October 14th 2021 VISD Board Meeting

001[Music] if we can tonight we're just not positive about how sounds [Music] as much as possible okay okay [Music] you have um [Music] i'm [Music] is there any way to go online to see if [Music] sorry [Music] no that's fine okay [Music] it's like the first one [Music] okay [Music] i am hearing the charlie brown teacher it's an authentic experience i have not heard from spring but we already won all right [Music] you can but i wouldn't i wouldn't touch it um i'm going to remind my fellow board members and speakers to speak as loudly as you can it's hard with the masks on and we we're we want people to be able to hear who are watching on video and we'll have a microphone for those of you who are out there are candidates

002for applicants so we'll have a microphone for you so you'll be able to be miked okay so um [Music] so we're going to start off with a public commentary and i'll remind people that this is uh 15 minutes and it's not a usual you know conversation like we're used to um you will uh you have three minutes to get to speak and then we will uh politely ask you to wrap it up um so do i know we have two letters but is there anybody in the audience who would like to republican [Music] quick good evening my name is mike zecker i taught social studies at i'm sorry i'm reading this because i don't want to misquote anything i taught social studies at veteran high school from 2005 to 2012. it is gratifying to learn

003that your 2021 strategic plan addresses racial and economic inequities i applaud the values and principles embedded in the district's strategic plan as presented by luthieu in april 2021 he emphasized diversity and equity and includes a quote from the 1947 commission on higher education report to president truman and i quote if the ladder of educational opportunity rises high at the door of some youth and scarcely rises at the door of others while at the same time formal education is made a prerequisite to occupational and social advancement then education may become the means not of eliminating race and class distinctions but of deepening and solidifying them i'm quote that post-world war ii quote sadly describes existing conditions in our nation today the report went on to advocate for universal free community college imagine where we would be

004had we've been able to implement the recommendations of that 1947 commission i am confident that the 2021 aisd strategic plan has established a starting point for reducing equities in our district as the plan indicates improved outcomes for students are dependent on improvements in teaching in leadership and organizational practices that requires a commitment to not only needed financial and human resources but also commitment to lasting change to affect lasting change will demand transparent conversations about practices that have and may still contribute to racial and economic discrimination i challenge you to fulfill your commitment to these strategic plan goals in your selection of a candidate for the board vacancy specifically exercise your leadership by choosing a candidate whose lived experiences will contribute to the lasting change all vatican students deserve thank you [Music] this is the public

005comment part right hang on nice to see you all do you remember me there's a lot more sandwich boards around the school i'm a retired teacher just a minute i should not even go wrong here i just really need to stay with the letter okay first of all as a retired teacher who worked in this bachelor school district i'd like to express my appreciation to all of you on the school board for your energy your time your dedication to our district my name is ann van hold and i have the honor to teach english language learners at chautauqua for seven years and prior to that i worked at highline school district as a kindergarten and third grade teacher at cedarhurst elementary school for eight years i'm not a candidate okay how do we teach our

006children uncomfortable truths about our history of exploitation racism and imperialism how do we teach our children to be advocates for the earth for our land our air and our soil where do we find help and strength how do we find sources of strength hope clarity and honesty in our current world how do we model schools as cooperative and inclusive rather than what i think is failing model of competition and exclusivity this is tough stuff this is hard work beyond teaching the errors that we've made in the past we must create educational policies that move us forward together for success we need to include in those policies of focus on restoration and compensation for past mistakes we also need to teach humility we need to hear all voices do we have representation younger members who will

007bear the burden of climate crisis do we have representation from indigenous and immigrant voices do we have representation from members of our community who are not secure in housing food mental health or income we need all voices i'm not sure if it's okay if i uh just do an open endorsement for a candidate i'm looking to you guys for direction on that it's okay all right i believe cali aguilera has unique qualities and experiences that would enrich our schools we need her voice for these reasons and i endorse her for the school board thank you for your time thank you and i just want to thank the last two speakers for what they said because i think it's really important and they did an amazing job of doing explaining that to us and i also

008want to endorse carrie aguilera for the school board thank you the first letter i'll read uh from apply dyness dear by bisd board and dr mcsheedy your lack of clear communication and adherence to the mrc's recommendation for communication regarding possible cova cases in our schools has left me feeling like i cannot trust the vashawn island school district to keep my children safe i want to make informed decisions for my children's safety please be more transparent and timely with your communications keeping students at home while waiting for test results or for quarantine time frames to end is our best plan but our schools are not equipped to support students to do so we need an immediate plan to support students to stay home when necessary and still get their education thank you as a parent to

009two vhs students thank you our second public comment comes from addie mead good evening board members i would like to express that i in no way emmy the task in front of the district in regards to handling our ongoing pandemic and our school community with that said i am frustrated and disheartened with how i am seeing this play out i think the worst part for my family over the last week may be the feeling of deception by the district my freshman daughter tested positive last saturday evening with two rapid tests i understand that the district goes by doh guidelines regarding going back 48 hours from symptoms or positive tests since she exited school thursday morning within 30 minutes of arriving she was extremely anxious about the number of students missing as well as the teacher

010and numerous students showed up symptomatic in previous days we are all thankful for anxiety in this situation because we took it upon ourselves as i would hope everyone would to notify everyone we could think of with whom she had contact i was receiving messages monday asking me why the district was not telling them about her case furthermore danny rock had said definitively in his email to me that emma was not contagious at school with what we know about covid and after repeatedly talking with mrc i think the stance by the district is disingenuous at best we have been we've been at this with the pandemic all of us for over 18 months now we as parents students and staff are taking a risk being part of the vashon school district what i would ask is

011that you be more transparent with us in return i want to see all positive cases listed regardless of a 48-hour window in addition it is either disingenuous or outright deceiving people to state that the case did not come from the school there is no way to know this and it doesn't really matter my main concern is the case count what school and if we are close contact and more robust rules regarding close contact we can then make the best decisions for our family based on that information two main questions i have are why did you not have a plan in place for students who would have to be absent for extended periods due to coded i've been told by both danny rock and my daughter's counselor that they are in the process of trying to

012figure out student support i am blown away with the lack of preparedness two is there why wasn't there earlier a plan in place for robust testing there is a requirement for a negative covet test to return to school per the pair of the doh tree but there is no requirement to submit or verify a negative test most importantly i have seen no support in finding access to rapid tests for symptoms again 18 months in i would have expected that this was at least in the works by the start of school thank you for your time addy mead okay that concludes public comment all right thank you and so now we'll do uh superintendent's report all right well thank you i think this is the biggest sport meeting that we've seen in a while so it's

013actually really good uh most you know most months we've seen just a few folks and some of those folks are here tonight so thank you again for kind of but my name is dr mcsheehy i'm the superintendent with the school district honored to serve and honor to be part of the spray team and including our two students board members as well i have a shorter superintendence report tonight that i have two guests coming to share some information about their programs or about their school but i will start with a land acknowledgement the few all people lived here long before and during the colonization of the americas and the westward expansion of the united states we recognize these indigenous people the salish sea their displacement dispossession and continued presence as we reflect on the past and

014move to the future let us be reminded that our school district sits within the traditional lands of the few all people a few um you know the october update is really going to be centered around covid maybe tonight's jeopardy question all things coded but i'm just going to share that we have recently released a dashboard on the district web page and that has been sent out to the community and the update it's our goal to then release weekly data what the positive taste count is for both students and staff what the close contact case young is for students and staff and then any particular school closures it is pretty common for districts to have a dashboard like this i'd like to give a thanks publicly to pam kirkpatrick who has been compiling data on a

