Wenatchee School District Board Meeting 1-23-24

001it's 6 pm I'll call this uh January 23rd 2024 regular meeting of the wachi school district school board to order uh we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance uned States na indivisible liy andice thank we will now work through the con present agenda or work through the agenda are there any proposed changes or modifications to the agenda yes I would like to request an agenda change to allow the special presentations that are slated under Section Five uh to be pushed to the February 13th board meeting and this will allow us to focus our attention on the staff and the community here motion to approve the agenda change I move to approve that agenda change I second all in favor um we will now uh um work on the consent agenda um the consent agenda was

002sent to the board and posted online last week the board has had the opportunity to review the materials and individually ask the superintendent any questions on any item on the agenda the consent consent agenda includes the minutes from the January 9th 2023 regular 20 2024 regular board meeting vouchers and payroll Personnel reports Surplus reports contracts field trips and the January 2023 2024 enrollment report do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I approve the agenda I second it's been moved and seconded uh any discussion all in favor I I motion carries um we will now we're reorganizing a little bit and we will now have the budget update presented by the superintendent excellent thank you and we should have a slideshow presentation up here on the screen and uh good evening everyone uh

003thank you for your attendance tonight we have a a large group with us this evening um to share their voice and their concern and uh we'll start off the uh presentation tonight I'm going to share some inform information with the board and our community um this is the time of the year when we share our overall projections and our plans for uh reductions for the 2425 school year um we are on a little bit of an accelerated time frame as you'll see from the presentation today that the numbers are very high and the reduction plan is impactful to say the very least uh so the way that we want to look at oh I can thank you um so the way that we want to look at uh the budget presentation is really in two

004pieces um the first part here that you see is um is the factor one and this involves uh the Standalone factor in time that happened in June of 2022 and we're looking at that as the the budget error of 2022 uh when we completed many hires for the next year and we were solidifying the budget this was also a time that many of you who were in our system will remember that superintendent Gordon was was leaving our system and superintendent Eagle was coming into that our system we realized that there was an accounting error that resulted in a $9 million budgeting error uh we have worked hard to address uh that budgeting error this year um and we will have to address the rest of those needs in coming years the second factor is our

005annual ongoing uh impacts to our budget which I'll explain on the next slid show the next slide so you've many of you have seen these factors many times um these are annual factors that separate our revenues and our expenditures and these are factors that we have shared with the staff but I do not believe that there was always a clear understanding that these issues impact us each and every year and continue to impact our system as long as our enrollment continues to decline um so we truly have a compound compounding issue here and so when we go through each of these uh pieces we we see here that our revenue is on a declining Trend we know that we'll show a graph that will illustrate that a little bit later we also know that our

006regionalization dollars are decreasing and this is part of the state salary funding formula um that uh helps level the playing field between property rich and property poor school districts um we also know that we still have federal eser dollars in our system that will end this year to the tune of $2.8 million uh in addition to our Revenue factors which are decreasing um we know that we have l oh sorry I am moving away from the microphone um we know that we have the Lea State funding uh which we receive in L of a high local Levy this funding is based off enrollment and property values and we have received less funding due to a decrease in enrollment increase and an increase in property values um and then the other side of the equation are

007our expenditures and we know that we have uh the expenditures are going up um and this was exacerbated by uh increasing Staffing levels during the 2122 school year through the 2223 school year um other factors uh that increase our expenditures are um the increase in uh stock Staffing costs that are um aligned to our salaries and our benefits as well through things like insurance and the uh implicit price deflator um and other factors as well and we also know that uh in inflation just overall costs of doing business that MSO is a materials supplies and operating costs through the district have also impact our expenditures and this is a slide that many of you have seen uh in the past as well and this really outlines our enrollment history and our projections and as you

008can see from the slide um we have seen a a decrease in our student uh population uh 900 students in the last eight years um and 185 students this year alone the chart um is expected uh to continue you can see that um I don't know if my clicker works here but you can see our uh 2023 24 school year number is 6,739 that's our actual number um and we had budgeted uh originally for 6,800 students and we came in a little shy of that um but that's the you can see the difference but between 22 and 23 um and 23 and 24 that we had that 185 student difference and so the the number in red for 24 and 25 is a projection of what next year's enrollment might look like one of the

009things that we know in our Valley uh and in our community is there are a lot of options for our families to have their students get their education and they're not all choosing public education as we know we also know that there are some increases uh um to options next year um in a variety of ways we know our charter school will be adding another grade level uh we also know that uh St Joe's will be adding a middle school section um and we might have some other private schools uh that pop up as well so here's another slide that you can see with our enrollment Trends uh together with our staffing Trends and this I really can't stress enough the alignment of our staffing to enrollment is very critical in the work that we're

010doing um even if we didn't have budget concerns from 2022 we would need to dramatically change how we do business to match enrollment um and we know our students and families as I mentioned previously they have more options um than ever before uh for their children to attend uh School other than public uh public school and then the Box uh the box over there really um shows uh the en or sorry the Staffing for 2223 we have that specifically pointed out because our plan uh for 2223 before the budgeting error was realized was to have two 200 sorry 942 staff members that school year um so upon discovery of that $9 million error we had to take immediate action to reduce Staffing um we were able to reduce that Staffing amount from 942 to the

01197 that you see there the other years are still in red because we have not completed those school years and so we we'll see what our staffing ends up uh toward the end of the year and I think this is just a slide to talk about the challenges um the magnitude of our budget uh challenges are large and will require big changes to our system and that's the importance of getting this information out um and this work obviously education is a business of people and this impacts people our staff our students and our community in big ways um and it just leads to the challenges of of the work that is required for uh budgets um projections are challenging our annual budget impedes our ability to recover and we need to make sure that we're

012getting ahead of that as a district whether that's inflation whether that is uh working to align our resources to recover from declining enrollment or whether it's this year's problem is decreasing some of the covid funds that uh we have in our system still the other part is the enroll rment decline is starting in our K5 world and it will eventually move into our seven our sorry our Middle School world and then our high school world as well so it's hard to equitably um adjust to that but what we need to do as a system is we need to align our staffing to our enrollment so that we can be nimble and make those changes when the students move up through our system and get to the this next grade levels this is a slide that

013came from our how to understand a school district budgets video what's that oh I'm sorry so this is a slide that came from our how to understand School budgets uh uh video as well but it's very important here at this piece and so it really uh outlines that the district has uh five distinct self-balancing fund accounts and it helps us understand which account we're focusing on in the work work of uh reducing our budget and so you can see here we have a general fund and that had that's our operating budget that's what most people think of when we think of the district's budget um and that operating budget which guides our day-to-day operations the capital fund project covers our long-term School construction and repair needs and cannot be spent on school operations and this

014is an interesting place to to stop for a second because um some of the questions that have come up around properties that the district has um why aren't we selling some properties um so that we can help maintain um some of our staffing and uh with with the sale of those properties um the dollars go into that capital projects fund which cannot be used for operating uh day-to-day operations um so that is not a fix for us as a school district also selling property is that one-time fix and doesn't fix the problem that of matching our enrollment to our staffing our staffing to enrollment sorry said that backwards and then we have The Debt Service fund which is that fund that manages the principle and interest of our bonds issued to finance School construction and

015renovation then we have the transportation vehicle fund which is used to buy school buses and so next year we are slated to buy a new school bus because it comes out of this fund and not our general fund which is where we are having some budget reductions and alignments then finally we have our Associated student body or our as be fund um which helps students with extracurricular activities um and a variety of uh other items so this is the general the general fund in itself we call this the people fund um and this is the fund that is used for our staffing in a variety of areas and we know that our staffing equates to 80 to 85% of the general fund and that's why I refer to that as the people fund and that

016is where we are trying to make those alignments happen so this is the slide um that really illustrates where we are with our budget and where we are with the uh in the reduction process and I also want to just say that this is we've said this many times um you know we are we're early in the budget season and this is us being transparent with those numbers um because of the magnitude of the work that's in front of us um and so we'll take a look at that that we know that the preliminary budget reduction target range is between eight and N million for the 2425 school year oops and this this helps us kind of understand uh the differences there so I'll kind of walk you through um what we have here we

017have our difference our range between our revenues and expenditures so we have our revenues coming in at 120 million for the 2425 school year and estimated expenditures at 133 million which shows uh us a variance of $13 million as we know that that is a number that is be very hard to attain in one year we also have some mitigating factors that take that number down to a more reasonable target range although I would say 8.6 million is not necessarily reasonable or attainable um without big things um and so one of the one of the factors there is that when we create a budget the budget is created for 100% Staffing and we usually don't run at 100% Staffing throughout our school year uh whether that's attrition or retirements resignations or whatever might happen along

018that school year so we've taken 1.5 million out for that and then we have the dollars that the school board set aside uh for us as a district to use to offset budget reductions um that comes in at the number of $2.9 million um the idea is that uh we would use those funds next year to offset the magnitude of these budget reductions um and that gets us down to our target range of 8.6 billion Cory can I have a quick question sure that's estimated revenues are with our current uh um student count or is that with the projected count projected yeah good question thank you and so the next the next part of the slide uh really accounts for that variance breakdown what all is wrapped up into those um and so you can

019see that we have the this year or actually sorry next year's projected enrollment decline um State local effort assistance our State regionalization dollars um inflation with Staffing and benefits and then our Esser Carriage dollars that are still in our system that are 100% uh related to Staffing and then the number six factor is that uh School Board carryover funding that has will allow us to offset uh the $13 million there so next what is the plan what is the plan for the systemwide budget reductions um and we're looking at this slide as change change at each level will generate significant amounts of savings and begin to align enrollment with Staffing or Staffing with enrollment um and looking at this uh these three buckets um uh we are looking at at least a five million uh

020savings annually and one of the things that I want to stress here is the idea that these savings are annual uh and they are helping us become more Nimble as a system to be adjust Ed for our staffing to equate to our enrollment so as I mentioned when our second third and fourth graders make their way into the middle school at six seven and eighth graders our middle schools are going to look dramatically different as a population and as a system also when those second and third graders make it to 9 10 and 11 um our high school will look dramatically different with regard to its population and so these pieces um will help us be ready for those adjustments when they come so let's see here uh additional budget reductions and adjustments um as

021we have here as long as we as long as enrollment continues to decline we will need to continue to do the following and over the next two years we have this slated as well but continue to adjust our staffing model as I say over and over again um align our enrollment to our staffing our staffing to enrollment evaluate and and when we look at the Staffing model that's mostly teachers or uh staff in our building and we also need to look at uh our additional Staffing reductions districtwide as well we'll need to look at restructuring departments for productivity and efficiency uh we could potentially be looking at reducing some programs as well along with this work uh programs meaning like uh Athletics um in those in those areas um and then uh District level materials

022uh which are are materials supplies and operating costs as well looking at everything throughout our system over the next two years in this multi-year budget reduction process so taking each um each each uh each factor here um the high school schedule as our declining enrollment makes its way into high school as I mentioned we'll need to have a system that is responsive to that enrollment decline uh this will set us up to be able to be responsive in the future so um by moving to a six period uh schedule the district can save uh at least $800,000 annually um and through that process we would revert back to a six period day instead of the 4x4 block um we're currently working with high school leadership on making that shift and then converting to a six

023period schedule will allow the district to make those necessary Staffing reductions and the idea here is that reductions or sorry enrollment decline will be uh hitting it will be hitting the high school every year moving forward and so next year the population at high school will be less the year after will be less and less and less and so we'll be able to be responsive to that uh the idea on uh middle schools here with a common Middle School uh schedule the district will be able to save at least $1.5 million annually um and this the process has been over the last several months when anti School District they've worked closely with the middle schools to devel to develop a common schedule um that new schedule will allow for some necessary Staffing reductions and flexibility

024in the future um and the latest budget information that we have gotten increases our need to maximize Staffing at all levels um and there'll be more information on the proposed schedules that will be sharing in the coming days just as information that new Middle School schedule though uh will not change the start or end times of school which is good um and then uh the elementary consolidation why why the elementary consolidation is necessary here um through this consolidation the district can save at least $3 million annually um although oops although the decision is hard um and one that the district has worked to avoid um for significant uh to explore other avenues for significant reductions um we do know that enroll we do know that enrollment is down and projections indicate that de declining enrollment

025will only get worse unfortunately um working to keep seven under resource schools open spreads our resources very [Music] thin and it is not economically responsible to keep quarter empty buildings in use um 43 empty classrooms in our in our system throughout the K5 tk5 uh world um consolidating from seven to six build buildings would increase our efficient use of categorical support special education Transportation teaching staff nutrition services and M um ensuring that our most vulnerable and high need students can continue to receive Services um consolidation also allows for a stronger Financial stability for our schools and our students in the future we'll also be able to allow for some Material supplies and operating cost savings and consolidation puts our teaching staff more in line with enrollment now and in the future some of the considerations

