001good evening everyone I welcome everyone to the October 24th regular board meeting thank you for joining us the the meeting will come to order and we will open the meeting with our Pledge of Allegiance please join I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all should anyone wish to participate in the citizen comment you can still sign up by completing the form at the entry of the of the room and handing it over to Kim white our virtual attendees had the opportunity to complete the form online before the meeting do we have any request to modify the agenda all right hearing none we will move on to the consent agenda in this consent
002agenda we have the minutes from the October 10th regular meeting the October 16th work workshop vouchers and payroll Personnel report contracts Surplus field trips the September and October enrollment report and a new item added to the consent agenda are the POC some policy updates that had non substantive changes uh hopefully everybody saw those they were just one word changes or no changes for updates do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved thank you Laura second that motion thank you Martin any discussion no all in favor please say I I I any opposed okay before we move on to Citizen comments um Julie did notify us that she would she wouldn't be present do we have Katherine online no okay and I was I was not notified of her attendance all right
003Kim do we have any citizen comments yes uh one citizen comment Dorothy Ferguson hello um I dropped my grandson off a I was at karate watching my grandson and and it was like oh do I want to come here it's late I'm tired and I'm like you guys are going to be here I'm coming so I just want to say thank you for being role models in our community for like um for our students um for uh taking the high road and showing our students how to um be good role models for students and others um just want to tell you about John Newbery and their PTA they're gearing up for my my sister went to their meeting a couple weeks ago she's real excited about being part of that group that's her first opportunity
004to do that and she's a great auntie and she really loves it but um preparing for teacher appreciation in November and the winter coat drive uh particularly boots and snow pants because we know how those kids love to be out in the snow and as we can see by the weather it's we're getting pretty close to that so but I just want to say thank you for being here and um you do a great job thank you thank you Dorothy if we don't have any further citizen comments we will move on to our special presentations excellent let's go ahead and kick off our presentation for tonight would like to welcome our uh director of Latino and Hispanic relations Alonso Lopez the man of the hour the Tower of Power and uh he is ready to
005ready to present to us he's got a great uh presid presentation and Alonso thank you for being here tonight with us thank you members for allowing me um some time to talk to you about uh things that I do um on daily basis with my job and for the people that have come I want to thank them too I know um the evenings are very busy for everybody and it's still there are people that take their time to come and show um that they really care about what we are doing in the guach school district so with that uh being said I want to start my presentation I just want to make sure that I have all the time that I want right no okay 20 minutes okay so uh thank you very much first
006of all this is uh this is my title I go under the director of Hispanic and Latino relations uh for the ones that don't know that um I just started with this uh POS in this position last year and this is actually my second year and just to begin with the presentation I want to let everybody know that I'm really enjoying um doing the activities that I'm doing for the guach school district um I'm learning a lot of things that uh being a principal I didn't know and from this perspective and from this angle I think I I'm in a position to help in in other ways so thank you for having me in this position that is my title director of Hispanic Latino relations and I want to begin by acknowledging the team in
007the wachi school district we are a team and I'm saying that from the bottom of my heart but this is the closest team that I'm working with that's why I said our team I should have said my team but uh we are a team the wach school board um the administration here at central office administrators in schools teachers per professional professionals parents everybody but this is the team that I'm working closely with that's why I'm mentioning them I I'll start by saying that uh I'm enjoying working with our superintendent Dr Cory kalahar very open to ideas uh very receptive and always willing to talk about uh things that we're doing and what the future entitles for us to have plans and ideas um obviously I'm enjoying working with the director of the wachi school district
008communication as well um Mrs Diana Hagan she's great she's a smart and she's working really really hard so thank you also for allowing me to work along your side it is enjoy enjoyable you have a wonderful ideas and you do an excellent job the director of special programs Mr Jeremy W Whitley he's not here um this evening but he's a busy guy well been in charge of uh special programs is a humongous task but he's doing a wonderful job and I enjoy working with him too because he's very open also to ideas and open to work together and this year we hire a migrant program coordinator um and that is Mrs Nancy Ortiz uh she's coming with u a lot of energy and with great ideas uh in supporting and trying to improve uh our
009migrant program but not only the migrant program but um things that we are doing in the wach school district so uh she is a great addition I'll begin by saying that this is one of the things that I think got the attention of U some of you why I don't know why this is going by itself am I doing something wrong here uh anyways um a long time ago I started with a radio program when I was a teacher then I'm talking about 16 I'm not doing I think you need help me with this I'm going to put it away okay um anyways I just started doing a radio program long time ago with the idea that we need to communicate better with um our Latino families everybody knows that our Latino families are also
010eager to provide and to learn and to help their kids and all kids to succeed but um sometimes they don't have access to that because because they don't know how and they don't speak the language either so I had this idea that starting with radio that would help I'm not touching it I'm not anyways I started with this program long long time ago and then um I think it was very successful many people uh and families were listening to it uh I grew with this program uh like I said before from long long time ago and then I think this got the attention here and that is one of the reasons that uh why um the administration called me to come here and to help from central office rather than from my uh school so
011I took it and then now uh we are still doing this radio program and this has given us a lot of attention not only here in the community but also the in the state there are several districts that are copying what we are doing here and they want to do some of this too to communicate with families and not only in a second language but in a third language or fourth language as well and I'm talking more about the West I meet uh constantly with people from there anyways we have this program here in guachi and we have it every Wednesday and um and that this is a way to connect with families but this is not the only way we are connecting connecting in different ways if um I don't know we are we
012are in the third or fourth slide I don't know why but if you help me to go to the second slide that would be great the second slide anyways um I really wanted to start uh by uh obviously pointing out about the team that I'm working closely with but I also wanted to mention some of the responsibilities that I have given to help the wach school district one of them is mainly um communication but a second one is because I'm going to speak to this a little bit later the second one is uh dual language where are we with dual language what are we doing with that this dual language program has given us a lot of name a big name in the wach school district uh the wach school district is knowing in different
