001e e e good evening welcome to the February 25th regular school regular board meeting for the wachi school district we will open with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the FL of the United States of America and to the rep for stand indivisible [Music] okay we will now work through the agenda board are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda hearing hearing none I will now move on to the consent agenda the items on the consent agenda were sent to the board and posted online last week the board has had the opportunity to review the materials and ask the superintendent any questions they may have about any items on the consent agenda the consent agenda for this meeting includes the minutes for the February 11th regular board meeting vouchers and payroll
002Personnel report Surplus contracts field trips the December enrollment report and February enrollment report do I have a motion to Pro to approve the consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda I second okay I it has been moved by Julian seconded by Maria are there any discussions no all in favor say I I I motion carries none opposed so we will move on for our citizen comment and then we will if there any members of the public would like to make a citizen comment please sign up online 15 minutes before the meeting or complete a citizen comment form forms are available at the room's entrance and should be turned to the board secretary Kim white and is there any yes we do have one this evening uh Kathleen Maguire okay so unless translation is required
003each comment is limited to three minutes and Miss White will keep a Time timer that will notify you when your time expires individuals that need translation or interpretation will be given 4 minutes to make a comment plus a time needed to complete translation please be aware that the board's role is to receive comments they will not respond to questions or challenges that the board's silence does not go does not signal agreement or endorsement to the speaker's remarks good evening superintendent kalahar and members of the board my name is Kathleen McGuire I'm a parent in the district I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and uh first congratulate you on the levy passing and to thank you and the district for the hard work that you all put in um in communicating
004clearly the value of all the aspects of Education that the district provides uh I would also like to thank you for the recent communication reiterating the district's commitment to student safety with regards to immigration enforcement the beauty and I would argue the necessity of public schools is to Value reflect and uplift all students regardless of race religion gender sexual orientation or any other aspect of identity to this end the district has several factors at measures to gauge Student Success including if students feel seen valued feel safe and know that they belong I urge the board to maintain their commitment to these measures and their stated values specifically as a okay okay I urge theard to maintain their commitment to these values and their to these measures and their state of values specifically as it applies
005to transgender students and their ability to fully and safely participate in all aspects of student life as the district reviews policies in response to shifting Federal resolutions please remember and honor the diversity of the student population and their lived experiences as these are the foundation of what make our district and our students strong valuable and worth thank you for our time for your time next I'll turn to Dr kalahar for special presentations thank you very much let's jump in here uh we are continuing to highlight uh student programs that are funded by The Levy and tonight we have a special privilege of having our students who have participated in knowledge Bowl program under the tutelage of Professor Chris cloak so uh students please feel free to join us at the podium um and uh and
006share how knowledgeable has um impacted your high school student experience thank you so much for being here we appreciate you so we're in knowledgeable basically what it is it's team so teams of three to six people will compete to answer various trivia questions on like Math Science and History and it's a way for us to find like minded people and challenge our brains yeah it's really fun we meet twice a week and we get together and practice different questions and we basically just like go through like practice challenge rounds and yeah it's really fun so do you compete with other teams in the school or do you compete um we compete against other schools in our ESD so like Moses lake and Eastman are who we directly compete with but then we played against like
007Cascade and Cashmere so schools in the area I have a question how many years have you been doing knowledge Bowl I've only been doing it for two I've also only been doing it for two and if you don't mind me asking what grade are you in are you seniors I'm sophomore sophomore okay so well I'm just to say you're beginning young you can carry on doing that knowledge bold can continue into University in college too it's so and I'm glad that you're still competing against other schools I think it's a very special program and congratulate you for taking it on and putting yourselves out there to have to stand up and answer questions across a very wide range of topics can you remember a question from competition or practice that you can ask superintendent Kar
008sure no they can't no they can't and I think they wanted to ask uh director Baron who they wanted to ask he's got the lived experience to answer those questions we had a question yesterday actually at our regional tournament where we qualified for State um that was outside of the polar regions what is the most heavily glaciated region in the world would suspect Central Asia Himalayas area it's more specifically the caror but you would be correct okay you you know something I drove up the canyon up towards that about eight or 10 years ago it's amazing country thank you I didn't get it right precisely where that question should have gone so that was that was well placed can you go back and enunciate something that we heard at the very end of your statement
009did you say last night you qualified for state tournament that's what I thought I heard fantastic that's amazing thank you for sharing you my question to you both is that what motivated motivated you both to be on the knowledge ball and what has that taught you guys in the last two years oh we actually both had a friend in one of our classes last year who told us to join and she was very adamant that we joined so oh wait do you have a question or have you have you both challenged Mr quo in some of these questions we never play him direct me they sort of go in one ear and not the other we're with that um we're being told to ask you who was the last president to not run for a
010second ter Biden correct excellent well if there's no other questions we want to thank you for coming this evening and congratulate you on uh on your winning and moving on to state so we wish you the best of luck thank you yeah thank you yes thank you thank you Professor cloak all right uh next up we have our ASB updates do we have uh we have some representatives from W High School come on up and join us at the podium thanks for being here hello everyone so nice to see you guys again um I just wanted to start off by apologizing for my absence at last uh month's meeting it actually fell on the same day as our annual Jenice fance talent show so I was preoccupied that night um we've had an extremely busy
011C past couple of months um putting on events fundraising and continuing to create a culture of inclusive inclusivity and positivity uh first Upon Our return from winter break our team worked vigorously to collect winter wishes from students around the school we fundraised to make these wishes come true and then purchased and delivered every single students wish to their classroom um this is always such a fun and fulfilling project and of course students love it as well next we worked on our annual Janice France talent show um Janice Fran is a traditional talent show that ASB does every year um and we raise money for a local benefici beneficiary in need this year's was Mother of students at wachi high school Jill Gentry um our activities coordinators Ava blue and Celia Keys worked so hard along
