001good evening I welcome everyone to the March 28 regular board meeting thank you for joining us we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance of the United States thank you is should anyone wish to participate in citizen comment uh you may sign up by completing the form at the entrance of the build of the room um anybody that's for joining us virtually had the chance to do that before the meeting are there any modifications the board would like to make to the agenda nope thank you hearing none we'll move on to the consent agenda in the consent agenda we have the minutes from the March 14 regular meeting vouchers and payroll Personnel report Surplus report contracts field trips and the financial report do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda
002so moved a second thank you the consent agenda has been moved by it Laura and seconded by Julie any discussion Perfect all in favor adopt of adopting the consent agenda as presented uh or motion carries next on we have citizen comments do we have any Kim thank you yeah moving on to the special presentations um first I will actually I'll hand it over to bill for the introductions thank you very much we are pleased to have some special guests here with an update for the board on public facility districts and Regional Sports Complex uh related to Senate Bill 5001 which I think was also discussed in the house today so I'd like to welcome Mr Jeff Sutton and mayor Crawford uh and and we've got Ron will run your tech for you and [Laughter] oh
003I don't oh there we go I don't need to hear myself talking I'd like to talk I don't need to hear it myself uh so thank you so much for for having us come and and Jeff I thank you for reminding me that I need to get out into the community a little bit more and share with the public what the community is working on in regards to um uh potentially a Sports plex in the Wenatchee Valley and so it's kind of a two-sided deal and um there's been a lot of rumors and misconceptions going around the community so it's a good opportunity for me to come answer questions that you might have but also just to give you an update so I for those who don't know me I'm the mayor of Youth financial
004and I'm steering the committee on um bringing in a consultant to look at a Sportsplex facility in our region and when I say Sportsplex it could be any and everything sports or any and nothing right um so there's obviously an interest in Aquatics there's an interest in soccer there's folks who say we don't have enough Court type facilities so it's all of those things and taking a look at our current facilities what we have in our community and our community is the Chelan and Douglas region um uh looking at what we have uh what are our needs for our for our current population what are our needs for our future population and what are our needs for economic opportunities so bringing in uh sporting activities and sporting events so there's a whole lot that we're
005asking a consultant to do we have a committee of local leaders Jeff is also on that committee serving and representing Aquatics um so folks to figure out a scope of work for our Consultants to do we have done that and we have hired a consultant and we're going with um I think it's Brooks I want to see Brooks and Dunn but that's not right it's um yeah let's go down keep going to the um Berry and done not Brooks and Dunn Barry and done um so the a committee has hired Barry and Dunn to do the consultant work so the exciting part about that is they will be out in the community hearing from residents hearing from folks like you what are our needs what are our challenges and and what recommendations might you have
006so I expect that they'll probably come to this group also or at least you um you know hit hit you up individually and get your feedback um on that so we'll be communicating when we have a little bit more of a timeline available we just selected them um we know that uh when when they're done with their study which should take about a year they're probably going to come to us with some sort of a you need this when that happens who who's going to build that and we know that Sportsplex facilities especially aquatic facilities are very very expensive um and in order to be able to help with with an option uh because I know East Wenatchee can't build anything we don't have enough money I'm sure What entity will say the same thing
007and the two counties um I'm sure we'll we'll struggle with that with all of our competing needs we know that we're in a regional area and things that are built in Wenatchee benefit East Wenatchee and vice versa so we would like a regional approach to whatever type of Sportsplex is determined as a need in our community so on the flip side Senator Hawkins is working on a legislative bill Senate Bill 5001 which would allow us an opportunity to build a second public facility District so those of you who know our current public facility district is the Town Toyota Center that's a regional facility there's a board representing all the different districts and we all manage that together and have bonded it together and so we're only allowed one so this is legislation that would allow
008us two and this is what's nice about this is the um uh communities the jurisdictions who want to be a part of that second public facility District can vote to be on and then whatever tax structure we come up with would be a vote of the people so this is entirely for the people to decide uh if the consultant says you need another Pool another Aquatic Facility that people still get a choice and still get to vote on whether or not that that happens so that legislation is um has just as Bill said has just made it through uh the house today actually I don't think they voted it out of Finance yet we'll see what their vote is it has to just go through Finance on the house side and then it goes to
009rules and then of course it'll go to the entire legislature to vote on but it's already gone through the Senate side as well so I I'm very optimistic about that it'll be a nice option for us um and then you know that'll then it's years in the making of design and building we are nowhere close to having anything built we also do not have a location and determined that also is part of the work of the consultant so you may hear rumors out there of where it's going to be there's obviously ideas and and things that the committee probably will suggest but it's not determined it has not determined what the facility will be whether it's an aquatic center whether it's soccer fields whether it's basketball courts or whatever um so all of those things
010are in the works dearly Yeah question yeah absolutely could you well I was involved in the original PFD creation and so I need a refresher and maybe for the edification of the rest of the group too so there's a connection to sales tax and construction could you explain the mechanics of how that works because when you say bonded yeah so the the legislation for the second PFD would be based off of sales tax um I don't know I won't pretend to know all it's different for the current PFD that was bonds yeah and sales tax went to pay off those bonds right so I I that's way above my pay grade um so I don't understand necessarily all the workings of that other than and I know many people in the region have PTSD over
011the current PFD facility that we do have for sure but I think it's important to note that it's not a property tax no it is not a property tax yeah that's a for sure it's a notice retail sales tax that comes back to us to pay the bond yes one to two percent so it would be a Max two and again it's a voted uh it could be one and it's whatever whatever regions choose to participate it does not have to be the same jurisdictions that participated in the first public facility District so if let's say for example Leavenworth did not want to to pay in or Chilean the city of Chelan they can vote to be out they don't have to participate if they're in the first one go ahead it's earlier it's about
