Wenatchee School District Board Meeting 10-26-21

001okay i see that by my clock it is 6 p.m so i will call uh the october 26 school board meeting to order and um we will be saying the pledge of allegiance and kim do you have a flag this time we talked about having a flag online so that would be really nice um if not i wanted to address one question some questions that we have had about the propriety of being remaining seated during the pledge of allegiance and um while it is not an ideal uh situation um it would require quite a bit of um so somebody says they're getting feedback i don't know what that is about i only have one microphone on that i know of um are other people hearing the feedback no okay okay so i'm going to give

002you a brief demonstration of what you all would see if i were to say stand during the pledge of allegiance and my um camera is not easily adjusted so i mean we could do that but i think that under the circumstances we do respect and value the flag and our patriotism i'm hoping that the public can be understanding in the practice of remaining seated during the pledge of allegiance unless other board members have strong feelings about that we will continue that practice in our online meetings and it is not out of disrespect for the flag so uh with that i would ask you to join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god

003indivisible with liberty and justice for all so thank you for that understanding um i also want to just take a moment prior to the consent agenda um to say that i have had multiple board members um ask me to serve as the board member police in my role of enforcing board operating practices and board meeting norms during board meetings and also online there have been some communications um that have uh i feel fallen outside of the norms that we uh did agree to i i previously had thought that the board this board collectively had not been through the process of agreeing to operating principles and board meeting norms but i've come to learn that we actually did do that in in january of 2020 so all board members ought to be familiar we all agreed

004to buy into the operating norms and um i just would encourage each of you to review those and personally recommit some have the highlights that i feel jump out at me based on recent interactions are you know one is presuming positive intent of other board members that we respect each other enough to realize that though we may have differing views on various topics that we are each coming from a sincere place and that we are representing um beliefs or constituents that are um that hold a value about valid opinion and that treatment of all persons uh in in our board is courteous dignified and fair and that there is a respectful atmosphere it says throughout the whole meeting but in light of some of the things that have also occurred online i i would also

005say um that that applies uh to online communications as well it says that the board president will enforce the agreed upon norms and so to this i'll say in-person meetings you knew perhaps i wasn't quick enough to step in at the in-person meeting i trust each of you to moderate your own behavior and to uphold the norms and principles i will jump in if it happens again and it's blatant and obvious but i really would like it if each of you would commit to the to the norms and operating principles and abide by those electronic devices can be out at board meetings but they should not be a struck distraction and obviously should not be used for board business i don't know of any instances where that has happened but perhaps a distraction could be

006could be said about some past behaviors under operating principles this one really was important to me that we established priorities for the district and keep district resources focused on student learning and that means that we also ourselves need to be focused on student learning and perhaps we've stepped away from that in some regard we need to listen to and represent the community and so we need to continue to have public comment and continue to respond to our constituents online we need we have agreed to be to advocate and be a champion for the wenatchee school district and for public education and so let's refresh our memories on that one um support participation in involvement in decision making in a collegial way this one really speaks out to you know we are colleagues on the board

007if we do not agree with one another that is perfectly fine it's obviously expected that we would not agree with one another but in our our disagreement or in our non-agreement forcing our own opinion is not helpful it's not collegial and to denigrate others is equally um in misalignment with the board operating principles that we agreed to the board speaks with one voice directors who are in the minority agree to support board decisions when action is taken i think this also applies to instances where each of us might speak online in our own personal facebook pages or on facebook groups that you know we should not be speaking about board business in those forums because that is not the method that the board agreed to um collectively back in january so one of the things

008is that the board is not is um the board does not carry out policies or micromanage and i will say that i believe that also applies to not micromanaging board members and i'm not going to do that i don't as a manager in my professional career i have never been a micromanager and i don't plan to start being one now we're all adults and i expect everybody to monitor their own behavior i'm uncomfortable being in the role of micromanager and i don't think it's appropriate and then one of the other highlights there's many more um many more bullet items in both of these documents but the last one that really spoke to me in the current circumstances was that the role of board members is not to make promises as an individual board member and

