001All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the May 12th regular board meeting for the Wachi School District. We will open the meeting with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Nation God. Individ. All right, we're now going to work through the uh the agenda. Board, are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda. The items on the consent agenda were sent to the board and posted online last week. The board has had the opportunity to review the materials and ask the superintendent any questions they have about any items on the consent agenda. The consent agenda for this meeting includes the minutes for the 42826 regular meeting, vouchers and payroll, personnel report, contracts, field trips, and
002the March financial report. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Julia and seconded by Mark. Any discussion? All right. All in favor adopting the consent agenda as presented, say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Uh, all right. Superintendent Kalahar for the bright spots. >> Yes. Our bright spot moment is missing uh right now. So, I want to apologize. I just looked back on my emails and realized that our confirmation email was March 9th and I should have followed up one more time on that confirmation email because they are not here. So, um, we will work to reschedule our Apple Blossom royalty at a more convenient time for them and, uh, we'll
003work to get them, uh, get them here. So, we can move on to, uh, citizens comment then, unfortunately. >> Okay. Any citizen comments? Okay. Well, we'll move right on past that to special presentations. And you're back. >> Let's do it. All right. Well, first of >> Go, go. First of all, I want to um just make a a mention as to what we have going on behind the board today. So, we are currently in our community engagement and feedback opportunity stage uh in preparation for our bond in November. So, earlier today, Diana and I discussed the this process with our family advocates and our inter agency group. Um and so we had them we kind of shared this process with them and asked for their feedback. And so once their meeting was over and it
004was adjourned, they put dots on uh some of the spaces that they thought were exciting. Each of these are pictures that represent schools in Washington state that have been built in the last couple of years and they kind of have themes as you can kind of see that we have music spaces here and um then we have some uh common spaces and I believe we had some library spaces and so on. So they were able to give us that feedback. that has been the work that uh that um both Diana and I and a variety of our district folks have done as long and as well as our Integris architect partners. So just as a way of getting more feedback. So we thought we'd leave them up so people could see them and um understand
005that that is kind of where we are. We're in the feedback and community engagement process and we will be at um the district music and arts festival Friday. We'll also be at Touch a Truck events on Saturday and Lresa uh down in the A uh also on Saturday. So, we're excited about that. Come and stop by and say hi. Uh so, let's move on here. We have a special uh presentation today and it looks like we got some some documentation on that. So, thank you very much. We have our uh our team, the newly founded uh Wanche Valley Special Education PTSA is here tonight. Thanks for joining us. Um and they're here to share with us. And uh it looks like we have your mission statement and the things that you're committed to and we
006just love to hear from you. So thanks for joining us and you're welcome to move over here to the podium and uh we have you use the microphone just so the people that might be listening on Zoom or watching from YouTube um also can hear. So thanks so much. >> Is it on? >> Yep. So you can hear me. Perfect. Okay. My name is Erikica Kaider and I'm one of the co-founders of the special education PTSA. Um, this has been a long time coming. Um, just wanted to share a little background of my experience with the school district. I was a um, substitute teacher for the last five years in general and special education. I worked as a special education parah um, last year at an elementary school. I've worked as an advocate um on
007the IE IEP table and um I'm a parent of a student with a 504 plan and so I've been in and around special education a lot. Um I'm working on my master's degree in special education as well and has just taken a real deep interest in how to support our families and students better. Um, we are when Tiffany and I started talking, we wanted to bring just general awareness to special education. What is working really well? Where can families go and get resources? Where can students go and get resources if they have questions on their own IEP? Um, we wanted to find a way to support our special education teachers and paraprofessionals. It's a really hard job. Um, and we wanted to see if we could collaborate with community members, do our own fundraising to
008try and support them in the classroom. So, that's kind of the overall picture of what we're trying to do. >> Hi, I'm Tiffany Martin and I've been a special education pair for the past three years and I'm also working on my degree to be certified in special education as well. I also just when I started three years ago, I just fell in love with the job and I really have just wanted to invest um yeah my knowledge and education into learning more and how to support students and families and educators. Um and Erica and I we started talking last year and we just felt like a PTSA would really positively impact our community that like she mentioned spread awareness about resources in the community, how we can network together. We wanted to be that bridge
009for families and schools. Um we wanted to be able to provide like trainings for paras or educators um either through promoting workshops or even hosting them ourselves. Um we have a lot of big dreams and big visions for it. So, um, we're kind of slowly getting there, but we hope that we can fund a lot of extracurricular, um, activities and ensure that like the activities that a PTA would normally provide for our students that we could have like adaptive, um, measures for them to ensure equal participation for them and meaningful participation. And so, uh, we're excited to collaborate with local school PTAs, too, so we can just align our values and ensure that those things can be provided. And so, um, we're excited about just being able to connect with the community and schools and
010education educators and, um, yeah, see how we can grow this. So, yeah. You two up for a question really quick? Okay. Um, and and the the other board members might have a question, too. I uh, congratulations and thank you. We appreciate that. Um, and it's exciting. Can So can any parent student teacher from any school um be part of this group? It's just and Okay, that's that's wonderful. Um do they have to be from a 504 or IEP background or they just want to be advocates and allies and support. >> Anyone can be a member, come to our meetings. Um when it comes to just like our funding, we would be funding special education specifically, but anyone can definitely attend our meetings. um and be a member. >> I love it. I love it. The
