001All right, we're gonna start. >> Good evening everyone. Welcome to the March 10th regular board meeting for the Wachi School District. What? >> We are just ready to stand up for the >> Oh, okay. We will open the meeting with the pledge of allegiance. Some of us sooner than others. >> Yes. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. >> To the republic it stands one nation indivisibley and justice. The crowd is leaving that one. Yeah. All right, we're now going to work through the agenda. Board, are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda? Seeing a lot of shaking heads, I will say we will move on to the consent agenda as it is. Um, the items on the consent agenda were sent to the board and posted
002online 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 22426 regular meeting, vouchers and payroll, personnel report, surplus report, contracts, field trips, and policies with non-substantive changes. 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, seconded by uh Mark. Any discussion? Nope. All right. All in favor of adopting the consent agenda as presented, say I. I. >> Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Uh bright spots. I'll turn over to Corey for this evening's bright spot. >> Excellent. We have our bright spots moments at each board meeting. Gives the
003school board of directors and I Well, that was interesting. Excuse me. gives the school board of directors and I the opportunity to give it together. Give it together. You got this. >> All right. Uh the opportunity to highlight a celebration in the district and honor the great work and the educational experiences that are happening throughout the district. And tonight is Math is cool team uh from Washington Elementary. And Tucker actually helped us get this. So do you want to say a few things about Math is Cool? >> Sure. So I help coach the fourth grade Math is cool team at Washington. And so I burdened the two instructors for the fourth and fifth graders there and asked them to come in and bring some students because I think it's really cool. It's a really cool
004program and every school in the district has at least one team that does math is cool. So it's something that we do across the district and it's a really cool program. So I'm going to bring up um Sarah Smeeller and Shannon Riker with their students from Washington Elementary. >> Thank you so much for joining us. Do I need to have it on? Is okay. All right. Superintendent Callahar, President Jackson, and other members of the Wan that school board, good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you on behalf of some great wonderful things that are happening in math at Washington Elementary. My name is Shannon Riker and I'm a fourth grade teacher. And my name is Sarah Smeeller and I'm also a fourth grade teacher at Washington. This year with the encouragement of
005our assistant principal, Mr. Weaver, our fourth grade team made the decision to level students during our math differentiation block. This approach mirrors our walkto- read model already used within the district and we simply applied the same concepts to our math instruction. As a team including our uh interventionist specialist Dalia Navis, we analyze the data from our SBA, our IR diagnostic, our CFAs and teacher inputs to build our initial groups. Periodically during our PLC times, we re-evaluate student progress and shift students to new groups based on their performance. So by grouping students based on their learning needs in math, teachers use this dedicated time every day in order to meet the needs of each and every student. Um we use this to um fill some gaps with students that are struggling with math skills. So we
006have students meeting in much smaller groups for that. But every single student is placed with a teacher during that time. Um as opposed to other previous models where students might be working on I Ready Path on a computer or possibly working on worksheets, every single student um is working with an adult during that time. Um, so, um, we think this is super important, super cool, and we've had so much support in the building for this, um, with, um, Mr. Weaver, as mentioned before, but also um Dalia, who's been invaluable to us in helping us plan all of those groups because not only are we wanting to meet the needs of the students that have those gaps and are that are needing that extra support, but we want to be able to challenge our students that
007are also being successful in providing them some extensions in the work that we're doing. So this structure allows those additional roles to be fulfilled. And as our roles as fourth grade teachers, this also allows us to coach our students for math is cool. What does that mean? That means I'm currently a fourth grade teacher as a and a math is cool coach. Math is cool is a team based on competition that began in Washington Elementary in 1996. >> Washington State, >> I'm sorry. Sorry. Washington State. Uh students compete in teams of four individuals. They compete on an individual test, a mental math section, and several collaborative team events. The math content is ve very rigorous and it gives the students the opportunity to think critically for themselves and develop the higher level mathematical skills needed
008to advance in their mathematical career. I had the opportunity to coach as a parent when my daughter, who's now a junior, was in fourth and fifth grade. So, I was recruited as a parent. So, I got a taste of it then. And, um, our school with COVID happening and everything shutting down for a little while, um, we kind of lost that for a while at our building. So, um, Mrs. Riker and I took that um, on our shoulders with some encouraging from some parents. and um it's been a wonderful thing for our students. So um our math differentiation time that we have during our school day also allows me to work with our fourth grade students um with that um the upper level students that are really um getting it and they need a challenge.