012with our ASB crew um to put on three nights of extreme Talent this year's talent show was a great success and ASB thanks all of you who came to support and watch our talent show uh moving on we had our winter Club fair in which every Club at the school can set up a booth and then um publicize and recruit people for their Club um another super fun event that really helps boost engagement around the school our amazing senior Senate ran by zy Stegman hosted a senior movie night uh we watched 10 Things I Hate About You and we ate lots of yummy snacks in popcorn um in addition to these events we put on some fund Valentine's Day fundraisers began the candidate search for next year's executive team for ASB and announced this year's
013prom theme which will be a night in Greece so that is very exciting uh finally I want to shout out our ASB team for being so dedicated and hardworking these past couple months it's evident that we all have the same goal in mind and that is to keep wachi High School a safe inclusive and happy place to be um that's really all I have for you guys unless you have any questions what's the most exciting On Your Horizon for the next three weeks o ASB style not [Laughter] personally um in these next three weeks we are going to actually begin uh starting to meet with all of our executive candidates for next year um we actually had a meeting today where we had six students who were interested in running come talk to us and
014this is always a super exciting time of the year because we get to start building our team and even planning for events for uh next year upcoming so yeah it's really exciting yeah other questions thank you so much we appreciate seeing and hearing all the wonderful things that happening at the high school thank you so much all right I'll see you guys next month all right excellent thank you and we have Westside High School up next thank you for being here hello my name is Lea oralis with the leadership Club at Westside High School I'm here to tell you what's been happening since we were here last month we had our Wellness day on February 4th during which we covered topics such as first aid consent drugs and alcohol Stress and Anxiety hacks and we
015had a community resource Fair leadership is now working on our annual spaghetti feed in silent auction for May 15th we're on the hunt for donations for the silent auction any individual family or business that is interested in donating please contact the Westside office this year's recipient is a former Westside student Elliot Babcock she is 16 years old and is battling stage three nodular melanoma we will we will be having a live Student Art Auction and live music as well leadership is also starting to work on Prom which is May 9th and we have decided that it'll be a disco decades theme leadership Club recently just did a Valentine's Day fundraiser to wa to raise money for prom We did candy Gams and all the candy was donated by S Hills leadership Club is also collecting
016cans we're going to be recycling them for money also doing the world a favor by getting all those energy drink cans off the streets our mock trial team recently made school history for the first time Westside had its own team at the district competition this past weekend we won two trials and lost two trials but we had five students nominated for the best witness and one stud student nominated for the best attorney this upcoming weekend Duke Hamilton will be representing Westside at Deca State competing in the human resource versus category this brings us to the end of our update and do you guys have any questions for me I ask you a very variant on the same question if you look ahead for the next few weeks wider one of all the projects that you
017and your colleagues are working on what's your favorite one my favorite is probably the spaghetti feed and the silent auction I think it's really good to connect with all these meses especially on the AV because there's some really good connections and I just like connecting with them and knowing we have some support on our side with being such a small school who specifically do we get in contact with to donate items for the spaghetti feed auction uh you can get in contact with Jennifer Deo right here or you can get in contact with our leadership teacher her name is Sheena she will be more than happy to hear a call from anybody what kind of items are you looking to be donated anything so we are getting donations from restaurants like gift cards we are
018asking hotels last time they donated at a full night's stay we're asking we are asking this skydiving place in Chalan to see if they'll donate a certificate so just lots of different things we're going to make different baskets that people can put little drawings in and see if they win just a just a token um last year's auction I won a night stay at Sun Mountain Lodge which we just my wife and I just stayed there over Valentine's Day weekend so greatly appreciate it yep that was wonderful Will you have the student art for the live auction items again yes we should be excellent thank you so much for being here for your time thank you okay next up we have a presentation on the big six data point number five on track for graduation
019and we have representatives from our College and Career Success team with us this evening prepared to share us how they are making a significant impact on the transition from middle school to high school and Beyond so Jake bu holes and Tanya Brown thank you for being here tonight we appreciate your time thank you we'll hold it this way we hand it back and forth uh thanks for having us tonight uh so yeah we're coming at this um as far as we talk about untracked to graduate it's uh really looking at our angle is how are we preparing students in the transition to move into high school um and have that relevancy right away and understand what it is that they're working towards and why they're working towards it so uh last spring uh in a
020board Workshop we talked about uh the the pieces that we're looking to put into place to develop this team or the next step in development of the team and so uh we did that and then now here we are to kind of talk about what we've done uh so far this year uh with college Career Success team so um so big six number five students are on track to graduate by the end of their freshman year and Beyond uh so as a team we're working hard to help students find a goal um Tanya it the team has uh five different individuals that are on the team Tanya is one of them and we're working across all three middle schools to to work on the transition from 7th to 8th to 9th and then we get
021into some accelerated pathway stuff from there uh that we've just rolled out this year so T is gonna talk a little bit about these grade levels right so I'm not going to go through and read all of this information to you but these are the things that we have been doing at the middle schools at the seventh grade level uh we kind of the High overhead pass is we've been working with them on 21st century skills and we've also been working with them to pick their five excuse me their five favorite careers to explore because we take kids out on job shadows and we take them out on experiences to see what they like and what they might not like so we're hoping that they start early and can find something we have a room
022at each of the buildings that we can pull kids into in small groups or some of them just come in to eat lunch there and meet like professionals from the field during lunchtime 8th grade we've been working with uh onboarding them and they've done a few more assessments like their learning styles inventory so we kind of know what kind of Learners they are and they learned about what kind of Learners they are and we've been working with them about the different programs of study that we offer at the high school there are 24 different programs of study in the CTE pathways ninth graders uh we have met with all ninth graders that have been at school when we've tried to call for them and we tried to call for them multiple times if they weren't
023so we've met with them we've worked on building their resumés we've worked with them on putting in all of their experiences that they've done whether it's volunteer work or actually paid work or extracurriculars and we're having them put all of that information into our school system so they can go back to it uh it has been now adopted by the state so if they move to other districts that information is still in that platform so that's great way for them to capture what they're doing as they're doing it and not try to remember when their seniors applying for different things all right so as as we talked about it just a little bit ago I just want to reiterate you know as we talk about those different things the the ction to on time to
