001good evening I welcome everyone to this very special November 28th regular board meeting thank you for joining us we'll call the meeting to order and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the United States to one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you we do have some spe a special guest uh but before we go to honorable uh Jordan I would like to do a welcome and an introduction to our newest board directors uh we have director from direct director District 3 Tucker Jackson and director District 4 Miranda skinski and prior to taking the oath of office I will let you guys introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself yeah all right our first first challenge let figureing out the mics um I'm
002Tucker Jackson from District 3 uh I am originally from Seattle but I've been here for seven years and I have two kids at Washington and I'm really excited to join the board good evening everybody I'm marand skiski I've grown up here for over 20 years and I I've graduated here and i' I've lived here the majority of my life with the brief period living in Ellensburg and coming back and I am married here with my husband here and we have one stepdaughter here and at Mission View Elementary and my oldest one is in the Pasco school district thank you and welcome again okay so now we're going to make it official um I would like to introduce honorable Judge Robert Jordan from the shank County Superior Court to Pride over the the oath of office
003to not only our newest board directors but also to um our our directors who have retained their seats director from director district one Julie Norton and director District 5 Martin Baron and myself from director District Two so this time if um we can all join in front so if the board members could raise their right hand I State your full name do hereby solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States United States and the constitution of the state of Washington consti of the state of and will Faithfully discharge the duties of director of wachi school district number 2466 shalan County County state of Washington state of Washington to the best of my ability to the best congratulations see thank you all right now back to regular business are there
004any requests to modify the consent agenda okay hearing on we will move to the consent agenda in the consent agenda um the consent agenda is just a rout routine agenda item where uh which we use to streamline the process usually in the consent agenda we have non-controversial items and again it's just a routine with your standard items in this consent agenda we have the November 14th regular meeting minutes the November 17th special meeting minutes vouchers and payroll the Personnel report policy updates contracts field trips and the November May report do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Julie I second that motion thank you Martin any discussion any questions no okay perfect hearing none all in favor of adopting the consent agenda as
005presented please say I I I any oppos motion carries all right now we have action items our first action items is for a call for nominations for the board chair or president to serve during the ensuing year according to board policy 1210 and the first regular at the first regular meeting at which newly elected board members are seated in election years the board shall elect from among its members a chair president and a vice a chair or vice president a chair or president and a vice president or vice chair to serve one-year terms newly appointed board members will not be eligible to serve as an officer unless a majority of the board has been appointed first on the agenda item is the election of the board president do I have any nominations for president of
006the Wii School Board to serve the upcoming year from December 23 2023 through December 2024 I will make a nomination but it's going to take more than one sentence these are not ordinary times you've just SE all five of us swear the oath of office and we are all bound by ethical policy 1815 recently the wachi school district has been the target of unjust and inaccurate propaganda president Maria anus was heavily targeted and to a much lesser extent I was also targeted the five of us have a job in front of us superintendent Corey kalahar is five months into his first year he deserved reserves and Needs Board support successfully to implement the Strategic plan that was unanimous unanimously supported by the previous board and much more in January the newly elected board will review
007and update our norms and expectations of behavior that is something that we do at regular intervals in about February we will need to complete our annual board self assistance it's all about values it's all about compet governance and respect for different criteria that we might have across the board the board president is primarily the first among a collegial that means we work together group of equals but does have some unique duties I set that out because it's very important at these relatively turbulent times to think about how we will set up a team to work together and so I nominate vice president Julie Norton to Contin continue from the outstanding leadership of President Maria anas okay Julie Norton has been nominated are there any further nominations okay one more time are there any further nominations
008okay he we none all right let me let me read my notes here okay so nominations are now clo closing and we will do a roll call roll call vote in regards to um the nomination for Julie to serve as board chair we'll start over on this side Tucker so I just yeah name yeah name Y Martin yay Miranda yay Julie yay okay and for me the no motion carries okay now I will hand over thank you I am honored and privileged and I look forward to working together as a very collegial board um okay so next we will be entertaining motions for the vice president um do I hear a nomination for the vice president of the wachi school board to serve in the ensuing year December 23rd December 2023 to December 2024 I
009would like to nominate Tucker Jackson for the vice president role I thought that was President you can do it because a you weren't the majority of the board wasn't appointed you weren't appointed you were elected I believe it's correct you were elected as opposed to being appointed by a non-election selection process so in that sense all five of us are elected members and eligible thank you for that clarification are first do you accept the uh you the N okay perfect just wanted to make sure um are there any other any further other nominations for vice president of the school board hearing none if there are no further nominations then the nominations are closed and we will uh vote vote on the vice president I will take a roll call vote um for Tucker Jackson to
010serve as the vice president of the the wachi school board I'll start on this side Miranda yay I am a yay yay I yeah yay or I and with that the vote is unanimous and Tucker Jackson you've just been elected the vice president of the school board and we will now um resume the meeting we will Reserve uh nominating our policy committees and other committees of after the start of the year which is a new procedure for us so um next on the agenda is citizen comment do we have any citizen comment either online or um in person uh yes we have two online commenters Brian Higgins and Jack Eaton okay um we will start in the order that you read them so Mr Higgins if you'd like to provide us with your comment you
011will be limited to three minutes and our secretary will be keeping [Music] time and if we're having technical difficulties we can move to Mr Eaton first and come back to Mr Higgins are they either one online Liz no Mr eaten may have um withdrew because he did disappear from the the list okay it looks like Brian's here now well try again for Brian all right can you hear me now Mr Higgins you have three minutes thank you very much my name is Brian Higgins I teach at Mani high school and live on South matow at by Lincoln Park and I just wanted to throw some thank yous out to the community my leadership class has been reaching out to community members um to do some one-on-one interviews and um half of the classes finish doing
