001All right. Good evening. Welcome to the May 26th regular meeting. Yeah, 27th. Uh 27th. Okay, everyone. It was 26th when I wrote this 27th board meeting uh for the Wii school district. Uh we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge to the flag of the United States of America. We'll now work through the agenda board. Are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda? All right. Hearing none, I will move on with the consent agenda. The items on the consent agenda were sent to the board and posted online last week. The board has had the opportunity to review the materials and ask the superintendent any questions they have about items on the consent agenda. The consent agenda for this meeting includes minutes for the 51325 regular meeting and the 51925 board
002workshop, vouchers and payroll, personnel report, surplus report, contracts, field trips, and the May enrollment of a report. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. All right. Has been moved by Julie and seconded by Maria. Any discussion? All right. All in favor of adopting the consent agenda as presented say I. I. I. None opposed. Motion carries. Uh citizen comment. No citizen comment. We will cruise past that to Corey for special presentations. Let's do this. Excellent. Uh we have we're starting off with our ASB report. The second board meeting of the month includes our ASB reports from our schools. Uh this will probably be the last one of this uh school year, the 2425 school year. So, I see Leila's here from Westside. Leila,
003you want to hit it? All right. Thanks for joining us tonight. We appreciate it. Hi, it's nice to see you guys again. My name is Laya and I'm co-president of our leadership club at Westside. I wasn't here last month, so I'm here to update you on what happened two months ago since that two-month period. So, we had Sheenat Town on April 24th. It was a really good event. Both NCW life and the Wachi World featured video articles on our event on their social media pages. Thank you to Consumer Jungle, Luke Evans, and all the many community volunteers and businesses who helped our students learn what adulting is really like on a budget. We will be making this an annual event now. Keep an eye out for the featured video that should soon uh be on
004Consumer Jungle's website. Our prom was held May 9th and it was disco. It was a disco uh decades themed. A big shout out to JC Rice Entertainment who has been donating their DJ services for the past three years. And a huge thanks to Sage Hills for paying for our dinner at our disco dancers via toolbox food truck. Sage Hills paid 500 so our students could eat for free that night. Prom is always a free event for our students and we appreciate Sage Hills so much. Leadership's club uh spaghetti feed was on May 15th for Elliot Babcock. We brought in over $7,000 for her family to help offset treatment costs. The dinner was really good. Our silent auction baskets were overflowing and the live art auction was a really big hit. A huge thank you to
005the students and the staff for their hard work on the event. And a bigger thanks to our community who donated so many amazing items. Let me take my breath. Last Thursday, May 22nd, we held our spring open house for returning and incoming students for this next year. The theme was carnival. After a presentation about the inner workings of Westside, they set out to play various games, earn tickets, and claim prizes. Big thanks to Jessica Delgalo and the community schools for putting on this event. Westside's graduation is Tuesday, June 10th at 7:00 p.m. at the Town Toyota Center. Doors will open at 6:00. Thank you to the school board superintendent Kawahar for handing out diplomas. It is such a special night and we are grateful for your support. That's the end of our update. Do you
006guys have any questions for me? Just uh just one question. Do you know Ila how much was raised at the silent auction spaghetti feed? So it says we brought in over 7,000. I'm not too sure if that counts the live art auction. I know that a lot of those pieces went for a lot of Yeah, you were betting on one. I remember you bet quite a bit on one of those pieces. Guilty. Yeah. No, I did too. And I walked away with some great artwork. Yeah, it's fantastic. But I know that we did quite a bit. That's wonderful. Great. Great to hear that. Thanks for sharing. Thank you guys. You're awesome. We do have uh students from Wanti High School, but I don't think we have any ASB representatives that are prepared to share tonight.