009i realized that since we are actively in campaign season that there is a role for board members individually to make promises to the community but you need to be really careful about where you're making those as an individual as a part of your campaign and where you are making those on behalf of the board so just invite you to take a look at those documents if you need to source them kim can send them to you and by an out of head i would ask that each of you would nod to acknowledge that you agree to the board operating principles and the meeting norms that we had previously met together to discuss in january so please not i see everybody nodding thank you very much okay i think unless there's any other discussion any board

010member wants to have that's all that needs to be said about that for the moment so thank you for that indulgence so moving on uh next is our consent agenda and on our consent agenda this evening we have the minutes from the october 12th regular meeting vouchers and payroll personnel report surplus report contracts enroll and in the enrollment and financial report is there a motion to approve the consent agenda and move approval of the consent agenda as presented thank you michelle is there a second i will second thank you martin is there any discussion okay one by one this is a roll call vote maria hi martin you're muted hi i'm moot i thank you michelle aye julie hi and laura is i also thank you so that motion passes so next on our agenda

011is citizen comment it's my understanding that we have five members of the public that wish to um speak publicly this evening and kim has the three minute timer so i'm hopeful that those who are speaking can see that three minute time if not would ask that you would um keep track of your three minutes on your own i'll try to let you finish a thought if you're in the middle of something but want to be really close to that three minutes who do we have first uh john johnny will be up first okay thank you whenever you're ready can you hear me yes you started the clock i'm not can you start that over okay the last the last board meeting i witnessed one of the most petty vindictive and undeserving attacks in which i

012hadn't seen the likes of since cafeteria in seventh grade so did you guys like get together and plan this out after school or something a bit embarrassing to watch honestly i'll talk about civility you talk about security and we'll make claims she's insensitive to our threats then reference how she's an attorney and her husband is a police officer really it was mentioned maybe go back to in person after the election when all this cools down let me close you in on something parents concerns don't cool down after the election for us parents being upset has nothing to do with the election but your contrived coordinated attack had everything to do with it our priority lies with the children not any of you i get it you're stressed and worried about losing your seats in the

013future but that wasn't the way to go about it attacking julie she did nothing to you any of you i mean she was even berated for getting an applause there was also talk specifically about the word unity being unified a unified board i counted it four times you know what's hilarious the people doing the attacking were the ones calling for unification ambushing a fellow board member while preaching to the board preaching that the board must be unified not sure if that's the best way to get your message across julie's suggesting to go back to in person wasn't some premeditated personal attack on your safety she understands she's a public servant unlike some of you hence her correcting someone online for the misunderstanding of the location of the meetings and she was chastised for that why

014you might not like that group or the people in it or the people who associate with people in it but everyone has a right to be at those meetings it was obvious she was trying to be helpful and isn't it her duty as a public servant to correct that mistake in addition it's not like julie hessen crystal balled to foresee who will attempt to overthrow the sacred rules of the school board meeting parents want to be in person we want to see you face to face we're not allowed to interact with you so we'd like also like for you to see us it's been an effortless ride for you forcing policies down our children's throats with relative ease parents are finally waking up we're engaged we don't want what you're pushing and many of us

015are upset so now you're getting some pushback and you don't like the confrontation will you protect our children from forced inoculation it doesn't appear likely and this worries us did emotions run high in that last person in-person board meeting yes but no one was going to hurt any of you had someone tried they would have been dealt with swiftly by the same parents who disagree with you these people are not criminals they are hard working tax paying citizens who love their children we may not agree on many things but if i saw anyone trying to attack or physically harm any of you i'd be the first one out of my seat to defend you i know a few who are at that last meeting and they would have done the same by the way julia