015weekly basis doing the tracking and providing me then the the data that i put into the data dashboard and so that data is going to be available uh 24 and hopefully part of our bill you know our wish to provide transparency to those community members in our district about what's kind of happening in our schools and so but i would encourage the community if they have any questions about what they see on the dashboard to reach out to myself or the building principles the next kind of covet update is early on in covid we were providing notifications that was a template from king county so sarah day and i uh our former nurse is you know we we basically fashioned a communication from that template out to our community when we had uh positive positive

016uh you know cases uh during at the end of last year we had many requests from uh from those in the community to provide uh the place of origin kind of where did where did transmission happen uh where was it in the schools or was it you know outside of schools and uh for the most part since then we've been trying to do our best to provide that you know where where it happened as we're seeing now uh there's uh tension and oftentimes you know miss you know uh even though our best efforts there's a sense that we're not providing you know when we're doing our best to determine where the origin is um that may be conflicting with what the family may seem or what our community needs so we are going to be

017omitting that you know that from our from our notifications uh it's it's also when i look at other school districts and their notifications and what they're tracking there are a few who are tracking your kind of origin and but most appear to not be just reporting positive cases and so i'm going to simplify our process a little bit and provide positive cases where they are in each building but really stay away from trying to pinpoint because it is truly an unexact and inexact science you know where where cases come from sometimes it's pretty obvious right a parent has it and then their children you know the parent gets it from work and then the children you know contact quote it but sometimes it's not as exact so we don't really have a one-size-fits-all communication and

018it really is difficult to try to be you know good communicators with each and every unique case because they are very unique in how they present so uh my apologies to anybody in the community they feel like we've been trying to deceive we haven't been we've just been trying to actually do our best in notifying and providing as much information as possible but moving forward we will be omitting that from our notifications um and last uh lastly is is an update on our testing and so um we have our two people hired uh who are going to be our testing and contact tracing coordinators thank you um they're amazing people and we're gonna be our first meeting planning meeting is tomorrow uh where we will set out kind of a work plan i have a

019list of probably 30 things that need to be accomplished before we actually get that system up and running but they're not 30 uh difficult or long you know kind of long-term plans they can always accomplish very soon our goal is to have testing up and running by the week of october 25th um you know and that's even with strategic planning happening next week and so as you can imagine there's lots of plates in the air but this one's really important our goal is to get these folks situated trained up uh participate in the contact tracing that we're going to be doing with mrc we got we had to postpone it uh to the 25th and then you know starting our site our site's going to be located at student link uh so thomas ellie and

020i kind of work through the logistics of that building uh going to work with us to get the necessary tech set up i've been in constant communication with bainbridge kind of even throughout all this covid stuff that we've been working through and so we'll have the you know the simple report ready for the bionics now test and sarah sutton from health commons project is our kind of our regional king county coordinator for the return to learn program so everything looks very positive every day as we get a as we get a new case i i true i too am and um wishing we had something up earlier and that just wasn't to be so but here we are now putting our best foot forward and getting uh really close to having some testing in the

021school district and i'm i'm very excited and optimistic about what that you know kind of what that's going to provide in terms of services to our staff and services to our students but i gladly take any other questions uh students board members around public uh i think it'd be helpful to explain how this gets funded right exactly thank you so the return to learn program is a actually a federal program that came from the cares act so federal dollars are funneling through the state through ospi and then into our into our payroll directly into our payroll so um it's we were able to hire 1.5 fte so two staff members six hours a day five days a week and to be clear that the issue with not having this testing prior was not having the

022staffing for it so now that we have the funding and the ability to hire this position right right there and there were some you know kind of some communication you know issues early on uh when we returned from july uh but but here we are now and uh you know i was i was anticipating that we were gonna have um some staffing issues and we didn't we were able to get candidates right away interview them right away and they both accepted their positions yesterday so okay what about access to the rapid tests so if you're asking about access to the rapid test [Music] i have an answer for you uh so access to rapid tests um right now luckily health commons project has identified a second rapid test for us other than the binax so

023that's good news in terms of supply because everybody may be in the audience and most people recognize that the binax now tests are in short supply i was able to procure 240 tests in our initial allotment and so those are just waiting to be you know waiting to be used for folks that's why i'm pretty confident that it's not a supply issue right away and how we're going to be able to serve students and staff i would say just to clarify that the tests will not be available for families so they are just for students and staff and so with that being said access to the rapid test that's what we will have at the beginning um and then after three weeks or so we've been told that we can then you know once we

024get our our program up and running then we can have access to the curative pcr test which will then be set away you know which requires a lab to process uh but the the the process is pretty um is very manageable the parents will drive in in their cars uh they'll be greeted by you know one of our testing coordinators they will use a website to upload their demographic information into simple report they will scan a qr code to update their information demographic information to our own database because we don't have that access to the simple report database and then they will swap their test it takes about two minutes inside their car and then they drive away and within 20 minutes they get a text you know giving them their testing results so so

025that's kind of what we're hoping to see here we're going to begin with a um a morning testing the morning testing will start at 6 45 and go to 11 30. uh we're going to kind of evaluate what the need is for the afternoon um because we also know we need support with contact tracing and following up with communicating with families and you know following up on just the the typical what's happening with testing who's tested why when did it come back and if you have a question in the audience i'd love to take it in an email which so i know it's it's a little it can be a little awkward sometimes yeah email email questions yes or if i if we break your recess and you're eager to ask me your question you

026can do that as well okay and so i'd like to uh uh introduce um for our as as you know board i'd like to bring in uh administrators and directors uh uh usually monthly so that you have an opportunity to see who they are first of all but also just a you know continuing process of how we're you know managing and operating the district and leaving the schools and so i invited rebecca gertzel here this evening i believe rebecca you were prepared like last time too so she's been oh she's just been jumping the gun wanting to be here that's right but rebecca is our uh chautauqua principal thank you for being here tonight welcome thank you i am excited to share a little bit of the beginning of our school year i know a

027lot of parents and staff members board members our staff have been here board members and parents haven't had the opportunity to see in the building as much as they normally would and so i wanted to share some pictures and a little bit information about the start of the school year okay would you mind um oh my goodness yeah okay i can be pretty loud but if i could talk about it okay thank you if i'm too loud now let me know um so something i just want to highlight in terms of our starting school we did we have a new math curriculum we're beginning the year with we have completed at this point our reading and math assessments for the fall well actually there's still more going on but we've completed the ones we need

028for support for students um these kids have been really excited about seeing specialists and then we've got our our recess of lunch outside and so that's been new for us this year and it's going really well so the some things we weren't sure about when we started the year was eating outside in what we named picnic lunch which was a morning brainstorm and i was like yes how do they make this exciting to eat on the floor picnic gloves so we have little cushions you can see out in the hallway there now so it's getting a little bit chilly so we've got chicago cushions and sitting outside and that's been working really well that really parents were rather enthusiastic about the idea of our eating outside staying outside as long as we can just because

029it's one thing we know about covet is ventilation matters and taking your mask off to eat is obviously not like the best thing for avoiding coconut if you can avoid it so we've been still eating outside one day it was getting pretty wet and we were still able to do it so we hope to continue that as long as we can if not when we need to move inside we're going to split between the cafeteria and the gym so that kids are really spread out if you've got the tables in like the single table mode so we'll only have two kids per table and and so we do have plans to spread out inside but we still know it's best to stay outside as long as we can and they seem to be enjoying it

