurse in the building and I had to wait next to her for 20 minutes till Brandy could get here I didn't know what what had happened or if she would ever be okay what would have happened
081if this was a lifethreatening case and what would happened if there was no nurses there it scares me that Elementary School students could witness the same thing that I have had and other kids that I know have had but they don't have the coping skills to deal with watching their friends helpless for that time or longer if we cut the point6 we have been given 2.3 FTE from State and for nursing and only 0.1 are put towards nursing These funds are being placed with psych and social workers not that these are not important but why would we stretch our nursing and risk our student safety when we have the money to keep them safe [Applause] thank you K so um Nora and Cora I would just like to say thank you all for coming out
082tonight we greatly appreciate everything you have to say and we would we we're excited to move forward with this I also want to point out the students that aren't able to come today because of sports but we also have the a portion of the track team here today to support Brandy and other students showed out throughout this and had to leave but every student that we talked to was nervous about their peers with this cut on nursing and just the all the cuts in general thank you for speaking up thank you for not just speaking but all the work and your emotions cuz we're not just listening but we we're feeling you thank you okay we're going to continue with our board remarks and um maybe I'll start at the end of the table would
083you every week or anyone else would like to start fine I'll start um I I have a lot to say and I and I and I'm going to try to Pace myself throughout the evening um I wrote a letter to Slade and the board and and Amy earlier this week um just to make clear where I stand on some of the cuts that were proposed last week and I and and I think there are some folks in the room who think that we have been working that we as a board worked to develop this proposal so that's not how that works um it's made very clear to us as board members uh by the state and by law that we are the the uh what and the administration is the how so we can say
084we would like our campuses to be more beautiful aesthetically pleasing and then they would decide should we build a marble statue or should we plant some tulip oops that's on them so there's only so much we can do um I want to read some of this letter that I sent um maybe all of it I don't know we'll find out sped team turnover Special Education team turnover in some in some cases two or three times in as many years is a powerful indicator of the perception by that team of a lack of confidence in and support for the program exit interviews indicate this and in the recent budget priorities survey the results from nearly every constituent group could not have been more clear that we need more support for students on the margins students with
085mental health challenges physical health challenges language barriers learning disabilities or any other kind of support support which in many cases is federally mandated and [Applause] protected the district's identification of equity priority groups and the Strategic plan developed by this Administration demand that we increase support and funding to counselors Paris tier 2 why would we even consider these cutting or reducing these essential fundamentally vital roles in our Public Schools public schools are for every child whether they need services or not to leave these programs program areas funded at their current level would be underserving these populations and reason to be disappointed in our Collective efforts to cut them with a [Music] machete is an outrageous insult not just to the staff that work tirelessly every day with the most challenging and challenged students whose needs are
086highest but even more so to those students we are already graduating students For Whom The vashan Promise has not been kept and some just leave the district why would we exacerbate the problem with cuts to the staff most qualified and trained to retain and support our most vulnerable students I will not be I wrote this a little harshly take it with a grain of salt I will not be party to the willful neglect of our children by voting for any riff recommendations that include these categories you the administration must present us a plan for addressing the project for Budget shortfalls that doesn't include cuts to counseling pair of Professionals in any assignment tier 2 staff PBIS nursing or any other student support service I can only speak for myself but if we're presented if I
087am presented if we are presented with those categories cuts to those roles I will vote no um the only other thing I wanted to add to that is um like I said there's more stuff that we'll kind of be we're going to Pace ourselves um my husband worked as a nurse in the district many years ago uh as a side job you know because he was working full-time somewhere else why not come in to the district a couple days a week um and he's a pediatric nurse working at Seattle Children's now so I know firsthand uh how incredibly important that single person is to so many students um in just the year and a half or so that he worked here uh he developed really uh deep relationships with some of those students uh so
088I you know that's that's maybe something that's not well known so that's it thank you so for being here straight thank you um yeah R um it's a lot um to take in first and foremost um I want to thank each of you who are here um each of you who've spoken each of you who have written um who've shared your Insight EXP experience and expertise in order for us to make informed decisions moving forward um I also want to thank those of you who've extended Support over the past few weeks to those of you on the front lines with our children um and the people reverberating um in response to the proposed cuts the situation creates understandable distress within the community and within our larger Community um there questions that have been raised about
089people's jobs livelihoods individuals who've brought their expertise insight and commitment to powerfully shaping the lives of our children um these individuals are being asked to walk through this moment of uncertainty with us and I cannot adequately express my sorrow that we're navigating this moment and in doing so we are potentially undercutting the very Educators who have made this District what it is as a member of the do board it is my job to do the research and the work to inform our steps forward that said your advocacy and expertise provide the core informing my questions and my decisions um as it should as some of you asserted and I fully agree um we must make these decisions as a community and as a collective and while we must make decisions in the immedi for this
090coming year I do not want to see us on our heels again I do not want to see us reacting to budgets from the state we are sadly in a predictable moment we must not only address funding for the coming year but we we must also simultaneously reimagine fiscal sustainability for our Public Schools we must proactively move forward to carve a very different path I want to acknowledge the emotions potentially present in this room anger frustration sadness outrage and more I do not want our community facing this situation given that we are facing this I'm glad you're angry you should be as a community and I want to say as a country we've watch watch our Public School Systems being under under assault and undercut honestly since the 1950s um when the Brown versus Board
091education um sought to in racially integrate our schools and the launching of private schools took off um in the wake of that decision private schools began to proliferate white flight was the dominant Catalyst for the Divide between public and private We are continuing to navigate today the history is complicated and complex I cannot do it justice here nor is this the time to um but in short I want to acknowledge the drain and funding that's been going on for decades accelerating decade by decade in my opinion one cannot look at political cultural economic and racial divides in this country and think that next year our funding model will be radically different we've been cutting and cutting and we are down to the bone our children deserve better from us that means a great many things
092the one piece I will highlight here is tied to the communities that have taken it into their hands um I'm talking about outside this District other districts to create endowments budget relieving Endeavors to proactively provide a base of financial stability and while I find this need deeply problematic that districts should be in that position I also find it necessary I hope that those of you here will stay engaged and will bring your Insight commitment and expertise into proactively addressing the deficits in our funding model so that we as a community extend that which our children families and Educators deserve as to the current moment I want to address just a few threads and there's no way to tically address all of them there's not anywhere poised to absorb the cuts without impact and we're struggling
093with how to make those decisions people have spoken eloquently and passionately about the effects of counseling mental health tier 2 nursing um and I want to agree the access to those Services provides the core and the foundation for our students um access to reading and math provides students with the ability to progress without that support we have students um without that support we have students unable to access other academic subjects um we have students becoming disenfranchised from learning we have understandable behavioral concerns coming out when when they cannot access the materials before them and we are as has already been established we are already serving fewer students then who qualify for those um for those supports it also as we said last year students who are not at grade level in the third grade it's
094an indicator they're six times more likely to drop out of high school um we have to provide that support um with the nursing and the counseling we're talking about foundational support the one piece I guess I would like to add here gu two pieces is that these are clearly equity and access issues um the piece I would like to ask is that those of you who have been here advocating for positions for programs for individuals for the services our students need I would also ask that you bring your Insight expertise and creativity in terms of your ideas moving forward and moving through this um yes it's on us to make those decisions but I would really appreciate you informing some of what those steps should be so that we move forward in the best way
095that we can and that we also simultaneously don't continue to find ourselves in this [Applause] situation I did not prepare any statement for tonight and I told my husband before I came that I would not cry so I'm not crying I have seen this kind of cycle since 1983 I have felt the same kind of professional pain and watched services that were absolutely necessary disappear to come back in some magical way when the legislature somehow quits doing what it does and I hate it and you guys hate it and you have every right to hate it I pledge that once this short this what we have to do is done we as a board are going to do our level best to figure out how to dig out of this mess and I am not
096sure I don't want to promise anything I want to be just really honest in a state that does not adequately fund education and for a community that honors it as much as you folks do and for a staff throughout every level and I've talked to as many people as I can I am deeply grateful that you care and I'm deeply grateful that you're here and we will do the best we can and I hope it's enough that's all I can say [Applause] Jun thanks um thanks Martha um I believe that we owe each other something that we belong to each other and I think that the way forward to somehow come to a sane sustainable solution may require Sacrifice from many sides I'm in I'm interested in understanding how we got here how we come
097up with near-term solution that everyone can live with or sort of live with and also as I have said before how we can reimagine perhaps radically a new way forward I also specifically want to take one moment to lift up a teacher I have not heard anyone fight for and that is one of our our language art teachers at the high school Christina Ramirez she is a young teacher she has not been here long enough to be shielded from these cuts her seniority does not offer her the grace of being shielded it is because I've had the Good Fortune to work with her on the planning committee for the black lives matter week of action in schools I know that she is insightful smart and dedicated along with anaisa May a former teacher in this
