Wenatchee School District Board Meeting 12-13-22

001everything it is six o'clock on Tuesday night the 13th of December and the time to open our regular Wenatchee School District board meeting I ask all of us to stand up and say the pledge allegiance congratulations that's right thank you all for being here and I welcome you to what is our annual organization meeting during which we elect offices for the new terms uh I I thank you for being here whether it's in person or if you're going to join online or if you use the recording of the meeting later to keep yourself informed we're always grateful for civic effort and interest thank you very much the meeting is conducted in English but if requested we do have the ability to provide translation services so that citizen comment may be spoken in Spanish and be

002repeated in English traduction at that point the first item after the call to order is the consent agenda but um are there any requests to modify the agenda from members of the board there being none then the consent agenda contains the minutes of the meeting special meeting on the 18th of November regular meeting on the 22nd vouchers and payroll the Personnel report the Surplus report the contracts that are up for approval field trips enrollment and financial reports and that the updated fee schedule for extracurricular activities Athletics and others uh that's the consent agenda do I have uh proposal to approve the consent agenda move to a perfect agenda thank you very much Julie do I have a second there for that I'll second thank you very much Maria do we have any discussion on the

003consent agenda more for the public we all have ample opportunity to read these matters so uh this is a way of being efficient um and so when we move rapidly it is after reading it um there not being any discussion I will then call for a vote those in favor of approving the consent agenda please indicate that hi hi and I from Laura thank you Laura you're welcome and actually that's the first point that I wanted to do for the next item uh which is the board reorganization action item and to make absolutely certain for this that Laura you're in good communication and able to participate fully thank you yes okay so my first job is to call for nominations for the president of the school board who is the chair who will serve during

004the coming year according to board policy 1210 at the first regular meeting at which newly elected board members are seated in election years and at the first regular meeting in December in non-election years which is where we are now the board shall elect from among its members a chair president and a vice chair president to serve one-year terms a newly appointed board member will not be eligible to serve as an officer unless a majority of the board has been appointed first item on the agenda is the election of the board president do I hear nominations for president of the Wenatchee School District board to serve in the ensuing year December 2022 through December 2023 yes I would like to nominate Maria ningus for the board president for the coming year okay Maria niegas has been

005nominated by board the member Laura um Jake's uh are there any further nominations um I will repeat this to make sure there are no further nominations going through this uh um and pause if there are none such uh I will actually go to my script if there are no only one nomination um I believe I have a slightly different script um so there is only one nomination and so Maria and yigas is duly elected as our incoming board president yay oh I do a roll call sorry thanks for I was trying to find my script because it was off okay the roll call a vote sorry I will start with Laura Laura Jakes hi Julie important Maria nugas aye Martin Baron aye Catherine Thomas okay all four of us have done it and actually I've

006got a uh in my later message uh you will see what just happened happens all the time um so at that point um let me just see nominations have been closed we have voted uh we have only one uh nominee and at that point I confirmed the election of Maria okay I want to do something very quickly in transition um and I do it just because I think it's relevant to the goal of maintaining a well-functioning board being president is a much more demanding job than I had appreciated but for me the rewards have been much greater than the effort required and I want to pay tribute to my predecessor who responded to our request during covert to serve two terms in succession and provide this board with the benefit of her knowledge and unique

007experience during that difficult time so thank you Laura I think I now appreciate what you achieved during two years you're welcome and I want to say that we succeed when the board is a team of five individuals who are open-minded and work together I look at Catherine and I look at Julie your work has been essential and is valued uh then I want to say that the board in the district executive are tied together with the superintendent but kind of like in a three-legged race we have to pull together if we're going to stay on our feet and keep moving forward in this last year I want to thank both of our superintendents for their contributions Kim there's a person not at this table who is key to everything that happens does a superb job

008and saves us just like a few minutes ago over and over again and that is executive assistant Kim White and for everybody else who I haven't mentioned just take an anonymous thank you so I firmly believe that we're a stronger board when we demonstrate confidence in each other and rotate responsibilities as we've done in this recent election I congratulate Maria niegas on her election you have my trust in Goodwill and it's about time that you've got to get it foreign thank you thank you Martin I didn't prepare speech or the transition um but I want to thank Martin um I want to thank you for your time and dedication and the countless hours invested into the position and I look forward to working closely with you continue the work um as I will probably look

009at you and Laura's um for mentorship in this new position um with that said uh so now we're gonna move on to the next action item which is the election of a board vice president so at this time do I hear nominations for vice president of the Wenatchee School Board to serve in the ensuing year December 2022 through December 2023 yes oh two of us you go you three okay I would like to nominate Julie Norton for the position of board vice president are there any other nominations okay great smooth great okay so I'm gonna take one last call for any other nominations great okay well if there are no more nominations we are going to go ahead and take a vote um we will now take a roll call for Julie Norton to serve

010as the vice president of the Wenatchee School District board for the upcoming year December 20 2022 through December 2023. so um I'll start at this end Catherine hi Martin aye Julie hi Laura I and I am also a vote and I vote so we now have our new Vice President congratulations all right moving right along okay so now uh we're gonna go into the next action item which is the call for uh nominations for our wasp the legislative representative to serve on a two-year for a two-year term and this begins also in December this month into December of 2024. do I hear any nominations for the Wasa legislative representative for the school board to serve the two-year term beginning now can I ask you a quick question sure yes um did Julie did you hold

011it the position for two years I was elected for just a one year to fill out to complete a two-year term so my term was only one year okay so and can Julie be nominated again to stay on the legislative position this time around to be a two-year nomination yes nomination for a two-year period if you want to do that and I'm happy to but I'm also willing to share the I I think there's value in Sharing The Board responsibility so absolutely is anybody else that wants to do it I I happily nominate them I will nominate Catherine Thomas this legislative representative thank you and uh and do must I accept the nomination no you don't have to and Julie can decide what she wants to do as well I believe well I actually would

012like to nominate Martin for the legislative position oh my gosh pardon me saying so this should have been a discussion item not a nomination item um yeah I think I'm rather like Julie I I think uh I would be willing to do it if uh that was the will of the group of us I think we want to uh nominate somebody who is able to perform the job and uh I nominated you because this you've worked on the policy committee and you could build up into that uh Julie you would justify me say as vice president you're busy with other things if you wanted to um and so maybe I'm gonna I have a question could I question Laura I keep forgetting talking to you sorry I know Catherine uh my question is for you

013um what makes you hesitate about accepting the job because I have heard you say in the past that you wanted to take more responsibility and this seems like an opportunity so I'm curious about that because I would prefer to I'd like to stay on the policy committee I don't think that precludes staying on the policy committee I'll just say something with Maria yeah I think those two are almost a good fit I think they are a good fit Julie can you tell us a little bit about the involvement um unless Catherine do you are you aware of the of the needs of the position yeah having been in it uh I I still feel like there's a lot to gain from being on a policy committee um and so I am interested in in staying

014on the policy committee I don't know anything about the legislative committee uh Julie and I really haven't spoken much about it other than her reports and updates so yeah it's a little bit stay kind of up to speed with some of the legislation which I think you already are because of your background working on the policy committee so I don't think it would be too far of a stretch if you are interested in doing it um I attend the conferences a lot of it was remote this year I think they're trying to work back to in person but I think that's still going to be an option so really it's not like I had to go to Olympia necessarily of course they make options available if you if you want to get more involved but

015it's mostly keeping up on the on the policies that are coming through this year is going to be a bigger year than what I went through last year because it is the first year of the biennial cycle so it is going to be a little bit more legislative heavy so I think it's going to be a little more interesting um than some of the issues coming through last year but I think you would find it a decent fit with your policy committee work if it was something you wanted to do again I'm I'm happy to accept a nomination to do it but I really feel like a I'll be a little busy with the vice president role and and um maybe the finance committee role if we move to something like that um but also

016mostly because I just want to share the responsibilities with with others who want to be involved so well knowing that one being on one doesn't preclude me from being on the other I mean I'm happy if you're not interested to accept that nomination if you're willing to accept I'm going to decline and assume you're accepting conditionally yes okay okay Catherine Thomas has been nominated are there any further nominations so I'm in pause again and asks for any further nominations before nominations are closed okay great so now nominations are closed and we'll go ahead and do another vote uh roll call vote um we will be um this is a roll call vote for Catherine Thomas to serve as the what's the legislative district was the legislative representative for the Wenatchee school board for a two-year