030and noise is on the issue they can just talk as well as they want out there so it's actually been it's actually really fun and it has been just like it was like a carnival every day recess and lunch and so it was just like so much fun kids being back in school and just like playing with other kids and so they have just really enjoyed that and they missed that and so they're still loving that we did we transitioned to recess before lunch which is something we're supposed to do pre-covered and so we just decided to go for it anyway and so that's been really interesting also to see kind of the results of that and it's been a weird trial because everything's weird but so far it seems really successful like so if

031there's like little conflicts that happen at recess like you're able to resolve it before they even go back to class so that's one of the benefits of kind of the recess first and it's been it's been working really well so we've been so reasons before lunch has been wonderful and then jodi you need to scroll through photos we've just got a bunch of photos so you can kind of see what's going on so our students are working together they have been really good here they're doing like a literacy game matching sight words on the on the carpet there uh we still were able to do pinwheels for peace which is an annual celebration but usually we have the whole school out there on a peace circle and this year we did it by grade level

032so they could be spread out and we limited it to under 15 minutes so no one has a close contact and so we've just been trying to maintain our traditions and celebrate as much as we can while kind of limiting any potential spread of coping and so um you can see we're still we when we have kids at carpet like the teachers are tracking who they sit next to we try to make at least three foot spacing order they live at the time when they're in a different location maybe track who they're in line order with so there's a lot more tracking than there used to be at school but the kids are still putting together working with each other they turn and talk to their partner they've really gotten used to wearing masks and

033and doing pretty well they do have some snack time and lunch time outside and as we and you can see them sitting outside eating lunch enjoying themselves we're constantly out there just getting them to separate and spread out from one another with their fancy um nutritions pretty fun a lot of times when i ask them what do you love most about school like they really enjoyed specialist classes coming back it's something that they really missed during the pandemic you know they did not the the art supplies we have the music resources the gym and the things to play with the pe like that's something they really missed out on and so it's been really fun for kids to to come back and have those resources and the library they're just looking at books and like

034the amount of books they have access to and so you see that appreciation from the students in the school and that's been that's been really great to see um wonderful and so um it's just been it's been joy i mean it's been it's been a lot of work and it's crazy but it's been good and we just keep getting getting better and what we do and figuring out what we need to be keeping track of and and um and how to make things run smoothly i i did a we've been doing some kind of code safe audits of the building just walking around and seeing like how many kids are having trouble with that mask falling off their nose and stuff and and like i think three students out of 480 that just needed to

035have a little chat and try on a different mask and see how they could get better with that and so like it's pretty good like kids are really doing well with it and some kids have really small heads and faces and they just don't have the right masks and we need to try out some new ones for them but but really like they're they're doing really well with it um so we do have a little bit of our new math program it's called i ready and there's an online like a diagnostic assessment and then there's an individual path or kind of practicing math that's leveled and so that's been really great coming off a pandemic where kids are coming in with like such a wide range of abilities having some kind of independent practice they

036spend about 40 minutes a week maximum on it like two 20-minute sessions but although some kids do more at home but you that's what stuff so the plan is but it's kind of it's nice to have that built-in differentiation and individualization has been really nice in this program but mostly it's we have a big big workbook that they're using in class as well as manipulatives and and it's been a successful start of the program as we as we go through so the diagnostic is that's what they do online and so it does create these kind of personalized lessons it also groups your kids into like here's your class these kids could use this kind of practice and these kids could use this kind of practice and these will group them in terms of what practice

037they need and then actually provide like lessons to use with the students and so we'll be able to talk to the math support program to really individualize what students are needing and so that's been really great information for us to have this year at chautauqua and it is similar to the program you're using before with bridges like it really does kids talk to one another and they explain their thinking and explore understanding like it's still really grounded in kids exploring mathematical concepts which is what we liked about the program and then i got my last last spot or second last night is about just the school my practice is coming back is we we kept a lot of what we were doing before kids showing soul and and so soul streams we're doing stickers which

038we started last year with people excited about and we have all our positive behavior intervention supports we're starting groups with students that um that need a little more social skills social skill development after after that or from before and so just kind of working with students in skills groups there too and that's been going really well and that's it thank you so if you have any questions questions for me i don't have any questions i just think it's really remarkable to see what kind of effort has gone in and especially trying to keep track of all those little guys and where they're at with their weight on top of educating them and feeding them and letting them be kids so really kudos to the entire team at chicago for allowing that to happen because i

039think you're right the kids really didn't need it they they really did and they're and they're enjoying it and it's been amazing the staff has been just amazing and really super super flexible and persistent [Music] oh okay perfect so in there you'll see the newsletter this month we focus on the specialists and a little bit about what they're doing at school and and a picture of our new intern amg from columbia um it's been really exciting to have her here and so you can read that later it's on our it's on our website was sent out to parents already and just different opportunities for parents to volunteer as well have you been getting volunteers we're just starting so yeah we're just kind of starting to figure out how do we have parents interested and um

040we figured out how to get that happen we just said it's pretty we have strict protocols there too so we don't want them within six feet and we would rather have to be outside and so there's been like we're gearing up for it and then we're recruiting some volunteers like a volunteer to organize lost and found or to show books in the library for specific tasks as well i know that i'm living just reading updates that a lot of those cases have been coming out of chicago because they're younger they're not vaccinated so i was just curious to learn more about what are strategies that you guys are employing at chicago to help ensure that there aren't learning gaps on these days and things like that yes good question so um some um so it

041does it appears like there's more cases you should talk with in there there are a lot of cases to talk about i do want to be clear with that but there have been two kids at the preschool where it actually spread at school and there was one in fourth grade where it spread at school like their their seat meet the unrest have come into school and not spread anywhere so even though yes it's coming to school a lot because they're unvaccinated we haven't had like wild spreading of cochitaka which is good so it means our ventilation or masking is working so that's that's a good thing um ensure that the it's kind of up to each teacher and grade level and how they support those students and so for preschoolers like we did packets that

042just was a daily drive-through to pick up food in a packet and then in kindergarten if you notice the front of the school like there's still some bandwidth packets for people to come pick up so you can go in first a second it's mostly just a packet but then the other grades you've done more it's a packet and online learning and so they've had a mixture and it kind of it has varied based on teacher comfort with live streaming and so it hasn't been really they've it's all been a little bit different so some teachers will have two live lessons a day some will have one lesson a day and like which lesson it is will vary and so something that depends on how many kids are home so when we sent the whole class

043home we just switched to remote and then they were like the fourth grade class they were just all remote with three lessons a day in math reading and social media science like for the two weeks so that was pretty clear if they all go remote it's when you have like five kids out or eight kids out like how to manage that has varied by grade level and so it's been between like one or two classes that are live streaming and then and then packets but then i mean it varies based on parent support at home how much kids really are able to participate and that's i mean that's the inequity of it is that some some kids have a lot of support at home and some that some students do not yeah the math books

044have been nice to be able to send those home and and other things that we sent home because then we have computers that they need a computer at home you know we'll send that with them too yeah we don't have any students that want it in english that's something that's good for the you can online oh sorry in spanish they all want an english you can access the materials um in spanish online but most of our kids we just accept except to in kindergarten we don't have any students who are more comfortable academically in spanish they've been raised here and they want their academic resources in english although somebody's been reading books in spanish like a novel like a little novel set in their spanish class with some of our fourth grade latino students they're

045super excited about it i like the reading books in spanish but in terms of like math they really prefer it to be in english because that's how they've learned about their whole academic career all right well thank you so kevin's here tonight you know he's our director of facility advanced and so welcome and i appreciate i when you're around campus you'll see him everywhere filling in for everyone and so yeah absolutely a lot of recognition for you and for your team uh welcome tonight to to share some of the happenings uh maintenance facilities good evening everyone um thank you for that and i'll actually pay it forward to my team uh they make me look good um say the facilities uh we are doing fairly well uh this opening of school year is not as

