Wenatchee School District Board Meeting 6-24-25

001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the June 24th regular board uh regular board meeting for the Wanti School District. We're going to go ahead and get started with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you. A little bit of housekeeping. Uh uh Director Norton is joining us remotely and Director Jackson will be joining us a little bit late. So he'll he'll be walking in um a little bit later. We will now work through the agenda board. Are there any proposed changes or modifications to today's agenda? Hearing none, we will move on to the consent agenda. The items on the consent agenda were sent to the board and posted

002online last week. The board has had the opportunity to review the material and ask the superintendent any questions that they may have regarding the consent agenda. The consent agenda for this meeting includes the May 27th and June 3rd regular meeting, minutes, voucher and pay vouchers and payroll, the personnel report, surplus report, contracts, field trips, April financial report, the WIAA resolution, June enrollment report, and the 2425 highly capable district plan survey. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Thank you, Martin. Um, and a second by Mark. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none at this time. All in favor uh of the of the consent agenda as presented, please say I. I. I. Perfect. Motion carries. Kim, do we have citizen comments? Perfect.

003So, we'll skip right into the meat and potatoes of our agenda uh with special presentations. Excellent. So, we'd love to welcome uh Hillary Martinez to the podium to walk us through the recommendations from our uh facilities committee. Um and our facilities committee has worked uh um over the last 15 months to understand the dynamics of the Wanche School District and where we are with facilities and work through some long range planning. We also have Phil Crocker here from Teter Crocker. Thanks, Phil. Um, and David Bodin from Turner and Townsi. Thanks for being here to support and represent. Um, and Hillary is no stranger to the Wanche School District. She is a parent. She is a former staff member with our Gear Up program and um, she's representing uh, a parent and community member and Wanche

004Valley College uh, employee as well. Thanks for being here, Hillary. Thank you. So, I do I have a PowerPoint over Oh, yeah. Liz will get that started. Yep. I know it's hard to get started. You Where are the slides? Okay, we got this. Okay. Well, just want to thank you for that introduction and like uh Dr. Kalahar said, I am a parent of four children in that have been or in the Wanachi school district. I'm currently employed employed at Wanachi Valley College and um I did work for Garup and I got to work pretty closely with Foothills Middle School and also with uh Westside High School. So um I was really pleased to be invited to be a part of this um committee. So um the committee was put together by our superintendent in March

0052024. Um the committee was comprised of community members like me. Um Wachi School District staff and it was also supported and facilitated by experts. They're listed on the slide but I know them on by Phil and David. They're like firstname basis. So but thank you. But we really appreciated um their support and helping us facilitate the committee. um members were actually pretty diverse in many ways but I would say especially in our opinions and ideas um so we met uh nine times over 15 months so uh it was a while that we've been working on this and each meeting we were presented with different um data and information and this was around school facilities educational programs financial information and our community responses um we actually broke up into small groups to engage with the information

006presented. Our feedback was then collected and used to help us move the process forward. So, um the goal of the committee quickly became to improve as many learning spaces across the district as possible. Um, we actually find settled on our final two recommendations that you see here to complete HVAC upgrades at all required locations across the district and to build a new WACI high school on the existing site. We also decided the best way to fund this would be through a bond request. So, HVAC was seen as a priority for us for a couple of reasons. The first because children can't learn. Teachers can't teach without basic needs being met. And if you have ever experienced losing your air conditioning in the summer like I just did or heat in the winter, you know firsthand

007that there is no way you are learning a new skill when you are f focused on regulating your body temperature and staying comfortable. Another reason was not that we not upgrading HVAC now is going to cost us in repairs and eventually fees which I'll go over a little bit more as we look through our next slide. So this this is kind of a little meaty. It's kind of a good chart to take a look at for a minute. This slide shows what the estimated costs based on the square footage um to replace and upgrade the HVAC in each building. Um one thing you're going to notice there is that you're going to see some blank spaces and those are where no HVAC is required except for Wachi High School of course. Um and that's going

008to be addressed in our second recommendation of reconstructing the school. In the last four years, Wachi School District is having to address HVAC maintenance annually to the tunes of hundreds of thousands of dollars actually in 2022, 2024, and this year in 2025. And that's just to keep us limping along. Um the Clean Energy Transformation Act is also going to cause fines on the district if a plan to address HVAC is not created, starting with the high school at 430,000. So, it's something that has to be dealt with. So the second re recommendation is to build a new high school on the existing site. The turning point for the committee um was when we realized a new high school was not a want but a need was when we toured Wachi High School. I would recommend

009a tour for anyone who is unsure if this is actually a need. Uh the committee also wrestled with the idea of keeping students on site during the build and decided this is what would be best for students and staff if at all possible. Um there are two conceptual models we will share in the next couple of slides depending on if we can just update the gym in the pool area also called the natiatorum new vocabulary word for me or um if we actually need to replace them. So this right here is the current footprint of um Wach of the high school as right now I think I have oh look I have a pointer look that there's that's Millerdale and then we have on well it's on my right that South Miller Street and then

010Red Apple Road where you can see where the fields are. So this is what it currently looks like. So this would uh this this first model here this is if uh we replaced everything and if you look at the red outline up there that's the current footprint and um the what was pretty exciting for us is as we were discussing things that need to be done by keeping this on the site you as you can see we're going to be getting a new track and some new fields and stuff as well um which need attention Oops. Where's our second one? Okay, there's our second one. This is if we can keep um and modernize the current um gym and pool area. Uh and again, this model also we still will have the new uh field

011and courts as well in this model. So, uh, costs the total cost, um, estimate for the entirety of the recommendation is $372,875,900. Um, this number was estimated by using something called the midpoint construction method. And that would be if we went for a bond in 2026, the midpoint in construction would be 2029. and any later actually if would just increase the cost. Um this method also used a 7.5 inflation rate on the HVAC systems and a six 6% inflation rate on the construction on the high school construction. Another um thing to note is that the HVAC midpoint technically could be earlier as well as bringing the cost down there. So these figures are actually pretty conservative so we can make sure we can complete all the projects. So um we also have access to a

012large scaff funding from the state up to $79 million. This will be given as reimbursement for the new high school build and this actually covers um 25% of that build. Uh after taking this into account, the bond request drops to $295 million. So here we go. This leaves us with a 15-year flat rate bond for a $148 increase. um question as to why we didn't choose maybe a 20 or even a 25-year bond was that these options actually gave us a variable rate which we really wanted to stick with the flat rate and our our thought also is 15 years is better than 20 or 25. So, I just really wanted to thank um the board for um considering our proposal um and looking taking a look at this recommendation as you move forward. Excellent.

013Thank you, Hillilary. And the next slide is for for me to share with the board and it just walks through what the next steps would look like um based on uh today's presentation. So we board considers uh consideration of the committee's recommendation followed by potential action um on committee recommendations there. Then there would be a board decision to run a bond initiative. Uh the board would develop uh a bond resolution and then we would develop a bond uh committee as well. Obviously those are all oversimplifications of lots of pieces and processes. Um, but we want to make sure that uh the community and the board knows kind of what those next steps look like and that we are not just going to go out for a bond proposal this November or next February. It's going

014to take some time and a lot of work because as you noticed the um the diagrams and the representations of what the high school look like are very rudimentary at this stage and we need to dive in deep to what that looks like. Um but we feel uh very confident about the estimation of the numbers um and the work that would be necessary. So just wanted to kind of conclude with those next steps and um that's a lot of information a lot of summary for 15 months of longitudinal work. Um it's been great. We after each meeting the board has gotten a sum summary of what we actually did in those meetings. They've seen the slides um and kind of been part of that process throughout. So, there's been some learning in that realm, but

015I know that Hillary and I and David and Phil are all here to uh answer some questions that you might have or um help shape any uh any thoughts that are forming in your mind as well. I have a lot of questions. Perfect. So Corey, just a brief just a general estimate for this next steps. What do you anticipate the timeline? Um Oh yeah, great. Um well, when I look at steps one, two, and three, those can go as quickly as the board is comfortable with. And then when we get to the bond resolution, I think in between that stage, um we're going to want to think about what it takes to launch a bond. And I and everything that I've been told and everything that I've learned is um it's like a levy times

016three. So maybe a year potentially is what we would need. So if we were to do steps one, two, and three um potentially before October uh and we wanted to run a bond in uh November of 2026, then we would take that year and get ready. Correct me if I'm Does that sound reasonable? Okay. Are two experts in the room? Okay. And then um the what's the average time time frame for uh starting a construction project from start to finish? Great question. So in about you have a great loud voice, but for I'm trying to project for our Zoom listeners. Yeah, no problem. So like I saying, I can move up here. I don't want to, but I will as needed. Yep, no problem. Oh, don't make a big mouse sound here. So when we've