016nothing to do with this so please lay off of her god bless and good luck in the upcoming election everyone thank you johnny and next up is wendy oh come on can you guys hear me i can hear you do you have a camera as well oh i'm trying to figure out what happened ah okay all right sorry this isn't my norm okay uh well i can't see you guys but you can see me um i wanted to and thank you for the opportunity i wanted to address you about the strategic plan that's on your um agenda this evening it looks like it's an action item and i did reach out to paul and unfortunately uh i got an auto replacement out of the office today so i couldn't chat with him but um i

017just wanted to walk you through um my understanding of the process today um so back in september 2120 he presented to you the process of how this plan would be would come together and he talked about three different groups there would be the public that included students parents and business partners the strategic planning committee and finally the school staff and you as a board were encouraged to personally invite people to serve on that planning committee on november 9th paul let me know that the district had announced it would be performing the committee and invited members of the community to submit their names for consideration yeah i missed that announcement as a as probably a lot of us did we were in the middle of a pandemic we were juggling jobs and remote learning that's all

018i could do to keep my boys off of youtube and playing games and keep them engaged in their learning you had about 40 names submitted according to paul and so the final committee from what i understand included about five parents five students and five community members so i came to you last may because i was concerned after seeing the initial draft where the information and results how that information was gathered and i asked for a response from paul which he was gracious enough to do and you're all cc'd on that email and in it he replied within our strategic planning committee we asked members to share their personal experiences and conduct informational informational interviews with their peers friends family students and community members to garner broader perspectives and provide feedback these interviews are not intended

019to be quantifiable studies but rather a period of discovery to better understand and self-reflect the academic social and emotional journeys of students through the wenatchee school district and then later he said additional stakeholder feedback will be sought from staff parents and community members as we continue to develop the strategic plan our ultimate goal is to develop a plan that has buy-in and support from the entire community from my understanding staff has just recently shown this draft which which appears final it was after a long day of training it was about a half an hour and if i was a staff member i would look at and think well it's done what what point would it be for giving feedback at this point since then i have not heard of opportunities for feedback that has been

020given to other parents or students that were not involved in that strategic planning committee and is there going to be how is the wider community been included in this process at all there are many of us that are strong supporters of our schools we volunteer our time and have supported every levy and bond put forward by this district but in this process have not felt included i'm not sure what the plan would look like for including the community but my experience on a city council when we've had comprehensive plan updates or sub-area plans has been having open meetings having invite the community come to give feedback that's included in the plan one of the priorities listed in the framework is partnerships and under action steps and practices it lists quote engaging students parents and community

021i would ask that this plan is not adopted until there is wider engagement and support by the whole community and school staff thanks for your time thank you wendy okay next up is drew i see that he responded in the chat okay there he is whenever you're ready sir all right thank you um so i wanted to thank the board for uh uh opportunity here to address an important issue uh to both myself and my wife um there's a con and the community i should say also uh which of course includes the kids uh which uh we all care about and as you do also and serve my main concern in addition to my wife is that there's no current plan uh to get volunteers back in the school [Music] specifically at the elementary age

022level the volunteers are extremely important at this age in order to help the the teacher teach and control the classroom each individual that comes in has their own unique experiences knowledge and different abilities that they're able to connect with the various children throughout the district with that importance uh from what i understand through some research today is that there's a complete lack of unity within the wenatchee school district in addition to the office of public superintendent in order to how to get volunteers into the classroom as far as i know volunteers there was an email that went out for volunteers to be able to turn in the various paperwork and do background checks to uh get in specifically to the schools not just for field trips and upon further evaluation today this is not true

023and through numerous communications throughout the district there's no clear policy on when volunteers are allowed in the classroom what counts as an educational experience i know there was a document from august 2021 of this year but that's fairly lacking and three months in the middle of a pandemic is too long in order to not have updates my concern with that is that the document itself has little basis in science and is much more on an individual uh level and i'd hope that the board would support that uh what we should be doing is in the best interest of kids uh with the basis of science i cannot talk right now but i'm sorry i'm sorry about that um so uh what i would ask is that uh one volunteers be allowed uh to get back