007Nope. Okay. Well, let's move on to what might be the main event for many of the folks in our audience. Um, we have Amelia Mallister here tonight. Um, and we're very excited. She is one of the original founding members of the Superintendent Advisory Council and has been involved in the past four years. As this is her senior year, she's completing a directed study on the topic of dual language programs. and as part of the requirement for the uh directed study course, she has to present to an audience and we are fortunate enough that she chose the school board. Um so thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey tonight, Amelia. And uh Liz is going to pull up your presentation and uh you can hit the podium and thanks for family members
008and supporters for being here. We appreciate that. All right. So, hello. My name is Amelia Mallister and I'm very excited to present to you today. This year, as a graduating senior, I decided to enroll in the directed study program. Directed study is an option at the high school where you come up with a topic of your choice, make an academic plan, and study it by yourself throughout the year. I decided to study one of my favorite topics, language acquisition. By way of background, my freshman year I took one semester of Spanish. I am also a heritage speaker of German and I earned a seal of literacy in German and English my sophomore year. Then my junior year, I took a class that changed my plans, weightlifting. One day, my friends weren't in class, so rather
009than sit by myself in a corner, I teamed up with a group of kids I hadn't met before. It was difficult at first. They didn't speak much English, and I didn't speak much Spanish, but we communicated anyway. A little Spanish here, a little English there. And this is where my story of Spanish acquisition began. I started rapidly acquiring the language. Although I knew little to nothing about verb conjugations, I quickly learned all of the more important words like I'm tired and my boyfriend. As we learned a little bit more about each other, they began to ask me questions about English. How do you say this? And eventually the school year came to an end much too fast. This experience was very fulfilling and I wanted to continue it. So I devised a plan. I would
010join the English language development class or what we call llastco and call it a directed study. And as a bonus, I would prove to myself that this immersive method of language learning actually worked. As I told my plan to some teachers and faculty, I was met with suspicions such as you you Amelia, you really shouldn't do that. These kids won't accept you. you'll be hurt. And many of them looked at me like I was just a little crazy. This type of response scared me, but I did it anyway. One of the more smartest things I've ever done. Oh, sorry. I forgot to change this slide, but this just basically defines that. Um, so I joined the class and my plan was simple. First, I was going to I participated. I almost always spoke English because
011it is an English class. We did presentations and projects all in English. I did most of the activities just like I was another student in the class and it was really fulfilling to see my classmates get better and better at this language. I also listened. I listened to my friends talk. I listened to people give instructions and in my free time I listened to a lot of Spanish music. Every day I was understanding. And so by the end of January I took the stamp test for Spanish. I may as well see how much I knew. Now, in order to obtain a seal of biiteracy, you have to get a score of five or better on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. So, with one semester of high school Spanish back in freshman year and about nine
012months of immersive learning, I obtained these scores. So, reading seven, listening six, five, and six. All right. So, from this experience, I learned um well, and now a few months later, now that the school year is coming to a close, I'm learning Spanish a little less rapidly than I was before because my friends now speak much better English, which no, from this experience, I learned two things. Number one, you don't have to be the same to be accepted. The way some people believe that I couldn't be accepted in this class because I looked different and grew up speaking different languages than they did was difficult. But this poster hanging proudly in that classroom is closer to the reality that I saw when walking into class every single day. Diversity is defining individuals regardless valuing each
013other regardless of skin, intellect, talents or years. I hope that my experience holds some tangible proof that when we see each other be beyond linguistic and cultural barriers, many good things can happen. Secondly, communication comes from connection. A child doesn't connect to their parents because they can communicate with them. They learn the language of their parents because they connect with them. Similarly, if we foster connection and encourage opportunities for native speakers of both languages to genuinely engage with each other, language acquisition can more naturally follow. This is one of my favorite quotes. A foreign accent is a sign of bravery. So, before I close, there is one specific problem that I would like to address that's just kind of generally about the um especially the general education classes like art, PE, and science. Often teachers
014in the name of inclusion regularly translate choose to pre-transate worksheets, Google translate or begin to speak Spanish that they the Spanish that they want to practice rather than allowing the kids to learn English naturally in the classroom. Now, I'm not saying that there's no place for these things. While it is a good temporary fix for comprehension, two problems occur here. One is that in an environment like this, students learning English miss out on an immersive opportunity. Especially today, being able to speak English well is not only beneficial economically, it is also a source of protection. And it is much preferable to struggle and make mistakes in a language in a safe educational atmosphere where teachers generally care about you. Second is that when general educational teachers whose job is not to speak Spanish group non-native