017consulted with the architect, we're talking design around a year, year and a half and then construction around two years plus another few months after that for the fields that would happen afterwards. So So looking at the graph, the chart where the cost estimate and inflation and all that fun stuff where given on these on all these two timelines that we just heard, where where would we land? Where do you think we would land? I know it's all hypothetical. Hypothetically, you were to go out to your voters in November of 26. So, you're talking 27 going out to 28 uh to start construction. So, that's why we put that mid that we've been working off that 2029 number as the cost to work off of because that will be that midpoint of construction, which is where

018we tend to range to because when contractors are bidding a job, you know, they look at where costs are going to be to order materials, where labor is going to be, and so forth. that midpoint. Okay. For highs, that's kind of where we look at. Okay. So, technically, we're looking out, we're looking at a new high school in 20 30 2030 2030 31 somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we can further break that down in a pretty easy graph chart for you guys to look at. Okay. I I mean, I love I I I like the visuals of providing that. Okay. you know, this is where the high school is. This is where it would go if this or if that. Um, I really like that. And I'm assuming we um it's a little

019scary to have the main entrance off of Red Apple Road. Um, very conceptual. Okay. Okay. And that's a struggle when we show diagrams. This has not been vetted. Has not been a this is like what we tasked the architect team with. We said, "Hey, can we even do this?" Because when when I looked at this site as a whole here, I was like, I think we can, but I don't know if we can. That's a two-story structure. It's not a one-story sprawling structure. It's a two-story structure uh specifically in the classroom wings. So, you can see it says C CR twotory. So, that's a two-story structure back there in order to make it work. So, that was I told him all you have all the fun in the world design. If you can you make

020this work on the site, it may look nothing like this, right? Right? Because we got to look at movement of students because we have to keep students safe, keep, you know, academics running full-time, minimize everything. What you can see is fields are gone during construction. There is no field use on this site during construction. That will be something we'll have to work through as part of the logistics and execution of the bond. But we can build on a site, and I hate to say it, but I build buildings closer than those are right there, um, without disrupting students. But it it's it's going to require the team to look at it and look at all aspects of it as we further design it. But this is don't take this as gospel in any way. Please

021not even vetted by anybody. And I appreciate that too because the the committee spent a lot of time focusing on where do students go if we're going to, you know, take down the high school and then rebuild it where you'd have a portable city somewhere or we'd have to displace other students in other buildings. Um and they really the team really liked this idea and concept is we're building this while um the other school is is still working as best as it can and students are navigating through those building through the uh former building. We do we will have to move the current portables uh that are there and so we'll have to um work out that those logistics but the the committee did really like this uh this piece. Thanks David. I understand I

022aim the design process want to make sure that is very communitydriven right that is going to be a multi-layered process when the bond passes to engage community about what the school looks like how it sits and all that functionality so it's always that fine line of showing graphics and images but recognizing we haven't come up with anything design okay so it's got be we be very careful about that because it is a communitycentric project and that their input is going to be wanted through the whole thing and so we often run into struggles here when we show these concepts because think, oh, you've already figured it out. No, just it'll fit. That's not the extent of what we know. Okay. I just want to say thank you um to the committee. I mean, I've I've

023heard it's a very I've read it's a very diverse uh committee. Uh well represented through parents, community members, business um different entities. Um you were really quick to go back to sit down. No, I don't have any questions. I'm like, Hillary's she's done. Um yeah, and I appreciate uh knowing Hillary. I I you know, and and knowing, okay, well, we're looking at 2030 um you know, her children will benefit from this um but the investment that's going into from our community members or committee members that don't have children um in the district. So, you know, it's and I heard it was a unanimous decision from the committee members to move this forward. So, I just want to say thank you uh to you to all the members. Um it takes one brave soul to present

024to the board and it was I guess it was you. Um but again, you know, the the emphasis of um we're all invest we we should all be invested in our in our the education system within our community whether it's impacting us directly. We have children or grandchildren or or or not. So, thank you. I do have a question if they're still there and if you can hear me. You're good. Go ahead, Julie. Okay. Um, can you just explain why the um the capital levy is not an option? um I I assume it wouldn't fund the level needed, but if there is a contingency, if in fact a bond is not capable of passing because I don't see any change to the approval rate thresholds and that's been a a big obstacle uh for for

025most bonds in our state. So, can can somebody speak to that um for me? Thank you. I'll uh I'll do my best. Cory, you can add on to to other things there. capital levy uh was not really it I would say be considered from the HVAC side of things, but for a project as large as the high school is, the capital levy is a really tough lift on a community because that tax rate would be uh pretty dang high because you're doing a you know anywhere from a five to sixyear levy and you also in a levy you only collect on each year by year. So the district would have to take out a loan to front fund, but that tax burden on your community be significantly substantial versus drawing it out the 15 years

026in this case with the bond. Well said. I wouldn't add anything else. Yeah, that's super helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Julie. And I want to thank the committee and our two consultants for all of this work. Um the board has been shown ideas for a bond ever since I've been on it six years ago and a lot before then. Um and um I think the crucial two crucial things which you recognize is that it is a community dynamic community momentum that would make a bond work. Um, and as time passes, you realize, and I'm going to switch to the AAM, uh, energy group working with our interns, and they draw the school district as the hub of a community, and it really is. That's the future. That's our investment. Um, now from my point of

027view as an individual board member, I've not been on the facilities committee. We have restrictions on how many people can participate, so I'm reading short reports. and Hillary a great dynamic short presentation punching at a high level though. So uh I think I feel that you have put the board in a position of now is the time to do something that is essential. The critical thing is to have the right pieces in place to do it well and the timing. Uh Julie asked about capital levies. When we first began looking at the problems year-toear, it seemed that maybe we could fix some mechanics with capital levies and not have to go out for a big bond. And I understand that your committee has looked at that and uh think that it doesn't work emotionally and

028impact-wise. So I think that it's incumbent on us to pick something that is going to work and make it work implementation being really really critical. Um if I go back in my own prejudices, I was really concerned to have educational expertise ready to help with the design. I call it educational architecture. Somebody mentioned about flow of students in buildings. Um we need to think about what's inside the walls of a building, not just building walls and wondering what how teaching's going to work. So actually I'm very pleased that Tita Crocker is part of our consultancy group and I'm glad to see the uh consultants we work with have a lot of education experience. So that's good. The community really needs to go. So um the timetable has been presented November of next year. Uh that

029just meets Corey's time and I'm just on the take absorbing and saying this is what we need to do. Let's look at it and let's kick it around. And I guess the one point I wrote down, it's essential. The other one is I think Corey, I would like to have some workshop time for the board on this. If I go back to our previous time, we spent quite a long time chatting and nothing happened. And now I think you've come with a very big bold proposal that looks like it makes sense. We need to catch up with you. Thanks, Julian. Any further questions? No, I'm good. Thank you. Okay, great. Well, thank you guys for being here. Like I like Martin uh Martin said, um we look forward to a work a works a workshop

030in the future. So, excellent. Thanks everyone. Thanks friends. Hillary, thank you for being the brave soul. We appreciate it representing everyone. Oh my gosh. Well, let's move to our second presentation. Um we have executive director of learning and teaching Heidi Busk in her final appearance uh as in her final school board meeting joined by director of learning and teaching Amber Burks. Thank you both for being here um and uh and sharing with us uh our end of the year data. We're very excited. All right, here we go. All right. Um, so good evening. Amber and I are here tonight to share an overview of our students endofear learning results in reading and math. In this report, you will see how our students performed on three key assessments. common formative assessments or CFAs, which we like

031to call them, um, which provide the most immediate insight into classroom learning. You had the opportunity to see some CFA data during a workshop earlier this year for math. So, you'll get to see how we ended the year. um I Ready Diagnostic uh in both reading and math which are multiplechoice assessments that measure growth in um these two areas and the smarter balanced assessment or SBA which offers a broader look at student achievement in reading, writing and math. The SBA data that you will see tonight as as always in the spring is preliminary data until um it's released by the state in the fall but it gives us a good picture of where our students are. So, um, I'm going to pass it over to Amber. Thank you, Heidi. Okay. Um, let's begin the report

032tonight with grounding our conversations in our WSD promise, values, and priorities. Oh, I have it. There you go. Um, we promise to build a foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready. Our values, excellence and learning, equity and accountability. Our priorities, thriving environment, opportunities, partnerships, and with the student voice, diversity, I am seen. Equity, I will thrive. Inclusion, I belong. So, um, this year, um, you joined us for four learning walks, and these schoolboard learning walks were a highlight for our learning and teaching team. Um, learning walks are an important structure for our team to continue to monitor um, our progress towards highquality instruction. And during the schoolboard um learning walk visits, you saw the thriving environments our students experience in our schools. You were able to see evidence of