046traditional as it typically is uh during this time of october and as we brought more kids back and more people back in space it's required us to be a little more fluid and flexible with how we do things as the schools jockey to manage anxiety as well as teaching and learning um we have to flex as well um so all the little changes that happen uh we are the muscle behind the scene uh so we started off uh with the spacing of the desk uh six for spacing then we went to try to bring everybody back we moved closer so that meant that we had to touch every class every piece of furniture to get it done and so outside this it's kind of the same too because we're trying to move kids outside to

047have even more fresh air so we're erecting tents at every location to provide more comfort spaces as we move into the rainy season and i just see it you know we'll continue to flex as need to be same with the ventilation um and that conversation as well uh we will continue our efforts to try to make everything happen and with that said i i don't have a slide or anything like that uh our our um pictures are what you see around campus and we you know our team does a really good job at all three locations that cleaning and presentation of what you see as any questions can i ask what's it kind of like now living in that maintenance building you know is it breaking in or are you finding that you know there

048wasn't enough storage space that you thought there would be and what are the kind of what's the 100-day experience now yeah so um it's been on pause to be honest to be honest uh as we flex to meet this goal of having everybody back on campus we found that we do not have enough storage for the district period and so we have to utilize every ounce of space that we have to make it happen with the new shop uh thank you uh and to the you know public for uh definitely uh voting that in uh for us to get the new shot uh we are um we have a we have a plan to uh um let's see get the right uh equipment inside the shop so that we can be effective in what we

049do um it's just tiny again we're all in it we had all the spaces so most of the time you will not catch me at my desk which is um it's good and bad um because it keeps me it gets me out but i'm not at my desk doing the doing just doing my job we are i'm literally in space uh trying to make it all happen and having our ears to the ground trying to be proactive with what we see and what we can do to mitigate things from our from that lens and even with some of the processes that the building administrators are putting forward just kind of provide a lens from the facility standpoint of how we can help or how you know um how can we jockey traffic just a little

050bit to create the bottlenecks and stuff like that how can we support differently as you know here at chautauqua all the kids are eating outside in the covered play area so it required a little flexibility in how we operate with that versus being in the cafeteria itself a more confined space easier to get trays back and forth so we actually partner with every entity or a division or department here on campus from tech to food services to just everything neighbor care all the above so as far as the shop goes uh can't wait to break it and truly break it in we're housed there but a lot of our work right now is out in location another questions [Music] uh the october 28th board meeting where we will be kind of in phase two of

051the candidate selection process i know the bet will give a lot more information to the public in a few minutes um along with our regular board meeting agenda for for that month and then november 9th board meeting uh and i said november 9th uh it's it's a little we have a little different cadence in november that november 9th is a tuesday night and the reason being that the we the two there's two thursdays in the month one of them is uh thanksgiving break and then one of them is wasda the wazda annual conference and so rather than do two board meetings back-to-back right so we're doing uh we're just kind of plugging in a tuesday so um i will be reminding everybody about what that you know about that tuesday because i have a feeling

052it will catch us a little a little off guard once that time comes is that on the uh calendar is on the map and then i mentioned wazda earlier uh so that's october uh november 18th through the 20th so um and then zabet and i will you know the next board meeting as we typically do make a report back to the to the board about the conference and that concludes my superintendent report uh if there are any other questions though i'd gladly answer them okay um moving right along i'm looking at the time moving right along board members uh you want to start you want uh we're going to mic up the board comments since we have the mind already it's on there okay uh so my comments tonight are just to report back on

053the schools foundation we had our back to school fundraiser in september and i say we because i'm the board representative on the school's foundation board so i participate in some other activities and we were able to sign up 26 new families with monthly giving so that's exciting and also just in direct donations we achieved about a little over 16 000 as of right now so i wanna thank everyone who donated during september and just remember you can donate any time we're always looking for those monthly donors so we don't need um you know you don't need to feel like you need to give a lot of money at one time it's actually more sustainable for the district if families can give a small monthly amount that works for their budget and just be consistent about

054it because that that creates a platform of reliable funding that we can do better projections on what things will cost and what we want to fund in the future so that is my remarks thanks reagan i uh i like it uh first or second day of every month i get a little ping on my phone with my receipt for my monthly donation is so easy and uh so nice pitch i'm just happy to be here delighted to see members of the public here and excited to move on at the agenda um i well i regret that we won't be able to work alongside our colleague bob anymore um i am seeing this as an opportunity and i appreciate how racial equity is being really highlighted and i'm really looking forward to hearing from our candidates

055tonight for the opening um i know that's what brought me to the board four years ago and to become more involved in the district six years ago um and i reflect a lot now as my oldest is a senior senior and we're going through the college process and he's writing all his college essays and just how he's looking back on his career here in the district and his experiences being a multi-racial kid and it's interesting and sometimes really hard to read so the work continues and and kevin was there many years ago and we ain't getting younger and our kids are getting older um so it's it's great to be able to keep the all the energy and urgency around this work um i don't have much to say just to thank everybody who who

056has public comments i i understand that public comments are really hard to do for a lot of people and it is an awkward time where we just sort of look at you blankly but we actually are really listening to what people are saying and we really read the letters that people are writing in and we really appreciate the conversations that we have with people um one-on-one so those are really important to us and i'll just reiterate that i'm centered happy to see all your candidates um but we'll talk more about candidates [Music] hi i'm ava um so our remarks we had our first student advisory board meeting on monday during smart so far we had six people participating and we're eager to recruit more members and fulfill a diverse representation of the student voice our

057first meeting focused on team building and getting to know each other meetings will evolve so that glenn and i are creating the agenda and leaving discussions our goal is to collaborate with our peers discuss what we want to see changed observe what's going on in the student body and bring those findings to the school board meetings and we just want to say thank you to dr sheen for organizing those and i'll have support okay hi everyone i'm gwen um we also wanted to follow up last board meeting we talked about those two disability hours happening at dhs and show follow-up that the student disability advocacy club is being very smart and everyone is welcome to join that they're creating action steps to improve advocacy for students and then we also want to talk about recently

058the student body of high school has been having a hard time cleaning up especially during lunch and breaks and we've been relying on custodians and food stuff to clean up which is not okay and so they've been like food fights and people haven't been cleaning up after themselves seniors are trying to be role models for younger students who haven't necessarily been in the building because of cocaine and as a consequence the student store hasn't been open to sell snacks senior things that are happening um sap and state testing is starting in a couple weeks students are getting ready for that um and then scholarship selection which is an event is happening soon so or happening later this year and so seniors are starting to compile their fine tiers um and then senior sports nights are

059coming up for the fall sports yes there's a possibility that there'll be a homecoming dance because we didn't get to have one during our homecoming a couple weeks ago at the end of october we talked about homecoming i found the board meeting together i think other questions from the board i know that um we have a plan to generate some questions that we're interested in to help you develop the agenda and your interaction with the student advisory group so for me personally i'm working on those and intend to email them to you or is that the best way to share it that's going to be perfect yeah so that's my to-do list in support of what you're working on because what you guys you all need once a month for the first board meeting well