009It allows me to reinforce those skills that they're learning with Mrs. Riker on her fourth grade math school team. Also because I coach the fifth grade team, I know which skills the students will need um in the future. Um as they come to me to the fifth grade math school team and it helps prepare them for those future opportunities and for the competition which is the fun part where they get to apply what they've learned. Um students who are not part of the team, we also include those students in in that um enrichment and extension as well during that walk to math time >> together. Mrs. SMER and I promote the love of mathematics through consistent practice, teamwork, engaging instruction, and challenging students each and every day to think critically through their math problems. So,
010tonight, as you know, we've brought some wonderful students representing both fourth and fifth grade, and we would like them to be able to share their experiences with you. And first up is Andrew from fourth grade. Do you want to step over here so they can see you? Can you hold that? Okay. You want to look towards Hello board members. This is Andrew Tang in fourth grade from Washington Elementary. And I will share my experience on Math is cool. First, Math is cool gives a fun experience to learn more about math. And every time I go to practice, I feel like I get I get smarter and smarter. Next, the skills and strategies I've learned from practice have really helped me a lot because it gives a better, more efficient way to solve something every single
011time. Lastly, the teamwork that I have experience in the math is cool is really helpful. Whenever I need help on something, a team on a team test, I can always ask a teammate for help. I would like to thank Mrs. Richer and Mrs. smeller. And I hope I believe me and my team will have fun this Friday's competition. And thank you guys for your time. >> Thank you, Andrew. The fourth grade team is competing this Friday at Foothills Elementary for their regional champs competition. So, we're excited to support you this Friday. And he has How many team members do you have? 13 team members uh for fourth grade. And next up, I have some of my fifth graders um who competed a few weeks ago at the Champs competition and they placed uh first place
012at our regional competition in the highest division. So, we're super proud of them that we had 16 mathletes on our team and now four get to proceed on to our M's competition in Moses Lake, which will happen later in May. So, first off, I'd like to introduce Miles Carmine. He is our first place champion for the individual overall in that that highest division. So, we're super proud of that. And then we'll hear from a couple others that are going to be on that team that goes to our state competition. All right, Miles, would you like to share a little bit about your experience? >> Yeah. >> Yourself up there? >> Yeah. Good morning be board members. Um I just really liked um how my team supported me during the whole competition. Um, I also really
013liked being able to talk to the team about how more challenging complex problems because in normal school, like the normal day, we uh do more fifth grade and easier problems and you can't really talk to people around there about more complex, higher graded like math. And so I really liked talking to my teammates about more complex math. And it helped my uh like helped me find easier ways to do stuff cuz they taught me through my mistakes. I just really liked it. >> Thank you, Miles. All right. And next we have Vivian Smith. Vivian was is also going to be going to masters with us. And um she we just we have other exciting news for Vivian. yesterday she got to participate in the top 10 for the her writing for being junior royalty for
014Apple Blossom. So good luck to Vivian on that. So she's had a busy week this week. But Vivian, I am so excited for you to share right now. What is your favorite thing about being a part of Math is Cool? My favorite part about being in math is cool is probably the support from everyone and working on hard problems that actually challenge me because in class we're usually just working on not very hard things for most math math is cool people. So, it's really fun to try and actually like work through things. So, yeah. >> Thank you. >> Nice. Thank you, Vivian. And next we have Thomas. Thomas placed second overall in the individual part of the competition and he will also be going on to masters. But I asked Thomas to share a little
015bit about what his favorite part was about math is cool and he said something about the competition. So I'm going to let him share that with you. Um, so my favorite part about the competition was the college bowl cuz it was like cuz uh cuz it was like like like it wasn't like slow. You had to do it like fast and uh >> what college is. >> There's like two teams and there's like a question being read and whichever team like solves it first can like pull a buzzer and if they get it right then it's like point for them and if they get it wrong then the other team answers then it goes until like and there's 10 questions. >> Yeah. >> Does that make you feel stressed out at all? >> No. The