033our big six outcomes in action. High quality instruction. Teachers were using our essential instructional strategies to engage students and to provide rigorous learning activities and assignments. Uh big six outcome two belong and connected. Students participated in social emotional learning lessons and you saw and felt positive school culture. Big outcome three reading on grade level. Students were listening, speaking, reading and writing about what they were learning. Number four, ready for algebra. Students were making sense of problems and solving them. And number five, real world relevant learning. Students were coding robots in robotics class and AVID students were participating in a Socratic seminar discussing the pros and cons of roommates at college. And you also saw a marine biology CTE classroom engaging in a lab. PLC's and learning improvement teams are another two of our foundational structures

034in our system for collaborative collaboratively analyzing student learning outcomes and planning highquality instruction to improve outcomes for all students and to achieve our big six outcomes. On the left, you will see the four essential PLC questions that guide the ongoing work of our professional learning communities and our learning improvement teams. These questions are the backbone of our continuous improvement process. Uh question number one, what do we want students to learn? And that is our guaranteed and viable units, the WSD essential instructional strategies. Question two, how do we know when they learned it? And we know that through our common formative assessments, our I Ready assessment and our smarter balance assessments. Number three, what will we do if they didn't learn? And we do that. we respond with intervention and retaches. And number four, what will

035we do if they did learn? Um, these are our extensions. And on the right, you'll find the WSD essential instructional strategies, which are high lever practices that our teachers intentionally integrate into their daily instruction. These strategies are designed to ensure 100% student engagement and high rigor. While they benefit all learners, they are especially critical for meeting the needs of multilingual learners. Starting at the bottom of the triangle are the norms and procedures that teachers put into place to lay the groundwork for f the following strategies. The visuals and academic vocabulary, academic discussion, and structured reading and writing. These strategies are not just best practice, they are essential practice. and Heidi will start us with our data. Right. So we are going to start today with our lit literacy student learning results. This data set I'm

036having a hard time speaking today. This data set shows three years of Smarter Balance Assessment or SBA results for students in grade grades bands three through five, 6 through 8, and grade 10 over the past three years. Each bar represents a percentage of students demonstrating foundational grade level knowledge or higher, meaning they scored at a level 2, three, or four. The green line on the graph indicates the 20232 24 state average for all students. While we don't yet have the current year's state average, this gives us helpful context to see how our students are performing in comparison to last year's state averages. Um, looking back over the years, that green bar for the whole state doesn't move a whole lot because it's such a big group that they're taking the information from. As you can

037see, across all grade bands, we are performing at or above the state average in terms of the percentage of students demonstrating foundational grade level skills or better. As we zoom in a little closer on our SBA ELA data, we can take a look at our students earning a level three or four. This data set highlights the percentage of students demonstrating consistent grade level or higher knowledge and skills, those scoring at level three or four on the ELA SBA. You'll notice positive trends in grades 3 through 5 and 6 through 8 with steady increases over the past three years. After a slight dip last year in grade 10, we're encouraged to see improvement this year as well. The green line once again represents the 2023 24 state average for all students. While we are currently performing

038below the state average in grades 3 through 8, we're seeing encouraging progress. In grade 10, we're approaching the state average and showing upward momentum. This slide shows how students performed on two assessments, our classroombased common formative assessments or CFAs in the I Ready reading diagnostic. On the left, you'll see the percentage of students who demonstrated proficiency scoring a level three or four and on our reading CFAs. This was our first year implementing re reading CFAs consistently across grades two through five, specifically focused on priority comprehension standards. While this new approach to assessing comprehension or with this new approach to assessing comprehension, 32% of our students met or exceeded the standard. We had a large majority of level twos, but they're not showing on here. As teachers and students grow more more familiar with the rigor

039and expectations of these assessments, we anticipate improved results in years ahead. In grades six or eight, teams are continuing to refine their ELA unit plans and CFAs. And this year, 47% of students in those grades met or exceeded standard. The chart on the right shows the percentage of students scoring on or above grade level on the I Ready reading diagnostic, which is a multiplechoice assessment used across grades K8. This year's results show 60% of students in grades K2 met or exceeded grade level expectations. 46% in grades 3 through 5, and 37% in grades 6 through 8. The combination of data from these three assessments, the SBA, the CFAs, and the I Ready, along with our learning walk data gives us a clear picture of where students are currently performing and helps guide our next steps

040in instruction and support. This slide shows our SBA ELA data disegregated by multilingual learners ML and nonML students for the 21 or 22 23 school year and the 2324 school year. Nope. 2122 20 23 24. The Washington state average for ML and nonML students. The next two bars, do I have the dates right on that? Do I two? Yeah, I do. Okay. The next two bars show the performance of Wan that multilingual and non- multilingual students. So, you can see the two graybook bars at the beginning are Washington State and then the next two bars in each data set are WACI. As you can see, there is a performance gap between multilingual and non-multilingual students both in Wanachi and across the state. This is a trend we are aware of and actively working to address.

041To close this gap, we continue to implement and refine our WSD essential instructional strategies, which are designed to ensure that all students, especially our multilingual learners, have access to highquality, rigorous instruction. Here you see the SBA ELA participation rates. We are particularly proud of the efforts Wachi High School made to ensure they increased participation this year after a dip last year. So big increase. Kudos to our high school for their strategies and um and ideas that they came up with and and used to bring more students in to take that assessment. All right, we are going to move on to math. This data set shows three years of SBA math data for students in grades 3, five, 68, and grade 10. The bars represent the percentage of students demonstrating foundational grade level knowledge or higher,

042those who scored a level 2, three, or four. For context, the green line again indicates the 2023 24 state average for all students. As you can see, our students in grades 35 are performing very close to the state average. In grades 68, we're slightly below. And in grade 10, we see a larger gap of about 20 percentage points. It's important to note that our K5 PLC's have been working hard to improve student outcomes in math over the past three years, and we're be we're beginning to see the efforts pay off. These students are now moving into middle grades with a stronger foundation which we believe will lead to continued growth over time. Again, we'll zoom in to see the percentage of students who earned a level three or four. So, this data set reflects the

043percentage of students demonstrating consistent grade level or higher knowledge and skills, which means scoring at a level three or four in math on the SBA. Preliminary results show an encouraging increase in the number of students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations in grades three through five. Scores in grades six through eight have remained steady while grade 10 shows a modest improvement compared to last year. The green line represents the 23 24 Washington state average for all students. As you can see, we're close to the state average in grades three through five, but currently below in grades six through eight and notably below, further behind in grade 10 when we're looking at just our level three and four students. Here we are looking at our student performance on both the math common formative assessments and the

044I Ready Diagnostic. On the left, the chart shows that in both grade bands, three through five and six through eight, the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency or higher on the CFAs increased this year, which is very encouraging. On the right, the chart displays the percentage of students who scored on or near grade level on the I Ready math assessment. This year, we saw gains in the lower grades with 49% of K2 students and 43% of 35 students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations. However, in grades 6 to 8, there was a slight decline with 26.7% of students at or above grade level. Once again, this slide shows our math data for multilingual and non ML students demonstrating foundational grade level knowledge or higher. The gray bars again represent the state and the next two bars,

045the yellow and green represent WACI school district. As you can see again, the gap remains as it does with the state. We are actively refining our WACI school district instructional strategies and support structures to close this gap and better serve all of our students. Um, participation rates again in math. Uh, we can see a a really great increase in the percentage of students who participated in math in grade 10. Tonight we also want to celebrate our multilingual learners who demonstrated proficiency with the English with in English in listening, speaking, reading, and writing on the rigorous WEDA language assessment. In our district, we have about 1,500 multilingual students who are learning the English language and are at different proficiency levels across the district. This year, 90 multilingual learners demonstrated English language profic proficiency on the WEDA

046language assessment. Notice the large numbers of students who exited in third, fourth, and fifth grades. For students who have been in our system since kindergarten, fourth or fifth grade is where we would expect to see many students exit because they've been in our system about five years and it takes about five years to start to be able to demonstrate proficiency. However, that WEDA assessment is such a rigorous assessment that this is pretty amazing that we were able to exit 90 students in fourth and all the way. So, yay, exciting. Um, students are monitored for three years after exiting the program as required by Washington State. So, we keep an eye on them. It is important to note that the exited students, last year's, this year's, the year before, become part of the nonML data that