060thank you so much kevin hey yeah you have the best microphone hello okay so um we want to thank all six candidates for applying for this two-year term uh two of our candidates joseph lacey and tara schaller have withdrawn for personal reasons um before we get into the details about the process of filling the board vacancy i want to speak briefly about this opportunity this is a unique circumstance when a city board member leaves their position before their term is over the remaining board members choose a replacement we see this opportunity as a way to select someone with the attributes and skills to work with the board and the district to move us forward effectively the selected person will complete the remainder of the term of the vacancy we've worked hard to establish a set

061of norms and values and how we work we are welcoming to new board members and want everyone to be valued know that they belong on the board and provide a strong and equal voice with that in mind some of our norms are rooted in the following come the meetings prepared ask questions early assume best intent respect each other and communicate with dignity and integrity historically when operating with these norms we've been able to navigate challenges and still have robust discussions with different perspectives and ideas driving towards common understanding and effective governance this opportunity is also allowing us to expand our work for racial equity which is crucial to the district we will be looking for a candidate with a strong demonstrative commitment to racial equity and or lived experience in addition to this racial economy

062focus we will be looking for candidates who will bring the following to the board a commitment to school board director oath and visb school board protocols candidates who act on behalf of constituents with the ability to listen and understand multiple perspectives the capacity to step back and see the big picture and not personalize a commitment to visb mission vision values goals and strategic plan and understanding and compliance of the opma understanding the difference between policies and procedures respectful towards all school staff and fellow directors the capacity to read relevant information and willingness to go above and beyond do additional research and keep learning with the growth step over the growth mindset this creation discretion with sensitive information collaborative leadership style with a no surprises model strong interpersonal skills and communication skills and ability to work

063well as a team an ability to ask tough questions so the actual process for appointing the board members so they can spot will be as follows this evening we will hear a quick three to five minute introduction from each of the four candidates this will not be a q a format we will then recess for 20 minutes allowing board members and any public who are here to informally get to know the candidates after the recess the board will then resume our regular meeting at the end of this meeting the board will go into an executive session to choose which applicants will continue on to the round on the 28th we don't have a set number of how many people will moving on to the 28th during the meeting on the 28th the board will interview

064the candidates this will be a panel interview and while it is public only the board members will ask questions if you have questions for uh if you have suggestions for interview questions feel free to send them to us by wednesday by next wednesday october 27th but we will not we will not we cannot promise that we'll use them all when the interviews are completed the board will immediately go into an executive session to decide on an appointment we will return with a decision while we do not anticipate this happening the board does have the right to to to not choose any candidate and open the process up all over again and now we will begin the introductions in the order that we receive the so we will start with mike garman we're going to give

065you a microphone and you don't have to keep time if you don't want uh toby [Music] no worries i can do it right on my watch i'm very grateful it's always hard to go first i think as an individual um you get the jitters to do so um i definitely have those right now but i'm very appreciative of the opportunity as i've uh as i thought a lot about that impromptu moment when i got on my laptop as i was working and decided to fill out that uh form it became a fork in my life on what that meant to me and what that meant to my family in the future and the future of this community i had a whole speech written up in terms of who i was and where i came from

066these other things but after hearing the comments tonight from the former educators as well as the boards themselves and those in the community i am just blown away at the amount of heart that is in this community and what it means for me personally um i don't come from a racially diverse background i am not someone who wasn't raised with with not privilege i definitely was raised in a situation where i had that for me i couldn't help where i came from but what i can help is what i give back i am currently and i have been for about 20 years a technology specialist i was in it operations and now i'm in software sales i'm a technologist and i see the things that are impacting our communities on a daily basis everything from

067cyber threats in our community to misinformation on social media these things are all coming to the heart of our children and what we're doing in our community the need for us to come together to dispel misinformation and to understand that is so critical and that and that creates two critical things number one it creates a connection the connection for us as board members to connect to you as a community to connect together will dispel almost anything we have beyond that it'll enable conversation and enable us to solve problems and enable us to be one that connection becomes absolutely critical for understandings and dispelling those things in the future and that leads to the most important thing and the undertone for what i've heard tonight and that is the racial divide that exists between us the

068exclusion of those people and how we need to absolutely together come together as one people and understand what that means but not disregarded that creates context that context for us means to understand that the truths that we held as truths might not be truths anymore and to take that information and to put on the table and decide together as a board of different what that means i am so grateful for ava and gwen what they've been able to bring to the table because i think that's so critical for the future of what we need to bring to people everywhere i hope my daughter who sits and goes to chicago and now grow up like you it's just it's fascinating to see i am completely dedicated to serving this community as a board member i'm grateful

069for this opportunity i've met a lot of the other board members and i'm i feel inadequate and i also feel disingenuous i'll be honest but i know in my core i'm willing to serve and that's the humble remark that i can give to give you the context of what i want to bring to the table so thank you [Music] hi folks um i asked monty bridges who's a mentor and a friend and was the superintendent of this district 20 odd years ago what should i wear tonight and he said code no tie and i'm almost uncomfortably overdressed um i moved to the island in 1997 i lived here for about 20 years i've been off for four or so and i'm very happy to have moved back i'm happy to say that my two kids

070thrived in this village and graduated from fashion high school and then moved out to be doing good things as young adults i'm a somewhat bitter product of a good public school system american history and an english major in college i got my master's degree in education and a washington state teaching certificate from antioch university seattle in the early 90s and i went to work for the federal a school district to develop their internet academy which was early pioneering work in alternative online learning and i was hired by monty and others to start the student link and then the our sponsor the family link and then the student life programs for the district and i'm thrilled that they remain a vital and vibrant part of our learning ecosystem here i had a another boss mentor who

071used to use the phrase what got us here won't get us there meaning in business uh our metrics our priorities our goals our processes our systems that we use today might not be ideally suited to meet the needs of tomorrow and i think that is super relevant in the k-12 space right now the world is changing incredibly fast i could not be more thrilled with the timing and the opportunity of the strategic planning process that's getting kicked off next week and i would be uh thrilled to contribute to the learning ecosystem in the school district in the national community to serve in the board i'd bring with me a handful of passions and priorities the first would be the social and emotional wellness of our students and staff and families under the best of circumstances

072we never had the mental health support services that we've needed and i think covet has accelerated both the need and the resource gap and it's depressing frankly link to that is my personal commitment and enlightenment around diversity equity inclusion and social justice i have been um fortunate to have been confronted bluntly by people close to me about male privilege and white privilege and i fully appreciate the district's commitment to this cause but i also think that it's a real challenge for institutions and enterprises that have been built and governed by white people and mostly male people to fully see and understand the challenges that underrepresented people feel and experience while trying to thrive in the community so i appreciate the commitment to that i'm fully supportive of it and i'm sober about the ability to

073make radical change quickly i think it's a continuous improvement effort that never ends another passion of mine is uh defining the learning pathways and the um [Music] uh learning resources of the future i read a study that said a year ago it said 85 of the jobs in 2030 are not yet known [Music] and even if that's half true there is radical change coming quickly about how we're going to live and work and i think it puts a critical demand on k-12 and our higher education institutions to think about what are the right life skills and work skills that our kids need to be able to thrive in an uncertain environment i would say i have a lot to learn my perspective on the district is limited and really favorable my youngest graduated like seven

074years ago so again i have a lot to learn but i think our small size is a real asset i think the community support that we have here and have had over time is a real asset and the fact that we're a magnet is um how am i doing that's it um thank you for listening um and if given the opportunity i'm all in [Music] i'm really excited to be here with all of you and share with you all i look forward to hearing your three to five minute introductions as well at some point everyone but i guess i'll be one of the first to do that um we all know we're in really challenging isolating times that are sometimes a little scary i my baby was seven months old at the beginning of covid