016answer is >> no. Okay. Likes the challenge. It stresses a lot of people out because you have a buzzer and you have to pull it before the other team does. So, I'm excited that you love that one because that one would terrify me as well. All right. Thank you so much, Thomas. All right. Um, also joining our team when we go to Moses Lake will be McKinnon Aiden. She was not able to attend tonight, but um, she also placed third overall in the competition for the individual tests. Um, so I would also like to give a shout out to William Campbell. He will be our alternate if one of our members is not able to attend. And also our wonderful PTSA made this possible for us to go. So, I would like to thank our
017PTSA. They paid for our registration fee so that we're able to participate in this. We would like to be able to bring more students, but they do limit how many teams we're able to bring. Um, so we are super excited about this Friday um with the fourth graders getting to show their stuff. And um I'm super proud of the hard work and determination that these students are doing each week. It's every week they're meeting for an hour and a half outside of the school day. Um, and they have extra homework, too, which I'm sure they absolutely love and parents love, too. So, thank you parents for your support as well in helping that happen. All right, so thank you again. Uh, we appreciate all that you do for all of the students in WACI School
018District and Washington Elementary. Thank you. and and thank you for staying late and doing more school after school and nice work everyone for coming out. Thanks for uh for telling us your experiences students. Okay, citizen comment Kim. All right, we will move on past citizen comment. Perfect. Let's move into our special presentations. Um first up we have director of learning and teaching Amber Burks who is here tonight with the special presentation. Thanks everyone. Hello. Um, good evening. I am so excited to be here tonight to honor our national boards certified teachers. And um I just wanted to say that this is a big honor for me to recognize these amazing teacher leaders. Um this uh accomplishment um before we get celebrating this accomplishment, I'd like to share a bit about the context and of the
019process of national board certification. Um this process is recognized as a gold standard um certification. It is grounded in the belief that higher standards for teachers lead to better learning outcomes for students. Um again this is considered the gold standard certification process for teachers, the highest um the highest award in our nation. And the three key steps to becoming a national board teacher um as you could imagine are very rigorous. one, they demonstrate content knowledge through a computer a computer-based assessment that has a depth of questioning that is very complex. Um, they show evidence of effective teaching by submitting portfolio entries, including student work and classroom videos, which is everyone's very favorite, those videos. Um they reflect on practice and their professional growth by analyzing instructional decisions decision decisions and um and their impact on
020student learning. Uh national board certification represents again the highest rigorous certification pro process available to educators. Achieving this distinction is a powerful testament to our national board teachers unwavering commitment to excellence to their students and to their teaching profession as a whole. In addition to honoring individual ed educators, the national board also recognizes school districts um that demonstrate a strong commitment to student learning through this process. Um in 2019, the national board accomplished um districts program first honored 81 districts in which at least 20% of teachers had earned national board certification. Wanche school district is proud to be among those recognized. We have several nationally board certified teachers. With that context in mind, it is my privilege on behalf of Wanche School District to congratulate our most recent educators who have achieved national board certification
021andor recertification in Ann Young's situation. Way to go, Ann. There should be an award for that, too. So, please join me in recognizing I'll begin with uh Shauna Gardner. Shauna is a teacher of the deaf for our Wachi school district and maybe the first to certify, I don't know, in that area. So, well done, Shauna. And we have Tammy Honeyut. We have um Ann Young, kindergarten at Lincoln Elementary. I forgot to say Tammy Honeyut is at Orchard Middle School as an ELD teacher. And finally, we have Michael Lazer, who's health and fitness at WACI High School, and he's unable to be here tonight, but we wanted to honor him as well. And I just wanted to say in closing that um thank you so much for this modeling the highest standards for prof professional education.
