001All right. Good evening and welcome to the December 2nd regular board meeting for the Manachi School District. We will open with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America. All right. Today we're going to get started with the oath of office for our new board members from Justin and Chris Fer. Guys want to go up. All right, welcome and welcome back for the other two. Um, we're now going to get work through the agenda board. Are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda? Hearing none, I will now 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
002they have had about items on the consent agenda. The consent agenda for this meeting includes the minutes for the 111225 regular meeting and the 111725 workshop, vouchers and payroll, personnel report, surplus report, contracts, middle school improvement plans, November and the November enrollment plans. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> All right. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Julie and seconded by Mark. Any discussion? >> All right. All in favor adopting the consent agenda as presented. Say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? No. All right. Motion carries. Uh, now Corey, I'll take let you take it over with bright spots. >> Thank you, President Jackson. Uh let's see. Each month we are thrilled to have our high school ASB uh join
003us and share the latest and greatest. Um I know we have Mattie Sutton from Westside. Do you want to start us for today? All right. Yeah. Right up there, man. Yep. Super fun. Hello. My name is Maddie Sutton and I am the president of our leadership club at Westside High School and I'm here to tell you about what's been happening in the past month and what has been coming up which I will admit is a little bit. Um on November 18th we heard we held our first annual annual career con of 2025. During the morning there were over 25 vendors and the community resources for students to visit and learn about career opportunities in our valley. Then students chose four sessions to attend to learn more in depth about those careers. The afternoon was geared
004more towards actively seeking employment and how to tweak your resume for the job you want to be interviewing for. The following evening, November 19th, was our career college trades career info night for schools for our family. We partnered with Wacci Valley College to share about career opportunities through their professional technical training programs. Our next wellness day will be in February and it will be a DIY theme to help prepare students to be on their own and solve everyday problems. Tomorrow night at 5:00 p.m. we will hold a FAF FAFSA night to assist families in filling out applications for financial aid. We will have a winter spirit week December 15th through 19th. The dressup days are pajama day, lumberjack day, red, white, and green day, mathletes versus athletes, and ugly sweater day. Spirit week will conclude
005with our 10th annual Westside Goth talent talent show on December 19th. Leadership is in charge of our Salvation Army giving tree and all 30 tags have been taken. Leadership Club partnered with communities and organizations from all over the valley to provide people in Chilean Douglas and Okonogan County as well as Kovville Confederate tribe with 10,000 pairs of Bomba socks that we got this year. And finally, we are looking forward to partner with Leswab toy drive and stuff a sack pack organization. Each year they bless many of our students with stuff a sack packs and with all the socks that they stuff. This brings us to the end of our update. Do you have any questions for me? >> Just one. Maddie, are you going to be in the talent show for anything that we need
006to be aware of? Um, my friend wanted me to do line dancing with her, but I'm not sure if that's for me. >> Okay. So, if remains to be seen. Okay. >> Yes, we we'll see. >> Okay. Excellent. Thanks so much for the update. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, we have Wanchi High School as well, Luciana. All right. Thanks for being here. >> Yeah. All right. Good evening everyone. My name is Lisa Naskel and I'm the ASB president at Wachi High School. Tonight, I want to give a quick recap of everything we accomplished during the month of November. Throughout November, we held our home room representative meeting, four team leader meetings, and four senate meetings to make sure that all student voices were heard, and we stayed up to date with our team leaders and
007what their projects are. One of our big biggest highlights this month was our Veterans Day assembly. This year, our ASB executive team took a new approach and created our own studentmade documentary to honor local veterans. We included a diverse group of students and worked hard to tell meaningful stories. The assembly had great engagement from students and afterwards we received a lot of positive feedback. Our administration even told us that this was one of the best Veterans Day assemblies Wachi High School has ever had, which meant a lot to our entire team. Another important part of November was our home room representative meeting. Each second period class has a rep meeting has a rep who meets with us to share ideas, ask questions, and bring information back to their classmates. Our most recent meeting had strong
008participation, and it was great to see so many students willing to speak up and improve our school. We also spent November focusing on supporting our clubs and sports teams, especially since so many of them qualified for state competitions. ASB helped promote their events, share their achievements, and celebrate their hard work. It was really exciting to see so many different groups represent Wachi High School at the state level and we're proud of everything they've accomplished throughout the month. Our leadership team continued planning upcoming events and finding new ways to keep students connected and involved. Our goal has been to build school spirit, highlight student success, and make sure everyone feels included in our WHS community. Overall, November was a really successful month for student leadership. We're proud of all the progress we've made, and we're excited
009to keep the momentum going. momentum going for the rest of the school year. Um, thank you so much for listening and if you have any questions, I can answer those now. >> Questions? Thank you so much. We appreciate your focus on in inclusivity for everyone and we'll look forward to seeing you in January. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Excellent. Next up on our bright spots, we are happy to have uh our special group of Panther Booster Club members are with us. Um, also we have athletic director BJ Kun is here as well. We're just so happy to have everyone here um and share the amazing partnership that we have um with our friends here from the booster club. So, thank you for being here. I think we have a
010slideshow that we'll ceue up and uh that microphone should be hot and ready for you. >> Well, I will introduce myself. I'm Ursula Pio2, the current uh Panther Booster Club president and uh I have four kids at the high school, a senior, two juniors, they're twins, and a freshman. And uh this is Ivy Murray and this is El Emily Philippe, but they can introduce and talk more about themselves. >> Emily Philippy. I am the vice president this year and I have one child left. He's a junior and involved in a couple different sports. So, >> and Ivy Murray, I am the u former president. Um started in 2022 and then handed over to Ursula and Emily. I have uh a kiddo who's a senior this year, plays football and and baseball, and had a graduate
011class of 2022 who was a volleyball player. Should we go to the Oh, we do that. This is a current list um of who is on our board. Many members of our board, this is not their first year serving. Uh we've added several new positions since I came on board in 2022, but uh Ivy can speak to um the official positions we've added since 2022. >> The first position we added was a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. uh we felt like there is a um there are communities of uh our Panther family that were not being served very well and uh the addition of Erica Mario I think has helped really blossom um our connection and our communication with people sad that we don't have her here tonight but anyway she's been an amazing
012um addition we added a director of volunteers and liaison uh we added director of fundraising which is what Ursula started out with uh as a co-director and then pulled in a coach leazison, uh, Jordi McGregor, who is the volleyball coach, head volleyball coach, she's been a very integral part of of the board. Um, having a perspective from the coaches is super helpful when we are making decisions about how best to support athletics. And then, uh, as we resurrected our social media platforms, we added a director of social media. Is it me? I don't think it's working. Thank you. So, this this is just a quick recap of what we've done in recent years. And when I say recent years, mostly since 2022. Um, we came on and it was kind of a resurrection of, you
013know, the Phoenix out of the ashes. Uh, after COVID, we started back in with our seasonal sports kickoffs. Uh, brought on some new Panther gear, swag, um, apparel and whatnot. Expanded our banner program. We're working on a newsletter, which is still in progress. We purchased an electronic records board and um the WHS lit letters. You'll see in later in the presentation picture of those. We've been um part of collaborating on the district league and state banners in the gym that ultimately was spearheaded by uh coach McGregor and Eric Anderson with our support, but that was largely Wachi athletic department. Um so those banners have been replaced in the gym. I think it looks much more professional. Uh started grad sign orders as a fundraiser. We sponsored Rooter buses, reestablished our social media platforms, and um
014when we started, we had a board member uh group of four and we're 15 now. Next slide, please. >> Additional things we've done, added fan appreciation and youth nights. Um the youth nights are very near and dear to our hearts. It's uh great to see kids out there from um elementary and middle school. We are trying to expand that to all of the sports. We've been very successful working with WACI youth baseball um as well as the middle school football programs and um basketball. Uh we partnered with WACI state booster club association so we are in compliance um with uh the state regulations. We revamped our membership structure we'll talk about in a minute. We stepped into the 21st century with cashless payment systems uh which has really boosted our revenue. Reopened Wreck Park that
015had been shuttered for three or four years. uh added a coach's social which Ursula will talk about a little bit and then um if any of you that been to the high school or the Apple recently might have noticed the Panthrop on the asphalt which was a great collaboration with the city of Wache and and Mayor Puyer um I had him captive at dinner one night and asked about it and so finally came to fruition. Next slide please. And then you know what we continue to do are seasonal sports programs. Our Panther and Ne program any kids who uh have financial barriers to participating in sports, we want to break those. And uh example, this fall, we had a softball player who uh couldn't afford a MIT and the coach came to us and we
016um used those funds to purchase a mit for her. Uh we give about $3,000 worth of scholarships per year. We combined our senior signing night and Panther awards night. Um, we pay for senior celebrations such as keychains. We give monies for each senior. And then we purchase the lit letters. Uh, you see there at our signing night. Those are available for any use at senior nights. Um, and it's really elevates the mood. State sendoffs. We provide uh t-shirts for the participants that are going. Send off bags or baskets. There's a Panthers and College Board for kids that go on beyond WACI High School to participate in athletics. We do our Hall of Fame, although we're a little behind on that last couple of years. um and then uh provide our concessions now at all three
017venues. Next slide, please. >> So, I'll talk about fan appreciation. That was something we started um when I was a co-director of fundraising and it was an opportunity for us to collaborate with the community and bring them on board um to kind of elevate your experience both as a fan and for the athlete. So, all of these businesses throughout the last three years, a lot of them have duplicated each year, have donated um items uh to help um with fans. Uh Patriot Plumbing did t-shirt giveaways. We had rally towels at a basketball game. Um they for a soccer game, they provided cups with straws and Coke donated products. So, anyone who walked in got um a free uh drink. Leashwab, which this is our most popular item, um donates money for over 200 uh breakfast