024graduate is nth grade is a critical year and you know that we know that and how do we Define or how do we um provide a vision for a student and to build on the relevancy that they need so they need to feel like what they're doing is is relevant to what they want to do so we're kind of taking that end Vision helping to build that and then work backwards from there and that uh provides a lot of context for the classes that they're taking uh and that has um shown to be very helpful in the conversations that we're having for students and the effort that they put in and the connections that they make with their classes so um so when we talk about the transition uh this team it is going down
025it's It's weekly we're meeting with uh seventh and eighth graders all the way through the year and then right now it's super super heavy uh spending a ton of time with individual conversations with students and in those conversations uh we have implemented some new strategies this year to ensure that um the choices students are making are being communicated home and coming back and then there's kind of a little bit more back and forth than there ever has been uh and that's a major step forward in in our process uh for getting everybody around the same idea for that student uh so yeah we are in the process of meeting with all 9th through 11th uh that requested an accelerated pathway so you may have seen that roll out a few weeks ago as we rolled
026out accelerated Pathways right now uh we are sitting a little over 600 students that have chosen an accelerated pathway I suspect we will probably land right around 700 when we're all done and so all of those meetings have to occur in the next four and a half weeks we have a lot of work it's a major onboarding process it is something that we knew would happen um and we know that in years to come that squeeze won't be there because they'll already be in and now we have all year to talk with students over and over and over again but right now we're we're feeling it so but that's an exciting problem if you want to call it that uh exciting thing to have so we are also uh going and CCS team is going
027in with our High School counseling team into our 10th grade and 11th grade classes as they are um you know working on their uh choices that they're making so these are students that did not choose an accelerated pathway but they're going in as support for other students who may maybe get make that choice same same with 11th grade and as T T's G to talk a little bit about School links which you may or may not be familiar with but that's the platform that we use uh for organizing all of this so the nice part about this platform is they're using it all the way through so seventh grade on and this particular page students can put their information in here we can run reports and say oh who all wants to be an engineer
028and we just have a list of those students so that then if we have an opportunity coming up we can invite those students to those opportunities and they can go in and chain change this anytime they want if they want to change their career five times a day they're welcome to do that we're at least hoping that that they're changing it every year as we're having the conversation or they're at least starting to solidify that that's the one for sure that they want to do right out of this program they can just download a resume and it makes it for them um they can make it look better or whatever but it has all the information in there because of them doing the work in this so that's really nice to have that available to
029them as they're putting stuff in we have also been doing a lot of community connecting so we've been to Sunrise Confluence and East wache rotaries uh we've gone to the economic Vitality committee and we're interacting with businesses we're trying to find people that are wanting to spend time sharing what they do for a living with students um we did career meet and greets at lunchtime so like we've had Pilots come into the middle schools and they're they're at lunchtime for any kids that put they wanted to be a pilot in here we had a three gentlemen from Bonville power come into the high school and they met with high school students that think they want to be linemen tomorrow actually we have 13 Engineers coming up to the high school during second period and they're
030meeting with all of the 10th through 12th graders that put in that they wanted to become engineers so we've got Engineers from civil mechanical biomedical um software engineer so we're trying to expose kids to people that do the jobs that they think they might want to do as well as take them to those places so they can see what the job looks like questions in the Middle School um sorry future ready rooms can you sort of describe a little bit about what's going on how many people might be in there what the room looks like where the students come often or never and how many of them you touch and just just to get an idea of what's going on well kind of depends on which thing we're doing when we were meeting with small
031groups there were four individuals within the room meeting with three to five kids at a time within the same space um at lunchtime we can have you know 20 kids that want to come in and hear from a pilot about what they're doing and asking questions it also is a place where kids drop in at lunchtime like they want a quieter space to be and so they will come into those rooms so it just kind of depends on what the event is that's happening in those spaces there's different kinds of seating we've made it so that it looks more professional there's you know a big long conference table that has comfortable chairs there's some high tables there's some low tables there's some couches so that they can find the space that works great for them
032trying to make them as inviting as possible in all the different middle schools sounds like you're trying to make make it a highlight room that everybody knows about and most students would like to use you feel you're getting through to the full range of students I think so I think it's starting to catch on at the high school I can speak for a room it's busy like Jake could walk by and be like at lunchtime because there's so many kids in there so yeah it's I mean it's a it's a good problem to have um I think by us meeting with students and building those Rel ships around this stuff that's relevant to them they will come ask us questions at random times because they feel comfortable because they've actually had the conversation already can
033you maybe just clarify for me the difference between the accelerated pathway and the the traditional pathway and whether there's the opportunity to opt in and out over over the four years yeah yeah so uh when we talk about accelerated pathway what those are there are several accelerated Pathways so inside of that program uh if a student is say going working towards their DTA their direct transfer Associates or they're working towards the GE as the general education requirements for a university um we also have uh specific uh technical degrees that work we're working with when Valley College on whether it's engineering Tech or business computer tech or early childhood um so those are uh in place IND uh industrial technology Electronics so those four are in place where students can work towards and complete a a
034very large portion of those degrees uh and then we also have specific programs of study not all 24 but certain ones identified that end up with a certification from some organizing body whether it's the department of health or nursing board or CompTIA or whatever so those things are identified because they layer on an additional level of specific criteria on top of the high school graduation requirements that takes a lot more intense focus on how do we schedule this and how do we make this happen for a student in their time at when actually high school before they leave so that's kind of the the overview can they opdate and out absolutely and so at the end of the way it's designed everybody comes into high school for nth grade our our goal or our motto
035uh is get connected and get settled right so we want students to connect with all things of high school experience sports clubs whatever it is and we want them to kind of settle into that freshman year take some classes they're not getting behind with any of the accelerated pathway stuff then at the end of nth grade or right now as they're starting to plan for tenth and Beyond every student has an option to choose an accelerated pathway and they start that just by saying I would like an accelerated pathway and then our team meets with them they talk about all the options uh if they didn't choose that at the end of nth grade they could always choose it the following year so at every semester there will be an opportunity to say I would