013places in the United States because of this program but I don't see this program growing um it seems like we have this program there but uh not many people knows about uh how wonderful this is and therefore uh I have been assigned to help in that regard and I'll be talking to you a little bit how I'm helping along with uh um many people in the wach school district and another responsibility that I still have is to supervise and see how the migrant program is working that's why I'm working really close with uh Miss Nancy Ortiz and Jeremy Wily and another thing that also um I'm working with is uh planning the summer school the summer school that will be coming later um at the end of the regular school year and then I'll be
014talking to you also about some of the presentations that I'm having uh in the state just to highlight some of the great things that are happening here in wachi so with that being said um another outlet that I'm using to uh bring information to people in the wachi school district and and all over the place is um this program called a good advice cono you know that there is a an organization that is called Cafe the community for the advanc advancement of family education they have a program that uh they show through Facebook and they have it um like two or I believe two two times a week I've been invited to participate once a week and I believe our superintendent also goes there once a week and this is one way to share with
015the community also what is happening in the wachi school district and I know we're getting an audience in other uh South American countries through this program so with that that is one uh more thing that I'm doing to bring uh communication to the community if you don't mind to go to the next one I'm using also uh social media now I know technology is catching up I know technology technology is there we we rather acknowledge that and we like it or not but technology the new technology is there so I thought I I thought I'm going to use social media and with the help of uh M Diana haglin I launched my own um page and what I'm doing in this Facebook uh page I'm communicating with the audience also things that are happening in
016our district like on that uh slide particularly I'm highlighting how important is for our high school students especially those Latinos that sometimes they are ready to drop out how this mariachi group uh and music is helping them to stay in the school and keep performing in different places but even better performing for themselves academically so things like those are the things that I'm communicating in um my Facebook page and believe it or not I still have friends in Mexico so with this social media many of my friends that I had long time ago they are finding me and we're becoming friends again but now through Facebook so um I'm doing this in English and in Spanish so I can communicate with the audience because like I said many people are uh looking at my Facebook
017page and you're more than welcome to to uh join me there obviously I know more a little more about technology I need to accept you first right anyways but first you need to request that that is one thing that I'm doing uh um informing uh our community about things that are happening in the wach school district can we go to the next one and another another part of my job is to or organize um the community and see what kind of uh supports we have for our families here in the wach school district and I'm really proud to say that many agencies come to this room and they share um what they offer to our families and one of the persons that is here always is Mr Martin Baron he can testify how many agencies
018come here and then they share what they have to offer to our families and it's wonderful this way we are spreading the word about the benefits and the services that uh all these organizations are having for our families and another addition to this is that we are bringing our family advocates from every school they collect the information and they bring this information to our families more directly in our schools so that is a great thing to do I'm really enjoying this group by the way last time we had uh 40 six agencies that came here and they share what they have is amazing it's wonderful our families are enjoying that uh 30 of these agencies uh share what they had but we had uh 46 or 47 like gu said um so this is a
019group that come and share all the things that they um offer to our families can go to the next one and then another aspect that I have is dual language well if I'm going to be honest I need to be honest all the time the Dual language program started in 2004 at Louis and Clark and from that time until now um I have seen this program to uh develop and to be better and better and better but if we really want to make uh a a good impact we need to improve the program this program I for what I know if I go out in the community not many people know the benefits or how this dual Lang language program works I'll start by saying that this is a program that is promising that the
020kids that is starting K will become bilingual biliterate and bicultural but not only uh not only if they go to elementary they need to continue with middle school and they need to continue with high school that is the promise of dual language but in this Society we are looking for always scores we are looking for something that shows that our kids are learning in a dual language program we teach in two languages therefore those results really are not expected that soon those result results are expecting later if I had to start all over with my own kids I wouldn't change it because my kids in the elementary years especially Kinder first second and third they were not shining but I was okay with that because we we we were aiming to have the benefits for
021life not for Kinder first second or third grade now after years went by and my kids are working now in different plac say I know I know all the advantages they have for being bilingual and that is something that I really dream for everybody in the wach school district but it's not easy to put together a dual language program is not easy it's not simple and we have a lot of pressure from the community to to see results results results so if we're not pacing with that patient with that and if we don't put what we need to put together to have a good good dual language program I don't think we're going to get those results with that in mind now are working with a uh another team dual language team this is the
022plan that we are developing for the uh for the future but not a very very long-term future because we don't have that time we just need to move on so one of the things that we are doing is uh to make sure that our Comm Community is aware of what we are doing where we are heading with dual language and the benefits that this dual language has so one of the things that we need to do is to bring experts to tell us what those benefits are and how we can get them what are some of the things that we need to do to improve the program so we started with that already last week we had Dr Richard Gomez he is uh an eminent person that knows a lot about dual language so he
023came and he talked to um our Administration here and then he spent the day uh talking with other groups how what we can do to do better with dual language well that is one step I expect that we'll bring experts later to keep guiding us more the other thing that uh we are doing is if we really want to see models we need to go out and look at uh schools that are doing great in the state well we have planned to visits already so next Sunday we'll be leaving to kenck and we are going to visit uh uh the Dual language they have K uh I believe K uh to Middle School to high school so we're going to have a chance to see what are the things that they are doing to have