012I'll just ask for clarifying so this legislation just gives the permission or authority to create a second district it doesn't form the participants or the financing for it exactly yeah any other questions the committee like I said the committee is representative of all of the regions here locally we've got cashmere and in Cheyenne County and uh East Wenatchee Wenatchee oh gosh um oh yeah it's on there yeah and this this uh website is available on the regional Port um on their main page has the committee members on there it has all the applicants that applied for the consultant uh work um so you can go in and certainly peruse that but like I said we'll have the we'll have the Consultants reach back out to you we would really appreciate your feedback obviously the school
013district um use it we use the community uses your facilities quite frequently whether it's it's out of town tournaments that are coming in or our local folks who are trying to find that pool time for swim lessons and so forth so I hope that you will participate when they call on you and ask you some questions it would be really helpful for the overall feedback thank you so much for your time Jeff did I miss anything all right so we received an email I think it was from Brad Hawkins asking if we would write write a letter of support I'm not sure who wrote the email to us now it seems like it's been so long ago asking if we would write in support of and maybe at this point it's too late since it's
014made so it's so hard no it's not because it's still we need to go before the entire legislature but I just thought it would be useful for the board to be a little bit more informed and when it comes time to you know review the facilities that we have and offer to the community and Facilities that we could use I'm thinking tennis I'm thinking swimming you know there might be an opportunity for us to benefit from the construction of the regional complex so that was my thinking and asking Bill to have us on the agenda today thank you so much thank you next up is a very timely presentation um on Safety and Security bill yes uh thank you we've got Tom cooey and Ron Brown and they're going to kind of work together on
015a presentation for you guys with an update on some Safety and Security items within the district and Tom are you first up who's Ron is going to be first up okay here we go I gotta run the meeting at the same time so hopefully it all goes well so thanks for thanks board for having us tonight um this would be really applicable to a workshop so in the future hopefully we can come back and do a more extended briefing on where we're at with safety security in the school district so as you know uh or most of you know last year and a half ago I took on that role uh in the in the executive rolling cabinet for Safety and Security and then we brought on Tom uh as a safety security coordinator for
016the school district which was really pivotal uh tonight is really about laying out what are the action steps we've followed uh what has happened in the last really year and a half since Tom's been here and what what accomplishments have happened that have improved our stance around safety security you're going to hear it a little differently tonight I think you're going to be surprised at uh at the bent we take this is safety security is really about our promise it's about our approach to the basic human needs that our kids have our staff have about feeling self feeling safe and when when you have a thriving community of schools the kids feel welcome in the kids feel safe in that Staff feel safe in and they feel the trust in your safety has improved tremendously
017you can do lots of hardening of of sites but that hardening is only a a a Slowdown or a small barrier so the more important work is really around um you know the core tenets of our strategic plan which is providing a thriving environment for our kids um so again since I gotta do this there we go so with our promise this is really the underpinnings of our safety security planning and that is to build a thriving environment with the right Partnerships in place and which each student emerges future ready and so what we'd like to do tonight is really lay out how does the safety security program align with those tenants and then what accomplishments have happened I'm going to show you this logistically you're going to see about 500 bullets of things that
018have happened and we're going to highlight some key things for you to really pay attention to and then we'll we'll be around to obviously answer questions digitally later on or if you need more information on on any of it so Tom's going to come up and really talk about the the foundational work uh that he has gone through to align our emergency response management and all of our new protocols uh with our strategic plan and why that is so important I'll run this so we talk a lot about what diversity equity and inclusion means for our students and uh it's it means basically the same thing for them that it means for you uh when you think about this group this group is enriched and strengthened by the diversity of knowledge and experience represented amongst
019you the group functions better when all of you have an equal opportunity to share in that strength and this group's needs are best met when your individual insights and contributions are valued and it's the relationships and the connections that are formed here that create that foundation for better performance out there it's really the same way with our kids so when I talk about security I like to start with Maslow's hierarchy of needs so Maslow Advanced a theory that you have this hierarchy of needs and you cannot meet this top hierarchy this top level until these other needs are met so we try to influence our students in self-actualization that's really where we're trying to do our work but we have to work on all of these other four things before we can before we can
020get there and as you see safety is a is a basic human need so we'll begin with a driving environment and see how Safety and Security has responded to these action steps uh so we we did a big program to put room numbers inside of classrooms and allow students to that would allow students to relay their location to emergency responders um that initiation was really in response to experience from a from a school shooting Lessons Learned um and we also uh did a big emphasis on our IDs asking our staff and our students to wear our IDs and I brought some swag with you for you uh so you guys have your IDs and there's good science behind the wearing of the IDS um it creates a sense of community it identifies uh people who
021are wearing them as a trusted adult and it and um they've found that relationships can be formed quicker by where actually wearing those and being a member of the club so building a relationship of trust between staff and students is vitally important to our safety students must not only feel comfortable sharing their concerns but also be assured that their concerns will be taken seriously and action will be taken when they make a report are we are working to show staff that these trusting relationships are important and should be prioritized then when those trusted relationships bear fruit you must have a system in place for staff to take action so we have created um positive behavioral interventions and supports a multi-tiered support system we have a vector system where kids can go and make uh Anonymous