026uh throughout this process um this is who we serve these are our students um through our elementary program we have students that are high poverty um 60 almost 68% of our elementary students are in poverty um the the highest rate is at Mission view at this point we know that Hispanic Latino students um 56% of our elementary students are Hispanic and Latino um the highest number of uh of concentration there is at Lincoln Elementary um and our English language Learners we have 31 uh almost well 31 and a half percent there and our migrant Learners are at 133% so consolidation would allow us to continue to serve the unique learning uh and social emotional leads of our students in our six schools um wian School District does have uh what we consider a guaranteed and

027viable curriculum in all elementary schools to support transitions from one school to the next this is just a table a table breakdown of our elementary schools I'll have you just kind of take a look at the different columns here you can see that First Column illustrates our students uh that come from a low-income background whereas the second column there has our Hispanic Latino then the other column there has our current headcounts in each of our buildings classroom teachers number of classroom spaces in the school and then average student classroom uh per teacher oh yeah sorry average students per classroom teacher you're not able to see that so why Columbia was selected for consolidation we have a lot of Columbia staff members here today that are ready to share their concerns and their voice um Columbia

028we obviously know is a very uh caring School Community they know their staff they sorry they know their Learners and they have moved the needle academically for their students um the selection of Colombia is not a reflection on the school nor its successes these are some the factors here um there's been a large decline in student enrollment um we have a list there that goes back with our graph from 1516 and then more recent uh decline uh currently there are nine classrooms not being used for grade level courses um a lack of projected growth in the boundary low birth rates which kind of plague our entire uh area and then a central location um of a neighborhood serve that allows uh transportation of students to other locations um there's small overall the small overall School

029enrollment allows for absorption in nearby schools and open classrooms and spaces that are existing currently and Columbia is the second smallest school by 11 students about a headcount here is here is just a geographical representation for those of us that need a little visual of of the Columbia boundary there in conjunction with uh the other uh the other boundaries for the other schools as well so then what's next which there's a lot that is next um obviously we need to begin communication informing parents about the consolidation and what will happen in the and that will happen the next week uh working to build an FAQ for our stakeholders and our community on how this process will work um February 13th our next board meeting will begin the required 90day period for the RCW um and

030then a public hearing will be held during the 90day period and the board will be expected to take action um after the 90day period at their regular board meeting um May 14 2024 so those are the next steps for our board as always you can view our detailed information regarding the budget via our website um or you can use the QR code on the screen I know that's a lot of information and a lot of sitting everyone has done a fantastic job I appreciate that um and I know our board members will have some comments um and maybe some questions uh that I can bring back to them in a future meeting as well so I will turn it back over to Julie thank you um before I ask for additional questions I just want

031to make sure the community is clear this is the first meeting that the board has had to actually as a full board uh discuss or address any of these budget challenges so this is not necessarily the preferred or desired way we would have liked to uh be presenting this at the first goor round but these are the circumstances we're under and we are committed to working together to figure these challenges out but I want to make it clear that the board has not previously discussed these or and not taken any action on these not to create any sense of false hope but so you know that we are coming up to speed on this as well so with that being said I have any questions from for Dr kahar from the board maybe what I

032want to say is I want to thank Dr Dr Kar giving for what for me was multiple reasons for addressing the situation and looking at a fair and reasonable way to try and resolve it I think it's also important to note as as uh president Julie said I'll get closer sorry um that this is um the beginning of a process with I'll get even closer all right um what I just want to say is a school is a living being and we know that and I really appreciate everybody being here um but at the same time the district Works within money that it's granted by state and federal government and local taxpayers and has to achieve the maximum that they can for all students and the education within the district as a whole uh I

033think this is the intent is always to do the best job we possibly can um I don't want to prejudge anything for me this was a very um much a comprehensive overview I would like to absorb it go through the next stages as has been stated and prepare for the following stages um of this debate but I do I'm glad that we had this level of briefing thank you out of the 43 empty classrooms K tk35 is there are they spread out I mean because I'm I'm thinking Sunny Slope has a smaller building are we seeing empty classrooms across all seven schools Sunny Slope may be the school that we don't have very many empty classrooms but uh we do have empty classrooms in the rest of our buildings and to diff different varying levels

034and does are those classrooms part of the Portables or does it exclude Portables uh it it can vary some some might be in the Portables but a lot of them are in the regular building as well yeah it varies thank you that was a little bit eye openening me I I had never seen that number well and and to be to be fair the classrooms are not just empty and vacant there are intervention classes taking place there might be um some social and emotional regulation taking classrooms and there might be some case managers that are taking those spaces too so but originally they were created to be instructional classrooms environments correct yeah has the analysis been done about whether redistricting all schools is a viable option versus consolidating one to just operate the six yeah

035we are currently working with Davis demographics right now as you saw saw the contract a couple weeks ago that uh they're doing some of the boundary work for us and looking at the boundary line adjustments when do we anticipate getting that data early well late late February or early March there are two parts to this there's one is making a plan which we have had an outline of today the second part of it is implementing whatever plan is finally approved and this is a short time frame questions like when we get the Davis study and time to look at the districts taking care of reassignments of family needs for Transportation uh taking care of making sure that programs in all the schools are maintained making sure that we maximize the projected benefits from the actions

036to make the district um have a more efficient structure uh this is equally as important as specifically deciding what a consolidation plan is and I only want to stress that um that it is our duty to encourage and support all actions to make that implementation part of it vitally successful because that that is the heart of what will ultimately make any benefits that are projected happen for real thank you Martin and as we move forward um because it's not just Elementary um that were that that will be impacted but we're also talking middle school and high school um I'm requesting that we have full transparency as to every step um for the board for our parents for our staff um our constituents um I think that's going to be key in whatever in every single

037step and whatever Direction the district um the board um will present in regarding the high school and the middle school schedules we heard a timeline for the Elementary is there a timeline for those two schedules yeah their new schedules will be implemented at the beginning of the 2425 school year is that something that requires a vote by the board not NE no okay but we will get a presentation of what that's going to look like we going forward right absolutely okay yeah I want to stress that the other the schedule in the middle school has been well briefed the changes at the high school uh that is a new piece of information and I initially going to ask which year are you planning for it until you said 2425 so that gets on to implementation

038um we have a short timetable um I think uh we need to be agile on that and at the same time being open I think one of the things is opening up early before you've quite got everything in place is can be an issue opening up late so people don't have to react or rushing a program all of these are things that um are really important and our aspects of the implementation thank you so this has been a fairly high level overview of initial or preliminary proposed changes is there going to be an opportunity for you to maybe have a workshop with the board to to drill down in more detail what has actually been considered um part of the transparency I think is is making sure we've had the opportunity to vet whether all

039the questions have been asked and answered and whether these are the options and what alternatives there may be and I think that's been really successful in a workshop format if there's an opportune time in the near future that we could devot time to do that sorry um no perfect Julie um our February board Workshop is scheduled to be that yep is there a possibility for it to to be scheduled at a more um at a better time where teacher staff working parents can attend sure I just think again it goes we need to be serving our community and we do have I think most of us work and so I think it's important that um we have it during off work hours it's a great idea yeah I I think to Echo that these are

040probably some of the most significant changes that we've seen in the four to six years that we some of us have been on this board and so I think given the impacts to our community to our families to our staff that it's important that that we maximize their opportunity to listen here whether it's full-on participation or not that they trust that we've asked all the questions that we possibly can excellent yes so if there are no other questions questions we will get to the part of the meeting that we know most of you are here for and that is the citizen comments um if any member of the public would like to make a citizen comment please sign up online 15 minutes before the meeting or in person uh paper forms are available at the

041entrance to the meeting room and can be completed and given to the board secretary Kim white who tonight is in the back of the room um each comment is limited to three minutes and Miss White will keep a timer that will notify you when your time expires if you need translation services from Spanish to English Miss Mrs P PLO is here to assist um she's right back there um we also have Mr Lopez doing some work with the headsets as well um due to the number of people signed up to make a public comment this evening the board would like to request that if the theme of your public has already your comment has already been expressed before your opportunity to speak that you keep your comments as short as possible to allow everyone who

042wishes to participate the opportunity to do so in a timely fashion please also be aware that the board is not obligated to respond to questions or challenges made during public comment and the board silence will not necessarily signal agreement or endorsement with the speaker's remarks many of you are here uh many of you are here regarding the potential consolidation of our elementary schools please be advised as Dr caher reported that the district will hold one or more public hearings during a 90-day period per RCW 28a 33 33520 and board policy number 6883 which will also allow for testimony from the public on any school closures before final decision is made a written analysis will also be prepared by District staff with a plan to present that analysis to the board during the February 13 regular

043board meeting a final decision is anticipate anticipated to be made by the board's regular meeting on May 14th 2024 we do appreciate you being here tonight and we'd like to remind you that all public comments should adhere to standards of Civility uh that the board imposes on itself and the board will exercise its authority to maintain order over the content neutral manner this evening so with that being said um Kim do we have H public comments yeah we have a few I thought we would go with our online uh commenters um we had two people sign up the first is Kayla Grove Hinkle and I'm we didn't see her online earlier so I don't know if she has signed in yet no okay so then we can move on to uh Dorothy Ferguson Dorothy whenever

044you're ready the floor is yours you have three minutes hello there we go we can hear you hello okay sorry I'm the older Generation Um thank you I'm a grandmother of Dorothy Ferguson I live UNC conquered place I'm a grandmother of children who um attend matci school district um I've attended every board meeting since September 2023 because I really wanted to stay in touch with what was going on in our schools and I know we're all here because our children's education and Welfare is our top priority but on Friday afternoon I happened to look at Reddit and someone posted that the wachi school district um had just um announced that they were going to close Columbia Elementary School and my reaction was this can't be true I attend all the Schoolboard meetings and this was

045never mentioned as a as a possibility um so I lost a little bit of trust in the in the school district uh board and the District administration for following their strategic plan but since Friday I learned that we're in a financial crisis um and we have to solve a big problem um I also learned that the major decision to close an elementary school was made without input from parents and more Community stakeholders this impacts some of our most vulnerable students and families and how this decision was made is not in accordance with the district's strategic plan the big six their road map a bold commitment and their promise to students and parents number two of the big six students know they belong that they're seen valued and heard and I think parents too of elementary

046school students need that also I recognize that this decision was made to solve a huge financial crisis unfortunately parents and community members did not have an opportunity to give their input before the decision was made I don't have a solution to the budget crisis but I have ideas I think everyone in this room has ideas as for possible solutions and and other people in the community we have some of the best Minds hearts and souls in this room in the district and in our community and I respectfully request that the wachi school district keep their commitment to students and parents and allow them to participate in solving this problem and not just to give input after the fact and full steam ahead with the plan so I have faith in everybody here I know there's

047no bad guys in this room everybody here their top priority are the children and I think when we Face a crisis like this we have to use our road map that we set up and and um stick with that and we'll probably have the best outcome possible for everybody thank you thank you Dorothy good luck okay our next uh our next few um requesters had requested a translation and I'm assuming that is Spanish to English translation so the first person I had was uh Tamara Honeycut in person Tamara Honeycut okay uh with the same request was Elizabeth kazimba that's that's happening on automatically okay good evening Dr kalahar and wanci School Board I'm Elizabeth kazemba I'm speaking tonight as an alumni of wachi schools a teacher in the wachi school district and a parent one

048son attends wachi High School the other son attends Columbia Elementary I attended Columbia and Lincoln Elementary Pioneer Middle School and I graduated from wachi high school I have taught at Columbia Elementary since 2017 and honestly I cannot imagine teaching anywhere else my teaching career began in special education with my first two years spent teaching a learning center and then my next two years teaching um the resource room at Columbia Elementary I started teaching fourth grade in the fall of 2021 and I have never looked back fourth grade and especially fourth grade at Columbia is my home I want you to hear from the ones that are going to feel the impact of this the most my true reason for showing up and doing what I do every day my kids are flooded with emotions and

049they want to be heard I told them I could ask their questions to you um I know we won't hear answers tonight but I just want them to know that they're being heard 10 out of the 26 kids in my class said they do not want to have to be the new kid again 10 students out of 26 have that life experience already one student said of all the schools I've been in Colombia was the one I really thought I could stay in and eight other students agreed with her another student wrote I feel disappointed because I have gone to five different schools and this one is the best I don't want to be the new kid again and I hope I will still have friends she has attended five different schools already and she