024success and then in January we'll go also to Highline they have a successful dual language program we want to see what is working what is not and keep improving our program here in wachi again the promisees we are going to get this kind of students with the benefits that uh dual language brings only if we keep the students from K to 12 without that I don't think we're going to get uh the results that we expect uh another step that we have to make and we're going to make is to provide professional development uh for teachers at Lis and Clark they are doing the job job but they need to know what they are doing and they need to do how to do it better so we are going to bring people or somehow we
025are going to train our teachers how to teach better in a dual language setting and then we are going to start informing the community too about the steps that we are taking in the wach school district and we where we are heading that is part of my responsibility working with the team in the wach school district so it we keep going to the next one please and right there is nothing else but uh here are our administrators uh listening to Dr Richard Gomez which is the expert he came from Texas and he spent the night uh the day with us on October 18th please uh go to the next one the other part that I'm doing along with um uh Mr Nancy or this is to organize the parents with the advisory Council the pack
026we are we're having a promise here we're talking about diversity uh integration and all of those things that we're talking about in our promise 54% of our students are um Latinos and when when we see how many people Latino people participate in events and um relate reled to education in the wach school district and also in meetings like this we rarely see Latinos why well there is work to do that's why I'm working with um with this group and trying to be more into what is happening in the schools many times we ask Latinos okay fill out the survey what do you think about our system how what can we do to improve they don't know very well the system and they are afraid to fill that those surveys because they don't know well they
027need to know they need to learn so what we are doing with this pack which is nothing else but a it's a group of people leading the migrant program if we go to the next slide please what we are do what we are doing is trying to make it more active because their primary goal of the pack is the planning implementation and evaluation of the ser services for migrant students the P Board is supposed to work closely with District officials like the special program director the migrant coordinator and the district superintendent to provide input on better services for migrant if that is what they need to do obviously they need to know how our system works so we have our board but one of the things that we are doing is we're taking them to
028visit the schools so we go to the next slide we're going to see that they are really into schools also they want to know what is happening in schools they haven't had a chance to to do this in an organized way so now we just went to visit uh Mission view it was amazing to see the uh Mr Jeff jogger and the teachers like Welcome to our school finally we see Latinos in our classrooms and then obviously Mr Jeff jogger is right there explaining what is happening a mission view now obviously the uh members will know more about how we operate in our schools and they'll have a better voice to say this is what is working what about this bring some more ideas isn't that what we're asking for so we went to visit
029Mission View and if you go to the next slide we're going to see that we also went they went to visit Louis and Clark same thing they went to check how a school is and Mr Mario AA the uh principal share things that are happening there it was great great insights now uh in two weeks they are going to visit um Sunny Slope and also uh John Newberry I think we are going to get some ideas coming from this wonderful group if we go to the next slide um this group obviously needs to know more about how we operate and they are having meetings also with uh Dr kalahar I don't know if this had happened before but I think if we still do this they feel more comfortable coming to our system and share
030ideas and be part of our wach school district so uh we are meeting with uh or they are meeting with the superintendent and we're planning to have these meetings every two or three months please uh go to the next one and another uh one of my my responsibilities is is still help to plan the pack meetings and the multilingual nights if you have come to those you you see how many people we see there um a lot of families come we need to integrate All Families not only the multilingual or the migrant families and that is coming where we will integrate everybody not only um our migrant families but if you you go there you will see from 300 to 400 uh people coming to these meetings and it's great because right there is where
031we can share some of the things that we need to share from the guach school district um keep going please one thing that I'm getting more active with is uh presentations for whatever reason um I don't know what the reason is exactly but uh I've been asked to share more of the things that we're doing and wach and particularly to share a little a little bit of my story I guess to motivate to motivate parents or districts to keep striving for other things that they need to do so uh I went to present to Yakama um on August 1 and we had a lot of participation there now I also went to PAB on October 14 kind of the same thing to share with them some of the things that are happening here in our
032district and then October 30th which is next Monday I'll be presenting to uh administrators and teachers in yaka also and then uh with Mount Vernon as well so that allows me to highlight the great things that are happening in the wach school district but also to to learn from them because that is a great way to learn not only to not only to share the great things that are happening but also to learn from them if some great things happen in districts is because obviously we are uh sometimes copying those great things that are happening in other districts so with that um I'm going to stop my presentation uh one one of the things that we didn't see uh in the on the radio program that I have one of the things that I'm talking
033to um is uh the fact that our district and many districts are not doing very well with reading and reading you know is one of the our big six we have to do whatever we can do to bring better scores in reading but reading a lot of that has to do with practice and I know that um teachers don't have the time to teach the strategies of reading and also practice so one of the things that I'm doing during the radio program is I read some of these wonderful stories that I'm sure you know I'm sure you know the AL Aladdin and the magic lamp who doesn't know that one The Wizard Of oth The Gingerbread Man The Ugly Duckling all of those stories that we uh as soon as we hear them or read
034them we are in love with them so I read one story um to the audience and then I'm allowing people to call in and provide some of these books to them because that way they'll have books at home so kids can actually be in love with the reading but also have materials at at home to read hopefully they'll get the attention of many families so they can uh keep striving to have their kids reading at home um I could keep talking about other things but I think I wanted to just uh bring a picture of U some of the things that I'm doing and now obviously I'm open to to questions in comments I don't have a question but I do have a comment I want just want to thank you for being a good
035advocate for uh students in our district and a spokesperson feels like we've needed somebody like you in this position for a long time and so I'm really grateful that you are uh providing this service to the community so thank you well I appreciate your comment thank you I also don't have any questions but I do want to um have some comments and they're around the word Ambassador which is part of your responsibility and I think I want to frame it in first of all thank you for the extraordinary work you're doing and as you're what 14 months into this new position uh I see all sorts of advances being made but I'm going to go back to the diversity equity and inclusion for the district to me that is something that is not cannot be