022reports to us we've done a lot of work in that area where the kids are able to tell us what's going on in this in the schools and it is working um and then the next one uh well this one kind of speaks for itself uh we are very fortunate to have a very dedicated and capable and well-trained staff of Safety and Security officers and also school resource officers Tom doesn't speak a lot about his accomplishments but I'll go back to a couple slides um the the the SRP which is on the back of the name tags is is really all Tom's doing we joined a Consortium or a non-profit called I love you guys which is a nationally known and recognized Foundation that provides the tools resources and supplies to have a standard response
023to emergencies have a standard reunification response if we had some tragic event and he single-handedly pulled that off brought that together and you'll hear a little bit more about it but that's on the back of all our IDs as a quick reference and because we had to change our terminology and make it simple and actionable because in an emergency you want to act quickly and you don't want to have to think a lot about what you have to do so that is that's really all been his doing um the next component of our our strategic plan is Partnerships and building those relationships whether that's internal Partnerships or external Partnerships we have a great partnership with the Wenatchee Police Department with our school resource officers as Tom just mentioned uh in terms of the the hiring
024but other Partnerships that were leveraging we just attended one today incident command training at Wenatchee Valley College we're partnering more with the local agencies and we're honoring their expertise and have held and will continue to hold emergency what are called table talk tabletop exercises or functional trainings for our leadership staff to respond to incidents so we have practiced enough where if something were to happen we can be nimble and on our feet and ready to go and respond to those incidents one one very large activity that will be happening at the end of June we're collaborating with Wenatchee Valley College to have a full on functional exercise I will not take credit for this one either Tom has stepped forward and worked with Emergency Management Confluence Health uh Wenatchee Valley College and this will be
025a full on it'll start it or thinking it'll start with an incident at one of our schools it will trickle into the Wenatchee Valley College campus we will have emergency responders and medical responders Fire EMS police and they will go through live action and drilling so that they know how to respond to a mass casualty event so that's it's a big undertaking and we've been once a month with our cabinet team working toward that culminating functional event so that's a fantastic partnership another one Tom joined the local emergency planning committee which we've not been a part of in the past but that's all of our local emergency responder agencies also a member of our community Solutions team we have he's provided great guidance to our leaders on their monthly exercises what to learn from those
026what to gain from those and how to build resiliency in our students and our staff foreign I already mentioned that the SRP is what we call it so that's our acronym standard response protocol it's entirely new it's well thought out uh we trained all staff for that in the fall and continue to re-emphasize those through our exercises every month uh so on the back of every badge you'll see a hole to secure a lockdown evacuate or a shelter those are our terms we use for any of those emergency situations and we have a certain protocol that aligns with those across the district it's action based it gets your feet moving you know if you read those things it's very quick you should be able to remember it so when you hear that over the intercom
027or you're in a school and you hear uh hear that explained over the intercom you know exactly what to do because that's the important thing is just acting quickly and getting yourself to safety and taking care of that lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy when you're in a panic situation is muscle memory will kick in okay uh we've had a lot of participation with the schools uh through gang presentations as you remember a couple a year and a half two years ago through some drug presentations and some other uh collaborations with the Wenatchee Police Department in our schools uh another another piece that we don't commonly think about is our cyber security footprint so we're currently partnering with sisa which is the cyber security infrastructure agency it's a division of of federal government and they're helping
028us self-assess what our preparedness is and what a response to cyber events might be it's becoming more prevalent in K-12 space so we we are putting things in place to be better prepared for the eventuality that this will happen and be ready for responding to those kind of attacks and another kudos to Tom on uh if you if you want just some light reading he does a blog post uh quite frequently and it's really good and timely it usually aligns with an event that might have happened in the nation or in the in the area and it makes you just it just makes you think and put the lens of safety security at the front of your mind because we don't often think about it in our day-to-day until we're faced with that something to
029have something that happens foreign a couple of the things that really align with my particular role in technology is how safety security does fit really well with our technology initiatives so we had some major initiatives putting in our Access Control Systems in our buildings so we have the secure doors the check-in systems the volunteer check-in systems um all our camera systems our our website our radios our communication tools all of those have been improved updated uh and and create a more consistent environment for our leaders to use and I think I'll I'll shout out to Tom again he's going to get sick of hearing it um we have we've had these tools for years but we've not made that bridge between our tools and emergency responders having access to our tools so he's done a
030brilliant job of working with our Tech Team and getting the police department access to our cameras to our Access Control they can be on campus and look on their devices and see our systems unlock our doors lock our doors and in an emergency that's going to become incredibly important because we're not going to be the ones responding it's going to be those agencies coming in to respond to an emergency foreign I think that's you because you already mentioned those one little other plug um doing some bus system upgrades uh the RFID cards that kids wear or have with them check on and off the buses improving our ability to know who is where and in all situations there's lots of Kinks with those things and there's lots of just habits to reform about wearing or
031having with you those identifications and we're still working through that and it's a it's a human organization so we have to we have to get through those bumps but we've put a lot of things in place to become successful now we just got to be form the habits to keep those habits going I think that's you boy this Palm fellow sounds like a great guy opportunities are an outcome of diversity equity and inclusion when we're talking about uh opportunity we are talking about access um so on number two there we're not going to uh we're not going to do very well on the math and literacy so I pivoted and we are going to build the skills and knowledge our staff in safety security and Emergency Management so um while all of these are important