047you have been looking at tonight and I'm going to pass it off to Amber. Thank you, Heidi. Okay, now that we have had an overview of the learning results, um let's take a look at our plan for improving student outcomes. Okay, on your left here, you'll see um our WSD systems instructions uh structures, sorry. These are evidence-based systems and structures that lead to rigorous highquality instruction and are designed to close equity gaps. Each of these strategies reflects best practice in teaching and learning and these are the strategies that we are implementing as a district to improve our outcomes. So on the right is our um WSD tight implementation progression and this visual illustrates how we move from initial professional learning to full systemwide implementation where these practices are consistently visible and expected in every classroom

048every day. As you know, this level of implementation takes time and it up to 3 to four years. So, let's um Oops, let me go back. Yeah, let me stay right here. So, let's just take a moment to um uh look at each phase of the implementation process. So, in phase one, you'll see here in the yellow, which it it is learn and practice. In this phase, educators engage in job embedded professional development such as our October and February district PD sessions, district trainer follow-ups where they get coaching right in their classrooms, learning staff meetings, and learning improvement day trainings on Monday mornings. They receive ongoing modeling and support to learn and begin practicing the strategies. at this stage of implementation is often visible through bright spots or we said or typically a handful of

049early adopters. Historically, this is where professional development has tended to stop. However, this phase is intentionally designed for learning and practice with the understanding that full implementation of the strategy will be expected the following year. And then we move to phase two which we call the refine stage. In phase two, principles expect to see the strategies consistently applied in classrooms and during PLC time because educators have received ample training, ongoing support, and have a clear understanding of the compelling why behind the systemwide implementation. The reason we begin to expect these strategies is simple. The goal is to become it for it to become part of our instructional habits embedded in daily practice across the system. Which brings us to phase three, the habit phase. In this phase, the strategies have become embedded habits that ensure

050high quality instruction systemwide. Approximately 80% or more of educators are consistently using the strategy during this phase and it has become a norm across schools and throughout the district. As always, we continue to provide support for educators who are new to the profession or new to the district, ensuring everyone is brought up along with the work. So why is this progression, this implementation progression so important and critical to our work? Because when there is a consistent and recognizable system of highquality instruction across all classrooms, we create the conditions to ensure high levels of learning for all students and to eliminate the equity and achievement gaps. So in this next slide, we wanted to share an example. We recently asked our principles to reflect and indicate where their schools are in the implementation of each of

051our strategies or structures. This example highlights one of our elementary schools. Um on the left you see this year's professional development focus. For example, reading comprehension and close reading there in the far left column. Our data that you saw today along with input from principles and teachers continues to guide our next steps to close these gaps to close our gaps and ensure high quality instruction. The focus on reading comprehension at elementary and close reading is a direct response to the learning results and identified needs. This strategy will support improved literacy outcomes for students. And here is a secondary example from one of our schools at secondary level. Again on the left you see this year's professional development focus on close reading. You also see the emphasis on math PD three reads language routine in the

052ongoing support and feedback column as math is a prioritized growth area. In phase three, you'll notice um that PLC processes have been worked on now for the past four plus years. So this the PLC processes are in the habit phase. And now we want to pause for comments and questions. Well, thank you. I appreciate the um information and all the work that has gone into this. um what an observation that I'm making that I've kind I've um alluded to before saying okay well where are our students um comparing when we compare their CFAs to IRA to um SBA and based on this what I'm seeing here it's the data seems somewhat consistent what I was hoping that to see was that okay maybe standardized tests are not the thing for every student. Um so the

053CFAs will um help kind guide the work a little bit more. Um but that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to be that the SBA I Ready and the CFA seem to be consistently below um below average. Um which is really um disheartening to see um because this it just signifies that we have a lot of work to do. Um, again, I will continue to advocate for this. Um, our multi- language learners, our ML learners, um, that gap is not it's it's not it's not narrowing. Um, I I get that the strategies that we're doing are strategies for every single students, but I will continue to repeat myself that they need more than the standard strategies that that every other student is getting. Um, and I hope that this is the evidence that

054our district needs to see to start further interventions to narrow that gap. Um, I appreciate the you provided the averages for the state um, and that we're close to it. Um, but I think we need to be achieving for higher than the state average. Um, I I want, you know, it's good to have, you know, our stretch goals, um, our our grade level goals, our stretch goals, whatnot. Um, but I think I think we we don't want to settle and say, well, we're right where the state average is because realistically, the state average is not very good. Um, so it just, you know, a lot of work goes into this. Um I know we've been talking about PLC's PBIS for years and years and years and this tight implementation prog progression you know it takes

055three to four years some schools have been there um are we seeing the results of those of that of those strategies and implementation um I think if maybe it's there we're just not seeing it because the data is not disagregated um but thank you for the presentation um our teacher I know our teachers work really hard and I know our hands are some are tied, educators hands are tied with all the requirements at the state um and the federal level require um but we got a lot of work to do. We do. Um Maria, thank you so much. Um you're right. We don't want to be at that average. We want to be higher. We want all of our students to succeed and thrive. Um, one of the things that that was more noticeable when

056we broke down our CFA data by um by grade levels, by school, we were able to see those, as Amber talked about, the bright spots, the places where we're starting to see those results take off. um particularly in those primary grades, grade three, if if we broke that data down more and you looked at grade three in math, they they did a an excellent job. I mean, they had huge growth in our CFAs. So, um with pulling all data, you know, we don't get to see those little spots where we're starting to really see that in particular different grade levels. Um but we know as we start from kindergarten and we move up, it takes time for those the students who are up here didn't get the benefit of all the the work um and

057the the um strategies and the learning that we're doing now in K12 that's and three that's starting to build up to those upper grades. So um thank you for that. Yeah. you know, and I appreciate uh again, I know we've seen the great stuff that works that that's in the classroom, the great stuff that's happening in the classroom. Um, another point to highlight um is the huge drop from 35 to 68 where, you know, as a parent of a middle schooler, to me it seems like that's where they're getting their foundation to go into the next level, which is the high school. And it's it's it's alarming to see um the huge cliff there. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you. I was going to say something about that, too. Is that is there a I mean,

058I know you've talked about, you know, putting better tool or giving or elementary school kids a better foundation and, you know, that is going to move up as they as they progress. Yeah. Um do you have any like kind of insights into why we're seeing such a big drop into that high school level right now? I mean, is it has it changing of the of the tools that you've been using as a district? Is it some kind of participation at the high school level? You know, it just is there a reason we can see just that steady decline down to 10? I'm not sure, but we are working. So, yeah. Um, we know we have more work to do across our system. um we really emphasized and focused on K5 for that math focus um

059early on to because we knew we I mean our data there was also not where it should have been and so um we haven't put as much emphasis in that focus on math in particular at the middle and high school levels. Um our teachers specialize and they're doing a fabulous job with their students but it's not always showing in our data. Um, so yeah, I mean obviously if you knew you'd do something about it, but it's just always sometimes, yeah, it's we can't do anything about 10th grade all at once. And these are the things, you know, it sounds like by building the foundation and making kind of that stronger base. I mean, we're doing the work to to make sure that we're trying to move those better grades up the chain. Do you want

060to say something? Yeah. Yeah. And um in addition to what Heidi just said, we do have a focused plan to really f we've we've put a lot of focused attention the la past three years on K5 and math fact fluency and the math 3 reads language routine. Um and we our energies have gone there and that we're going to keep that going. And then this upcoming year in 68, we have a focused professional learning plan um to um start carrying those same strategies up to middle school to in in response to our data that we saw today. Kind of keeping the momentum going, right? Now that now that these kindergarteners through fifth graders have that foundation, you don't want them to drop off in sixth because they don't are aren't being helped along in that

061same way. Great. Thanks. Yeah. And to be fair, our our um we we're our when our students go into middle school without those foundational skills that they have to have, um it's really hard to teach addition facts when we're trying to teach algebra concepts at the same time. So, um yeah, a couple things, the focus on it at middle level and then the students coming in with a solid foundation. Do do we hold anyone back? I mean, you know, I understand that that sometimes we're looking at kids that are three, four, five, six grade levels be behind where they are. Like if we're if I have talk to someone in high school who is trying to teach a class to someone who can't read like do we ever is that part of the process of

062like this person needs to do third grade again or or not? Um there are some cases um sometimes the research shows that that's not the most effective. They often have strong gains at the beginning of that second year and then there are a lot of um factors that play into that and they don't always continue those strong gains throughout that year. Um sometimes there are other contributing factors that make it not successful. Um but in some cases that does happen. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I think you've said it and we all would like to see more positive incremental improvements from year to year or from cohort to cohort and it's hard. It's uh takes patient determination. I want you have hosted us to see your work in process at elementary, middle and high school level