098District they imagined and executed a powerful day of learning for our students last year she is also the faculty adviser for the trans affinity group and the qsa the queer Spectrum Alliance did I get that right thanks Nico has to remind me all the time what that stands for she may not have any seniority she can't bump anybody in order to keep her job but I believe she keeps a very real and important group of our students feeling safe and seen we were very lucky to have a couple of her students come and present to us at the board recently and the confidence and Clarity with which these young people spoke is probably mostly just who they are but also because of the support and solidarity they find with Mr MZ she offers her own
099relevant experience with which she leads this is just one of the examples of teachers that have made a difference for someone in one of these buildings these are the kind of teach teachers I want to surround my children people with unique voices people who make them feel safe and seen and people who deliver on the Vashon promise every day my family and I are lucky enough to have many people chosen family friends biological family in the constellation of genders known and unknown and our lives are richer and more interesting and more beautiful because of it all of these vulnerable and challenged kids that the these parents UST to our care in this District deserve to be seen and celebrated in every corner of this District we have to try harder we have to do better
100by them we cannot keep using the Vashon promise or the Strategic plan as a badge of honor when we are not actually willing to walk the talk in this District this current collection of cuts is in direct violation with who we say we are and what we say our children deserve I look forward to seeing an overwhelming overhaul of these suggested Cuts as it stands I cannot support these recommendations thank you and Nora wants to I want to add on to what you have to say um while I was in a weird place when I was in M Ramirez's class and I was a challengeing class she is so many people's person in that school and she is so important to so many of my friends and I think it would be I think there
101would be a puzzle piece missing without her at our school are you Miss Ramirez yes cry yes she said the one that's crying thank you nice to meet you thank you everyone um again it's very hard to follow what my four fellow members have said I support every word you say I just want you to know um and I also I said before that I'm um um advocate for teachers but first of all I'm advocate for children and I will not support um reductions especially people who face kids every day being a teacher and being on the ground in the classroom um is is very very different and is the administration can only imagine what happens in the classrooms but teachers know teachers know exactly what happened in the classroom so I support um or
102the letters and I want to mention I um I wrote the names of everyone who wrote a letter and it's going to be long but this is the support with we've got there are 882 letters we we've received letters and I'm just going to say the names because I don't have permission from everyone maybe not everyone's to be You Know spoken by but um Anna Sarah Margie terara Su Cara Sue Michael Trisha Cole krie Jordan K Michelle Adriana Kaylee Addie Barrett Seline Gavin Chelsea and gos Angela Morgan Kelly Tyler Woody Abby Allison and that's just one page stay with me Jennifer Kim Jessica Beth Janet Emily Elizabeth Clan School Jessica Nicole uh Melanie Lisa Elizabeth Wendy nin Maria Kelly Julie Cara Heidi Jennifer Stephanie Brandy Brook Kendall Leila Ashley Megan Alexa Jill Jeremy Delina Jasmine
103Lena Sarah Amy Matt Carrie Annie lar Rosemary Nancy Brook Leanne Molly Heather Morgan and those are the people who wrote to us it's amazing the the letters that we received I've never seen in the very short time that I've been here I never seen the support and all these letters uh and I just want to appreciate everybody taking the time and the teachers telling us what happens in your classrooms how you've been helped how these changes or Cuts affect the children cuz at the end we're here for the children so thank you thank [Applause] you um and let's continue with our agenda uh right now it's are we going to do so they can leave in the on the boat we're okay 83 okay so we're going to continue with the equ equity policy 3212
104and it's a report from Slade and Stephanie do you have a microphone now you do great so uh I'll kick us off and then Stephanie can join in um I want to make sure that the board members know that in your packet I have the paper copy here uh so that you can either look at it online or you can look at the paper copy in front of you same thing students I put uh most of the documents in this evening's board agenda in this uh folder for you awesome yeah so right now we're looking at this document right here oh not those two and so um two years ago in 2022 we came together as a board and uh some community members joined us to revise policy 3212 which is our Equity policy ensuring
105educ a on racial Equity thanks Jody and so um if you read down to go one more page Jody probably not that far uh well I'm going to just going to read it talks about the the board and the the district and the superintendent will be reviewing the the policy 3212 by annual and it says that we're responsible for providing quarterly reports um with the document now you can change to this document so um at that time the board did not uh create a procedure or create direction or oper operationalize the equity policy uh and so Stephanie and I U met last week and we um disaggregated all the the language in the equity policy and under the topics of climate and culture leadership teaching and learning and family and student student and Community collaboration
106we reflected back upon the year and uh and years passed as well and how we've been reporting out on these uh on these policy expectations during the year and so some sample uh actions and reports when implementing our policy during the year is uh I'll I'll say a few of them and then um I'll let Stephanie join in some of the conversation so during the year at the beginning of the year we provide Equity reports in our school Improvement planning uh work sessions with the board um we look at PRI program priority during our annual work sessions uh in terms of the program uh directors and that's Food Services maintenance and supplies business every um every uh director in our in our organization provides a program priority Ann uh a set of program priorities that
107are related also to racial Equity um in in years past the board priorities have also been focused on uh our racial Equity policy um as well as Amy's annual Human Resources annual report we have state assessment annual report where we disaggregate our data according to uh Equity priority groups and we also have as we saw or heard in our board comments um we have a a black lives matter report uh every year and planning and thank you Christina for that and that that ongoing work we have uh strategic planning road map annual planning and our family engagement coordinator has provided an annual report uh during the year this board hasn't been uh hasn't been on long enough to to hear that report um so throughout the year we've been reporting on our our our Equity
108policy um somewhat unintentionally and so I want to recognize that when we give these reports we are not actually referencing policy 3212 and um I think of as right now that it it has become part of our kind of our not really our lens the racial Equity uh planning committee talked about racial uh Equity lasic and so but we want to um in terms of be more intentional around calling it out that is an area of growth for us um but um what are your impressions about when we came together and then we'll we'll go through each of these and and share where we where we would rate self what we selfelf self assess ourselves right now self assess ourselves I I thought you were giving me the areas of growth I thought you were
109leaving that I can give you that too um so well one of the opportunities to sit down and reflect was to realize um where we began in all of our work initially like 2015 2016 somewhere in there um when the board sat down to revise the policy it was kind of surprising how outdated the policy had become just in terms of language and where we were so it was exciting to get to do the overhaul um I think what we noticed when we were going through this because of the strategic planning being able to go through strategic planning with the entire community and with racial Equity at the Forefront of that um strategic plan everything is falling into alignment and so when we do give reports as one thing I reflected um with slate is
110that it seems like we can do a better job of calling it out or pointing back to the policy just to to help um illustrate in the moment where it is but as he mentioned all of these um different reports that we do for the board or even in school Improvement teams um All Connect back to this policy I don't think I have anything else to say about that you want to share where we saw our um opportunities sure um so it's kind of hard to see for the folks who are are viewing this on the screen it's kind of hard to see for all but the second one down we felt like most we had most items in place we did Identify some areas for growth those are the bullet points at the bottom
111maybe J you can scroll to the second page please thank you so much um so the first one was the board and the superintendent will model and engage others in critical and continuous self-reflection that self-reflection piece um for the board and and um for the superintendent are really critical um slate has kind of a regular cycle for seeking feedback but we haven't really ever grown that fully as um a whole board operation so that's definitely an area for growth to figure out how um we're going to be in a cycle of continuous self-reflection um superintendent design will propose to the board for approval allocating resources to meet the needs of students with attention paid to those identified within our Equity priority student groups um do all of you know what those Equity priority student groups
112are you feel pretty confident and what they are it's like a pop quiz yes it is pop quiz no I I know we could all name one uh MLL multilanguage Learners um special Aid special ed students with an IP uh anyone else want to add believe loow income students students from low-income homes foster care kids that would be it's not specifically called out in the plan I know but they they should be so so basically a racial and ethnic uh groupings so students of color is one of the areas are students from pre and um reduced qualification food program and our special education or students with disabilities although not specifically in the data of the Strategic plan we also would include students with 504s and that um and then our U multilingual Learners those those
113are the specific Stephanie do we also I know that I in some of the plans we also list the homeless students we have is this considered part of that policy or well yeah in educational Equity it's certainly any student student with a need or a disadvantage is certainly going to be part of that group they would likely qualify under the lowincome category but it's certainly a group that we track and monitor I can't recall off the top of my head so I'm going to ask you do we include [Music] um uh queer the queer Spectrum voices from gender diverse students um I better stay over here cuz I'm getting feedback um voices from gender diverse students were um collected and analyzed and all of that but we don't have a way of tracking consistently on
114any sort of metric because that's not something we collect right it's not something that's not in the system but when you do surveys students can self-identify and um as I've mentioned before and I don't know if I've given a report to all of this new board or not but a lot of times it's interesting when you get your survey data because it doesn't necessarily match the demographics of our district because students will identify how they're going to identify and what's in the system is what their parents when they enrolled um identified them as so for example um where you might see this is a lot of times a student um in our data system is identified as two or more races but the student themselves will identify as black or indigenous or some other category
115same thing with latino population which is very diverse um so depending on how the students see themselves it doesn't always align with our data that's actually in our student information system makes a lot of sense thank you Stephany M any other questions about that okay and then there was just the the other area and it's timely right because this is the struggle is like how do you make that work um we have a commitment to try and align resources and all of that how do you make it work um and then building administrative staff will proactively Coach and work collaboratively with teachers to ensure supplemental instructional materials are culturally inclusive um we give a lot of freedom and license to our instructional staff when they pick supplemental materials and rightly so but we're hoping that