032none or more so than the threat Assessment program people tend to misunderstand this program largely because of its name the threat assessment at its core exists to answer the question how can we best support the student it is not punitive or prosecutorial it is not based in any consequence for a previous action it is based in getting the student the support they need to prevent future issues these are the classes all of our staff have taken in the past year as you see many are for health emergencies and none more important than suicide awareness prevention and post-vention in the last year our Safety and Security staff have undergone this specialized training they are skilled in de-escalation and trauma-informed approaches they seek to eliminate bias and disparity and this is the training that our sros have
033taken our srr staff have been specially trained to be responsive to the needs of our students and to be relationship builders I'm going to leave that one up for a second because we've had we had some questions about this when uh when officer follow us here uh presenting about our SRO program there there is a there's a very active and proactive approach to giving them the tools and skills they need to deal with their youth uh with our staff and and their interactions so they extend they they have extended amounts of training and then we revisit that training annually in many cases yeah so it really yes sorry yeah just a question in regards to these trainings um I just called you Corey sorry um Ron um so these are are these mandatory trainings for
034all staff this is this particular list is for SRO staff SRO staff yeah and it is required training for them okay is this the right time to ask a question in order okay so one of the one of the things that you touched on earlier was the um you know security emphasizes on building supportive relationships so students feel safe to be able to report concerns um I'm I'm looking at this list of trainings and I think this is we often look at um safe spaces and our students of color can relate more to an educator of color a staff person of color um which oft oftentimes say they're not in that grade level or the accessibility to somebody that they can confine in so have we considered doing some of say the bias free Palestinian
035culture competency training for our staff uh we have not taken that time at this point to offer that training to all staff there are some pieces of our annual training that have glimpses of that but it's a pretty small uh small chunk of time uh so that would that would be something we could pursue uh and we'd have to we would we would be working with our bargaining units to make you know to find the time to make something like that happen um the the one tool Tom mentioned earlier that hopefully can assist with that is the anonym the reporting tools that our students have where they can report via their phones via their computers via another texting or other method so that that is one Avenue all kids have and we find that pretty
036a pretty Equitable approach to that but we don't have an all staff training per se in that area so I should say I I think I misspoke on on the previous slide where it was uh these yeah these trainings now yeah the yeah those strings that's our entire Safety and Security staff that have that have taken this training this is the the school safety officers and the school resource officers and then the school resource officers had some additional training due to their their basic their SRO basic and then they also attended the nazaro conference and so this is the mixture of the stuff that they got in their uh basic SRO basic and going to the nav grow okay it just just to um kind of rephrase my it's not just for say students of
037color but you know students that can feel more comfortable with the way they identify and so on yeah so I know that that was a major component of the Nazareth conference he just mentioned that that both sros attended um so that that is something that we can we can look at into the future um so we just wanted to lay out tonight all a lot of the activities that have happened uh some accomplishments that have happened we want to uh we want to assure the board our kids are safe they're incredibly safe we have a very caring staff and that is uh you know one of the one of the pieces that speaks to Maria's question is the more the staff or more the students know you care the more they will report the more
038they will confide in you and they will find an adult uh in their building that they can talk to about any situation that might be coming up uh and I we're pretty confident that our our students feel very safe and have some trusted adults in their building and some people they can talk to to bring anything up um we feel like a tie to our strategic plan this is diversity equity and inclusion work uh the more we include everybody the more we provide that Equitable access to all of our kids they will feel safer they will feel the confidence that that they need to to thrive um so that is really the underpinning of our of our safety program along with the the other strategies we've laid out from the access control we get questions
039about that one a lot or our cameras or other systems that are uh more of a a reactive approach sometimes to that to that safety and we would really like to continue to move toward the proactive approach to creating that safe environment so we don't have an incident happen so and then we know how to respond when we have standard protocols in place that all of our students and all of our staff are trained in and understand day-to-day any other questions from board members the recent survey that I know at least Juniors did at the high school is that that was that you guys and yes yeah our annual we have an annual survey that's for parents staff and students that includes components on social emotional learning that include includes components on safety on security
040on their climate uh all of those are wrapped into that survey the students yeah we all take it at the same time so everybody this this two weeks those all those audience take that survey and each survey has components for that particular audience so students were answering on behalf of themselves staff was answering similar questions uh in relation to their feelings about the environment and likewise the parents were asking or answering those questions too and that's open for the next few days so you haven't yeah it won't close till Friday and then we'll do some analysis of that for for spring to build plans for fall on how to address areas of need or areas of strength anything else I just want to say thank you for this I guess good presentation um you know
041it's I think when we think about safety um and security of our buildings we you know the the structures of it but there's a bigger component that we heard a lot about when we were doing student surveys for um before we built a strategic plan and safety was a big concern in just various different areas um so thank you for the work you guys are doing for the Partnerships um I got to attend the ICS training with most of the cabinet that was present um and yeah thank you for the work thank you all right thank you very much thank you guys and I would like to introduce your next superintendent Dr Corey kalahar with an update on the equity audit thanks gets the presentation up here so thank you for your time tonight good