024uh into the school specifically at a k2 level is probably the most important uh level that is needed uh for the uh for volunteers in order to impact our students and then also that there needs to be a uniform policy from the district about when are volunteers allowed what's an educational experience and those types of things right now again i got roughly five different answers stay on one point see the one actually school board follows with none of them uh agreeing with each other so highly concerned with this issue again advocating for our kids to have volunteers within the classroom and i'll finish with this the school district at this point has set up what they believe and i support as being a safe um a safe uh policy for in-house workers including substitute teachers

025actual teachers and anybody else who goes within the school i might advocate that these same safety precautions which you all agree uh are safe because you let these people into the schools should also be allowed for volunteers thank you thank you very much okay next up we have rachel petro hey good evening all um hope you enjoyed the moments of sunshine we had today um i wanted to first thank uh chairman jakes for addressing the elephant in the room um i think you all received an email from me regarding um just some of my just just my concern regarding um some of the behavior in the meeting so i know this is hard i would also just at the same time like to thank you all for serving public service is is not a cakewalk

026um and i appreciate that you are all willing uh to serve um and it's i know it's hard so thank you for that um i just wanted to alert you i've i'm a little frustrated because on july 15th the district published a press release um because you know basically on crt and dei and cse um noting that there was extreme interest and a lot of misinformation about it so when i saw that the dei training um under you know sb 5044 was going to be offered on october 8th i reached out to the board to say hey this is a great opportunity hopefully it will be recorded and all the materials will be also shared with the public because if it's a nothing burger i think that's really important to get out there like let's

027just let the public evaluate it um unfortunately it still hasn't been made public um but i'm hoping that the board will take swift action and encourage staff to get that publicly released in the same and similar manners that you uh published the july 15 press release um perhaps it could go into the links on the regular emails that are sent out weekly i i i'm sorry if i missed it i don't think i did but um i may have it's totally possible but i look back through several weeks and i didn't see it um i know it takes time but also you guys get the board meetings up really quick so i know that the technology and the staff capability might be there i know capacity might be an issue um so that was one

028thing um the other was on the strategic plan i see that it is on the agenda and um you've heard me say this before but this is the first time in a board meeting that is being presented and of course a lot of people are watching whether they're commenting or not they're they're watching on youtube i would just encourage you not to take action tonight let us all hear the presentation uh that and that goes on i have some concerns just looking at the flyers that were attached to the agenda specifically um you know from a business standpoint you know we're always looking for smart goals specific measurable attainable relevant and time-based because what gets measured gets done right and and what we want is we want to see that those things accomplish for our

029kiddos in our district so i would just really uh respectfully request that you don't take action tonight that you do take action as far as inputting and asking questions but um let the public see the same thing that you're going to let and then engage with the public you as a board with your constituents so that we can have this discussion at that level i would really appreciate that and i think that's all other than clear volunteer mandates that are consistent with the same that you apply to employees would be fantastic and i i've been hearing lots of friends having troubles i haven't turned in my paperwork re-upped my paperwork yet but i plan to so thank you thank you rachel and brian who is not in the attendee list what does that mean that

030he's here so he was what's going on to be added is he in the queue anywhere nope no he asked for ask for cop he never joined okay okay well in case there's some technical difficulty um with brian if he does show up in the next little bit let us know and uh we may be able to still fit him [Music] in so kim it's sorry laura i just wanted to check that kim is double dinks is that one of the um speakers yes it is so ron i think that's brian well they just disappeared from the list so i would have oh there there there they are well that is let's see we'll see who it is yeah we ask that anybody in public change their names we know who they are they are

031and identify as it's a lot easier you're echoing by the way ron hey um this is brian higgins sorry auto my computer auto filled information that is inaccurate i guess okay sorry about that whenever you're ready um my name is brian higgins i teach at wenatchee high school i teach english language arts and abbott um i just wanted to share about some of the cool stuff that happened last week last week we had our migrant bilingual slash district-wide avid night at the high school and we had a lot of attendees it was a really positive evening it was great to see so many community members come out and provide some information to parents and students things about going to college getting ready for fafsa how to find sports in the community it was just a