022Well done. You want to get a picture? Let's get a picture together too. Where do you want us to stand? Thank you for your dedication and commitment. We appreciate it. And thanks for coming tonight. Uh okay. Next up, uh, we have, uh, we're celebrating Education Support Professionals Week and, uh, executive director of human resources, Kelly Lopez, is here to tell us a little bit about it. Thanks, Kelly. Everybody's gone. Um, I am here to honor our classified staff. Um, two of which we have right over here. So, woo, [laughter] they didn't know they were getting into that tonight. Um, our school district has roughly 530 classified staff members. Some classified staff work directly with our students and others support behind the scenes, all equally important. Um, I've seen how our policies and contracts define our
023classified staff roles, but job descriptions can really never truly capture um what our employees do. Um, when I walk into a district building, I don't just see employees. I really see the backbone of our school district. Uh, we often talk about the school day. Uh, but for students, that day does not just start at the first bell. It really starts some for some around 6:30 in the morning when a bus pulls up to the corner and they see that smiling face. It starts when our secretaries who are at our front desks greet our kindergarteners. Um, it starts when our custodians create that welcoming, clean space. Our classified staff are the first faces some of our students see when they leave home, providing that vital sense of security for them when they get to some of
024our very large buildings. And when the final bell rings, they are some of the last faces our students see before they go back to their families. Um, often that includes high fives and encouraging words. Um, and the, you know, I'll see you tomorrow. And for some, those are the only smiling faces that they're going to be seeing. While our certificated staff handle the direct curriculum for students, our classified staff handle the humanity of it. Our para educators provide the individualized patience that turns I can't into I did. The nutrition services team make sure that none of our students are learning on empty stomachs. Our maintenance and text tech teams build the infrastructure that makes modern learning possible. I can tell that a school that our school system can survive a day without me as an
025executive director, but they cannot survive without our classified staff. On behalf of our district's leadership team, I want to thank our classified staff for their dedication, their resilience, and for choosing to spend their talents here at the Wachi School District with us. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Kelly. Wonderful words. Next up, uh we have a budget update and um and a slide presentation that we'll um have pulled up in a second here. But I just want to thank uh everyone for their time this evening, President Jackson and the school board members. Um the 26 27th school year will be our fourth intentional budget reduction for the Wanche School District uh due to declining enrollment and inflationary factors. The great thing is we know this work. We plan for this work annually and we
026make the necessary projections for the process. So, um we are doing the right work to align our budget and our staffing to our our current enrollment um and to and the reductions in funding. Tonight, we do have a little bit of some good news that we get to share along the way. So, that's not always part of our budget reduction uh meetings, but we'll we'll share that along the way. And I want to kick off the same way that I did uh in wh did a little buzz thing. Okay. The same way I did on January 13th when we had our first uh budget reduction conversation uh of this uh school year. And I want to clarify the difference between our operating budget, which is uh which is the topic of this evening, and then
027bond funds that we will be asking from our community later in the year to build a new Winh High School and of course the HVAC systems in many of our schools uh and middle schools throughout the district. So, as you can see from the SLI slide here, our operating budget really talks about the funds that uh produce our day-to-day operations, all of our student support, and all of our staffing. uh it comes from a combination of state federal allocations and local levy dollars and the amounts are based on student enrollment, special needs of students such as uh low socioeconomic status, disabilities and English language skills, limited ling English language skills. What the operating budget cannot do is it cannot build new schools. It cannot replace facilities. it cannot support largecale uh construction nor can it
028pay long-term debt. So, we just want to make sure that those are we're clearly distinct in those areas. Um the other the other side is bonds. Bonds are for building and uh these are voter approved funds to build or modernize school pro uh school buildings. We know that this is from uh long-term 15 to uh 30-year uh basically loans for bonds that are uh paid off by local property taxes. And we want to also um clarify that bonds cannot pay for teachers or staff salaries. They cannot pay for supplies. They cannot pay for daily operations nor instructional programs or administrative costs. And they cannot backfill budget shortfalls. So just clearly differentiating between those two areas. And we also want to take a moment to um share a little bit about um or a moment to
029thank our Wanchi community for their support of last year's levy which passed about 13 months ago. And again, not to confuse the topic, but levies are for learning where we just mentioned bonds are for building. and we just want to remind our community that their support is critical for our programs, our extracurricular activities, and the athletics uh that we continue to offer. So, thank you for your support for the student experience that we are able to provide. And then you'll hopefully have recognized this mailer that you received um in the beginning of the year. [clears throat] Oh, good. Julie's daughter's on there. Okay. I love that. Okay. Well, we had uh we had a conversation [clears throat] at our board budget committee meeting last week about um kind of revitalizing or resharing some of the
030budget reduction principles um that guide the work that we do. And so I wanted to take a moment to go through that. So this is some new information um that hasn't that it's not new. It's how we guide ourselves into the budget reduction process. But um we had didn't see this in January on the 13th. So, um, one of the things that guides our budget reduction principles is our, uh, promise to our students over here. We promise to build the foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready as that guides the work that we do overall. Um, we also want to make sure that we're prioritizing student outcomes. We continue to support programs that impact students, whether that's academic, social, emotional, or extracurricular. We also want to make sure that
031during the process we're leveraging resignations and retirements. And by that we mean are we looking critically at each position as they exit or resign um from our system um and really look at is that an opportunity that we have for a budget reduction um in the future. We also want to make sure that we're making reductions furthest from the classroom where wherever possible. And we know that we had we had to um get to the point when we started the budget reduction process where we um really were aligning our staffing to enrollment. Um and now that we've done that, we want to make critical decisions that take that budget reduction uh further from the classroom if at all possible. We also want to optimize operations, efficiencies, and needs. uh we know that our schools uh
032were built uh to hold larger populations and it's time it's at times we have to look at those efficiencies um in the area uh of importance there. We also want to make sure that we are we have uh transparency and communication um as often as possible and explain the whole story where we can and that's why we're we're coming back with our uh second budget update for the 2627 school year tonight. We also want to maintain levy funded programs and student opportunities wherever possible. Again, a thank you to our community for supporting uh our levies. And then the last the principle that is very important as we're doing this work is that we do have short-term goals when we think about budget reduction and that is the implications that are next year. But we also
033have to look at the long the long-term picture in planning as well. As we've looked at the data in uh on January 13th, we see that we could potentially have budget reductions um that take us well into 2037. Um as we are [clears throat] graduating classes of 500 plus and having kindergarten classes of three uh 380. So really want to balance all of those pieces. We can't just look at the short term. We have to look at the long-term implications as well. So and I'll pause there if there are any uh comments uh from the board. I I want to say I appreciate this as a kind of a a showcasing what your what your decision-m process looks like because I I think that it's easy to say 2.5 million, what does that look like?