011other question I had is um sorry Tyler um I was wondering just a lot so a lot of PTSAs are school specific. So have you found a home base on where you're going to hold meetings or what that looks like or is that down the road a little bit? >> That's a great question. Um we've been at the library. >> And we've also been at a conference room at Goodfellow's um office. >> Gotcha. >> So those are our two locations that we've used so far. So, we don't have a actual home base yet, but >> Okay, >> it's a great question. >> Great. Well, thank you. How would people find you or join? >> Yeah, that's a great question, too. We have a Facebook, >> obvious Obviously, I have a QR code, >> but not
012everyone in TV land does, >> right? Uh, we do have a Facebook that is also in the works of growing. Um, we're just posting flyers. We're connecting with other resources in the community and they're spreading out flyers to their parent list. um just the school peach star flyer. We've been able to get that sent out too. So um those are the avenues that we have so far. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Have have you um done a meeting with other PTSAs at at the buildings to kind of introduce yourself and this this opportunity? >> Um not yet. We have reached out to them. Right. >> Well, we were at the training. >> Oh, we did. Yes. September at Honeylo. the um state PTA PTA had a training and a lot of the other
013um PTAs were there so we were able to connect and meet everyone or well mostly everyone I think. >> Yeah. And we are hoping to have like an official uh collaborative meeting with other PTAs too. Um hopefully soon. Be great. >> Yeah. >> Is this PTSA specifically for the Winante school district or the valley in general? >> Yes, that's a great question and we've gone back and forth in that. We have to be specific with Wan that to with the Washington state PTSA. We have to be with one school district. Um, but we want to have our resources available for anyone like in East Wachi or Kashmir if they want to come to our meetings and get information or resources like we're definitely open to being able to share that. Um, but yeah, we are
014affiliated though with WACI school district. >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you for um doing the hard work and starting it up. Um, I love the partnership that you guys are developing. Um, not just with one specific school, but you know, all 11. How many schools do we have? >> It's the number switched. >> Uh, 13. Um, uh, so I appreciate this. Again, I'm sure the startup was not easy as I'm sure there's quite a few requirements. Um so thank you for doing the work and for um I think this partnership is especially important as we see the budgets you know um and the the yeah decreasing and uh not only are you know are we are you prioriti prioritizing our students but also our staff and professional development. So thank you. >> Yeah thank you.
015>> All right well thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. you are more than welcome to hang out with us uh or you're welcome to get on with the beautiful evening happening outside. So, whatever works for you. We appreciate your time. Next up, I will have uh executive director of teaching learning and schools, Eric Anderson. Uh Eric shared an interesting site with me uh last year, educational research and data center site. and we had talked about the importance of of this site and we thought we got to we have to put this in front of our board at some point um and see if there may might be some interest in doing a a workshop on it. So Eric's going to like really briefly run us through the site and what some of the uh
016information is on there and then we can talk about whether this is something we want to revisit u next year. But Eric, thank you for bringing this information to us and uh and and uh and sharing. So, thanks. >> You got it. Thank you for the time this evening. Um, so Corey and I have talked about this quite a bit. This was actually one of the kind of the grounding pieces for us at Wanache High School and we started to look at the accelerated pathways work. Um, because what you're going to see here is most often we're talking about data currently within our system, right? How are students doing right now in our K12 system? How how do their assessments look? How do their growth look? But what we don't look a whole lot at
017is what happens after they graduate. And this is kind of the I don't want to call it the data arm of the state, but this is under an RCW that basically helps fund this work um that pulls this information together for us. So this really gives us insight into a variety of different things K12 and beyond. So there's a lot of college pieces in here as well um data pieces. So we're going to we're not going to dive deep in it tonight. So, just as Corey said, this is like a preview of something we'd like to share with you next year where we can get into a board workshop and really kind of dig into the data a little bit deeper because there is a lot. So, I'm going to preview just a couple things
018here real quick. This is the the website itself. And what I wanted to focus on was just kind of the dashboard section of it. There's all sorts of additional information. There's publications and so on, but the dashboards themselves are really what kind of dig into the data. And you can look at that data in graph form. You can look at it in table form and you can get really pretty granular or I mean you can't there's some obviously limitations but there's a whole lot of information in there. It lags a little bit as you can imagine because it has to do with our kids graduating from high school. So it's always a couple cohorts behind. So you'll see that as I kind of share one of those. Um but the things that we've really looked
019at are like the dual credit dashboard. So the number of students that are engaging in dual credit and then the high school graduate outcomes. That's the big one. That's the one that kind of has a whole lot of information in it for us to sit down and review. Like what are our kids looking at after school? Their connection to post-secary opportunities. And so as we look at that, this is really kind of what gets shared in those outcomes. It's post-secondary enrollment, post-secondary progress, post-secondary completion, and then earnings. So it actually talks about how much money do our kids earn based on the pathway that they chose after high school. What does that look like? And you're we're going to I'm just going to share just a couple with you in terms of just the state