050is only in fourth grade do you really think that moving her is in her best interest another student wrote I feel sad and mad I don't know what school I'm going to go to I don't want to be the new kid and I don't want to move because what if my friends don't go there and what if I don't make new friends they have so many questions and I like I said I promised I would ask you I would make sure you heard what they were wondering every single one of them asks why Colombia they also want to know what if the new school I get sent to gets shut down too it's really hard to start over so why do I have to again can this school just not shut down who are the

051people will shut it down will Colombia ever open back up how early will I have to get up to go to my new school or catch a bus and what if I miss my bus how will I get to school why is there no money for our school why is this happening is there a way we can help Colombia not be shut down and the big one that is floating around amongst the kids is what kind of fundraiser can we put together to save our school and last or not last but is there really a school that they think is better than Colombia I wanted to share two thoughts that my students shared with me you're out of time if you can just wrap it up like one more thought I'm gonna let one young

052lady share with you later but this last one my student Maya said I feel sad it's just like a chapter book there's this one chapter that I love and that's this school and I thought I could stay here until the end of fifth grade and then go on to my next chapter and now I have to be a new kid all over again and not many people like being the new kid and that is theend okay I'm gonna announce the next two names so that you can be ready when it's your time um Judy debuk and after that will be bonao Mareno and again I think oh that's happening then down a little bit I'm Judy debuk and I am a grandma first of all but I have a a two grandsons in the wachi

053public schools one in Colombia Elementary and I'm very proud of them I have lived in this Valley for 40 years and had been involved in all kinds of things I'm a retired social worker God help us but part of my time was also as a school social worker so the very first thing that struck me about this was it was a done deal I was shocked I mean I don't know if I've gotten through my shock yet who made this decision and how was this decision made why Colombia why not get parents and alumni and you know everyone in the community this is a community in the community to speak and give their voice to this like she said and that was the first woman that spoke there are a lot of Brave and good

054Minds in this room and I think that we can come to a better decision and out come for our community and I think I'm I'm you know support anyone that can do that but this is a shocking done deal to me was my read and that that's just as the person reading the wachi world and reading other things uh about this and I thought how in the world was this done who who who asked who asked for support or input I'm I'm shocked I'm really shocked and I have some hope that by May 14th we'll come to a decision that's good for everyone thank you thank you [Music] um um uh good evening everybody uh my name is bonasio Moreno and I here just to ask why are you choosing to close Colombia practically my

055whole family went to that school my grandchild goes to that school and I am asking um why you did you choose Colombia why don't you just move other students from other schools to the Colombia school and why don't you choose other to other programs to be from to colia he is asking why don't you use all that money that you're using for the campaigns use it for the for the students doesn't it break your heart to see the students suffer from you closing the school so what is what you're doing is dividing the United States with these campaigns that you're making okay oh thank you that's everything thank you next up Rafael alaro okay it doesn't look like he's here um so our first uh registered uh online registration for in-person comment uh Roxanna Vanetta

056I got to find my got to find my written okay um hello my name is roxan Vanetta I'm a teacher librarian at Columbia Elementary I'm also a parent um when we think of a school we think of community classrooms dedicated teachers and students and feelings of safety and belonging school is a place our students experience connection a community who will nurture them and they as they grow and provide an education to the whole child the closure of Colombia seems to be against the big six it is imposing educational Equity barriers for the following reasons there was no Community involvement up until now impact of vulnerable inner marginalized students who historically have taken the brunt when schools are closed this closure is creating a rupture of the fabric of community as that is what Colombia is

057these families and students love their school and that is being taken away without having their voice heard first this also goes against the big six this is not make students families feel seen heard or validated the research on school closure is limited and historically they are not that common in our community with that said Colombia is in the heart of the community of wachi in the center it has stood in that same spot for 100 years I encourage stakeholders in the situation to refer to the articles on key guidelines for school closures I emailed this morning from the center on Reinventing Reinventing public education in my letter read to the school cabinet on Monday I referred to the 50th anniversary of Lao versus Nichols in which the Court ruled there is no equality of treatment

058merely providing students with the same facilities textbooks teachers and curriculum for students who do not understand understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education with this quote I refer to our multilanguage multilingual student sorry multilingual students they are dear to my heart as I'm also one how is this decision providing multilingual students a facility access to a meaningful education access to teachers that already know their background as multilanguage Learners and who have worked with them by provid providing Services interventions through their educational career at Colombia I'm going to finish with two quotes one from my son who is a second grader I won't see my friends playground or my teachers and it is the 100th year anniversary can I stay at Colombia I'm not happy closing schools is perpetuating the systemic racism that we

059know exist in the education system because once again it will affect bipo students and students who need us in ways only we can serve and provide as that is what makes us Colombia thank you okay next we actually uh do have Raphael alaro and after that we be Marcy Wright Elementary good evening my name is Rafael alaro I am the voice of my family and my son ju Carlos Alfaro who attends first grade at Columbia Elementary I understand that my time is limited so I will try to be as fast as I can I understand that the the reason you were closing Colombia is for declining um enrollment my question is why are the students that are close to Colombia or going to other schools that are even if they're closer to Colombia like the

060Border schools for street street street for example uh the um is that Med Street half of Med house Street CH street chal street Casmir Street January they go to January for me you're not administrating the the resources the way that they need to be administered so you're not administering the resources that you have so you're going to be uh enrolling students to other schools and it's going to be crowded and the other schools so the politics in this state can fail us but never the uh education system this school has been functioning for a 100 years the people before you did a good job why are you not doing a good job it's a 100 Years of history that you're are taking away from our community I have two students that graduated from Columbia school

061and I have another one that is attending and I have another one that I want to attend Columbia school and your time is up can I get you one more thought and wrap it up I have a lot to say but I don't have time thank you uh Julie and uh Dr kahar I'm going to request that we Grant four minutes to our speakers that need interpreting services to not take away from the yes so so you know I I did I did give additional time so just so you all right I am Marcy Wright TK teacher at Colombia this is my team part of it imagine if you will This Old House imagine you've saved up and you were able to purchase a 100y old house but it needs a lot of work the

062kitchen is old and infested with cockroaches the bathroom is moldy it has a rotting floor the roof is leaking and needs to be replaced and the rest of the house has cosmetic issues yet the foundation is solid and there is room to grow a team who is skilled and devoted say that with me skilled and devoted has been brought in with a shared vision and culture of how this house should be fixed up into a home we start with the roof the team works hard together to build a solid roof to keep out the cold in the weather better than any roof in the neighborhood next the kitchen is cleaned out and remodeled to be super functional in the bathroom the floors have been shored up and everything is safe [Music] again you have unused

063square footage so you decide to create bedrooms to take in your elderly parents and provide them with the care they deserve and you adopt two children with adverse childhood experiences who need a safe and loving home now it's not a house but it's a home filled with love and safety now imagine the city comes into your beautiful home that you have worked so hard to create admires it and comments on how much better it is than any house on the Block and then they says they say you you have to leave your home you have to go to Seattle your elderly parents they've got got to go to Yakama your vulnerable adopted kids they've got to go to Spokan this is how we feel about our hard work that has been done at Colombia by

064moving our skilled and devoted team away from each other and away from our kids we will not be able to replicate what we have been able to do with this solid foundation thank you next up we have Nicole Kar and then Jack Eaton oh okay okay so Nicole go ahead okay can everybody hear me awesome uh my name is Nicole Kern and I a doctor of school psychology my emphasis is on childhood trauma and um I think that we can all agree that this particular situation that we are being faced with is going to be extremely traumatic for our students and as dramatic as that sounds I stand behind my statement um this is an extremely unexpected shift for our kids and I'm going to repeat this our children are extremely vulnerable I know because

065I work with our highest needs kids on a daily basis Colombia is a safe space for our babies it is where they are always going to have consistent love connection food um things that most of our kids get but you know there might be a few that don't get that on a daily basis and that's what we do and we do it with love and we do it because it's what we want to do not because what we have to do um I did my doctoral thesis on Foster Care mental health and while this is not a foster care situation one of the things I learned in my research is that the more times a child is moved into a new situation new home New School the harder it is for them to form bonds

066with the people that are put in place to care for them we are putting all of our students at risk of having difficulties forming bonds with staff and when you think of our kids who are high needs some staff might already have a difficult time connecting how much harder is it going to be for them to connect with these kids when they've been ripped out of their school and placed in a completely new environment with new staff with new kids when they don't have to be of course our kids are going to go through fifth grade they're going to level up to middle school and then high school that's a given that's something we cannot prevent this feels preventable and I want the board and I want everybody in our community to think of ways

067to make it so our kids don't have to go through undo trauma um I'm going to go to give people time but I just want to share my daughter is a fourth grader at Colombia she has been at four different schools because unfortunately her mom when I had to get my doctorate I had to travel for my practic come and internship and she saw me work extremely hard to get my doctorate but that meant having to move Schools she's been at Columbia for 2 years years now she was going to be at a school for three years straight this was going to be a beautiful thing that's not going to happen now and she's devastated um she's also an artist so she made this rendition of our Columbia cougar crying and she also made this

068sign who's going to listen to our kids we're listening but we don't have a lot to say please listen thank you thank you thank you is Jack Eaton still in the room there he is after Jack we will have Michaela Salado can you hear me can you hear me too well my name is Jack Eaton I live at 12161 Street I don't have children in the wachi schools I do have a grandchild but she's in Virginia in school um two weeks ago on your agenda you had a contract for school resource officers and I was out of town I asked the superintendent to take it off the agenda and he declined I asked each of you to table it you declined I have a lot of concerns about this contract uh the superintendent and I

069think seven or eight others of us spent two hours in this very room on August 10th going over it line by line and we had lots of suggestions for improvements virtually none of them made it into the new contract after six months of refie by staff I'll highlight only my greatest concern but I'm hoping you'll look at the whole thing okay you did approve the contract on the 9th of January unanimously and without discussion in section six of the new contract in the old contract I believe entitled officer responsibilities paragraph 6.14 reads as follows teachers and school administrators May and I emphasize may ask an officer to intervene if a student's presence poses an immediate and continuing danger to others or an immediate and continuing threat of material and substantial disruption of the educational process

070or in other emergency circumstances teachers and school administrators may ask an officer under those circumstances I'm horrified every one of you had this to read in advance every one of you should have raised a red flag the teachers and school administrators must you all know what the dangers are to be respectful of the children in the room I'm not going to go into graphic detail but if you think of Uvaldi Texas Oxford Michigan Parkland Florida Newport News Virginia Sandy Hook Connecticut and last month University of Las Vegas University of Nevada Las Vegas where the perpetrator was a 68-year-old wannabe professor it isn't just students it's any Intruder any aggressor it's not just students it's any Intruder any aggressor included in the contract language and by the way I had this all written out but it

071took more than three minutes and I asked for a little Indulgence here because I'm going off script I have provided the script to uh this the board secretary uh included in the contract language regarding officer responsibilities is paragraph 6.17 which reads as follows and this is also from the former contract follow all state and federal laws and all policies of the wachi police department and the district including District policy and procedure 4311 so I looked up 4311 okay it's in section 4,000 of your policies it's it is entitled community relations School Safety and Security Services Program the request for interv intervention paragraph reads as follows might sound familiar Mr your time is up if you don't want to hear this I'll leave if you could please uh either share it at the next meeting or

072uh if you want to share the script that you gave the sh script but if you don't want to hear it you didn't want to hear it two weeks ago you don't want to hear it now I'm I'm greatly distressed by the optional opportunity for teachers to report serious Mayhem and you voted to allow it to occur without notice so if you want to talk about it if you want to talk about it in detail call me if you don't I'll get the message who's next thank you Mela Salado after that we will have Joseline flinton hello my name is Mika Salado I am a kindergarten teacher at Colombia this is how I'm going to start out I don't want to leave my school I don't want to leave my friends will I still see

073my friends I will miss my friends I don't want to leave you I'm going to miss you and the other teachers I love this school and I don't want to leave why does the school have to close can we raise money to keep the school open these are only a few things I had students ask and say to me after hearing the heartbreaking news that Columbia will be closing I have no answers to their questions as I haven't been provided with any myself how does Closing one of the most vulnerable schools follow your promise as States we promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges Future Ready it doesn't there is nothing diverse inclusive or Equitable about this decision I'll end with two things I'll end with one

074quote listening to an underserved population is how you begin to understand and serve them better and one last thing that my students keep telling me every single day Mado we're sticky we're not leaving you and at the end of the day will we see you tomorrow but when the last day comes I won't be able to say yes you'll see me tomorrow cuz I don't know thank you hi my name is Jocelyn flinton I've been teaching at Columbia Elementary for 26 years there are three or four other teachers who have been there longer than me and we're there for a reason but what I want to point out to you tonight and hope that you can hear we're not talking about ourselves we're not talking about you can't move me leave me at Colombia we're