017term Catherine I Martin aye Julie hi Laura hi and I am also an eye congratulations okay moving on I like how this works okay so now a little bit more discussion um it kind of goes uh with Catherine's um we'll lead in with Catherine's um I guess request to continue serving on the policy committee um this is not an action it's more of a discussion and a con consensus right um so I'm open uh for discussion on uh any board members that are interested in serving on the policy committee I thought I would be willing to do that I've never done that job before and I think uh you know it now that I don't have vice president or president responsibilities um I think I would be very happy to do that unless somebody else

018wants to join Catherine hmm I think having Catherine on the on it would for that continuity is excellent Laura do you have any interest uh this sounds like a fabulous solution I'm all for it [Laughter] no it sounds like a good solution to me I think I like the idea of the continuity like we've tried to strive for as well and rotating a new member in would would be a good good option great wow wow awesome okay so Catherine and Martin welcome to the policy committee thank you very much take my medicine [Laughter] uh and now for the budget committee Representatives um I wonder whether I should just say something about that because that will be a new committee and there actually is an item in the board packet that we haven't discussed at the

019last meeting we talked in principle about doing it superintendent Eagle made the recommendation and if I remember rightly we all felt pretty comfortable with it and we talked provisionally about two members uh and and I believe that the president would appoint the two members or we do it by consensus right now but uh there is a very short summary I think actually it relates to the budget presentation that we'll get later on but before we actually have the two people um chosen if any board members want to discuss or ask questions about the short presentation on the purpose in terms of the committee which is something we're required to do by that I've just remembered the policy says we should vote on the purpose and terms as well as and and then the appointment is

020it's a bit of a it's an old policy a little bit loose so I think a consensus um on the purpose and terms is important to establish that we do support that should I read this out yes please okay yes please the board May create a two-member committee to support the district's budget process the president will appoint the members to serve on this committee during the development phase of the budget the superintendent May convene meetings between the committee and budget preparation staff to communicate and consult on objectives parameters and assumptions financial and other future year projections anticipated decisions and allocation of resources for programs and other budget relevant issues the superintendent will set the dates and agenda for meetings the committee and superintendent will report significant matters to the full board in a timely manner

021I just want to stress that so that there'll be a two-person committee which will actually strengthen the the information that you previously got um and feeding back the committee's role is limited to consultation during the budget during the budget development process so that's the one key part and uh we'll see this later on in this meeting the huge task that goes into developing the budget and this will accelerate I think and improve the board's knowledge as we go through this then the second part of it would be after the budget is developed and through the fiscal year in order to ensure early awareness of variances Trends and significant changes the superintendent and the executive director of of Finance business will review progress with the committee these reviews will be quarterly or more frequently by request

022the reviews are intended to provide more detailed evaluation than can be accomplished during regular board meeting and enhance the information provided to the full board during normal Financial reports the budget committee serves indefinitely at the will of the board and where that comes from is the the board by consensus we can set up a committee the um we don't necessarily have to have one that is specifically for two-year terms we can add hoc as the needs change do that the president can appoint the two members so this would be a fairly fluid um set up but one that's designed to become routine and continual thank you Martin rather than a point would you would um would be is that would everybody be okay engaging in discussion I know I've heard Julie express interest I'm also

023interested yeah sorry my thought first oh sorry my thought first is that we maybe do a motion to approve the formation of the committee and then discuss who would would fill it yes so we do yeah it does say we vote on the terms and [Music] um okay the purpose in terms of the committee which will be determined by a majority vote of the board so that's what we're doing now is this the action item okay so then at that point the the agenda yeah it doesn't necessarily need to be you can take action at a regular meeting in any order okay so and we've put on there the vote the purpose of the terms it just fits a little bit better there yeah when I read it I think that's a rather old policy

024and it doesn't quite fit into a slot the intention of that it is something that we talk about and positively vote on in it if it's by consensus and Voice vote I feel comfortable with that personally I think we're working with something that has not been structured um in perfect legalese so if I understand this we can discuss it put it into an actual action item in at next board meeting now yeah we can just do that I could move to a formation of the uh finance committee second okay get that Kim okay great any discussion great so uh the motion passes to approve the purpose in terms oh I'm sorry we gotta take a vote thank you thank you Catherine it doesn't work that way does it um okay so now we're going to

025take a vote no discussion um everybody in favor say aye aye perfect motion carries okay so now we can go and roll into the uh to this discussion of the appointment of the right or the committee the budget committee um and like I was saying Julie has expressed interest briefly um Laura you were going to say something I'm expressing interest also okay okay unless Martin has a strong desire then I'll arm wrestle him [Laughter] no Martin were you going to say that you have a strong interest as well or I I do have a strong interest and it's something that I've I worked on as an individual board member along similar lines before attempting to do this so yes I do and I guess I would say I provide some continuity for the idea true

026okay Laura yeah what I'm sorry do you want to go ahead and keep your hat in or are you are we doing this by a vote or are you appointing how are we doing this um well I'd rather not appoint our brother as have a discussion about it um well I I do agree I do agree that the continuity is an important uh aspect of this um you know I have longevity um which isn't exactly the same as serving you know in Martin's role um I'm I'm open I uh see that we all should be playing an important role in the board and just the fact that we are bored for members is important enough um we should also spread the work amongst ourselves um so as not to burden anyone particularly more than the

027others and so if Julie feels that um being the vice president and being on the financing committee is not too much of a burden then I'm happy to let that go but I am interested I I don't necessarily feel like it's a burden but I do support the idea of sharing things around it is an area that I'm clearly interested in I under even though I don't have the continuity I understand the municipal budgeting and um so it's I do have an interest but um yeah at this point it might require to appoint somebody to people if you it doesn't actually have to be done at a board meeting you could take it under consideration if you prefer okay yeah okay um I'm just and I think that you know I I actually printed out

028policy 1240 says Committees of the board may be created by a majority of the board which is what we do what we did um and uh the board chair or president will appoint board members to serve on such committees okay so you do have the authority I totally support try to do it as much as possible by consensus balancing interests and you know amount of time that people take to do it how do you create consensus sometimes we will reach it just talking amongst ourselves by armed friendly arm wrestling um I guess what I'll say is as as we've gone through the search committee process which you will take over um I would I tended to say this is who I've appointed so yeah and yeah I guess I'll be honest I looked not so

029much at uh developing our own skills in that case probably because I was scared I went for the people who I thought had the most knowledge about the particular phase of the search that we were working on because we were worried about it right correct yeah okay um I I agree continuity is really important but also knowledge and historical context I know Laura has been um part of probably more than one budget um review and process and um I guess for lack of better word crises um Martin has been in this for the last year um give or take um Julie if that's okay with you a serving as a vice president um I would like to appoint Martin and Laura to the budget committee okay thank you thank you thank you on next to

030the next item is the citizens Commons Kim do we have any it's not home there we go foreign my name is Jennifer Heine withy and I am the director of Washington parents rights and education I'm not from the Wenatchee area although I love it here um so I appreciate being able to speak to you this evening in October wasda held its General Assembly which is the most important event it holds all year it's where policy and positions are voted on and where wasda decides what their legislative PR priorities will be in the upcoming legislative session out of the 295 districts in the state only 127 districts participated I feel that's sad because it was held over Zoom but Wenatchee School District was one of the districts that did participate and for that I want to

031extend my gratitude and thanks to the parents of the Wenatchee School District yeah one of the positions that was devoted on was position number 61. this States parents and families are important stakeholders in their children's education the wasda board recommended a do not pass but fortunately most districts disagreed and this position was passed unfortunately the Wenatchee School District was not one of those districts you know according to rcw28a.150.230 District school directors responsibilities School directors are to be held accountable for the proper operation of their District to the local community and its electorate this includes parents now at this point I would like to say that parents and the community have a responsibility to be involved in their District especially if they want cooperation from their school board but I speak on behalf of parents all