075and now he's almost two and a half so i went from the concerns and sometimes isolating experience of new motherhood right into the global pandemic and racial reckoning on a national scale that didn't really help alleviate those feelings so uh in this really stressful time for myself and my family i reflected a lot on [Music] how i could best spend my limited time and energy on things that gave me and my and me and other people strength and hope i looked for ways to support and care for myself and for my community i have in common with a lot of people being a young parent um experiencing the regular worries of parenthood and then now the additional worry of having young kids that can't yet be vaccinated i became part of a new mama's group

076on the island and at the beginning of the pandemic and that was there's about a dozen of us to begin and now it's grown into this amazing supportive community of over 40 mamas where we just share resources and just basically it's been great that's just one example of how i've sought out positive connection in my community at this time and i think the school board could be another way i'm committed to finding solutions by listening to others experiences and learning together and i want to dedicate my energy into being part of something that makes a positive difference in our children's lives i love rashford i've grown up here since the second grade and i actually just saw one of my best friends that i made in chautauqua over two decades ago and i think a

077lot of us who grew up here have similar stories and strong friendships and i think that really speaks to the special close-knit nature of our community i attended all three schools i graduated from vhs and then i went on to study anthropology and sociology at lewis and clark down in portland and um i was inspired to study those subjects in large part thanks to my teachers here that made sure i had critical thinking skills and curiosity about the world and all the different people in it that i might meet um i just really love learning about how my way of seeing the world isn't necessarily the only way i've seen the world definitely isn't the only way i've seen the world and how together with that in mind we can build the best solutions i

078worked at the hardware store back in the day which is why i might be vaguely familiar to a lot of you my parents may also be familiar faces to all uh being involved in the community care center for a lot of years and now the local community pub i they've definitely been a model in my life of how to be involved and invest in your community i've had the privilege to be a part of many different communities not only on vacheron but in different countries cultures and languages i've worked with people of all ages income levels races and cultures here on the island throughout puget sound and throughout latin america i worked in community health clinics in educational youth programs and i'm currently involved in grant writing finance management and evaluation metrics for nonprofits i'm

079a fluent spanish speaker mexican-american and married to an afro-latino dominican and we now have a multicultural multiracial child i like all of us have many stories of who i am and of how who i am can add to the wisdom and strength of our school board my life experiences personal professional academic as well as the different identities i hold have allowed me to develop the ability to understand multiple viewpoints and have a compassionate approach to the issues we might hear as a board i would love to collaborate with others to have a positive impact in my community and especially our kids future by serving on the school board [Music] good evening everyone i'm steve ellison uh i you may i may be familiar to you i did actually serve with the school board members earlier

080three years my background i came to the island in the early 90s to work here i met my wife who was from here and we moved to the island in 2000. um three kids um two of whom went through here uh the whole school system um i shouldn't say the whole school system but we're excited on the island we went through a variety of education on the island from running start to private school to the public schools and then the running start program so i've got some familiarity with all those different education options on the island and they all their strengths and their weaknesses which is i guess one of the things i bring in that perspective i have to say that i'm impressed with all the different energy and enthusiasm that the other candidates

081bring and the new perspectives when i was applying for this i heard there was a vacancy and i was actually sad to hear bob was leaving as a dedicated servant he helped mentor me help me learn about policy governance and that is so important um particularly during times of change and i guess that would be one of the things that i would bring is a real interest and focus on making sure that the policy side of the administration and the board's functions is emphasized it's not very exciting but it is one of the critical things for smooth operation of the district and steady over time with regard to um equity racial equity income equity and diversity um obviously i'm not the example of much of that i've had a very fortunate life like many of

082us and one of the things that i did learn on the board was just that awareness of my experience was not what many people's is uh so while i don't have those live experiences of being one of those minorities i do have the experience of learning about that which is an apparent a very important thing as we as racial equity and all kinds of equity becomes part of the conversation and gets disseminated is how does that sound how do we communicate that to people who are still learning about that um i guess the other thing i would say is um as a community and as a board there's a large variety of people that that need that are represented need to be represented on the board and that's one of the things as you select

083a replacement for bob i hope that you do find a selected candidate who not only has some of the diversity that you're looking for in race but and live experiences but also some of the different political or socio-economic uh differences because those are things that um it's important for those voices to be on the board and um because the whole community has to be ideally served and represented on the board so that's one of the things whether it's me or somebody else that is something that i hope is part of your next candidate thank you um [Music] so 15 minutes or running over nine o'clock let's go until 8 35. okay okay so we will now adjourn for recess until 8 until 8 35 okay yes we will now return until 8 35 and there

084are refreshments in the back and thank you all thank all four candidates very much and i just want to say before we even go any further that um if you are not selected i just have to do a little plug here there are many opportunities to be involved in the school district to decide the [Music] seriously there are so many opportunities so don't think of this as your only opportunity especially with a strategic plant coming up you know so many good voices we need to hear all those voices so enough 8 35. is it one and i think yes okay um is [Music] you yes [Applause] is [Music] and what happens hey right right now make sure is um [Music] as well [Music] what you don't really understand the nature of life with those conditions

085uh hey how you [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] i'm just going to give a one minute warning that will provide for recess [Music] you know my kid and my daughter we still had no idea what was going on [Music] clearly something was going on diagnosis [Music] to identify tell you what to do with resources [Music] um [Music] i know it's so exciting hello come back tell me [Music] thank you all for uh thank you to all four candidates for allowing us to do that and i hope you um you know useful i think it was useful for me to get to be able to talk to all of you okay so we are we're going to continue on just to recap again we're going to continue on with this meeting and then we will go

086into executive session with just means before board members we will make a decision about who's going to come to the next meeting we'll come back we'll announce that and then the meeting will be adjourned okay all right okay so uh authorization to travel international that's right so we're uh we have a decision we have a decision later on that we're gonna we have a first read uh the authorization travel uh an early bird submission by sarah felinowski and i i i do want to say that i love the submission because it starts with this big old red do not drown um but her trip is in 2023 i'll let her share the details of it i i think you're gonna hear very uh you know you're gonna be very familiar with what she's gonna be

087sharing so and do we still have a mic out there or is this our only great matt if you could uh go ahead and pass that line to sarah that'd be great and thank you so much uh both for coming to see yeah that's right the traveling service hi board um hello well i stand before you once again to plead for travel for this experience for our eighth graders at mcmurray um once again we'd like to go to costa rica and open up that world of opportunity for the students to develop that lifelong passion of travel understanding people of other cultures and just getting just a bit of uh well what did i write down establish lifelong values and priorities and giving them to discover themselves in an uncomfortable new situation it's like an accelerated

088growth path when you're traveling and experiencing new things this is a proposition for as you know this is an expensive trip it's about eight hundred dollars but the earlier you get in the less expensive it is and it gives parents a chance to make monthly payments at a lower cost it also allows me once i get a nice fat enrollment it allows me to open up an opportunity to travel for our free and reduced students to go in and invite our students who might not otherwise think that they were able to travel so our students were served with ieps are students of color just kids who just think oh i can't do that once i get a good group going it allows me to have more spots to put those kids in um it's the

089same trip that i've asked to go on for the last five years just a tour of costa rica um typically we have a really great cultural experience where we visit schools and we um visit with the community i'm not sure with covid if any of this can actually happen but i have a lot of hope and i believe that it is so valuable and so important to the growth of our students that i'm willing to stand up here and beg and plead and hope all questions by the board for sarah this is a first read so just be super clear sir this is third 2023 not this but next and so this is for the uh seventh right now yeah i do i've enrolled this year's seventh graders and there has been a lot of