036delegated right there is our CEO and our Equity officer but in my view the district needs an ambassador and what an ambassador does is it goes goes that way and back back and forth now your area is a very big portion of our diversity Equity inclusion world and seeing that ambassadorial role really work I think is important and I I want other people to to uh recognize that um and so I trust Dr kahar to be our Dei officer and I'm really happy with seeing the active way that you're getting out with so many different groups and seeing them flourish like the corack group and taking them into schools is wonderful that will make a huge difference um and then one thing I was going to put in my comment um I went to in
037Pasco to the quarterly State advisory committee for migrant education and so did the secretary of the back Teresa Gina our employee and when I haven't done it yet because I've been haven't been organized there was a very practical excellent day in Pasco and there's things there that I was planning to bring and to you to nany Ortiz uh from that not that I know anything but there is material that we can change and the reason I say that is what you're doing you're going out and back and going back and forth this whole ambassadorial aspect of your work work I think is something that we can think about in the whole district and so thank you very very much um and let's uh use that to miror into other areas thank you I too just
038have comments and I think I think we know why they're asking you to present at these other districts um I I thank you for bringing up the the concept of um bilingualism and the need for it to go from K through 12 um I think we need to revisit this conversation um I feel like our district pulled away from that secondary um dual language uh pathway and so thank you for bringing it up and the time being spent on that uh it just I know there's different Le levels of bilingualism but carrying it through the secondary level into high school and the possibilities of getting more students for that by literacy SE seal is just advancing the district um um in regards to uh I got I got to attend the radio show a couple
039weeks ago and um it was really neat to see that relationship that you've developed with the radio with the local radio stations um we got to we were well do you want to tell them a little bit about the cameras that were following you around that day well like I said I can it's spend a long time because there are some other things that are happening in my world but one of the things that is happening I'm saying our wach school district U shines in different aspects but many time times we are concentrated or uh only the negative Parts come to uh to be seen but this aspect that Mr s is talking about is uh one I know some people uh the OSBI level and one day they called me and they said we
040need to videotape what is happening at the wach school district and the wach school district with migrant families so why don't you help us to um create a video to video tape to have a great video and circulated in the state to show how wonderful uh wachi is with the apples but how hard this work is and still families come to do the Harvest send the kids to school and those things that you still need to deal with because it's not the same to serve migrant student students because they are moving from school from school to school to school and um and we don't see many times that aspect so it would be nice to have a video to educate the community about migrant how they live and how uh many varas they have in
041schools and how the when school district is doing so they came and they follow a family to one day to see what they do how they send the kids to school how the schools receive them and all of those things they same day we had the radio program and it happens to be that m s is was my guest that day so they said we want to see how you connecting uh with the community so they came they follow uh mainly Miss she's more cute then anyways um they came to the radio station and they videotape right there and they have a good um they they took a I guess uh good things back to OSBI but as a matter of fact before I came to this meeting they called me and they want to
042do more for the wach school district now that they know what we are doing and that is the way to create relations so we can learn from others and then show how wonderful uh the wachi school district is because we really have good things happening in our district so that's what I had to share sorry that it took so long and you know I also have to we have to uh thank you to the district superintendent for seen the value in the position that Mr Lopez has any further questions or comments I'll just add Alonso thank you so much for your presentation and your time tonight we do all know why you are sought after and why you are uh the Ambassador for the work that you do it's your passion and it's h your
043presence and it's your love for the work so thank you for everything that you do appreciate it thank you but I don't want to go without saying that uh one person cannot do it alone and that's why we have a very good team and I I I mean it I mean it I I I know the all of you how hard you work the uh Schoolboard and sometimes you have to make so very difficult decisions and you still do that thinking always kids and I appreciate that but same thing with administrator same thing with the cabinet same thing with everybody so we make a good team um it's not me it's the team so thank you very much fabulous next on our agenda we have discussion and we have a handful of policies we do
044have a handful don't we we have uh for one reason or another uh missed uh maybe a vital meeting in September for policy but we have we are we are doing it now and uh no it was uh we we didn't plan to have our meeting until October but there just ended up being quite a few uh policies on there so um we'll jump in here and I want to thank uh Katherine and Martin for their time on the policy committee and a special shout out to uh Kim white for all the work that she does to put together the immense packets um and does a lot of the reading and research uh on her own and uh she is quite proficient when it comes to policy and procedure so we appreciate all the work
045that she does there um but yeah let's uh get started everybody ready we're ready okay uh so the first policy is policy for 1400 um hang on and that is uh meeting conduct order of business and Quorum and uh this is an essential policy revised after House Bill 12 uh 1210 requiring districts to have audio recordings of board meetings um and that was that was kind of the the bulk of this particular policy and we feel like we are ahead of the policy and kind of ahead of the game and the work that we do here um we have a video archive of each of our board meetings and workshops um and uh and anything that the board of directors participates in so we felt good about that policy to move forward um but any
046comment from uh the policy committee on that one no I think that was as you say we were already doing it and this is uh new legislation and compliance excellent excellent okay and as we move down the list uh policy uh 1220 and 1450 were added by request of the board for review and for 1220 uh we dove into conversations around the calendar year items um and committees beginning on even years uh we also discussed the language around giving advance notice to the board chair superintendent and executive assistants when when unable to attend a board meeting uh and then 1450 kind of goes along with the 1220 and we made sure the L language match that of 1220 about giving advanced notice if when missing a meeting to the board chair superintendent and executive assistant
047um and as a policy committee we felt pretty good about the policy um with regard to the fact that it actually does not address uh the parameters of remote attendance at this point uh we felt that there are times when remote attendance uh is necessary we did not want to box in uh the district or a particular board member per se um we also had received some recommendations from wasda said to be cautious in this respect um and so that was our basically a summary of our conversation around 1220 and 1450 any conversation from the uh policy committee yes oh sorry okay so uh in 1450 in the first paragraph last sentence um the majority of the board may excuse a board member's extended absence from a meeting if requested to do so so if