032over the state they're frustrated with their children's schools the lack of Education they are receiving in the indoctrination into ideas that violate their morals values and religious beliefs they feel belittled ignored and disrespected by the schools parental rights is one of the most important issues in our country an election for governor in Virginia was decided on the subject of parents rights so may I offer to the board your parents want assurances from you that you are on their side voting for position 61 was an opportunity to send a message of support to your parents I hope that going forward you will make a real concerted effort to show that you support them in or behind them thank you very much foreign thank you Jennifer now we're going to move on to special presentations Mr Eagle

033I'll pass on Mike thank you I'd like to introduce Mr Alfonso Lopez he is our Latino relations director and he has an update on the work that he's been doing in his new role this year Mr Lopez well first of all I want to acknowledge this school board members this Norton was Mr Baron the seniors um I don't want to forget your name um I know Miss Jakes is a also through Zoom with us and me system as I mentioned already Mr Jakes Mrs Norton um I don't come to these meetings very often and probably I need to come more often because I see from a short distance the job that you're doing and it's imperative uh to acknowledge you because the job that you do makes a big difference in our community it makes

034a humongous difference in the way we educate the kids and the people like you people like you um obviously are doing an excellent job and Mr Eagle is joining the team and obviously you make a strong team my job is a new job as you know the name of my job is director of Hispanic Latino relations I don't know if we can put the uh the presentation there but with uh with this I'm telling you that for the ones that know me I was a principal for several years in one of the schools in Wenatchee I'm sad that I left out of school but I'm happy that I'm joining a great team when you come to the central office you'll see people uh smiling and although the job is uh is being all the people

035that are working here at central office are putting 100 or even more to make sure that the kids are educated the best way we can my job is new but I'm coming with the same goal the same promise that uh the Wenatchee school district has if you go to the next slide oh I got it here okay foreign we promise to build a foundation of diversity Equity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges Future Ready that is stated in my uh position that is one of my big goals that is one of the things that I need to do is to bring some more diversity equity and inclusion and the things that we do in the Wenatchee School District I'm thankful that I'm working in a district like this and I'm happy and thankful

036to say that because I have spent 27 years in this District and that has given me a good inside of the things that we do in this district and I know this district is very open to diversity he's very open to the equity and also to the inclusion for the groups that we have in our community and I'm saying that from the perspective of these many years working for the one at school district my responsibilities are several when I came and I started with this position I thought my main assignment was to create a breach a relations a relation with Latinos and hear more of their voices and bring them more to um share their ideas their input their concerns to make our wanaki school district better but as I I go to my job

037every day some of my responsibilities also have changed and I have some additions I have to do some of the migrant bilingual part I need to do uh some of the pack the parent um advisory Council there are some other responsibilities that I'm very happy to do because if I can do it why not to do it why not to learn I know that we are not Eternal we have to do whatever we can do to make education better for our kids so I'm there I listed some of my UH responsibilities there my um things that I'm accountable for but tonight I'm going to focus in sharing with you some of the things that I have done uh throughout these four and a half months that I've been having this position before I go there

038I want to acknowledge people like Mr Jeremy uh Whitley he is the uh the director of special programs he is a gentleman that is very polite first of all but very knowledgeable and thankfully we are sharing kind of the same responsibilities um he is in charge of Title One title two title four lab height probably all of those programs that take a lot of knowledge to run him and run him well part of that are my uh my responsibilities too but again I've been surrounded by people like him that are helping me to create this path for this new position because my position is new and I'm thankful for the ones that thought that in the Wenatchee School District we needed a position like this and it's not because I have it it's not because

039I'm dealing with that it's because I believe that is needed I can tell you that others the other districts are reached at me and I'm sure to the uh assistant superintendent the superintendent here because they are creating positions like these to end their districts one of them is last week I got a phone call from one of my friends uh one of the uh the superintendent in Yakima and he said can you share your um responsibilities we are going to create a position like yours because we need it here I have I've been sharing with uh several people on the state and District like those are open for uh for another position like this so I'm thankful for that because with the 53 percent of Latinos in in our district it's about time to listen

040more uh closely to our Latino parents because same thing they want what we want uh better education for their kids for our kids so I'm happy that I'm the link I'm the bridge I'm the person that I can talk to them and bring those ideas that into those input those concerns to the Wenatchee School District to make it better another person that is a key component of my job is uh Mrs Diana haglin she has been um the person that is leading me helping me to do my job she is the communication director for the Wenatchee School District she's a smart smart lady that is communicating very well with the community and she's leading me helping me to do my job too so I'm thankful that she's working along my side this is the way

041um my job started back in nagas my first responsibility my first event was to mingle with the community and the families of the Wenatchee school district and we partner with cvch to go to this event of providing classroom materials for our families in need and in this uh event we had about 800 families that came to collect those materials for their kids it was wonderful to see the families coming and talk to us and in one of the pictures you can see a handsome handsome man right there Mr Eagle he was there too and it is important I I've been stating how important it is for people like all of you to come to these events so the community not only Latinos but uh our English-speaking Community can see your faces and they know that

042you're working hard but it's even better when they see you in this event so I can tell you from the parent perspective it is important to see people people like you be impressing in those events I understand look where you are tonight it is um almost impossible for you to be there for all these events but once in a while if you have a chance I'm inviting you to come to this event some of you have been present for these events uh another event that we had it was the celebrations you know that mainly Mexican people are in this community mainly we have uh Latinos from Guatemala and El Salvador and other other countries too but it's mainly Mexican people that's why uh they celebrate we celebrate the Independence Day on September 15 and 16

043and they were not school district had a chance to mingle with them in their celebration in our celebration Mr Iwo was there he had a wonderful speech to address more than 2 000 people that got together together at the Triangle Park and it is important because the community's seen how the Wenatchee district is working with them too and for me uh it's also very important to work with them very close so I can be again um that person that brings the input um I'm working closely with the parent advisor account Council and that is called the pack that is nothing else but a group of Latino parents that have their own board and they are working together also to plan to bring ideas and um also to organize parents especially migrant and multilingual parents to

044continue advocating for good education for their kids so I'm working with them right there you can see the calendar we have meetings we already had some and then um isn't it's nothing that we want to do only it is imperative to have that but it's it's also required by the state we have to have groups like this that are also helping us as a district so we have some meetings that uh uh we already went and others that are coming and in these meetings um what we do is we decide also on topics and themes that are going to be presented in big uh Gatherings and other meetings where we see uh many many multilingual and migrant parents and we had the first one in um I believe it was in October and in that

045meeting that we had um we had a about 370 some families that came to uh this presentation and as you can see in this slide uh so many parents were present right there and we had uh two topics that we talked to them about one of them why reading is a key component of kids education if kids don't learn to read uh after grade three they're going to struggle later it is very important for parents to know that uh whatever they can do to help them to learn to read before grade three um they need to know it many times they don't know it so in presentations like this we talk to them about the importance of helping them at home along with schools and teachers and another um topic that we spoke on this

046um meeting was about the gangs you know we have an issue we have a big problem in the community with the gangs they are a star they are starting to be more visible and doing those things that we don't want in our communities and we know also that um most of the members are Latinos therefore it is important for Latino people to hear about that and bring some ideas how to work on preventing uh for these gangs to keep growing so that was another topic that we had that night and by having these many people obviously it's making a difference we had our police officers presenting and also one of our um uh principles or administrators from uh the high school and all of them did a great job but that is one of the

047connections with um with our parents another another way to keep communicating not only with latino parents but also or with the community in general is this interagency meetings that we are having once a month this interagency meetings is nothing else but we have so many groups in the community that are out there to help families in need they help from homeless to provide lenses to provide uh even some economic help when they that is needed um all kinds of help and many times we don't know that that's why the Wenatchee School District uh for some years have had these meetings here at the Wenatchee uh central office but during the covered years we had these meetings through Zoom but now as soon as I took this position I was asked to bring these meetings back

048to um to here to central office and today actually we had our meeting for this month and uh Mr Eagle was here I think Mr Baron was here too um you are you witnessed how many people came and how many people were to resume also particular uh they were participating uh in this meeting they provide in for provide information of how they are supporting our families and families in general in the uh in the Wenatchee area it's wonderful to have these meetings and we have them once a month it is important to know what resources how we have in the community where do I direct this anyways um another way that I'm trying to communicate with the community is through uh different Outlets uh probably most of you know that there is a big um