015English speakers together and speak only Spanish to them, it sends a clear message to the other kids in the class that these people can only be spoken to in Spanish, building unintentional barriers. I truly believe that I am very grateful for my teachers and the students in my class who taught me so much. When we build connections between people rather than building barriers, we learn from each other, build a much more supportive community, and in this case, enhance language skills. So, thank you. If there are any questions. Yeah. Who is your favorite Spanish music artist? Oh, I think Sebastian. Ah. And then um I I want to thank you for pointing out the two areas of improvements especially with grouping. I'll call it grouping because that's what I how I see it. Um, and I
016think the intention is is um there's good intentions behind it, but you know, looking from the outside in. Um, it it grouping is not the ideal way to um go about um so thank you for pointing that out. I'm just going to say that's a super impressive story and I'm really proud of you for for doing it. That's awesome. Thank you. I'll just add um I love the the lead in the the story about with weightlifting. So that was great. Kind of caught us off guard and we're like, "Oh, wow. We need to hear more." Um Amelia, I've always been uh impressed by you and very proud of your journey and I've been uh honored to be part of that. So I'm very excited. So, if you don't mind staying there, I'd like to give
017you your graduation stole tonight here at the board meeting so you have it for next uh next week. Thank you so much. I did you did you go through the a dual language program at Louiswis and clerk at all? Nothing. No. Well, I think uh so oddly I was having this conversation with my neighbor yesterday whose uh grandchildren live in China. Um and um but I was I was explaining that just the different levels of bilingualism. Um you might not be able to speak it but you might you understand it. Um anyways um that's very very courageous and oftentimes it takes it's a little it's in to the adulthood um stage where you realize how beneficial a dual language uh being dual you know speaking more than one language um and often times there's the
018fears right it's oh it's too late for me to learn a second language so kudos to you for taking that initiative um before your adult real world experiences thank you congratulations Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you family for joining us and support uh members for Amelia. That was a a great honor that we don't always get all the time. So that was super fun. Appreciate that. Um, next we have uh um executive director of business and finance Sean Fitzgerald will walk us through a presentation on our minimum fund balance. And uh through conversations with the board budget committee as well as some candid remarks here at the board meetings uh we have discussed the idea of looking at our minimum fund balance um for annual sustainability and long range uh financial stability as
019well. So Sean, our in-house expert, will walk us through it. Thanks Sean. Thank you, Sean. You always have tough acts to follow. I do. I feel like you always get stuck last and then just landing. This is the main event and then I follow the main event. If you've snuck in weightlifting in here, always then everyone clears out. Well, thank you, President Jackson, members of the board, Dr. Kalahar. It's great to be here tonight. going to uh walk you through our minimum fund balance. Uh so purpose and goals of the minimum fund minimum fund balance uh provide sufficient cash flow for daily financial needs, secure and maintain investment grade bond ratings, offset significant economic downturns or revenue shortfalls, and provide funds for unforeseen expenditures related to emergencies. uh some of the risks that that that
020are both current and uh ongoing uh or foreseen uh for the district specifically. Uh you're no stranger to any of these bullet points, but enrollment decline actual and projected uh local effort assistance which is additional state funding uh we receive in lie uh from the state in lie of not going out for a max levy. This fluctuates annually based on assessed value and enrollment. Uh increasing inflationary costs uh continue to outpace outpace state funding. Uh list uh insurance as an example, but it also pertains to other material supplies and operating costs and also salaries and benefits. Uh federal funding uncertainty. Uh for the last few months uh we've you know there's been a lot of anxiety concern about what federal programs may be uh cut um or continued. So we're paying close attention to that
021and also how that would directly impact the school district as well. Uh the state budget shortfall uh we just the legislative session just wrapped up this last month. Governor Ferguson this last week signed the budget. Um, you know, in order to close the budget shortfall, there was raising about $9 billion in new taxes and we also had a shortfall ranging from both 7 billion up to$16 billion. So whether the new budget uh the proposed tax increases how will this address the shortfall or future uh legis for future years um you know it's something we have to kind of uh remain vigilant year to year uh maintenance and operations uh both preventative and emergency maintenance uh projects and costs arised throughout the school year. Uh and then compliance with unfunded mandates such as our clean energy
022act. Uh so ending fund balance. Uh so this is a graph of our last the current and prior three uh school years. Uh showing how our fund balance fluctuates uh throughout the year. Uh so we see our highest revenue activity in October, April, July and August. October and April is when the district receives revenue from local property taxes from our EPO levy. Um and then July and August are also our highest revenue months. This is where we receive most of our state aortionment revenue at the end of the year. Uh between October and April, you can see a sharp decline and usually March is kind of our trough for ending fund balance. And basically we're not seeing what we're seeing here is where the district relies uh on its fund balance reserves to get us