063and that has been uh great education for the board and I much appreciated and I appreciate all the work and dedication of the teachers and of doing things systematically. Um so um yes the I really kind of have a comment. No no no no comment comment. Uh we must look at these data as indicators and clues for what we can do better. They're not a test. They're not an Olympic games deal. Um I think the comment that our goal should not be to just get to the state. Our goal should be to do much better than the state. So, um I think my only comment I made is we've just got to keep on being determined about it and being intelligent about it. I'm glad to see more uh a little more history, a little

064more emphasis on disagregated statistics. Um you we didn't look at the schools, but you commented if you looked at schools, you see some bright spots and maybe bright spots are ones that they can learn from each other. Mhm. Uh and um so those are what one has to work on. Um and um I occasionally look to see if there's an improvement, if the K through three got a good grounding, whether whe 3, four years, 5 years later when they're in uh upper we'll see a kick. We haven't seen that yet. And sometimes when you see a drop like in 10th grade, you answered I don't know. we don't really know morale of students and everybody else is important. So I think it's important for the board to lead with a positive attitude and encourage um

065and um there and try to build up that momentum and uh I'm glad to see that more students are taking the SBAs that's positive and then another thing in this is every time statistic statistics need to be calibrated to be uniform. I'm just kind of curious if we take the multilingual learners who test out in the wider and then they're not part of the ML group and if they're about 6% of the students every year presumably that takes some of the more advanced readers out of the average multilingual statistic. Is that correct? Yeah. The students who are I'm not looking for excuses and I don't want to give No, but you're right. Yeah, they are pulled out. the students who are proficient are pulled out and then we still have students who are learning the

066language. So when we're looking for small changes, we've got to be very cognizant that we don't fool ourselves either positively or negatively. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. What a fun last board meeting presentation. I know. I kept it a lot shorter this year though, right? Thank you for all the work. That's um I think it's really good information to see and I'm encouraged as Martin is to try to find the bright spots and us to figure out how we make small steps to keep moving forward. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, um I think the the math data in third grade and the significant gains on the CFAs, um gains in SBA, gains on I Ready, um is starting to say here these kids have come with this foundation. So um I I just as

067I walk away, I think it's going to get better every year. So thank you. Well, you have to check in. Okay, I will. I don't know if I'll come to the board meetings, but I'll check in. Just wanted to check to see if Julie had any questions or comments. I don't have any questions. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I just uh I want to thank the two of you. I want to thank uh all the work that you have done. I really really appreciate you sharing the uh when school district tights implementation progression with us. Um that is I won't say it's it's new in concept but it's new in that in the flow of how that worked and it really resonated well with our leaders this year as we were closing

068out the year going over our own data reviews and we're excited to use that implementation progression as we end our school improvement uh planning process as well. So thank you for sharing that with the board. I think it's really great. Thank you. And it really helps us target our um support for each building individually as they move on. So, thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, board. Okay. Next, we have Sean Fitzgerald, executive director of business and finance, uh presenting the 2526 budget. He'll highlight the ASB and then he'll work through the general fund as well. And you'll have to determine for yourself tonight if this is the main event or not. Well, we still have a few in the audience, so you know, no clear outs tonight. [Laughter] Very good. All right. Well,

069thank you all. Can hear. Thank you all. Uh, President Jackson, members of the board, Dr. Kalahar, uh, great to be here tonight to present uh, the preliminary budget uh, for the general fund and ASB. Uh, this is the second of three presentations. Um, so um, in our first board meeting in June, uh, went over debt service, capital projects, and transportation vehicle. And then tonight again general fund and ASB these are preliminary and then in August we'll be presenting uh the final budget uh for review and adoption by the board. Uh so again as background uh we're organized on a uh fund basis accounting and we use five funds general ASB debt service capital projects and transportation vehicle. uh general fund makes up about 90% of the budget and the remaining four funds uh take up

070the remaining 10% of the budget. Uh we'll start off with ASB. So the ASB fund is designated for activities or events which are cultural, athletic, uh social or recreational and are optional nonredit or extracurricular events or activities. The primary funding sources are donations or collections of fees and fines. Funds are legally restricted. So the funds uh that are presented here tonight are only available for ASB activities or events. They cannot be used or transferred to other funds. Uh so I'll begin with our year-end projections uh for the 2425 school year. Uh we have two sets of data here with budget capacity and without uh budget capacity. It's in our general student uh body and our club's budget about $250,000. So about $125,000 split between those two accounts. Uh so you can see overall uh budget

071capacity does not have effect on the ending fund balance. Uh so the end results are the same but when you look at the differences between with and without budget capacity the variances uh are smaller in size. Uh so overall uh doing better than uh you know when we look at our budget although we didn't um meet the budgeted levels of revenues and expenditures uh in both columns here or both tables I should say. Uh our overall growth is revenues exceeded expenditures. So, we're seeing a slight growth in our ASB fund balance of about $164,000. And then in just kind of comparison versus budget versus projected, we're seeing an overall increase in $40,000 in ending fund balance between actual and budgeted amounts. Sean, do you have any insight into why we're spending so much less? You

072know, like I'm assuming like if we're doing fewer things, we're not going to make as much money. So it's probably those two numbers being smaller make sense, but like is that just do you do you know why? So I think there's two things at play here. One is just capacity. Um and so although then when we do remove that on the right hand side, you're still seeing the variances again. Uh so the second part is I think year after year uh the ASBs have kind of a certain formula or methodology that they just follow and it's like this is the method that works. This is the process that works and it's like hey we're we're content with not going over budget. We're operating within our parameters. So I think those are kind of the two

073driving forces. I don't think it's going to be hey we're not meeting our revenue fundraiser goals. Hey, we're not meeting certain activities. I think they just kind of have a a plan in place that they follow on a year-to-year basis. Yeah. I interrupt with a question on that one because we saw all the activity levels drop during COVID and then expected them to come back to the way they were before and they haven't. The question I've asked is if you ask students uh what their level of enthusiasm is whether spending less having less money and less expenses is a result of being less uh engaged or are they you commented that they get used to doing things in the same way. Uh are you getting any feedback of a passive not very um energetic um

074attitude to ASB or not? I don't think I'm seeing any passive activity, but it's kind of hard. You know, again, this is you're not necessarily the person, but I would think that would be a good question for us to ask um of everybody. Yeah. Ask Eric. Um you know, yeah, stepping back, I'm not seeing, I wouldn't say a passive approach or less enthusiasm. I think it's really dependent upon what each of the schools are doing and um the engagement at the individual school levels if that answers your question. Okay. So preliminary budget and forecast. So again 2526 preliminary budget and also mirroring the four-year forecast. Again here we're seeing uh revenues and expenditures. In this case, just based on the information we're receiving from the schools, revenues are exceeding expenditures and we're seeing a decrease

075in fund balance. Um, do I think that budget's going to reflect our actual reality? I do not think so. Uh, I think just the past few years, I mean, what we're seeing here is just a conservative budget. And u moving forward, I think his if history is anything to say, our revenues have been exceeding expenditures. Our fund balance has been growing. uh since our return from um the pandemic and returning to prepandemic levels. So ultimately, although I think this is a conservative budget, I do expect that um fund balances will either continue to grow or be stable, you know, grow moderately or be stable. Any further questions on ASB? Julie, do you have any questions on ASB before moving on to general fund? No, I don't have any. Thank you. So, moving on, we'll go

076into enrollment. Um, a familiar table, uh, that's the board has seen. Uh, we have our birth rate trends for both the district and the county level. Um, getting this data from the Washington State Department of Health and MGD consulting. Uh, so overall, we look at birth rates to kind of track our incoming kindergarten classes. uh this is kind of our basis point. Uh there's a correlation between birth rates and incoming kindergarten classes. So generally if we see an increase in birth rates, kindergarten classes are going to be larger and vice versa. If we're going back and tracking our data back to 2014 and 2015, we can see our birth rates for the school district peaked in 2014 at 634. They peaked for the Chalan County overall at 954 in 2015. Um also at the same

077time our enrollment peaked in 201516. Uh since then we've seen an overall kind of decline of birth rates. A couple of jump ups but ultimately an overall decline since 2015 at 2014. Um what we're looking for projecting are birth rates for our incoming kindergarten class for 2526 is uh highlighted in red and the 2020 birth year. Uh so we're seeing between 2019 and 2020 a significant drop in birth rates uh both at the county level and at in the district level as well. So just at the district level alone we have a decline of 71 births. Um and then moving forward up to 2020 from 2020 to 2023 it's more of a decline about 24 births um over the next few years. So not a significant drop but still a decline. Uh so what this