034But there's a lot of moving pieces that you guys have to to juggle to make that actual 2.5 million work. And so kind of giving us some insight into what that looks like, especially that uh making reductions further from the classroom is a is really, you know, I think important to to show. >> Yeah, thank you. I'll add to that. I appreciate seeing this because we're now to a point with budget reduction phases where it's less board getting to choose between particular options versus this is just a philosophy we go through. So, I think it's important for the board to know what is guiding your work because we aren't constantly being asked, do you approve this or that plan? So, it it's helpful. We talked about this in the budget committee. I think it's it's
035helpful for the board to know what is what we're looking at and that that to know for the community to know that we're behind it as well. >> Thank you very much. Any other thoughts? Okay. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Let me get my clicker. Okay. I turned myself off. Uh, okay. So, here is a slide that we see often when we talk about the budget reduction process and cycle uh and and kind of where we are as well. So, we are days away from this uh state legislative budget session ending, which is great because that will really tell us a lot about what the implications are for our own budgets uh for next year. Um, I did hear today from Superintendent uh Reichd Doll um on his webinar uh that they may need an
036extra day. Um sounds like they're spending a lot of time on some income tax conversations that are happening. Um so uh there may be some some extra time that is needed to fully um talk about the budget cycle. So um just letting folks know where we are during this time. This is when we like to finalize our staff moves and let people know um who are impacted. Uh during this time we like to we have kind of a cut off a natural cut off of spring break is that time when we like to make sure that everybody is notified uh if they're going to be uh if their job is going to be impacted in any way next year. So here is the orange celebration slide. um 2026-27 federal funding has been restored which we
037are very thankful about and it really changes um the overall picture in which we discussed budget reductions for uh the 2627 school year and so we'll move on to that slide so you see some strikeouts from our June sorry June wow our January 13th meeting uh where we had our operational budget reduction target was 5.4 4 million. We are now just looking at the basic education allocation of 2.5 million which is a great great thing for our system and an even better uh celebration for our students and the student experience that they continue to have in the Wanche school district. So um we still have work to do. We we know that 2.5 million is still a considerable number for us to undertake for budget reductions, but it's not unfamiliar work. We know this work
038unfortunately and we know how to do that. Um, and out of the budget reduction factors, the first two bullets stay the same. Declining enrollment, um, and inflationary costs outpacing the funding, but we are celebrating again in orange. Uh, the federal funding has been restored. So, um, we're we're actually quite thrilled about that. Uh, here are some federal uh, budget factors that I do want to talk us through. We are cautiously moving forward. We want to make sure that we are good stewards of the funds. um being uh in budget reduction mode uh that we are uniquely aware of all of the impacts, but we still have some concerns that there could be something that happens that makes the funds not be released as they were last year. So um but we're ready. We we can
039take July again um and do that if it happens. We are we have been assured from uh North Central ESD and OSPI that the funds will be released. So we we're feeling better about that, but we are moving forward cautiously. Um and one thing that I do want to want to make sure the reason that it hit the Wanche school district hard last year is we have the fifth largest migrant program in the state. So um large a large impact financially. So when the funding didn't come through in late July, we had some major planning to do and as you know from the from the budget cycle for uh the 2526 school year, that's right in the middle. We've presented to you the budgets in all five self uh fund in all five categories and
040then July is when it goes to the ESD, it goes to OSPI and then in August we come back and the board approves. So it's really not the ideal time to be making budget reductions. So we know all that. Uh we are looking at opportunities to reimagine our federal program allocation. Um, one of the reasons that we're doing that is because the funds that we will receive this year are based on 2024 allocations and they don't have increases for inflation or IPD for salaries. So, we want to make sure that we are very um intentional about uh the work and how we move forward. We also are approaching new ways to support students with this particular funding um for the long game moving forward. Um, so we want to just clarify that and share that