012that and I just wanted to say thank you to the following people for donating their time to my students especially in like the middle of their work day um Elizabeth drath from the shalan Douglas Community Action Council Mario kantu from Chalan County PUD Domingo Gonzalez from Works a gym Ricardo ANZ representing the Rotary Club and Dr favola Barbosa from the Washington an apple educator or apple Education Foundation um my students had very impactful interviews that were very surprising for them and a great experience and these people help make it happen it's really important I think to thank volunteers we have in our classrooms um because we have them all the time and I just think that they're kind of like unsung heroes we expect that service is its own reward and sometimes that's not enough
013and so we really should celebrate classroom volunteers so another classroom person who's coming into my classroom this year that was just surprising and refreshing is Bob Bower from the Pud Bob Bower came in to ask some students to volunteer at the rocky Beach dam for an event and in exchange for having the opportunity to ask for volunteers and to provide them volunteer hours he came in and entertained my students with the history of how the dams were built and why they were built and if no one has heard Bob Bower talk about dams the guy is so passionate and so entertaining that it was just fantastic storytelling it was a great use of my students time to hear the history from someone so passionate and it was very impactful for my students um specifically for
014my Avid students who are able to see that we have community members that want to connect and create connections and are investing in their future just beyond um the classroom but coming into the classroom so thank you to all volunteers in our schools thank you to those volunteers I've named thank you Martin Baron who I see volunteering in our after school program at the high school in our homework Center every day I walk through there after school I see Martin Baron there with students um so thank you very much to all the volunteers we really appreciate you thank you thank you Mr Higgins do we have any other comments uh no there's none unless Mr Eaton showed up okay with there being no more uh citizen comments we will move along in the agenda to
015the special presentations and first up is our ASB updates do we have any students here from this the high schools okay a second okay um good evening my name is Janessa hepton I'm this year's ASP president oh my name is maxar and I'm the vice president he's mostly just here for moral support but um yeah so I've so sorry I've missed the last couple weeks due to some volleyball conflicts but I'm excited to be here and to inform you of all the wonderful things the high school has been up to uh where we last left off we were planning our annual homecoming dance planned by our amazing activities coordinators Abby PR and Celia Keys uh the theme was midnight garden and the dance occurred on Saturday October 2th first uh leading up to the dance
016we had our pep assembly along with five spirit days planned by our spirit coordinators James Butler and Diego Martinez Castro and the week was filled with lots of activities um Monday the theme was sweater weather uh we had morning yoga uh lunch cookie decorating and girls flag football which is a fan favorite uh Tuesday the theme was camouflage we did hot chocolate in the morning uh we had a scavenger at lunch scavenger hunt which uh the students really love that one because they want a bag of high chws so um and then after school we had a girls slow pitch game a volleyball game that Davis graciously agreed to move up the time because then we then had a late night game of coed soccer which this is the first year that we have done
017this activity but I think it went really well and plann to see that in the future uh Wednesday the theme was pink out and in the morning we had it's called hype day so basically um a bunch of ASB students stood at the doors or kind of walked around the entrance and their job was to um every student they saw just kind of hype them up and complement them and try to start their day off well so that was a personal favorite of mine um at lunch we did stuck for a buck which is where students pay a dollar for a piece of tape and try to stick a teacher to the wall I think this year we used Mr Anderson our principal so I would say that was pretty successful and then after school
018we had our boys volleyball tournament which is always pretty chaotic but went well um Thursday was Adam Sandler and in the morning we had pancakes which we did blow a few fuses so maybe that didn't go well but in the end it turned out and we made all the pancakes and we were able to give them to our special education classes and office staff uh lunch there was bracelet making and after after school there was a volleyball game and uh we had our future Panthers there so all of the Middle School volleyball girls were able to go and share on the team which was really great and then Friday was purple and gold we had yoga in the morning swing dancing lessons at lunch and our homecoming football game on Friday uh overall the week
019and dance were a huge success we had nearly a thousand students in attendance and the students really enjoyed something new that we tried this year which was to have a few rooms of the high school blocked off for other activities than dancing uh we had a movie room um a place for board games and karaoke and we even did concessions this year which we may not repeat because it was a little bit messy and maybe not the best idea but we tried it out um and overall I got a lot of good feedback from the dance I would say this is probably one of the best homecomings that we've held so that's very exciting um and then the week following homecoming however was not really a rest week for our ASB team um because on
020Saturday October 28th we hosted the annual awsl conference uh I believe this is the first time that whhs has hosted this conference so that was a pretty big deal to be asked um the honor to do that and I would say it went really well we had 14 other schools asbs attend um and James Layman the director of awsl was there and he always is a huge part in brightening whhs uh in the end it was a very hectic two weeks but luckily October 28th through November 1st wheni High held its parent teacher conferences and allowed students some time to catch up and get an actual break uh but following this break um our two amazing Spirit coordinators uh did decide to step down due to personal reasons um as well as wanting to play
021sports which kind of sounds like a silly reason to St down but it was decided by our executive team last year that our spirit coordinators could not also be student athletes because their job is to like stand in the student sections and be at all of those games and so that was something that we talked about in their interview and our two decided to step down and play sports instead um with that being said the two candidates the executive team chose to fill in these positions are Caitlyn Murphy and Martin Diaz uh they stepped in wonderfully and already planning our annual litter boox game and fundraiser uh I don't think a lot has been planned but I do believe a beneficiary has been selected um and I don't know who exactly but I do know
022it's a local community member so that's really great um in other news our amazing diversity coordinator Jackie Serrano planned the elron B for November 16th but unfortun the dance was cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales uh which most likely is due to uh there was a lot of other events going on that Friday including um like people were going for state and yeah so the play going on and stuff like that so um I do hope that this dance will be planned again in the future uh because it's a great event a great way to have diversity in wachi but unfortunately it just did not PL pan out how we would have hoped um a little shout out tomorrow Max is hosting a student representative meeting where we have uh a student from
023every 2B Class come and uh we basically just tell them about what's going on and that kind of stuff just to keep some student body interaction with ASB so they are all aware and can ask questions and all of that um but yeah um despite that the weeks have been relatively mellow I do have a few little shout outs I would like to say though um our girl soccer team made it to State um for swim and dive jyan mcin took first in the 50 backstroke uh Maya SoDo took second at dive uh girls 200 medley placed 12th uh 200 free relay took 13th and STI Sullivan placed fifth um the boys and girls cross country Kyla MAA took second place and Max medows took 14th uh volleyball uh took the State title for the