020kind of preview and then Wachi High School as well. So you're going to see those and we're not going to dive too deep, but I can I mean I can give you a little bit of a definition like post-secondary enrollment obviously fall first years. How many kids enroll in the fall right after they graduate? How many enroll during the year after they graduate? Which sector do they go to? Private school, state school, in you know all that kind of stuff. And then even down to institution. So we can even look at where do kids go who graduate from Wachi High School? How many go to the University of Washington? How many end up at Eastern? How many end up at PLU? Like that information is all within that. And then postsecondary progress. So how many
021kids enter school having to take what they call pre-ol coursework? So that would be like an example would be a math 99. They're having to take a class that would be in essence setting them up to get college credit but would not earn them college credit in that scenario. And then persistence and retention is basically they mean the same things in two different ways. How many go on to year two? So persistence is they've gone on to year two and it doesn't matter where they went. So if they started at WSU and then year two they end up at UAB or at Eastern that's in the persistent number. Retention is how many start year one at WSU and second year is at WSU. Very similar but it's again kind of unique to the school in
022that respect p respective. And then how many kids complete it right postsecary completion. So this is looking at the trends and then earnings which is at the end is basically like those that do not move on to post-secondary opportunities. What do their earnings look like? Those that get a two-year degree, those get a four-year degree and those that are in an apprenticeship, what do those numbers look like? So we're going to look at just a quick snapshot and the first one, this is the state. So this kind of gives you just a rough idea of when we jump on the website, what does this data look like and how is it formatted? And this is really again, well, I'll wait till we we show one at your high school, but this is what you look
023at. And you can see you can dive deeper into each one of these, enrollment, progress, completion, and earnings, but this is kind of just a snapshot of the information that they throw up on their website. This is the entire state, obviously. So, you'll notice there's, you know, the lines themselves bend a little bit here and there, but you don't see drastic shifts and changes, obviously, because we're talking about a whole lot of students involved in this. And then when we look at Wanachi High School, this is specific to Wachi High School and this is as far out as the graduating class of 2025. So we've got a little bit of lagging data, but not too bad when it comes to in their enrollment piece. So we can look at enrollment, but when you look at
024like the persistent rate, that's the class of 2023, right? Because they have to it takes them a couple years to collect that data because you're looking at at information further out. Same with bachelor's degree, associates degree, like how many completed within eight years? Well, obviously the last graduating class is 2017 because we are it takes multiple years out to see what that looks like. So, there's some lagging information in there, but I'm just going to point out the notenrolled number, which is 44%, when we looked at this, this was really what was one of the driving factors of our accelerated pathway. How many of our students are not enrolling in a post-secondary opportunity? And so when we were really diving into that at Wanchachi High School, it's like how do we get that number down?
025How do we get kids enrolling in that next step for them? Because the numbers on the left in terms of four-year, two-year, you can see have kind of come up and down a little bit um and have increased on the four-year, which is great, but that number when we look at not enrolled is really kind of also stayed relatively flat. And so the goal behind some of the work we were doing at the accelerated pathway piece was how do we jumpst start kids to move in that direction? This was some of the data that we were looking at. And then obviously we want them to stay in school so that they're prepared. We want them to complete. And then obviously you can see at the bottom the difference between a high school diploma and our
026students earning a bachelor's degree or higher. There's a significant difference in in range in terms of overall income for students. So we talk about livable wages in our community. Very important to us. We want kids to see that. We want them to complete that. And obviously something postsecary. Um because if I go back here, you'll notice that apprenticeship is on the statewide one because there's enough numbers to drive that. We don't have enough numbers to pull it yet, but that apprenticeship is really interesting when you look at that that particular graph, it jumps pretty good. Um as you start to look at some of that work around the technical apprenticeships that are out there. So this is just a quick dive into this um and just kind of surface level, but really what we wanted
027to do was was next year. This data typically updates in February. So, as we looked at maybe next March, we would maybe we could move this into a workshop piece where we could dive deeper into some of this data and really look deeper at the what kids are doing once they graduate from our system. after the the first year because they've already got their degree based on their running starter college in the classroom. So I think what will end up happening the way I'm looking at the data is that it's any kid who enrolls the following year will be included in this but if they finish is that kind of your your finished >> this will be unnecessarily high still even though we'll have students graduating with full degrees. >> Yep. >> Um but it's
028still going to show them not enrolled because they already got their degree so they're not going to enroll in the fall. So that's and that seems to be only captured down here. So, the first time we'll capture them is down here at associate or bachelors in the 8-year, which doesn't seem fair to a a first year out of out of college. >> You are, you are correct because I think that is I don't know that there's a way to disagregate that information, but it would be awfully interesting to look at that because if they did earn their AA and they said, I'm going to I'm going to stop. I'm gonna >> like I'm just not going to move on next year because whatever that I mean, I've got that that degree and I'm going to
029go into the workforce. It will show up obviously in the numbers around like what their what their income is or their earnings are and it will show up in the in the delayed eight-year number but it will not show immediately in either one of those other two numbers. You were correct. I I mean will it since it's after high school graduations like right there in the question or are we because I'm assuming the AA is worked into the graduation requirements so like won't they have the AA and their high school graduation at the same time and then therefore from their graduation they'll be and we're done. >> Good question or lose those people, >> right? Because then that'll still make our not enrolled number look high because those kids won't enroll because they'll already have