036like to to change my focus so if that's the case they move over to an accelerated pathway counselor and this team who has the ability to and the time to dive into all the nuances so that they can serve that student I appreciate you meeting with um reaching out to sending to parents in eighth grader in eighth grade um as a mother of a middle schooler um that has been a big challenge just the communication both ways um but as we know you know the whole college experience applying credit all of that is very complex um even as you know learning the different pathways what's the approach to make sure that um all parent parents whose children are interested in the P different Pathways have this information that's digestible to their needs um you know
037whether it's a first generation um student uh or somebody that's well-versed somebody that's monolingual in Spanish what's the approach in regards to informing um our parents in regards if this is a pathway they choose for so the approach is going to be multi-prong uh so there's when we first kind of develop the concept of the team and and when we talked last spring it's really I think the phrase that I use that I still stick to is we want to have high quality direct two-way communication because there's certain things that are embedded within within that so high quality accurate timely you know good information right the direct is what I think we've done in the past is relied too much on passive communication so we post something to a website or put it on Facebook
038or whatever and then we wait for people to to come to us based off of that and so the direct or or maybe active might be a better a better term is for us to proactively reach out and do that on a personal level or at least on very small groups an example for that like let's take this engineering thing for example let's say uh when we are able ble to narrow down this group of students and we say we have 15 students which is a small number for the high school that have this this interest we can directly reach out to families and say we're contacting you because your child is showing interest in this we would like to tell you more about it we'd like to serve your child to to meet this
039goal and then that opens the dialogue and that would happen um you know our goal uh is that that happens in in whatever language the family uh speaks so we don't have all team members in place I still need to hire a few team members this spring to go into next school year but um we're getting by with what we have right now so that is the goal uh and that's how we would do that so direct 2A and then having the Personnel to have individual conversations uh with families sit side by side I think I sorry I I nothing can nothing can replace that and there's a Continuum of personal service and efficiency and we got to find the right balance of those two things excellent I've got one more for you um Jake
040and Tony thank you for being here tonight um this is the whoa sorry about that um stop talking with my hands um this is the first year of our College and Career Success team so um throughout this year what has um what has encouraged you and what has surprised you throughout the process what's encouraging is how engaged kids are when we meet with them like they adults don't give kids enough credit they have their ideas they know what they want to do they might just not be telling us and so being able to have their voices heard has been super encouraging to me um what has surprised me is I think that it doesn't matter who the kid is everybody's got something that they're thinking they want to do and so we're not hearing a
041lot of the idks which is I don't know and lots of teachers know that answer because you see it a lot on papers so it it's one of those things that we're not seeing that when it we start talking about what they want to do Beyond high school so it gives them a reason to do high school thank you for that and we uh very thankful for the presentation we're going to be talking about our big six data points next and uh when we come to Big Six data point number five we'll be able to see that there's some fluctuation in those scores where we're really really excited about the impact that you're all making so thank you very much okay and with that we'll uh we'll move right on into the uh presentation uh
042on the big six data points um I just want to thank uh uh School Board of Directors for the time tonight uh the information that I'm bringing uh to you tonight is a a few months later than I would like uh the availability of some of the data to access was a little bit later in this school year than we've had in previous years uh but we have it now um the data that we are sharing tonight uh oh I need to get the uh yes thanks Ron uh so the data that we're sharing tonight is a culmination of year three big six data from 2324 school year um and along the way this year we've had presentations um directly related to each of the big six data points including the one that you just
043saw in big6 data point number five um and that is representing the work that's being done to impact year four data 2425 I also want to clarify with the board that we'll be tracking uh we are tracking progress um on multiple static indicators so the data that we're sharing uh with you is not cohort data that follows a particular group of students this is new data for uh for each year in each uh student group so each new data set represents different students as they reach Milestones uh in the data as well okay perfect and so we'll start off here looking at who we are as a district uh we have our student demographics uh with our headcount including uh running start students and open doors Sean's not here but he would want me to
044recognize that um we also have our race and ethnicity data showing 55.7% Hispanic Latino uh numbers we also have our program numbers on the other side showing our multilingual Learners at 25% our low income students at 66% and our students with disabilities at almost uh 16% and the next slide has our Dem Graphics relating with our related with our teaching staff um so we have 486 uh teachers as you can see on the chart there uh which uh 68% of them hold master's degrees and 17.4% have national board uh certification and the average year of experience is 13.5 you'll also see the majority of our teaching staff at 70% uh are women and our uh teaching staff at 78% is predominantly white okay and we'll jump into the big six data points here uh number
045one is experience high quality instruction so students receive and participate in grade level or Beyond standards instruction and assignments and as we jump into the data here you can see that um we have almost a 10% increase in students receiving and partic participating in grade level and Beyond standards instruction rigorous tasks assignments and activities we have a 21.8% increase in our uh teachers using strategies to elicit 100% engagement and we have 12% increase in teachers noticing and adjusting when students are not engaged and this uh data comes from our classroom uh observation tool and our walkthrough data which you all have been able to participate in uh this year and uh we have a few more walk walkthroughs coming up in March uh let's see the data reflects the 2324 school year where we increased
046our efforts to include building administrators in our walkthrough data and also to increase uh the end value which increases our validity and reliability of the data also on October 8th we had a first presentation of the big six uh data points uh and we heard about wi School District's essential strategies and a review of the training that we had last year um and then for this Academic Year we learned about academic discussion as well as how to build a culture of accountable talk uh we also learned about uh what we want our students to say instead of I don't know we want to hear things like may I have time to think may I ask another expert in the room can you repeat the question uh we also learned about the qsssa process question signal
047stem share and assess all right big six data point number two belong and are connected students know they belong they are seen valued and heard and they have healthy relationships with our uh with staff and peers and we can go through the data here we can see that we had a 5% increase in the percentage of students who feel safe uh we saw a slight increase in students feeling that they are treated with respect uh 2.8% increase in students who feel that there is an adult at the school uh who can encourage them and those three data points come from our annual culture and climate survey which will open up here very soon in late March for the 2425 school year and then the bottom two pieces of data uh we see a 4.3% increase