049group in the community that is doing a lot for uh families and that is called uh called Cafe and that is nothing else but the community for the advancement of family education that's what they are striving for so often they ask us to go and be uh presenters in their Facebook program I think some of you have been present I know Mr eagle has been present there and I have a commitment to be with them also once a month every Monday to talk about some of the things that are happening in education especially in the Wenatchee School District so I'm happy to do that because obviously that is part of my job to communicate with the community foreign to partner with some um organizations that are fighting the guns and trying to figure out what

050to do to eradicate them and one of them uh we work together with ismond the Eastman School District school district and the Wenatchee Valley College we met together uh specifically with Latinos I heard I asked this question to our police officers how many white kids um are joining the gang so how many we have what is the percentage and what is the percentage of Latinos they told me that is pretty much 85 percent of the members are Latinos therefore I think it's important to bring the people that can do some more because they know more so with that in mind we put together these uh these meetings to learn more how we can work together and again the goal is to eradicate this issue this problem so this continues uh tomorrow tomorrow morning I have

051a radio program at seven and I'm going to bring one of the gas guests and she's going to talk about some of this what is what they are doing also to help um I'm also um joining the state to bring some uh Communication in regards to what is what the wenatchable district is doing to embrace diversity and to embrace equity and all those wonderful things that we're not she's doing and again I'm sharing this with you because I I think I need to just to highlight the fact that they were not a school district is doing a great job in um addressing some of the uh issues that we need to address and again diversity is one of them the state is very interested in knowing more what Wenatchee is doing and that's why I'm

052sharing with them through the association of Washington Washington School principles if you go there you're gonna see some video clips about talking about that and I'm there sharing some of the things that we're doing I'm doing also with the office of the superintendent of the public instruction which is the ospi if you go there to their internet page you're gonna see also some videos of some of the things that we are doing in Wenatchee um and that gives me pride of being part of the we're not School District um one of the things that I do every week I have a radio program and the goal for this radio program was to bring information to the Spanish-speaking people about what is happening in the Wenatchee school district and bring some ideas and share all the

053things that are happening they need to know that now we have a new board president they need to know what are the goals in the Wenatchi School District because Latinos are a little distance from those for from that information well this is a way to inform them some of the things that are happening so I'm thankful that they were not school district is supporting this supporting me by having this program every Wednesday at seven from seven to eight and I'm glad to say that we're doing we're doing it bilingually we're not doing it only in Spanish because our community deserves uh to know it not only Spanish speakers but also so English speakers we started with the idea that this had to be in Spanish because the Spanish speaking people needed it more but as

054we go uh as we keep moving on uh we noticed that it is important also for English speaking so we are doing this program bilingually so if you have a chance to listen to that program uh right there it's 103.3 FM and 92.1 uh you're gonna hear different topics uh of things that are happening in our district foreign when he works he works too well he goes too okay um these are some of the programs where we are advertising through our uh Facebook um page and these are these are just examples of this program I have had guests like uh some time ago I had a teacher uh her name is Nancy Navarro and we spoke about the importance of Early Education ready for Kinder uh why that is important she knows she teaches some

055sessions so she was good for that program and she came then I have had the privilege to have Mr Corey kalahar he's very knowledgeable about different things but uh on this specific day we spoke about partnering with Community agencies to help families in need during the holidays and that was just uh last week I believe and it's important for families to know all of this um I have had uh Mrs zinegas also she came and she spoke uh with the community about about redistricting on the board redistricting um I suppose our Wenatchee Community things that many people don't know but they deserve that to know so they'll have a better chance to make decisions when they vote and things like that so those are just examples of some of the topics that we are talking

056about during this program then um I still take a little bit of time to do other activities sometimes they ask me to be a MC for activities for Latinos and um if you didn't know we just had the Mariachi winter Mariachi Festival just uh Los Friday and then we had a lot of people coming to this I had the privilege to be the MC and see how our young uh people are participating in events like Mariachi but the best thing of this is that is not just for Latinos I saw many white kids joining the Mariachi in the folkloric dance groups so that is wonderful and also uh when I asked I got to present to schools um I guess my path to be here um if I share I hope that this will empower

057the kids to continue um striving for their education so when I uh when I'm asked to go and present to classrooms I I do that and right there in that picture I was presenting or I went to present to Foothills foreign so anyways right here is another picture I'm about to finish um this is another picture where teachers are teaching sessions to those parents that have kids that are gonna come to our district uh to kinder next year so we have three sessions that we are organizing in the fall in the winter in the spring and here we have the first one and look how many parents came uh they want to know how they can help their kids to be ready for Kinder that is something that we will continue well I believe that

058is my last um my last slide so with that I want to thank you for this opportunity um I keep saying if if you feel like I'm good doing this well I'm glad I'm glad that uh you think that and I'll do my best so far this is what I have done and I know more things are coming and I'll take them um thank you for thank you for giving me this opportunity by the way I don't know who had this idea of creating this new position but whoever had that idea uh it was great because I think it's needed not because I have it not because I have it but because in our district I really believe is needed any comments or questions if not I'm done uh I just want to make a

059couple of comments in the first slide you use the word Ambassador which is one of the very early words when we began talking about doing your kind of work and ambassadors take messages outwards and bring messages back and I think this is really good to see it um I turn white when I see 20 lines in the job description but that shows the structure of everything that is being done and how this work is being integrated in the statutory and other functions that the school district have so that's uh very good I like that and then the final thing I want to close and everything that you are doing and you also mentioned the interagency for example we are trying to realize the talents and potential of our students that is our primary responsibility um

060and so when you talk about people listening taking using Equity finding and recognizing people who are otherwise not being notice that's about finding the talents who are the resources for our future that's what I want to say I would like to say for all the work um I've attended several of the events and just um they're not exclusive to our Spanish-speaking Community or Latino communities I think most of the presentations or meetings that I've attended have been bilingual so that's really a pretty well appreciated and I've seen the diversity of of our community Catherine has been there on a couple that I've been at um and uh both the migrant multilingual education night where the presentations were in Spanish and English and radio station as well um so thank you for um you know reaching

061out to the Latino community and Beyond um and also for you as an administrator you know the challenges that our parents um face and I think I have to agree with you this is this position is very crucial in closing that Gap so I'm hoping between our communities and the involvement of parents in the in the district so I'm hoping do you four months in do you see that Gap closing in oh is it too soon to tell what's what's your perception thank you for asking that question obviously I don't want to speak too much about myself but by doing this position uh that has given me a perspective that I didn't have before because before I was dealing with a small group of parents and it was easy for me to reach at them

062and connect with them when I was a principal now at a larger scale I can see I can see that parents are looking for opportunities to be closer I don't have a good good perspective yet but I can see that more and more um the Spanish-speaking families want to be part of this endeavor of educating kids better for for what I have seen for the events that we're having people are responding and big numbers that means something that means that we're reaching at them and I'm sharing as I hear from them I'm sharing with whoever I need to uh in regards to their input and what is what they want and all of those things so yes I I see a change I hope that more and more will come because if we put our

063heads together we'll do better I just want to say I appreciate your enthusiasm and you're you're developing in this role it was a new position and I think it sounds like you're enjoying it and it it seems to be growing very very nicely under you and to the extent that other districts throughout the state are now looking at kind of what you're doing and asking you to share with them I think that's a great sign that you're fulfilling this role really well so I appreciate the work you're doing I appreciate your comment um but again everything starts with an idea and a philosophy and someone I was saying thought about and needing this position and I appreciate that a lot hard to car had to come from the board I know that I don't know

064how much involvement you had in creating this position but I appreciate it because uh really uh it's needed thank you great thank you Mr Lopez thank you very much thank you Mr Lopez and you've done some great work sir much appreciated I have a few budget updates for the board and uh if we can get my slide deck up Liz I will share some information uh tonight about the budget planning process that is underway and a sneak peek at the budget committee's work here in the next little bit so that's the very last set of those slides my that is the very last night there we go we're almost there okay can you go to the second slide okay thanks Liz so um I have heard that it uh is easy to tell what someone