075not asking for anything for ourselves we're asking you to hear about the needs of our students and the fact that colia we're kind of a unicorn we're the place where those kids can learn and grow and care and share in the best possible way and if you want to send us more we'll take them thank you uh next is Amy spe and then Janelle BL L me good evening uh my name is Amy spez I grew up in the wachi school district I have taught for 12 years at Orchard Middle School in various roles and I currently have two children that attend school within our district uh I'm speaking tonight in regards to the adjustment of the middle school schedules and to provide some of the transparency that you guys have requested here tonight at

076the beginning of early stages um of this process staff were given an article by Dr kalahar that highlighted the practices and scheduling for adolescent development and learning this article gave us hope that while no one wanted a change at least this was being done with what's best for students in mind unfortunately the current current schedule options proposed are in direct opposition to that research and Will D drastically decrease if not eliminate our ability to fulfill the promises that you have made to our students and families by this District you have promised that our students within our care will feel a sense of belonging in in connectedness to our schools the teachers in our schools work daily to build relationships and Foster an environment that is emotionally safe for students we work in teams to identify

077when students are struggling we set up student teacher and family meetings to discuss how we can support every student in a way that is personalized to their current need we Implement Counseling Services we give clothing food and hygiene supplies to students in need we offer group sessions to learn new skills so students can access learning and feel successful we meet with family to set up Partnerships to hold kids accountable and support them when they are struggling the schedules being proposed eliminate the current structure that we use that allow teachers to identify and intervene on these needs it also doubles the number of students each teacher sees throughout the day the volume of students alone will make it nearly impossible to continue to build relationships with students and support them at the same level we are

078currently doing it is gut-wrenching to think of what we will miss and be unable to ID identify in our students lives because we don't have the capacity to support their needs like we currently do you have promised our students will be on will read on grade level and be algebra ready at Orchard we currently have 80-minute class periods with the new options given to us we will be losing roughly 88 minutes per week of instruction throughout the year that's roughly 53 hours of math and Ela instruction being lost with this loss of time the current math and reading intervention programs that we use to help fill the gaps for our students who are furthest behind are no longer viable options during the class period this means that any interiew ion now becomes homework many of

079our struggling students do not have the ability or the resources to do homework they have no Wi-fi they have no adult at home who is able to help them they are sharing a room with multiple family members they are in charge of their siblings late into the night yes these are all real scenarios from students currently in our classrooms you are now widening the access gap for our most vulnerable students you have promised that students will be involved in real world and relevant learning Monday mindsets financial literacy budgeting seal work cooking interview intervie skills these are all just some of the extras that we do to ensure that our students are getting real world learning experiences with the DraStic reduction in class time these opportunities are gone we will teach the bare minimum because that

080is all there is time for the very subjects that hook kids into school and keep them looking forward to coming to class are being taken away we are fully aware that cuts have to be made however in regards to the current scheduling conversation at the middle level there are several other viable schedule options that meet both of financial needs and allow our schools to continue to do what is best for kids I want to repeat there are other viable scheduling options that meet financial needs and allow for our schools to continue to do what's best for kids we ask that you guys give those options a chance thank you thank you hi my name is Janelle Blake me and I am a teacher at Orchard Middle School I am a product of the wachi school

081system I went to Columbia the Old Brick Columbia I have five children who have gone through wachi school district two of them are currently Juniors at the high school so I want to tell you about Orchard at Orchard we have worked hard to put in place systems that help us know all of our kids our plc's focus on supporting students with academic social emotional well-being and the overall world of Middle School in a survey giving to our Middle School teachers 98 of them said PC time was the number one priority to keep when choosing a new schedule it was taken away here are just a few things that we do during our PLC time Mondays and Fridays are grade level team days this is when all teachers from the same grade level come together to

082build consistency amongst the team a lot of this team a lot of this time is spent on important School business such as planning and organizing student-led conferences State Testing reviewing notes from our learning and teaching t team and offering feedback planning with CTE to organize field trips writing positive notes home our specialist teachers organize amazing activities for our students and meet with our multilingual students during this time some activities include Christmas cookie decorating om basketball Force sare bowling in volleyball tournaments the annual Turkey Trot and Candy Cane Lane these are fundamental pieces our school culture and it helps students feel connected and build healthy relationships with staff and peers Tuesdays and Thursdays are dedicated to content we want our students to experience high quality instruction so teachers collaborate during PLC time with each other to

083effectively Implement our guaranteed and viable curriculum on these days you will see teachers looking at lesson plans assignments and standards they will look at student data and identify kids who need intervention or enrichment the district has asked teachers to input data for common formative assessments into spreadsheets and teachers use this time to do that as well but probably the most important component of this time is The Amazing lessons that are that are built our seventh grade math team plans and implements Monday mindset this is a day where math students start with a positive message for the week set goals and work on learning new math academic vocabulary that will be utilized in class the teachers co- te and combine for this activity and Implement glad strategies that targets our multilingual students students love Monday mindsets

084because they get to hear stories from their teachers about character and strength and they get to set goals for themselves that week while working alongside their peers if our big six commitment is real then we strongly feel we need to take a step back and look more closely at our options for the Middle School School scheduling losing PLC time will impact our students greatly and we invite our board to come and watch how we utilize this time and we hope you hear what we're saying encourage we encourage you to put students needs first thank you next up Katie pnode and then Tracy sleeper hi I'm Katie patod and I teach 8th grade uh at Orchard middle school and I have two elementary students very eager to come up to Orchard um our PLC time continues

085with Wednesdays being dedicated to SST our student study team at these meetings we plan for referrals to special education and collect necessary data we also develop and Implement 504 plans besides IEPs and 504s our SST teams center around students who may need extra support and yet don't qualify for these Services here is an example at an eth grade SST meeting last week a math teacher brought up a student who is not making adequate progress or connecting with peers or adults we looked at his past SBA and I ready scores gathered input from teachers and plan to meet with him the next morning three teachers met with the student Thursday morning developed a plan to swap his Ela and math periods and pinpointed students we could seat him by and invite to have lunch with him

086and a teacher to help him build friendships by the end of the day this student who rarely responds with more than one inaudible word spent 15 minutes in a meaningful conversation with his mentor teacher he felt seen and cared about and as one of these teachers I felt that my work impacted the life of a student these schedules are gutting our intervention and support systems in doing so we are guaranteeing that we fail the promises you made to the community when teachers at the three middle schools were surveyed 62% of them voted that having a separate dedicated period for intervention was important to them since this survey was given and the cabinet reviewed the data the schedule that allowed for a separate intervention period was taken away as one of the choices due to teachers

087not having PLC time therefore not having time to collaborate to create the intervention groups in curriculum for those classes all of our big six commitments thread through PLC time content teams are dedicated to highquality instruction and support students in being algebra ready SST teams are dedicated to helping students feel seen valued and heard grade level and specialist teams work together to create activities and field trips that have real world relevant learning experiences and build relationships among students so tonight our OMS teachers plead with the board that we approach the middle school schedule with kids in mind with our big six in mind that we see the value in our PLC teams and we prioritize this can our district be more open to new scheduling ideas while still addressing the budget crisis we are facing thank

088you thank you good evening my name is Tracy sleeper I am a wachi school district employee Orchard middle school and I've been with the district for 15 years we promised to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges Future Ready this is the promise you all have made to our community on our behalf as these cuts are being made please remember that equity and equality are two different things Equity does not mean doing the same thing across three different buildings in fact you would be hard pressed to find any district with three multiple middle schools that run the same schedule districtwide each of our middle schools has diverse student needs therefore the schedules being proposed erase our opportunities to meet the needs of our individual Learners and families support for

089middle school students sometimes takes a backseat to those for elementary school and high school elementary school is where you get the foundations of reading and writing and in high school is where the attention is focused on successful transitions to adulthood with graduation and Beyond Middle School is exactly that in the middle at the same time parents often struggle the most with the students during this years they often feel a loss of connection middle school students aren't prone to ask for help either they want to be self-reliant and often that means talking to their parents less and more to their teachers their social world is tough I read an article recently about middle school students it recognized that middle school is often the toughest time in a used life most adults if asked would not volunteer

090to go back to Middle School in fact they joke and say that those are the dark days re research States for almost 50% of students grades s through n are often the Make It or Break It time for students by the time students reach the 10th grade we average losing almost onethird of our students Nationwide and over 60% of the atrisk students and students from high poverty urban areas traditional scheduling has failed to address the specific ific learning needs and requirements they need to be successful to increase the odds of graduation scheduling must provide the necessary supports for Success acceleration opportunities for Choice intervention enrichment as needed foundational supports for core classes flexibility and the opportunity for credit recover scheduling is a critical component of effective Middle Schools traditional middle school schedules reduce the amount

091of instructional time in core reading and math courses while adding additional time for science and social studies and exploratory courses middle school schedules must strategically allowed varying lengths that are appropriate for core instructional time have flexibility to allow for needed additional instruction offer exploratory courses to meet social emotional needs and prepare students for high school tracks as well as offer student choice and acceleration options we understand that cuts need to be made and that you have hard choices ahead to make we are urging you to make them with the students needs first thank you next we have Thomas Elliot followed by Hannah Aaron can I get your name oh hi so I'm gonna try to do this without crying I apologize speaking in front of people makes me really nervous um I'm just here in

092support for Columbia my child has had a very very hard time starting school having a terminally ill parent and his um Journey has not been easy and he has had a he's had a really hard time transitioning from being a child that has not had anybody in his life other than his family because he has been stuck at home with a terminally ill parent and also covid so his introduction into the world was Columbia it was a rough start I won't say that it wasn't I'm somebody that is a born and raised cashmir person so I was always really scared that my children weren't going to have the one-on-one capability that cashmir did here at the wachi school district that has changed I am a full supporter of Columbia schools they have done nothing care

093for my son and make sure that he has a safe environment to be in and that he's loved and that he's taken care of on a daily basis it's very hard to earn his trust and to be able to have him use words in general him being able to come in on a daily basis and see the same people is a very big deal he has finally decided that he is comfortable with the team that he has and is growing and his language has expanded tfold his ability to interact with other children is just astronomical his ability to understand other students and their emotional abilities as well and how to interact is becoming something that I could not have imagined if I didn't have a dedicated crew like I do at Colombia I speaking on

094behalf of my ex-husband as well he is at home taking care of our children I just really urge you to look at a different solution than closing down a school that has done nothing then be there and provides her children that need that and having a dedicated team that is willing to take time out of their day to form an emergency Squad to be able to make sure that my child isn't running out into the street because he doesn't understand that he can't state that just because he doesn't want to be in class that he doesn't have to be there there teachers and principles that are taking time out of their day that they could be doing with other children making sure that he is safe and making sure that every other child at that

095school is safe as well closing the school it would be devastating my child has every single day since finding this out has come home crying saying I don't know if I can go go to another's school because they don't know them his older brother takes him to school every day it is a point of Pride for both of my children to walk up to that school every single day and it's a point of Pride to me to be able to walk him into those front doors every single day and see the exact same staff waiting and overjoy to see him daily that's here's kind of where I'm at thank you next uh Britany Stevens and then John Price the fourth hello um before I started I just wanted to say thank you to Dr kalahar

096for your calm and compassionate way that you presented that budget information I know this is a really hard topic to discuss and I appreciate you being aware of that and being sensitive to it um my name is Britney Stevens I am a former wachi School District teacher um and the parent of a kindergartner at Columbia who loves walking to school every day as well um I am extremely disappointed in the timing and circumstances surrounding wachi School District's announcement of its decision to close Columbia Elementary in recent years wachi school district has developed a reputation for making back room decisions without stakeholder input and then anouncing those decisions after it's too late this Behavior delivers significant blows to staff morale and SWS distrust within the community as a teacher it is so incredibly difficult to do

097your job effectively when you feel like you have no control over your situation and you're constantly getting blindsided and uprooted By changes made by the people in charge I admire the staff at Colombia for helping and comforting hundreds of confused and crying children yesterday while also silently managing their own emotions in fears and also while teaching reading and math part of the reason I left wachi school district myself was because of these harmful decisions these these harmful decision-making habits at the do it wears you down it depletes you it demoralizes you when a school district is preparing to put a bond on the ballot I'm concerned that a decision like closing a beloved Elementary School in the heart of town and announcing it quietly on a weekend with absolutely no communication to parents is not

098going to Garner public support for this cause um everything announc everything about this announcement was problematic and will contribute to The public's distrust of the district no public committee no discussions or surveys within with community members no mention of a 90-day period for public input informing staff on a Friday afternoon so they couldn't ask too many questions before the work week ended uh quietly posting the press release on the district website but not sharing it on social media not a single blooms or email communication to parents of Columbia students about the decision so we had to rely on rumors on Facebook be to inform our children and then send them to school on Monday not knowing what they were going to hear um not giving Columbia staff the the promised follow-up information on their Monday