018sandwiches, which are handed out the week of homecoming to the students for the first ones who arrive early. Uh this year we did 300, but normally it stays right around there. T-Mobile did seat cushions, uh, Wachi Wisdom teeth, did little footballs that we, uh, threw out at the right time so they didn't end up on the field or on the court, uh, and cause unnecessary interruption. Uh, Sunny Slope Crop Insurance donated over 400 ice cream sandwiches, which were thrown out uh, during a football game. Uh, Wachi FC did candy and t-shirts during a pregame event. And Domino's Pizza is a long-standing partner throughout all the sports donating pizza gift cards for us to give to kids and fans. And then uh the wild hockey team uh did two tickets during basketball season. We did a
019um free throw competition uh between two fans and each of them won either two tickets to the Big Horns or the Wachi Wild. That's been vastly popular and we keep trying to keep that going um each year. You can do that one. That's fine. Um, so in an effort just to continue to build culture, we try to connect with our um, community partners. We've increased our presence at uh, we have a table at Fiesta Mexicas, uh, sports spectacular and migrant family night. There's a lot of opportunities for us to continue engage our community. Um, we will partner with small food vendors at uh, various events. oftentimes like a crossc country meet we don't have a presence serving food or drink. So we'll send aloha mobile coffee or the um mountain berry bowl to go on
020our behalf to provide a service for fans that happens at track meets as well. Um and then this the last time we hosted uh Battle of the Bridges, Bridge of Friendship, whatever we're supposed to call it. Um we had a collaboration with Eastmont School District uh to do a community social ahead of time and a um tailgate there on Pioneer Park. It was a lot of fun. >> Next slide, please. >> So, how do teams earn money uh through PBC uh Panther Brewster Club membership, banner program, and working concessions? Of course, we also support their individual fundraising efforts as they do a car wash or or camps. Next, please. Just a quick um note about each of these silos. Membership, we really changed how we do things in fall of uh 2024. We kind of
021dumped things on its head. So, in the past, if you joined at a $500 level, you could carve out $50 to your sport of choice. We did the reverse for that moving forward. So now if you join at $500, we keep the first $50 for, you know, to basically keep the lights on and then the rest of that money can go to whatever your team is. So it's seemed like a little bit of a financial risk. Uh after two years, we still were doing okay. But you can see that the team funding impact the difference from 2023 24 $2,100 almost 2,200 went to teams. Subsequently the following year $7,600 went to the teams. So, we really feel like we've made a big impact and we're already at 6,500 just through the fall of 25. Our
022goal is to get more money in the team's pockets. We have the banner program. Uh you may have seen Apple has been a long-standing program for us. Uh we expanded to recre park in the softball complex. And this is these are real proceeds. This is real money. Um and the teams can earn money by just bringing us the lead. All they have to do is give us the name of a of a business that they might have a contact with or might be interested. And if that business signs on after production costs, we split the proceeds 50/50. So 2024 uh we had $24,000 in proceeds. And this is of course before production costs. And then uh at this year we're at 21,000 almost 22. Next slide please. Concessions. Uh every team is required to work
023three concessions annually to be in good standing. That is in large part thanks to uh BJ uh who came on and said teams are going to be required to do this so we don't have uh as many gaps in our coverage. Um the picture of Dr. Kalahar and company is last year Halloween senior night. Uh we did not have a work team and so our Wachi school district staff came uh to the rescue and work concessions which was awesome and um their the proceeds that didn't go to them. They picked a special um group for those proceeds to go to. So teams get $300 to work football games, $200 for any other athletic event. Um they keep 100% of the tips. We do about $50,000 in annual revenue for concessions. Our expenses are 45,000. So
024our margin isn't our profit margin isn't awesome, but that $45,000 includes money that goes to teams, which is on the next slide here. So, this is broken down uh last two years, fall, winter, spring, but the take-home point is almost $22,000 have been paid out to work teams in the last two years. So, we are super proud of all the opportunities that we give uh in ways that we support the teams, not only you know, in spirit and helping build culture, but also, you know, earning opportunities for them um to be successful. Next slide. So this is again we've increased um our visibility uh both with Facebook and Instagram although Instagram by far currently has more followers than Facebook but I feel like Facebook's having a comeback. So maybe we'll see uh that build a
025little bit as this year goes on. Next slide. And then I would just like to say um on behalf of all of us that we last year working with Eric was a really great opportunity. We a lot of doors were opened that we had struggled with in the past and he made the transition very easy. He was very approachable. BJ is definitely following in his footsteps and it's been a great collab with her as well. And we're seeing, I think, the couple hard years in the beginning where we weren't seeing our uptick that we were hoping to see finally take off and all of our hard work pay off. So, the goal is to continue on this path and obviously continue to get better each year, but I think we've made some great strides in
026a short amount of time, and we have an awesome group of people on the board. And we're all, most of us are all just moms. We don't have any men on the board yet, but anyone is welcome to join. We would love to change that. Um, but we just really are passionate about our kids and the and the programs and the school, and it's definitely an awesome opportunity to work with all these great ladies. >> Such an amazing bright spot. Thank you for sharing. Go ahead, Ivy. >> I was just gonna ask if anybody had any questions. >> I don't have questions, but I'll just do a comment because I I have athletes in the programs and and the difference over the years that we've noticed from your work has been outstanding and and I
027think you probably started opening doors last year so it wasn't quite as obvious and and this year I just feel like the fall between the athletic department and the boosters was so well organized um even despite all the challenges um I I just we felt the presence as parents and athletes. I've I've loved the social media. I mean that's just been leaps and bounds. So just keep up the great work. I even it was so easy. Yeah, I even signed up. I don't think I'd ever been a booster before, ever, and I've got a kid that's a senior now. So, I was like, "Oh, that's easy. I didn't know you could just do that." So, um, great job. Um, all of you, great teamwork. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank
028you. I The visibility and the presence is felt. It's palpable. So, thank you for that. And I just what I saw through this slide presentation and then what I'm seeing also just culture opportunities and community. So thank you for all of those things. The support that you're giving our students, staff and athletics in general is just amazing. So thanks for sharing with us such a huge bright spot. >> All right, we are going to move to our first action of two tonight. Uh we're going to do nominations for uh president and vice president. We're starting with president. So, according to board policy 1210, the first regular meeting in December, the board shall elect from among its members a president and a vice president to serve one-year terms. Reminder that a newly appointed board member will
029not be eligible to serve as an officer unless a majority of the board has been appointed. Um, first on the agenda is the election of the new board president. Do I hear nominations for president of the Nachi school board to serve in the ensuing year December 25th or December 2025 through December 26th? I nominate Tucker. >> All right. Um, pause there. All right. Are there any other f are there further nominations for president? Maria, I see you online. If you want to chime in, just >> Yeah, I would just say given given the history, my nomination would be for Maria, but I understand she may not be wanting to accept that nomination at this point, >> but I want to hear from her about that first. Yes. >> Yeah. No, I'm I'm totally okay. Um
030if Tucker wishes to continue a second year, um that would that's wonderful. Um I I could support that if there's no other nominations. Uh Julie, do you have an interest? I mean, I'm always happy to help out. I've I've had the experience before, but I'm, you know, I I'm not dying to do it. So, you know, if Anything is fine with me. >> All right. Should I put Tucker, Maria, and Julian? And then we'll just go in that order and we can see what happens. >> I'm okay. Um I I I I second Tucker's nomination. >> Okay. Okay. Um so I have me and I have me and me and and just me now, I guess. Okay. Um I Tucker has Tucker Jackson has received the majority of of uh the nominations. So now we're
031going to do a roll call vote for Tucker um to serve as the president school board for the ensuing year. And so we do this one at a time. Julie, you get to start. >> I >> Okay. Uh Maria >> I. >> Mark. >> I. >> All right. I'm gonna make you do it anyway. Caroline, >> I >> Okay. And I will also vote for myself. So, having the majority, it's um I just gonna spin around. Then I'm here again. Okay. New president. Now, uh do I hear nominations for vice president of the school district board to serve the ensuing year December 2025 to December 2026? Maria, would you like to do it again? If there's no other Julie, if if there's no interest on your behalf, I'd be more than happy to >> fine
032with leaving it how it is. I I just want to make sure I I mean, I'm happy to step in and be helpful or Yeah, I >> I will put Maria on first and then we'll have Julie on second and if we we can just do our voting thing and we can decide that way. Is that is that fair? Or do you guys want to hash it out right now? You guys want to rock paper scissors? All right, Maria's on the docket first. We will now have a roll call vote for Maria to serve as the vice president of the Wachi School District for the ensuing year. Julie. Okay. All right. So, you're not you're voting nay, but that's okay. That's that's why we had the vote. I know it's hard. Uh, Maria weird. >>
033What's that? >> I Okay, Maria. Mark. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. >> It's because Kim did it to you. She read the script. Sorry. >> Well, I'm going to pass the buck. I'll just say I now. It's up to you guys to decide. >> Okay. >> Fine. I'll be contrary. I'll say nay. Okay. Oh, all right. Uh, I will say I Maria, you didn't get a full shot at vice president because of uh taking over for Miranda, but um we'll so we'll stay with the same board because that's three and then we'll go for um a new a new look next year. >> Thank you. >> Um so, Maria has uh received a majority of votes and therefore will be assumed the office of vice president of the board. And now we're done with action
034number one. Uh Kim, any citizen comments? All right. No citizen comments. So we'll turn over to Corey for special presentations. >> Excellent. Well, I appreciate that. Welcome uh existing uh directors to their current seats, which is great. All right. I love it. Uh so thanks everyone. Appreciate that. Um we have Dr. Dr. Nyak from uh Confluence Health who's kind enough to join us today with a presentation on some of the risks of air quality during the smoky season or the fifth season um in the Wanche Valley. Um so Dr. Nack, thank you. We appreciate your time um and your work to build the presentation for tonight. Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you so much for uh for having me here. Um and uh should I just ask you to advance the slide when when