042to see everybody and uh excited about uh the upcoming year and all of the challenges and celebrations that we have in front of us so um thank you sir appreciate that um just want to start off tonight by saying that I had the honor uh and privilege I have the honor and privileges of leading our Wenatchee School District leadership team through uh this Equity program review this year and much like the Strategic plan we see this as uh kind of year one with the work around the equity program review and this work just like the work that Ron and Tom shared is critical in supporting our promise to our students theater yo okay excellent and so education Northwest as you know came into the district um for the equity program review and a little bit
043of the the process here it was an analysis of student level data on access to learning opportunities and discipline there were interviews and focus groups with Educators administrators families students and community members surveys of students Educators and Families a review of curricular materials and adoption policies summary of District policies regarding equity and instruction personnel and student services there's also an analysis of hiring data and policies related to Staffing and then finally an analysis of administrative Personnel data and Statewide database lots of stuff and this slide kind of represents the the timeline and process so we know that we had our strategic plan with the community participation in school board approval we also invested in the equity program review with school board approval to inform the implementation of the Strategic plan so they're all melded together
044and then we have the five-year Continuum there where the district implements the action steps from the Strategic plan as well so let's see if I can make this magic happen here on both screens excellent okay nope that was not it okay here we go all right so you all are very familiar with the equity program review you had gone through the presentations with education Northwest you've seen the condensed version you've seen the long version I'm just going to summarize a little bit for uh for us and the audience uh tonight and then I'll move on to some of the work that we've done with regard to the equity program review so the focus area one here access to learning opportunities uh the equity program review had key findings and potential next steps as well as
045a variety of data that they provided in their uh final portfolio that they gave back to us so I highlighted one access to high cap programming and AP courses is imbalanced along lines of race ethnicity linguistic diversity and socioeconomic status area Focus number two was instructional practices and policies again we see the key findings and the potential next steps the highlighted area that I have here is students and families Express desire for stronger support for students with disabilities Focus Area 3 curriculum materials resources and policies key findings potential next steps to uh and the highlighted area to help more students and families see themselves represented in curriculum Educators requested support in diversifying materials and create access for multilingual learners Focus area number four discipline practices procedure and policy key findings and potential next steps the
046highlighted area training monitoring and communication are needed to implement Equity centered and linguistically responsive disciplinary practices that make students and families feel safe and valid gesundheit and finally Focus area 5 is on hiring and recruitment policy and practices key findings and potential next steps in recent years employee diversity has remained at consistent levels while student populations have become slightly more diverse so that is a a very quick summary of the condensed version of the equity program review findings and the next question is what has the analysis and response been like from the school district perspective and so I'm going to jump into into that area because this has been very important work and and an impact to the way that we conduct business in the Wenatchee School District so we started out in September we
047have uh just to set the kind of the the framework for what we're working on is we have a monthly meeting with instructional and operational leaders uh that we have been working through the equity program review on and so this first slide demonstrates uh system structures and practices on September 2nd we worked on uh talking about breaking the trend of predictability when it comes to our data and our and our categorical groups including our multilingual Learners we did a deep data dive looking at some of our MLL data and then we spent the majority of our time after we we were breaking the trend of predictability focusing on area five so the hiring and recruitment practices and policies and we started there just kind of as a random place to kind of start but we
048knew that we had were having some higher hiring challenges within the district and we had some talk about how do we work on representing this work a little bit better so we dove into Focus area five we talked about low hanging fruit we talked about some of the big challenges with this work if there are any questions that we need answered and supported this work and then how we will support um ourselves any support that we need to address along the way and this was this was uh an interesting time for all of us we had the entire team focused on this and uh and we've we found out that HR was already working on some of these things and so they had a response um as we were diving into the work so here's
049a little bit of the findings uh from HR some of the areas that they're working on are job advertisements so where we leverage job boards from a variety of different places we did have and implemented a successful job fair which was great for that time in the fall we needed people and so this job fair and kind of the speed hiring type thing that we did was really really powerful um we're also implementing exit surveys for specific jobs to understand the satisfaction level especially in areas of uh in in places where we have people that there are turning over quite a bit or there's a lot of people leaving that specific area of that job we also working on creative ways to assist people who want to move on to the next level so if
050we have some folks that want to move into our para educator position or perhaps we have para Educators in our system that want to become teachers or we have teachers in our system that want to ultimately become administrators and and Diving a little bit further down that road starting in the summer of 2002 the human resources team began reaching out to other districts to see what they do for a grow your own type program how are you investing in your own people how are you investing in your own teams to grow grow to grow your own and HR started building their knowledge base so they began expanding that program as well so what that includes is creating potentially an easier or better Avenue for student teachers in our system having a deeper understanding of local
051University programs to assist our staff partnering with universities and organizations to create scholarship opportunities and then providing opportunities for universities to share their program information with our staff how do we really invest in our own people and what their ultimate career goals are so that was a that was a fun part of that September meeting and the outcomes there and as we continued with our instructional and operational leaders we restructured the administrative team a little bit um and each team was led by a Cabinet member to guide the work as we dive in deep and the reason we did that is we kind of wanted to have different groups working together uh and we included like I mentioned our operational leaders and our instructional leaders all in one group and so we kind of put