048a board member requests to be excused does that mean the board will then take a vote at the meeting to either approve or disapprove of the request because yeah sounds for an extended for an extended absence yeah okay so have we defined extended absence I can speak on that and actually I want to get into it with the two two other minor changes that we have and it's a kind of a package um wasda had standard wording and says in the write up that we're not quite using wasda standard wording for these two policies on um absences we are not we are not no not explain why um and uh but one of the things that I think is a good thing is the election of the legislative rep was do whereing put it in
049the first meeting of the new calendar year and after some discussion we felt that actually it's a good idea not to do it at the reorganization meeting particularly when you have changes in board members that way board members can settle in and the legislative rep can be uh appointed elected a little bit later it gives people people time to settle in and understand what's going on so that's the one change um the other one um was on um courtesy and protocol and I'm going to speak for myself at this point uh the chair or president is the person responsible for board board matters and is the primary person who should receive all requests for absences and that is crystal clear to me and that's the way it should be um and we actually had the
050old wasda policies had two uh sets of wordings as who gets notified and how that we're not the same so we went into this wanting to have uniformity in the performances um in the end off some discussion about um people who might not get messages and how to transmit it between uh different people the slight change we made is that our proposed policy is a member who's going to be absent from a meeting will have the courtesy to notify the board president and the superintendent who's a secretary of the board and uh the executive assistant Kim who's the person who keeps us all on track that way we're fail safe there is no excuse not to notify the board president and um that seems practical uh and that's how that part was done um then
051getting to Laura's question we had some discussion about excused absences uh we had listened to uh we've taken uh technically at the technical level looked a little bit at what should be done about remote attendance there are some public entities that have policies we've seen one sample of one it looks pretty onor and maybe not necessarily very flexible uh it is correct that wasda pointed out that in their opinion there isn't a good standard and their words I think were to be very careful before you do anything in this area um and I won't go further than that um but then we got into the question of what is an excused or an unexcused absence this is standard wasda wording that the board is the one that decides if it's excused or unexcused but to
052me that's the cart before the horse because you if you're phoning in and or letting somebody know you can't come we have long had responsible board members who when they're traveling or ill phone in check in and it is a courtesy it's a protocol and we have not fortunately had well let's say have to address somebody who doesn't show up at all this is an issue about being remote and so we decided that question of at this point uh four unexcused absences in a row is um completely unex complete absences unexcused would be a rarity and the wasda wording I agree is not clear uh but it didn't seem like a good idea to Wordsmith something different from W's policy at this point and then kind of put ourselves into um a a situation uh
053and that if we felt that somebody was a habitual offender then we could bring the whole board in we could use our ethics policy and we could deal with it that way that was where the the policy committee ended up to tolerate what was this slightly ambiguous wording because we could pick it up and uh that there was not um the policy committee did not feel that it was a good idea to try try and write something that was tight and accurate because it would be have unintended consequences for something that rarely happens right so the blue wording is wachi School District specific not wasda wording is that what you're saying on policy 1450 the and and and is our word and I believe wers was included in or so what it says is um
054deleted board members are required and instead it says whenever possible each board member will give advanced notice to the then there was the yeah chair superintendent and Executives assistant inability to attend regular to attend a board meeting and then it says in blue a majority of the board may excuse a board member's extended absence from a meeting if requested to do so that is so squishy like what in world I think that's really intended for somebody who is seriously ill and absent for a cons long period of time or on Military absence jumps in the same paragraph from you know a board member's responsibility to give advanced notice of an absence and then very next sentences an next a majority of the board may excuse a board member's extended absence without flowing into the first
055sentence applies to an individual absence and then an extended absence is defined as I'd rather see that and a majority of the board may excuse a board member's extended absence from from a meeting it's it's contradictory we say extended absence and you're saying that's multiple meetings and then the sentence says I may excuse the absence from a meeting so I think that I just feel like that language needs to be cleaned up a bit definition and Clarity um I don't like the squishy part about whenever possible each board member might give advanced notice that they may not attend I I you know there is we're all responsible adults and if you're elected to a position you ought to be able you ought to be required to let people know whether you'll be here or not
056there's legal issues at stake you know in terms of Quorum making decisions of the board where we need a quorum and uh I I I think uh we need to be firm about that and I I'm opposed to the squishy language fair enough then I think we should take that input um but while I think about it the whenever possible is wasa's wording and we did have some discussion about that and um I think the issue that we did not feel we had a good solution to was on the one hand you write something that is very rigid and has unintended um consequences of somebody technically being unexcused um people do have surprises and we rely on our board members to be responsible so whenever possible is one of the questions you could have taken
057that out and say will that's one possibility and I think I'd like to listen to comment from both of you if you don't like the winner cost possible and believe it should be will and that should be deleted that should go back to the drawing board we should consider it then following that same talk um the having the whole board decide if it's excused or unexcused is a little late when the notification can and does only come to the board president the board secretary and the board's executive assistant because that's practical right and so I'd like to speak if if that's all right for a moment uh being on the policy committee and having been there for that meeting I don't know Dr kahar and Martin if you recall I asked that that sentence be
058moved to the second paragraph because it makes more sense that if an extended leave of absence or time off of the board needs to happen then that is the time that the board would uh take a vote on something as the example States illness military active or training military duty Etc so I asked for that last sentence a majority of the board may excuse a board members extended absence to be moved to the second paragraph because that is the time that it makes sense for the board to come together to quote excuse and absence but furthermore the uh email that we received from Abigail Westbrook Miss White asked for language to clarify remote attendance uh and it's no um secret that the entire reason this policy was put forward was because of my remote attendance