035you get up? >> Okay. All right. Good evening everyone and thanks for allowing me to uh present this uh information to you today. My name is Bindu Nyak and I'm a physician endocrinologist uh practicing here in Wachi since 2009. I'm also a parent with kids who have and uh who have finished and are going through their whole K- through2 education through the WACI school district. Um I have lived and experienced uh wildfire smoke episodes and seen it have detrimental effects on my patients and family members. Uh with the work that I did at Confluence Health, I was also able to observe how wildflower smoke was affecting the community on a population health level. And we were able to pilot new action plans to try to reduce health effects uh for kids with asthma from wildfire
036uh smoke. So we'll go to next slide. To give you some background, it's it's important to understand that wildfire smoke does not affect the state equally. Central and eastern Washington have many more heavy days of smoke per year and Okonogan, Chalan, and Douglas counties have the most days of heavy smoke per year. Next slide. Um and then as and it we are predicted to have even more heavy days of smoke per year. Um so Washi is expected to see nine more days of high fire danger and heavy smoke per by 2030. So this is only going to increase in frequency as time goes on. Next slide. When we think about wildfire smoke, the the the biggest pollutant in it is measured as PM2.5. So PM2.5 refers to particulate matter that is less than 2.5 microns
037in diameter. And if you look at the picture there on the right, uh, and look at those tiny little red spheres, that's how small two these particulate matters are compared to the compared to a strand of hair. Um so and it's uh PM2.5 from wildfire smoke is more toxic than PM2.5 from other air pollutants. Uh wildfire smoke also contains gases which make it more dangerous like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldahhide, benzene and other chemicals. Next slide. When we think about what wildfire smoke does to us, so think of symptoms. Uh you've probably all experienced this at some point. It can cause you to have headaches, irritated eyes and sinuses, irritated throat, increased coughing. It can um increased fatigue sorry um it can cause difficulty breathing. It can have it make people with asthma have asthma
038attacks, can cause chest pain and it can increase heart attacks and strokes. Uh next slide. We know from research that wildfire smoke does increase asthma symptoms for kids with asthma and it increases emergency department visits for kids with asthma. It also increases hospitalizations for kids with asthma. Um we also know that wildfire smoke does cause premature mortality or uh causes you to die at a younger age and it also is dangerous for people who are pregnant and causes preterm birth. Next slide. So how does it do this? So the wildfire smoke causes increased inflammation in the sinuses and that decreases our body's defense against viruses and infections. It also decreases lung function in the lungs which makes it causes that difficulty breathing and that increases asthma symptoms and can increase hospital admissions and emergency department
039visits. Next slide. So, we we have been tracking emergency department visits for kids with asthma since about 2021 um at Confluence Health. Um and in 2022, if you guys remember, in the fall of 2022, we had a prolonged wildfire smoke episode. Um so, this is looking at the PM2.5 levels in the state of Washington from August of 2022 through November. And if you look at that lavender line there, that is the PM2.5 levels for Wanachi. So you can see that that peak occurred um of the PM 2.5 levels during our wildfire smoke episode which was in about September through October. Next slide. And then as we were um monitoring the emergency department visits for kids with asthma, what we saw was that as that PM2.5 level was elevated in during that welfare episode in October,
040so were the emergency department visits. So there was a direct correlation between PM2.5 levels and increases in emergency department visits for kids with asthma. Next slide. And we also saw that there was a disparity in the effect of the wildfire smoke with increased emergency department visits for Hispanic children with asthma in our community compared to non-Hispanic children with asthma. Next slide. This was also true for outpatient visits. So there's a big spike in outpatient visits for kids with asthma um during that same period of time. Next slide. There were also other reports from um about health effects of wildfire smoke in our region. In 2012, the health districts of Chalan, Douglas, Kittitas, and Okanagan counties uh put out a report on uh heart and lung effects of wildfire smoke. um during that very long wildfire
041in 2012. I don't know if you guys remember that, but that was 34 consecutive days of hazardous air quality. Next slide. And what they found was that the group that was most affected by the wildfire smoke with the most increased visits uh for breathing problems were children under the age of 18. Next slide. So their recommendation from that publication in 2015 was that children, especially those with asthma, seem predisposed to harmful effects of wildfire smoke and should be targeted with additional efforts to reduce illness and disease exacerbations. There really wasn't anything that ever came about after that for a targeted effort um to to work on that. And one of the reasons for that is like is our region is one of the areas in the country that is most affected by wildfire smoke while
042the other parts of the country really don't experience what we do. Um so in 2024 at Confluence Health after observing this data we did come up with an action plan on what we could do to try to reduce the health effects of our smoke for kids with asthma. Next slide. So what we did was we came up with an asthma action plan. Um, and the asthma action plan is an electronic form in the electronic health record that tells the patient and their family what they can do when they're having mild, moderate, or severe asthma episodes uh with their medications. So, the patient the healthcare provider fills out this asthma action plan and it's part of the patients electronic health record. We also as part of this plan to decrease the health effects, we provided patients
043and f their families with a wildfire smoke action plan. Um, and this told patients and their families what to do about the wildfire smoke to reduce their exposure. Uh, next slide. And this is what the wildfire smoke action plan looks like. This was created by Dr. Mary Crocker who is a pediatric pulmonologist or lung specialist at University of Washington. Um, on the left is the original version and on the right is the updated version that came out this month or actually sorry in October of 2025. Um, what's great and I gave you all copies of that there. Um, what's great about this is it informs families of what to do before the wildfire smoke episode, like look at air quality alerts and to uh uh make sure that they have new filters in their HVAC
044system or make sure that they have an air purifier at home and to make sure that they have their asthma medications ready to go and at home. And then it tells patients and families what to do during the wildfire smoke episode. most importantly checking the air quality index every day and using an app like air now which is an app that's created by the Environmental Protection Agency. Um and it tells them what to do during during the episode. Also closing windows and doors and um uh planning their activity based on what the air quality index prediction will be for the day. Um it also gives activity recommendations uh based on what the air quality index is. And there's a column for what to do for the child who's sensitive, like the child with asthma, and
045another column for the child who isn't sensitive or the other children in the family. It also has indoor smoky day activities because it is hard to figure out what are how are they going to keep their kids entertained uh when it's smoky outside and what to do inside. So with both of these action plans, one action plan informs families what to do about their medications with asthma episodes which will happen during wildfire smoke and the other one advises patients and their families on how to reduce their exposure to wildfire smoke both outside and inside. Next slide. So, this is a graph looking at um the combined uh emergency department and outpatient visits for kids with asthma between January of 2021 all the way through July of 2025. And if you can see here, that peak
046happens in the fall of 2022 when we had that wildfire smoke episode. And in 2023 and 2024, there really weren't any major wildfire smoke episodes during that time. And then there was a lightning storm on Sunday, August 30th. Next slide. So, we had a prolonged wildfire smoke episode that happened this fall that started on September 1st and went all the way through midocctober. Next slide. And uh here's a screenshot of the uh EPA app air now from October 8th um which shows you the air quality index, but it also will give you a map of where the fires are. So, I'm sure you all remember there was the Labour Mountain Fire and the Lower Sugarloaf fire and the the smoke from both of those fires was just coming into the Wachi Valley and causing really
047poor air quality during that time. Next slide. So, we continued to monitor the emergency department and outpatient visits for kids with asthma between September 1st through September 30th. And again, we saw that increase in emergency department visits um during that time period when we had the bad wildfire smoke. Um so what we were able to do at this point is we you know the asthma action plan and the wildfire smoke action plan had been available for confluence health primary care providers who see children um since August of 2024. It hasn't completely rolled out to everyone yet, but we were able to compare the results from the children who did have an asthma action plan in place compared to the children with asthma who did not have an asthma action plan in place and see how
048they did in comparison. Next slide. And what we found was that there were 50% less respiratory related emergency department visits for kids with asthma who had an asthma action plan and wildfire smoke action plan compared to children with asthma who didn't have one. There were also 71% less outpatient visits for children with asthma who had an asthma action plan in place versus those who didn't. We also noticed that there was a significant reduction in the disparity of outpatient care visits, respiratory problems in comparison to that 2022 wildfire smoke episode. So this data from this wildfire smoke episode, the it was relatively small numbers, but the results are very promising that the action plans that we took are working effectively to reduce health effects of wildfire smoke for kids with asthma. Next slide. So the next
049question is indoor air quality. We know that exposure to wildfire smoke outside is harmful for you as as I talked about. But what about indoors? It has the same effect is the answer. So uh when indoor air quality is poor, it is just as harmful for you as if you were experiencing it outside. Next slide. So what are factors that affect indoor air quality? So, housing units and buildings that are older than 30 years have lower insulation levels and may lack energy efficient modern heating and cooling systems. Um, here's a map of of Wan that you can kind of see the areas that have older homes and those homes are likely to have uh poor worse indoor air quality because of the age of their homes. Um and uh and so any any building that
050has uh is that old will likely have lower um lower insulation and that leads to the smoke getting in and worse HVAC systems which means that the air isn't getting cleaned once it is inside. Next slide. So looking at the indoor air quality at Wachi High School during the wildfire smoke episode in September. Um it's important to note that Wanachi High School was built in 1971. Um the HVAC equipment lacks high quality filtration to be able to adequately clean the air when the air quality index is high. Um and the ventilation isn't adequate to keep smoke out of the building. Um so during this during October uh on October 7th uh sensors from Sheland Health District were used to measure indoor air quality and they were r the the air quality index was ranging between
051133 to 244 in different parts of the building there. It was very variable. Um and that's just one day. It was smoky on previous days also. Um and you may wonder like why wasn't it checked before? Well, the availability of air sensors has not been it hasn't been readily available before this. Uh so this that's why this is the first year that it was checked because before this year and maybe last year it would be really hard to get a sensor that you could use for personal use or any other use outside of the major sensors that that were are available in the different areas of town. Um the Schlanopas Health District also loaned out air scrubbers and extra air purifiers which after running continuously did bring down the air quality to a healthy level