116um they engage with and our administrative team helps if there's the potential for controversy and they maybe haven't thought of it sometimes things um might not seem controversial to one but actually they haven't fully thought it out so trying to and have that partnership um to avoid any potential um not to squash it but to kind of plan and think about how you might engage with families um if you're going to be covering any sort of controversial topic or anything that might be triggering for students so those were the areas that we thought that we could focus on um to maybe move everything to at least the mostly in place and then we'll continue to um work on getting things fully in place um and uh do a better job of referencing back to the
117policy I think when we present we'll be helpful to keep it in front of us and then help you um to decide what kinds of tweaks and um updates you need to make um if you're going to do any each twoyear cycle I guess it is exactly yeah anything else questions from the board right now no thank you no students anyone yeah and Hazel was involved in strategic planning I can't remember no not you two Hazel was in strategic planning good job Hazel way to represent thank you Dr Spencer thank you Stephanie thank you I mean I'm sorry Dr Spencer I should be more um and we're going to continue with the budget status report report by Kim thank you for being here so late Kim I we know you have to take a a
118boat just microphone challenged uh I've in your packets you'll find the budget status reports for each of our funds um there is a cash basis report and a fund balance report I'm not going to spend much time because we went over this a couple weeks ago and um if you have any questions you can surely let me know um but essentially it speaks to our revenues and our expenditures and our bottom line and uh I sent an email to all of you this week and so we'll be meeting probably in June to um put together a new board report that um meets everyone's needs has any uh board members responded to the email yet uh Martha has Martha has thank you Martha yeah Martha did and and essentially what she said is that we we
119would like to decide Among Us who wants to step up to that so we don't want to jump in and volunteer yet yeah and we have a a little time because we're kind of finishing an audit so M yep and then um would uh just update for next week you know what what we have a plan for y so um I think this is what you're you're mentioning about but uh we have a change to our budget calendar um we will no longer be doing our first read on May 23rd we'll be doing our first read on June 27th and uh we'll be adopting at the July 25th board meeting okay um cim could you just repeat that please sure thanks um so we were originally going to have our first read on May 23rd
120that's no longer going to happen um our first read will be June 27th board meeting and um our adoption will be July 25th uh in between the June and July board meeting our budget will go to the ESD for approval and then if they have any questions or suggestions for changes they're not really suggestions we have to follow what they tell us and um but we will then we they will approve our budget and it will be ready to approve in July okay any questions time frame I mean that's a that's a that's really far away right uh are there something on the budget timeline um the budget calendar I don't know if any anybody out there has looked at this but um I'm imagining that it's not prepared which is why it hasn't shown
121up but but back on March 28th we were supposed to see a fund balance projection um like an endof year fund balance projection for each fund um which would at least give us a a heads up as to where this um I think they'll go hand inand right the the the proposed budget for next year and then the fund balance projections for end of year this fiscal year um and I'm wondering if when when we may be able to expect to see those we're kind of pushing everything out AR we a little bit right so you know currently with what the we're experiencing in this budget planning process the further we push that out the further that information is going to be extended as well and so um I don't know we can get back
122to the board on that okay that'd be great yeah any questions anybody has if that's if it's on your mind uh shoot them to us early and then we can come to the meeting prepared to answer them or if it's just coming up then we'll we'll get that dated for you later well the this news of the of the draft budget not coming until June is a surprise for us so right it's a so uh we had a recommendation from the ESD uh because uh of the uh how they're working with us right now we would rather have um a period of time where the ESD can review the budget uh before the board does a final hearing is any changes that they that they uh that they recommend they're actually not recommended they're mandated
123changes and so rather than do a budget revision um we we want them to be able to get their eyes on it before a final uh hearing for the board so um also just because of the deliberation time between uh now and the 23rd uh we felt there was more that the budget planning process needed more time for us to develop solutions that uh you've directed us to provide that makes sense great um thank you yep any other questions okay let's continue yeah thank you Kim thank you Kim um I I don't have a question but I do uh there was there wasn't a board status like a uh a board report to we have all of the Skyward reports which is thank you so much I asked for that and I appreciate that that
124was included um but there wasn't a board budget status report that was prepared for us so uh I've said it before I'm a nerd um so I you know have a little formulas that I've developed it's unclear um what the exact formulas should be in calculating what our general unreserved fund balance percentage is um and we're going back and forth and I think that's part of why we're going to be building a new uh report together so we all have what we need and we're all on the same page about it based on the March data that is the unreserved fund balance uh of 566,000 a little bit more uh it would be our fund balance would be at 2.02% that's correct so I just want to say that out loud because the budget status
125report the board budget status report was not included in the board packet this this time around so I wanted to say that out loud thank you thank you Casey okay let's continue with our discussion and we have Dr makii yeah so uh budget rtion plan right so I'm going to uh provide for the board tonight um four to five updates I'm going to go through them and i' invite the board to uh ask questions um some of the information I've uh shown earlier but I do want to um Jody if you could go just to scroll down uh and just show the documents actually don't pull up any documents right now but just show the documents and so uh for the public and for the board we developed a budget reduction doc exhibit a and
126a budget reduction doc exhibit B it's very important to distinguish between those to the budget a dock is a program reduction Dock and a the budget uh exhibit B is an actual uh certificated reduction and force and so as I've mentioned before uh to the board we have uh attrition leave of absences uh where we will not see uh certain reductions and so um one classic example of that is we've identified a 0.5 reduction in library Services um but we don't see the person who provides those Library services on the screen that person has a seniority and maybe different endorsements and so uh with that there are less senior staff members uh who uh then uh subjected to the actual reduction in force and so um I received some emails from community members uh around
127those questions and I wanted to make sure that I was providing um information tonight around the difference between those two it doesn't mean uh if the FTE is lower in and and the in an exhibit B document it's it's really the you know where we're looking at saving or reducing uh the deficit it's through uh the document from exhibit a which is the program reduction the we have as I've said before the the planning process uh is iterative and it changes uh essentially every day and so the revised docs are what I'm going to be focusing on tonight uh in terms of the the the revisions revision DOA and then the revision dob um but that's I'm just trying to share what what what is the what the board seen in the in the board
128docs and more more likely than not we'll be we'll begin to see different revision documents with different dates and that's the way to track the progress that we're making through the budget planning process can I clarify just a point because you you made a point and I want to be I want to I want to tie my comment to that certain director using librarian as an example being cut5 does not necessarily mean that that uh that individual staff member will be will have their hours reduced by 0.5 because they am I understanding this correctly I can see Amy that's what I just said yes right yes but that does still reduce the library Services right that's the distinguish I wanted to make clear that's the part yeah I so I want to say that out
129loud that that may not what's reflected here in terms of FTE cut may may not actually reduce that staff memb hours but will but it is reflective of a cut in that program um slate I wanted to ask a question please um absolutely you're saying and and it this is a fluid process and I'm hoping it will flow in the correct direction um how you said you're going to share with us these revisions as they come through will they be um posted to board docks for the community or or how how what's the process will will the community see when these things change and will they see it in real time or will they see it um at the next board meeting that's I'm just curious yeah it's been our practice to present them at
130board meetings as we devel them uh they still be they're they're still in draft form typically all the way up until until the time that we share them and so we want to provide the most accurate and and up-to-date information uh to the board okay that's that's typically I I just wanted to know thank you right if there are what we'll what we also do is uh we have a three-day posting notice and so what we will post on you know Monday prior to a Thursday will be a revision however if things do change like they changed uh in this particular board meeting we will walk in a revised document reflecting the most recent information um and it's the uh what we know right now numbers so sometimes you we may on May 9th uh
131notice something in Monday's meeting but we'll be still working towards uh you know our analysis continuing our analysis and that document maybe a new revision may be walked in the the eve of May 9th thank you Juniper you look like you might have had a question I'm I'm just trying to um yeah I guess I'm with this now getting pushed back a month um I'm trying to sort of uh my I'm a I'm a faaker when I'm thinking we're seeing is um I was trying to understand you know between now where we April 25th and June 25th the June 27th kind of what what we and the public can expect to see in terms of the the the evolution yep based on you know robust commentary and push back from the community I would offer
132the same from up here sure how how we can expect to sort of um without making promises on particular dates but that that would be a very um transparent and visible process before everyone involved I'll be working through that right yeah absolutely um so what I'm doing right now is kind of situating orienting just the documents in front of us um and and and gladly answering some of those questions um the second thing I wanted to do is um point out so at the last board meeting the board uh recalls um that um I was directed to um to go and look at uh resources and connect with resources to examine and analyze uh how our central office uh or district office is is staffed and so uh since that time I uh was was
133able to speak with the superintendent on budsman with uh with Washington statement risk management pool I was able to speak with speak with the executive director for the Washington Association of school administrators I was also able to speak with the uh superintendent for the pound Educational Service District uh and I was also able to speak with Tim Gara the executive director with the Washington School directors uh Association so uh as um I was happy to be able to connect with all of them uh in the in the in-betweens um and so um speaking with uh Tim yans from the superintendent on budsman uh he went through a very similar process back in 2008 uh when he was the superintendent with Meridian during the uh recession um he provided me some you know examples of what
134it looked like for them at that time uh he hesitated to extrapolate uh greatly to you know to 2024 and to um You Know A District that may not may or may not you know be similar dissimilar to Meridian um but I took great notes and and had you know took the information uh from him when I was working with uh the executive director from Wasa um if the board recalls or may not recall they provided us a program review with uh for our HR department and our business own office at the time and this was two two years ago and so um at that time it wasn't a analysis around uh downsizing or um restructuring a central office uh but they do offer that service um and uh I have currently sent a a