024first time in 40 years which was followed by a kind of last minute pep assembly where a few words were spoken and the team was celebrated um but yeah all of those wonderful things lead to the present uh thank you for your time I'm excited to share with you what happens next month great thank you so much and thank you I have a question though oh yes how how successful was a stick on a wall it works really well there's a picture he was there it never been to raise money how many how many seconds did he stick on the wall that's a yeah yeah thank you thank you guys do we great hello my name is Frankie P the Westside leadership Club president and I'm here I'm excited to be here to update you
025on what's putting going on at Westside since I was here last the Westside leadership Club put together a presentation for Veterans Day including veterans we have on staff as speakers leadership Club sent out our soccer request form to the community and are super excited about partnering with 17 organizations in and around our community we're currently boxing those request orders for pickup again this year and we've been wiped out 10,000 pairs of socks that we received which we love because that means there's socks on people people's feets leadership Club is also doing the annual Giving Tree where we take 30 tags from Salvation Army and students staff and families can participate in taking tags and bringing in gifts to provide to families in need in our community the club is also started a winter spirit week
026and works but we've not sorted out the dress up days so stay tuned that's all we have for you this month do you have any questions for me any questions thank you for your time thank you thank you I would actually like to thank everybody yeah um no it's great that you come and bring us up to date with the comings and goings congratulate both schools with their leadership roles and their Outreach and their involving other people and Frankie good to hear the socks are hot ticket again this year um and actually I'm looking around the audience uh we're used to hearing the ASB but I can see two two people from the superintendent's advisory Council in the audience Frankie doubles up you do two things and Wendy glad to glad to see you here
027so oh no that was so I thought I thought I would miss somebody anyway what I want to say is uh it is richly rewarding for us on the board to listen to you our our future speak so well and reach out so well thank you all right moving on um next we have the big six update and I believe Dr kalahar are you going to take this one yes I am thank you very much thanks students all right excellent um so yeah we'll uh we'll pull up the slide deck and I just want to thank the board of directors for their time this evening we'll be revisiting uh the data from our big six uh strategic plan uh we first shared the preliminary data with you in August as well as some successes and
028some areas of improvement that we wanted wanted to um share and so I'm coming back to you tonight with some of some of the completed data and this information also coincides with our fall inside Wan schools newsletter uh that should have uh arrived in District mailboxes this week as well so we'll jump on in here and uh this is the first slide of our slide deck today and it outlines the big six as our Baseline report card data let let's see if I all right and so we have here just our um our promise statement to our students we promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready and the next slide we'll dive into who that is those are our students um and we know that
029each of our hello stand by I don't know why I struggle with this every time it's just okay it's just going to be that way anyway so here's here's our students and we know each of our students uh comes to us with their own unique characteristics that make them who they are um in the 1H School District's demographic has changed over the last few years and we are more diverse than ever which gives us the opportunity to ensure that we know how to deliver highquality instruction to the many different Learners in our system and so um so here we have our total student headcount for our enrollment 7,413 students from uh the state's perspective there um that is different than our FTE count which uh our portion and our enrollment is based on so it's
030a little bit different if you compare those numbers from other uh budget updates as well but you can see our federal race and ethnicity where we have uh 54% of our student population is Hispanic and Latino 41% fall into the white category and then we have our students with two or more races at 2.9 and then our black African-American students students our Asian students and our indigenous students as well uh our program and characteristics on the other side there are English language Learners at 22% our low socioeconomic students at 60% and our highly capable students our high cap students at 12.4 and the homeless students uh just below 6% migrant population about 15.7 and our students with parents in the military 1.2 and students on 504s 3.9 % and our students with disability coming in
031with 16% there so that's our student population and uh and who we are as a as a student uh group in the wian school district we also have um we also have our our teacher demographics here and so you can see that we have 530 classroom teachers roughly um almost 60% of those teachers hold a master's degree or higher uh we have almost 16% of our teachers are national board certified which is one of the most rigorous certification processes in the nation um and the average number of teaching years experienced from our teachers is almost 14 years and you can see that our female teachers uh are outnumber our male teachers 3 to one and then you can see our uh the the race and ethnicity of our population of teachers here where we have
032about we have a little bit over uh 83% there that are white and then uh 13.4% Hispanic Latino and that's what one of the things that we are understanding is we increase um we increase the need um of our Learners and to understand who our Learners are we also need to increase the diversity of our staff as well we know students learn better are more engaged and see a brighter future for themselves when they can identify people like them throughout their educational experience so let's dive into the data all right and so this is the first of our big six uh student outcomes this is not and I just want to make a clarification it is not Stu uh state report card data this is the Baseline data from our strategic plan that we want
033to report to our board and to our community and that we believe is important for our school district um based on our strategic plan and this particular big six data point is the only one that is not based on our students um and their learning um this one is based on our teachers and the strategies that are used by our educators we'll take a look here at the data 77.3 uh percent of students received and participated in grade level and Beyond standards and instruction uh 58.5% of our teachers use strategies intended to elicit 100% student engagement and then 64.9% of the teachers noticed and adjust when students were not engaged and these scores and percentages are accumulated through the year in our learning walks in conjunction with our learning learning and teaching team and this
034year um we're bringing our building administrators uh on board to th for those learning walks as well and so this data is tracked through a survey like tool that we use during the walkthrough and it is a snapshot of our teachers and what they're doing in the classroom so usually about 10 10 to 12 minutes uh our teams are in the room gathering this data so um this is our experiencing high quality instruction slide number two is belonging and connecting students know that they belong they know that they are seen valued and heard and they have healthy relationships with the staff and peers so we can see here that we have 66.4% of our students feel safe at school 73.1% feel that they are treated with respect and 67.4% of the students feel that there
035is an adult at the school who will encourage them and our metrics for scoring and tracking the details for big six number two is our annual culture and climate survey um that is uh taken directly from the students in the spring and during the survey implementation window we also gather data from our stakeholders including uh staff parents and families as well all right big six data point number three reading on grade level students will read on grade level by third grade and Beyond we have a number of Statistics here um we know the importance of reading on grade level by third grade and beyond that third grade so the first two data pieces encapsulate our third graders and the other data points gather third grade data and Beyond so you can see here 57.7% of