059and it was part of the attempt to kick me off the board uh as as the three of you were attempting to do so when M Miss White asked for clarification uh in Sample language that increases the restrictions on remote attendance she said she does not have sample language and I'm reading straight from her email although the board could decide to do so I would recommend proceeding cautiously being mindful of the reasons that a person might need to attend remotely and not creating unnecessary hardships for someone in such circumstances and another thing that we spoke about I found very interesting is that there are multitudes of board members apparently across the state that are well maybe not M multitudes but enough that it was noted that are snowbirds so they spend a good portion of
060their year in their District attending meetings but when they are out of town for the winter time they attend remotely which is another reason that she cautioned that we not put restrictions on as you said Laura adult duly elected people who are supposed to take their responsibility seriously that makes uh sense what you just said moving that um sentence to the second paragraph it makes more sense um I I just um feel like if we're going to have a designation between unexcused and excused absence it doesn't seem to follow what the difference is I mean if there's no difference between an excused and an unexcused absence why bother I agree with Laura's comment and on Abigail Westbrook I I I wasn't involved in the com the communication between Miss Westbrook I'm assuming she represents swasta
061um in regards to the type of attendance I think um I think it would be worth the idea of presenting it to our district legal council and see were what they're what they how they feel expressing whether it's remote or in person um because the reality is we know that in meetings in person are different than meetings remote we've all experienced it um and then the challenging of scheduling also uh so I think I think it's worth asking legal counsel uh District Leo Council to see if there's the what are the legalities of adding remote vers in person and the legal council you'd like to use is the legal council that wrote up a resolution to remove me from the board if we can consult the district legal council I agree with that we I
062think give I was going to ask if we could get input from the remaining board members but I think that we've had some frankly this is not clear uh a majority of the board may excuse a board members EXT ex standard EXA absence from a meeting if requested to do so there's nothing here about what's an unexcused absence I totally agree so where we left it I'm saying we where this piece of paper was brought before the board was unclear but left that way intentionally um as being uh not a productive route to proceed I think I hear that the board would like us to proceed would like us to take counsel legally like us to ask more technical questions for outside organizations other than wasda and come back again with an alternative proposal to
063the board and Kim can you send us W's recommended version all right excellent thank you for the conversation we'll move on to uh policy 2190 2190 is around uh are highly capable programs highcap programs wasda has re revised this model policy based on Senate Bill 5072 and the legislation requires changes to the referral and screening process for highly capable students uh programs to make them more Equitable our practice in the 1H School District um have been updated to reflect these changes in the policy uh in fact I was presenting at Sunny Slope Elementary last week and uh I was able to uh watch Kathy Moody and uh Katie stephanite is present on the new screening process that are related to this policy so um we are feeling pretty good about uh where we are with
064our highcap programs and following the letter of the lot okay any any comments uh I'll just add it takes away judgmental and language to use of the word select um and it also something I commented on in the policy committee meeting that I think is a good practice that wasda seems to be developing in their model policies is it no longer gives for example descriptions of what is a high highly capable student a student is highly capable they are uh screened and placed they're not examples which the mere list of an example could create a certain bias all right thank you uh the next policy is 2230 uh and this is our transition to kindergarten policy which we're excited about uh this is a new policy based on House Bill 1550 transition to kindergarten program
065OPI has adopted uh currently for the 2324 school year what they're calling emergency rules um for this school year and will adopt permanent rules in the following year there was uh some some fun that happened in the legislative session uh last year with regard to transition to kindergarten um and there's also some changes in the structure and the way that it's funded U so we're looking forward to uh the permanent rules coming this next year in our legislative session which is short so that's always good uh but we're thrilled to offer uh transition to Karden opportunities to our families and uh look forward to the more permanent rules so that we can continue offering that any uh conversation or discussion from the policy committee okay policy 3207 prohibition of harassment intimidation and bullying of students
066uh this is based on House Bill uh 1207 wasda has made some revisions to the essential model policy of uh 3207 there are some updates to the rules around the reporting of harassment intimidation and bullying there's also some updates uh and some consequences for false reporting of harassment intim imation and bullying and also updates on the good faith reporting as well any comments from policy committee I I do have a question uh so this U policy in the ab C and D um section after the first paragraph um represents uh talks about students damaging students property interference with students education threat the educational environment um and disorderly operation of the school so um as we I think have all been aware that there have been some harassment and bullying um incidents that have occurred in
067extracurricular environment um which I wouldn't necessarily Define as um you know interfering with a students's education do does the board feel like like that language could possibly be expanded to include um extracurricular Athletics or any other um activity that might occur outside of a school building in a school you know event yeah I could support that um maybe disrupting the orderly the orderly operation of the school or School sponsored [Music] activity something like that policy Committee Member have any comment about that I believe we could yes we'd have to um if it's not just look at that I think the short answer since we the policy committee did not go into it um I would have to think about what our perimeter was and whether it was a legitimate perimeter of our scope of work
068and but if that did fit in and did not capture anything unintentional then it sounds like a good idea but I think let's put it that way if unless somebody unless the policy committee finds something um that we have not discussed now it probably is a good idea and we could bring it back for second reading absolutely excellent okay we have policy 3231 uh Student Records uh wasda revised this model policy based on Senate Bill 5127 student personal information public records uh act exemption changes in the policy relate to uh and others but Secretary of State's website had had changed and was updated as well as removing the idea that a student's diploma can be withheld for notay paying fines which is also uh reflected in 3520 in a lot more detail thoughts or comments