041information. We also are excited to continue to support students at high levels through staffing and programs that currently exist uh for our students. Again, this is a slide that you saw uh in January uh the areas of reduction. We've done some deep restructuring to our district office administration. We've also consequently had to restructure our building administration in that uh process. We are looking at retirements and resignations. uh very critically. There will be some staffing modifications both in the certificated world and some in the classified world. We do spend much of our time looking at unfilled positions throughout the year. As you know, we fund for 100% staffing. Uh and uh and that there are there are always savings in that area that we can um look for. We do know we're going to have sign
042significant savings this year in our MSOC with contracts because we have the removal of the stronger connections grant um which has funded our SSS's for the last three years. So we know that that's a piece. The other side of it is how are we looking at growth in the Wanche school district and uh I have a slide on that that will kind of close us up for today. I'll share that in just a moment. Um but looking at the different areas where we can grow, where there are opportunities that uh for us to increase enrollment and uh and we have a few of those this year that we're very excited about. Um and then always making sure that the community and the board know there is no school closures for 26 27. Um we and
043we don't want people to think that that is our budget reduction model because it isn't. But we do want to signal that because we have had to do that in the past. and the enrollment decline data that was shared on January 13th. I just want to remind the community if they would like to look at those graphs, charts, and explanations of the enrollment decline, they're welcome to. We're not going to go through those today. So, maybe another celebration. Um, but uh but we do want to make sure that anyone watching that wants that additional information knows that they can access that information on the Wanche School District website. And then and then this is the a very similar slide that we saw. However, instead of 5.4 at the bottom, we have 2.5 at the bottom,
044which is a much more reasonable number for us to address this year. And instead of uh oh my gosh, what was it? 20 21.5, I think. Was it 21.5? Um 18.6 six million that we will have reduced over the course of the four years of intentional budget reduction which is still a very large number and and a lot of work. So, opportunities for future growth, uh, staffing for choice. Um, we've changed our staffing model, uh, for in district choice and for students out of district, creating a more welcoming system and creating a system that will, I believe, help sustain those students that do choice into our system over the long term. Oh, hello. What did I do? I got to catch up here. Okay. We also have created our uh we're in year two of
045our accelerated pathways program which I'm very excited about as well. Um preliminary numbers are showing that we have a lot of students that are um choosing to uh begin their uh college in the high school program and uh and earn that transfer degree or that two-year degree at uh staying at Wanche High School. We also know that we have two opportunities in particular at Valley. Uh, one is that we have about 16 ninth graders that will be moving to seventh grade or nope. They're not going to be moving to seventh grade just like we're not in June. And uh, talking about January, I want to apologize, but we'll have a variety of nth graders that will be moving to 10th grade. Uh, and we're very excited about that because that will be additional growth for
046the program and additional FTE. uh uh Shelley Jeling and her team are also looking at kindergarten opportunities uh as well and offering what would be at Valley a new program would be full-time kinder opportunities at Valley Academy as opposed to a halftime program. Um so that's another exciting opportunity and an FTE uh increaser for us. We also have additional AL opportunities. We actually chose to uh create a new smaller program at Westside that is very much like our credit acceleration program at the tech center. Um but we've added uh close to 30 additional students for that AL opportunity um and an additional teacher that was teaching at the tech center is now at Westside doing that. That will carry on into next year. So another increase opportunity there. We also adjusted our registration timeline to
047capture folks a little bit early and to give an increased window for people to join the Wanche School District at whatever capacity they're ready to join. And then uh we are still researching other areas for growth andor efficiencies uh along the way. So, um, exciting stuff. And I want to close with the advertising that the Wanche School District has taken on this year, which has been, um, exciting, uh, not only from the superintendent's chair, but also from our, uh, communication director's chair as well, just to see some of the great things that are happening. Here's the one of the examples of the billboard. So, this is our accelerated pathways um, in in Spanish uh, as well. So, in January, we had an English version. In February, we had a Spanish version and then I haven't