065values by the way they spend their money and with our budget uh that's no different we're going to seek to support the district strategic plan its values and priorities in the budgeting process and if you move to the next slide Liz this is a high overhead pass of our budget and the District budget includes five distinct self-balancing fund accounts and each account is designed for carrying out specific purposes and therefore each of these five distinct fund accounts that you see here has its own Revenue sources and its specific expenditure purposes with a separate balance but in these five categories uh there are five parts here the general fund is really our largest category and this is what most people think of when you think of the district's budget it's about 92 percent of our entire

066budget and it is the fund that is used for financing the normal everyday operations of the district such as salaries and benefits for staff supplies and materials contracted Services travel Etc the other four funding sources you see here uh capital projects Debt Service ASB the transportation vehicle fund those are smaller funds and Target specific areas the general fund is really moving forward in the budget process where we're going to spend most of our time and attention and monitor the revenues and expenses closely there our enrollment drives the revenues in the general fund and we have experienced some decreases in enrollment that are impacting the revenues in our general fund Liz I'm trying it there we go okay thank you so a quick look at the general fund it makes up about 92 percent of our

067overall budget and within that fund most of the dollars typically about 83 percent are used to fund our staff um we have over a thousand staff that include teachers Paris para Educators principals or our operational staff that keep our grounds and and facilities in in clean working smoothly uh running order um this shows kind of how we spend the general fund in a typical year and we did at that on purpose because it's a little out of whack this year in the purchase Services category so for the the presentation and information that we're sharing with with staff in the community about this we want to do what we would typically have and part of the reason it's out of whack is I am a contracted service so the purchase service category is a little higher

068this year because of the contract with me for for the interim work uh but within that general fund you see typically about 83 percent of uh the dollars there are used to fund our staff and that includes the teachers Paris principles and the operational staff and the salaries and benefits they're the remainder of the general fund is used for supplies and materials purchase Services contracts and travel the next slide breaks down the Staffing costs and how we spend uh the general fund dollars related to Staffing so I mentioned a large portion of our general fund goes to support Staffing costs and here you see how that is broken down teachers and teaching support staff like para Educators Librarians can counselors our speech and Health Services as well as materials and supplies related to instruction and

069teaching those are the largest portion of of the this this part of the general fund um and the other categories of Staffing we have um district office administrative staff mno nutrition staff Etc and and Tech staff that support and I focus on the the Staffing portion of our budget because the majority of our budget is used for Staffing costs and we will have to do some work to align our staffing levels with what can be supported through general fund dollars moving forward as we pursue that alignment on the next slide Liz we have been trying to actively uh get some information about our budget challenges out and I've been working proactively with the cabinet team and the fiscal staff and Union leadership to communicate how the budget works and some of the challenges that we

070are facing with uh decreasing enrollment so here are some of the ways that we have been communicating Diana hagland and I did literally a a District's tour we went to every building and every department and talked about our budget our budget process and some of the challenges we face um going into next year and as a result of that those sessions and some of the questions we were answering we decided we needed to do something more to help people really understand how a school budget works so we created some materials to help people understand school funding we created an understanding school funding document that is available on our website and also a video clip where Dr Corey kalahar and I explained the budget for the district and how that works those things are are currently

071available on our website we are working on a budget frequently asked questions document which will also be available in the budget section of our website and we continue to have ongoing meetings with our Union leadership about where we're at with financing so on the next slide I have outlined a process with the cabinet team and input from others that is a fairly aggressive timeline for initiating some decisions about budgeting for the 23-24 school year and this five-step timeline here has really already started in November we began to look at the budgeting process and in sort of timeline some of these things out and right now we're working on some guiding principles and goals for the budgeting process which is one of the things that I hope to look at with the budget Committee in early

072January the subcommittee that was elected tonight to look at the budget as we move forward our hope is that by mid to late January we will have some guiding principles and goals in place for the budgeting process and some of the reductions that we need to make before next year and we will also have a process developed to gather some feedback from staff around the budget reduction process we have piloted some feedback processes with some of our admin team to see how easy it would be for us to decipher the the feedback on the back side and I think we'll be ready to go by mid to late January with that and the goal is that by early to mid-February in a board Workshop we will be able to create some scenarios based on the

073feedback we've received from staff and using the guiding principles and goals that will give the board some options for how we look at the budget movement into next year if we can meet that timeline then that the last board meeting in late February we hope that the board would be able to select a scenario for us to use moving forward and we will then go back and make that happen again this is an aggressive timeline in terms of the budgeting process but as I've worked with our new Finance director Mr Fitzgerald and the cabinet team in Union leadership we think this is a uh something that we can do and it will be the best option for for getting information out early in the process I did want to mention on the next slide that

074one of the things we're also looking at as part of this process is Trends in natural attrition over the years in the district and this will be important for us as a heads up for what we might expect for numbers of retirements and resignations moving forward although you can see in this data in the 2122 school year we probably have an outlier um more than typical numbers of retirements and resignations in in 2122 but the others are fairly trendy and again this will be useful information as we plan for next year's budget and Beyond uh being able to have some idea of expectation for retirements and and resignations where people are moving to different careers or moving to a different area and the last piece here is just a look forward so you you as

075a board talked about a budget committee I am excited to have some members of the board to be involved in this process in Consulting looking at our objectives how we allocate the resources our parameters and assumptions and our projections moving into the future even Beyond 2020 uh 23 24 school year so the committee will work with myself and the fiscal staff and the cabinet team and they will provide updates to the board as we move through this process we've got a lot of work to do here in January and February on the budget in the last slide here is is really for the board and and really staff members and community members anyone that's interested in learning more about how our budget Works which is similar to how School District budgets in the state work

076we have a pretty robust budget section on our website can be accessed using the link here or the QR code and actually it's really a prominent facing on our website right now if you go to our website it's right on there budget information on the front page so you can click and get information in more detail than I've shared today some of the documents that I talked about are understanding School financer there and some video clips of Dr kalahar and I talking more about school budget than you probably want to know but it's all there and we hope that people who are interested will will look into that so looking forward to to moving the budget process forward in January and February thank you Mr Big Mr Eagle do we have any questions or comments

077just glad to see what's there yeah I have I I think I appreciate the transparency um on the challenges and the approach thank you great all right moving on to our superintendent search progress report and for that I will pass it on to Mr Baron okay thank you Maria I'm going to give a short introduction and then you're going to have a much more authoritative and interesting speaker Dr Steve louder will take over from me since the last progress report Dr Steve louder conducted a day of small group meetings on November the 28th here in Wenatchee and Dr Gus balderas did the same on December the 1st which included meetings in Spanish on that day and then the survey window closed at 11 59 on December the 11th so that information for stakeholder information collecting

078phase has been completed I want to say for everybody that I've received much appreciation and feedback that both McPherson and Jacobson Consultants were highly approachable in their listening and interaction and I thank both of them for this service over the winter break the stakeholder field back feedback will be analyzed and compiled and the board will be able to read the results to be prepared for the tax when we next meet on the subject on January the 10th the committee sees it as important for both the board and the whole Wenatchee District Community to be well informed on the next steps of the search process to that end Dr Steve Lauda has kindly agreed to walk us through what is expected and needed from today until approximately January the 31st when we're scheduled to be ready

079for the start of actual candidate interviews I asked Dr louder to walk through and in his walk through to pause for questions and clarifications to make sure that we understand and are comfortable with the journey if we come across a point where extra work is needed and that shows up in discussion then it would be possible to identify the issue and take timely action and at that point uh Dr louder I would like to turn this over to you and thank you very very much for joining us good evening everyone thank you uh thank you for the warm words uh Martin that was very nice of you thank you listen I have to tell you that it was a pleasure to be able to come and serve and uh visit with your community your staff

080your students it it truly is a a wonderful supportive and strong community and and that's a that's very clear from all of the the meetings we attended I'd like to thank um uh Kim white and Diana haglin for their their support and their efforts however I'm a little bit beaten up you know they they scheduled me for 10 meetings during my day at an hour each so you know it was a it was a wonderful experience but I have to I was just teasing they really did a wonderful job and I know that uh Dr balderas did the same thing he would I think he had at least 10 meetings so we saw many many people and heard common themes over and over we will provide you with a report a summation of what we