052uh over several days. Next slide. So um and you can you can hit next. Uh so as we've discussed wildfire smoke uh causes poor air quality which has dangerous health effects to all individuals both through outdoor exposure and indoor exposure. Next. Next. Um, and we know that children under the age of 18 are more vulnerable to the health effects of volvar smoke and this is because their airways are narrower and they take in more air volume so it has a greater effect on them. Other groups that are more vulnerable are adults older than 65, any adults with any chronic lung or heart condition and pregnant people. Uh, next slide. We know that the high school building with this kind of test of this wildfire smoke episode has proven that it cannot adequately sustain healthy indoor
053air quality when outdoor air quality is unhealthy due to wildfire smoke. Next, we know also that wildfire smoke episodes and days of heavy smoke are predicted to increase in frequency and numbers of days per year in the coming years and that will not likely change. Next, while air purifiers can improve or mitigate uh indoor air quality during these episodes, a better solution would be to make the high school building more resilient to wildfire smoke so that indoor air quality remains in a healthy range even when outdoor air quality is in a hazardous range. Next slide. So when it comes to what determines a person's overall health, this is often called drivers of health or determinance of health. Um of of our overall health, only 20% of our health is determined by our access to health
054care and the quality of that care. 30% of our health is determined by health behaviors like tobacco use, diet and exercise, or alcohol use. 10% of our overall health is determined by our physical environment which may be affected by our h by housing or the structures where we work or go to school and the air that we breathe both indoors and outdoors. Another way of looking at the health effects of wildfire smoke is to think of upstream contributors to these health effects and downstream contributors. An upstream cont contributor to the health effect of wildfire smoke is the age of a building or home and its indoor air quality during a wildfire smoke episode. For the Wachi High School, we know that the aged building and inefficient HVAC system is a contributor to health effects of
055wildfire smoke. The best solution to improve the indoor air quality of the high school is to build a new school that is less permeable to wildfire smoke with an efficient HVAC system that can clean the air when a wildfire smoke episode happens. A downstream contributor to the health effects of wildfire smoke is having a medical intervention to help the problem. For kids with asthma, we have a plan now that looks promising. Kids with asthma who have an asthma action plan and wildfire smoke action plan are having much fewer emergency department visits and outpatient visits for breathing problems during wildfire smoke episodes. That is something that has not happened before and we're very proud of that. Um this stream analogy describes how we as a community must all work together to protect the health of our
056students and staff from the health effects of wildfire smoke. Thank you and let me know if you have any questions. I have a quick one if you don't mind. >> Yeah. Sorry. I just I have my question before I forget it. >> Um, >> what would an action plan say about going to school in a building where the inside air quality is 130 to 244? >> Well, the um the Department of Education, I believe, has guidelines on exactly what uh what what what to do in that situation. I believe uh when it's greater than 200 it is up to the school to decide whether to uh keep school going or to let kids go home but there are strict guidelines for that. >> Okay. Thank you and thank you for coming and presenting this. I
057think we talk a lot about the temperature in the classroom but I think the air quality is also very important to consider especially as we talk about what we're going to do for our kids. So yeah, thanks for coming. Okay. I I do actually have just one more question. You may not be able to answer it, but um the 2022 data, did we did they do any um comparisons about because this is coming right out of COVID at the same time as well or or kind of relaxing things. Was there any research done on correlation between kids that were coming in with the asthma issues, you know, maybe exacerbated by smoke, but also maybe because >> we had we were following that data continuously from 2021. So, uh that peak occurred right at the same
058time as the wildfire smoke episode almost almost within a week of it. So, it was it was at a baseline level for months and months before that. It's usually at a low in the summertime. Um the emergency department visits do increase in the wintertime with uh with influenza-like illnesses, but in the fall uh that particular episode coincided with the increase in PM2.5 levels. >> Okay. And I mean that makes sense. I was just curious if if we had any way of tracking whether kids were extra sensitive at that point because of coming off some of these respiratory illnesses like COVID that were maybe more prevalent back at that point than in 2025 now because it looks like you know I mean great planning work has gone in to helping prevent visits but is there was
059there any way to correlate whether it was you just had a weakened system at that time because of the respiratory illnesses that have been going around through co but >> no not really um and the you know the looking at uh so 2022 was the was the only time that we had the data and then the next big wildfire episode was now and so it's again showing those peaks in those uh emergency department visits um and more so for kids who didn't have the asthma action plan so it doesn't seem to be related to u viral illnesses at the same time >> okay >> excellent thank you I just have a quick question too I really enjoyed uh thank you for the presentation. I really uh am excited about the results from the wildfire smoke
060action plan which is really cool. Is that something that is translated into uh a patient's my chart um or is that something because I would think that would be a great um shift and this would be awesome if we had those on file with our our school nurses as well if there was >> the asthma action plan is part of the patients electronic health record. Yes. uh once it once it is filled out by their healthcare provider. So to so right right now it hasn't completely rolled out. I think about yeah in the Wachi pediatrics clinic for example about 30% of kids with asthma have one but it's in the process of getting rolled out uh so that more healthcare providers put that in for their uh patients kids with asthma. >> Excellent. Well that'd
061be great because we can keep those statistics climbing and uh keep supporting our students. Be great. Yeah. Thank you so much for the presentation. have one more question. >> It actually may not be for you >> for the board because that was a I mean the ultimate pitch for we need a new school because we you know I mean that's basically unsafe. But now my concern is you know hopefully we pass a bond someday that's still 10 years of building and planning out or maybe five if we're lucky. um what are we doing district-wise in the interim now that we know that this condition exists and and you know we're going to see wildfire smoke until a new building is built. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well, 100%. It's our relationship with the health district and some
062of our restoration restoration companies locally to make sure that we are um having those air scrubbers and air purifiers in our buildings a lot sooner than um than before. We also have purchased um uh air quality index readers of our own. So we have those and we can hit the ground uh in a lot quicker fashion than we have before. So this is uh something that will once that issue pops up, we'll be ready to mobilize very quickly, support our students. >> And the data does show that air purifiers, even DIY box fan filters do work to clean the air in a room. So until a new school is built, hopefully availability of air scrubbers, uh either through the school district or through the health district, uh it'd be good to have that on hand
063as soon as the smoke starts. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And the health district was so uh was was so helpful. Um they all of the box fans, the DIY box fans, uh they they left with us. Um so that was part of a grant that they had. So we still have upwards of 35 of those um all at Wanche High School, which is great. We also learned how to use them with our own fans. Eric and I were um using painters tape on uh some of the fans that we use to cool the carpets when the carpets are cleaned. And so each one of those fans had four of them strategically, four filters strategically placed. So we know what to do now and we are prepared to make sure that the air quality indoors at Wanchi
064High School is safe. >> Yeah. So thank you. >> We we ended up doing it um at the high school and the middle schools. Um all of those that were had uh uh raised or elevated uh indoor air qualities. Yeah, we still have plenty of schools that are able to filtrate uh the air quality or the air particles, which is fantastic, but we're ready. Yeah, thank you. All right, I'm going to see if I can get the clicker. All right. Thank you. Uh we are moving on to our uh big six uh presentation. So, thank you so much for the opportunity to present tonight. Uh board members, uh we'll be going over year three data, which is last year's uh 2425 data for the big six data points of our strategic plan. Now that the
065results from from last year are all in and they've been vetted from the office of the superintendent of public instruction, uh we also will share our action steps and strategies that we're taking this year strategically in year four. And we're going to make this thing happen. Whoa, you just buzzed me, Liz. Let's see here. Okay. Okay, >> we're moving in the right direction here. Okay, >> so fantastic. Uh the first part here is uh just our student demographics. And so this information can be easily accessed um from the office of the superintendent of public instructions report card. And so just understanding that the 7,159 students that we have in the Wanche school district um and then our uh our ethnicity breakdown uh uh upwards of 56% Hispanic Latino uh 40% uh white and then 5%
066uh from uh the other uh race and ethnicity groups that make up the 100% there. Then we have our program characteristics that you can see where we have English language learners uh are representative of 24.8% 8% our low socioeconomic status uh families at uh almost 67% and then highly capable at 12.5 homeless at 8% migrant at 14.4 military families 1.4% and students with uh 504s 5.7% and students with disabilities at almost 17%. Um, and I promise not to read every single metric that is on the 29 slides that we have tonight, but there are a few that do stand out and really letting the community and the board um, understand and see again who we are as a district. And then we have our uh, teacher demographics here and it shows that our 484 classroom
067teachers that 68% of them hold master's degrees or higher and we have uh, 17.4% 4% that are nationally board certified and an average number of uh teaching experience at 13.5%. And it also shows that our teachers um uh heavily uh female uh 70% and 26.2% male. And then also that our teachers are predominantly uh white with 78% here and 15 almost 16% Hispanic and Latino. Going backwards, Corey going backwards. Okay. Goodness. Okay. And then again here, this is the start of our big six uh report card tonight. So, we'll kick it off with big six number one. Experiencing high quality instruction. Our students receive and participate in grade level or beyond standards, instructions, and assignments. And uh this data is taken from our Wanche School District learning walk classroom observation tools. Um our board uh
068later this week will on Thursday is going to be doing a learning walk at Wanchi High School. So we'll all have a chance to get into a couple of classrooms and see uh uh this in action. And so the first metric here is students receive and participate in grade level or beyond standards and instructions, rigorous tasks, assignments, andor activities. And you can see there that the metric is uh 90% for last year, which is great. Um I'm sorry. Oh, I'm not I'm sorry. Let me see what I can do to fix that. >> Wait a second. No one else can. >> Oh, it's on Struggle Street. Okay. Yes. I'm just seeing what has Okay, there was a little bit of a a hiccup there. Okay, we're good. Thank you. Thank you for the support there.