078means for uh our incoming 25 26 class is an expectation of a smaller kindergarten classes that what we've seen before. Our enrollment uh so this is our current enrollment current and historical enrollment going back to 2015 16. Uh this is our annual average FTE. So it's including the FTE enrollment for the entire school year and excludes both running start and open doors because they act as a pass through. Um so beginning 201516 our enrollment peaked at 7655 and then again just some of the highlighted points 2021 uh was the co pandemic lack lockdowns uh followed by uh 2122 we saw a slight increase to 6985 uh when the schools reopen. However, at the same time, we were also seeing uh both charter school uh Pinnacles Prep opening and then private schools either additional openings or

079expansions beginning at the same time. Uh for 2425, uh we are looking at finishing the school year at 6550. Uh that also includes summer school enrollment. Uh so the difference between 23 24 and our current school years, we're looking at over 200 FTE drop from just a prior year. Looking at both our projected amounts and then our four-year forecast, uh we continue project an overall enrollment decline uh for next year between this year and next year. Uh right now we're looking at uh decline of 124 FTE. Uh so not as much as this year uh but still tripledigit enrollment decline. And again, the largest u factor driving this enrollment decline just based on the data is again our graduating classes are larger than our incoming classes which again are driven by our birth rates. Uh

080so you can just see just looking at the data for 25 26. Uh we're starting we're looking at possibly a class of 401 FTE for kindergarten and then we compare it to our 12th grade 12th graders at 501. So again, just a difference of 100 FTE uh leaving the system uh and students coming into the system. Uh with declining birth rates projected for the next few years, our expectation is that kindergarten classes um will continue to to decline uh and again widening that gap we can see um between kindergarteners and 12th graders over the next few years. And then we're kind of paying attention to any of our classes again that are above 500 FTE. Our our uh third graders uh for 2425 or above 500, they will be moving into uh fourth grader fourth

081grade next year and they are our largest cohort in our elementary classes. So an analysis for enrollment is overall a projection is that enrollment will continue to decline but valley academy will continue to be our x factor. So just the steps that we've taken uh with moving uh valley academy uh increasing uh registration. So the boon from that has not you know we're trying to build a conservative budget here. Uh we're trying to build a floor and build from that. So, anything that we see an increase uh from Valley Academy uh would be helpful in mitigating any of these uh enrollment numbers we're looking at now. So, if we're looking at overall decline of 124 next year, our hope is that with Valley Academy registrations and renewed interest in there, uh that may be able

082to cut in to the enrollment decline we're seeing. Um however, what the overall impact is going to be, we don't know yet. Um but kind of like last year at this time uh we were kind of dealing with the um opposite scenario. We had a new private school opening. We had other private schools expanding additional grade levels into middle school. And so we're trying to again build a conservative base as well. So here we don't want to paint it too rosy picture. We're hoping that Valley Academy can cut into that enrollment decline. Um but again once the fall rolls around um we will be able to see the impact of what the new programming and expansion uh will bring for enrollment. Um transition to kindergarten per state legislature enrollment is capped at prior year enrollment.

083Um so you can see I was doing 60 for this year uh but I'm projecting 59 uh for the next four years. So this is our gift from the state. Um, so enrollment is capped at prior year enrollment, but then they we finished at 59.85 and even though we're going to have 60 students in TK, they just decided to rounded round down our funding to 59. So they will fund us, we will have 60 students in TK. Uh, but the state and their generosity will fund us for 59. um elementary. Uh again, as discussed, graduating classes are larger than our projected kindergarten classes. So, again, we're paying close attention to this drop in birth rates from 2019 to 2020 of 71 kids and the impact it's going to have on kindergarten for next year and

084future years. Middle school um again, charter and private school offerings impact decreasing enrollment. Uh this has been a factor in our enrollment analysis since 21-22 since Pinnacles prepped open. Um although a highlight we do have is the high schools is after middle school we're seeing either a you know students from charter schools, students from private schools entering or returning to the district at the nth grade level. Um again this suggests that uh what we're offering at the high school level uh whether it's activities courses uh is appealing to students in the area and causing to enter or return to the district at 9th grade. Uh running start that was a large factor in enrollment decrease last for 2425 so I should say the current year. So just comparing registrations I mean at this time last

085year we were looking at over 350 students registered from running start. uh this year for the 25 26 school year it's at 290. Um so less students are opting for the running start option. And then again as mentioned before we're going to be paying close attention to Valley Academy. Uh will registrations match match actual enrollment and the uh positive impact that could have on u mitigating enrollment decline overall enrollment decline. Before I move on, any questions on enrollment? Sean, there's a big dip between current 10th to 11 10th graders moving on to 11th grade. Why do you think that is? That's running start. Although we're retaining Okay, that makes sense. But we're retaining some. Mhm. Okay. All right. general fund. So, it's going to start off with our 204 2425 year end projections. Uh so,

086last summer when we uh compiled the 2425 budget, uh we were looking at a possible $4.6 million deficit just in our budgeted side. Um based on our year-end projections, we're looking at probably tracking using about $1.3 million in fund balance instead. So, how do we go from 4.6 6 to 1.3. What happened between summer of 24 and now the summer of 25? So there are about five significant factors uh that we can main factors that are d driving the favorable variance. Uh first and foremost is local effort assistance. Uh so we are funded our local effort local effort assistance or LEA that is um a um state funding uh that is based on changes in assessed value growth and enrollment and this changes from year to year. And so when assessed value increases and your

087enrollment declines, the state provides less money. And that has been where we've been at for the last few years. So when it comes to enrollment decline, that is a given. That is an expectation. Um, however, assessed value also changes yeartoyear and that is determined by our county assessor. So this year, you know, our 5-year average in the in the school district area, our assessed value has grown at 10% over a 5-year average. This year, uh, for the 2024 calendar year, uh, our assessed value essentially remained flat. There was no change. So that resulted so because our assess our expectation was assessed value was going to continue to grow uh by because it remained flat we received extra funding uh from the state in the form of $1.1 million. Uh the last time this happened was

088in 2018 uh when the assessed value changed essentially remained flat. Uh budgeted positions internally filled. Uh so this is occurring when um you know last year there were significant changes to the school districts, a lot of budget reductions, a lot of moving of staff. Uh what occurred here was we had a lot of open positions. Um you know that were you know existed at the time we created the budget and then during the summer and the fall those positions were filled and those were positions were filled by people that were currently employed with the district. So, we were already budgeting the those uh staff that were currently employed and we had these open positions and so that resulted in a savings of about 1.1 million because we didn't hire externally, we hired internally for these

089positions. Next up are our other financing sources and our other financing uses. So, we budgeted $500,000. Uh this was transferred to the capital projects fund and that's what those were used for emergency or preventative m preventative ma maintenance measures that we went over in the last board meeting and so we had about $500,000 transferred. However, we got about a million dollars back from the capital projects fund and whoops, excuse me. And the million dollars comes back from our softball field funding. So, we transferred about $5.5 million uh from the general fund to the capital projects fund to help the softball field. And one of the things we were going to do is return any u money back to the general fund that we were weren't going to use on the softball field. So, once you

090know we're at 99.9% completion on the softball field, um you know, our expectation is you know, it's at substantial completion and that no additional funding is needed. So, we moved about a million dollars back to the general fund. So, that was not budgeted for uh but that's how we ended up getting it. So, when we take our million and our $500,000, we're getting an extra $500,000 back in our fund balance. And then last is just beginning fund balance. You know, when we're creating the budget, we have to put in an estimate for a beginning fund balance for next year. And we try to, you know, hopefully we can be accurate. and we were within about $150,000 this year. So that kind of rounds out the remaining difference. So that's how we go from 4.6 to

0911.3. So that's very good news. Uh on the other hand, even though we have a favorable variance, our fund balance still declined by about 1.3. And then we're going to still continue to look at, you know, reviewing these projections and refine by adoption date. I mean, one of the things that's going to occur over the summer is um OSPIA OSPI has indicated we may receive additional food services revenue sometime during the summer. Um but we may not receive that until the end of July. So, it may provide a boon and additional revenue um just with the short time frame. I don't know if we're spending it or not. I've had discussion with our director of nutrition services, but we don't know the timing or the amount. So, things can change. Um but this is what