036our third graders score at or above grade level on their uh spring overall reading I and then we have 37.6% of our third graders scoring proficient or above in the English language arts Smarter Balance assessment and then we move on to the Beyond part third grade and Beyond so 47.3% of our third through eth graders are scoring at or above grade level in their I ready and then 42.4% of our third through 10th graders are scoring proficient and the ELA Smarter Balance assessment as well all right ready for algebra students will be on grade level or Beyond by 8th grade in algebra we have a couple of different data points here um and uh so 28.4% of our students in grades three through eight scoring proficient or above in the math Smarter Balance assessment have
037some room for growth here uh 38.9% of K8 students scoring on Mid on grade level or above on the spring I ready assessment in math as well um and this uh student learning outcome truly begins in the early grade levels and moves throughout our entire system and implementation of our new math instructional identity uh will show improvement over the course of the next few years as we move into the the second year of our uh strategic plan we also have our essential math routines that we we're implementing this year engaging instruction problem solving growth mindsets productive struggle and student discourse and with with that new math instructional identity and some of the essential math routines we're looking for those scores to Skyrocket all right number five on track uh for graduation and uh students are
038on track to graduate by the end of their freshman year and Beyond and this is a metric that is tracked by OPI and this is part of the Washington State uh School Improvement uh numbers that we get uh the framework that we get for our uh School District um this metric is a number of students who past all the classes they enrolled in during nth grade we know that nth grade is a very pivotal year in the minds of our and some of our young students and the success in nth grade ultimately helped shape the the decisions that they make for the future academic trajectory so um you can see here that 63.1% of our students are on track for graduation based on passing all of their classes in ninth grade okay lots of data
039on this slide here um and lots of student participation this particular slide and our big six item involved in real world relevant learning does not happen without Partnerships in our community and we are excited about that um students are engaged in a Continuum of learning experiences that create awareness exploration preparation and work experiences to be future ready and uh so we have 86% uh 86.4% of our case six students are participating in science field experiences 84.3% of our 7th through 10th grades sorry 7th through 12th grade students are enrolled in a career or technical education course 97.6% of our seventh through eth graders are attending a Career and Technical education field experience and then some areas that we are slated to grow in and have intentional plans to uh grow in that area 26 .4%
040of our nth grade students or 9th through 12th grades 9th through 12th grade students are participating in job Shadows internships career launches apprenticeships and work site learning and 16.8% of 9 through 12th graders uh are earning industry recognized certificates as well so we know we can grow these uh numbers in the areas and we do recognize that this is our Baseline data in our first year of implementation of the Strategic IC plan these are data points that we want to continue to work with and have very intentional action steps and intentional processes in place to grow in these areas over the course of the next few years and so here is uh QR code to our strategic plan uh and the road map to fulfill our promise to the students uh this particular QR code
041takes you to the Strategic plan section of our website for more details on priorities our core values and more on the big six outcomes as well so thank you for allowing me to present um and a huge shout out to with the cabinet team over here um for all of their work their executive sponsorship uh compiling the data reviewing the data and ownership of the work and implementation of the work couldn't do this work without them that is a cabinet team that rocks right there and we appreciate all their efforts um and then I just want to open up the time for comments uh questions that I can answer or get back to you with I have questions um how are we I mean this is great thank you for providing the data and looking
042outside really digging into the data of the school what the school district and how it reflects um with what's happening in the classrooms um my question is how are we incorporating the equity audit that we did a couple years ago in regards to the big six uh you know thank you for recognizing that obviously you know when we have teachers that reflect um their students students are going to be uh Higher Achievement more productive feel more included um so that's just one component of um you know our our demographic student demographic for Latino students is growing we went within just a couple years went from 52% Latino to now 54 our staffing numbers kind of tend to remain somewhat the same um and I know that was one of the things in the equity um
043audit yes because I'm GNA call it what it was an equity audit uh how are we incorporating and there's other aspects in there too as well as um you know high quality instruction incorporating um more of the our district demographics into those highly capable courses and referrals same thing rate level so anyways I'm curious to see how obviously can't provide an answer on the spot but how does that audit um incorporate into the big six excellent yeah I can just I'll say a few words at this point um each of our cabinet members um are taking ownership and executive sponsorship of that Equity audit as well so that is wonderful um and we are doing some very intentional work in our learning and teaching team and what I would like to do is like to
044come back and give uh a presentation update on the equity audit itself so that our new board members in our community can see where we are with that work so and we can tie that into how the big six are related to it as well so yeah I think we need to you know work look at them um together we can't consider them as two different I mean there's things that overlap and so how are we corporating the big sixs into all those um areas of improvement perfect yeah great question if I can add a thought I wonder whether a workshop isn't a better Forum you can get more data and more interaction doing it that way think about it and do thank you yep great questions other ones I yeah I have a kind
045of a calibration combo set of questions um we are by the way thank you very much for everybody for putting this together but we're so reaching to get our Baseline benchmarks and then move from there um so and we've coming out of a lot of data disruption so um I'm GNA pretend I'm Laura now and say we need a timeline uh but it's really true we do need a timeline and I'm not asking for it now I'm just saying I'm sure you're working on it but we need to have uh calibrate what we're going to mean by a timeline data is meaningless unless the context is well defined uh and then this one is a friendlier question um when we were trying to work our way through a lot of disruption you lent a lot
046on progress during the year with some of your statistics um and so when we look at these statistics you know what time of the year is kind of the one question is the calibr one and the other one is will you continue to use in-year progress as a way of looking at how well that big six is being done or was that a stop Gap want to make sure I understand the question oh well you uh you would compare the fall fall with the spring and look at how much progress was made in the course of a year okay great thank you yes we will we will still be doing that as well um and it will not necessarily be part of our yearly report so to speak for the Strategic plan but we'll have
047that data we are collecting that data and we will report that data to the board the growth that's our growth data how do our students grow from the fall to the spring so yes we're still collecting that and we can still report on that as well because that's important for us to um to I Now understand where you meant during the year dat words J perfect no it's perfect we will still be doing that and uh and I like your um request for the timeline and the calibration of that timeline so we'll begin working on that appreciate that I I'll follow up with the questions I had they're somewhat related um especially when it came down to item number two belonging and connected it troubled me a little bit that we're using data from a