030their degree at the time of graduation. And so I think we want to boost these programs, but it also doesn't make us feel successful when we see 50% unenrolled, but really if we could drill that down even further and say, well, 50% are unenrolled because 25% of those 50 already had an AA and moved on. >> So we can Yeah, we can, you know what, this is a great question for a workshop. We can dive deeper into this. I feel like we should at least at through our district be able to track who's graduating with a degree or we could even break it down even further like who's so close to a degree by the time they graduate. What are those percentages looking like? >> We absolutely can. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Sounds
031like a workshop. >> Yeah. No, I think it's great. And then like I said, we can really dive into this information and you can start to get granular in this which is really fun. I mean it it I enjoy it. Let's put it that way. So I'm sure you will as well. Um, but we can dive into that information and then you can start to really see like how are we trying to tailor certain programs because as you even look at sectors when we look at like the the graduation rates in the health care sector from from college it's like okay what does that and then the earnings outcome associated with that or the skilled and technical side of things like you can really start to break that down. It's it's really interesting information as
032we look at it but it's also helping drive us in the direction of we don't want that number to be 40 44% for us. we're we're a little lower than the state, but regardless, we want that number down as much as we can because we know the benefits of post-secary education for our students. So, that is all I had for you. It was just quick. It was a quick overview and then we can dive deeper into this next year. But there's any other questions, I am happy to answer what I can at this point. >> I think all my questions get us way into the weeds. So, thank you for that. and uh we'll let you go before we're like actually now that I'm on the website. >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. No, I did. I
033was like, "Nope, nope." XXX. >> Yep. Just But >> we'll get there. >> All right. >> We'll come back to the conversation. >> And I do like I do like the idea of us having um our own data at the ready as we dive into this. I think that'd be super helpful for us to see. And then maybe there's a way that we can actually work with um uh the state itself and see if there's a way to um because there's a lot of schools and a lot of programs that are uh that are having students in this case. Maybe not all college in the high school, but we're having students that graduate with their running start degree in various locations. So, there's got to be a way for those districts to be able to
034see that um through their through their own systems. I love it. >> Yeah, we could dive a little bit more into the definitions. There may be some verbiage in the definition that says these kids are included. I have not seen that, but we can take a look at that to see. >> Excellent. >> Awesome. Thank you, everybody. >> Thanks, Eric. Okay, we'll jump in here to our budget update for this evening. So, thank you for uh the time, school board members. Uh this is our final update to the board on our budget reductions for the 2627 school year. Uh as we move through this slide presentation, you'll notice that um nothing has changed. We're just giving additional clarity on the areas and the numbers where the budget will be reduced. Um and just a reminder
035uh for anyone that was looking for Oh, thank you. Yes. uh anyone who's looking for more information on the budget, we had a January 13th budget update and a March 13th budget update as well. So, this is complimentary to those uh updates. And as we started off both of those presentations as well, just a slide that clarifies the difference between our operating budget um which is the topic of this evening and then our bond funds which we are asking from our community later this year to build a new Wanche High School and provide HBAC systems in seven of our schools. So operating budget these this funds our day-to-day operations our student support staffing comes from a combination of state and federal allocations and local levies and the amounts are based on student enrollment and the
036special needs of those students. One very important part of this is operating budgets cannot build new schools, cannot replace facilities, they cannot support any large-scale construction nor pay long-term debt. So we really want to create uh the buckets for this. The bond that we'll be going out for uh hopefully later in this year in November is is voter approved funding to build or modernize school buildings. Um and that's a long-term 15 to 30 years uh uh payback by local property taxes. What bonds cannot do is much of the operating budget and the day-to-day work. We cannot pay for teacher and staff salaries, cannot pay for supplies, cannot pay for daily operations or instructional programs, um, and cannot pay for administrative costs or back bill budget shortfalls. So, we just want to make sure that all
037that information is clear and outfront. And then our budget reduction principles, which it looks like I can click on each of these. Uh, that's going to take me a little bit. I'm going to click on some of these first, get them all up there, and then we'll talk about them. So, our uh budget reduction principles, keeping our promise statement uh from the strategic plan in mind right here, promise to build the foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready. We also want to prioritize our student outcomes, continue to support programs that impact students and student growth. We will always look at leveraging resignations and retirements utilizing a critical lens uh when people uh leave our system and uh and how we replace those uh strategically. We will always optimize uh
038operations or sorry I missed one. We'll always make reductions furthest from the classroom keeping class size and daily classroom experience in mind while making these challenging decisions. We'll also always optimize operations and efficiencies. Our schools were built uh to hold large populations of students and our efficiencies in these areas are very important. We will always work to be transparent uh with our communication um as often as makes sense and try to explain the entire story uh when we have the opportunity to do that. We'll also maintain levy funded programs and student opportunities whenever possible uh because that's hugely important especially when our levy funded programs are supported from our community and we appreciate that. Um let me see if I have one more. Okay. And then balancing. This is the balancing piece is making sure