048seen it yet, but we believe it's been shifted to dual language. Um, and for March, which is exciting um, just to encourage people to know the great programming that is only offered regionally through Wanche School District. So, we're very excited about that. Let's see here. What is that? Oh, I think that was that was I ended on that note. So, uh, any questions or comments uh, from from the board? >> I have a comment. >> Yes, please. Um, I was watching, we were watching ESPN the other day and a commercial came on. Um, I don't know if you guys have seen it. Uh, I haven't. Um, >> Pathways, what? >> Accelerated Pathways. Yes. >> Thank you. Great. >> Yeah. And actually, I've seen it quite a few times. I don't know if it's the same
049channel cuz we always have Catini on. I don't know if it's always been on ESPN because we watch that a lot. Um, or if it's been different channels. Um, but yes, it is constantly coming on. So kudos. >> I'll I'll add I've noticed a lot more of the advertising and it's actually really exciting to like look down on Facebook and see, oh that's that's actually Wachi. Yeah. Yeah. I see the purple and gold and I think it's Udub and then I look down. I was like, "Oh, that's Wachi. That's awesome. That's even better." So really exciting and just thinking now as I'm starting to see more bond um information coming out. I think it's great that you're getting on it. they're getting on it so early and I think that could easily be one of
050our opportunities for growth because a beautiful new facility would certainly help with some of our enrollment things. So excited for it all. >> Excellent. Well said. I appreciate that. We we've talked to some community members who have also um se seen some of the new advertising in different places than they have in the past. And I think one of the gentlemen that we talked to Diana was it on Spotify? Was that where he was? I think that's where he's like, "I was on Spotify and here's a Wanche School District advertisement." And he goes, "I hadn't seen that before." So, we're thrilled. It's exciting. >> Sorry to interrupt. One of the the cool things um is that we don't have local television here. I we go through Westside channels. So, to actually see a local channel
051is out of the ordinary. Um so, yeah, I was really taken back. I'm like, "This is not local." [laughter] Uh any any other thoughts or comments? Awesome. Thank you for uh for the time and and the budget update. We will uh we know we we're going to have uh probably one final update as well when we start showing how the numbers break down this year so the board knows where the 2.5 is coming from uh whether that's administrative or uh otherwise. So we'll be back to chat about that. All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. You want to just start uh us off with discussion now for the policies first? >> Yes, let's do that. So, we had um our uh policies committee met and we went over Kim. How many were there? There were 11
052There was 11 policies, but a lot of them didn't have really um uh substantive changes that that so you saw a lot of those in the consent agenda, but we have a few here. the first one, 1111, which is the oath of office. So, as you know, it's like, wait, didn't we just update this one? Um, and so we're following WASDA's uh recommendations, and the change here really emphasized the oath and following the state law. The wording changed from will to must. Um, so it's really showing that it's a vital reminder to uphold the state constitution and law. Um, but we didn't have a lot of uh comment on that one. Let me just kind of move that one forward. Any other thoughts? Okay. Uh, so 5010 discriminationfree workplace and this one this one did
053have some changes. The title was changed. Um, evidently people were having trouble navigating WASDA's policies because there is a student equivalent of this policy that has a similar name. So members were commonly getting confused between the two policies. Um we we were a little bit taken aback when um we noticed that the affirmative action section was removed and so we had some conversation about that. Um Kim came in and shared with us that there is a sentence that does reference the entire uh RCW that is spelled out in detail. They just went with a one-s sentence reference as opposed to spelling out the RCW in the actual policy. And so with that, we were able to move the conversation forward. Any anything you two want to add? >> Yeah. Uh and to that um one
054of the updates was um that the affirmative action plan um is part of our procedure and um I believe Kelly confirmed with Yep. >> Corey that we do have a plan. >> Perfect. Yeah. Thanks, Maria. It's kind of fun having you. This is this is our policy committee right here. There's like right. Okay. Um, and the last the any other thoughts? I'm sorry. Okay. The last the last two 6920 6910 um really didn't have a lot of changing. There was some providing some clarity and some general housekeeping. We didn't have a lot of conversation. We kind of uh we read it. It made sense and uh yeah, we moved move those forward to the board. So, any comments from anyone else? Okay. Well, we will bring these back uh on the 24th of March for