032really positive night and we had some leadership there as well um which helps it helps all those students see they have access to the leadership in our district we feel like they have feedback or avenues of feedback which is really wonderful i just want to give a shout out to david vasquez and lorena polito for putting that night together and to uh jesse whose last name i suddenly forgot and stephanie malloy at the high school who helped set up and tear down um which made it feel very um it may feel like we resolved it really quickly at the end of the night so that's awesome and then i wanted to share just a really cool community story um today in my avatar class i had woody lotz who is the new executive director of

033the performing arts center he asked this last week to come into my class to reach out to students at the high school specifically to offer volunteer opportunities and this is a guy who's been on our community for three months reaching out to get into our high school to get involved and to get engaged um and it was just really positive to see him come in talk to students offer some really um competitive resume building volunteer opportunities using his position and also giving up his time um in a schedule where he's got a lot of work to do to make sure the arts are still functioning and successful in our community so big shout out to woody lotz i'm just very excited to see community members who want to get engaged and who are coming into

034classrooms to be engaged with our students one-on-one and personal um it i think it shares the impact and the strength of our community when someone who is new to it feels that that is something they should be doing right away so um woody watts new performing arts center director thank you so much you're probably not in the audience watching this meeting but hopefully someone will share this recording with you because it meant a lot to my kids that you shared your personal story which is a lot like their personal stories and was surprising for all of us in the room um certainly my students were making some judgments as soon as you walked in and you dispelled a lot of those things that they were making judgments about and then to also feel like you're

035offering them something that isn't your normal volunteer work and makes them feel like they have an impact so thank you very much um thank you paul gordon for coming to our migrant bilingual night thank you maria nigez for being there as well and martin baron for listening to me chatter about culture playbook and culture building in our avid program which i know can be tedious but also is super important so thank you very much for all your time i remember seeing mike lane and corey kalahar there as well so thanks to those those guys as well thank you very much thank you brian appreciate it it's nice to hear about kiddos and positive experiences and refocus our focus on students uh okay so follow up to this paul i would like you to comment sorry

036i'm putting you on the spot here um we have had a discussion about um questions that are asked at public meetings and how we would be responding to those and wonder if you uh are prepared to make a few comments about that yeah absolutely laura we call that in the cabinet a no-look pass uh so yes so at the during the superintendent report um if i have the necessary information i'll respond to any public comments that that i that i feel very comfortable responding to um if i if i don't have that piece then at the next board meeting i'll come back and respond at that time the other places that we're going to make sure that those are captured will be in our so we send out a regular board summary so within that

037board summary we'll also capture those pieces within that summary so it's it's contained people can see where where we put that information and it's out to the entire community so the entire community has an answer to those questions that are asked it may not be every question but but the large overarching questions are the ones that i'm really going to try to make sure that i'm answering that night or at the next meeting and then again like i said we'll follow up in the uh board summary um with my responses or staff responses to that that way we can uh can just make sure that we're tracking those as well and that was something that was really important to laura that we're tracking those uh long term and having that information for us so laura

038is that what you're looking for yes sir thank you very much you're welcome okay so next we are moving on to student updates and we have two students joining us this evening avery miller there she is um so apparently you're going first so um tell us what's going on that works um so my name is avery miller and i'm the wenatchee high school asb president i'm just sharing some updates so at wenatchee high school our most recent major event that took place was homecoming um it really exceeded all of our expectations especially with the restrictions we had to work around um the outdoor venue worked incredibly well and everybody else in asb worked super cohesively to both set up and tear down i think it was a strong testament to the adaptability and hard work

039of our asv as a whole um the amount of tickets purchased also reached an all-time high the previous record was around 750 sold for homecoming and this year we sold around 1 000 tickets wow yeah um in addition to that a main focus as of now is helping out our community in previous years asb has participated in halloween food drive but in response to the conditions of our wenatchee high school's panther house our culture group nisb has created a class-wide competition to collect items in high demand today is only the second day um and we have already produced a ton of donations and classes are getting really competitive so it's super exciting to watch um uh along with that a documentary was also produced about the panther house to spread information and awareness by that