039that while we are looking at next year's budget always uh that we also have the long-term future in plan. So short-term goals balanced with long-term planning. That's how we're going to be able to get through this process and not kick the can down the down the road. So all of this is looking real familiar, folks. Uh you can see here that in our milestones for decision uh making and gathering input we are in May where we have budget reductions uh to be finalized here and this is part of that process and then we move into June which is the fun part where we start Sean starts leading us down the pathway of all of the different uh the five different funds and what those look like for the 2627 school year. And as we mentioned
040back in March, uh when the the federal funding had been restored, we were excited about that. That is a good thing for our system. And we were able to change this slide up. So it changed a little bit from January 13th to March 10th where we changed from $5.4 million in our budget reduction outlook to two a much more reasonable $2.5 million uh budget reduction. So that was a a point of celebration for us, but a slide that looks uh familiar. >> Can I real quick, >> please? >> Yeah. And I think we talked about this in the budget committee meeting. You know, the the federal funding has been restored, but that doesn't mean that we're ignoring federal impacts because we we know that um you know, gas prices are through the roof and that's
041going to impact transportation hugely and costs of everything. So, those are kind of the things we're still monitoring, but the big the biggest anomaly of the federal funding is back, but we're still actively monitoring. >> Thank you, Julia. I appreciate that. And I think that's the important thing is those buses run on diesel, folks. And holy cow, those prices are wild. Uh and that's a little bit about uh kind of what we leads into this the next slide too which we shared in March as well. But really making sure that we cautiously move forward as a district. We want to be good stewards of the fund of our funds. Um being in budget reduction mode, we are uniquely aware of the impact of the federal funding. We also know that the events in the nation
042as Julie mentioned and in the world have an impact on school districts as well. whether that's strictly inflation, um the cost of diesel or things that are impacted by other uh decision-making factors. The other piece that I shared in March as well is that Wanchi school district has the fifth largest migrant program at the state. So, it is a large impact for us financially. So, um we are just looking forward to not repeating last July where we had 27 days of kind of financial I won't say panic but maybe I'll say panic. Yeah, it was it was challenging. Um, so we are cautiously moving into this. So we still have concerns of the funds being actually re released on July 1st. Um, but all indications from uh the ESD and OSPR is that the funding
043will be released. So that's great. One of the things that I'm really proud of the work um from our cabinet team in in collaboration with our special programs team and the ESD is that we are do we are working on on reimagining federal programming allocation for long-term sustainability for the district. Um and that is good work. What we have found is that um and I'll speak to this in a in a moment is there are lots of places in our district where special programs uh work is happening and is not always being funded in that capacity. So we have opportunities where we can uh utilize those funds and still continue to have I want to go to this one uh to support students at high levels through staffing and programming. So we're very excited about
044that work. Okay. Okay. So, the areas of uh reduction here um in the world of education, budget reductions often refer to staffing reductions much of the time, especially when 80% of our budget is staffing. Um we're uh actually excited to share um where our budget reductions are coming from in the next slide. Um and how it it does it's not impacting staffing as much as as one would think. And that's a good thing. So restructuring district office administration, restructuring building administration, obviously always looking at retirements and resignations is part of that. U staffing modifications where needed and necessary. We always have a little bit of savings in unfilled positions throughout the district. We run our our budget based on 100% staffing. And at any given time in our district, there's not always 100% staffing. I
045won't say never, but um close to it. and then looking closely at our material supplies and operating costs, those MSOC costs. Um, also indicating to our community and to our staff and to our students that there are no school closures uh planned for 2627 school year. So, here's the new slide. This is the new information that uh we want to work you through here. And you can see that um that we're looking at a $2.6 uh million uh budget reduction and savings breakdown. The first line there with $620,000 is our MSOC. And so these are areas for the most part where we have had contracts and services that are sunsetting or not being renewed. And then you can see here in the slide before we referred to our administrative shifts. So we had some leadership
046restructuring. So changes in the district office leadership positions that are being moved out to buildings to continue to support having assistant principles in those buildings. Um there is a great deal of special programming work as I mentioned uh that's also being completed out in our uh school systems through our administrative teams as well um that's not being coded financially to support that work. So, we did some of those shifts as well. And that is actually the entire third line is that funding those funding shifts uh were available. And then staffing turnover. That number, that $480,000 number, this number represents positions that were vacated midyear or that budgeted roles that were taken over by less veteran teachers or less experienced staff. So, there's a savings there. And then we have our few cert certificated reductions. Each
047year there are pockets in our teaching ranks where we are able to reduce due to enrollment decline and the work that we're using to align our staffing to that enrollment. And that line represents that. So the $350,000 there. And then finally, we have our capital projects uh line there. So each year we transfer funds from the general fund to the capital projects fund. Um, we believe that we are able to return the unused portion. We always have to return the unused portion uh to the general fund and we conservatively believe that we'll be able to bring back $150,000 to the general fund. Overall savings $2.6 million for the 2627 school year. And I'll pause for any sort of questions or reflections since this is our our new information here. >> Great. Okay, hearing none. Moving