023through to maintain daily operations. Uh so you see the gradually decrease between October and bottom bottoming out in March before increasing back in April. And so we really have to pay close attention making sure um at during this time that we have sufficient fund balance reserves uh to maintain daily operations and also any unforeseen circumstances that may arise. Uh one of the bills uh that came up during the legislative session, House Bill 2050, uh was a proposed aortionment shift uh for our state funding. So basically, the state was looking at saving quote unquote saving uh $400 million uh during the current fiscal year by shifting uh the distribution uh from the current fiscal year to the next fiscal year. Um so although it may look like it was savings as a result at the state
024level uh really it was putting would put greater reliance on fund balance reserves for the district. So shifting 2.5% in the spring February March and April would be sent to August. Um I see slide seven I mean slide the previous slide but it would be a greater reliance on fund balance reserves between October and April. And then however at the 11th hour the legislature struck this language from the bill. Um so therefore the current model on the left hand side remains in place. However it does raise the question is like will we see this again in the next legislative session. Um there was really no further discussion why I was struck. Um but it did make it to the very end of the legislative session and so it's something we have to be mindful of
025in future years. Uh so going back to our current policy, our current minimum fund balance is 5% of total budgeted expenditures. And so we can see here on the right hand side what those kind of percentages and how much the amount would make up based on our budget. So 5% right now would not cover our average monthly expenditures. So as of March of 2025, that would be about $10.7 million. And so if you look on the right hand side, 10.7 is roughly 8% of our minimum fund balance. Uh again, sufficient reserves are needed to cover district expenditures and mitigate risks, especially between October and April. Healthy and stable fund balance reserves play a factor in the district's creditworthiness. If you may recall during last year, we were doing our bond refinancing and Moody's was evaluating
026our credit rating and one of the biggest factors they're looking at is how stable our fund balance reserves are, especially in light of declining enrollment. Um, the other factor is the district cannot rely on the restricted fund balance. So, what we're focused on here is our unrestricted fund balance reserves. And why I say that is because restricted fund balance means it's limited to it can only be spent on certain things such as federal grants or you know specific programs like our skills center th those reserves are specifically uh allocated to specific areas. And so if we um want to maintain if we're trying to address revenue shortfalls or unanticipated expenditures we can't look to those other reserves. we have to focus on our unrestricted areas. And so on the right hand side we have our
0275% which is our district policy. Then we move up again 8% is our average monthly expenditures. That's also what Eastmon school district has as their current policy. Uh Moody's um you know based on discussion with other school districts I've heard 10.5%. And then finally, you get to the SAO or the state auditor's office or GFOA, the um government financial officers association, and they're recommending up to 60 days of reserves, which would come out to be about 16% of a minimum fund balance. So, moving on to any questions. I mean, right now we're kind of discussing what our minimum fund balance looks like, where it's currently at, what other school districts are doing, what other um institutions are recommending. Um, and then during our next board meeting on June 3rd, the district will make a recommendation
028about the future of the minimum fund balance and lead to board discussion and action. So, I have a question. um like 8% sounds great, but it seems like we don't have like $4 million lying around. So, you know, is there a plan for do we build this into the budget as part of, you know, some amount monthly is going toward raising the minimum fund balance or, you know, is there some kind of strategy for increasing this if we want wow we knowing that we our monthly expenditures are 8% and we're not there. How do we grow that? So, right now it's like we have um if we looked at our overall fund balance reserves, let's go back here. You know, right now we're in March, so we're our lowest part of the of the school
029year. So, this is going to go once we get our April financials, we see our fund balance reserves uh go back up. So, by the end of the year, we'll be in a stronger position. Um, but one of the things we just look at is part of the budget plan and when just compiling our budget and seeing what reserves we can just set aside uh during throughout the school year, but that would start and be part of our budget discussions as we go into June. Um, and basically we just build up our reserves by once we know what our balance is, where we want to go with it, we set that amount aside. Uh, and then we kind of evaluate the budget as a whole and how that works. But presumably some of that's coming
030from general fund dollars. So like if hypothetically Orchard's AC stopped working, hypothetically um sorry I did you get the email today? Yeah. All right. Um that's coming from that same bucket, right, of like money that we would potentially set aside to increase the fund balance would also go toward whatever emergency it would be there to address those types of emergencies. Yep. And just then knowing that um all of this has to be a a gradu a gradual iterative process based on um you know our budget conversations throughout the school year. We we definitely can't make the lightyear jump to 8% in one year, but we could look at a multiple year process, and that's most likely what the district recommendation would would be like next week. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. It