048in students with two or fewer absences per month and then uh a very slight uh increase in the percentage of students that are not excluded from class due to uh Behavior incidents these last two data sets uh were the reason for the lag in getting the full set of data to the school board for some reason uh attendance and discipline data didn't come out um in the normal time that we' like to see it um and then a presentation that went along with data point number two on on November 12th you heard from Alfonso and Nancy uh and our uh about our family Advocate team along with our migrant student Advocates about the work that they do to help students know they belong and have healthy relationships with staff this presentation described the key link
049which we believe our family advocates and our migrant student advocats are between schools our families our communities resources the school administrators our teachers and parents and families reading on grade level students will read on grade level by third grade and Beyond uh we are continuing to build on our tools and strategies to help our students read on grade level uh we saw a slight uh slight decrease in the percent of of third grade students scoring at or above in the spring I ready we also saw a 1.3% drop in our third graders scoring proficient or above on the ELA Smarter Balance assessment or above onspring I ready saw a slight increase in third through eth graders who scored at or above in the spring I ready and then a 1.6% drop in our number of
050third through 10th graders scoring proficient or above on the English language arts Smarter Balance assessment and I do want to add that we we now have another metric um which Heidi has shared uh with us as well we know that our foundational knowledge and our skill Source uh scores skill Source our skills scores for reading uh based on our Smarter Balance assessment is 63.6% meeting standard and this is that newer indicator of success on the OPI state report card and if you remember we had a a school board meeting on December 10th where we heard from each of our building leaders about their reading data individually and then what each building was intentionally doing to move the needle on their reading scores through their school Improvement plans through their learning Improvement plans and through their
051PLC groups um that was a that was a good meeting lots of great information okay okay big six data point number four ready for algebra students will be on grade level or Beyond by eighth grade in algebra and as we see here um and this was this was our presentation yesterday folks in our board Workshop uh yesterday afternoon and we had our learning and teaching team present to us so uh here we see we have two data points here we see a slight decrease in the percentage of students in grades 3 through eight scoring proficient or above on the math Smarter Balance assessment and then we also have um we see a very tiny increase um but it is an increase uh in the percentage of K8 students scoring mid on grade level or above
052in the spring math I ready assessment and we also know that we have foundational Knowledge and Skills scores for our math uh based on the smarter balance assessment and that's 51.6% um and as I mentioned yesterday in our board Workshop uh you all heard uh from the learning and teaching team about the work around students being on grade level or Beyond in eth grade uh for algebra we know this takes an entire system to make uh a goal such as this happen and we do have uh work to do in the uh world of math um we also learned about how the Strategic and systemic processes in the district are moving us closer to understanding and closing the gap on our math Readiness uh we talked about from the board level and the superintendent level
053to the instructional leaders level to the learning Improvement team and to the plc's and then the reverse cycle for the data uh to come closer so that was a great presentation we had yesterday Heidi thanks to your team uh for being there and taking us through it all right and we just had our presentation on uh big six data item number five on track for graduation and of course our College and Career uh success team is only one aspect of that work but it was an important aspect and a new piece of information for us to look at um and we do see that we had a 4. five uh we had yeah 4.5% decrease in the percentage of students who passed all courses in ninth grade we know there is work to be done
054in this area and we um and we know that we will continue to do that work and I'm excited to um hear more about the evolution of our College and Career Success team um I didn't realize there were more positions to hire um coming next year so we've got that um and really what we're working for is preparing our students for short-term realities of passing their classes in ninth grade that's what this uh metric is built on as well as the long-term realities of postsecondary education and adulting all right big six data point number six involved in real world and relevant learning students are engaged in a Continuum of learning experiences that create awareness exploration preparation and work experience to be future ready now this one we haven't heard yet obviously right so on March
05525th uh we will have the pleasure of hearing uh from CTE director Jake buol who was just here about uh more about the accelerated Pathways program and what Wane high school has in store for their students in the years to come and I will take us through uh the data points here uh quickly uh we see a 7.2% increase in the percentage of k6 participation in the science field experiences we saw a 2.3% increase in 712 uh grade students enrolled in CTE courses saw a slight decrease in the number of students attending CTE field experience is however we are still at 96.8 on that so that's a good number to stay uh we almost doubled the percentage of 912 students participating in job Shadows career launches internships apprenticeships and work site learning and finally uh
056tripled the percentage of nine 9 through 12th graders earning industry recognized certification uh let's see here got remember to move the slide here so strategic plan is a roadmap to fulfill our promise to students our students come to us with unique lived experiences starting points and needs our strategic plan provides a framework uh within which uh those stren those differences are strengths and I will just add and I know that you feel the same that um as a school district we are very proud of the strong work that is being done in our schools and classrooms throughout the district um our staff worked tremendously hard to lay a foundation for our students to learn and grow into themselves as individuals we are making incremental strides to achieve the goals set out in this strategic plan
057and again this is year three data for the 20 thou uh 2023 24 school year and we will have more specific data from the 2425 school year including our Ela and reading uh as well as math data scores later in the year and I think that's uh that's the end of my slide so if the board has any questions concerns s celebrations about the presentation or if there's any information that I can bring back to the board to show or support the work being done in any of the uh big six data point items um I would love to do so thank you for the time no I guess I'll go first yeah please um quite honestly year three of a strategic plan this is a little disappointing um and I'm not to criticize the
058work that's being done because I know had some really good workshops um and and and you know I I feel like our teaching strategies are there but what is our solution then because we're you know barely making strides in some areas it looks like and going backwards and granted I I'm I realized that we launched a plan coming right out of a pandemic and we're we're seeing a you know it's it's not going to be data is not going to be perfect yeah yeah for a while and we're going to continue to struggle with that but I had expected with the clear Direction and some of the the really impressive teaching strategies honestly that we've been exposed to that these would be better yeah and so I'm kind of what what adjustments are we making
059to to move the needle a little bit more yeah absolutely great question um and I think that the majority of the moving the needle presentations and information that you've heard have been through throughout this year it's literally we have um this information that we're showing is a little bit lagging so it's the 23 24 data so I think the information that you are hearing from each of these presentations are what we're hoping will turn the needle and move us in the right direction so for our students moving forward continuing to use the PLC process um the school improvement process and the learning Improvement team process to help move the needle on those students um in English language arts I think it's the continu ation of the essential strategies for all of our students continu continuing