048forward, continuing with the a little bit of the review. Just a reminder, uh, if folks are interested in our enrollment decline data, we did show that in January 13th, 2026. Also in October, Sean had an enrollment update as well. Um, so folks are able to look at that. And then demographic enrollment uh, presentation, which I just realized I spelled wrong. Great. Super fun. Uh, nothing like that. Uh but this is from our uh consultants uh from MGT. So that was Marcy uh her presentation on March 24th there. And uh that's good information to kind of back up uh where we are with our enrollment reports. Super fun. Okay. Uh this is this slide really is to I I don't want to I I do use the word honor the work. This is hard work and
049we know that it's hard work and we know that it has an impact on our system and so it's not a number that we are proud of but it's it's us being recognizing and being cognizant of the work that has needed to be done in the Wanche school district and that takes a toll over time. So 18.7 million uh if we include our 26 uh 27 year next year. So just showing the work that's the history piece. Uh as we move to conversations about being innovative and exciting, let's we talk about opportunities for future growth, which is a slide that I am proud of. Uh this is the work. This is the work as we combat um projected enrollment decline in the WH school district due to birth rates and graduating larger classes than our
050kindergarten classes are. And I think this is work that the school board can be proud of as well. uh staffing for choice. Uh whether that's in district choice or students from out of district. We're um kind of changing the processes and how we work that. A lot of that work has been done in specific buildings throughout the district and we have centralized that work at the district office and Eric is overseeing much of that work. So we're excited about those opportunities and seeing some great numbers. Um very excited about accelerated pathways uh year two. So a full the next full year of this work all indications that we're hearing is that we will have more students um remaining at Wanche High School to uh complete their college in the high school. We are also excited
051about opportunities at Valley. We know that we have a ninth grade class that's going to continue on to 10th grade. So that is another classroom of students which is fantastic. Uh we also know that Shelley and her team have made great strides in changing how they do kindergarten. Um we had a half-day model before and now we have a full-time model this uh this year which is still kind of halftime because of the way valley works but uh the FTE is going to be uh hugely impacted differently for us and from what we're hearing is uh Valley is looking at growth um in other areas as well too. So, we have one classroom in the proper building that is not used and then we have the portables. So, um we're looking to see if we
052can utilize those opportunities. So, that's good stuff. Uh we are always looking at additional AL opportunities. We do realize that this is from what we're hearing from our community, these are areas of of growth. Um and so we did start a program second semester at Westside that we're excited about having a full year of next year and they call it CAP West. And so it's an it's a credit acceleration program. Uh the one that we currently have is at the tech center and the goal there is to um harvest opportunities for students to be at the tech center all day and now they had such a wait list for those programs that we were able to increase some opportunities at Westside. And all of these will impact our bottom line. And that's great. We also
053adjusted um systemwide our registration timeline so that we can um help people register for kinder or any uh grade level uh faster, quicker, and um in a more user-friendly fashion. And then we'll continue researching other areas for growth and efficiencies. This is the work. It is hard work, but it is the right work. And we're excited about that. And I've shared before our new advertising opportunities uh that we're embracing, which is great. The billboards, we showed you examples of those, but also the digital um the digital marketing that's happening that you may see or hear when you're on YouTube or Spotify or Pandora or any of those sort of things, too. So, that's exciting. And we also believe that uh the work that we're doing uh for the bond in November um and the goal
054of having enhanced facilities whether that's HVAC in our middle schools and elementaryaries or it's a new high school will generate new enrollments. So we're excited about those opportunities and any questions and comments from uh from the board. I was going to say we, you know, as we've been on this journey together with the budget, uh, reduction, um, you know, when we first kind of hit it really hard, it we asked you to find ways to also bring, you know, how do you cut budget away from the classroom? Um, how are you maintain programs and but also how do you find new people? And so I see, you know, we're you're doing that work. um or I guess we're all part of that. But um but but thank you because I think like you know we
055don't we need to smooth that curve but we need to get like provide as many opportunities as we can and and I think if we just keep cutting we're going to find we're losing more people and I think that we're you know doing the work to try and make sure that we're still providing good a real solid experience for everyone. >> I appreciate that and thanks for recognizing that. >> Yeah. Thank >> thank you for the the team and putting these presentations and the bud budget material together because the best thing we could ask for is to get to May and not have significant surprises coming in. So the fact that this is kind of old hat and we can run through it is is a very good sign to our leadership for what they're
056putting together and and how streamlined we've got this process and and just the work you've put into it. So I major compliments there. I I do go back to the first slide and and it or second slide when it says budget reduction principles and it's it's kind of like >> now you know I'd like it to go back to the time where it's just these are our budget priorities instead it's it's we're we're reducing with the priority of always having budget reductions and that's just this the sign of the times but it was just a little bit of irony I saw there is that this is how we budget now is is to reduce. Well, thank you very much and I just have to um you know the support of the cabinet team is absolutely
057huge and critical and um and our entire system is absolutely necessary to have um this work move forward and the processes that have to take our ability administrators are right there with us in the trenches. Our uh um department leaders are all there from all of our different departments. And so it's a it's a team effort and it it is hard work. him. But I appreciate where we are in this in um the process and we are getting better at the work and I think that uh that is part of being at year four in this work. So thank you. Appreciate the time. >> All right. So that takes us to policies second reads or action for the night. No discussion. Um let's get into it. Do I have a motion to approve policy 6140?