090appreciation by parents when i do give them that way early notice so that they can start planning and preparing and paying that down and i'm assuming that if there's issues you know it'll all be cancelled yeah so there's there is so what happened two years ago yeah it is all up there i think um with this tour company um it is a 300 hit they lose their deposit and um it's a 300 hit it due to covet that's about it if yeah that's what it is any other um [Music] is resolution 795. this is our replacement educational programs operation levy um or known as the epno or prior to that i mean it's an operationally also uh this one would replace our 2019 2022 levy which is currently running right now and of course this

091reminder runs through calendar year in our school years this is going to be a four-year 2023-2026 and if approved on the october 2018 this is the sentence of the voters for the february 2022 election for their approval i also included uh in your packet and faq or an epl 101 and there are a bunch of bullet points i won't go through all of them but some of the simple stuff this requires a voter approval simple majority unlike our bonds that require sixty percent um these are limited to four-year max you can also do a two-year three-year it also needs to be as you notice in the resolution in terms of dollars on the ballot i say that because you know sorry in 19 or 2019 uh the legislature passed what we call the levy lid

092and common power lands but it's either the lesser of 2500 then in 2020 they adjusted that slightly legislation to do 250 versus 2500. we as a high assessed valuation district as you know we will be as in the foreseeable future related to the lesser which is 2500 per pupil and i'm also provided to you at the bottom of page one and through the top of page two some of the facts and figures around our bp and elect piano levy uh actual estimated revenue uh actual epm levy collections for calendar year mind you and then also historical and current epa libraries the top of page two and then uh kind of the key one as the bottom and last uh set of figures estimated rates and revenue for proposed through 2026. and i put that in

093there because you notice the dollar figure that's there we have to include that in the resolution per state law but these are estimates mind you also a dollar 10 looking at 2023 that would possibly be 91 cents and that's due to the fact that as our sales valuation raises the dollar rate uh is lowered once again um no matter what dollar figure we put on that per se up to 250 allowable rate teen county assessor will drop it based on our 2500 per pupil lesser of uh this current four year levy we have a dollar fifty is the rate though obviously it will always be based on the lesser of the two any questions i think i would like to add one more thing is the second bullet point from the bottom on the first

094page epm levy actually estimated i also put on the edge of that what percentage of income this levy brings to the school district as you know as we've talked about as nauseam the state does not provide for all our programs and so an epl is just vital just critical to our student success our success as a district and you notice that currently that epl provides for almost just about an hour about 15 of our overall revenue which is not insignificant at all matt thank you so much for breaking this out the way we have with this back sheet it's really helpful for us and i think it's helpful for people to understand we are providing uh more information on our website so if you go to our website you will see a you know a

095levy button uh right there and dominating that web and then you'll be able to go and see this information there also we're going to have a community forum you know for to get public input uh as uh you know in this process that hasn't been planned out yet and right now we are searching uh publicly for someone in the public to offer a con statement we'll be putting postings in the uh hopefully getting some coverage you know in our local paper around our desire to have someone from the community provide a con statement typically the pro statement is provided for the you know by the yes for kids committee so i just want to put a uh a public request out there for someone from the public that would like to offer a con statement

096for the levy um we'll be continuously kind of advertising that you know as we as we get closer to that february that yeah so okay i think those are a couple of things and um this is a first read of the resolution as matt said we'll bring it back on the 28th and i can share with you that i i'm pretty confident i'll be recommending this resolution i have a question in seeking clarity um the last two bullet point sections that you provided on on page two one shows what the rates would be at a dollar fifty for one thousand assessed value value and then the one at the bottom is what if the the equivalent would be at twenty five hundred dollars per student or the state's only going to provide us the lesser

097of either of those so really the bottom chart is important because that's what we're actually would be limited to based on current assessed value the equivalent rate it would start at a dollar 10 in 2023 and it would reduce down to about 91 cents correct that's our that's our estimate okay and that's like the most money that you could go get right and you can always you can always go out and approve a lower rate but but functionally that's what will be driving the the max budget we could expect correct thank you oh okay thank you thanks matt thank you appreciate that um spring reagan anything at this moment okay great um right in front of you tonight you have four policies for policy revisions i'm going to go through them this is a first

098read thank you also to stephanie spencer dr spencer who's been working with jody on some of these most of these are either pro form or revisions that wazda has provided us so i'll start with the waiver of the high school graduation credits you'll see that there's just one small addition with the addition of in or have been released from an institutional education facility and so obviously this is pointed towards providing students many opportunities many pathways to getting their diploma any questions right now on that policy i know some of these are fairly you know pro forma but i would probably take any questions and if you have any questions obviously you're welcome to ask at any time let me go to the next one online learning thank you so this is a a unique policy

099in that early on we decided not to operate continuous learning 2.0 which is going to be a complete online learning for students during code and so it's juxtaposed against this policy where we where we do we do have some online opportunities for students and we do offer information to parents who you know seek an online learning environment it's it's not very common or frequent um so we have a you know credit recovery during the summer and then once again families who if they don't find a program in our district or for some reason that they maybe for health reasons need to take you know take leave from the classroom we provide them online resource online learning resources through a list generated through ospi because they want to make sure that those resources are accredited um

100but you can see just some some minor changes basically in this policy but it does it does not indicate that we are going to be offering a continuous learning 2.0 um small districts like ours really aren't prepared or equipped to provide those experiences which is why we refer out to those other those other online providers through sbi slate is us outside of family and student life correct right correct that's outside of that's separated from a family leaking student for sure thank you for distinguishing that the next policy so i put my goggles on the learning assistance program as you can see in there this replaces the remediation policy and i think certainly if i'm not sure we didn't have a chance to look at this when i was reviewing this if you could scroll up

101a little bit i think that um date might be wrong with this one go down actually oh sorry no no so that april 17 i think it's supposed to maybe read like i'm not sure where we pulled that from but we would be would that be what our adoption might be this year well typically you keep the existing adoption date and then have a revision date which thank you would have been helpful if i hadn't no because it's interesting to me that the remediation policy is also dated 2008. i was thinking that something may have been updated so but this is our lab our learning assistance program it feels like this program has been in existence for quite some time most of our lab dollars come from the state and go towards either most of

102type reading interventions for elementary students we typically do don't have more money in that program in that grant program to fund supports at the middle schools most of the time those are you know dedicated at the elementary level so so we're retiring one policy replacement right exactly and then lastly academic acceleration and so i'm going to summarize this as as i read through it you can see a lot of a lot of um what feels to me wordsmithing but in essence what it's saying is that when students are demonstrating uh a proficiency or above proficiency on these state assessments or other benchmarks that we are ensuring that they're progressing and have that ability to progress you know at that advanced or at that accelerated rate and so um you know with our high cap program

103our honors program uh that's that that's where students uh find those opportunities and again for us as i related to the racial liberty work and something that we were discussing today you know in our in our racial equity advisory board is going into our policies and really trying to kind of untangle where we might be getting lost in terms of service for all students and providing that access and then ensuring those outcomes related to that access so this sets the stage but how are we ensuring that all students are going to have that opportunity to access those accelerated programs so today it was a you know it was it was a good day to take a look at that and so the homework for that advisory board is going to be oh callie what you

104were there that we'll be going back to um you know going back and taking a look at our policies our racial equity policy which we're going to be getting to but also other policies in our in our in our district that may and they deserve a second look with a racial equity lens am i remembering seen in the news wasn't there a big district that is discontinuing their accelerated accelerated learning programs except in their high school that's not seattle right something you know okay new york i thought that was interesting new right and that you know those are going to be questions that we should be asking ourselves it's maybe not tonight's question yeah but these are going to be at the front policies and if the decision was made to revise the policy in