135request for a proposal to uh Joel Anie uh and icced Juniper and Lucia on that um in that proposal I requested specifically what it would look like to do an analysis around our central office and requesting that that proposal provide um different options for to be considered and I wanted them to provide a timeline as well um one thing that Joel Anie uh recommended just in his experience um his words were take the time that it deserves um when I spoke with John Welsh at the psesd uh I also sent him a a request for proposal did the same thing CC Lucia and Juniper uh it was basically identical email um and John Welsh has already replied back that he will work with his team to provide us a proposal and a timeline any questions
136about my Outreach efforts I just want to thank you sure for doing that thank you in is there a reason the rest of us weren't copied uh typically when I'm emailing I'm doing a board chair and and so leadership so that's typically where we start and then as we uh Branch further out and have more information that's you know sharing for the whole board okie dokie y thank you SL yep if you'd like something different just let your board leadership know um next um speaking with board leadership in our weekly meeting um want to uh speak directly to Athletics and so this was something that uh was uh some robust discussion and thank you for our students many um adults in our organization commented about uh your you know your comments last week around the
137importance of Athletics um and thank you River for continuing to um Bring It Forward as well so just and so um the discussion uh so initial discussion was with Lucia and and Juniper around uh reviewing our athletic programs um and um and you can chime in too with it but we were talking about um how do our Equity priority groups participate in in our in our Athletics sometimes it's the uh we we looked at um what does it look like you know cost per student what is the um you know essentially the Personnel costs around a a an athletic sport versus a um you know versus the uniforms um or referees um or transportation and then what are those cost um you know kind of how those cost balanced with the student fees that we
138pay and or any other um you parent organizations who who support Athletics um but what I what I'd like to know this evening is is um is is would is similar to how the board directed me last week to provide or go you know do Outreach for um what it would look like to restructure our central office is the board directed me to look at Middle School sports high school sports is the board directing me to look at every single sport in the district and provide an analysis of of what those uh athletic programs are costing the district [Applause] to me I guess we should be looking in each each area um and significantly in each area given where the proposed cuts are I do I I see these Cuts as um undercutting the most
139fundamental aspect of an educational system so so my my charge would be to look in every area with with depth and detail yeah I don't know enough about what the um you know the budget reporting um functions are it's not always Apples to Apples but um you know we all people have a variety of ways in which um they do or do not participate in sports whether it's a school related activity or something over at open space or a club based LaCrosse or um so it's hard to compare you know I was trying to figure out what is it like what does it cost on these Club programs versus what is what are we paying to essentially under them with tax dollars and so it's it it feels very difficult to kind of think about
140it in this nebulous way and so if there's a way that we could see some sort of um report to understand P who's participating what's the coach or Staffing to student ratio you know if it um you know people people brought up football which is all to the best of my knowledge all boys out on the field yes it looks like the majority of the cheer team are girls but is that aligned with our Equity priorities is it um you know I I I'm not trying to single out football I'm just it's an example um what are ways that we can look at it where the equity priority groups are more um adequately reflected I mean I think there's a lot of ways we could look at it and I think we should look at
141them all which I maybe is a a heavy lift and also if there's some kind of I don't know what your reporting looks like Kim that how easy that's something you or or um Anders could could pull for us but it would be useful to see sort of um as much as we can so we can make some some well-informed decisions Casey uh I'm asking so uh it it's it would be helpful for me just to hear from uh every board member about how they would they like me to include Athletics would you like to direct me to to make sure that we're that we're reviewing Athletics as well yeah I mean I think uh or do you have any comments or considerations contemplations okay no Martha thank you for asking I'm old I've seen
142this before I know what's going to happen and I think you should do it can you be a little clear with me please I don't what's going to happen that was sorry I'm not old so I'm curious you can share some inside it's like I don't know they call it vague booking anymore but uh Athletics are extremely dear to many Islanders heart and I am not I mean I'm just going to say that we will get significant push back and I think it's worth looking at but it as with every single thing that we cut there is a price to pay and I still say go for it okay thank you Martha I I support looking to we will work on the uh what the board's going to share with me in terms of the
143day that you would see like to see more likely than not they'll probably a draft version right at the beginning to kind of continue to look at uh if there's something that may or may not be missing that would help inform the board in a decision and just to back up to in terms of your um request to those outside entities for a review of the district office stuff do you have could you even give a v like is this the kind of thing you think we could expect to see in 6 weeks is this a thing we could expect to see in eight months like is there do you have any okay yeah iine thank you cuz it's uh um would what I would most likely anticipate or expect is that they would identify
144someone they would have a or multiple people um they would identify a cost that it's going that it would take uh then it would be up to I would make a recommendation that board leadership and myself do interviews to make sure that the person um you know who's going to be making a recommendation to us that we you know who is that you know who is that person um yeah so you know I I do know that that the just the the onboarding process um and then the data I don't know I don't know what a program review like that would would take I know that when we did the um business office and Human Resources office it was four to six weeks that the process took um slate is there any way that and
145I know this this is forgive my ignorance but um it's profound um is there any way that we can sort of get a cost estimate of a review because if the cost of the review is either equal or very close to uh what the cuts would give it certainly isn't worth it I know nothing about Athletics so I'm just saying we may be asking you to do something that's stupid but we don't please let us know if it is I think I understand what you're saying me obviously I just want to this is probably obvious but my concern about the timeline is that if we're looking at all of these um I hope this is not a culturally inappropriate thing to say sacred cows right I'm I think that's I'm just going to say sacred
146cows about cutting things and we cut something and then we find out oh oh we could have made this other strategic cut somewhere else balancing all of that um because there are certain things as Martha eloquently said last week like a library sometimes if you cut something it either never comes back or it never comes back at the kind of robust level that that our schools deserve and so I I want to be mindful of the cuts that we make if there's any way to be looking at a crystal ball about other things that are potentially available for some streamlining then obviously we want to look to that as well right the the um the largest opportunities of what I would say in terms of um decrease in expenditures you know uh in the district
147right now would be around uh restructuring or Athletics I I I have um you know it doesn't mean that there's not something else that may surface another opportunity um and what I'm anticipating and this goes more to your question Juniper kind of about a timeline what to anticipate um we're still um doing the analysis on revenues uh and so I got you and then um what we'll do is um once we start putting that together and uh we will have to know Staffing in order to uh balance the budget you know to provide who's going to you know who will be here so the the one deadline that's not changing is the May 15th deadline and so I I think the board is is uh for certificated instructional staff and so can you just elaborate
148for folks that don't really know sure that means uh by RCW and by um collective bargaining agreement with our vaa vet on educational Association um we understand that um if if a certificated instructural staff member does not receive um a reduction in force notification by May 15th that means their contract is a continuing contract for the following year so I want I want to highlight that you at the beginning you said RCW meaning it's not just the collective bargaining unit but it's also state law so that's a that's a firm hard stop there at May 15th right so um what I'm anticipating on May 9th is a a variety of options you're going to have options that you're going to to to choose from of course you'll get them in the board packet on Friday
149uh that'll be our goal believe believe me to get the get get the get you those options um option A B or C it may be um you know here's things that you can do now in the near term and opportunities that you may explore in the long term that may offset some of the near- term um you may choose not to uh you know approve any near term and hope that you can find opportunities in the long term that would then Offset you know those near you know the uh the those expenditures and then the third option may be some kind of combination of those okay so I just want to make clear and that uh we absolutely normally have and vote on a balanced budget do I mean get a balanced budget in
150June right and the deadline for a balanced budget is August correct right so I I just want to find out how much wiggle room we have right in in the system right so August 1st uh which means you know on our timeline a June uh July 27th we know that the ESD wants it before July 10th and so that is you know then that backs us up to our first read in May 27th okay I mean uh June 2 June 23rd slide question um I mean I think it's it's clear in terms of the that they're not we're not we're not functioning as a district with sites of excess and and lots of different places so um they're not easy decisions and I know there is a hope that the cuts won't need to be
151as deep as it looks like right now that some of that will be recouped um but when you're asking in terms of going back and looking it pieces and you're talking about the all the outside entities with whom you've spoken and I and forgive me I don't know this I I just kind of jumped in on the deep end um absolutely but I'm wondering um in what ways we're getting feedback from our Educators and from the the staff and and um Educators on the ground in terms of what they see and I I say that with caution because I don't want anyone to be in a position of pitting one resource or one individual or one program against another and at the same time as many people here and in their letters have have said
152many of the people in our schools are the people to whom we should be listening and so specific to our district and so I'm wondering about a process to to glean some feedback and some Direction with the people who are on the ground and what what that looks like um to get that information ucat in theory we did that with a budget priorities survey which in theory I hear you I really do um and it was resoundingly clear in the narrative comments anyway that that not everybody was privy to that we needed more supports for everything we're cutting not less agreed so part of that um and then I do want to get to Hazel's question I haven't forgotten you so part of that river is uh the the what we are um again these
153are the what we know now numbers um we have seen um I'm going to go a little bit so we've seen the the uh program reduction and the and the amount uh you know against that program reduction uh we've seen that change and increase and so it's you know where we uh the delta have been 2 or 3 weeks ago um significantly larger the Delta is now um not as larger the Delta's closed and so we're at the point right now where we um as I kind of indicated the last time we're at the point where we are beginning a redu uh restoration planning um and that is happening on Monday um with District leadership and then I'll be sending out a um a budget Advisory Board invitation to begin to review restoration planning and