081thought were the consistent themes for your deliberation and discussion um but suffice to say that people are very pleased with the community and the district they're very pleased with the dedication of the staff um and the openness of the board and the willingness of the board in this case to be listening to as many voices as possible in the superintendent search process as we begin to walk down this this next the next steps in this pathway um what we're doing tonight is just a basic update about where we are and what we will proceed on next so as as um you said on the 10th we will be reviewing the stakeholder input our report to you we'll discuss and I'll talk a little bit about that tonight as well the interview questions and the interview

082process as well as if we want to talk any more about the compensation although I think we're probably in in a good position for that at this point on the 12th that's the closing date for the applications today we have 11 applications um and as I said before and I will say again the years usually your best applicants come the last week of the closing um from the 12th to the 31st of January we'll be doing our vetting so we use the qualities the criteria characteristics and the information we've learned about the community from our meetings our educational partner meetings to try and sort out the best fit for your district and your community and we'll present those to the board on the meeting of the 31st we review candidates the board will select and

083I use the word finalists but we we call it a short list uh the board will select those that you want to see uh and speak to further uh and we'll we'll talk about the questions again and we'll talk about the schedule finalize that schedule um and at that point um the board has a choice to go down a couple different Pathways depending upon the number of individuals and how they want to interview and I think that um one of the things I would like to have some comments from the board tonight uh about the process itself because I've heard that the board may wish to do something a little bit different than what we normally recommend which is fine because again this is your process in our process the recommendation the recommended process we

084ask that the board select approximately three candidates for their interviews um if you had three you could do three full days for each of those three selected individuals and their significant others you want to make sure that they are seen and seen by as many individual groups and in parents and community members and staff members and students as possible during that full full day again the process that we recommend has two interviews on that day when an interview team consisting of staff students community members and they provide the board written feedback on the strengths and weaknesses perceived of each individual candidate they're not to select or or rank their favorite candidates but they provide input for your deliberation because again by law the board is the body that hires a superintendent um and then we

085talked about potentially having a dinner and then the final board interview on that day for that candidate and this is the point where I'd like to hear from the board because I have heard that the board would like to have potentially a couple different rounds of interviews um and so I'm not sure where to go but maybe I should just ask the board to see if what their thoughts are about this because I know we brought that was brought up before more information more contact with board members okay I I will set the scene a little bit for this because when we've looked at written um Pro schedules uh we're all in one place when we talk about finalists tended to be three people but if you go Upstream from the finalists there are schedules

086that say semi-finalists with remote interviewing and there's some discussion about having a a structure of standard questions where um a number of candidates might answer those on a short video or make a short video statement so in the extreme situation there'd be almost well I would say that there are four steps they're 100 of the applications that come in and then they're vetted by our consultants and out of that vetting will come out strengths weaknesses and in a sense it's a qualification step after that how many steps are we going to need and I'm I'm going to go last because what I've heard is people ask questions I've also heard an expression that in the last round there was some limited access to data and information and people are concerned that the board if we

087are we are the legal Authority for making that final decision therefore what do we need to see at so I think I would open this up for board members to ask Dr louder their questions for understanding their feelings about what they would feel is important for them I'll go first and maybe chime in later as well I'm a little bit disappointed that we're visiting this topic again because for one thing the last time we discussed it we had all the information in front of us in terms of what the steps were and what the um what the schedule was so um I felt like feel like at the LA that last meeting that we had we gave plenty of input and I had expected that there would already be adjustments um in the process but

088from what I remember given that I don't now have the same information in front of me um and maybe you all do um my remembrance is that there seemed like there was a step missing there was a step missing where the board was involved in the selection before um the group went out to the um to the public for more um review and comment and Julie I know you and I were kind of on the same page on that so maybe you can um make more specific comments in that regard and I'm trying to look back through my notes I know in terms of process what I was pretty pretty adamant about I think and it sort of depended on how many semi-finalists that we would be presented with from the the search firm but

089um I recall wanting to be able to select about five um and and I guess that we were a little up in the air what information we were using to make that selection how many were going to be put in front of us from the consultant and what that would um whether that would be Snippets of video there but I personally would like the opportunity to select approximately five do a preliminary set of interviews with those five whether it be remotely and then narrow down to a process of three where we really engage in the in the um in the full day stakeholder type groups and I think that's where we also modified the consultant or made clear on the consultant side that we were going to be engaging stakeholder groups in that second phase

090and it wasn't just going to be using the stakeholders in the first phase to collect information but that they would also be meeting the potential candidate as well so that's what I recall but I'm going to refresh my notes Also if anyone else wants to jump in could I ask a clarification question on that did I just hear you say you were going to engage stakeholders in the first group of five you know we didn't we did we our discussion about that last time and and on your recommendation if I recall correctly is that there were folks who had confidentiality issues and didn't want that cut out of the bag so to speak until they were actually in the final round and I agree with you on that yeah I I I and I would

091I would recommend that um a lot of this process is fungible based upon the needs and the desires of the board but again I think that's really an important piece um you know if you're one of five that's the odds of moving forward are not as high as if you're one in three and it does create some disruption in the force in their their home District when when they're uh when they're public so if you do have a group of five and again that's a loose number depending upon the number that we uh move forward the board moves forward um I would suggest that we do that as some kind of remote Zoom interview uh process and the board select for the the next round which would be hopefully that full day so thank you

092for that clarification mm-hmm does anybody else have I'm gonna I I think I want to work backwards through this because I think I felt firm that that final interview with three people would involve the stakeholder group for the strengths and weaknesses and that would be the only time that it would be public information so I think that's clear then on the schedule I think that was down for about the 13th of February let's say on the schedule something like the 6th of February there was a line for semi-final interviews and I understood that to be remote interviews or probably about double the number of three people uh and I didn't have any particular questions about that step that I would like to then ask if other board members feel uncertain about that step no I

093we received a revised timeline um after we had the first meeting um and the revised timeline did include a semi-finalist interview week I guess I think it was a week um so I I'm on board with what I think Julie Laura and Martin are saying about including um you know you're gonna from what I understood you're gonna put the McPherson Jacobson will present they're they're embedded group from that the board will narrow it down to do virtual Zoom um interviews uh buy for however many and then we'll narrow it down to the finalist s okay so then that takes me as an individual to the one step that I don't quite understand because we have a hundred percent of the applicants who are vetted uh and then how do we go from the hundred percent

094of those applicants to say the half dozen who would be semi-finalists uh that's the one where perhaps Steve you could give your recommendation and then people can respond to that thank you um on the meeting of the 31st we will present to the board those that of the 100 percent that um through the vetting process we bring forward and recommend that meet your criteria uh and the experience and are the best fit based on the information that we've received the board will see the paperwork of those individuals ahead of time we will talk to you about the information we've received in the vetting process from the individuals that they've listed and the individuals that we've made contact with that are off their list um and then the board will also see uh those candidates answering

095three questions three three-minute answers uh to give you a different flavor for those individuals at that meeting uh the way I understand the board's desire the board will come up with a group uh five or six ish depending upon the number we bring forward that make it through the vetting process um for what you termed a second round uh I'm sorry the first round would be the five or six and and I have a schedule that says we were going to or the board was going to do that February 6th through February 10th uh now if there's a different schedule I don't have it in front of me and I may have received it but I don't I don't see it in front of me at the moment so I'll talk to that schedule is

096correct Steve I believe it was it was a week I just picked the one date okay that's fine you can actually do both interviews during that week if you start early on and do the zoom interviews in the beginning of the week then the board can discuss who they want to bring back we'll have to get sufficient time for travel depending upon where these individuals are coming from but then that group let's say that second round group of three could come back toward the end of the week of February 6th for their full day interviews um and then the board would deliberate from there and my schedule says that they would do site visitations either of the top candidate or potentially top two hopefully one uh during the week of the 13th through the 17th