058>> No one. I move to approve policy 60140 as presented. >> All right. >> Second. >> All right. Move. Move by Maria. Seconded by Caroline. Uh any discussion? >> I don't have discussion, but I just wanted to thank you guys for putting that together, especially with the little piece that we had talked about in the workshop. I thought that was really well done. >> All right. Um all in favor of approving the resolution say I. >> I. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. And that takes us back to Corey, superintendent report. >> Let's do it. Um, most of uh you all know that we had uh uh teacher appre appreciation last week. Um so I just I hope that our teachers both actively teaching and our retired teachers had a wonderful week of gratitude and
059celebration uh for the care and dedication that they give all of our students each and every day. Um our as you all know our teachers relentlessly pursue the perfectly engaging lesson. Uh the activity that balances deep learning with smiles and high fives as well as the common formative assessment that raises the bar to show growth uh that we know all students can achieve is super inspiring. Each day they bring compassion and dedication to the classroom uh hoping that every student is safe, welcome and prepared to learn. So I want to thank them for being consistent adults in our students lives, showing up every day and giving them 110%. So, thank you. Um, we had some fun weeks, uh, a fun week last week and Sage Hills Church, uh, honored each school with a lunchon. Uh,
060every every school and department in the district, including the district office, was uh, celebrated. So, that was a big lift from them. It was great. Uh, so fun stuff. Uh, last week we had Mr. Panther and I was fortunate enough to help judge Mr. Panther and it's a wonderful performance. I had a blast. Eight talented young men, all sorts of different talents. Um, and then Kate Deo walked away with the with the title and it was very well deserved deserved. He had quite a well choreographed uh talent section. Did you see that? Oh my gosh. Yeah. >> Oh, it was it was great. It was great. So, um I also uh the next night I had was able to go to Valley's Valley Academyy's steam night where I had to park at least three blocks
061away from the school because there were so many people there. Um but it was super great. Uh, I saw parents and students dancing together on the stage. There was some folklorical dancing. I saw a plant sale. I actually walked away with the plant. Um, there was a Lego robotics demonstration. Um, the annual Valley Academy yearbook and art were throughout that entire building was just great. So, what a what a cool turnout. Um, also fun stuff. Uh we we found out last Thursday that the Wanche School District received a uh $466,000 grant to replace control systems at Foothills Middle School. Um so excited about that. There's been so much That's the second time we've gone out for a grant for a Foothills controllers. This time we got it. It was the right mix uh of uh
062Mo's Mo is our ATS friend and he's a great grant writer that helps support the work. Um and it was just a real team approach. So, I'm very excited. We know that there'll be there'll be savings um uh from the energy efficiency side of things because now we can actually shut things off and turn them on appropriately, not using a Windows 95 operating system. Uh so, that's fantastic for that upgrade. Super excited. Um and then just for uh the student experience uh to be able to really be able to dive deep into the controlling aspects of that building. So, um yeah, appreciate that. And then a reminder, Friday is music and arts festival at the Apple Loop uh trail from 5:30 to 7:30 and uh hopefully excited to see everybody. So, thank you so much.