055a second read and uh yeah, we'll go from there. We can move on to some action. Time to get some >> back to me. Um all right, so new bound Newberry playground equipment. I'm just going to up top remind everyone that this is not the district buying new playground equipment. This is a PTO saving for 10 years to create their own playground equipment. is um us approving their ability to get permits and have inkind donations done to do the work to change their facility. So, do I have a motion to approve the capital updates to Newberry Elementary? >> I move to approve the capital updates to Newberry Elementary playground >> as presented. I'll second. >> All right. It was moved by Caroline and seconded by Julie. Um, any discussion? All right. I want to say
056a little bit like thank you for to their PTA for doing this. They said, you know, a 10-year goal and raising over $100,000 is really an impressive act. And I will also say thank you to the um local businesses that are donating their inind time and effort into making it. And I'm, you know, I'm happy that we can help facilitate that as well from the district side. So, all in favor of approving the resolution say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. All right. Our next order of business is the superintendent report. >> Let's go. I had a super fun Friday night on February 27th with jazz night with the with the pros. That was fun. Were you Did you go? Oh, okay. Tucker was there because I saw Theo was
057there was there as well. It was so fun. I in the past I've gone to either the meet the pros night or the actual jazz night and this year I went to the jazz night and so it was just super fun. It was great to see I mean Orchard Pioneer Foothills Wanche High School and our Eastmont counterparts all there two hours of amazing jazz. Um I was really pumped that they they did a radio head song. It was really cool. I was like oh my gosh. Anyway, it was great. So that was super fun. Um, we have uh also in the bond engagement world, we have a f our first design advisory committee uh tomorrow night. And um as I shared with the board in the weekly, we had a whopping 87 applicants for design
058advisory committee. People are ready to get out and tell us what they want to see in the next Winante High School. So, we're super pumped. I'm very impressed. Um and we've got a great program tomorrow night, uh 6:00 to 8:00. Um so, we're really excited. So, and then uh on another note um uh a week ago Tuesday we had uh a restructuring committee meeting. U there was two main objectives that night and one was for us to discuss um obviously areas uh for restructuring but we're looking at getting some uh some community feedback at some point as well on some of the uh the areas for potential restructuring. um but also to garner um some feedback on uh the world of career and technical education um and dual language as well. So, we're excited to
059get that. Our goal is to also come to the school board for a presentation on April 14th. Um so, I'm really excited about that. You will not be hearing from me. You'll be hearing from committee members, which is exactly what um you'll be excited to uh to hear. This week is busy, folks. We have a migrant night Thursday. We have dual language discovery nights at Louiswis and Clark that are taking place right now and Thursday. Sunny Slope has a family night on Thursday and the importance of being earnest opens Thursday as well too. So, lots of things happening right now. Anyway, that's that is the end. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Nice work. Thank you. Um, we'll start with the board communication down at the my left. Caroline, you want to start us off? >>
060Do I have a choice? [laughter] Uh, I finished off my school visits this week or last week, I think. Um, including going to the tech center where I got to be witness to a kid getting shot in the arm with a staple gun. So, that was super fun. >> Yeah. No. Yeah, for sure. Criminal justice. Yeah. No, they they handled it so well. The kids were were great. Mr. Joling was great. The secretary had the incident report written before the kid had even left to go get it checked out. Like it was all around. I mean, terrible situation, but they handled it really well. Um, and let's see. Planning to go to the importance of being earnest. Um, and I did get to go back to my alma mater with Pioneer and that was fun
061hanging out with all my old people. So, yeah. >> Thank you, Julie. I don't have much. I just want to give a congratulations to our board certified or our new board certified teachers. So, great work for all of you. Keep it up for our district. >> Yeah, I wasn't ready to go next. Uh I also don't have much except for let's also recognize the education support specialist week too. Ditto. Um, I will I'll also echo that the student jazz night was a lot of fun to go to. My son was there, but it was incredible. The the talent on display. Um, and the pros were very supportive. There were a lot of like pats on the back. There was a lot of adjusting microphones to get like the best sound quality for the students who
062were just freaking out about just playing their instruments. So it was really great to see them volunteering their time and their expertise and really I think being a part of of the concert with the students as opposed to either being a little bit aloof or else um just kind of listening. So that was a really fun thing. Uh and that's the rest for me. So we are adjourned.