069Thank you for the support. I appreciate that. Um, now you can see now you can see the data. Uh and then uh as we have our second metric here, teacher uses uh strategies intended to elicit 100% student engagement. Um this also includes our Wanchi school district essential strategies and you can see that our metric here is 82.1%. I also want to mention that we are as we are doing this work, we're also continuing to increase the sample size of the classroom observations that are happening um which increases our statistical reliability and validity as well. every time we increase that sample size. And so for the first year we had uh for 22 23 we had 175 classroom observations. 23 24 we had 274 and then for last year we had 452. And so it's really
070important that uh we share those numbers. Um and it's important that our building uh instructional leaders are also uh going on these uh learning walks and helping collect the data. Uh the final metric there is teacher notices or adjusts when students are not engaged. And you can see that that uh that the percentage there is 86.1%. So we're happy with our results um from our uh students experiencing high quality instruction. It's going to work. Uh and then here are some of the action steps that we're taking this year, year four, uh as we're as we're moving through this. So four critical teams working together to achieve the big six outcomes. Aligning the work of those collaborative teams and the four teams that work together as our school board is one team, our instructional leadership team
071is the next, the school level or building principles and the learning improvement teams are the other team and then our classroom teachers uh are the fourth team. So working collectively in tandem to make this uh work happen and then that's the through line of the work where we like to see from the school board to the classroom and then back again as we bring that data back to uh you as a school board. We also have the Wanche school district implementation progre progression as a key strategy and the progression moves from the learning and the practicing of the work to refining the work and ultimately to classroom habits that will sustain the work. Uh we also have our PLC's at work. This is our fifth year um in the revitalization of PLC's in the Wachi
072school district. So our guaranteed and viable curriculum uh and priority standards have been identified in all of the core content areas. And the Wachi school district prioritizes Monday late starts for the PLC teams to plan tier one core instruction and tier three and four intentional interventions. We also have the Wanchi school district tight expectations um part of the essential instructional strategies and we know that as part of the guaranteed and viable curriculum and the units of instruction that are developed the district instructional leadership team learning improvement teams and PLC's are working to ensure rigorous highquality instruction in every classroom every day. And then learning walks as we described where uh uh where the learning and teaching team and the district instructional leaders are prioritizing the work of being in the classroom through the learning walk
073process are all action steps that are helping us u move in year four for the strategic plan. Big six data points number two. Big six data point number two is belong and connected. Students know they belong. They're seen, valued, and heard. and they have healthy relationships with staff and peers. And so the first uh line of sorry the first gosh I am going to get this right. It is good. It's been a while Liz. It's good. I'm okay. Thank you. Um the first line there are all uh data points that are collected in our culture and climate surveys that we uh give out every spring in the Wanche school district. And then the bottom two metrics are from uh the Washington state report card. And uh the state pulls that data and gives us uh
074these data points. So we'll go through each one of those. Uh the first data point there, percentage of students in grades 4 through 12 who feel safe at school. Uh we're at 73.3. Um one thing that we want to share that we're doing differently in this next spring um on this report is we've changed the fourth and fifth grade language to be a little bit more studentfriendly. We felt like it might have been a little bit um hard to understand the language that was given. So, we've reapproached a couple of those questions and then we've left in some blanks um and some fill-in- thelank spots. So, if a student doesn't feel safe, they can share with us why so we can be intentional and uh and find the answer to make sure that student does
075feel safe. So, we've got some great things in uh practice for the coming years as well. And then the number the second data point there is percentage of students in grades 4 through 12 that feel they are treated with respect. Um, looks like we dropped some tenth of a percentage points here, 72.6. And then the final uh uh metric from our culture and climate survey is percentage of students in grades 4 through 12 that feel like there is an adult at school that encourages them and we have 71% for that metric there. The bottom two uh metrics are a little bit of what I call lagging indicators. it takes a little bit of time for the state to um deliver this information so that we can use it and share it with the board. And
076that's why we're here at December 2nd sharing this information. Um so the first the first one is the percentage of students with two or fewer absences per month. Also a metric we like to say is 90% attendance. And you can see that that uh uh statistic went up to 73.4 which is great. Um it also um helps align the work that we're doing in our school improvement plans around attend att attendance and family engagement. And then you see that the number of students uh not included in response to behavior violations uh at 96.7%. And I have a little bit of information to share on that is some um disagregated data that came from the state as well. Tucker, we had talked about this and um we approached this conversation when we talked about looking at
077disproportionalities in our August board workshop and so I was able to grab a few pieces of data just on that last number five metric there. So I'll show share that with you. I'm getting it. Okay. So this is what that uh looks like. So the the grade level data you can see there the overall discipline rate 3.3% which roughly equates to about 236 students out of our 7,159 students. You can see uh maybe maybe what you might call normal uh curve there as we look in the elementary grades and we kind of see the number of discipline um infractions increase percentage-wise with fifth grade, sixth grade and seventh grade. >> Cory, can I jump in? discipline rates meaning like a suspension or is it just I mean I'm assume this isn't like a kid you
078know got a reset or something this is >> yes this is the students that have been excluded from a classroom >> okay yep thanks >> yeah yeah that's good clarification I was looking back on our metric here to see if it number of students not correct and so this is the inverse of that and so this is the number of students who have been excluded um from school in some capacity so yeah thank you you can kind of see how that um that curve um looks like we we reach kind of a largest point around 8th grade and then we start to taper off a little bit there. And then the next data point that we have here is um race and gender and let me see if I can get back through here. Okay.
079So this um yes in the race area we see that uh that we are within 4/10en of a percentage in our students of color and our white students um and students identifying with two or more race and ethnicities. Um we do see more discipline um on with our male students that you can see over there on the other side. And then if we disagregate the data a little bit more on the next slide. >> Is this percentage of each of those charact those categories? >> Correct. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Mhm. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, this is out of the um yes out of the grouping there. And then on this on this slide we have our English language learners and non-English language learners. We also see that um uh we have 10% higher uh rates
080with our foster students, our students in foster care. Uh roughly our homeless population has about 4% more discipline. Our non- highcap student has roughly uh 2% more discipline, excuse me. Low-income students have higher rates of discipline. We see 9/10en of a percentage uh higher for our migrant students. Not much of a difference for our military and non-military families, but we do see a disparity uh with our students with 504s and our students with uh with disabilities. And so that's a snapshot of kind of that disagregated data that we talked about uh earlier with that. And it helps uh it helps the school district know and understand where there are um some spots where we have some disproportionalities and helps us understand the work that we are doing uh to move that work forward which we'll
081showcase here. Um so our what are our action steps with uh big six data point number two district-wide focus on family engagement and attendance. uh creating a district team uh for delivering on the promise for our students which also is focusing on family engagement and attendance and how are we supporting our buildings and our schools. Uh developing a district attendance team to support the work in the building and then our LCAP which was presented back in October 14th uh which is the district improvement plan which is guiding those school improvement plans which you're seeing now in each of your board packets as we move through uh to the end of December. And then OSPI has uh newly adopted rules for school discipline that um don't know if we want to say we're excited about, but
082we are um thrilled with the changes that OSPI did bring about in uh in that in the newly adopted uh school discipline rules. Changes in classroom exclusions will help support teachers um and our students alike. Um emergency removal uh language has been changed from emergency expulsion and expanded definitions. Um and then uh working to make sure that corrective action does actually equal discipline in our metrics and reporting. And so those are some things that will help us as a district I think become better um with regard to um uh school discipline. Very intuitive for me to want to push the big button and I'm just I'm okay. Good. Uh so I want we have uh two out of the six uh big six data points. So I wanted to see if there's any any questions,
083comments or celebrations that from the board. I will say I appreciate the disegregated data because I think that's important to look at um how we're treating the student populations, especially people coming from different backgrounds and having um different challenges. So thank you for bringing those. >> Absolutely. And I think that um one thing that we'll continue to to look at is how are we not only um collecting collecting the data, reviewing the data, and then doing something with the data. I think that's the key is is how we're looking at those. Um and uh the world of Tableau has been open. Um so we're getting some good results and feedback where we were stumped for a little while. So I think that's good. >> Okay. I'm nervous, but I'm gonna ask my question. Um I
084know that we've lost a lot of funding statewide and federally for the attendance issues and truencies. Um this district attendance team, are we supplementing those losses at the county and like state level with these people? What's happening in the schools that's targeting those truent and absentee kids? >> Absolutely. It's a great question. So we I I wouldn't say we are supplementing. We are we are taking the staff that we have currently and we're reassigning some roles. So we have taken um Alfonso Lopez who is our um uh director of Hispanic and Latino affairs is helping with the community engagement board practices which used to be done at uh at our juvenile justice center which is which is great. And um and Eric Anderson is overseeing that work and that's that's been very powerful. the uh
085the district level attendance team is all about kind of how are we balancing the support that we used to get and uh and and the funds uh that we we used to get also and how are we doing that internally with our own layers of support and so we're learning and growing. I think what I really appreciate is um the schools in their school improvement plans, their intentional focus on attendance. They're they see the bump that we've made this year in attendance and they know because they've done the work, but they're still not happy. Like that's not going to satisfy us. And we know that if we're going to get to tier one instruction in the classroom, we have to have students in the seats to do that. And so those intentional focuses um have
086just started this year. And so I'm excited to see what the results bring for the next few years. But we have not um reallocated I would say any additional funding or dollars just because we're not getting any additional funds. But we are uh supplementing that with people and with resources and I think with passion. Yeah. So thank you for that. That's a great question. Turn this back on. Let's jump back into Okay. Actually, this is this is where things could get real. We're gonna We have a video. Okay, it's gonna happen. We uh we want to take a minute to share the latest video from Chris Reichdoll, superintendent of the state. >> U you go for it, Liz. If it's working, we're gonna go with it. >> Homepage will answer all the questions on eligibility
087and investments. And then finally, today we're here on Giving Tuesday. Uh Michael and Susan have led the way, but I think that there's a chance that every Tuesday can become Giving Tuesday. >> That was not Superintendent Reichd Doll, but we are we're going to get this thing hammered. Thank you, friends. I can fill the gap a little bit with celebration. Um, I accidentally walked in on Pioneer Middle School's attendance celebration and they had convinced all of the male teachers who had facial hair to agree to let the kids choose how they were going to be shaven if they came to school all of October or November, whatever month it was. >> Yes. >> And it was chaos. Like it was so cool. All the kids were so excited. They were all voting and the teachers
088I mean their in their TikTok is hilarious but it seemed to be very effective. >> Yes. And it was great to see you there. That was that was awesome. So typically in the past November from a student perspective has been no school November is what they have called that. And so what Pioneer did is no miss days November which was great. Um and yeah, 217 students in Pioneer Middle School had perfect attendance in the month of November. And they were given the teachers all the grief. It was wonderful. There was taunting, there were threats, there were it was real. And uh and to watch uh Mr. Orindorf, the assistant principal, he had full beard and his the the students voted with their feet. So they went to whatever sign they wanted. So if it's goatee,