052them all together in different teams um and that was the idea there was we wanted these teams to continue our conversations outside of the work in just this boardroom and so teams met in December outside of the larger team to discuss an article that we were working on teams met in January outside of the larger team to finish brainstorming of the condensed version of the equity program review and then on November 10th as a whole group we discussed a cultural competency Continuum and where the Wenatchee School District fell and that Continuum and also where different schools were also following on in January each admin team had a discussion around one of the four remaining programs for the condensed Equity program review and that began that began our administrative team's ownership of each of the four
053uh areas that we highlighted at the beginning of the presentation today so now we're into March and we're meeting Thursday and they'll still have ownership of that Focus area and work on action steps and strategies so I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here so in February we read the entire full version of the equity program review We answered a few of these questions what has added to your thinking from the condensed version of the full to the full version what does the data tell us about your specific area does the low hanging fruit change and how have the big challenges changed as well so we're kind of leading us down a path that we really understand that Focus area that each of these groups are working on what else is in store with
054regard to our instructional operational leaders in this work well we have a March meeting we have an April meeting we have a May meeting and like I said Thursday is our March meeting and we're really working on the admin administrative team ownership of of the priorities they're going to outline their next steps and they're going to build action steps and strategies for improvement of that particular area including a smarty goal activities to support that smarty goal the Leadership Model resources and the measures that we will take to understand that goal so I'm looking really forward to that work ownership of the focus area for the remainder of this school year and Beyond so we're excited about each of these administrative teams taking a piece of the equity program review and furthering that along what are
055we doing in the classroom and what are our plans for the classroom moving forward well we know from a learning and teaching perspective that our students need to be talking and so increasing our otrs or our opportunities to respond is part of that work uh focusing at the elementary level on the weda standards Reading Writing listening and speaking and our language development work increasing our cultural understanding for all new and continuing staff continuing to honor our commitment to Glass strategies in fact I saw a glad training was happening right next door today in the north boardroom so that was fun supporting and increasing our tier one instruction in English language development and then a strong focus on academic vocabulary and all these strategies help all of our students in a variety of way but a
056variety of ways but specifically help um our our multilingual Learners as well and finally for our system what have we done for our system with regard to the equity program review well as you remember last year we hired a director of Latino Hispanic relations I'm currently using some categorical dollars we are working on English language development trainers at the elementary and secondary level to help continue with this work we'll be conducting annual disproportionality reviews of discipline Athletics courses and programs also Jake is working on a CTE pathway for para Educators in the high school setting which will be extremely exciting and we'll be working from our migrant funding working on migrant Education Program Coordinator to help in this work as well that was a lot of information and as as mentioned here this is really
057year one of our work with our Equity program review and I will be looking forward to coming back the next four years and sharing more information with you or whenever it is desired from the group but do you have any questions or comments for me thank you yes um so maybe not I mean I don't expect an answer but I think it would be wise to look at the data um in you know for example you know you focused on the hiring and recruitment our policies and practices um where where were we last year I know this year's a little bit tougher because we're not hiring say for new teaching positions or whatnot right um but where were we how many applicants um of humming diverse applicants have we gotten and then where are we
058in regards to our numbers uh absolutely so because I mean it these are these are great steps to take right um but now it's kind of once we once we got that get that data it's like okay well we had say five applicants of color um but they didn't result in a hiring um and so we got to look at deeper why was it was it because they weren't qualified was it because they were equally qualified as um a white person or was it because um you know was it the bias of the hiring Committee of the person making that final decision so I think there's just multiple layers um once we Implement our procedures um that really wasn't a question no that was great though because you're spot on as far as how are
059we going to quantify the work and what does that look like and I think that is still some some pieces that we need to develop and get that uh to you and that'll be part of the smarty goals and the action steps and strategies and how that really rolls out so you're right those are things we have to pay attention to I think one of the things that we need to really look at carefully is like okay we need to go beyond just checking the Box um just because now we're advertising with Wallace um that doesn't mean that it's going to change what we're trying to accomplish here absolutely um so you know let's look at the data and really segregate the data and really look deep down um in regards to the grow your
060own program um there are we yeah have we looked at say grants um you know I'm just thinking like Eastern has uh a teaching program the Wenatchee Valley college has a program and there's grants talking to Hillary Martinez last couple weeks um there's grants that allow for say a para educator to be doing her student his or her student teaching while receiving you know they're some sort of pay and it's through the grant programs um because I know oftentimes that's a challenge right you can't stop working for six months three months to be able to do your student teaching so just kind of put it on the radar yes um yes excellent we did have Eastern come in and chat with our our staff a variety of folks so that is an Avenue that we
061yeah we need to continue searching through grants to support the work is huge um and uh and helping find creative ways to fund the work absolutely thank you thank you I think that's it for me right now okay fantastic those thoughts or concerns and I hope it's sooner than four years um that we see yeah another update oh yes no yeah every year for the next four years I'll be here so that's my plan yeah perfect appreciate it yeah thank you no I think as you said quantifying it having a regular step of checking where you are and measuring and that way you maintain everybody thinking about it and then the other aspect I think is interacting throughout the district and outside the district so you fertilize new ideas so it's an it's a very