063>> All right, that leads us to board communication. Mark, would you like to start? >> What do we have? Who picks that I sit on the end? >> It's either you or I. Uh so, I missed last board meeting. So, just going back that I um attended and helped at Sheenat Town, which was a great experience. Um Tucker and I were amazed watching I think all of those kids figure out uh I was charging them for their internet package and it was wild to see which package they had chosen and then did they have late fees on their package because they Yeah, it was good stuff. Uh, the youth parade was great. Thanks to all of the um the band teachers that orchestrated all of that. Orchestrated. See what I did there? Uh, also the
064grand parade was uh super fun. We were in it, but we also saw the high school there. And a shout out to uh in the Apple Blossom musical, we had some vacancies in the band and we had some Wanchi High School kids step in and play in the pit. So, it was pretty awesome. >> Maria, you want to go next? >> Sure. >> Um, I just have um kudos. Um, so I'm assuming the other middle schools and probably some of the elementary schools, the high schools, I'm not sure. But I commend Orchard Middle School for their communication, very transparent uh communication in regards to comprehensive health education. Um it started actually several weeks ago. Tucker, you probably got it. Um all the way from inviting families to review the curriculum to um the different age
065groups. Uh so um kudos to uh Orchard and the other schools that are very transparent because I know this we know this has been a topic of conversation um among our community. So, um, the opportunity to allow our community to come in and review and see what's happening at the buildings. I actually I actually even saw that you can sit in through the lessons. So, um, Wachi Valley Technical Skills Center, um, kudos to them. They actually catered an event at the college on Saturday for over 300 people. Um, and it was fabulous to see the spread, but the students manning um, you know, the the bringing in the food. Um, and uh, so yeah, it was it was neat. Um, and the food was really good. Um, here's a pitch. Uh, I attended the boys
066soccer game last week, Tuesday, Wednesday. Um, they won against Eastmont. Um, fortunately they lost against on Friday, but um, they have a game this week and hopefully they can bring it back home. Um, okay. Here's my pitch for the community for the bond. My kid last week goes, "Um, mom, it was really hot at school." He's like, "The AC's not working." It's like being walking into every room and all you can smell is BO. So, if that doesn't motivate us to get, you know, new systems and maybe a new high school, I heard the uh the AC was also out at the high school this week um in the music and uh some other wing. Um anyways, yeah, and good good job. I know it's going to be a busy weekend for you guys with
067um the bond committee getting being out in the community events. So, kudos. >> Yeah. And and that was during state testing that it was out. Yeah. What are our scores? Oh, I don't know. Uh, Caroline. >> Okay, two small things since I've not been very interactive over the past couple weeks. Um, but Together for Youth is hosting a love and logic course in Spanish in a rondo coming up u May 15th, 22nd, 29th, and June 5th. Um, so if anybody's interested in attending that, um, you do have to go to all the sessions, but you, um, it's a really great class and since they're offering it in Spanish, I mean, our schools do it too, but another opportunity. Um, and then a big thank you to all of the attendants and truencies at the schools.
068I mean, it's almost the end of the year and we're still keeping kids accountable and showing up in court and doing all the things um with low budget, low time, low resources, and our schools are doing amazing job. So, they're wonderful, wonderful. Good job, >> Julie. >> So, first I just want to give my appreciation also to all our our teachers and principles that were recognized last week. um they spend more time with some of our kids than we we do sometimes. So, it's it's great to be able to honor them and I appreciate all the the work they do uh for the students in our district and and families. Um another shout out, congratulations to Foothills and Sunny Slope for being recognized as um again in the Washington's 100 uh elementary schools or schools
069in general. Um good to see them getting that recognition. um good leadership at at those buildings and and good work for the district and you know hopefully we'll see more schools. Um just things I've been doing attended the budget meeting um and taking in some some of our athletic events. So the the soccer games were pretty exciting and um senior night came way too fast. Um, bummer it didn't go the way they they were hoping it did, but I'm glad to see that they'll still play Thursday um for the district title against Davis but at Ike. So yeah, which I was like good because at least then we can watch it. Um and and to the other teams that are that are participating in districts and and um league contests this week, I know we've
070got a couple whether it's tonight or Thursday. Yeah, I think softball was today and baseball is maybe Thursday as well. And so we've got congratulations to all the teams that are doing so well and moving on in in their groups. So that's all I've got. >> That was a really comprehensive group of notes. Nice work, everyone. I was going to say as I'm driving around driving my kid off at uh different middle school sports, I just wanted, you know, we talked about during the budget conversation like providing opportunities and like having all these middle school sports for, you know, we saw the number it was like $60,000 like that is a great opportunity and I think really promotes health and wellness outside the school. I think it gives a lot of kids exposure to sports
071I wouldn't try and uh while it blows up my evenings, it does uh really bring kids together from all the schools and provide opportunities that are great. Um I also wanted to highlight the mental health screenings that are available through the district right now. I know the springtime can be kind of crazy, especially since we just got out of testing and apparently there's an aderal shortage nationwide. So um you know there's some kids maybe uh having a more difficult spring than normal. Caroline, would you like to weigh? >> Yeah. To add to that, um, Together for Youth is also hosting a youth mental health first aid course. Um, it is $75, but I'm sure that they'd be able to work with people if that's um, a conflict, but it's it's great. I'm youth mental health
072certified, teach the staff at the juvenile. It's wonderful course. It's really interactive and informative. So, if you need more information on youth mental health, go to together for youth. >> All right. That seems like a um heavy heavy heavy heavy ending. Maybe you enjoy the weather as well. Um but that's all we've got. Uh do we need 60 minutes? You guys think should we start with 30? >> Hey, we say maybe. >> Okay. So, uh 45. Did I say 45? Okay. The school board will now recess into executive session for a period of 45 minutes until ah I covered up my thing. Uh 7:40 um to evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for public employment or to review the performance of a staff member pursuant to district policy number 1410 and RCW 423110. This discussion
073will be closed to the public. The school board is not expected to take final action following executive session. So ready Oh, me to All right. Just letting everyone know that we're extending the executive session for 20 minutes till 8:00. All right, we are going to extend till 8:15. All right, 8:30. Cross my fingers. This is the last one. Executive session is complete. Meeting is adjourned.