099meeting yesterday um even the wording of the press release is misleading according to as we've heard about the state law with the 90-day requirement before a decision can be made um and others have mentioned that the um press release made it seem like a very final decision um and I hope that the district didn't intentionally word that announcement to make it sound like the decision was Final to disenfranchise people from thinking they could do anything about it um I'll just Echo the sentiments of other people I don't know what that be was the 22 okay um that um rather than just seeking public input at this point I think we need to take a step back and get workshops and Community involvements where we can help give ideas rather than just saying you know fill

100out this survey and tell us what's important to you and we'll make the decisions I've lived through that so many times with this district and it it doesn't it doesn't fulfill what you needed to fulfill um I have a lot of ideas I'd be Happ happy to sign up for a committee um and I'll stop there thank you thank you good evening bu snase um my name is John Benton price I fourth I go by Ben um this is my 12th year teaching elementary students and my third year teaching in wachi at Columbia Elementary I want to thank the board and cabinet for having us here today and being allowed to speak about this matter I want to start by sharing my personal mission statement as an educator this comes from my favorite education book

101the first days of school by Harry Wong each child is living the only life he or she has the only one he or she will ever have the least we can do is not diminish it Columbia Elementary students have shown growth and stability in their social emotional learning Columbia Elementary students academic growth in math and reading are strong by the way Columbia Elementary students have shown the most high growth in these areas in the district elementary schools per OPI report cards to close out Columbia Elementary where social emotional needs are being met and academic growth is strong is theological to dismantle a thriving culture culture where student outcomes are improving defies best practices this arbitrary proposal will fracture Colombia Elementary a prosperous fertile and life-changing environment for our Colombia Elementary Community illogical school board members

102if this was your child attending Columbia Elementary how would you feel about this proposal would you want Assurance from your District leaders that they had exhausted all Financial resource options prior to this irreversible course of action of closing a successful learning environment for your child as caring parents I'm sure each of you would and that's what your Columbia parents are asking of you thank you for your time thank you uh next Tamara Honeycut then Francy fry okay uh Francy fry and Then followed by Liz damore good evening Columbia families and wachi School District board members my name is Francy fry I am the parent of two Columbia Elementary students and one with special needs when it comes to problem solving I like to consider myself a solution solution based in my Approach I am choosing

103to use my time to speak as a parent and advocate of Columbia Elementary in case I run out of time I have made multiple copies of this statement and have also attached below what I believe could be thought-provoking questions and suggestion on alternative Solutions so with that here is my parent testimony on behalf of columia Elementary and why I believe this school is worthy of being saved among the parent body there is much concern over what Ripple effects this decision could have on our children mostly regarding social emotional and academic setbacks as a mom of a child with special needs I can tell you that those concerns for this vulnerable group of kids is heightened my son Xander fry is autistic with a couple other challenges on top of that creating consistency and a reliable

104routine for him and kids like him is key to their success at school and in other environments removing him from what is working would have serious setbacks meeting the needs of neurodiverse children within Public Schools is not easy this is this is no one size fits all it takes time and learning what their strengths are and how to highlight those strengths in their learning while also knowing where their specific limitations and challenges lie Xander support team at Colombia has grown with him understands him and his needs are currently being met beautifully I feel this reflects the values held up by the incredible administrative and support staff individually they are all phenomenal phenomenal at their job but more specifically it's how they operate as a team that creates the real magic spend one day watching them

105in action and it would be evident that there is something very valueable Val and special happening here this is something that our community needs more of not less of Xander is thriving and he knows that he has seen and cared for for a parent who has spent many sleepless nights worrying about the outcome of her child having the support of Mr stuber and his team have been a Lifeline for our family and I'm certain other families as well the overall environment at Columbia is inclusive it Embraces and celebrates diversities while keeping an overall tone of unity front and center all backgrounds are embraced equally this is the world I want to live in the students are held accountable and uplifted to be the best they can be I'm so grateful for the positive examples shown

106to our kids every day by the staff no group of students in our community in recent history has had to go through something like this the negative impact this could have on our kids will only be known in future years I can already tell you that there has trauma started to set in within our children there are many fears tears and valid concerns welling up it is our job as parents to try and best frame any changes in the most positive way after breaking the news of a possible closure and reset to my kids I can tell this will be a very deep burden on parents I have already felt the toll of my own mental and physical health in the past few days that's your time can you wrap it up thank you theard

107I'm almost done I hate to think that that is my foreseeable future part of Xander's success is also Rel at ated to the group of peers he has grown with they understand him and look out for him I have been told by another mother uh that her daughter has mentioned concern for what would happen to Xander if school is closed and kids are separated this is an example of the closeness and care this group appear PE has amongst each other for my family this is not a logistical matter or a matter of preference I would happily drive further and longer to keep my kids at Columbia school to get the care and support he needs please consider the effect on all students at Columbia and also please remember my son's name and story as an

108example of our school's most vulnerable students caught in the crosshairs of the school board's decisions thank you for your time and consideration thank you may I hand my statement over de did you still want to go andina and Jess o Conor hello my name is Karina ainia and this is my daughter Abby who also has a few words to say so I'll keep it short I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say this has been a rough week for our students parents in all of Colombia staff there has been anger tears and a lot of grappling to understand why the wachi school district would handle the releases of such an impact information with absolutely disregard of the community as a whole but especially the disregard of our children at col Elementary who

109have been a subject to unfair amountain of anxiety and stress these kids deserve some accountability from the school board the loss of the services provided by the school such as TK and specials careed for children with special needs will harm the community Beyond repair every year I hear the impact stories of parents who have finally found the help they need because of the Colombia staff I know many parents in the I know many parents in the area that were told that schools were too full to choice in but when as she School District insists that there are room for all students and two of them while also insisting that will not affect class size as negativity our schools with the exception of one have horrible ratings and test scores and I refuse to see how

110shoving more kids into classes will help this matter in any way what will Sunny Slope Elementary classes size look like comparison to Mission View and Washington this appears to be a targeted effort on behalf of the wachi school district to Target an area where many are undeserved in the community simple result read all boundaries going forward to include wider area for Colombia to help ease cles for all the surrounding schools and much better option than to shut us down hi my name is Abby and I've been going to Colombia Elementary for three years all of us students have got have got in really close with our teachers and this is our school and we want to stay here hi my name is Jessica I never went to wachi I have a 5-year-old who has attended

111Columbia and I have a four-year-old who is hoping to attend Columbia next year um um Friday afternoon I found out that her school was going to be closed I was devastated to tell her this by the time I was in fourth grade I had gone to 10 different schools so the fact that my child got to go to one school and her brother got to go to that same school was going to be magnificent um she keeps asking how can we helps mom can we make cookies can we make muffins we need more cougar dollars mom how do we help save my school my teacher cried my friends are crying why is is everybody crying mom I want to ride a bus but I don't want to ride a bus to Mission view I don't

112want to ride a bus anywhere I want to go to school where my teachers are and my you speak of the poverty and those who don't speak English those that need special needs they won't get left behind how do we know that they won't get left behind they're going to Bear classes they're going to be riding a bus making their first day of kindergarten longer more dramatic they're going to have to ride their bus home bus drivers that we can't hire I mean I have a four and 5-year-old I did it on my phone so it's not that great but um I just I don't understand how good Columbia has been for our daughter and for so many other children and you're just going to take the school away you told us on Friday that

113the school was closed that's what everything said we were to believe that they were not going to have school my daughter thinks mama I can't go to school tomorrow there's no more school cool it's just really sad I hope you listen to everything tonight and just know that I really think you're doing the wrong decision um um I don't agree with I don't agree with the Colombia Elementary School news that is going to be shut down because my child that is 6 years [Music] old will have to get used to a new school new friends new teacher and that is going to Affair him uh emotional and I have a two more childrens who went to Colombia he's going to be 22 and another one who's going to be 9 and another one um she's

11413 she's in orch school and they they're asking me why they're closing that school why that's the best school why didn't you another school white Colombia they asked me so many questions that I don't have an answer for that um that's all thank you need good evening my name is Penny tabot and I'm speaking as a parent of Colombia um I have three children that actually attend the school um one is in fourth and second and TK and they both love that school so Colombia is not just a School Colombia is a family and for you to take away the family it's like you're ripping off a child whom you labored or whom you cared for N9 month and you you you feel the pain and all of a sudden you throw that child away

115and that's what it looks like today and another thing I was reading RCW and we didn't have any written summary containing analysis about this effect about the school closure but it was already on Facebook and the people are asking me you go to Colombia what your school is closing I have no idea and what I thought is the school district and our schools we are together and if it comes as to be school schools districts parents and teachers so whatever happens every decision that happens must have to pass through us and the teachers unfortunately you guys decide to do your own stuff and I figured maybe you becoming like politician because they can work up in the middle of the night and decided to turn the country upside down so let us not do that

116for the sake of our children I don't know if you all have your children in Colombia all the people that work for the school district but I pray that you have understanding beyond your knowledge of Education where you care more about the effect of the children about the emotion because you're already educated what about them they are damaging already and we need the future for tomorrow and now we damage because of the budget now you put the slide up there you show that because we are low attendance low count for Colombia but there's a who that is SS they have the lower number also so why do you pick Colombia I have no idea and I'm not wishing for you also to pick the SS school either to close it so let's keep us school

117going on and also anything that decision you make let us be involved we are the citizen and we are the parents and you're here because our children are in school if there's no children at school we won't have a school district let's go beyond that and also appreciate you and all the school district I appreciate the Colombia School staff because when they got the message on Friday they quickly send emergency meeting and I appreciate all of you to do that because they care for us as much as we care for them let us not focus more on the budget on the money let us focus on the academic of our children we can be crowded in one school yes but is all the kid the the teachers going to attend to those schools in order

118to raise up for the academic so I'm about to close I guess I get 11 minutes that's okay so my prayer and my request please go back and review that keep the school and if you need our support in any way you want us to do to keep that school going we are ready to stand for our school for our teachers for our children and for school district and we want you and us as parents and teachers to work together in this one thank you thank you can somebody help me please thank you hello good evening my name is m uh Colombia Elementary is a good school good teachers is very important to to us to keep the school open for our students education my husband and I we feel so privileged and fortunate to

119have my for all your son on TK full day of school to see him every day morning wake up very motivated to go to school and learn every day something new when he's not able to go to school because he's sick he CED because he don't like to miss a school his school is very very important to him the other day I saw him writing his name already that means a lot for a mom see him know his ABC's color shapes and count almost 1 to 30 that means a lot for us not only that every day when I pick him up from school he has a smile on his face and said he has a wonderful day and the teachers always make sure that all the students has a jacket hat and gloves um

120they make sure they are not nice and warm for the cold weather plus my son he never lose anything from his school he always come back to home with all his belov thanks to Mrs G and all the teachers wonderful teachers and um p teachers secretary Mrs uh music teacher Mrs Esther she's a wonderful she has the nice attitude toward with the child it's too sad that it will be a anniversary for a school and she be the happiness to celebrate what a great school it is Colombia Elementary I also have my daughter uh graduate from Colombia Elementary last year and she started since she was on kindergarten and she loved all her teachers now she's an orchard middle school but she's very sad to know about this bad news she love music currently she

121play violin she's an a stram class but she start learning at Colombia with Mrs floski she is a wonderful teacher now she is my son teacher and last Christmas he did so well on the Christmas concert not only that the principal every time we have a concert about something he always was there and have a time to listen to us and Sol problems on a better way for all the students he has a wor for all the wellness and education for Colombia Elementary student when my daughter was in that school is when I uh knew that Colombia Elementary was offering TK to our students I did not think twice to take my child to Colombia Elementary I was happy and not worry at all because I knew it was a good school for him and

122I can go to work every day happy and know that my son is in a safe and great school um anything I can do as a parents to keep a school open I will be there and anything we can help I'll be there to keep our school open thank you for your time thank you for everything thank you my name is Abigail tbet I am a fourth grade student at Columbia Elementary I have been going to Columbia since kindergarten through fourth grade I like being a student at columia even though I have some things that I don't like but that's always okay I do like being at colia even with things I really don't like but I don't care about those things all I care is that there is someone the other students and I

123can trust and that we can still remain at Columbia until the end of elementary school it's not fair that all the students in Colombia like me have to move to a new school I don't want to start as a new kid what if I don't make friends at the new school I hope we can save the school I want to know why our school is Clos closing my questions for you are why did you choose to close a school and why did you choose Colombia if columia does close are our new classrooms going to be overcrowded how many students per class would they consider overcrowded thank you good evening my name is Serena ler I am a parent of two students at Columbia Elementary I'm going to do my best to not get overly emotional