048survey last spring and now it's December is there another way we can track and monitor that progress in particular because it does concern me a little if we're going to wait until next spring to decide if we made any any improvements especially in that area feeling I'm looking at statistics saying 66.4% feel safe at school I'd like to know a little more timely if that's still the case if we're making improvements rather than waiting till next spring so part of the the calibration issue can we get some more um and that was a little I know a little tougher but that to me is a real determining one especially when we're dealing with absentee problems and things like that if you know our students not showing up because they don't feel connected can we get
049a better handle on that within the year well and I'll just I'll mention this we we have done that annual survey this will be our fifth year doing that annual survey so the data does not go untouched so that information is shared with the building principles um we take the information in May the building principles get it immediately and then in August they add that to their school Improvement plans and uh build that into the system and the process so it's not going untouched and it's not going unmonitored it we do have those processes built in yeah right and and maybe that was a misunderstanding I assume they're working on it based on this information and throughout the year it would be nice if we could see something tangible that this is these improvements that
050we're making are are working sort of a little bit more in real time versus waiting to the end of the year saying hey did did the adjustments we make make the difference that's where I'm trying to understand is there something a little bit more timely that we can see that these you know they're monitoring but is there how how do they know that the monitoring is working correct yeah so um I can get that for you because each building has their own temperature checks that they do throughout the year with their students but as a district we do the annual review so I can share with you what each building does to monitor that their students are safe and cared for yeah yeah I think this is one of the data points that we actually
051got to see when we were doing site visits for our PLC Pro for plc classroom visits um I think we were at the one um in one of the middle schools where we got to exce firsthand the um that the chart it went from red to Yellow to Green um and how it progressed in regards to theal aspect of it um and so because I also worry about survey fatigue um for our students you know I know they just took the healthy survey the youth healthy survey thing um and then with standarized testings as well um so I am concerned that we are overloading I think we as parents kind of oftentimes feel that way I know we do it at work uh so because everything that we get home from our student it's like
052you know we're gonna do this you know please review the survey with your student or and so that's my concern is that um there it seems to me like the plcs there is classroom data to support the work and to track it how they're going so maybe seeing a presentation on like a dipstick on a building on a couple grade levels to see how that's going but I do worry about um survey fatigue I would add just I was a biology major worked in science for a while if you are changing up when in the year you're you're giving this like even if it's relatively the same questions like that data changes because if you have something in May and people are have a year to like evaluate how they're feeling if you say that
053in the fall all of a sudden it's a very different test with a very different kind of student climate so okay thank you um and just in general for these updates I I really like having the Strategic plan updates and I'd really like to see maybe a drill down quarterly on an on one of our big six maybe building it into our regular board meetings a little bit more of a um I think it forces us to be more intentional about looking at it and and monitoring it ourselves and just keeping a Tang an eye on it but also using it you know one focusing on one aspect at a time um kind of makes it makes us able to do a little bit more Deep dive on on a particular piece versus the overview
054of all six for every update I'd like to see maybe some more like month monthly might be ambitious but quarterly if there's data on a particular point to really we'll see how we're doing on on this big zix item yeah so yeah we could spread that out throughout the year and kind of drill down I like that any other questions comments about the presentation I have one okay this may sound silly or redundant so when looking at all the numbers on here is it with the statistics that show here this is beautifully done it it makes sense I really like reading it thank you but my question is that when looking at the data I know in the past um in past discussions or in meetings too like say like example the standardized test there
055are students that don't participate in it those are the statistics that we don't see in there is this Statistics that we're seeing here AC um accommodating for all of the students because it was mentioning the 7,000 population for the demographic is that braking it down for with the read for the reading on grade level for the students that are feeling safe so on and so forth okay um Whi which data which data in particular I I can address because if it's the smarter balance assessment data um that includes students that were present for the assessment and students that were not present for the assessment and they're the students that are not present for the assessment they are counted against us unfortunately Le so it would be considered a failure um when we do the uh
056when we do the culture and climate survey it's done on a particular day in the classroom so it may not be representative of students that are absent in that particular day and there's a window of time that teachers have to get those uh students that were not there caught up that helps a little bit it does it um I think you know I like the idea to have more um diligent just to keep reviewing to to see if the numbers are changing to see what this statistics are looking like though but also I think for people like me I wanted to compare and contrast also to see what is it reflecting for the students that are being accounted for and then how many students are not being accounted for too so then that way we're
057making sure that nobody is being left behind and then if we're not meeting those needs for them whether they're not the scores are not being reflected or they're not getting what they need and and whatever criteria then we can try to see to narrow down what are we to do to help them as well excellent thank you any other questions great to see good participation from our new members yes excellent all right well thank you for the time moving on it looks like next on the agenda is a first read of our policies so I will hand that over to superintendent Andor the remaining member of our policy committee excellent Martin I uh can can address this so the first uh the first item we have on our uh policy review is uh 1450 and
058this policy was um added uh for discussion from the board and we did make some changes on the policy um excusing an absence by informing board president uh secretary and executive assistant when absent and then we more clearly defined absences as being uh or extended absences as being four unexcused absences um and that is the extent to the changes that we made are are we okay over here okay all right um and so yes so that's kind of that's where we were on 1450 I don't know if Martin if you had anything else to add on that um yes sorry I was looking for my notes because I kind of work on paper yes we went round and about um and defining an unexcused absence without making it complicated very simple if you make a
059mistake and fail to report in then it's unexcused but uh that's just a reminder in reality because the uh sanction only comes when you have four consecutive unexcused absences so that was a way of making it very simple probably taking the conflict out of it to some extent and we also separated the policy on duties from the policy on attendance uh and only had um sanctions in the attendance one not in the duties the duties being being kept positive and I say that because that was a discussion at the committee and I think at the board level about having something that had a positive approach to good behavior did you want us to comment on each of these individually as we go or do you want to wait till so we're oh we can comment