154what that would look like um and then we can absolutely um you know share that it would be a little short notice before our May 15th deadline which is kind of where our May 9th meeting sits um but we can absolutely share that proposal out with our community um and find a way to uh so that they can provide input on the the restoration planning that we um you know that would be currently in progress the restoration planning would then be um presented to the board you know again in its different interations as as we move forward um because you're right uh um you know there may be different opportunities uh to influence that restoration plan and so we want to make sure that we're not you know excluding any uh new ideas um so
155there is a there is a plan to kind of again push back out and go back out and um it is unfortunate that we have a you know that we are pushed up against this May 15th deadline um and you know again I I'm um you know our plan is to provide the board with um you know at least three options to be considering around what a reduction you know what kind of reduction plan um will you know will you support so and then I I want to get to question yeah go ahead sorry uh so a little two things that arose over the past thing do we know where the do we know where the money that the like McMurray football money like why are we why do we need to where's that coming
156where is that going so the what Hazel's referencing is the new revised version of exhibit a the program reduction page thanks Jody and one thing that was added uh uh leadership team went back after the board meeting last week and began to review more options and so um at that time um we received some feedback uh around the behavior coach uh that's currently serving the district so um they may be primarily at uh the the elementary building but they do serve students uh in the district we added in classified administrators who are uh as you can see negative 1% plus 5 Furlow days and then we identified McMurray football uh right now is a middle school sport that has extremely low participation um and so the cost of that sport approximately is around $5,000 but
157why do we why do we need to like why do we need to go back and was was it just not enough right so when we started good question I I appreciate you backing us up when we started the process we had identified a $1.3 million shortfall okay and so uh what we do is build a reduction plan mostly around Staffing there will be some mck opportunities once we understand our revenues a little better um but uh we started with essentially a worst case scenario um and uh the initial revision plan we were still about $500,000 short um last week you know we we worked closer to that $1.3 million and right now we're at $1.38 so 1.38 so we're now over that which then puts us in a rest restoration planning phase um around
158now that we have a you know we're these are again this with the numbers that we know now we have $80,000 in above and so what that would look like in terms of a a leadership team and a budget Advisory Board we would want to be making recommendations about okay where do we want to put that $80,000 back into essential programming okay and then thank you and my second question did we as students get the budget prioritization survey and if we did did we not cuz I didn't see it I don't think that it was that it was shared with students okay and then why un unless you remember I don't I don't recall right now no I don't believe it was it's a great question Hazel thank you yeah we're just curious maybe next
159year if we could absolutely um create a way to give it to the students or a different version or something very similar because we I think um students would appreciate say next time absolutely and we can um include students this year there's no reason why we can't oh thank you we also talk about maybe doing it earlier in the year absolutely thank you right that's one of the um key timing is one of those key great Lucia can you talk can you just flesh that out but why earlier in the year makes sense um yeah we we heard from the teachers that um defending a program it kind of puts them against each other and it's bad timing when it's right about to be you know Rifts so we would like to do this at
160the beginning so the morale of the teachers are not or you know it's not the the jobs are not compromised or we're not talking about specific um programs or you know yeah uh couple things to note in the um in the exhibit B so where we see uh C certificate of reductions in force um we see the initial projection of Heather Miller uh at a point to FTE riff and so uh in the conversations and um movement and working with vaa uh leadership I think you're here yep there you are thank you um we identified opportunities to use current attrition to and people's endorsements to um make it so that uh Heather is not um taking 8.2 anymore so it's through these kind of conversations with uh vaa in collaboration with vaa and and working
161with Amy uh and myself and Kim that will continue to fine-tune uh what we see and again our our U our goal is to um not have anything here um I don't know if that's going to happen at least that I don't know if that's going to be a recommendation that you're going to receive um but that is that has always been our our goal is to balance the budget and and try to um have everybody that we that we need for students mhm if if we're going over with we have like $80,000 why don't we put it towards the exhibit B the students aren't as affected that that's a great question and so we are going to put it towards exhibit B what we want to make sure is that we uh put it
162towards exhibit be with thoughtfulness and deliberation and with input from our our community and students so we have a first couple steps to do before we do that okay yeah thank you just to make just just to make sure that I'm understanding you will listen from the community what we need to be what needs to be restored I think we've heard a lot right yeah so I mean I'm taking notes right like like everybody else here is and so um it may not be in a survey but it's um yeah it's it's it's evident okay I I also want to point out that and this is in no way to in any way denigrate the great comments that were made but we haven't touched the discussion that will happen about secondary academics um it you
163know I'm just going to say that's coming touch what can you say what that means please um there isn't a real clear um understanding at this point I think with the with the uh public public or um most of the board as to how the secondary these Cuts in the uh FTA FTE staff affects the academic program at the secondary school we've talked only about Miss RZ but um I I got to say you know as I've said over and over any and all cuts her students so the question that we the difficult question we have is how do you spread the pain so that one one area is not completely decimated and I don't want to go on and and take everybody's time but there there'll be a lot more discussion I'm sure okay
164um we're still uh you'll notice that on this certificate reductions in force um given the the timeline and um the classified program reductions needing more analysis they are they don't have a a May 15th timeline some of their timelines are either June 1st or June 15th and so um by May 9th is more likely than not that you'll see um you know any program reductions for classified staff identified uh if if there is someone who will be not receiving a contract for next year uh they will be on they will be on that uh the same page thank you so yes my my question that I still that I want to ask and um I'm not sure that I feel like at some point there was a conversation about some um report and I don't
165remember the name of it that was maybe going to come from Olympia or come from the county but I think it was Olympia in terms of what we can expect from the state was that a thing that was right we received the f23 now okay right and so we're building we're building the revenue budget and is that a public document uh the F2 everything is public but the f23 is not um it doesn't come just as a statement of here are your revenues it's actually Kim can speak to this better but it's it's a tool it's not a a statement right so Kim is going to dive in on that she need that so it's not really a report that comes from them it's as Amy said it's a tool that helps us anticipate what
166our apportionment will be um based on a lot of factors that we put into it uh enrollment being really the key one but there's some um percentages you have to you have to look at over the last year and you enter those in and uh it predicts um about what you can anticipate receiving in a portion M and in lap and in a few other things it looks at some some lunch monies and things like that what it doesn't predict is it doesn't tell us anything about our federal revenues and those are not out yet and those have been dwindling um and they just keep like and we haven't had a lot of state grants this year it doesn't address those either it IT addresses Things We Know by the numbers but um it doesn't
167address some of the monies that we will find out um honestly adopting in July will give us more of that information so um be able to to have more accurate information than we might otherwise have but it it's just a tool to use to help you estimate what your revenues will be and it doesn't include all revenue is there a because I remember during the various um Community budget presentations right in the pie chart it would show what local Levy dollars and federal dollars and this you know is there a way to um uh good enough project out over time based on your experience in the past using the f23 you know over the last 10 years knowing that we're going to get 67% of our income we're going to we can project out that
168this is what we can expect and so building um a a good enough estimate of where we are that we could um have some eyes on what the sort of largest buckets of money are going to look like is that a thing that would we will we build the f23 um I've got the majority of it built now um and then you know we'll look and say see what they say they're going to give us for state revenue our taxes will be pretty well known so we'll build all around that but one of the things that we can't do is until the um Personnel budget is built I can't really tell what the MX will be because you have to cover payroll first and then I have to build around that for MSO money so
169there's a there's a lot of pieces and a lot of things have one thing may have to wait for the next thing so um so this uh by by you know by may we I mean by June for sure we'll have our um our budget built so it can go to the you know you guys can do the first read and it can go to the ESD uh doesn't mean there won't be a few more changes based on what the ES thinks but we'll have it to them no later than July 10th I hope earlier than that and then they'll come back with their recommendations usually those recommendations um they've they will have already made many recommendations to us so those recommendations are usually like you need to move money from this GL to that
170GL they're not they're not recommendations that really change our budget much so by the time they see it and approve it we'll have a pretty good I mean we'll have a budget by the time we adopt it's just that we adopted our board meetings thank you so much Kim I've got a couple questions too um absolutely got a whole bunch of questions um so because of some of the information that Brandy sent us about um how the nursing program is budgeted or or or funded I should by the state and based on the new you know Bill that was just written uh passed into law after this legislative session um I went on opa's website and I pulled up the John Jeff sheet John jft thank you so much that is a lot better uh
171question probably and and and I'm not you know I'm not a district Finance person at all but I'm you know playing with the numbers right um what looks like to me is that nursing would be funded a total for the district at 2.5 counselors should be funded at 6.5 6.6 um I'm just wondering if you can address I I have more questions so but but could you address that um specifically what specifically what Brandy brought up but then addressing some of those other categories because it seems like if those are I'm I'm sorry to stop you it seems like if some of those categories are essentially uh Revenue neutral because we're they're being funded at and I know that there are different I know that there are a lot of factors that go into an