124um I didn't write anything because mostly I wanted to share what my children had to say um the first one I'll read to you is a short one by my third grade son please don't close the school because we have cool teachers Love Chevy ler this is very true every one of these teachers in this school the staff from all areas has been amazing for my my children and my family last night I laid in bed and all I can think about is how is this going to affect not only our students but the staff our neighborhood and our community if we were in a family court room right now and we were battling over these children and where they would go what I would have to say is this decision is detrimental to these

125children their view on school the school district and the community will never be the same again we have so many wonderful memories at this school and I'd hate for this to be the end last year we marched in the parade the apple blossom parade on youth day my daughter was in the pom pom team and they were all so very proud in their purple and yellow we also won a ribbon that year for greatest small group which we are very proud of um I also want to share that my daughter is both of my children are in the high highly capable classes they are excelling very well in school and we're very proud of them and I feel that the teachers's commitment to the education their L lovingness their kindness their understanding of situations has

126been outstanding thank you guys lastly I will read a letter from my fifth grade student aval uper why we should keep Columbia Elementary open I think lots of kids will be uncomfortable in a new school and won't have very much time to catch up on schoolwork and they will be left behind lots of friendships will be broken and they can really impact kids learning and make it hard to focus when they aren't motivated because they can't see their best friend anymore the four-year-olds will have to take the bus that is very scary for someone that young children or teachers will be going to their other schools and some will just have to quit their passion for teaching by these past few days I've seen several kids crying and because of this one of my best

127friends was extremely upset by Ava lford that's your time wrap it up okay one of the things I know about life is that there are hardships my life hasn't always been easy but what it has taught me is when hardships come along there is always a way around there's always a fight and I believe our Columbia family will fight go Columbia cougers do this without knocking it over okay um members of the Schoolboard and superintendent kahar thank you for your time today my name is Emily Bor my husband and and I are parents of one Columbia student Ryan who's doing his reading homework as we speak um and we also have a second child slated to start at TK next year her name is Hazel we're asking that you reconsider the decision to close Columbia

128Elementary and we ask that you are receptive to feedback from the community I understand that across the country schools are facing increasing pressure to meet financial goals while also providing high quality educ ation unfortunately when school closures do occur they tend to affect significantly poor neighborhoods with greater presence of non-white residents which disproportionately affect disadvantaged and minority communities Columbia school students have shown the highest percentage of growth for the 2022 and 2023 year in math and Ela um with percentages at 54.3 and 44.7 respectively with such good statistic St istics for improving in these areas why are you not considering expanding the School boundary for Colombia to include more students from surrounding areas if you look at the math that was shown earlier Columbia has a significantly smaller region as compared to other elementary schools

129it's like a third or fourth compared to other regions um I know this wouldn't solve the budget deficit but it may help to spread um the cuts across all regions rather than singling out one school and one group of people this would increase enrollment for Colombia as well as ease the burden of overcrowding for Washington Elementary and other surrounding schools who are may be facing overcrowding to quote noie Brazil who is a community and development researcher for UC Davis adequate Community engagement cost benefit analysis and long-term planning are all crucial to mitigating the negative consequences of public school closures please give our school a chance to continue providing great education and support for our community by taking our school away you not only hurt the students families and staff but you also remove the only

130centrally located walking elementary for the city of wachi Columbia Elementary is not just a school it is a community of Learners I also have my references if you want citations for any of this information thank you thank tamino Bridget Myers hello my name is Anis deas and my daughters attended Columbia Elementary last year we had to move move but since we love Colombia I wanted to choose them sorry choose them um choose them into Colombia the district wouldn't let me and told me it was full now I find out that that wasn't true we need we need more students why would you not let me choose them into Colombia why why wouldn't sorry why what we wanted to keep going to Colombia because we love the school and we love the teachers we feel safe

131here my question is why would you not choose why would you not let us choose choosen to Colombia and why are you now T taking them why are you now taking the school away my family is very upset and angry because of what's going on I went to school there as a kid and never had an issue all my brothers went to school at Colombia and we love um we love the school we could trust and we could learn why don't you choose any other school why Colombia my kids attend Lee Elementary and I don't trust Lee Elementary we don't we just had an incident incident and never in a hundred years would we would we have an incident at Colombia Colombia protects her students and they trust us they treat no they treat us

132like family and we feel welcome not like any other school they greet us with respect thank you thank you my name is Bridget Myers I'm a parent of a student at Colombia um and I've also subbed or volunteered or had kids at every school in the district except for Orchard I've already sent an email to you and I'm happy to say that most of what was in the email has been addressed through some of the conversation um around the budget tonight I'm that annoying parent that reads everything and I send the district um suggestions to make corrections to typographical errors I pointed out several times that the skyart D still said the 19th last week when I see that our district isn't um upholding to the highest standards I feel like I have a place

133to communicate um I feel like this was a lot's been mentioned um you failed the big six I feel of making us being uh feel like we belong and are connected that's been discussed um in my house my youngster who's a fifth grader um came home and she was learning the Columbia cougar song and that night I heard that it was closing um you've heard some other parents talk about what that was and it feel I'm going to talk about feelings it feels to some of us that there is intentionality behind the announcement of closure and that you were not expecting push back if it was communicated as a done deal these are my feelings but I feel like it needs to be expressed sadly it feels this is perhaps specific to the demographic at

134Colombia I hope that you find instead that our Colombia Community um which is diverse but mostly low so socioeconomic backgrounds is helped by Columbia and by you to find their voice um I know from the well attended PTO meeting that we have people who are ready to volunteer to assist anyone to make comments and now you've addressed that there will be open hearings um but I feel like you need to know that this came not from Colombia this came from my friends at Sunny Slope um and at Foothills this would never happen at Sunny Slope so right now this is a bad experience it it hurts and at the moment I hope it turns into an example for the books what are we teaching our Columbia cougars I hope we're teaching them they have a

135voice and I hope that you take your job very seriously right now and I would like that you apologize to the community in the way that this was communicated thank you I'm going to try really hard to get through this without crying so my apologies if I just can't hold it in it's been a rough week um good evening everyone my name is Aaron garinger and I'm a grade teacher at Columbia Elementary but my real claim to fame is that I'm a proud graduate of Columbia and it was that start it was that start surrounded by kind caring and excellent teachers that put me on the path I'm on today this district and its teachers gave me a worldclass education and where there were they were there for me every time I needed it and

136I needed it often I'm here tonight to express my sincere concern regarding the perhaps final perhaps not quite final decision from the district cabinet to close Columbia Elementary we're talking about a closure um this isn't a consolidation of a school that has been serving wachi for exactly a hundred years this year and if you follow through on this decision it will have serious consequences for many more to come I'd like to take the justification that was presented to our staff on Monday now you guys got more information which very thankful for I feel like that's part of the problem is that we're working in a vacuum and when that happens it gets filled so um the first bullet point that was shared was that Columbia has experienced a large decline in enrollment over the last

137few years my understanding is that declining birth rates and consequently School enrollment rates are a national phenomenon not just one that impacts our school and yet our school was targeted interestingly we've had the steady arrival of new students over the course of this year and I've been told that our student population fluctuates a lot over the course of the Year based on the location of low-income housing and apartments that bring but don't always retain our students within its boundaries it's the same thinking as the second bullet point that there's a lack of projected growth opportunities are our boundaries insufficient to completely fill the school is that even our goal if so then maybe the better solution would be to redraw the boundaries to better utilize the facilities we do have instead of relocating uh over

138345 students and I checked with our secretary it's not 314 as was on the presentation that's not the right number so even the projections that you guys were looking at were incorrect these students deserve better and frankly moving them to other schools is going to put their academic success at risk why would we want that our geographic location was another bullet point right it was Target it's targeted us for closure to me that seems shortsighted I think our position in the valley is one of extreme luck nearly all of our students can walk to school our parents don't need a car to come for a conference we can be a part of our community we can open our doors and people come you guys should have seen the PTO meeting last night that's your time

139can I get you to wrap it up oh wow um okay here's my point by The District's own rationale any nearly any Elementary School could be considered forclosure I spent days wondering and asking why Columbia is the one scheduled to close I have yet to hear a convincing argument have you maybe a better use of our energy and time as a district should be finding ways to be fiscally responsible and protect our most vulnerable students good evening I'm here with my daughter Hima she will be sharing a few words with you after all um first of all I want to thank you for your time my name is Ana Luso this is my husband and none he came to join us and my daughter hea I come before you today as a parent and hope

140to be a voice for other parents who are being impacted by the closure of Columbia Elementary as well the purpose for why I'm speaking today is that I would like for the Schoolboard to ensure that all options have been exhausted before deciding to close down Colombia or any school for that matter I know I share similar concerns with other parents who are unable to speak today my daughter has been at Columbia for 3 years now she started in TK colia is our second home the sense of family and belonging that we feel makes this place so special hea comes home from school every day with a huge smile on her face saying she's in the green zone she wakes up excited to learn and see her friends I think I speak for many when I

141say that this has been one of the hardest few days that we've faced as a family since learning about the school closure she voices that she's felt in the Blue Zone because she's sad and so are her friends unfortunately enough to have some background in how to address strong emotions with children but having conversations with a six-year-old and helping to understand helping them understand what's happening to their school is something no parent or educator should ever have to do as you know Colombia is a walking school for a drop off and pickup I often see students walk in all directions knowing that their homes are close Hima loves to roll the window down and excitedly yell hi and bye to her friends and teachers as she passes by them I've spoken to parents who don't

142have transportation and walk their child to school or walk to school events I know this isn't unique to the Columbia family um I know there are many other families in our communities in this situation but closing the school down would limit the opportunities for parents who are underserved or may not have the means to get to events such as conferences music concerts or enroll their student in before after school programs I hope you consider if this decision is made that we take a close look at how all these services can be Equitable and accessible for All Families I understand that the decision of closing a school is difficult for all but especially challenging for families I have the lingering questions of where's my daughter going to be placed will Choice even be an option will

143I have to change daycares do I need to have another hard conversation with my smaller ones and get and see them cry as they adjust to new daycare providers um it's important to note the obvious that by shutting down a school we need to think about the potential Domino effects it has on other schools siblings parents daycare and most importantly our community the impacts of this news has been really difficult a lot harder than I could have imagined Colombia is family Colombia is home my daughter wants to share a few words I also signed her up I think she was next um he hi everybody my name is s liio and I love my school and I don't want that my school closes because I have because I had the best teach and I also

144love my friends and I don't want that my friends be sad and I don't want to go to another school and I don't want to leave colia school and at lunch we we have we always talk and always tell us to 10 L thank you thank you oh hello I'm Ivan Ramos I have um three kids that attend Columbia this is our first real school since Co my kids went into school in California that just kind of crashed and we had a longer period through Zoom coming here this is home I was scared putting my kids in another school after Zoom we had nothing we had no hope my daughter who's actually outside couldn't read a right coming into third grade at all it was Sai that helped me push for it to helped me

145push for the assessment to help me get it it was Miss kazemba that helped push for it too it was Miss oats it was Miss denimore this became a family to us I don't trust my kids but nobody else my daughter's in fifth grade now and she can read and write because of the school because of them my daughter also has social anxiety where growing up she had one friend one friend sisters don't count because she has plenty of those you know one friend coming into here and yes our school is small but it's great it's made a big impact on all of my children especially my fifth grader she now has more than friends she can count on her fingers everything her too I have my kindergartner who just found out the other day

146she said Mom what's going to happen to Mr wickins I'm part of the PTO for one reason and one reason only because I was in it for the long run because once my fifth grader goes out I still have two more and once my fourth grader goes out guess what I still have two more because I have a 2-year-old that I had planned on being in Colombia also this is home my kids don't want it to go I feel bullied I feel like my kids are being bullied out of it we're getting evicted come on how do you think it feels have you guys ever been evicted out of a home this is a home this is nothing else but that these are our family I come here to wachi with no family 3 years

147later here I have a group of them and we love them you okay come here thank you one thank you hi my name is Lucia Sanchez and I'm a parent uh of a student that goes to Colombia I'm going to try to make this quick because pretty much everything that I was going to say has already been said um but I just want to ask you guys to kind of go back and remember when you guys were these children and how it would have felt like if this was your school if you really cared about your school maybe you didn't maybe you really hated your school but if you did care about your school and you know the teachers and the staff and everybody around you cared for your child child for you when you

148were a child how would you feel how would what would you do you your parents would probably be standing right here or your teachers or just like we are so just please yes like everybody else is asking check everything that you guys can I've had parents from other schools because I have other siblings like herly I have a lot of siblings and they've tried to Choice students into the schools that I've heard they're going to try to send these kids too and they were turned down because those schools were full so if they're full now are they going to be extra full like where are you going to send these other kids you know if they're having 20 or 25 kids are they going to have 30 32 35 kids where does that leave the