031would be great to see. I mean, ideally, if you ask me, I'm conservative. I would say 16% would be great. Um, but that could also be I mean, okay, I would be okay with 10.5, but uh um eight would be okay. I guess eight would be okay, but um what what does that look like for us, the incremental growth and how do we what can we budget um to get to that whatever it is that the board decides? I would like to see more of a of a plan um as to what it looks like. Um certainly. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, we're not going to go from 5% to 8% in one year. Um, but I think it's it's crucial that we get there um at a at a at a very um at
032a faster rate. Um, and this all came to light with, you know, we saw the example of how having a healthier reserve across the river with East Mall was able to save people's jobs and to be in that position would be I mean it's it's still even at 16% it's a little bit scary that that's only two months worth of reserve. But if we can um if we can at least be healthy where we could be saving the potential of saving jobs or have you know an emergency like a potential AC outage at Orchard. Um yeah, hypothetically. Um yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what we talked about in the budget committee is I think we're generally supportive of the idea of moving the fund balance up, but we certainly it's hard to, you know,
033jump as far as we need quickly um because we certainly don't want to do it to sacrifice programs or staff or so it's it's hard to intentionally save um when we've needed so much money for operations and whatnot. So yeah, I would like to see the policy how it how it will is proposed to build up and that it's kind of a scoop of available savings versus we are intentionally cutting things to make sure we put this money away because I think that's going to be that would be tough for the public to understand. Um, you know, and the flip side of it being if enrollment continues to decline and and maybe operating expenses get less, then we need we don't need as much to to buffer that. But that's not the ideal situation. I
034think costs are going to keep going up and whatnot. So, um, but I do I do support moving, you know, increasing the fund balance, but so long as we can do it, you know, tiered and responsibly and and kind of taking from available savings versus intentionally saying we're going to cut something or short something so that we can build this faster. Are any of these funds tied to into investment accounts? I would think all of our a lot of well a lot of our money since it's um it gets invested in the local government investment pool. So it is building on interest. So it is part of it's part of the investment pool but at the same time it is available and unrestricted. I think that's what was interesting about the state's proposal originally was
035part of the reason they wanted to pull the money or or or do the expenditures the way they did or the the aortionments the way they did is so that they could make the money on the investment pool and we have less just because of how the money correct me if I'm wrong how how the money comes to us we we don't get as much opportunity to build investment based on what's what's in our accounts and that was likely to be shorted even further but I think since they didn't do that we still benefit it a little bit. No, that's correct. The longer the state could hold on to the money, the more interest they interest income they could build off of it. Yeah. Just one quick question. I assume that what we're going to
036see is a proposal to increase it increase our minimum fund balance this time with a plan for how we could achieve a higher percentage later. Correct. That the direction we're going. Yeah. Correct. Yes. No, I think during the June 3rd meeting, I mean, this was give you some background things to mle over. Um, and then during the June 3rd meeting, we'll share proposals, what these percentages, what would look like, uh, what this would look like as part of our budget, uh, just to assist in the decision-m. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. No weightlifting but still attention. Yes, it is. It is. It's exciting. Billions of dollars is exciting. Yes. It's like building your savings account. Too much talking to my children. Okay. Uh we'll go ahead. Thank you, Sean. We'll move into the superintendent
037report. Um Leila did a great job describing the Westside Silent Auction in Spaghetti Feed and I did get to walk away with some great artwork. Uh this was the second year they had a live auction on student and staff artwork. So that was really fun. Um also tech center uh update um for the Wanche Valley Technical Skills Center project. Uh the project management team and the school district are working our way through the qualifications process. Um, we've screened all of our applicants, uh, which we had plenty of applicants, which is great. Um, we have held interviews on the top four, uh, choices, and we have a few pieces left to accomplish before awarding the project and bringing contract, uh, to the board, uh, which will land on our June 24th, uh, board meeting. So, we're
038excited about that. We'll be bringing on a partner team of a contracting firm and design team for that progressive uh, design project. So, we're really excited about that. Um, also, uh, migrant end of the year celebrations. I was fortunate enough to be able to welcome all of our families, students, and staff to the migrant end of the year awards celebration. I was able to shake hands with each of our students, which was super fun because there was I mean, kindergarten through 12th graders, they were they were there and ready to shake hands. And uh, it was we I was probably big and scary to some of those kids, but it was great because it was just a fun lineup. um huge evening of celebration and momentous joy. Um I loved just being able to personally