069from the policy committee or other board members okay we'll jump into uh policy 3520 which is related to student fines uh fees and changes and this policy is uh being revised based on House Bill 1536 High School diplomas withholding for property damage um and the idea here is that diplomas used to be withheld uh until students fines and fees were all paid off and then released accordingly um now specifically the legislation is limiting withholding a diploma to when the damages exceed ,000 um or requires a school district to release that students's withheld diploma after five years or until the amount owed is less than $1,000 whichever is earlier additionally the legislation provides that the district must credit the monetary value of a student's Community Services towards damages as well yep so that's a that's good
070uh comments I I think that most of that is adjusting to new law and the community service aspect of it something that should be emphasized because that is a good way of getting out of a harsh penal situation absolutely and I think it would it it definitely falls back on the district to make sure that we have um other ways when we talk about fines fees and student charges that we have other ways that are not related to graduation in the end of that educational journey to recoup some of those costs and so we're looking at those policies as well and how we can have specific markers throughout a school a students educational journey to get those paid off not just waiting until the very end uh just causing me pause for a second uh
071so does that mean if the student was unable to resolve um their debt to the district um that they would not be able to claim for employment or forther education purposes that they had indeed graduated or is this a ceremonial um diploma uh withholding representation so if a student had damages or fines exceeding $1,000 their ceremonial hang on the wall diploma is what would be held the transcripts cannot legally be withheld ever so they you can't deny that the student did the work to complete the degree Y correct okay thank you good uh clarification there yeah appreciate that other comments or discussion okay policy 50 five employment and volunteers and the update of this policy pertains to back background checks for all staff and volunteers who have regularly scheduled unsupervised access to students uh we
072have been in in compliance with rcws and are updating our policy language accordingly um there's also many of the updates in this particular policy um fall on the rcws in wax as you can kind of see um as you look at that comments or discussion all right 510 uh non-discrimination and affirmative action the updates to 5010 non-discrimination and affirmative action pertains to equal employment opportunities and treatment for all employees and updated language around protected characteristics there is updated language on discriminatory harassment and employees uh with disabilities any discussion or comment moving forward all right 6215 expense claim certification and approval wasda has revised and renamed this policy uh to update the current language usage terms and to resolve a mismatch between statutory provisions and common practice updates guide the board to review and approve claims
073another fun part of your job other comments or discussion one more 6220 uh bid or request for proposal requirements um this revision uh clarifies information about procurement using federal funds uh this is a guiding document when it comes to capital projects property work and purchasing which I'm finding and learning a lot about uh the update also incorporates Provisions from House Bill 1086 regarding the community service organization exceptions to competitive bidding laws for Public Works substantial updates to the use of non-federal funds construction service bid requirements and self- certifications are also present it's a quite a robust policy and I will comment on that there is a a policy which is basically helpful for us we need to follow those guidelines and I will add that the it has a detailed procedure that goes along with
074it that in many ways is justice important it's a handbook kind of policy uh for audit and control internal control purposes absolutely this makes it very clear to people working on projects throughout the district uh of what their obligations and process are so I'm very appreciative of this new policy me too okay well thank you I appreciate uh the work of the policy committee we have another policy committee date on the books is November 13th I believe uh or close to it so we'll be able to get to some of the uh uh suggestions and comments here so thank you to the board as well and uh back to our agenda in progress perfect so those will move hopefully for a second read yes um next is our superintendent report let's jump into it we
075just finished homecoming week folks and uh it was it was quite an exciting week I was uh fortunate enough to uh participate in a few things the first was flag football on Monday night which was there was felt like a flash flood was on the way but uh nonetheless the girls were playing in the Apple bowl and the crowd may not have been as large as it usually is but there were people there and flag football went on and uh so I was impressed with the turnout uh Wednesday night made it to the boys indoor volleyball uh where where some some of the teams make it look easy and some of them make it look a little more challenging uh this year I missed there's usually a staff team and I and I'm so excited
076to see the staff play with the play there as well but that we were missing the staff team this year so we're going to have to do some work to resurrect that but as usual very creative names very creative outfits um from when the boys play uh volleyball uh Thursday evening saw um a play-in game for our slow pitch softball team which they won um and we saw a exciting volleyball match against Lake Stevens that evening uh which our volleyball team won it was incredibly Fast Pace um then we had the homecoming football game and with the homecoming royalty at halftime and then the dance as well so they also had Spirit Week at the high school and a couple of middle schools and I believe Westside spirit week is this week because they always
077kind of incorporate it with Halloween as well so that was the homecoming uh update which was super fun uh softball update which I'm trying to have on most of the times that were're able to meet um we had a team of individuals who sat down and went through each of the six proposals that were sent by the firms uh and the companies around the state for architectural and design purposes uh we used a detail process and a systemic uh scoring tool we narrowed down the six firms to three and invited those three firms uh back to interview in person here at the school district on Tuesday October 17th and that was a challenging process because these firms are really good at what they do and uh presented some great ideas but we did we did
078narrow that down and uh we're looking forward to Bringing forth a contract back to the board as soon as possible for architectural and design work for our softball and we're GNA be quick about it too because the timeline from all three of those firms said this is aggressive get us in here soon and so we're like okay we're gonna do that uh and then a sports update as you know uh there's lots of stuff happening in sports we're headed into the final week of fall sports with playoff um uh playoff seating is up for grabs and girls soccer and football state births in cross country and girls swimming and volleyball has clinched the first uh first place seed and will host districts on November 4th so very excited about that and finally uh attendance as
079you probably heard or seen um on social media for the school district we are focusing on attendance and we're participating in a nation a nationwide effort to reduce chronic absenteeism which means missing too much school for any reason excused or excused um and specifically being chronically absent means missing 10% of the school year or 18 days um and unfortunately the statistics are not great for the state of Washington they're not great for the wian school district um but to address this issues our schools and leaders are working on clear and empathetic communication with families to raise awareness of the issue um and also connecting them to resources to remove barriers and getting students to school and creating a stronger sense of belonging in our schools as well well but superintendent update thank you Dr Kart