149teacher like you know it's going to look like they're failing but actually it's not like everybody else was saying you guys are the adults you know they don't but you guys make the decisions so please we need your help to look at all the options and help our children and yeah think about yourselves if if you can possibly do that look at yourself in the mirror and think about when you were a child and what that would have felt like thank you thank you good evening my name is Amy Jennings I have a third first and TK student at Columbia Schoolboard thank you for what you do my husband and I believe in public education we are so grateful for the dedicated teachers and staff at Columbia they know all of our three children by

150name they help them learn and grow give them individualized educ ation that best meets the needs of their different learning styles and they keep them safe day after day we moved to Ani 12 years ago and this community quickly became our home we bought a house in the center of town where we can walk to the park the library the public market and the neighborhood school we treasure the community around us where our classmates are also our neighbors I work in healthcare and my husband works in college level education we understand the serious Financial burdens that all Industries are facing are facing right now and the difficult decisions that have to be made however what we do not understand is why there is no evidence provided to support this decision until tonight why the district

151still has yet to inform parents why this particular school is chosen over others that have lower enrollment and lower academic production and why a school with a 70% non-white population is being targeted if enrollment at the school is low yet others are overcrowded why has the district not tried rezoning to better balance enrollment across the district our taxes are paying for children to have local neighborhood schools where they can get there safely by walking or riding their bikes yet that's being taken away from hundreds of children Columbia Elementary is not just a building or workplace we are a family and we ask you to please consider alternative options rather than closing the school thank you thank you guys for all being here um my name is Anna um I went to Colombia Elementary I am

15220 years old I don't know how long that was but I'm here to support Colombia I just want to back up everybody who says that Colombia is a home because it really is because of Colombia I build up the courage I learn how to play the violin and to be honest I sadly didn't get a finish Colombia Elementary because we had to move and so I was a new kid I transferred to Mission view I got bullied I was that kid who sat alone in a corner because I had no friends my friends were at Colombia and I was really upset I was angry I didn't want to go to school and I told my parents I don't want to go like take me back to Colombia Colombia is my home Colombia Miss low pushinsky

153is the one that taught me how to play the violin Miss Esther was always there for me when I was feeling down and sad and guys really think about the possibilities out there like is really closing Columbia Elementary the best choice for the young kids me speaking as if I was a kid I would not want to move like I think I'm G get bullied nobody's G to talk to me I'm just going to be sitting in a corner like be like think about you guys when you guys were like think if you guys were them being their shoes do you really see yourself being a crowded more room like I just cannot imagine that for these little kids like I'm putting myself in their shoes I've been in their spot where I had to

154move schools when my voice wasn't really heard I'm just supporting Colombia Colombia like I can't say much it's just hurts I was shooking I was like there's no way that this ain't happening and I told my sister because she's a teacher there now I was like of course you chose the best school to teach because there's no other better school mission view I mean Mission view was great but like you guys have heard Colombia is like a one-on-one a teacher is not a teacher a teacher's like a parent they always care for you they're like the second parent instead of like a physical parent it doesn't have to come from blood teachers are parents and you don't want to you don't want these kids to have go to a stranger they say stranger danger for

155a reason right that's what you're pushing this kids to so I just please find other ways if there's ways we can help I'm I'm I'm a parent if we can help our community our community is here to help so give us options for the community to help and parents to help and let us be heard not just us but these little kids who are crying thank you thank you I'm going to talk fast because I have a lot to say esteemed School Board I stand before you today as a teacher at Columbia Elementary while I can recognize our district is in a financial crisis and drastic measures may need to be taken closing Colombia Elementary is the wrong choice if a school must be closed Colombia should be your last choice not your first you

156see a system any system such as a school district is only as strong and as good as it protects its most vulnerable members and we know that Colombia has the highest concentration of vulner able students of any school in our district Columbia has done an outstanding job educating our District's most vulnerable students showing higher growth scores than any other school in our district or region with similar demographics this is a clear example of taking care of our vulnerable and yet it has been decided without following the RCW in my opinion that it would be wise to close that school that performs the highest for our vulnerable students and send these students to a school that does not perform as well why why was Colombia the chosen school why are we protecting the educational experience of

157our more privileged students in our district at the cost of our vulnerable research tells us the average student loses six months of educational gains when they move schools I think we can all agree that Colombia students as a whole do not fit the demographic of average being busted to a school across town with lower growth scores and without their established safety nets that often go back Generations will be catastrophic to their education and I have no doubt you will see the effects in the future graduation rates on a personal level I want to ask you to take a real look inside of yourself and ask yourself if you really want to support a decision that protects the privileged while sacrificing the vulnerable while Chicago Public Schools when Chicago Public Schools closed many of their neighborhood

158schools they found the effects on their vulnerable population ations much more severe than on those who did not face being homeless migrant a language learner a person of color a person with special needs and yet wachi school district is following in their fateful footsteps and closing the very school that serves these vulnerable students the best 54% of wachi school district students are Latino while the students most affected by this decision are 74% Latino 35% of our wsd students qualify for free or reduced lunch while the students being pushed out of their highly successful Community School are 79% qualified free and reduced lunch for a district with a history of working towards equality and inclusion these numbers should be raising huge red flags and yet they seem to be being ignored I ask you to take

159a hard look at your motivation if you decide to support this decision is it because we have the most students who have no other educational options and will therefore not be able to choose something outside of wanci school district I would really like to believe that is not your motivation but at this point I need hard actions to prove otherwise I truly believe that when it comes to the Systema systematic oppression of our marginalized communities you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem there is no middle ground will you Which side will you stand with thank you hi my name is David lucatero and we have a 12-year-old daughter that attended Colombia from kindergarten to fifth grade and always felt felt safe leaving our daughter to Great teachers that

160care for all students and Families Our four-year-old attends TK program and is always excited to go to school because of the great caring caring teachers Colombia have my opinion is that closing Colombia is not the best option for all of our children parents teachers and a great principal Colombia for us is not only a building but a second home for our children and and teachers that love and care for our children closing Colombia after a 100 Years of dedicated education to our wachi children is not the best option to solve one problem that will cause more problems to our children parents and teachers I feel that together as parents teachers and with your support we can save our school in with a option that will benefit our children parents and teachers and our community thank

161you for your time and for listening thank you hello my name is Tracy Thompson and I'm in eighth grade science teacher at Foothills Middle School I wanted to talk to you today about the Middle School scheduled changes that were presented to teachers on January 8th and the importance of science we all know that difficult decisions need to be made because of the current budget issues however some changes will cause more significant lasting impacts than other possible changes and are not in the best interest of our students two of the current schedule options that the district is considering schedules B1 and B2 would make science a semester class if these changes were implemented this would cut the time students spend in science at the middle school level from three full years to one and a half

162years at FMS Ando and even reduces the amount of time in science at Orchard which already has roughly 4,500 minutes less than the other middle schools this change would hurt our students in many ways because science provides real world opportunities for students to practice the skills their learning in language arts and math science supports language arts through the close reading of complex non-fiction scientific texts the constructing of written um explanations and arguments using scientific evidence and reasoning to support a claim science supports math through the use of formulas and equations graphing and interpreting data understanding proportions and ratios understanding linear and nonlinear equations as one of my colleagues stated today our science classrooms literally blend every content area including most electives like art Health PE music and Tech into our curriculum this binder contains all

163of the Middle School standards and science um observable OB objectives so all of this is what's taught in middle school science currently all of these tabs these Post-it notes represent everything that is covered in e8th grade science and tested on the eth grade walk cast um if science classes um and this is in our district these are our standards that we teach um if science classes are cut in half decisions would be need to made would need to be made about which of these standards we would choose to no longer teach our students our middle school science classes have a last lasting impact on our students just last week I received an email from a former student who came into my classroom unsure of themselves academically and telling me she hated science she emailed me

164current pictures of the plants that we started as cuting during our e8th grade biology unit she wanted me to know that she was doing well in high school science and that her plants are doing awesome every year middle school science teachers receive similar emails to this Thanking us for the opportunity unities we provide our students if we cut middle school science in half we will leave our students unprepared for the rigor and expectations of high school science courses and STEM related careers we know that many um we know that student numbers provide funding for our middle schools and other schools in the valley continue to add stem opportunities for our students I'm almost finished I promise if we cut middle school science classes our students who want to be scientists doctors lab technicians Engineers biologists

165Foresters and orchardists or any of the many other STEM related fields will choose to attend other schools creating future enrollment issues I believe that the best middle school schedule of those presented to all the Middle School teachers is the one that supports students by giving them real world experiences and preparing them for their Futures and cuts classes in the most Equitable way possible that schedule is option C2 thank you thank you hi my name is Kyle Diaz I have two children who attend Columbia Elementary um Columbia plays a very important role in our district one example of this is the transitional kindergarten uh it is a free and huge benefit to kids like ours who need a little extra help like speech or special education services two out of two out of the three transition

166to kindergarten classes in our district are held at Columbia Elementary the loss of these will have a negative impact on future students in our district for years to come another major concern for our family and many others is accessibility a large a large percentage of the Columbia student body walks to school for some this may be a choice but for many it is the only means of getting their children to school those that will be uh negatively impacted most by this is are are the families most in need of flexible options like those without car and our parents who work odd hours longer bus routes in winter when our children are already being picked up in the dark is not a safer option for anyone transferring all of our kids to farther school to a

167farther school will take the right to choose from most families and additionally cause more strain to on already struggling Transportation Systems in my own research I have found over a dozen studies in different areas of the country where where school closures have taken place the evidence provided struggl suggests that students who are displaced from the closing schools may see positive results but only one place in a higher higher performing school um compared to other elementary schools in The District Columbia is number one when it comes to growth in both math and Ela what are the benefits to students being absorbed into a school with lower report card scores than Colombia since I assume the district will not be adding any new classrooms to existing buildings I am curious how how much larger class sizes will

168be and um how higher students a higher student to uh teacher ratio will negatively impact students in the remaining schools one of the district's own justifications for this closure is was low enrollment since the proposed plan of closing the school will require redrawing of School boundaries anyway why not change the boundaries to send more children to Columbia and raise the enrollment while reducing strain on nearby schools redrawing the boundary lines is is more beneficial in the long run as the house market house market fluctuates and new families move within the boundaries thank you thank you good evening I come before you as a employee of the wachi schools district also I'm a mother of a Colombia Elementary Al alumni um also I'm a taxpayer and a homeowner um Columbia is right in the back um

169pretty much right behind my house so my house is right there within the boundaries also I am also um a student who went to pasted and Dryden school who got Consolidated with lenworth um and so I know the impact that it had on me um as a child who had to go to another school that was closed um let me give you a little bit of background so when my daughter went there she went all through Colombia and it was a family they treated us as a family my son passed away during my daughter's stay there at Columbia and the staff there was so kind they gave us money they gave us food they supported us with with Services my daughter was 10 years old when her brother died which is totally devastating for a

170family also as a student that um had a school that closed and then had to go to another school I was traumatically impacted and it's still um I have social anxiety I don't uh um it has affected me um and I do struggle with my social inadequacies because of it I went from a school that we had 20 students in a classroom to much bigger um class sizes and I was bullied um I didn't feel I didn't belong I didn't feel like it was the family atmosphere um I had such anxiety that I didn't go to lunch to the cafeteria that I would go to the library and hide I'd hide in the Stalls in the bathroom so I didn't have to be around the large groups of people and I do um feel that

171our students will be impacted and it will not be um a good thing 349 students will be impacted by this closure 69 staff members that's just full-time staff will be impacted and I just want you to consider that thank you thank you hi my name is Kimberly I'm 12 years old and today I came to say my my experience in Columbia Elementary The Experience from kindergarten to fifth grade was extremely awesome all my teachers cared about my education and me I never felt ignored by Any teacher or felt um dis disrespected I had a really good music teacher that taught me how to play the violin her name was M linski now since she taught me the violin I feel to my VIN I also had a very good PE teacher her name is Mrs

172flinton I was always excited to go to her class and do whatever she had planned I also had a good art teacher his name was Mr phoh that did Magic traits and made class fun I had two Library teachers Miss con and Miss Vanetta and they were great and read us stories my fifth grade teacher Mr garinger did something called the minute Bank each time we were good he would add a minute Bank a minute to the minute bank and on Fridays we would do an activity my fourth grade teacher Miss Kaza reads as Harry read Harry Potter books which were amazing and when I was stuck at math she would help me I had another teacher her name was Miss ABA and she used to help me with math when I was Stu she