060on them individually at the time yeah that would be that would be great okay does anyone have any questions and for the new board members how we typically do the policies just so you know is they're on this agenda right now for discussion only um so this is your chance to ask some questions it's a lot so you do get these in advance but if things come up during the meeting that you have questions on either ask them here or you'll have time before we get to a second read to email any questions you have um second read then which would usually be the next meeting is when we would adopt these um so right now you're just being asked to look at them and comment if you have any questions or issues with anything
061um oh go ahead actually you know I think you gave me a redirect as the surviving member of the policy committee for everybody to kind of explain how the system works um we are governed by policies we're a policy uh governed board um the Washington State School Directors Association basically produces model um policies based most of them are based on law when their Olympia is busy we get new policies um and uh that is an extremely efficient way they're um funded externally they use legal counsel we don't have to invent the Wheel by ourselves so the first stage is as Kim is uh the administrator heads up the policy committee's work and she will collect the changes in model policies if there are any issues raised on the board or within the district those be
062brought to attention and the first stage then is a two-person policy committee where working with superintendent and um executive secretary administrator executive assistant uh we'll look at those discuss them and basically produce a draft at times we will say we would think this works better or need some local content that is the first reading that's what comes to you at this point for discussion it's a soft um discussion as it were uh based on that they can go back to the policy committee or if there is a general consensus that it's ready then later on it becomes a second read and that is an action committee item so it's a really about a four-step process between the legislature in wda to a policy committee to a first read to action thank you thank you Martin
063as I mentioned in AE with first time we put this in for first read um I'm okay moving this forward but just so um you know I I I would like to see a little bit more of a a directive as to what attendance means whether we're talking iners or remote attendance you know uh just to prepare ourselves for the unforeseeable of what could happen what has happened um you know I'm okay with this I I there we could push this forward to Second read but I've always I I think we definitely need to we should Define what um attendance means what the difference between remote and um person I think I can give a policy committee answer to that because I think you're right that that needs to be dealt with but it was
064a conscious decision that to separate those two aspects of having an update on the policy and then not looking at remote attendance and things like that until we had a new board with A New Perspective so it's not been shoved away it's been put on the agenda for the five of us now so I did have one question and I do agree in concept that if we're going to deal with types of attendance they should be a separate policy and I think that's what you previously discussed um my only question concern on this particular policy and I don't know if we ever got the wda model um if Kim sented I apologize I didn't see it um but I did look at other districts to see if what was proposed was similar and it looks
065relatively consistent so I'm going to assume that this is fairly standard wda policy the only thing I don't particularly care for in this is even though it's redundant I don't like removing the active or training military duty from that um line one I know we address it in the very next sentence but it just feels weird taking it out of the top saying illness military or other authorized um absence as um as the reasons for declaring a position vacant like I said I do realize it's redundant because we address how a military leave is handled but I just don't like that it doesn't jump out at you right away like it did in with the original language so I would like to see the active or training military duty left in section one but otherwise
066I'm I'm good with it and I saw that that was still consistent with most of the other policies they all left them in don't you think that's confusing and redundant because the military U absence is specifically dealt with in a specific way that is not the same as other absences yeah I I agree it's redundant and that's what I opened with saying it is it is redundant but it the concepts are a little different it says we'll declare a position vacant if the absences were for reasons other than illness military training or those authorized by the board and then we jump down and and specifically tell you how we're dealing with um military training so because it's there because it's likely in the model policies I just assume keep it up there because then your
067eye is is immediately trained to see okay it's not going to be one of those conditions is going to cause me to to vacate it and then looking down it's how we approve the leave for that particular leave so I think they're very distinctly kind of two different concepts but it is a little redundant it does send the same message that military leave is is authorized um like I said I just I didn't see it removed from any other policy I kind of don't like saying illness other reasons and not recognizing mil military in there but that was just my preference I I'm finding very confused it specifically says will'll Grant an excused absence if there's a policy that says we will grant an excused absence there seems to be no reason to include it
068in an explanation right I it's just the I mean it's I don't know if it's really worth it to belabor it but it is a very distinctly the way it's phrased in one it as we'll declare a board members position vacant if the absences were for reasons other than illness and we struck active military duty or those authorized by the board so it leaves a hole there it says we will declare a position V vacant if the absences were for reasons other than illness or authorized absence by the board and then we jump down to to the first time in this policy dealing with specifically military leaves saying if the board is not board memb is on active military duty the board will grant an extended leave of absence so yes this assumes then that
069we won't declare the position vacant as per section one but it's I mean wouldn't wouldn't that be something falling onto authorized by the board and then we're using the specific instance of what is authorized by the board in the reference to military P military um Duty or training so it seems like it is we're covering it in other reasons and then we're just saying here's one of the exact rules specifically right but it it's just it was there like I said it is a little bit redundant I'm not going to die on the hill for it but it just I didn't like the appearance of taking it out but yeah it would be an authorized you know a leave authorized by the board that was my only thought any others want to get the next
070one okay excellent so the next um the six other policies that we discussed felt like more housekeeping boiler plate plate policies we did not have a ton of discussion or dialogue between the members of the policy committee we introduced um many of the policies to one another and felt the need to pretty much move forward without much uh change or discussion but we'll go through each of those right now the first one is 1610 uh was the revised uh policy uh based on House Bill 1577 um and this one in the summary notes here um basically increases the the monthly contract value uh which uh Municipal officers may have a beneficial interest in from 1500 to 3,000 the policy really protects individuals in the district from conflicts of interest when there is a potential uh