092the data we have that we can work with at this time. Any questions on year end projections? All right, moving on. Now we move on to our 2526 budget and our forecast. I presented two scenarios here. One with the 5% minimum fund balance and on the next side you can see again with 6%. Um, looking at our 2526 budget, uh, we are looking at a $2.1 million deficit. Uh, that is the smallest budgeted deficit since our 202021 school year and substantially smaller than the last two years. Um, highlights other financing sources and other financing uses. Um so as discussed in the prior board uh meeting we are transferring 500 of that 640 $500,000 will be transferred to the capital projects fund for again for preventative and emergency maintenance measures and then an additional $140,000 roughly

093uh will be transferred to the transportation vehicle fund uh to make payment uh assist in making payment on our three school buses arriving the first week of September. after um the district is reimbursed by the state, uh we'll receive uh our depreciation reimbursement in August of next year for our buses. And so once we receive that reimbursement, we will transfer $140,000 back from transportation vehicle to the general fund. Um when we move to the next couple of years, 26 27 and beyond, you can see a more favorable fund balance. We're showing a positive uh fund balance change of $800,000. Here we're seeing the impact of the EPO levy uh will take full effect in 2627. So, our current levy, which will expire in December of 25, and then we'll receive our partially part of our

094new levy beginning in January of 26, uh, is going to occur during the 2526 school year, but during 2627, it will be entirely the new levy. So, that's where we're seeing an increase in the revenues and outpacing our expenditures. That would, you know, project a positive uh, budgeted fund balance. And then over the next two years 27 28 and 28 29 again change in fund balance um starts to decrease again as well. And what we're seeing here is just the impact of enrollment decline and uh inflation catching up uh to our new levy amounts. So um what's what's happening is I you know once we have our revenue once we pass our EPO levy we are locked into those amounts. That's what we collect. Uh so that stays static. it it's not adjusted for inflation

095and then over time expenditures um those costs are going to catch up just because of inflationary costs and receiving less revenue uh based because of enrollment decline. Now here's the same forecast uh budget and forecast using a possible 6% minimum fund balance that the board chooses to increase. Again, the difference between this slide and the previous slide, just drawing your attention uh to the bottom half of the table's minimum fund balance and the unassigned amounts. You're kind of seeing the changes there. So, an increase in minimum fund balance versus just 2526 generally transfers about 1.3. We'll go from 2.3 to roughly 1.3 wh getting a carried away. You know we have 2.3 in unassigned 6.7 minimum fund balance as it goes to 6% 1.3 is transferred from unassigned into the minimum fund balance. So again

096you can see the impact generally about 1.3 to 1.4 million uh moves between unassigned and minimum fund balance depending on each percentage increase to the minimum fund balance. Assumptions and methodologies. So, a lot of these things, a lot of assumptions and methodology does go into budget preparation and these are things we monitor throughout the school year um to see where we start with our budget and where we finish at the end of the school year. So, again, as discussed, a continued enrollment decline projected, but Valley Academy enrollment may mitigate help mitigate that. Uh another significant factor is federal funding uncertainty. um impact on district programs for 25 26 uh seems um minimal. Uh but we have to pay attention to 226 27 and be and what the impact is going to be beyond. We're going

097to be paying close attention over the summer to the federal budget and getting updates from OSPI and ESD on what how that will look and how that will affect any of our federal funding and the impacts on any of our programs. local effort assistance. So again, paying attention to the change in annual assessed value and enrollment decline. Um probably get preliminary numbers in October. Uh and that will kind of help us modify um and get a better idea what LEA funds we're going to get for next year. Uh no significant state legislative funding efforts. So during 2425 school year um we're all aware state's dealing with its budget shortfall and from all intents and purposes it does indicate that the measures taken uh we're helping to if not eliminate it help mitigate the shortfall but

098we'll know soon enough during the next legislative session. Um, that being said, one of the things want to build in when we're compiling the budget is assuming that really we're not going to get any additional funding regardless of a shortfall, regardless of a surplus from the state. Uh, we just operate under the assumption that the state's not going to come in and provide increased funding for any of our programs. Um, you know, we want to build conservatively. We don't want to build too too rosio a picture. Uh, budget reductions uh are also factored in. Again, the key reduction factor is just aligning staffing to enrollment and just doing that on an annual basis each year. And again, that's something we'll take a look at in the fall when we start getting actual numbers and uh

099refining our projections. Uh but that is a factor in building the budget. Inflationary factors, uh 2.5% IPD, that is what the state set has set. So that is what we're using. Um although there's been a lot of between tariffs and all the things other things happening in the world, we know these things are going to fluctuate on a year-to-year basis, but that is the number that the state has set and so that's what we will use. Uh we also budget for 100% staffing. Uh again, we were looking to be conservative. We want to have a floor. We want to see what is our expenditure expenditures look like when all positions are filled. And then another factor is again we get funded on K3 class size compliance. So again we'll be paying attention to that as

100well. Uh state funds up you know their ultimate goal is they'll fund you up to an aggregate amount of 17 students per class. You know so in reality a lot of schools don't have 17 kids per class. They're looking they're taking your entire K3 um student enrollment and dividing it by your K3 staff to come up with that number. They're not looking at an individual uh class by class size. And then finally, capacity. We build in about $6 million uh both for revenues and expenditures. And again, that's just there for carryover and then any unexpected revenues and expenditures that arise during the year. Um however, it has no effect on fund bal budgeted fund balance. All right, Sean, I got a question for you. Yeah. Um, so we talked about aligning staffing to enrollment and

101talking about enrollment going down. Does that mean their projected expenditures are expected to go down or is that are the is the previous slide where you're looking at at um projected expenditures? Does that already include the like, okay, we're going to be down one middle school teacher because of enrollment at that grade level? Correct. So that is already taken into consideration that those position changes. Yeah. It may not be exact position. Sure. For sure. But we are factoring in some sort of reduction amount. Got it. So that's mostly just inflation that or like IPD that's correct. Rising that number go up. Correct. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Before moving on to more in depth on fund balance, any questions on the budget or forecast? Have one. Uh you still have in the preliminary

102500,000 a year to go into the capital fund. Correct. Um and do we need to review whether we think that's adequate or not? Um I know it's a contingency. Mhm. Um I I think we that if it stays at 500 then I think you've got to have a contingency reserve. Um I don't know what your thinking has been on that. Yeah. No, I think Martin that's a great point. I mean right now I know for 25 26 we're operating with we have built-in contingency but if we follow through with certain projects we may be using up this and possible reserves. So, this is something we're going to have to be looking at on an annual basis. Yeah. Thank you. Again, just fund balance background. Fund balance is our district's uh savings accounts. Uh not all

103fund balance reserves are available to use at any time. Uh so we have in just in the general fund, we have assigned, committed, and restricted. Um, so there's flexibility and assigned and committed because assigned is directed by the superintendent. Committed is funds committed directed by the board and board action. And then you have restricted funds uh which are determined by contracts or legal requirements. And so most of most or if not all of our restricted funds are because of federal funds. uh they're specifically used for those specific purposes within federal funding requirements and cannot be used for any other purposes. I would also add although this discusses general fund as I mentioned earlier with the ASB you know those funds are legally restricted. So again, other funds, I mean, we're moving funds between general to

104capital, general to transportation. There are certain um circumstances where we can move funds uh move money between the different funds. Uh but they're only in limited circumstances. And then last but not least are unassigned funds. Uh so we have our unassigned and then also the minimum fund balance as well. So here is our projected beginning and ending preliminary uh beginning and ending fund balance just using the 5% minimum fund balance. Um so again we can see here highlighted the changes between um the effect of unassigned and unassigned to minimum fund balance what that would look like. Um here if we're declining from 13.8 to if we're seeing about you know 1.1 or $1.3 million decrease uh we can see uh ultimately where those funds are going and generally they'd probably be coming first and foremost

105out of our committed balance uh to offset budget reductions. So line 870 uh here it is again on the 6% minimum fund balance. So just the difference is what we're seeing the effect is again just a transfer of about 1.3 1.4 4 million um based on each percentage increase of the minimum fund balance. Any questions on fund balance? I guess I'm going to have a comment. uh you've done what we asked to do which is to produce a good proposed draft budget and that to tell us what our capability is for increasing or not increasing the minimum fund balance to 6%. Looking at these numbers it looks like on a one-year basis you are ready to or the district numbers are ready to ask the policy committee to go to work and make this make

106a recommendation on that to the whole board uh which I think is the right way to do it. look at the budget. Uh, one reason I asked about the capital fund transfers is if you look at your four-year projection, you're not showing any capability to stretch that above 6% in future years. And I believe that's what uh was generally expected. Mhm. Uh but I think that is a good leadin to the next step which is the final budget numbers after you've revised them budget approval and then a formal decision on the minimum fund balance which I believe uh widely recommended that 5% is not adequate. Uh budget timeline uh so June 24th and to our next meeting would be August 12th. So again, both the presentations for both the 3rd and the 24th are preliminary