080do you do you see the correlation do we know have we found the different reasons why students absences are up there's there's a lot of reasons um and I don't know if I can pinpoint them all exactly but um we are seeing that it uh some of it relates to some of the um regulations that we had for coid and how we worked through that process and we encourage students to stay home um and now we're urging them if you you know if you're legitimately sick it's you can stay home but we'd love to have you come to school if it's the sniffles or just maybe a common cold or something like that so we're seeing some of that we also are just experiencing some general apathy as well from both our students and our
081parents in the necessity of school since they were able to do some things things online or virtually or remote um in our hybrid world and so along with that and a variety of other um issues that I think are being addressed in our strategic plan with regards to belonging and connection so there's a there's a host of things um also I think um just kind of taking care of our students and their their overall well-being is something that we want to focus on at the at the school level as well so yeah lots of things thank you though thank you okay next is for communication and before we make our rounds I want to just touch Bas on uh a meeting we had in response to the September 26 regular board meeting so on October
08216th Dr kahar myself met and myself met with Katherine and Thomas for a fact-f finding meeting regarding Katherine's residency the meeting was in result of the September 26 regular board meeting during the meeting I asked Katherine the following Katherine the following three questions and I will follow up with her response where is your primary residents and she identified C Road wachi what is your voter registration is your voter registration validated in the state of Washington and chaline County her response was yes through your family's ongoing transition to Texas do you feel that you have violated board policy 1113 or 1815 or any other policy in any way her response was no so given those responses no further action will be taken by the board on this matter and now I'll open up the floor for
083any further board communication yes I have some um on October the 11th I sat in on the monthly student advisory council meeting and all I want to say there is it absolutely reinforces the value of listening to student perspective we really need to do it that board does it I think um those of you there uh that is something that is crucial and I congratulate School District on activating that um I also sat in on the closing meeting at Lewis and Clark on the Dual language day with uh consultant Dr Gomez I was goingon to say he's actually very familiar with uh Washington I believe he was here three years working so he knows us and the state pretty well um I'm going to open up a little bit because um we I think that
084you'd hope to get some parents come but but we didn't have any parents present to listen from listen to that I wanted to be aware and I kind of got a lesson of how demanding teaching a dual language program is uh it's not the same as teaching in a straight monolingual School uh and also I already knew how complex the logistics were trying to put together a different kind of program in school systems across schools uh with diverse student body um and I was aware that throughout this time this district has struggled trying to find the an optimal solution and we haven't got there yet and so having heard the presentation from Mr Lopez and being I think I'm well aware that the district is really putting an effort into having another look correct um
085I just wanted to say that from the sidelines very supportive and I got an education of what a challeng this is we need to find greater success in dual language education um and the way to do it is not easy and it's going to take a lot of open-mindedness um attendance and appenism has been dealt with already but I want to just do it again as an echo it is a national problem I had it on my list to make a comment anyway and I was going to say it's good that on the October 13th bulletin the district fronted up to the issue and brought it to the four um and um to the word that comes to me when we think about it is how to make our schools relevant that does feed into
086a a climate that students enjoy it does feed into trying to overcome apathy it does feed into uh having education prepare you to be future ready and have students be excited about this subject matter it feeds into the efforts we have a Career and Technical education and the variety all I'm going to say is yes it's there we need to work on it we need to support it and I'm not even thinking of answers because I don't have them but I just I think it's we need to front up to that as a major effort that we're going to be making Catherine um at the September 26 board meeting I was blindsided with an attempt by Laura Martin and Maria to remove me from the board a resolution was written by Danielle marant at the
087direction of Laura and I assumed the cooperation of Martin and Maria the resolution was written and the district was charged for the work done by the law firm a very large amount without ever bothering to ask me if any of the Facebook posting was true this all began with a Facebook posting by a woman who calls herself the devil not sure why she's chosen me to Target maybe because I've been referred to as the grace City Church Affiliated board member or because I'm one of the only two conservatives on the board but regardless this person's Facebook postings were enough to instigate this entire debacle turning attention away from the district the work of the district Educators and away from our students drawing attention to the board dramatic embarrassing unnecessary attention that distracts from the work
088of the district I'm embarrassed by it not because I've done anything wrong but because members of this board are so politicized and Petty that they would waste time attention and worst of all the district's money the students money taxpayers money on this frankly garbage garbage posted on Facebook by someone referring her to herself as the devil who by the way proudly endorses Martin and Maria for reelection I uh felt very strongly that this needed to be addressed and I find it also disturbing that Maria you're willing to put forward more attention to this by wanting the policy committee or the policy on attendance to be reviewed by the by a lawyer again wasting more of the district's money I I just find it so disheartening that that this issue this attention was given to this
089issue when there are literally there were literally three board meetings left I have one board meeting left so I just um I think it's worth considering maybe paying back the district for the funds that were wasted on this resolution that's all thank you Katherine uh so I was uh watching a middle school football game last week and I was pleased to see that the slow slow pitch women's team was using the field behind the high school so that was really exciting to see and then um I will report more at the next board meeting but I have been invited as a guest speaker to Miss Johnson's Avid class tomorrow at 9 o' so I'm pretty excited about that as well um any further board communication great all right hearing none our next board meeting is
090scheduled for November 14th and oh no the meeting is not a journ at this time the school board will now re us into executive session for a period of 30 minutes until uh 752 to evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for public employment to re review the performance of a staff member or to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against a director or staff member pursuant to District policy number 1410 and RCW 4230 1110 this discussion will be closed to the public the school board is not expected to take final action following the executive session the the Schoolboard is extending the executive session for an additional 20 minutes until 8:20 at this time the board meeting has a jour