089they walked over here. If it was bare shaven face here, if it was trucker stash, they went over here. They wanted the bare face for Mr. Orondorf. And he so they shaved right on the spot, which was also impressive. And he shaved half of his face first and then stood up and kind of grandstanded a little bit. And it was it was quite clever. They did a really good job. Liz, how are we doing? Are we ready? >> Let's give it a shot. Okay, thank you. >> Hi, I'm Chris Raw, superintendent public schools for the awesome state of Washington. There's a lot of mythology around test scores in our state. A lot of people using them to make justifications for investment. A lot of people using them to make justifications to cut public ed. So,
090I thought I'd take five minutes, walk through some really important facts to get us all on the same page, and then challenge students and families and educators on one task in particular, one really big thing we can do to change outcomes in the state of Washington and quite frankly in the United States. So, let's get after it. There's this thing called the PISA exam. It's an international test. All we need to focus on is reading, math, and science. When we look at this, we really want to understand how our students are performing relative to the world. And as you can see, when it comes to reading and math, the entire globe is down for the last 15 or 20 years. Reading and math scores across the world are down. We know a lot of why
091this happens. The advent of social media, the number of distractions that kids have. Heck, there's research out now that says that students in America spend six and a half to seven hours a day on screen time. That's at home. So, they're getting more time in front of screens than their teachers. And we won't overcome that challenge all at once. But it's important to know where we are relatively speaking. So, how is the US and Washington state performing? And as you can see, when it comes to reading, United States is one of the best in the world. top six, top eight generally, it bounces around a little bit, but as you can see in math in the middle block there, not as well. It's a real weakness for the United States. We've only ever been about
092middle of the pack when it comes to countries that we compete with economically. Again, in science, we outpace the world. So, we really want to focus on math when the time is right because the time is now. Let's start with fourth grade reading just to set the stage here. Again, there's an assessment called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It's the nation's report card. You've probably heard about this. Our students take it every two years. We give it to them in fourth grade and eighth grade. And despite all the rhetoric out there and all of the folks who want to tear down public eds, there are only five states in the US that are statistically outperforming Washington state's young readers, our fourth grade readers. Only five states. That doesn't mean we're ranked sixth. Here you
093can see Washington's right there in the national average with everybody else. And in an ideal world, this entire map would be blue. we would all be at the same place because fourth grade reading should be fourth grade reading everywhere and we would all be performing higher. It also means that Washington is statistically outperforming 11 states. So, let's be really clear. There's only a handful of states that are actually outperforming us. We're right there with everybody else and then there are several states that are well behind everybody statistically speaking. We can do the same thing in eighth grade. There are only four states outperforming us by eighth grade reading. In fact, we get a little stronger. 32 states are right there with us and we outperform 14 states statistically speaking and you can see the South
094starts to really lag behind by eighth grade reading. In fact, you've heard about the Mississippi miracle. It's an interesting thing. I know a lot of folks from Mississippi. They're hardworking. They're great educators and we want readers across the country to perform well, but they're doing something there unique and it isn't necessarily innovative teaching. It's what they call retention policies. Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas, a number of southern states, they withhold a large number of their third and fourth graders who they don't think are at reading standard and then they give them a second year and then they test them a second time. So in many of those states, their 10year-olds are taking a test that the rest of the country is giving to 9year-olds. It looks pretty good in the short term. There's only one state
095that's now outperforming Mississippi in fourth grade reading. Unfortunately, by eighth grade reading, there are 26 states that are statistically outperforming them. Not even with them actually outperforming them. So, when you hear people say Mississippi's past or Alabama, no disrespect to those states. They have great leaders. They're working hard. But don't fall into the trap of believing that Washington students are behind them. They're not. We're not. We want every student to achieve in this country. And we really want to focus on our success. And we do that by building our readers, not comparing ourselves to other states. Let's keep pushing hard for Washington kids. So if the United States is somewhere between sixth and eighth in reading around the world, and Washington states outperforming the national average, you can see there's a lot of kudos to
096be given to parents and students and educators for more than 20 years as we've focused on literacy. And we're not going to let go of that. There's still more work to be done. There are still gaps to be closed. But let's talk about math because it continues to be a big challenge for us in fourth grade math. Things look good. There are only four states statistically outperforming Washington state. Same thing in fourth grade here. These are the states that we're basically hanging with. We're outperforming 11 states as all in fourth grade math, but strong. Here's the challenge. Eighth grade. So four years later when we assess those students where there were only four states outperforming us, by 8th grade there are now 14 states. And you can see they're in the Midwest. They tend to
097be very homogeneous states. They have student body populations that don't have nearly as much economic disparity. But it tells you something powerful about math here in our more diverse states in the south and the west and the northeast. The gaps grow bigger based on historic biases and historic assumptions we make about who can and who cannot do math. So we have work to do. Here's a trend line on something that we look at over time, which is the raw scores. Again, it changes based on the cohort of student, but you can see the top line is Washington State. We've always outpaced the country. We still do a little, but you can see that our decline is met by less decline than the United States. They've just about caught us. So, we have serious work to
098do. Washingtonians, we want to get to that place where there are very few, if any, states statistically outperforming us. We're strong in that statistic when it comes to fourth grade reading, eighth grade reading, and fourth grade math. But by eighth grade math, something's happening. And again, there are too many states outperforming us. Not that we want it to be a competition, but we do want to acknowledge where we're losing some ground. Again, this is a sample test. So every two years, it can vary a little, but this has been a twoyear, fouryear, and six-year trend that is unmistakable. So, we're going to lean into mathematics in this state in all the ways that we can. Our students deserve it. Our economy needs it, and it's going to make our students very competitive in the world.
099>> Thank you, Chris. Um, thank you, Superintendent Rdall. Um anyway, I I wanted to show that video um just because I as I was watching it myself, it um I don't know, it just puts it just puts a great perspective on where we are in Washington state and I would say um in the Wanchi school district, not much different as well. So, some of those trends are impactful. I do also want to acknowledge the work that the school board has done to limit screen time in our schools and our building because I do think that that has an impact and that will impact uh the integrity of the classroom environment and how our students learn and prepare to learn over time. Um but like Superintendent Rectal said, there's more work to be done and more
100gaps to be filled and our data will show that uh as well. And we're going to see if we get the uh the slides back up and rocking and rolling. This will be the test. Perfect. Okay, there it is. I like it. >> You have to go the wrong way. >> It I will go the wrong way. Um there's no doubt. Uh but so here is our big six number three reading on grade level. So students will read on grade level by third grade and beyond. And we have uh four uh metrics that you'll see here. Two are from Smarter Balance and two are from I Ready. The first one is uh the percentage of third grade students scoring at or above grade level um or above on the spring I Ready. And so you
101can see our score there has uh bumped up to 61% which we're excited about. Uh next to that you see our third grade students uh scoring proficient or above in the ELA Smarter Balance Assessment. Again we have some scores that have gone up there with 44%. Uh back to the I Ready for percentage of students in third through 8th grade scoring at or above. Um you know tiny tiny increase there at 48%. Uh and then f the final metric there on that first line is our third through 10th graders kind of that composite score for all of them scoring proficient or above on the ELA Smarter Balance Assessment and we have scores uh bumped up there at 46%. We appreciate that. Um and then the foundational data which we've been providing for the last two
102years that OSPI has been sharing that. Um one interesting fact is that the Smarter Balance scores um the proficient or above are not on the front page of the report card anymore. It's all foundational scores. So those students that are showing grade level or above knowledge and skills. They may not have met proficiency level but they are uh showing grade level or above. So those are the the that's the metric that is being shown. um on the state report card. So just sharing with you the importance of that um as we share that as well. So a little uptick from last year um uh on that foundational score. So what I wanted to show you here is a little comparison data and I'll share the rest of this data with the board in the Friday
103weekly but just a snapshot of reading um and what we've done here. We've showed this data before and it is uh let me move that along here. So this data shows uh a Wanchi school district school. In this case it's Pioneer Middle School and the 10 closest schools that are comparable in free and reduced lunch or low socioeconomic status as you can see there in the uh the column next to Pioneer Middle School. and then the percent of students that are multilingual learners um or represented here as English language learners. And then the percent of students that are uh that have disabilities or uh students with IEPs. And so you can see that that's the cohort here when their 10 closest schools in comparison to those three categorical areas. And then here's the breakdown of
104the scores that are shown here. So we have the first uh the first one is our sixth grade scores where you can see Pioneer there is um you in the top three there and then for seventh grade they they move up into the top two and then eighth grade they move into the top tier there in the comparison schools uh which is a great example. Um sorry I didn't move that along did I? There it is. Let me move that along. We have three things to click. We're doing it. We are doing it. Thanks Julie. Um, and so yeah, you can see here as we move through Pioneer, uh, sixth grade, their seventh grade, and then their eighth grade, uh, data, which is not the trend in all of our schools, but that happens to
105be the one for Pioneer. But I wanted to show you some of that comparison comparison data so you have that available. It's not always just Pioneer Middle School versus the state average. We also want to show what that looks like in uh, the comparison schools. Okay. And then next is uh what are our action steps for reading on grade level. The WH school district tight expectation structured literacy also includes structured reading and structured writing. Our LI uh learning improvement teams and our PLC's are in the process of ensuring evidence-based practices and routines to ensure all students are future ready. Students can read grade level and beyond text. They can write and communicate in academic language or the language of professions. And the second bullet is our professional learning uh for improving the English language arts
106core instruction. And so some of the professional development that have been that has been given so far is 68 narrative writing, K12 structured writing with a sentence structure emphasis, K12 structured reading close reading, K5 elementary intervention best practices, 68 English language arts core instruction, and uh with all of those, our learning and teaching team and our principles partner to support with providing coaching and additional support as needed for our instructional leaders. And then finally, a reading and language intervention and extension. So a K8 foundational skill intervention system tier 3 is in place for all learners. And moving on to big six data point number four, ready for algebra. Students will be on grade level or beyond by eighth grade in algebra with both numbers and operations and algebraic thinking. Um so you can see here
107that we have uh we have smarter balance assessment here and I ready. So just the two metrics. Um the first one is the percentage students in grades three through eight scoring proficient or above in the math smarter balance assessment. There we have a score of 30 which is not acceptable in in anyone's uh book here. But we know that we also have a very intentional and strong focus in in math of which you'll hear some of those points um after this slide. Also here in the I Ready we have the percentage of our K8 students scoring um on grade level or above. We see that that is taken a little tiny jump up to 40%. Again knowing that we have work to do in math just um as Superintendent Reichd Doll shared with us in
108the state. Below you have the foundational data again that data that is showing that the students that are on grade level or above with knowledge and skills and you can see there that we have uh 53.6% which is a little bit of a jump from uh from last year. So moving in the right direction but we know more work needs to be done and we know the gaps need to be filled uh with regard to math for sure. Oh and so we do have some additional data as well to share. So, we uh chose one of our elementary schools, we have John Newberry Elementary, and the 10 schools that are closest in comparison for low socioeconomic status, uh multilingual learners and our students with disabilities, you can see that enrollment fluctuates there uh as well.