107and subject to change. Again, we'll be review and revising and then submitting to the ESD and incorporating any of their feedback. And then we'll be back here on August 12th and highlighting any revisions uh that may have occurred between now and August 12th. And then finally, the overall budget timeline. Uh August 12th is our public hearing. And then after the public hearing, we'd have formal budget adoption on August 26 and then plenty of time to meet the budget uh deadline submission to OSPI by August 31st. Any other questions or comments? You do a good job of answering them as we go. So, thank thank you for that. Julie, did you have any additional questions? All right. Thank you, Sean. Thank you very, thank you very much. Yep. Thanks, Sean. Thank you. So, now we are

108moving on to our action items. Uh, first on the agenda is the curriculum adoptions. Uh we have the dual language ELASSLA and the high school psychology curriculum. Both of these curriculums uh were open for the public to re to make an appointment and review as well as to the board. Do we have an action? Uh do we have a motion for to approve the dual language ELA SLA curriculum that was discussed at the last board meeting? I move that we approve the curriculum from benchmark education that has been recommended. Thank you, Martin. Second. Thank you, Mark. So, we have a motion on the table um to accept the uh dual language ELA SLA curriculum as presented. Um any discussion? I left mine on, but I'm going to say this is more clarification of what's happened

109in the last three weeks. Um, the curriculum was available for the public to review it downstairs and for board members to review it and I as an amateur spent a couple of hours going through it. Um, and I was impressed. I think the qualifications of the authors were high. It seemed to relate well culturally. Um, and it appears to be and I think a good job was done in going through and proposing the selection. So, what was missing 3 weeks ago was time to get outside comment. This time it's there. And that's all I have to say. Any further discussion? Great. All in favor of adopting the curriculum as presented, please say I. I. I. I. Motion carries. Next we have the high school psychology curriculum. Do I have a motion for that? I have

110a motion move that one as well. I read the textbook when I was down looking at the dual language curriculum and it looked solid to me. Actually, I want to be light-hearted about it. I read the section on memory loss and it made me feel really good and happy. So, I think it's a good textbook. Seconded without a reading note. Thank you, Martin and Tucker. And thank you for the discussion there, Martin. Any further discussion? Just want to know Heidi, could you give him an assessment on what he learned so that we can test your memory loss? Great. Hearing no further discussion, all in favor of adopting the psychology uh curriculum as presented, please say I. I. I. Great. Motion carries. Um and now we have policy. So, I'll let uh Superintendent Kellar take that.

111Good. I I I think we're good. I I would I just wanted to make sure and share um with the with the community that the board um the last time when we had the first read, we had the two policies, one on transitional kindergarten and our policy on um cellular devices. Um, we also talked about the procedure and so we spent a little bit more time on the procedure side of things and since then since we've had three weeks between that we have been able to revise that procedure and it was presented to all the board meeting uh all the board members through our Friday weekly communication um and the feedback um well the lack of feedback has uh said to the district that we are ready to move forward with that as a procedure

112as well but we'll see where discussion goes. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The first um policy we have um is policy 2230 transition to kindergarten to kindergarten programs. Um this is a second read. So I will entertain a motion move that we um dude. Ah, so close. Uh, that we Sorry, I was on vacation. Someone else want to do it? Yeah, that's so I move that we adopt policy 2230 as uh read on our second read. That's fine. And I guess then you need a second. I'll second that. Bingo. All right. Do we have any discussion on the transition to kindergarten policy hearing? None. All in favor, please say I. I. Thank you, Julie. Uh that that policy um that policy carries because policy 3245 is so important whether you oppose or support

113it. Um do I hear a motion to approve policy 3245, student and electronic devices? Okay. I will move to approve uh policy on electronic devices. I'll second. Thank you, Martin and Julie. Do we have any discussion on this one? Actually, I do. Um and um the procedure that has been amended, this is not a board decision on the procedure, but it was a a concern that the procedure be very well documented and take care of clarification and uh make sure that was very well solidly thought out. I like the way the procedure has been written with definitions and process and uh looking for things like documentation and h how to handle different situations. I guess light-heartedly, one of the things that reminded me was seeing everybody pull a cell phone out during graduation to shine

114lights. And so I think the procedure uh reassures me that the proposed intent is good, but there's some solid work administratively behind it to make it functional uh and flexible where it needs to be. Well, and I think it goes to the point that policies and procedures are meant to be revised and amended as needed. um this is going to be something that is completely new to maybe to some buildings to um individuals teachers um so I think we have a good foundation to start with and we'll see as we go any further discussion great hearing none all in favor of approving policy 3245 student and electronic devices please say I I motion carries face. Now we got our superintendent report. Excellent. All right. Well done everyone. Thank you. Um just a quick update on

115uh Valley Academy of Learning and our transitions program. Our teachers have left their buildings packed and ready to move. Uh after the 4th of July, the furniture and boxes from both programs will be delivered to the former Columbia Elementary building. All remaining surplus items will then be delivered back to Valley Academy where we'll be storing those. Um and Brian Brocky and his team uh will be working diligently to get a surplus report to the board so we can move some of those um items along. Um on Thursday we have the first of our three uh administrative advance days and uh our uh leadership team engages in these three days of training, collaboration and leadership growth annually to be ready and prepared for the upcoming school year. Um I've added those to the school board calendar.

116You are not required to attend, but you're more than welcome to pop in any time. Um if you join us at 11:30 um you'll be right at lunchtime and our ad uh administrative association is providing um some lunch. We'll have a taco bar um with some other fun uh items. So please stop by. Um we'll also have uh the next few days of leadership advance will be August 5th and a August 12th uh respectively. I'm also on another note proud and excited to announce that we'll be partnering um as uh documented today in our consent agenda in the contract section. We'll be partnering with Garco and ALSC uh for the tech center project. So that is our contractor and design team that come together as a package. So we're very excited about um moving through

117the progressive design build process uh as well. and they because of uh the school board uh making this announcement uh before we have July off, they're going to be able to hit the ground running uh starting after the 4th. So, we're very excited about that. And then just to close kind of our final school board meeting for the 2425 school year. Just a heartfelt thank you to the school board members, our cabinet team, our staff, students, parents, and the community on the close of another amazing school year. We appreciate the support and trust that you place in us um as your school district, in your community um and the trust that you put in us every day as you send your most precious commodity to us. So, just a heartfelt thank you um and just

118yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. Great. Now, we'll move on to board communication. Um I'll start over here with Mark. Good thing you're not first. I know. have that. I just uh wanted to say on Friday we had the memorial and it was a privilege to help with that. And also um thank you to Wanchi School District staff that were out there volunteering. Um they were there bright and early setting up chairs and making it all happen. So I was happy to see that. Give us another shot. Uh I apologize for being late. Uh, I like I said, my vacation was unexpectedly turned cut short, so I was hurried back here. Um, I wanted to congratulate everyone who's done with school and I hope they enjoy their summer. Well, we had two uplifting graduation ceremonies and

119they could were really welcome. Couldn't come at a better time. congratulate the students and the staff for leading by example of hope, determination, and encouragement. So, that was great. Uh we had the last uh meeting of the students advisory council for the year. So, Corey, you can get ready for your new members coming in at the beginning of next year. And there was also the last uh corpac board meeting. And there they're getting ready and excited, I hope, for a successful summer school. Um, I think you guys have said it all. Uh, thank you to the school district and um, Lincoln um, the cabinet team for just really being an anchor for the community during the this challenging time um, the last several weeks. Um, I know Mark um, has been very involved with that

120as well. Um, I think yeah, there's a lot of appreciation for the work that the school district and Lincoln specifically did. So, Julie, you got anything? I don't really have anything, but I just want to say Mark, I know you've been really involved with some of the memorial efforts, and I know our district has been working with Lincoln and the community on on ways to tribute um to pay tribute to the family. And I thought the memorial was beautiful. I was out of town, but my my youngest daughter uh was able to help participate and set up early, and everyone did such a great job, and I was glad to be able to watch online. And I know we keep hearing suggestions about great tributes. I was glad to hear about the buddy bench going

121in. I think that's fantastic. I know we've received some correspondence about some other ideas and and I'd love to look for ways to make some of these work because um I I really appreciate the community coming together and the work our district is doing to to help the community, the family, and and everyone especially at Lincoln who was really staff and students who were really impacted. So great job by everyone. Um great great effort Mark and and Corey for for moving this along. So I I appreciate you all. Thank you Julie. Wonderful. All right. Well, that concludes our meeting and it's 7:50 and this meeting is adjourned.