060working on structured literacy and supporting intervention processes throughout um math we learned about our three three reads langu uh language routine yesterday and following that Continuum and doing that work so we're uh yeah we we don't know if each one of those is going to be the answer but those that's the work that we're investing in it so it's good good question Julie other thoughts I'm going to make a mathematics comment uh when you're trying to turn something around there's a difference between acceleration and velocity when we're looking at the data we look at the velocity the acceleration is the method and work that's necessary to turn things into a higher trajectory I also would love to have seen more encouraging results no question about that so we cannot do that but I don't think
061that it is correct to suddenly look for quick alternative approaches I I genuinely believe that the solid work is good I also think like when you start moving a boulder the first millimeter takes much more effort than the centimeter and the meter so no I am equally concerned and I really hope that we see that but I think we do have to um give patients and continue not letting up in determination appreciate that I guess for me it's uh you know I'll continue uh and we how are we um is the intervention we're doing for our low performance sufficient to narrow that Gap and as I asked the question I mean it's it's challenging with all the budget uh staff reductions and all of that um but do we have the right scaffolding uh supports
062intervention to support our lowest um our low or students it is a good question I mean we feel like we do have um the evidence-based uh programming in place but we can we can always get better at our processes and our program and always get better at supporting our students our students that have the greatest needs yeah and we can do that I believe we can do that through our learning and teaching professional development and uh the programs that we're implementing over time and I know we we've the you we've imp implemented um you know uh kidi uh the the approach for all Learners um but it's it's very evident that there needs to be that extra layer um I don't know what it looks like um but identifying and there's so many different factors
063whether it's language um you know disability learning um IEPs anyways um again you know narrowing that that Gap um I think we'll identifying those will definitely support the growth absolutely thank you I think I would add to what Maria is saying there is when we're looking at Aggregates and I sort of put put a blanket over the data in a way but one way that you could look at what can we do that's different is by looking at the separate compartments of different kinds of students and seeing whether their differences and nuances can be put in and you know I would I would assume and hope that that's what you are doing but that would be an area of search also oh I got one comment um just kind of touch base with what Mar
064has said targeting not just our um our lower just socioeconomic group of folks too but also making it more of a wraparound approach also because learning these strategies is also repetitiveness and not only just practicing it into the school though but you can also do this at home as well and I'm not invited to Heidi but um isn't that encouragement building that transparency and um amongst with the families as well and I don't know how we can you make that bigger and make that um to share that with families with those students that have made the disabilities or there's just that language barrier in whatever the case may be in the home to have Educators or um come in or the volunteers whoever at the school show this is what we're working on this is
065how our students are doing it you can toggle this and like do this back at home for whatever social or family situation that may be as well that way those numbers you can see grow and then it um you can see that performance years to come so yeah if I remember right after Co we um we started doing a lot more tutoring making that available and and I don't see the stiens coming out in our report so I assume we don't have as much of that if any at all um but yeah I mean once you start looking at data you can you want more data and you know the questions I have become what is what is the correlation here to to teaching staff and are we able to meet the needs kind of
066to Maria's question are we able to meet all the needs as adequately as we could because I in in my mind I would have expected to see actually a higher jump between 22 and 23 because we were kind of more rolling out of pandemic getting legs under us but then making some pretty big growths in that year so it was a little surprising to see it even that close in what I would consider a maybe a bigger opportunity for leap year and then slow down because I I do agree with Martin's perspective too it's going to take a while to build that foundation and then we're going to see see some growth so it was just kind of maybe my own preconceived ideas of what I would expect to see but you know are we
067tracking between our loss of enrollment and our loss of of teaching staff what dynamic that's having on this are we losing an extreme amount of high performers and that's bringing stuff down are we not bringing um the the the kids who need more supports up adequately um I don't know that we can correlate all of that but it just it starts begging the questions of of what are what are the other things in addition to because because I feel like our our strategies are pretty confident I I love what I hear from these workshops and what we're implementing yes um that's why it's so frustrating to see this going but why are we only why are we going backwards why are we only a percent and like I said I I realize there is um
068a growing factor in that but just kind of no I appreciate that and I do think that the board's emphasis and the high school's emphasis and our Middle School's emphasis on participation in the smarter balance assessment is going to help us a little bit in some of those areas um as we work to uh negate 30% uh nonparticipation rate in our district so some of those scores become on scores and they impact our data big time and so as we work to uh really make sure that everyone understands the importance of testing um we can we we can make some of those strides and I'm not saying all the answers are are built into that but that's a place for us to start um we are just I was just looking at some data that
069Heidi sent me today that we had uh in our district we had uh over 72 um students who had uh parent refusals to test um and that's this year's data so um we're still working on that piece and trying to impact and impart on our uh Community the importance of that testing and that is not solely the answer um but as we prepare students not only for the test and through the test um also preparing students um how to take that test is uh is important as well so just small nuggets of information but I really appreciate the deep thinking and the information coming from the board because you're right when we talk about our academic areas we do want to see more growth and Improvement and we do have um some nice highlights in
070the other six areas but the academic focus is where we want to be so I thank everyone for their time and great comments just one more thing um I know you inherited this strategic plan this is not a strategic plan that you um you totally walked into this in your current role um one of the things that last time we had that we uh there was Data presented to us um I think everybody by now knows how I feel about standardized testing um so you know I take I take the SBA for what it's worth um but I I still want to see a CFA uh comparison um what is CFA Stan class classroom formative assessment um Comm informative assessment uh because I know my personal experience with my student um what his output and
071grade in the classroom is sign significantly different than a standardized test and so I would still like to see a comparison of okay this is where our student our third grade classes or great group ban is in the SBA but this is where there are in in their uh formative assessments yeah I'd Echo that too because I was one of those students that I had massive test anxiety and and couldn't test and the irony being I picked a profession where you had to test into it um but the amount of work I had to put into doing that was extreme and so I I do worry about our kids having test fatigue because they're doing these IR ready they're doing these sbas it's no surprise that some parents are choicing them out of them because