109And then you can see the data. So, for our third grade, looks like John Newberry is uh there in the top three. And then as we move into fourth grade, moving down into the top five and then fifth grade, even lower in the lower half of that uh percentage rate. We saw that a lot consistently in our fifth grade classes. And our learning improvement team is diving into um some of the interim assessment blocks that they can figure out exactly why that happened and how our fifth grade math instruction may or may not have been aligned to those standards and how we can fix that. So that was uh something that everyone noticed like oh my gosh what's going on here. Uh the next uh going backwards again. Okay so moving forward here we have
110our action steps. Then again another one school district tight expectation is the math literacy. Again our learning improvement teams and our PLC's are in the process of ensuring evidence-based practices to build a strong foundation in essential mathematical skills. things like number sense, operations, patterns, variable use, and real world problem solving. Um, we also have our professional learning that has happened this year. Um, so far we've seen K5 elementary math intervention best practices, 68 math core instruction best practices, grade three through five uh, math fact strategy and fluency best practices. Then again, our learning and teaching team and principles are partnering to support um, following uh, those trainings. We also are ex uh working with our math intervention and extensions. So again, those learning improvement teams and PLC teams are in the process of building systemic
111interventions and extensions to meet students where they are with math instruction. Okay, questions, comments, or celebrations here after the uh the following two big six data points? We have two more to go, folks. You're doing great. Okay, we will keep on keeping on. Okay, on track for graduation. Our fifth big six data point. Students are on track to graduate by the end of their freshman year and beyond. This is a Washington state report card metric of those percentage of students who have passed all courses attempted in 9th grade. And we see here that we about the same as last year and then a dip from 22 to 23. Um, one of the big changes we know is that the high school did move from their uh block schedule to uh a straight six schedule. Um,
112which does decrease the opportunities for students to necessarily make up courses that they may have failed along the way. Um, so the the work that is being done there is really these action steps and I believe this is quite a robust action group of action steps. um much of which uh Eric had uh a part in and uh Donna shared a lot of this as well. Really building a ninth grade team, a specific counselor, an intentional administrator, part of our social work team and an educational advocate that can be that ninth grade team. um really focusing on the high school and beyond planning and have that begin in seventh grade. Um as early as we can to help students really understand the importance of that ninth grade year is a very critical year and a
113researchbased year that um says that student success in nth grade is a critical indicator of student success toward their diploma and graduation. Also increasing the outreach in our nth grade engagement in and out of school. the goal specifically for every ninth grader to be involved in something outside of the classroom. And then our inclusionary practices, um really um focusing on nth grade engagement. Sorry, that was the wrong one. Inclusionary practices, students with IEPs and our multilingual uh students engaged in general education classrooms with support from the categorical funding that follows them. a strong algebra focus, lowering those classroom numbers in tier one classrooms and having students have the ability to work with math interventions support the use of interim assessment data. you and the interim assessment data if you if you don't know is really
114accessing uh the type of questions that are on the Smarter Balance assessment in a regular classroom setting so that students can have exposure to testlike questions and scenarios so they are better prepared when those testing uh opportunities come their way and then a strong multilingual focus um for 9th graders um that is outlined in the WH school district improvement plan school improvement plan and then increasing summer uh intensive seminars uh to provide extended time to demonstrate proficiency. Also um opportunities for students to um you know actively work on their credits they may not achieved and they may not have achieved in their nth grade year. >> All right, Cory, a question for you. >> Yeah. Um so I just looked at OSPI report card where have 93% are graduating. So, how is that align with
115the 61% who are sorry, so like the 39% that are failing a class? >> It's a great question. Um, in our and and that was something that our block schedule really could accommodate in a in a very I won't say easy fashion, but it was it was built in. So, this if students weren't successful in their nth grade school year, they had multiple opportunities to rebuild or to regain their credits that they may have lost in that nth grade year. um and it still didn't impact their trajectory toward graduation. Um we are we are now on year two of working to make sure that we have the support that those students need, whether it's credit retrieval, whether it's summer school support, or whether students are adding on with their intervention uh scheduling to make sure
116that that is happening. Um also, we have uh a tier 2 high school, Westside High School, which is great. So, if we have students that weren't on track in their ninth or tth grade year, then those students often would transfer to Westside High School their junior or senior year and catch up on those credits. >> Yep. >> Oh, great. Thanks. >> Yes. Thank you. Good question. >> Here we are folks. Uh we are moving on to big six number six. We are here. Um this is involved in real world relevant learning. students are engaged in the continuum of learning experiences that create awareness, exploration, preparation, and work experiences to be future ready. And so we have a variety of data points here that I'm excited to share with you. Uh the first one is the
117percentage of our K6 students that are participating in science field experiences. Um we we're we're happy with that with th those numbers and uh increased to 95.6% in that metric. Um and then also with the number of students in 7th through 12th grade that are enrolled in a career and technical education course. Um we're at 87% a slight decrease from uh last year an overall increase in the strategic plan. And then we've had uh then we have we we see a 20% decrease when we move to the number a percentage of seventh through 8th grade students that are attending a career and technical education field experience. Um, and so this is due to a scheduling conflict where one of our middle schools was not able to participate in an allgrade level event. It really had
118an impact on those metrics and uh we're working uh proactively to avoid that in the future. But those are our numbers and that is what happened. So, um, the other thing that we're doing in the CTE world at the middle school level is when we start working on the high school and beyond plan as early as seventh grade, we can really pinpoint where students are interested in their career exploration and we can do some smaller uh, field trips as well. So, we're excited to see what those metrics help um, in the process moving forward. Uh, then on the bottom line, we see the num percentage of 9th through 12th grade students particip participating in job shadows. um internships, career launches, apprenticeships, and work site learning. A little bit of a dip uh from last year,
119but still overall very robust for um 48% of our 9th through 12th graders to have that opportunity. Uh really powerful. And then we see the percentage of 9th through 12th grade students uh earning industry recognized certificates. We saw that plummet quite a bit. Um and I when I talked to CTE director about that um he said some of that is uh just based on the new schedule the sixth grade the sixth period day schedule but he also said that a lot of that work is um based around uh the improving the accelerated pathways option and having more college and the high school classes has lessened um the availability of those recognized certificates and some of the other courses. So, we're having a little bit of a give and take in some of that work, but
120um still pushing through and our goal is to provide students uh the opportunity to earn industry recognized certificates as well. Um so, there'll be some changes in the future about some of that programming and what that looks like, but yeah, that was a big a big dip there in those opportunities for students. And then our action steps uh for uh big six. Number six, teacher professional development focus on not only industry standards but industry environments. We want students to have that industry-like experience. Keeping instruction relevant to the changing needs of the market um that students will walk into. And then continued development of our communication and delivery systems to ensure access is only dependent on informed choice and not preventable barriers. And then continuing to build on the internship apprenticeship model um so that more
121students and opportunities are available to students with um uh related supplemental instructional standards and on the job outcomes aligned to pathway certificates. Lot of information, a lot of data. Holy cow. Um some of the takeaways, this is the right work. And I'm so glad that as a as a board and as a system, this is the work that we are engaged in. Um, we know that continuing to invest in this foundation is what's right for students and what's right for the outcomes for our strategic plan. The data involved in the big six, we know it doesn't change overnight. We know that it is about consistency. It's about vision and it's about core instruction in the classroom. Uh, we are showing some returns on investment through our strategic plan. There's still work to do. There are
122still gaps. Um my my belief is that we need to stay the course over the next few years to continue to see growth. To me, this is not simply a five-year strategic plan and then scrap it and start over. This is the work that we need to be engaged in. I do not want our teachers or our system to be distracted with recasting a new vision when we know that the big six are the correct target areas. One of the things that we may need to look at though is how relevant are the the measures that go into each of the big six and we want to make sure that they are relevant and that they are working for students and they're like in the CTE world they are up to industry standards. >> Cory,
123do we have a plan at some point to like if we're looking at a you know we have a fiveyear strategic plan. I I agree that the big six are important and I think that that is good work. Are we going to refresh that or like say like now we're going to keep these things going maybe change some of the the other metrics as you mentioned but like at what point is it year four where we are year five where we're are next year where we start talking about >> Yep. the next step or >> absolutely I think that is exactly the right question is um in year four right now we have uh we continue to do the work and then I think in year five we plan on what re uh what refreshing