039congratulate each student uh along the way. So it was very cool. Um let's see uh in our uh phone free WSD um the process that we've been taking um leading us to some phone free Wachi school district decision-m um began last year in August uh with a board workshop where we all participated in some conversations around cell phones um and uh understanding some of the health impacts and some of the the negative research that is coming on social media. Um then the board received some research on policies from around the state. We also had a community survey that went out in the fall to our students, our staff, and our parents. Um most recently, we had uh three focus group meetings with parents and student representatives. Um and then we hosted a community evening last
040week to share some of this information with our stakeholders. Unfortunately, there was also a playoff soccer game that night. Um, so we had a smaller turnout of our community, uh, meeting. Uh, uh, board member, uh, Mark was there. So, thank you for being there as well. We had some other, uh, parents and families. Um, and we had a great, we had a great evening and a great discussion. Uh, Mr. Anderson and I plan on, uh, creating a video um, of that presentation so that we can share that out with uh, the greater uh, school community. And our next step is to finalize the policy and procedure with the board policy committee. So, um, uh, Julie and Maria both received an email today that had some updates, um, on the policy and procedure. We, we hope
041to have, yeah, that's we hope to have first read on, uh, June 3rd and second read on June 24th. So, just giving an update on that process, which has been uh, which has been actually been a great process. Um, AVID graduation uh, was a few weeks ago as well. Um, what an inspirational evening filled with hope and pride. Our avid teachers have prepared their students well to take on the challenges and the rigor of advanced high school uh advanced placement high school and college classes. In addition, it these students have mastered the art of college applications, FAFSA, WAFAs, and scholarship writing. Just the list of each student on which colleges they've been accepted to and the the amazing amount of scholarship dollars. I mean, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's crazy. Um, so,
042uh, we thank those teachers for keeping an eye on the AVID prize and continuing to shape the next generation of scholars striving to realize their full potential. And I love the tradition of each student handing the rose to someone special in their family at the end. So, they present a little bit about themselves and then they give their rose. Um, I would say 95% went to moms in the audience. Um, but there were siblings and dads and families and grandpas and it was just very touching. Um, and it was a great night. So, um, just fortunate and, uh, happy to be part of many of these end of the year celebrations and more to come soon. So, thank you. Thank you, Corey. Uh, now we have board communications. Julie, we'll start with you. I don't
043have much. I'm saving my voice, but I'll just say congratulations to the boys soccer team for moving on to the state semi-finals. And uh they will be playing Friday, and you can catch it on NFHS if you can't make the routter bus to get there. Mark, uh May 15th was the Apple Awards and we witnessed uh Abby Kimmel, uh senior this year, take home the best supporting actress. So that was exciting. and I attended the May 20th uh phones free school event. And today, as I'm trying to catch up on getting to know the district, I met with uh Jeff Jagger at Mission View, Jen Deborro at Westside, Craig Ellen at Foothills, and Sakarinez at Newberry. And so trying to get my feet underneath me, it was exciting to see kids um and schools doing
044what they do best. It was I actually texted my wife and I was like, "It went long and I'm so excited." So, it's great. Real. Yeah. Um I attended the spaghetti feed last was it two weeks ago? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um that always is a great event. Um I um I too walked out with some cool silent auction and um some artwork. Um, I just have to say I got a pet portrait package and I did. Yeah, that was pretty exciting. I was so excited that I got that. Um, I also had the opportunity to interview with the student and I was drinking through my phone to try to identify what class she was doing her project for. Do you recall AP geography? Okay. Um it was Vivian Mata who um she was we talked
045a little bit about the implications of the failed bond that we had a while ago and um how we we can um move forward and improve what was done last time. So that was that was eye opening and actually um rather sad because it was it's been a while and um we're still not where we need to be to serve our students and talking about the inadequate learning environment that um kids have when there is a failure with our HVAC systems um or you're in a classroom when there's no windows. Um, so that was um, you know, I'm not on the facilities committee, so I'm not quite engaged in but talking to a students about it and students that could have been in a in a new building is a little bit gut-wrenching. Um, and
046then uh this week we'll be supporting the uh, Icycle Creek Center for the Arts. They're having the benefits bash and uh, doc uh, Dr. Uh Eddie Cortez reached out with the invitation um from they are a big supporter of our music programs here um in our school district. So if you can it's in Levvenworth um attend that. That's on Thursday. Um and it's outdoors. Great weather. Um h what else? I think that is it. Yep, that was it for me. That you guys did a great job with those board comments. I have just wanted to say I know we're wrapping up uh standardized testing. So everyone, we made it through. Good job. I know that there were a lot of stressed students and a lot of stressed staff. So nice work to everyone for finishing
047up that. And other than that, I think we we got it. Means adjourned.