173helped me a lot my third grade teacher and my second grade teacher I get their names confused because they look alike I think they look alike but my third grade teacher did a prize War for our class and which was really fun and always made sure we were working and on task my second grade teacher I was in Zoom class because it was time of Co even though it was hard to learn on Zoom I learned perfectly well with her my first grade teacher made days before holidays really fun my kindergarten teacher Miss Holland oh miss Holland made everyday Fun my principal Mr stuber was a really good principal and always wanted the best for us my vice principal Miss KY was really nice the the office ladies were there and there were really nice

174especially the one named Miss Esther um the Reese's teachers were so nice especially the one named Miss Maddie the ladies that made our lunch were really really really nice and gave us cookies on special occasions thank you for listening and I really want my little brother and every kid to have a really good experience and for Colombia to stay open just going to make it up okay um hi my name is Zoe and um I'm a fifth grade student at Columbia and before I went to Colombia when I was in kinderen first my life was pretty hard and um I wasn't the best student and I acted out to get attention and got in trouble a lot and then when I went to Colombia the teachers there they supported me like a family and they

175turned my life upside down down and made me learn how to be a leader and um um I want a lot of the other kids to have that same experience that I did and um sorry okay need to say I just even though I'm going to a different school it was already hard and it's going to be even harder for me to see that school go down and not have any of the other kids get that experience okay that's all okay there been a long night thank you everybody and thank you guys and I I really really really appreciate you listen to everyone and I know how you feel because I can see in your eyes I know the all they listen to everyone and it is hard you know it just hard not to

176cry listen to everyone because everyone has a story here that is so so um great you know that they just talking to you very very very loud to say save this school this is a good school everyone is is has an ideas of how to save it it everyone wants to put you know input for you to not to do it and I think by now you know that every people at this community is with them and like I said I know there's are decisions that you don't want to make I know it is just so hard for you to make it and I saw all the graphics that you putting in there and every person that was talking in here it was with their heart and they didn't want it to see the whole

177picture but it's there and my only my only hope and my heart is in it that we can come together to do something about this issue I had two questions that I put in there and the you guys already answered the questions but my big big question for you is going to be this and for everyone to her how can we help to do this school keep going how can we come together and not to close this school because it's going to be harder to fix all the emotional things they going through not only the kids but the all Community the teachers the parents the grandparents me so please please listen to us thank you people I'll read the first line you can tell me when you're hello oops sorry hello my name is Jackson

178jamesfield I am a third grader at Columbia Elementary School I am the son of a first grade teacher at Columbia Miss Smith and I have multiple reasons why I think Columbia should not close the the verse being all these poor kids that are new to the school and te carers won't be able to see their new friends for even two years second almost all teachers and students have made they lost so many friendships at the school third this is one of the best schools it doesn't make sense to close this and finally all three of my older sisters have went to the school for about a quarter of their life and all of us love Columbia Elementary school please do not close a school all my family do not want columia to close good evening

179I stand before you as a parent of two proud graduates of Columbia Elementary and as a community member and taxpayer I wasn't planning on speaking today because I thought it might affect my uh professional relationship with the district but then I was reminded of a quote um our lives began to end the day that we become silent about things that matter and Columbia Elementary School matters I also thought what what lesson am I teaching my kids if I don't come and speak up when I was looking at the District's website um I paid close attention to the strategic planning section and the values that were listed in that section it said accountability setting expectations and holding ourselves to the highest standards of Integrity learning fiscal responsibility and transparency so let's just take a second and

180look what expectations that the district has set for itself with the board vision statement it said the board with participation by the community shall set the course for the school district in a section of the website called Community conversations it said the board and the administration is committed to holding a community conversation to discuss the priorities of districts of the district residents School families and students it said it would use these conversations to inform future planning efforts to deepen the relationship with and building a partnership with its resident to have a dialogue around important educational issues in our community I've seen the enrollment numbers um I reviewed the board or excuse me the budget uh discussions that were posted online it said there had been a large decline in enrollment since 2015 yet in uh

1812020 to 21 school year to the 2021 22 school year the district increased staff by 90 even knowing that there was declining enrollment it created a strategic plan that mentioned not once a school closure however what it did mention it appointed a 12ers rebranding committee made up of various stakeholders that included students I'll get to that in a second so let's look at what expectations you have set for yourself which included transparency in 2023 in December there was an FAQ uh for the budget that was put out what it said is it would be a substantial change for our community to close a school and one we would not like to consider yet a month later the district issued a press release and words matter not just the words you say but the words you

182don't say and the words that it did not say it did not say there would be a public public meeting or public hearing it did not say the public can provide input it did not say it was even going to create a committee to obtain input to the board about what to occur yet when the district wanted to choose a logo it had a 12ers committee over the span of months that talked about what w with wavy W wavy lines we were going to have months your your time can I get you to wrap it up yes you can miss Norton so what does the word say in that press release it said Columbia Elementary students and staff will be reassigned to other neighborhood schools doesn't say maybe it said will be and it only

183stated Columbia Elementary it also stated it is the right decision the right decision to close Columbia and it also stated we have worked hard to avoid this decision decision well have you have you really worked hard you haven't even obtained input from the community until today all I ask that this board do is to put enough work in the decision that it put into its logo thank you thank you good evening board members my name is Jose quas I'm also city wachi council member I came to Columbia Elementary when it was was the old building and I was a student at the new building what is now and I also was a staff at Colombia I'm glad to see former co-workers here I'm not going to go along but I'm going to go to the

184point as a council member I'm the voice of my constituents I listen to them if there's an issue happening within our city in my community we take care of it I and we I voted for you you guys are the new new board members of this year and I respect you guys listen to the voice of the people in the community that's it thank you it looks like that's everything for public comment um I just want to say thank you all very much for coming out we we really appreciate your sincere thoughts and comments and we're we're certainly taking them very very seriously and these are not easy decisions to make and we are evaluating everything we possibly can so thank you um next up we still have a few things to take care of

185um it looks like we have resolutions on here that need to be approved so want to introduce those yeah so the thank you everyone to Echo uh What uh Miss Norton said we appreciate you and thank you for sharing your voice and staying so long we have little little ones thank you for staying up so late with us as well so um so the the two resolutions uh as slated for Action tonight uh we have started of the process um to help our taxpayers put money back in their pockets the district is capitalizing on the drop in interest rates for the 2014 bond which expires in 2033 through a refinance uh we have two resolutions on the table for Action uh this work has been supported by Trevor Carlson from Piper Sandler uh lee Mar

186Lee marchisio from Foster Garvey who both presented uh on January 9th the goal of the work is to take the remaining balance of our 2004 Bond and refinance it at a lower interest rate and save the tax dollars some funds do I have a motion to approve resolution 0124 I move that we approve resolution number 0124 which grants the wache school district and authorizes the district to request a certificate of eligibility from the state treasury puru chapter 3998 and rules there adopted they they're under the State financial committee do have second I second that motion is there any discussion hearing none all in favor I no oppos um moving on resolution 022 four do we have a motion for that Oneal of motion h my finger properly I propose approval of motion uh 0224 uh

187relating to contracted indebtness and refunding the existing bonds by the issue of new bonds as stated in the uh package for the board I second that didn't moved in second any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I and no opposed uh next is the superintendent report Dr kalahar excellent um just a I was Echo the statements earlier just to heartfelt thank you for our community and staff who presented tonight um to share about how the district's plan for reductions in budgets are impacting and then we appreciate the emotion in the room and each individual's experience that we share tonight I also want to give um some kudos to uh our a couple of departments as we know the weather a few weeks ago uh was pretty intense so I want to give

188a shout out to the resiliency of our system um and our community as well um and I have created some going the extra sorry going the extra mile awards for our transportation and maintenance departments um because of just the care that they gave um they what I saw during this time was uh those two departments truly acting as a team to take care of them uh one another and celebrate victories both large and small and literally from Thursday January 11th to Friday January 9th these two departments were scrambling to ensure safe travel for our students and safe passage into our parking lots walkways and building buildings um and on January 12th when the freezing weather began we literally had pipes bursting um creating indoor flooding concerns or freezing pipes solid From the Inside Out uh

189making access to water impossible in some buildings and just just honoring that it's been a lot for uh all of us as a system but those two departments have done um a great deal of work to help us keep going so that's been fantastic um we also tomorrow night we had Alfonso here earlier but we had tomorrow night we have our uh first migrant multilingual parent night of 20124 uh so that's happening tomorrow night at uh wih high school and the main topic for the event is Career and Technical education uh our whhs uh bowling team uh finished out their season with a 4-0 win over Davis to clinch a share of the big nine League Championship districts uh will be this Friday at Eastmont Lane starting at 11 o'clock so some some bowling uh

190happening also Deca at the area 10 Deca competition in Yakama 48 wian high school students comp uh competed with 330 students from our region Wii won many awards and secured first second and third positions as individuals or teams and these uh Victoria students have qualified to attend the State Career Development conference in B view which is scheduled to take place at the end of February so congratulations to those students and best of luck in their upcoming competition uh we also had New York time best-selling author and former Mission View Elementary School librarian uh Dan gamingart uh who had a special homecoming visit at when at Mission view earlier this week to inspire young readers uh he spent a whole day working with an encouraging students um Dan was also at Sunny Slope earlier this fall

191which was I was able to attend so that was great so a special thanks to the PTO to help uh the funds for Dan's uh visit then finally when Anie Jazz Workshop in February uh it's only one month away and the workshop offers a small group Jazz instruction and gives high school students and middle school students the chance uh to learn from and share the stage with worldclass musicians tickets are available now for purchase for performances on February 8th and 9th and both contra CH will be uh held at Wan High School ticket proceeds going to help further other Jazz workshops and that is my report thank you do we have any board communication start with I'll start I'm talking to empty chairs but maybe to the TV I do want to thank everybody who

192came and spoke tonight uh especially about Colombia but also about the middle school schedule and appreciate the heart felt and sincere input and uh let's listen thanks I'll Echo that I think we could all say that there was clearly a lot of passion put into the responses and I think I also like to appreciate that everyone kept a pretty even demeanor and there was a lot of people and a lot of time devoted to that and thank you for coming out and being respectful um and also to the the main as an operation staff for getting the schools open because I know that was an ordeal over the long weekend Miranda like what Martin had mentioned it's a lot of empty chairs but may hopefully some still online is that I really want to thank

193everybody that is here that came here in person online I think your the students that have came here it takes a lot of courage and determination to come up and speak with a big group of folks that you may not know in front of the board and superintendent that you may have never met in person you may never meet them again and vocalizing your concerns and what means most to you I I will be for just me being transparent I have read every email that's came through I have I'm listening I've heard your concerns over the course of the weekend um like what Julie had mentioned earlier this is this is very new we will do our due diligence we will abide by the RCW and making sure that we providing that transparency for you

194all because we are representing you we are representing our students this isn't easy for anybody here um to to to witness it to to go through all of this a lot of emotions are here and it's clearly and I can clearly see that and so um just reminding you all to thank you for being here it truly does mean a lot from from myself and on behalf of the board um I will not repeat what my colleagues have said but I do um I want to let the public know that if you've sent an email your email has been received and read um responses are probably going to trickle in um in regards to what I said earlier about transparency I um and keeping everyone informed it's it's not just about the Colombia the um

195consolidation of schools but also with the middle school and high school schedules as we move forward um I want to thank fidelina and Mr Lopez for being here tonight and providing um you know the services that we that are always available so it's actually really exciting to see our community um show up and take advantage of um the diversity of of our community and you know utilizing this platform to to let their voices be heard so I just have a quick little update first uh thank you Mr Lopez for standing there in the corner translating all night we really sincerely appreciate it I'm sure your legs are tired but thank you it was important I think for you to do that and to be here and and I appreciate that um just real briefly Corey

196wasn't able to attend because of of the developments that occurred with the the announcement for Columbia on Friday but I was able to go to um a chalang county leadership meeting um hosted by the port of shalan County on Friday afternoon it looks like they're trying to make it a uh a bimonthly um meeting if uh with with folks from the county city um School District fire district or you know fire district Chamber of Commerce um just talking about kind of ways we can support each other as the larger government entities um I did get a good takeaway that hopefully someday may help our enrollment and financial situation in that um you know the the county and the port are really Pro getting us in front of Microsoft and finding out what what the Malaga

197District um what that might look like when they bring in the Industrial Development out in that area and how it may impact the community and and they have models from other areas um that has brought a lot of growth and and especially the affordable housing and the and the working class housing that seems to be what impacts our district the most so I was very excited about those connections in that meeting and I'm hopeful that as we we may develop some Partnerships or get some more information that can help help us with through these Financial situations but um it was interesting meeting looking forward to the next one so that's all I have anything else for the good of the order with that then the I will declare meeting adjourned