062tough job that begins slower and moves faster if it's working well I use all your resources appreciate that I like the term fertilize like that and since we're talking about hiring primarily I think that um you know looking at the advertisements where we advertise for applicants is sort of the end of the train you know we need to look at our job descriptions and make sure that our Focus areas are incorporated into our job descriptions so that when people read those advertisements they're seeing that they're going to need to bring forth experience and expertise that address address those also I I having participated recently in a couple of hiring um groups or committees whatever we want to call them I I am wondering if you know having some um brief training prior to putting those
063committees together on cultural competency might be a good idea um just a court of clue people into what it means to be culturally responsive and competent and and that time goes fast to your point yeah um the the time that we have right before an interview session even last night it was like it's precious moments for us to bring the team up to speed but that that's a good idea appreciate that yeah just uh you know speaking from my experience at the college we do everybody that's on the search committee has to go through bias training an online bias training and then after that once you've done the training then you get to see the applicants um to select the the interview the applicants that you're getting interview but those are blind applicants so they
064they black out the name obviously uh James personal information um and those are steps that we've taken to again create more of an inclusive to get rid of some of those biases um in the applicant pool great strategy um in regards to the access to learning opportunities uh this statement you know looking at high cap programs and making it more balanced with race ethnicity linguistic diversity and social economic status it reminded me of math is cool yes um because looking you know math and Mathis school has no restrictions into who can join that group right absolutely and just looking at the pictures of the children that participated at all the different buildings the diversity of those kiddos at the elementary level was beautiful um but there was no restrictions as to who can you didn't
065have to have you know threes and fours in math to get into to join Mathis school um those barriers were eliminated and the children had an opportunity to participate in the competitions yes um so it just it made me think about that math is super cool based on those pictures oh my gosh no those were those were great and what a great way to highlight the energy and enthusiasm of our youth um just being excited about math and academics so thank you for bringing that up appreciate it thank you for all of you for your time I appreciate it and I look forward to reporting on the equity program review again bill I still I think you're still up for our next uh agenda which is our action items yes uh as the board's aware
066we've been involved in a settlement uh with the jewel litigation and we will be receiving a monetary amount in regards to that settlement it's about 140 to 150 000 that I believe will be paid in installments over time and we have a resolution to approve our participation in that settlement um we have discussed uh plans to use the dollars to fund activities for prevention and intervention related to vaping and and those types of activities it's a good fit for the the dollars that would come in associated with this particular litigation and so tonight on the agenda we have a resolution to approve our participation in that settlement I move to approve resolution number02-23 to approve the settlement in Jewel litigation as presented in the board package second thank you we have a motion on the
067floor seconded by Julie do we have any discussion right hearing no discussion all in favor approving resolution number zero two two three to approve the settlement within the jewel litigation aye aye aye motion carries next we have our superintendent report thank you I've got a couple of things to share with the board tonight on Wednesday of last week the district held our first ever Kinder information and registration night and we had about 60 families turn out with their future Kinders the aim of the evening was to equip uh incoming Kinder parents with information about attending school and also help them get registered and while many of the families that attended had already registered through our online process there were others who came with the required documents in need of assistance um with the application process
068so we had office managers there our family advocates were there we had some principals there that talked about the first few days of kindergarten and how that process works and some operational staff who were also there to present and help support the families it was a successful event and we intend to do something similar next year and ongoing in future a couple of celebrations out there for our students are whs American Sign Language team did qualify for a state on Saturday March 18th our our ASL group competed in the Eastside regionals competition in Pasco and this was the first time that Wenatchee high school has ever competed in that event our team placed second and of the 11 teams we placed number two which qualifies us for the state competition in April so congratulations to
069that group um also last week Wenatchee High School's random acts of kindness Club meant to spread some kindness in the Wenatchee transition Program House a group of students from that club armed with rakes and gloves and positive attitudes and along with their advisor Mr Chris Hawkins at cleared leaves and spruced up the transition houses backyard which is something we use for some of our special education programming a few reminders and then I will close out my report so the Mariachi Festival is coming soon that is this this weekend Dr kalahar and I will have the opportunity to be on Wenatchee Valley College campus tomorrow excuse me Friday morning to participate in some of the workshops that are being provided to our students as part of this event uh we're both looking forward to that the
070popular Festival concert will take place at Wenatchee High School on April 1st and I see some of you already have tickets and and I'm excited to have you there and last but not least in my report uh Tom and Ron mentioned this earlier but we are in the the middle of our culture and climate survey it is open until Friday of this week last week our school district families and employees and students received an email and a text message with a link to complete that annual survey on culture and climate and the survey ends March 31st uh encourage people who have not taken the the time to complete that yet to to get that taken care of before the end of the day on the 31st it is used to gather information related to several
071of our strategic plan areas including some of those that Ron and Tom presented on this evening around uh belonging and connectedness with adults and and feeling safe in the building so we will have report updates from the results of that survey in comparisons with prior years as part of our strategic plan updates later this year and that is my report for tonight do we have board Communications sure so I had the opportunity to participate in a couple of hiring committees and that's my participation was not the important part the important part was that we had students we had sixth through ninth grade students on the Committees and I was very impressed with their confidence in expressing their thoughts their intuitiveness and their perception of reading the various candidates and so uh just love that opportunity