071for unethical benefit from school dist District funds and we decided to move that one forward and felt like it was necessary and I was going to say most of these were identified I don't know whether they used the word housekeeping but basically wer identified them as there either come from a bill or an adjustment to a number related to inflation um and uh so they're they fit that category but I think we should cover what the category was as Corey did on that particular one yep excellent other thoughts or comments on this one all right um and then we'll look at the uh the 401 uh Public Information Program this one is based on House Bill 1230 uh public health information so the legislation is requiring school school districts to maintain a website uh that
072that maintain a website to post a prominent link on the homepage as well as the homepage of each school that has information on the Department of Health about substance use Trends overdose symptoms um and Secure Storage of prescription drugs and this one also links to another uh another um policy as well 2121 and uh I just have in the notes here that uh during this first read we are currently not in compliance with this but we will be by um the second read and moving forward so we need to do a little work on our end um on the website piece but um yeah this is good information that we need to have all right uh and then 6020 uh system of funds and accounts and this is based on uh Senate Bill 543 School
073District's depreciation subf funds this is a fun one um require school districts to have that have fewer than 2,000 students to establish a depreciation subf fund within their general fund to reserve funds for future facility and equipment needs um and uh just to summarize the model policy revisions reflected these Provisions are offered in Brackets to indicate the school districts with more than 2,000 students not necessarily required to adopt those Provisions um thought it did a good description of the different funds the general fund and the capital projects funds debt Services funds but we decided to move this one forward as well now make a comment this one really is reporting standards um and the last time we revised this policy was in 2011 so I think it's about time we brought out reporting standards which
074were probably in line anyway but um brought the policy up to date any thoughts or comments okay all right 6550 capitalization threshold for leases and subscription based Information Technology Arrangements it's a tongue twister there uh wasda has developed this policy to address recent statements of the government Accounting Standards Board regarding lease and subscription based Information Technology Arrangements um these statements reference a capitalization threshold set by the district prompting the need for board policy uh setting such thr thresholds um we didn't have much discussion here and we moved that one forward and I believe the threshold is about $65,000 if you look at uh 0.05% of our budget yeah just so somebody gets an idea of the level at which you would be capitalizing excellent all right thanks Martin uh 6959 wasda has revised this model
075policy to better align with the statutes pertaining to Public Works contracts that receive state funding additionally wasda has developed a new accompanying model procedure to support procedural matters without locating Those portions in the policy and we uh were moving that one forward as well and the final policy this is super fun stuff I'm I can see the crowd is very excited so I know it's I'm sorry to just leave you with this Cliffhanger but um 2121 is linked to the 4,01 policy that we talked about and this requires us to um have a post uh of a prominent link on the district homepage to the Department of Health as well so we moved that one forward um and we will be making sure that by the second read we have all that information ready to
076go thank you any other questions comments no I do have just a add-on sort of um and I hate to put this all on you Martin because you're the remaining member um but given um that we just recently went to Wasa and we had onboarding training um in our newest members I would like to see um if there's a draft uh uh model for that addresses House Bill 5227 in regards to Dei training for board directors and um if not maybe we might want to consider adding one into under board of directors I think I I agree and we'll re research that then um I do have in my back pocket the fact that we do have an orientation policy and actually a year ago we reminded ourselves that we need to do a good
077job of that so I think that's um those two two intentions can go together thank you and just a little bit of context sorry um heal there was a health bill that required board directors to take two di traines provided by wasto or an approved trainer two within two years okay dur in term um and so you'll you'll you'll get emails and you hear about it um I'm not sure if either of you guys had the opportunity to attend any of them during wda so excellent all right if that's it for the policies then we can move along to the superintendent report all right there it is excellent well just to start off welcome and congratulations to all of you very excited for our uh new board and uh it's kind of monumental to have
078all five board members uh taking the oath at the same time so that's something we probably won't ever see again in our lifetime maybe we'll see um but just wanted to let everyone know uh I had a wonderful time at the uh the Washington State School Directors Association conference a couple weeks ago we had this entire team was present uh there and on task for learning I felt that there was a good balance of learning but also that there was a good balance of time that where we were just able to connect as people and as humans and uh to kind of build that teamwork that we're going to need as we move through um yeah as we move through the rest of this year and um into unforeseen turbulent times in front of us
079so I'm just greatly appreciative that you were all able to make time for that and just appreciate you all um and then I'll dive into a little update here we have a a little softball update which I'll try to make sure that we have U along the way as we're moving into that build but since our last board meeting Bernardo Wills uh Team came to an Ane for two days and met with District leadership they met with softball coaches both past and present as well as community members at large to discuss needs goals and desires around the softball field and it was was really a fun and engaging time um in addition they met with the city uh to understand the needs uh and the complexities around the compliance and and cod work that we
080have to work through and we'll have a more detailed update on December 12th from Rob gross our project manager so he'll give us more of the details very excited about that and then just an uh an update for our board and our community on Bond and Levy work uh superintendent Bill Eagle put in motion a variety of items that set this District up for future Bond and Levy work um one of those was a presentation from Trevor Trevor Carlson from Piper Sandler that was about a year ago was in December last year um and then uh he gave his own presentation on bonds and levies last April in addition uh Bill proposed our current study and Survey of the 18 School District which is currently happening happening now um to give us the most up-to-date
081information with our buildings with regard to age and depreciation and a variety of other items that we need to know the last one was in 2014 so it's good information that we have and so the update is uh the study and Survey is almost finished we should have a draft of the um the findings uh in mid December so I'm excited about that we had a scap funding meeting with the state um which told us a variety of inform information about Wan High School um the fact that 90% of the WAN High School is um ready ready to be updated which I think many of us know that um and which equates to 290,000 square fet of that building um is ready to be updated and is um eligible for State match up to $53
082million so that's an interesting number for us to have as we move into uh Levy and capital Bond time um we also had the cleaner building standards Workshop uh for our board which talked about um some of the needs of all of our buildings throughout the districts um and then also some of the cost if we of fines if we don't do some of that work um and we received we did receive the cost level industry level assessment for Wan high school and the cost of doing that is roughly about the same as what the yearly fine would be if we don't do anything so I was like okay well that kind of works out well um we also uh met again with Trevor from Piper Sandler and he met with our district facilities team