072they don't understand what a you know a a state of Washington scorecard Means versus what their student what's actually preparing their student for maybe the next level in school so you know some education needs to go on there I wish maybe there wasn't so much emphasis on on standardized testing but I think that would be a good comparison to have saying hey this is what it looks like just based on this testing data but if you really look at what our students know through their classwork um because that's really what moves you along at this grade it's not until you get to College where it's 80% of your grade is your final or something like that but that I think would be a better indicator of our students actually learning real world things and and
073seeing that would help offset probably some of the concerns we have just looking at SBA data well that's a good good point uh both Maria and Julie um as I was as we were developing the slide presentation um I was thinking about adding some slides not only from the OPI report card on some of the foundational skill skill sores I can't say that skills scores um that's a tongue twister um I thought about adding some of those pieces and then I was thinking of is that I was just kind of thinking is that disingenuous to um the transparency that we want to share but I do believe we could at least add those pieces in as other components even though they haven't been specifically chosen as metrics for this particular strategic plan initiative but we
074could share those pieces um so that's something that with the board's approval we'll do in the future yeah and I like that um one just random thought that came to my mind is is anyone working with the The OSI about just refining this SBA requirement or process because I think we're just in a different generation of student where their attention spans are so short because of phones and things like that that the idea of sitting for tests and multiple tests is just maybe the real life skill they need but it's one that I don't think I just wonder if they may be as smart as anything but they're just not capable of sitting there doing that and I don't know I mean that's outside this board's work or anything but I'm just I'm wondering if
075there's any conversations about you know adap ing the tests or requirements to the the the student population we have these days that's a great great question I don't know I I know there's always conversations around uh assessment reform in the state um but I don't know any particular conversations about matching assessment with uh our new Learners uh per se but that very well could be a conversation that I'm just not privy to yeah that's good a good point okay thank you everyone next our action item is our student calendar for 2025 2026 school year and so do you yeah just uh the board packet was uh in the board packet was proposed a student calendar for the uh 2526 school year um as noted in Kelly's board memo the board agreed that the 2526 calendar
076uh should or would mirror the calendar approved by uh the 2425 and uh yeah and it does and uh I think that it's uh it's also in line with Eastmont um and cashmere's uh spring break which is great so we want to make sure that piece is aligned so that we can have we have people that teach in cashmir and their kids go to school here and they want to be able to take their uh their breaks at the same time so yeah I think the next piece is to ask for a motion do I have a motion to approve the stud student calendar for the 25 26 school year is presented I move that we accept the student calendar calendar for 2526 school year I'll second okay it has been moved by Maria and
077seconded by Julie any discussion moving on um well all in favor I I okay I do have one follow-up question though um I assume this was going to require a resolution to wave school days like the last one if it's the same number do we need to do that yes yes it it will and we will bring that resolution back at a different date thank you so moving on our next door of business is the superintendent report okay well we have I'm going to start off with some some fun uh State uh Athletics uh boys swim and dive had a great showing at the state tournament um with an E eighth place overall um and we've been hearing a lot about Ben mad uh so he's been destroying records and then destroying them again um
078and so that's really really cool and ended up walking away with uh All-American titles so that's pretty exciting and we had uh five uh five boy wrestlers and two uh female wrestlers compete at State and each of them picked up at least one win in the double elimination bracket uh we also had uh Color Guard had seen their highest score ever as they took the top spot in the Scholastic IC Color Guard category category at the tournament in Everett and our appal letes had success across all levels uh JV team placed first in the C in their categories and varsity won second place trophies in Military and kick so fun stuff as we are closing down our winter sports and uh spring Sports begin on Monday um also uh Romeo and Juliet is on the
079docket for the Wane High School spring play you can secure your tickets now for March 7th and 8th or March March 13th through 15th and Harrison how does it feel to be the sole remaining person in the room you you're you're holding it down buddy you got this though okay um and speaking of Harrison our superintendent advisory Council had its monthly meeting on uh on February 12th where we discussed board meetings we discussed policy and we are planning for some new members uh for the uh next year's uh superintendent advisory Council we also have uh a work meeting tomorrow uh that we can get down to some of the details so we haven't had a work meeting uh yet and uh the students asked for some time to work on all the initiatives that uh
080we're tackling so that'll be tomorrow did you find a ride you got to make up those tests all right we'll fill you in um uh we also just to let folks know that um with our uh project management group uh The Clash group um last week we worked with them to submit an application to the project Review Committee at the state level to launch a progressive design build uh project for tackling the Wane Valley Technical SK Skills Center uh four-phase remodel that was funded by state grants and so we're moving through that process and we're excited about um presenting and defending in front of uh the state on March 27th that'll be a new one for me um so looking forward to that so thank you that is my superintendence report thank you now we
081have Bor communication so let's start with Maria uh again big congratulations to Ben Matson all our swimmers and wrestlers that went to State um and just uh I know from a higher ed perspective um it has been very challenging last couple of weeks um with so many executive orders coming in and I just want to thank our leadership um at the local level at the state level um for putting students first um we heard it today uh student uh our community citizen comment um you know we've put out messages uh it's it's a it's a really challenging time for for our country um and we're very fortunate that again our state puts um students at the Forefront youth uh of these um decisions and just acknowledge that the work of Educators administrators uh leadership is
082it's not easy right now it's not easy and um I'll tell you I've lost more sleep over in the last three weeks than I did over covid in this role so thank you for Everything Julie I just want to say thank you to our community for supporting our Levy um and making sure that we can provide um the continue to provide all the great programs that we have it would be amazing if our legislature would ever fully fund us um but we we genuinely appreciate the support and everyone who went out and waved signs and helped get get people to the polls um it makes a difference not for for me necessarily personally but for all the students all the staff all of every everyone in this community so I appreciate it greatly and then
083I've just had some fun wrapping up the winter winter sports Season watching some basketball games watching U teams improve despite you know not fabulous records but good good Improvement as teams and um and I appreciate the presentation we had yesterday with the uh the learning and teaching staff um because I do think as as down as I was on the data today that was very very helpful and and I do appreciate the the techniques and the pieces that are going in to really moving the needle so thank you for that Martin I asked meeting chair Miranda skolsky to allow me to make make an announcement and to speak longer maybe much longer than you want to hear than normal during board communication I begin with thanking the voters of wachi for renewing the educational programs