097again this schedule is fungible based upon the numbers of individuals and the needs and timeline that the board requires um and then we said at least originally that the selection process would take place the week of February 27th is what I have um now we can modify that we can change that but um what we'll need to do when we talk about questions we'll have to talk about Zoom interview questions and then questions for that second round group for both the board and the stakeholder community staff group does that move on to the questions next I think um I may have misheard it I I agree that we don't know how many candidates we're going to have and what the caliber of the candidates are and that we will have to use the word fungible

098or adaptable as we go through I think it sounds pretty clear that everybody's got a two-step process with three live interviews a larger number where we would be um actually having an interview in addition to the original material and then the selection for that and I'm calling that the semi-finalist group but the selection to go from the general group for the semi-finalist would be based on written documentation and short screened questions and no direct interaction between any board members and that earlier group and then that would have to be accomplished in um in an executive session and then I thought I heard some people say that they felt that even in that very first stage they would have liked to have some more concrete interaction if I misheard that then that is not a question

099that what I call the the selection of the semi-finalists would be done basically on application data I think all right so what I'm hearing you say is that we get a dozen applications brought forward to us and we sort through those on the 31st and we come up with our group of five or six we interview those folks by a zoom in the beginning of the week of February 6th and then we're bringing them back in person at the end of the same week and then after that they go out to the community groups is that correct that was the original schedule um go ahead please community group events happened the week of the 13th is that I must say I interpreted those as true as two separate weeks no I'm I mean it's not

100to say you couldn't cram week two at the back end of week one but I think the schedule we were looking at it had a week for Zoom interviews and a week for in-person interviews which could be a variable number as many as three or as few as one foreign I think I think Steve you did say that but I think that's not there was more slack time in the original schedule than bringing them back at the end of the week we can do that as long as we just get people you know enough lead time and we'll have enough lead time to tell individuals right if we did the the zoom interviews the week of the sixth we can turn around and do the in-person interviews the week of the 13th that just pushes

101out any site visitations to the following week and that's fine because we didn't even schedule um and this is not a firm date we didn't even schedule the selection of the superintendent until the week of the 27th so you actually have plenty of time within there in in this current schedule to do what you guys are talking about right now okay and I assume we'll have to find a time to do a special meeting in there to narrow the selection Bend yeah we don't have dates for those special meetings or how how to handle those and I think that's work that we'll have to do in the new year and yeah and we'll all have to collaborate on making that possible and it'll depend on the candidates as well yeah so getting back to the

102interview questions Steve um and as a representative of the committee I I have the advantages I I asked you how we would uh probably get to the questions I think if you could repeat what you said uh that sounds if I remember right I'll give you a prompt that you have an array of suitable questions based on the stakeholder information and what you've learned about the district that is too many questions then we would want to ask you would offer those to the board the board would then discuss those and choose a smaller group of standard questions that is probably not a good description but could you pick up from that and and give your version of how we would do that and that's alternatively on the 10th of January so so the mechanics of

103the interview um in a one-hour interview you can squeeze in about 20 questions the first one being tell us about yourself and why you want to be the next superintendent of the Wenatchee school district and the last one is is there anything you'd like to ask us or is there anything that you we haven't talked about that you'd like to tell us so you you virtually have about 18 questions from the beginning to the end if you have an hour and you want them to be timeline consistent question consistent what we would do is we would propose to give you questions for your I mean the pleasure of the board based upon the qualities and criteria that the board would like in the next superintendent we have lots and lots of standard questions those questions

104can be modified they can be you can write your own questions that you need that might be specific to the desires of the board um what we would propose is to provide you with quite a few questions in each of the categories budget could be one Personnel could be one public relations could be another one of the categories Etc uh and the board would then make their selection in this case potentially three because if you're going to have three rounds you need three questions in each of the categories in the S the finalists the second round where you have only three you need to have two questions that are similar you would like your community stakeholder staff student group to have a question that's very similar to the question that the board asks the candidates

105in in this round because then they're looking at the same things or similar things in that first round those questions could be different because it's only one interview team um so what we would propose then is to provide the board with this via email and some boards do this offline and they make their selections one two two for example um first round interview two questions for the second round interview we put that together and share a consensus with the board other boards want to do it in a meeting and you know both of those processes work very well uh even in the first example where the board members did it individually and offline you would see the results and make comments and have a discussion about that you wouldn't do that in Open Session but

106he would do that in a work work session um so so that's kind of the process in a nutshell we'll provide you with lots of questions if you like them great if you don't then we can either provide you with some additional questions or the board can you know seek out questions that they need or want on their own anybody got any so in terms of the process I think where I'm disconnecting a little bit as you're calling it a three-stage process and my I have in my head that this final interview process with the three is the on-site part as well so it's it's part of it is meeting in person with us and part of it is meeting with our community group so to me that's all step two but if it's just

107semantics that's that's fine um my other I guess question is January 10th we're going to be going over the questions but are you going to be suggesting any changes to what we've prioritized or anything based on the feedback you've also received from the community or when when are we going to get feedback to suggest that maybe we should modify any of our priorities or our you comparing both sets of sort of priorities when you're evaluating these candidates I would suggest that the priorities that the board has developed are aligned with the comments and concerns that were developed or at least expressed during our community meetings educational partner meetings um and and that's not unusual it's very common even the students uh will will talk about budget issues they know that there's a budget problem so

108that um it's a concern for them as well so while each individual group has some variation on that thing the vast majority of the themes are very consistent and the board is always in touch with what's going on so what I would tell you is that I'll present that information to you if there is a disconnect which I have not found one um if there's a disconnect in the minds of the board we can make some modifications but I think it's moving along very consistently with what we talked about and what I heard the board talk about in our beginning meetings um so the questions I I think really or at the pleasure of the board I mean I'll bring to you the um the categories that we have and we have lots of different

109categories the board can say well we don't want this category we want this category or we want a different category and we'll go from there but um yeah I think it's I think you're aligned I guess is the best way to put it I don't think there's any surprise to be told at the meeting of the 10th of January I think I'd split Julie's question a little bit into two pieces um when if I go back three months we talked about the profile but I believe the profile we all supplied information and that actually is embedded in the job profile on in the advertisements so I think we have uh essentially done the profile of the qualifications the other part that we'll learn more about now is fit from stakeholder feedback that doesn't change the

110profile uh and that's the way I would read that and then making a quick comment uh we talk about uh recommendations to the legislative committee for example I I think it and I would ask my colleagues this I I think we found it effective when we're doing something like that for questions to have what you call the offline version where individual um board members can send their preferences in to a Clearinghouse rather than doing that in a lengthy meeting then that can be compiled and that accelerates the final selection but I'd like to ask what other people think about that sounds like they're nods on that then Steve okay that's good I think it's the most efficient way of doing it um because you will have a time you will have had time to look

111at the questions and make your personal selections and then forward that and we'll look at that consensus and and go from there because you know I can give you um 15 or 20 questions in each category which is usually far too many but I try to cut them down so that you you don't have as much work but you know if you want more verbosity we'll certainly give you that too um so what I would suggest to you is what we heard from the community is I think the same kinds of things that the board was looking for communication approachability honesty longevity somebody who has a connection to the community bilingual would be preferred um the person who has success working with those underserved populations and students a success working with those those groups success

112working with associations uh teachers classified staff somebody who wants to be a part of the community somebody who's fully engaged and highly visible so all the things that you talked about are the things that the community the staff and the students talked about so there is no disjuncture there in my mind and I'm sure I'm forgetting something but that's sort of as it comes to the top of Mind in in the meeting tonight so again I think we're aligned and then a very mechanical one um I believe that we will have some reading to do before the 10th you have a rough idea of when the board should be ready to read and digest your work um I can uh I have gotten my notes put together in my summary put together I need to

113get it proofed and vetted I'm looking forward to Dr balderas's notes in the next day or two um hopefully we'll be able to get you the documents before uh the break when do you guys break for the winter holiday this Friday to give you a bit of slack time when I sent a question to you I put the 19th of December with a query on it yeah I I know that we can do it by then for sure it is even possible that we can get it to you by the end of the week um and especially if you don't mind that it's not completely proofed and vetted but you have the rough documents uh I do know that they're compiling the um online surveys and we'll be getting that out as soon as possible