172individual salary and benefits and everything but if they are relatively uh expenditure Revenue neutral why are we cutting them um that's a very good question and it is um I'm I'm I like the fact that you actually went and looked at the janf sheet because you can see um the complexity of the information that we get specifically speaking to Health Services the state provides um a funding formula it's not a mandate it is how the how the revenue is generated based on our student FD based student FTE under Health Services there are nurses and you're absolutely right I believe it's actually 2.3 there are School psychologists um we are funded for oh I was just looking at this yesterday for a less than 02 for school psychologists and do the math right now yeah and
173social workers well you have to look you have to do the math including our our because we're not a prototypical school so I've got the formulas already built awesome um so the health services funding covers those three categories social worker school psychologist and nurses and so we can't look at each category in isolation well they're broken out correct but it also that would that would mean that we would only have a point I'm I'm to say 0 2 cuz I I don't remember specifically but only a0 2 school psychologist instead of a 2.0 okay and so it is it's it is a uh it's a catch 22 robbing Peter to pay Paul there you go and because we're funded for 2.3 and right now we only have 1.6 why don't we keep the 1.6 and
174then reallocate the 7 is it to the other two is it just not enough orward um yeah it is not even it does it's not close to enough Unfortunately they I mean everybody has tired of hearing this but it goes back to the the way that the formula they use to fund schools um I have another question about the the Delta closing that you were talking about earlier um you know the Delta closing from that that 1.3 initial number that we were um faced with and some of that is from attrition uh so we say great we're not cutting you know nobody's going to lose their job but that's still potentially if we're not refilling that position that is still cuts to those Services um a great example of that would be uh you know
175Lisa CRA leaving Sierra hunzinger um stepping into that role but nobody's replacing Sierra which I think last I can't remember if it was last week or in another meeting that we talked about that particular piece and I think what you said was that you know we're not going to be able to make X from scratch you know we're not going to be able to have the fresh basil to make the pesto or whatever um but I know that they are and I think probably parents experience this from what their kids tell them you know coming home from school that the the Staffing for serving those the the students in all three buildings is uh already really challenged um you know if somebody's out they've got to call us sub um and I'm and I'm trying
176to imagine yet another reduction in that team by a whole person a whole body so yes we can say we're we're we're not losing anybody because we're we've we've lost that ft FTE due to attrition but there's still a huge impact on the program and that's just one program there's a lot of programs that are you know in similar position so I'd love I have one more thing I want to add but I'd love to kind of hear your retort to that um uh both of you I mean this is something that we've been saying uh every board meeting so um we've been talking about the differences in reduction in Services uh we are faced with difficult choices and [Music] um you know in terms of you know reductions and we talk about furthest away
177from kids and you know the food program is something that my students experienced here when we when we got here but the reality is that is that it loses money and it costs um and we we we know it we'll continue to do that but with the current leadership we're hoping for um expanded grant opportunities so they're one of the few programs that can actually um provide their own Revenue and so what we're hoping for is to uh and what we're challenged with is for that uh that group of of talented uh chefs and business folks to um when we visited coupville we saw that there were you know more grant opportunities than that maybe we were being able to take advantage of and so if we can continue to maintain program not maybe grow
178and enhance it but if we can uh gain additional revenues through grants that may increase particip we can incre increase participation um really get down to the details in terms of the cost per per meal per you know in terms of what meals we're serving identify menus that are you know efficient and you know what students want but also uh are less expensive to produce then that is actually one program that can fill that position um you know in in ways in which other other programs can't so like a the library Services Program can't um you provide their own I guess they could provide their own Revenue because there's Library Services Grants um but it's that that is part of some of our planning for Food Services right now I'm surprised that it loses money
179um that's not what I I mean I I have that's not a there's three there's three budgets in most districts that that are that's that's not a budget that we've been um given to review so but and it's not what I've heard I've not heard from so so in in in almost every District Food Services transportation and specially education are usually uh in the black that's good red um does anybody else get that confused too I every every meeting it seems so they're in there but every district is not our district so and I I would love to see numbers on that because I really it's just not what I've heard right could we be provided with Food Services budget those budgets where were we this year last year was it about four yeah we
180were a little bit about $400,000 in the whole last year for Food Services could not tonight obviously but could we see you know year-over-year maybe the last five years would you like to prioritize that or would you like me to look at Athletics I'm just saying there's there we really are we really are um trying to uh provide the board with the options that you request me to do and I understand you're you're ask uh I'm just not sure where it fits with this because we're cutting a we would potentially be cutting service to students right I understand that so it's just as important as looking at the dollars and cents of Athletics well I will let you know that uh Lisa Cen and Sierra and I are do have a meeting um soon that
181we're scheduling to review different options for that program so awesome we are concerned and we are addressing it excellent uh my next question is on the revised exhibit a um I think last last week we asked you to look at I think three of us requested that you look at administrative cuts um Juniper brought some really interesting data about the District central Administration costs here in Vashon uh along with several other districts of that we've been told our comps um and we're our costs are the highest among those among those that Juniper brought um I brought up that you know we we've seen that similar districts facing similar budget cuts similar Financial strain have collapsed for example um teaching and learning with the superintendent or student services with teaching and learning that that those are
182the kind of cuts that are happening in some other districts because of the extreme nature of of of the funding shortfalls that people are facing um and we ask collectively as a board that you bring us some of those numbers and I was really surprised by this um revision that the only cut here is the classified uh administrator position with an with a 1% decrease in their pay and five Furlow days I know you you address this a little bit in email to us but if you could go over some of the behind the scenes of what you're looking at what you're trying what's maybe on the table um because I think I I didn't I can't speak for anybody else but I was not expecting classified administrators I was expecting certified administrators MH okay
183uh so yes I was in conversation with the uh certificate administrators and um they had proposed a uh 1% reduction uh if vaa would do a 1% reduction uh and then I met with vaa leadership and they were opposed to any reduction of any person's salary in the district is that a reduction in a in a a salary raise or reduction in their actual current salary so salary raise salary increase okay have you looked at Juniper used a really great uh analogy last week that actually came from a Community member former board member that we're taking shingles off of the house one by one when maybe we need a new a new house or to look at a tiny house or a yurt um sort of Death By A Thousand Cuts so you know when
184we look at you Martha's big concern all all of our concern you know secondary education 0.1 here Point here um have you looked at 0.1 or0 2 among certificated or classified Administration uh no I have not done that analysis is that what you are hoping to get from the agencies that you've reached out to the agencies that I'm reaching out to are focused on restructuring of central Office programs could you so that is what we're asking for then yes okay um I share the same concern that junifer does that that is going to come in too late for us to actually act on it and in the meantime we're still cutting the student facing services and and bodies and humans simply because we don't have that data yet um I want to I'm just going
185to jump in here for a minute thanks Martha um we have to be practical and if we are truly going to completely restructure our school district um and the way the programs are um we cannot do it in a short time frame I have lots of ideas many many ideas that I have been thinking about for 33 years in this District but we cannot get to those ideas or really restructure to be honest we cannot restructure the the days of the week we teach the configuration of programs the idea of integrated education that might save money or the district office in in one month Martha can I jump in okay I'm just putting it out there Martha and I have a an understanding that our communication Styles in a very respectful way um mean that
186we overlap talking I want to push back to say that yes we cannot restructure admin overnight but at the same time we can't restructure tier 2 services on that short time frame or restructure Counseling Services on that time frame I mean we're we're asking of our staff something that we're not willing to do at a higher level and that and the greatest impact of that I mean I mean the the impact of that lands on the students and that's the students are why we walk in the door and I I 100% understand that the administration is burned out themselves because you've already been facing a lot of cuts so are the teachers so are the Paras so are the service you know student support services staff I would just like to see an Earnest um
187an Earnest look at administrative Cuts with the same kind of urgency that we're cutting any other role in The [Applause] District I want to just add my voice and support to that thank you thank you Jun is there any direction the board would like me to take right now specifically uh maybe it'll help me understand if you have something specific that you'd like me to be looking at um I'm a very visual person and I want to I wish I had a a board here but I'm going to do it on a folder and I'm going to show it to you so this is this is our school right this is our school up here is is late oh I want to see and down here here's our school up here is a slate and
188down here are all the teachers and whoever faces children right so I would like to see personally some work here like people who are not facing children day to day and we cannot cut the our superintendent but what about all the people that are in the middle who are not coming dayto day and facing children do you have any other specific details or examples that you'd like me to explore I mean I I think we've been saying them well I I I hear that you want to uh contract district office staff and I hope you've heard that uh that needs to be thoughtful and deliberate and the recommendation is to work with an agency to provide the program analysis to do that but that's for next year maybe for year we have a request for
189proposal out right now and that's what that's what I have out right now and I don't know when it's going to come in or what it's going to say so i' I have two things in response to that one of them is I wonder this is a community filled with very smart very insightful people from many sectors I'm wondering if there is some homegrown expertise that we could lean on in in Li of perhaps even for free I believe in paying people what they're worth but if there were some people in this community that would that would have some of that analysis about restructuring that we could call on that's one idea and you know there there was like one of the letters to the community of of the 80s something letters rather to us
190you know made the made the recommendation of reduce all executive leadership positions by 0.1 FTE eliminate all salary increases including colas and extra payments to retirement accounts for any employee who earns above the median income for our region now I I have utmost respect for labor I cannot emphasize that enough but it feels really hard to not be having the conversation if I'm looking at someone losing their livelihood that we don't all say I'll take a hit I'll take a little hit and I know I I feel you I know that this is coming from you I get it so much respect for you and also it's really hard to imagine walking through the halls and looking at a colleague and being like I I guess good luck to you and I it sounds callous