105the short term we can always go back and review it later absolutely absolutely again this is kind of more keeping just with you know kind of up up to speed up the cadence with wazda and vaz is also kind of undergoing a you know an iterative experience where they're trying to center their work around equity and how that will kind of how that will shape you know their organizational structures and policies and then how that will filter out to the districts it's going to be kind of an interesting next i think five to ten years because there are many districts in our state you know that are that you know in terms of that kind of pathway that journey from all the different places um and some more willing than others and so it'll be

106interesting to see kind of how that kind of state level leadership shapes our local leadership okay okay so these will be uh uh first read tonight um and then i'll be bringing them back to the board for the second read and recommending to to take action on on the 28th okay great so um now on to strategic planning right so huh exciting it is and so our leadership team met uh this week on tuesday um with uh to you so our whole leadership team got had a chance to engage in kind of a meet and greet but also for the you know the final planning touches on but we were we centered back into kind of what's going to be the purpose you know students in the center you know improving instruction around that you

107know around that student learning and how we support all that with our infrastructure and so and uh he brought back you know the the equity lens in which that whole process is kind of going to be taking place um it's always just a pleasure to see you know performance faculty move to you uh on online but now we're going to see him in person so that's super exciting he's going to be bringing his team they come in sunday night we um we have worked through a process for students where they're going to be we had some more conversation and we we really started underlying the impacts on students being out for those for those consecutive days and given given what we learned from the student survey you know the copa survey last year uh while

108we're hearing from students what we're hearing from admin we were able to work with move to you and and and provide i think still a robust experience the first two days are going to be centered on portrait of a graduate and overall goals of the district and so students are going to participate in one of those days so we have about i think i was telling evan and gwen we have about 10 middle school kids you know on monday that will come and then 10 middle school kids on tuesday that will come and then about the same number of high school students on monday and tuesday so and then wednesday you know we won't have the students there but i think at that point in time kind of having that energy and student voice um

109you know if you remember we did student uh group interviews earlier on september so you know we'll be parsing that uh data out during those uh three days so it is it's just exciting it's critical now um i'm gonna be i won't i won't lie to you like the last couple weeks thinking about everything that's coming up am i trying to put all the pieces in place while um you know responding to cobit it's it's not easy um we know that the teachers you know all the staff that have to you know kind of belay um what's happening in the current and get focused on you know where we want to be that's difficult uh admin team all of our directors everybody it's um but the more um the closer we get the more excited

110i become and there's just so much hope and promise in that experience we're being shepherded by experts who are you know aligned with dr pawn and dr smith we're just you know it's a it's it's a unique point in time and even maybe for the better because the inequities that we have seen kobe present are are right there in front of us so i'm hoping to you know see us come around a shared purpose um and and you know and have some have some fun getting to know each other as well you know we have about 60 to 70 people you know coming to that uh coming to those days those three days which is not an insignificant number um kevin and his team have um managed to put together the maintenance and facilities building

111in addition to everything else and thing has you know put together old tech um jody you know all the planning like all the planning is behind it so lots of you know recognition to share um and i'm excited for i think zabet and reagan are going to be on the court planning team we'll have some board engagement uh during the evening so um stay tuned again with the ultimate goal of having february uh or the end of january we are the time where the board takes action on a new strategic plan yeah so that's that's the update well thank you thank you thanks for watching yep um okay uh can you decide on a i move that we approve uh the international student trip for supposed to recommend it uh do we have do i

112have a second second all those in favor yeah thank you thank you both of you uh you know i mean a ton of preparation and um right and especially right now with the unknown so it's just really nice to have something forward thinking that it's gonna happen things are gonna get better and thank you for hanging with us and staying this um okay so we'll do the um consent agenda okay any new business okay all right we will now uh adjourn to an executive session and i wish i could tell you how long this is going to take but i i don't know we we have to tell them we're we're going to we're going to we're going to talk about it all right well we anticipate 15 minutes um if it's longer uh i

113will get a text and i will announce to the public how much longer it will be okay and then we'll kind of continue that process until they come back okay 9 17. and just a reminder to the to the public no action will be taken in executive session any action will be reserved for when we come back i'm going to take you guys to the music room yeah so we need jordan here no looking around what's up sticking around huh uh no i'm interested actually but i [Music] well i'm insulted it's pedestrian i think the term what term that wasn't me was it no no no no no no no i was like i'm trying to think what were we actually no um stephanie texted us and said that you could hear everything they were

114saying and see our screens before the meeting we were talking about her car she thought wow nice thank you stephanie okay this is a few months ago [Music] kind of the dashboard i guess yeah long ago yeah oh i was thinking you know i'm thinking what am i going to talk about like i was here a long time yeah but um that is one of the things that i have to feel is like a lasting and other districts actually asked for it but do they really yeah oh wow yeah that is a pretty great yeah really cool but also i noticed that you added a couple other things i was happy to see um and that's something that seemed like there was always a little bit of a debate about um did you highlight that

115is it something that we don't want to draw attention to or whatever and that's exactly how i feel when i you know when i was considering putting my hat in there after this that was one of the things but anyway that was something that i hadn't really given you feedback on but i was happy to see that that it grows and lives it is really cool and the other thing i think is in there is you have some um i think i saw some percentages maybe it wasn't there it might have been a different thing but percentages of taxation escalations which was always a really yeah near and dear to my heart i know it's coming yeah but uh it's uh in the uh and that's you know again something that i just feel like

116i mean it's not a passion in school forever it's part of the you know that stuff is it's transparency and i just always make for nice study yeah that is like that's a pretty big compliment yeah i think it is too but you live for what i look for is transparency i got nothing to hide right we're a public agent well even i was looking at this different numbers you put up there yeah and the first thing i do is stream in the map but it looks like you're estimating most likely captain 2500 is a two percent escalation yeah um and i don't know that's kind of surprising to me 25 minutes in 2020 from the 2019 legislation they added uh cost of living for every year or to the 2500 so it's 2500 per

117student depending on what you what enrollment is right and that number is your estimate based on enrollment times 2500 right right so you said there was a 20 cost of living in there not for the 2500 uh the overall number yeah 2500 but the overall number is what they base it on because the law states lesser of the 250 versus the 2500 that's how the 2500 grows each year because after 2020 because they added an escalation so it's 2500 plus two percent for you right now okay yep which that goes back to our levy yeah right right which is what we estimated as well right like here's our 11 here's a growth right um [Music] um is [Music] wrestling [Music] i say try [Music] most of those are gonna go over there [Music] thank you

118[Music] yeah yeah [Applause] [Music] um [Music] um [Music] is oh [Music] oh [Music] that's really amazing [Music] 9 30. do you get up early okay [Music] i don't know why [Music] yes i'm amazing okay [Music] thank you all for waiting um we would like to invite richard hazard and cali aguilera to join us next meeting on the 28th um i would really like to thank mike and steve for coming up and putting your name in the hat we it is a huge responsibility and we really appreciate it and this is really what we were talking about was that we we would love you somehow to stay involved in the district because we love your energy we lost steve's energy and we just maybe it's important to hear those voices and so uh is it does

119anybody wanna answer just thank you no just thank you okay so um because we have reached the end of the agenda oh sorry so since we have reached the end of the agenda this meeting is adjourned [Music] foreign [Music] um [Music] yes [Music] here's where we are you