114I asked my colleagues this I think I would prefer that you if you if you need a couple of days to make sure it's compiled and everybody's comfortable we'd rather have two days less reading I think uh just this is so that we can anticipate and budget our own time that's what I see right good so give yourself some Flex on that thank you okay great any further questions comments Laura nope I'm good okay well thank you very much Steve and thank you my friends on the board and we will work together as we go through this thanks a lot you bet let me just say thank you for the opportunity to come and serve your community and your students and your parents um it's been a great pleasure and it's been a joy to

115meet the individuals um and amazing students um it's a great Community it's a it's a great place and I am confident that we're going to get some amazing candidates thank you Dr louder thank you hey is it on the tail end of that I was able to attend the community Forum that was done at the high school and I agreed that that Dr latter is spot on with what he what the communities what I felt from that meeting in that group and their interpretation and expression of what they are looking for and expect um does really mirror what we kind of had on our our list as well so it's interesting to see in person and by the way that's not unusual the board is hearing from the community they're hearing the voices and they're

116reflecting that and and we just verify when we go out and speak to the community and and let them be part of the process so thank you so much for attending thank you great so moving on to the next agenda item the superintendent's report okay great we have had a lot of good stuff going on in December so I've chosen a few things to highlight um I recently participated as a guest on the cafe group's un bien consejo Zoom to discuss the superintendent search process and a few other District related topics that Cafe Zoom is an opportunity to connect with our Latino families around the district about our related events and initiatives and I'm happy to have had that invite to participate we recently had about 40 fourth graders from across the district participate in

117the Ninth Annual Shop with a cop event our counselors and School staff choose students to shop with law enforcement officers at Hooked on Toys using 100 gift cards and with the help from the officers the students picked holiday gifts for their families and also one gift for themselves and and I want to give a special thanks to our school resource officer Corey Fuller who coordinated that event for the district and to our partners Premier One Properties the Community Foundation in north central Washington fund for Youth and Hooked on Toys for their sponsorship of that event for our students as part of our expansion of the Career and Technical education programs into the middle school recently our CTE coordinator Beth hammerberg took some students out to explore careers through industry tours last week students from Orchard

118Middle School Pioneer and foothills toured the local business heirloom creatives to learn about entrepreneurship and running a full-service video company so the students got to meet the owners learned about their career paths and training and got to be part of a video experience and Beth and the CTE team are planning more tours throughout the year so I hope to give you some updates on that and this work aligns with our big six in number six involved in real world relevant learning over the past two weeks some of our elementary teachers have participated in math learning Labs which is professional development with Dr Andy Boyd the learning Labs involve teachers co-planning lessons and then utilizing strategies that we've been working on this year for math instruction to teach those lessons and observe each other with a

119debrief period and reflection afterwards this again aligns with our strategic plan work in mathematics and in preparing students for algebra and I got to attend one of the learning lab sessions at Sunnyslope elementary and in the reflection part of the lab is a great learning experience for the teachers I mentioned to some of you earlier last Friday's Mariachi event at Wenatchee high school was a packed house and included great performances by our students and our own emcee here Mr Lopez and Mr Kalahari were there to introduce the event and keep it going and we are proud to host those those packed House events that are facilities today I was at the paibus public market at lunch to watch a group of our ASL or American sign language students from Wenatchee high school they performed traditional

120carols using sign language at the pivist market during their very busy lunch hour and it was a job well done by the students they represented us well and it was great to see them in front of the audience today so some other great things going on as we head into our winter holiday break we've got some door decorating contests going on I think some of you are in on judging those today Dr kalahar and some of the cabinet members and I were in non-judging those as well and it's just a a great week to celebrate as we head into the to the winter break people communication piggybacking on your discussion about the doors I I enjoy that they take it very seriously I was actually offered cash to judge certain doors higher than others I

121did not accept it but that was a lot of fun and they and a lot um uh put into that particularly I don't know if you were able to scan and re hear the students on video on one particular door they actually had um what are the codes called with the QR codes for each student to speak on a video so that was a lot of fun also attending the um student superintendent advisory committee was very interesting this week um seeing the new representatives from West Side was great and I look forward to attending another one of those meetings hearing what what students are concerned about and maybe even got a petition going so it's good to hear their voices and and what their concerns are so and one quick question Laura I need to

122know where you are because I think I'm going to meet up with you on Friday really well I am in Maui I'm sorry I am well I will I will be there Friday so I look forward to finding you how interesting text me yeah I'm gonna walk some of the same ground but I have a motive uh December is a super busy time academically and for extracurricular activities everybody's juggling everything and so I'm going to focus on extracurricular activities because they involve huge efforts from the students and huge efforts from families and volunteers and they're really really special they are a huge part of what I'll call the power of educating a whole person and I really want to stress that um and then let's talk about Athletics as one example of it um how

123everybody managed all the snow weather cancellations and suffered through it I see you nodding right and then that was after the smoke at the beginning of the season so I just want to thank and congratulate adults and students in the Athletics program then I want to talk about Arts and Music when I came to Wenatchee I said to myself I've never lived in a community with so much live music play playing it not just watching it and Grassroots participation in arts and then I'm going to link that to our new logo up there when I see all those waves what the and I was part of that focus group what it says to me is you can do anything from Wenatchee and that's because we have a school district that gives opportunities in many many

124areas now yes we've got a lot of work to do to get the uh those opportunities to everybody but I think that's and we're a multicultural Community uh before the meeting we said to ourselves how many concerts are there at this time of year 20 30 I don't know I only managed to get to two but and so when was the Mariachi Winter concert and the other was Madrigal feast but I wouldn't give a lesson about that where else would you find excellence and diversity in music in one Community like that they're both unique long-lived uh rarely done events uh that most school districts wouldn't even think about uh so they're the they're an example of the exceptionality of the students and the community and family support and that's my message for today thank you

125Martin Julie well since you mentioned the extracurriculars I just want to thank our transportation staff for safely getting our basketball athletes back from Yakima last Friday it was a precarious beautiful day getting there but a precarious trip back and I'm just glad that they did it safely and all the students were safe and then we wisely decided we're not going to Spokane the next day which I think is hard decisions to make but I value the staff in making them for the better interest of our our students and our parents and it is fantastic to be sort of back in this sort of season of lots of events going on I think we took for granted having two years of basically nothing to now I being a parent of three with between the kids who

126elect to be in music and not and for the the sing-alongs that just happen as part of school activity trying to balance all the calendars it is a feat in itself but it's it's when I welcome now and you don't know how much you appreciate it until you've lost it for a little bit so I'm glad to see it coming back we haven't lost those things in fact we're building on them with so many other great activities and festivals um to you know working in in addition to the art the music the other field trips and whatnot it's great to see these coming back and although it complicates my schedule tremendously it is well worth it so I appreciate the effort by everybody Laura I'm just grateful for the opportunity to participate in this meeting

127um look forward to the new leadership structure in the next year and having a really great productive team to get to the district moving towards its goals and the hiring of the new superintendent thank you and on that note I'm going to just repeat Martin's words um you know stronger we are a stronger board when we work together and oh thank you for all the volunteer um volunteers to do the work and serve on the Committees um I don't other than what everybody else said um thank you to miss Brittany for from Foothills Middle School for the invitation to attend the robotics competition was that last weekend okay thank you um I think it was two weeks and two weekends ago uh anyways um it was great to see so many different um local dis

128school districts participating I went pre-covered and it was just as fabulous as it was um I believe the last time they met at Foothills um so congratulations to the Foothills robotics team and the coordination of that event um and then just a reminder our next regular board meeting is January 10. yes you're right it was the first Saturday of December because that was also the first day I wanted to mention or the I want to mention the um the Christmas bazaar again was huge filled the high school uh actually added 10 more vendors than they've ever had and had I believe 10 or 12 on a waiting list to get in so that was a really really big event and and the um I Heard recently actually yesterday from some members who had um uh

129sold their stuff there and were thrilled it was just a really really great so yeah that wasn't that was another good event on that day which had so many and one of the things that this particular lady said was that the students there helped her enormously and so that the the parents and the students that put such effort into that it really should be commended as well so thank you we have no further comment great so uh we are a journey