191but it's just I'm having a very hard time wrapping my head around that people wouldn't all say if you make above a certain threshold that we will take a hit in order to collectively save some of our colleagues um I know there are contracts I know there are contracts I know there are but but man this is what I'm talking about re-evaluating in the short term what we could maybe do the the last thing on her suggestions was reevaluate our system for regularly increasing salaries we cannot play pay employees more year after year especially if they are underperforming Andor we do not have the funds so I just feel like we saying goodbye to people and not knowing what the marketplace is like we can't assure that they're going to walk out and find a
192comparable job or have to leave this island when we didn't do what we could in the moment to figure this out and I think that's an all handson deck situation and people may have to take I and I don't understand the inside of of the CBU and the negotiating I'm just saying it it feels really hard to see these people potentially lose their livelihoods and we're not trying to do everything that we can and I feel you go ahead if it wasn't for unions our entire staff from the custodial all the way up would be treated like they are in Louisiana we would have the kind of of Education quality that we have believe me um I've had great friends who came from Louisiana that's just one example of a nonunion state I'm not advocating
193for I'm saying I know you're not but as a teacher who until the McClary decision which I did not benefit from taught for 10 years in this District making less than the custodian who cleaned my room even though he definitely deserved the salary he did I'll be damned if I'm not going to stand with the the staff because I know how hard they work now if they are willing to do a mut letter of mutual letter of agreement across all Unions that's up to them but I'm not going to ask for it here's the other thing about the unions and supporting them a couple of years ago I spoke at a meeting just like this two years ago when we were facing sign ific R riff cuts um and something I said was that the
194as a parent obviously because I'm brand new on the board was that the the the unions negotiated the raises that they got in good faith that the district could pay for them they negotiated it they they signed those contracts and then discovered that the budget couldn't support it and they had to have riffs so supporting the unions also means giving them the information they need to make smart choices the choices that are going to make their jobs better and easier that are going to allow them to support their students in a functional efficient effective way and I'm I that wasn't done and I can't blame them for saying no we don't want to give up our raises they were given in good faith they were negotiated in good faith Casey uh with all due respect
195to you as a new director um you weren't in the room and if you were uh you may know more about what you're saying but I would not agree with you on that statement with all due respect I was not in the room but I heard from a lot of folks that were well um is there anything any that the so I I heard one um board director uh it sounded like wanting to go pursue um perhaps memorandums of understanding I have one director who says uh that that would not be something that you would like me to do um I I'm I'm where do you want me to go with this please Did anyone say they did not want that no I didn't mean to say I did not want that I'm saying that
196the it's up to the unions to decide um what they want to do and it and I just in defending their right to decide so we you know need to talk feel free to talk to anybody and everybody I that's not what I meant at all that's good clarification yeah I I apologize if that's no I I didn't I didn't know so that's why I was asking we're C trying to clarify okay so I'm hearing that the board would like me to um work with labor leaders to see if there is a um a collective effort uh to to solve this uh solution or to provide a solution okay yes I will do that that's one I think but the other one is we also want to see U let's make a shall we do
197this formally and make a motion that would be do you want a motion or do you just want us to do it just say yes or no but I I think we also have this because R Tru re re sorry restructuring the the office the main you know the administration office is going to take a long time and that's not going to give us a solution for this year and for this May 15th so that's something that for long right that's longterm uh possible solution right for next year or the following years I what I hear from uh my the other board members is that we want to see 21 point something from again I have my from these people who are not touching the lives of everyday kid the kids and everyday lives right
198like right so it's the people who are not in the middle okay I I I'm going to just say um I've been in touch and talking to every every aspect of that I can find of the district there has been significant Cuts already made to custodial which is as far removed from the students but not really so um right I think I just I just want to say that we have to be very intentional and and I want to put some trust in the institution to do its job these cuts are coming from as far as I understand they're coming originally from the building level correct I mean is do you you consult with your principles and they're coming from that level first so I just don't think that it is prudent for us to
199sit here and pick apart everything I'm just being honest it seems counterproductive to both morale and common sense um so what I I I just want to say is we cannot solve a systemic problem in a month and that's all I guess I have to say to reference that and I yeah can I just it's very brief I just want to say that in in this particular comment it said people who earn above the medium income for our region which I'm pretty sure exempts most if every not every VES member and and custodial I think that's I think that's safe to say I mean and the other piece I guess I want to address is in talking into in the many Educators I've talked with over the past week or two my my understanding is
200that these recommendations are not coming from the from the building administrators from the top and that they too have been surprised by budget proposals Etc and um then then that's a problem um I want to mention that um Kevin with maintenance and grounds they already are taking a 2.0 cut and they are making this school look looks like nobody's gone how can we follow their lead how can we follow their example and and you know find find the solution and try not to affect the students I think the same the and the same is true for Food Services who lost several staff this year same is true for Paris who lost several staff this year um yeah I would with that it's it's it's impressive what our staff you all can do with less and
201less and less but at some point we have to say we've reached the bottom of what we can cut okay and I guess you know one piece just following up on what I said before I um I individually but also collectively would love to talk with the principles um in each of the buildings and to my knowledge I don't think they've spoken at any of the board meetings and I don't know if we have let but I would want to know their perspective and insight in terms of a direction from them sure I can I can inv I can invite them um be great I would say it's uh if I were an administrator and most of the conversation was around cutting Administration um and and that gets Applause that might be a difficult ask
202to um administrators to come here I'm probably you know saying maybe the obvious but but I will definitely make the invitation it's it yeah it's never been popular and I've experienced it as well prior board meetings uh to speak to the value of leadership in this District I get I mean one of the things I want to say is in particular maybe this is partly my experience because I my child is in elementary school but I heard numerous people speaking quite glowingly um of the leadership in shiaka and um the profound impact and I don't want to do anything to undermine that that was heartening absolutely that was the that was the the first time uh that I've that I've heard that okay and I appreciate that for I see a significant shift in morale
203and that's from an outside and I may be again wrong about that um but I also think having been in different leadership positions I as a leader one My Hope Is that I would have a a greater complexity of perspective than I on the board can have in that position um and so my thought in terms of asking them to come to the table is not so about administrative Cuts but I in leadership positions would be stepping forward also with those cuts I would not consider myself out of that conversation it may not be where the cut is made I don't know but um if I'm asking that of the staff and the buildings and the Educators with whom I'm working I would look there and it may not be I don't know where we
204will end up making the cuts but I I imagine in good faith they would want to be in this conversation because they they have a very um critical perspective it maybe um that I make make a recommendation that board members uh uh invite them to reach out to administrator to ask why they aren't here and you may get some perspective uh around that so that would that may be helpful for what it's with worth uh Miss Kovach was here at the top of the meeting that's true she was right I I also want just I wasn't critical in terms of no no and I've heard a lot topic they' been really powerful in conversations talking with people who JS are up on the screen yeah absolutely I think it it's definitely a topic that's um
205you know I haven't I haven't seen an interest of Administrators to to be here you know during these moments uh you know every year when we are experiencing this uh this reduction so I think it's great to surface it and let's get engaged I want to also point out that I don't I could be wrong maybe I'm only speaking for myself but I wasn't really talking about building Administration I was talking about I mean everything we've said last week and tonight has been about Central Administration and that's those are the changes that we're seeing at other districts in the same boat as we are is that there are changes happening at the district level not at the building level I have no interest in reducing uh building level support because those are I mean frankly
206those are those are absolutely 100% student facing roles um just to be clear though you are as for them to take a reduction and if they are part of a shared solution that would be um that would meet what you're asking right I've asked prefer low but I haven't asked for a reduction in FTE no right I'm saying I'm saying any that would still be a reduction in Pay right sure okay I just want to be for me in terms of building administrators I'm I'm asking to present here's where the deficit is what is your Insight in terms of how we can address that and thanks river that that's helpful I just think there's a qualitative uh uh what's the word I'm looking for folks there's sort of a qualitative um value that has to
207be drawn between distinction made between a Furlow and a reduction in FTE you know a Furlow is a one-time thing uh or a onee thing and it leaves somebody's FTE intact so you know in theory that's that's a lot asking administration building Administration Central Administration to take Furlow is actually a much better deal than reducing somebody's FTE it could be argued Playing devil's advocate here so um moving forward I will work with uh labor leaders on uh potential um planning around what a shared solution would look like thank you thank you SL thank you you're welcome thank you are we ready to continue everyone Martha I get students thank you okay let's go to our decision to International uh to Costa Rica if there are no further uh discussion from the board I recommend that
208the board approve Prof pow's uh Costa Rica exchange for 2025 I move to approve profet Pal's Costa Rica exchange trip for 2025 and I second that all those in favor I I all those opposed okay and advisory vote there three The Advisory Board sorry all those in favor I I all those opposed and the Costa Rica exchange student passes I'll let I'll let her know we'll let her know send an email thank you okay and with that we finish and right now we can take some public comments if anyone would like to Nico please thank you nik's had her hand up for like six years thank you Nico I never I never know when I'm actually allowed to talk to you guys so I'm just like hi um these cuts to me do not feel