124uh areas we want to tackle and take on um and we do that work I just don't want to take a year to recraft a new vision and step away from um the goals and the vision and the plan that we've already started I think that that would be distracting but there are some things that we can do to refresh fresh the uh the strategic plan, but I think year five will be the year for us to do that. >> Okay, great. I mean, I think it's important to have a vision. So, I don't want us to like >> go through our five years and be like, "Now what?" >> Exactly. >> So, Okay. Thanks. >> Agreed. >> Yeah. And I I'll add on to that as well because that was always one of my
125questions at the very beginning when we when we rolled out this plan was was how are we going to be doing these updates and with what formality and and what does that look like? So, I'm glad to hear that the tweaking is part of the plan. I I agree. we shouldn't just be throwing it out and starting all over again. But but yeah, I'm I'm >> glad to hear that we're looking at the measurements we're doing and and proposing maybe some changes to those in the future. So, >> absolutely. Yeah. Keep keep it relevant, right? We know that the the right work is looking at high quality instruction, looking at belonging and connecting, reading, writing, graduation rates. That is those are the right things to work to to look look for and work toward. but
126how we measure those may need to look differently um so that we can continue to grow. So I appreciate that. Um so the some of the takeaways just in summary big six number one increases in all area including statistical reliability validity. Big six number two increases are maintaining in all the five metrics. Big six number three increases in all four metrics as well as the foundational grade level. Big six number four we saw increases in both metrics. Um and but that we know this is an area of an intentional focus systemwide. Uh big six five slight decreases in our ontrack graduation. Uh big six number six increases in three of the metrics and decreases in two opportunities due to the schedule change and increases in accelerated pathways. So um again we're we're here we are
127in December of uh the 2526 school year. This is our year three update. we are well into year four and the work that we're doing and we're excited to come back again um in June as we have to do an update in in reading writing performance as well but just excited kind of uh where we are in moving through the process and the next piece here is I didn't give a chance formally for questions comments or celebrations so if anyone has um anything they'd like to share on the last two uh big six items before I close it up with a final inspirational moment I'm gonna just take you down for a minute before you sit. Yeah. >> So, we talk about changing like all of these, you know, doing a ton of work, very
128intentional about, you know, the teams that are in place. Yep. which involve money. But as we look at at the staffing changes, you know, how much of this support are we going to lose or is it is it going to be um like you know we talked about putting people in different places and adding staffing or moving people to add to their role. >> Yep. >> Um you know are we going to still be able to allow, you know, have these interventions, have this um the PD time? are are all those things going to continue or you know where are we going to see some of those cuts hurt us? >> That is a great question. Um and so for when we talk about the budget for the 2627 school year which is was kind
129of like this is the question right? Um we are going to be looking at um budget reductions that will impact the basic education allocation which is basically our certificated teachers that are not funded by the categorical um uh areas. So, we're going to have that budget reduction. And at this point, we are um we are planning to lose the federal funding that we had thought we might lose this summer because we just don't we're not we're not hearing anything. So, we need to plan for the worst and hope for the best. And so, with those um there's going to be some impacts to our system. I do believe that as a system we can continue to support the big six. We can continue to support um all of our learners. Um it's just going to
130have to look differently. Yep. And so we're actively working on uh those uh building out our budget updates uh for uh for the 26 27 school year. Uh we have a meeting with our uh administrators and leaders on December 15th. Um and we'll start having some of those public conversations and here at the board level in January. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. That is the that is the question on everyone's mind is what does this look like in uh the climate that we are currently in in the Wanche school district and in the state and in the nation with declining enrollment and uncertainty with federal budgets. And so um again we are we are planning to make those adjustments but we are going to continue to support the big six
131and our strategic plan. >> It will look differently though. >> Yeah. Um, can I quickly I just want to because I know what the teachers are doing and I just want to celebrate them for a moment. They're working so hard. They're doing all these interventions. They're learning new things all the time, being told to do things all the time, and they are doing amazing work. So, I think they deserve a lot of the the love and support, and they're they're working hard on the ground for us. >> 100%. Well said. We appreciate that, Caroline. Um and to fi finalize our strategic plan is a roadmap to fulfill the promise to our students. Our students come to us with unique lived experiences, starting points and needs and our strategic plan provides the framework within which those
132differences are strengths. And so I appreciate uh closing on that note and continuing the work to support our students um and the strategic plan. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity and the time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. That was a that was a lot of talking on your on on your plate. Um >> I want to apologize. >> Uh we don't have any discussion today. Hey little >> but we get to go to action again. So we have a second read on policies 1630 3425 1820 1821 10:05 and 1210. Do you want to talk about them or we feel we all probably felt pretty good about it? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the second read of these policies? >> Move to approve. >> Anyone want? >> Seconded. >>
133Hey. All right. It has been moved by Julie and seconded by Caroline. Um any discussion? Nope. All right. All in favor of approving the resolution say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Nope. Okay. Motion carries and then Corey gets to talk to us again. Superintendent report. >> Superintendent report. So just want to share some great things. Uh we had November we had a wonderful superintendent advisory council. Harrison, thanks for being here staying through the whole thing. I love it. That is dedication. So Harrison's on our superintendent advisory council. Um our goal is to keep our students engaged in what's happening throughout the district and really obtain their feedback and their voice. The last time we met, we discussed all things enrollment, the impact and uh the responses from the school district. Um and then this
134the students had really poignant questions and and and active conversation there. They are they want to understand what u enrollment looks like for the WH school district. So it was really powerful. And then Diana shared um the results of the 982 completed student surveys about the bond. And so that was great. We had some really good dialogue. they are excited about helping to support uh a new and high school in any way that they can. So, and some of them were excited to know that they're going to be able to vote when uh the time comes. So, so that was great. Uh and then just we uh we all had a chance to go to uh WASDA uh the week before Thanksgiving holiday as a board and so that was a great time. Um there
135was some board boot camps that were involved in that and some um some great keynote speakers, some great breakout sessions and I just appreciate the time that we got to spend together um as a board um and building uh and strengthening our relationship. So I appreciate that. Um it's been a while since we met. Little Shop of Horrors was amazing. Um board director Mark Belton was there to um usher people in and welcome people. U what a super fun night. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. We have amazing and talented students. No doubt. The singing, the acting, the comedy, the dentist. I mean, it's amazing. And I loved I I we I went with my family and uh my oldest daughter and my mother-in-law. I could just hear them laughing the entire time. So, it's like
136happy heart. It was great. Um I also was able to go visit our junior city council members at city hall. All sitting in sorry, in the in the in all the council members chairs. It was great. They ran the meeting according to Robert's rules. Uh they had motions. They were voting. They were adhering to the agenda. Um I was able to share my gratitude um for the students just stepping out of their comfort zones and uh involving themselves in the role. And I invited them to join us at a board meeting hopefully in January. And then a huge shout out to council members Atkinson and Gomez for their work of bringing student voice to the Wii city council. And I'm excited for winter sports to start. There it is. Good. Thank you. All right. Thank
137you for that. And we'll do board communication. Maria, do you have anything from afar? >> No, I got nothing. >> Okay. Well, thanks for joining us from afar. Uh Mark. >> Yeah, as Corey said, wrapped up little shop. Corey loved it. He asked for a t-shirt. So, uh it was good. Uh and I just am really excited about the WASDA conference and uh there was it's great to meet other directors also students that were there was over 100 students that was exciting to see and I came back feeling energized and inspired so watch out. >> Yes, >> right danger. Uh Julie, >> I don't have much just uh had a good time at the WADA conference. It was interesting and informative. met a lot of educators starting to see some regular faces now as as
138we've gone uh more over the years. So, um enjoyed that. It was nice to see the the wrap-up for the fall sports. It looks like we did pretty well overall in the fall. So, that was exciting to to see for all the teams for volleyball, soccer, even football. Um everybody, the swimming, diving, cross country, great job. Um, and then looking forward to the the winter sports. >> I mean, technically nothing that I've done has counted, right? But went to WASDA, it was great. Overwhelming. Um, good information. Um, and I guess I mean, basketball for middle schools have been going great. Um, we got great coaches out this year. Um, and the boys are looking pretty good. So, I think we're going to have a chance once they get into the high school. I think our
139program's on the up and up again. So, >> if I can just jump in, I have a real quick positive update. The the final score from Cascade tonight, the girls varsity, uh 42 to 40, our first win in uh since 2023. So, >> all right. Um I also I'll I'll echo that WAZA was great. Um, I think it's really important to learn what other districts are doing, meet other people because I think the problems are are different but the same. Um, so it's a really great time to, you know, get to know the our board a little bit more, but also see what else is going on in the state. Um, and uh, congratulate all the state athletes. I know that was a that's a big deal to go compete at the state level. Um,
140regardless of the outcome and other than that, I uh hope everyone had a restful break and we're all back to the grind. Two weeks, another break. Yeah. Work hard real quick. Uh, and that's it. Me and J