083um we've also been meeting with other companies out there to uh look at what pre-bond work and Consulting looks like as we move into Bond and Levy season um we know our current Levy ends in December of 2025 and we are just ready to begin ramping up for Bond and Levy campaign for 2025 just to kind of let everyone know um and then an update uh for our board and our community on uh the athletic director position we know that our athletic director is retiring at the end of 2324 and as a leadership team we are currently evaluating the needs of the district um also some of the financial uh constraints that we have um as we plan to address the uh athletic director position uh Statewide we know that administrative positions are usually posted
084in the February and March time frame um and posting any positions uh to early does not always Garner better or more applicants in some cases it can eliminate potential applicants as well um we are building our we are still building a timeline um like uh all administrative positions we will post on the appropriate professional websites along with our own website and we will encourage our current administrators to reach out to their colleagues as well um we will continue to share additional information and more and most importantly how our community can be involved once we determine our plan to proceed we know that we have a very active community in our Athletic program and we thank them for their support and I thank the board and the community for their support of our athletic programs as
085well so thank you um some celebrations uh Newberry had a literacy night last week and it was the first ever family reading pajama party um that sounds fun I think we need to go to that next year um and that was in conjunction with North Central estd over 300 students in their families attended packed the cafeteria the hallways the classrooms all eager to read and support literacy uh the Newberry litery team coordinated the event with uh North Central ESD who ran some of the activity stations including crafts and read alouds uh creativity and engaging family literacy nights directly supports our District's strategic plan big six student outcome number three which we talked about earlier today reading on grade level by third grade and Beyond and the final celebration one of our district trainers uh annaa
086limus poo was awarded Washington Apple Education Foundation alumni volunteer of the year which is a tongue twister um she was surprised with the alumni volunteer of the Year award from the Washington Apple Education Foundation last Friday she's a former recipient of the Apple Education Foundation scholarship and volunteers her time there to Mentor students uh so she is part of the scholarship selection committee as well and we congratulate annaa on her uh accomplishments and for giving back to the students and the community through her volunteerism so thank you thank you oh goad um you missed the volleyball champions that's what I was gonna say they did the ASB covered it well but there's lots to celebrate congratulations though uh Wii girls volleyball um is there any questions on the superintendence report or any followup for Corey
087thank you for covering the athletic director uh timeline I appreciate that um moving on then to any board communication we pick on that end of the table first I uh will admit that I was not prepared for this portion of the of the meeting I will do a better job next time I will say I really appreciate the uh retain retained members of the um board for reaching out and asking if I had any questions coming into this meeting and also to Dr kahar for asking if uh I need anything coming up because it is a little daunting being up on this side of the table so thank you to everyone uh I had one super exciting session at the State uh School director's um uh conference on student voice Yakama has I think an
088absolutely amazing and to me perfectly designed system that was just awesome I made Corey didn't get to go to it but I made him get the package of information so I'm hoping that other people will be excited and that we'll give us ideas for our student advisory Council it really was awesome um and it reached down to the middle schools and uh it involved uh basically proposing Solutions and and working on things and that's how an organization gets strong that's kind of how I thought of it so that was that was pretty exciting and since I'm looking over there Wendy I want to embarrass you the north central Educational Services District gave you a special honor I saw it in the newspaper for outstanding student ship so congratulations to you and then I'll just say
089you're just one of a number of superb students in the school district well done um Martin you hit it right you hit the nail right on the head in regards to the student representation on the board I was going to bring that up again from the conference the school director conference I I'm just going to present it again third times a charm um that you know invite my colleagues to really look into what it means to J who represented on the board um I know we heard Fab we he we hear how fabulous our ASV um students are and the information they share now imagine from a Civic role of different students what opportunity uh we could provide for our students in our high school and how much we as board directors can learn from
090them you know them being in the middle of of everything um they definitely provide a very honest perspective um so I invite uh colleagues to kind of think think about um what it means to have student Representatives on the board um State I got the state champ oh I also attended the pre-conference for the law conference and I just want to say uh at one point there was breakout sessions uh I think Corey tackled one of them I went to the other one in regards to um social media and I just want to say how proactive the district is in regards to the lawsuits in uh the jewel lawsuit and the social media lawsuit that we have also joined it was impressive to well a little impressive to me to see how far our district
091has come in regards to you know taking those into consideration and how even big districts they're like what what what happens when you do when you join that or you know there was a lot of questions around it and I know we were part of the jewel lawsuit we've kind of closed that chapter we've seen U you know I don't know whether we got a big chunk of money or not um it it's making a statement and a stance on where we stand on say substance abuse uh and so I just want to say thank you to the district for the leadership to being proactive in regards to to taking that into consideration for uh our students and that was it for me yeah oh you don't have to this is not don't have to
092present I will say I with Tucker I didn't really fully prepare prepare but I will be better prepared moving forward I do want to thank everybody on the board these last couple weeks even with the the wasda conference and up to this upcoming meeting of being feeling welcomed feeling belonged by everybody um it will be an amazing journey moving forward and lots to learn um going to the Wasa conference just taking um a step back thinking about what has happened in the last three days which was a lot a lot of information in a short amount of time but I did learn a lot I was really grateful to be there it was a big eye opener and utilizing the practices and the policies to make our district better is what I'm looking forward to
093and also to Echo what everyone said congrats on all of our School athletics they've done a really really good job all right I don't have much to add but um I just enjoyed going to the wda conference getting to know um our new soon to be new board members thought it was a good opportunity to to get to know each other on a a more personal level and I enjoyed that I really liked that we all seem to use the opportunity to go to different breakout sessions so that we can bring some of the the knowledge from each session back and and build on that as things that we heard through the conference because I thought it was a pretty good conference um I'm excited to start moving on the bonds and Levy path a
094little because I I did go to a really exciting energizing conf uh conference there so I'm like oh can we can we get this in in Motion in our district so excited for that um but just a really good opportunity to kind of get to know the new new folks and and it was great to see all of our participation there and I look forward to working with this new board going forward that's all I got all right well any sorry learning this new role there there's nothing else um I will adjourn the meeting all right that's weird PR [Music] this this is cool mom I like this just