209like they reflect the values that we have repeatedly expressed as a district and as a community I have been in this District since kindergarten this is my ninth year in the district um I as a as a community on island and as a district we claim to care about disabled and queer and trans kids we like to write nice things on paper and we say them and then when the time comes to put them into practice I don't I feel like we fall short these cuts are a lot of them are going to impact these students that I was in those strategic planning meetings we we said we care about queer and trans kids we care about disabled kids and michell when I was at McMurray at least was half of the leadership of or
210a portion of the leadership at least of the gender sexuality Alliance Miss Ramirez runs both the respectrum Reliance and the gender queer affinity group um and is also to my understanding on a lot of racial Equity like planning committees I just I don't understand how we say all these things about about how we care and then and then when it comes to actually doing stuff we don't thank you hello this has been quite an evening um I'm Lisa Miller and I'm the vice president of the teachers union and I teach math at the high school um did you get a little closer to the mic yes yes thank you um and as I've been sitting here we have many many people watching this live right um and I just want to say that um a
211text came into me and this person said how can they ask for vaa to take a 1% pay cut without even knowing what their budget is so you've asked many times how much money do you have you don't know what the real cuts are and yet you're planning to you're asking people to compromise salaries you're cutting program and it's all kind of surreal because you don't know how much money you have right now so please figure that out before you ask for any more Cuts okay because it's nice to say oh we're going to start planning now how we're going to add back but people are experiencing this and kids are experiencing this and um I just feel like every year we go through this cycle you see it's really hard to find out how
212much money we have you're experiencing that live we need that information so that we know what we have to cut and then we can really take a look at itk Thank you Lisa thanks so [Applause] much hi Erin Hi um I am not in the education realm so a lot of the words in acronyms and things that you're using are not familiar to me and kudos to the board members who I know are new and are jumping in here thank you um May 23rd was originally sounded like the date of when the budget was supposed to be released and I think it should still be that day all the other things that we're talking about on the agenda are like watering the lawn when the house is on fire if you're asking the board to
213receive a budget on June 27th it's not lost on me that that's after school's out and it gives them like one month to then adopt it um and then I know it has to be reviewed by estd but who's more important ESD or the community who's being asked to shoulder this and the people who will lose jobs or what have you so I think and I think that there was a lot of requests about specifics who who writes the the budget from up here um write it and I don't think we need to hire Consultants from outside that we need to pay who are not as invested in our community and our schools as we are you know there's there's salaries and there's jobs here and you guys have a lot of experience put together
214a budget and communicate it and then we can all work together to to streamline it and if we're asking a lot of people you know that old saying like live simply that others can simply live I think it sounds like the union and a lot of the different staff Athletics it's good you mentioned that you know the sacred cow thing we can all work together but nobody can make choices or communicate if the information isn't given out early enough to be able to to look it over and understand it and come together as a community to deal with it so please try for May 23rd thanks Aon thank you thank you Aon I would I would just I'll piggy back on what you said that um having a budget that's not that a draft isn't
215even presented until after school is out when we talk about restoring positions based on that budget that's going to come out after school is out most of those staff have had to go and find new jobs because they can't wait you know they can't wait so it puts us in a position where we are cycling through new staff and the continuity of the education and services that students are getting is lost we have to build all new relationships with with the kids and it's not fair you know it's just not [Applause] right okay any more public comment at this time yeah please my God it's like their living [Music] room okay if you could introduce yourself that'd be great yeah so I'm Amelia I'm a senior and a full-time student at VHS you guys want
216to what introduce yourselves oh Alana Bass I'm Annabelle M okay so we would just kind of like to kind of I guess step back um into what people were doing at first um and just talk about Brandy um Gran's importance in I mean at least I don't know if I can talk for you two but in my life um Brandy is like I don't know if you realize but like brandy is not like I don't know nobody's like normal Brandy's like really really awesome and like and I Su at that yeah like really awesome um not just what she does as a nurse and like literally saving people's lives like when we're talking about cutting a job like nursing I would say it's in a totally like different it's in a different area than cutting
217teachers job teachers help so much they help they influence students they teach students nurses nurses go through school to literally learn how to save people's lives and be there when no one else can do that um and right now in our in our country right now we're facing a shortage of nurses in the entire country and like that's not a fun thing to face and I think to have that OPP to have someone like brandy here to have three nurses um I think is a huge blessing and something that should not be put underway or put in the same category as teachers cutting teachers it's like we're we're in a shortage of nurses Nationwide and Brandy is not just any nurse she's she influences the lives of people who she um who she enters when
218she enters into your life like when she when I first met Brandy she struck me as someone who like I don't want to lose this I don't want to lose this friendship I don't want to and we do not want to lose her as a nurse she like she inspires me so much Beyond her nursing capabilities and I think that that is something all of us can ATT test to thank you Amelia thank [Applause] you I'm going to agree 100% with that um because you know Brandy's been our coach for two seasons now she's the most outstanding coach I've ever had ever but speaking on a just specifically logistical standpoint taking away a full-time District nurse is risking lives one mistake will be brutal that's not something you should risk and I think it's Reckless
219the funding's there so it's not like a can't it's a choice and that's not one that should be risked thank you I agree with both milia and Alana that taking away a district nurse is literally just risking people's lives and that's not smart at all and also that bry's an awesome coach and that she should not lose her coach coing job and she used like her being a nurse is so helpful as a coach as well like they've there's been multiple meets where she's been one of the only medical people that's been there to help and at one meet last year someone got hurt and she was there before any of her coaches or any other medical person and she was one of the only people there to help and I think that's really important
220thank you every student in this District deserves Brandy everyone that's going to enter the district deserves Brandy don't take thank you should I [Music] say I don't know should I say does this District deserve Brandy like I don't know she's like pretty pretty uh oh my gosh like just watch everybody's face light up like everyone on the track team like she she started teaching track she like comes to practice everyone's like where's Brandy where's Brandy she shows up there's brandy brandy brandy everyone's face lights up she's she's just a wonderful person so pushups tomorrow just so you know anyways thank you so much for listening thank you so much thank you Ivy you yeah I feel like is this is is this allowed me being the videographer I've got I've got questions yes you come
221to every board meeting it's 100% allow never longer than the board members thank you so much I'm not joking me me and Nora we've been here since the very beginning that's what I'm talking about um I kind of just have some like genuine questions that I'm just a little confused about we're talking about all these different ways to bring down costs and not cut teachers and cut all these positions and stuff and it feels like so many things are important to everyone and like how are we going to meld all those things like we're it feels like from this meeting we got a lot of things we want to do we got a lot of things we want to talk about it feels almost like we're being a little idealistic with everything we want to
222save like we can't save everything that's just like we're not getting enough money how I just I'm not quite sure how we're going to get everything in there what we want like what's what's the idea oh Hazel knows Hazel don't raise your hands no oh do it that's something that has come across when I talked to students and myself is like no I have a plan um is is like how are we going to save all these things that we have to cut and the answer is we can't um so we have to find out what's the most important thing and I feel like as the students we have we talked to as many students as we possibly could and we got as many and we found those things and we're asking you guys to
223like we can't save everything so let's save the things that are most important to us which me and cor and nor went over we could also send you the Google Doc that gives you the answers to that question that would be great I did you have another oh sorry Ivy it's um it's a hard process you're right um and I want to remain aspirational about saving everything so I don't let go of that 100% uh I idea and that's cuz if I do then I start to compromise and it feels um you know less than genuine sitting here in this chair so I'm interested in everything you know out there on the table I'm interested in the hard conversations that this board is having with me and with each other um because it's it's a
224process it's deliberation it's collaboration it's all the above um and so I want to let you know that I'm not I'm sitting here um I I am a pragmatic uh but I'm also uh an internal Optimist thank [Music] [Applause] you and I think anybody else anybody else if I just wanted to say how unbelievably impressed I am with every student who came here here whether you chose to raise your voice or not this is an intimidating kind of a weird way of trying to figure out some really difficult things and put all of our values and our hopes on the table um and I just am um I will be forever grateful to Sabin and Salinger and L and everyone that came here tonight um that is a student and chose to spend your time
225here tonight um it it does not go unnoticed and and I'm incredibly grateful well with that thank you everybody for being here thank you for supporting we are going to consent the agenda do I have a motion um there in the there were a couple of and I'm sorry oh no no no please there was a couple of things in the a couple of typos and I'm wondering if we can uh manage those uh at some point just a couple of names that were off and I'm sorry I will be honest I did not have a chance to read them in advance so I know now that there are some things in here that are a little off how do we how can we manage that in a how do we easy enough uh I
226think I think it matters uh I will pull that out great and so uh the board would have to I would recommend that the board amend the consent agenda by pulling out the minutes so you're going to have to do this in two motions yep okay do I have a motion to amend the agenda amend the consent agenda the consent agenda yes I make make a motion to amend the consent agenda do I have a second I'll second all those in favor I I I all those opposed okay the amend the consent agenda is amended is amended okay and now you vote for the consent agenda to approve it do I have a motion to consent the to do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I I move that we approve the
227cons I move that we approve the consent agenda do I have a second second I'll second all those in favor all those have opposed and the agenda has been the consent agenda has been passed okay approved and with that at 9:30 do weit hold on I'm sorry do we need to do we need to make a motion or vote to continue our budget conversation to a third read I I don't I don't I'm genuinely asking I don't know what the rules are no okay great have a second read again right yeah when it uh goes to a final reading it'll be in decision so as long as it's in discussion right yep okay thank you you're welcome and we at 9:31 we adure our meeting thank you everybody thank you everyone I'm not taking thank
228you thanks for sticking it out thank you Norris Dad thank Bob it never it never goes