084and operations Levy school funding rests on three legs the state apportionment which is always an underfunding and has added Peril because Washington State faces a severe projected deficit federally funded programs which are Hostage to whatever happens in Washington DC and the One Source where we have local control the Le is more precious than ever I've been an engineer and a business and Logistics executive so I recognize an efficient choice to invest in our community's future I've also been a development Economist so I recognize Mutual benefit that win-wins something each for you something for me smart choice that balances taxes and benefits to maximize the size of the pie which can then be shared unselfishly by all who live here funding of public schools is the strongest f foundation of the American dream my announcement is
085that I will not be a candidate for the rachi school board at large position in this year's election and my speaking my purpose at speaking for maybe too long is to encourage well-intentioned and capable people to file for the election before the May deadline and when I took on this task Miranda I didn't realize we might maybe some would be useful if we have applicants for when you sadly resign this is my sixth year on the board people often say gee it must be be tough sometimes it was but my overwhelming take-home is how rewarding it is I have friends from kindergarten to the superintendent many of whom I would never otherwise have known and what a loss that would been to my life I'm becoming apron and see my signs of aging and now
086what I want to do is give some guidance on the nature and responsibilities of the school director job as a bit of a Target I read from policy 1111 the oath of office we our oath is we support the Constitutions of the United States and the state of Washington we promote the interests of education and we Faithfully discharge our duties of office then policy 1220 directors have no individual power or authority actions are taken by the board as a whole when legally in session just as we are right now in a healthy board members talk and listen to each other respectfully try to reach decisions openly mindedly as colleagues and do their best to help convert these these decisions into outcomes that benefit K12 education I am privileged that today's wachi school board has this
087culture it's not about imposing your personal preferences however coaching encouraging and suggesting are the heart of the job uh policy 123 also says board members would not assume responsibilities of Administrators or other staff members there is a statutory separation of powers between the board the superintendent who is the chief executive officer and the only person who reports directly to the board and all the many professional employees of the district teachers and others who report to the superintendent the board is the governance conscience I think that word conscience is important of the district the ultimate Authority on strategy approves policies that are in compliance with the law using expert advisors and approves budgets making use of recommendations prepared by The District's employees that is how the team fits together and I think that's what board directors
088need to know I want to move on over to what's mostly fun stuff are there work areas that a board a potential board director thinks might be special a director may not have any control but can encourage and coach and even be a catalyst I want to give some examples from my experience of the kinds of involvements that a director can touch and new board members will be able to find their own priority contributions my first was financial literacy the survival knowledge needed to manage personal affairs in the real world After High School Olympia is still debating a bill to make that a learning requirement the wachi school district built this knowledge into its curriculum four years ago this was achieved by using Partners perhaps my favorite part of the Strategic plan we cannot succeed
089alone the financial literacy implementation would not have been possible without the added help and service of the nonprofit group y asset financial literacy is an example of how wachi school district is often an early actor in identifying and re reacting to emerging needs youth voice that's for you as students put it they are the experts in what it's like to live inside schools I've sat on the sidelines of the superintendent student advisory Council since is beginning four years ago and right now there's an effort to find a good way for the board also to receive student representation and input I just say that our students are awesome in their insights their generosity and their wisdom if we listen we will be able to improve weakness in mathematics I applaud the district's determined effort to defeat
090what is a national problem and I want to repeat National problem it will take patience a child's K12 education Journey takes 13 years and it is difficult for students to recover if their start is imperfect add the dimension that in mathematics a mindset change is needed to overcome widespread fear of mathematics an emotional attitude that many students inherit from our society I lived and worked in Latin American countries for 12 years before immigrating to wachi in 1990 being able to communicate in Spanish and having some understanding of other cultures of the Americas as being valuable before I was elected I put myself into good communication with the parent advisory committee joined in activities designed to promote education for students of Latin American origin and maintained a strong relationship that has been fruitful for both both
091both sides it is important for the board to be aware of and serve all students when I joined the board I recommended establishing a budget committee I've been a member since the committee was formed by interim superintendent Bill Eagle what I value as I prepare to leave is that this committee two board members with key District Personnel now looks not just at next year's budget but in advance thinks and prepares for the long term I want to correct inac perceptions of the district's financial management during turbulent times difficult decisions were made and managed reserves were kept safely above requirements the district retains its Moody's Financial rating refinanced its Bond debt to save6 million and kept its high trust level with the Washington State Auditors early identification and reaction to adverse Financial situations is often uncomfortable
092then what's special about the district and would be an incentive to becoming a board member in music and arts and in Career and techn Technical education wachi has programs of regional even National Renown Mariachi and Jazz both have Festival weeks in which professionals come to give workshops to our students a year ago a creative economy that's in inverted Commerce C delegation of high-powered private and public sector officials from the Republic of kirgan came to wachi Valley to learn about tech development they were blown away by their half day at the high school and the skills center especially by the entrepreneurship they saw in the students and their programs the diversity and range of opportunities for young people is powerful the aid program advancement via individual determination is extraordinary Advanced highcap and college level courses the
093amazing culture character and achievements coming from Westside Alternative High School field science programs for younger children and onwards then there are weaknesses to be tackled aged infrastructure in the buildings is one two committees have been formed to address long-term needs the facilities committee and the restructuring committee members come from the public and private sectors families and students the facilities committee includes two board directors I give a shout out to one very special partner the Chalan County Pug's huge impact in backing the conversion of old infrastructure to energy inefficiency to in Energy Efficiency at the same time sponsoring an awesome GTE student intern project my personal hope is that we will move forward to recommending a capital Levy to fund the most critical needs I think a person can be proud to serve a vibrant educ
094institution that reaches for excellence thanks for letting me speak I hope this encourages people who want to be a board director to step forward thank you thank you Martin um I don't have anything to for board communication so this meeting will be adjourned all right