072to see students in action and participating in the district okay I do um the first thing I want to do is suggest to everybody that until April the 7th when it closes try and visit the Regional High School art show at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center it's superbly impressive I routinely visit that but this is the biggest and the best that I can recall and it's all I almost wonder whether this isn't one area where there's a recovery after the Pains of the pandemic but certainly it was impressive that way so I would want to congratulate all the student artists and their teachers and what's cool about this is it's regional so we're not just looking at ourselves we're getting ideas and it's good to see strong representation from districts like Warden Bridgeport
073and Tonasket Wenatchee high school students were awarded three best of show which meant means that their work goes to be exhibited in Olympia and Central Washington has a scholarship program for two thousand dollar scholarships if you go there and there were three Awards to Wenatchee high school students not to mention highly commended um apart from the high level of artistic and Technical skill I was really struck by the subject content of many of the works students just like Laura said in the interview they think deeply creatively and provocatively so it really is a very impressive thing and they want to move to CTE we had a CTE presentation uh at our last board meeting on linking art and Pathways for students to pursue careers locally as Independent Artists whether that be part-time awful or full-time
074I'm struck sometimes when you go to other tourist areas you'll see work that's locally produced and here not so much so it really would be good uh to get better at having homegrown artists and our CTE program recognizes this and I had a chat opportunity to chat about it and as um the con connection between arts and the CTE program and entrepreneurial survival skills they're there in the CTE program so there is an opportunity for our youth to move into that area then I had a bonus some of you may be familiar with the beauty of bronze project that's been going on for I think 20 25 years through our seven elementary schools they just happen to have about a thousand I just eyeballed it of these sculptures on display in the museum mostly from
075the seven elementary schools but they've expanded it and the high school Arts students some of whom were in the exhibit had done much more advanced sculpture so it's a rewarding thing showing a different aspect of Education after our Equity review you I want to talk about one Equity theme if we want to in strengthen the engagement of families and students in education particularly ones who aren't familiar with the system how do we show them how to navigate the system and get actually get access and use available School resources answer the questions why does it matter and what's it going to do and explain how well I had three events I was at which hit on that in related ways Saturday before last the state advisory Council on migrant education met and that's populated by parents
076students and Educators and I saw how some successful school districts combined active student and parent effort the students can often teach the parents a lot that the parents don't know give them confidence that aspect of showing and learning and how to engage then on Thursday we had our own bilingual leadership group meet right here in this room actually and this is the first meeting when our pack had two student representatives and this is a change and seeing the power of student Representatives would again very impressive and most of the parents who came not just the officials but representatives from a number of the schools they really wanted to understand and how to function inside the system was the same thing right at the heart of the participants wishes how do we know how to navigate
077the system when where relatively new other people know how to do it it's an equity issue just like we've been talking about so that was number two Saturday to Thursday and then on Friday I happen to visit Orchard and I learned a grassroot initiatives right inside the district I learned that they had held a multilingual family night just with the same objective pretty simple but pretty basic and then uh they have a new program called a weekly student progress check specifically for multilingual students I believe they meet with the principal and a parapro who I would assume is bilingual for that purpose and the student looks at their attendance and why the heck does it matter if you go if you show us don't show and what do you gain from showing up you set
078goals and learning Pro targets and as I commented on Equity it's monitoring and reviewing and making sure you don't lose track pointers a lot of it on Career planning and curriculum planning we're back at CTE again and right through the pathway to graduation and then they have an 11 point I think Readiness survey it's called good study habits where to get help it's important to know where to get help that's how you bust the barriers notice what's missing what you're losing what you're not doing and take another thing how to take care of standardized testing and realize what the consequences are as well as emotional and Technical tools so I was pretty impressed at how those small steps feed into everybody we cannot afford for families and students to lose their opportunities simply because they're
079unfamiliar with the system they don't know the system they don't know where to find Opportunities or how to gain access So within one week Saturday Thursday Friday three examples of we can do some more small things about it I think that's great thank you Martin Julie of echo just briefly what Laura said I I've also been participating in the the interviews that we've been going through and was really impressed by the student participation in in some of these interviews it's really outstanding to hear from them because my opinion feels less valid than theirs because this is somebody that they're going to have to interact with every every day so it is it's great to hear them feel so confident to speak especially in front of a bunch of adults that they don't know so very
080impressed with the students in our district um also the or we had a participant in the first ever Middle School all band concert I I heard I wasn't able to go because it actually fell on our board night but um it was a great success all the middle schools got their bands together and played a little concert and it was I hope a tradition that continues and I agree the interviews have been wonderful uh we Julie and I have one coming up on Thursday Martin and I did one last night but with Corey um I I enjoyed I've enjoyed not only the kids but particularly parent participation they are really really invested in this and it was that was very interesting to see uh last night and look forward to Thursdays I agree with Martin
081you must go to the art show it is fantastic there are so many wonderful pieces and I'm the proud parent of a student who has two pieces in that art show I was also able to be involved with the beauty bronze and and I want to say how thankful I am for the the adults through all of these years that have volunteered their time uh it's a big undertaking and they they're there at the show to you know because they're proud of it I think and I'm really thankful for um all of those those volunteers that that keep that going and make that happen and to the art teachers as well they're uh really really special and they're they they um are very proud of their students and and that's it's really really worth going
082to worth seeing thank you okay I do not have any communication other than our next regular board meeting is scheduled for April 11th and then that following week we have a board workshop on the 17th okay if we have no further comment and this meeting is adjourned