040same culture group um we also have the schwab community toy drive on our horizon where we plan to partner with ncw life and many other community organizations um in order to provide christmas gifts for children in need that live in the wenatchee valley we also had members of the chelan county fire department join us in the crowning of our homecoming royalty to establish a union between wenatchee high school and the community that we are so grateful for um we will continue to serve our community as an asb in any way we can and seek out more opportunities super thank you for joining us and congratulation on your position as asb president and we'll look forward to seeing you again thank you me too soraya hi um so my name is soraya and i'm the president

041of the leadership club at westside high school and i am here to tell you about what's been going on um first we would like to say how happy we are to be back with the board and to share with you everything uh and everyone else that's watching everything that's going on at west side so the week of november 1st we will be all done with our state testing um last week october 18th through the 22nd we had our annual fall spirit week so we did pajama day pink day for breast cancer awareness decades day anything but a backpack day and halloween costume day and this was tons of fun and lots of students and staff participated and enjoyed it um so currently our leadership program is working on letters to veterans for make a difference

042day and we are so excited to get back to this since we haven't been able to do it in two years and this year we received an additional list of veterans so we're excited to get more letters out to them uh we are partnering with john perez and chesla de roos fifth grade class from john newberry and tina nicopen brown's fifth grade class from wia and we will also be incorporating the letter writing into our english classes leadership has also renewed our partnership with bomba socks company and we are now receiving the max donation of 3 000 pairs of socks we are just waiting on the shipment as copa 19 has put them behind so hopefully november or december the sox should arrive um we are hoping on planning on starting up our senior our

043senior mentor program again this year in november and yearbook is doing a fundraiser this year taking senior photos on november 6th for from two to four for 25 um with that do you have any questions for me uh thank you for coming to the board it's great to see you i want to say that and congratulations um on your presidency for the leadership club and that was a great report we really look forward to seeing you and avery back at future meetings you're doing a great job of telling us what's going on and we appreciate it very much other board members great presentation and look forward to seeing the mentor program up and running in november i love hearing that both schools are focused on different community service projects and reaching out to others it

044always warms my heart when i hear about that so keep up the good work okay thank you ladies we'll see you next time moving on uh next ah we have more accolades um so it's come to my attention recently that it's national principal month recognition month much to my surprise so i was glad i heard about it before the month was actually over so i asked paul if we could take a moment to um recognize the hard work of our principals and building administrators um at this time yeah laura we've spent the month recognizing our school principals our assistant principals for their incredible contributions um the role of a school leader is around vision around leadership it's around dedication it's around commitment to to ensuring that each of their students uh will be future ready

045and it's a tireless and at times a thankless job for all the work that we do but as a superintendent i know the the the incredible importance that a school leader brings to each school ultimately a school leader uh champions the work at each uh of their schools and without incredible school leaders the work doesn't get done the work uh stays stagnant and that's not what our our leaders do our leaders make a significant difference in the lives of their students in the lives of their their staff and the lives of their parent communities um they really are these uh mayors of these communities uh they they they engage people they're out there first thing in the morning they're there until the end of the night they're at games they're they're at events um their

046parent teacher conferences are starting tomorrow uh through friday they literally make our our the the schools operate each and every day um and throughout the pandemic that was one thing when we were online and then hybrid uh but this year has brought on unique challenges that each leader has had to navigate and navigate beautifully uh from quite honestly first thing in the morning most of them read what's called the red rover which tells them which how many staff are out for each day and having to make adjustments right there reaching out to their office managers making sure they have the the right staff in place for some of them last week i i know one of our leaders was teaching orchestra uh while four other staff members were filling in for other uh staff members

047who were out sick um for a variety of reasons so it is this incredible balancing act that happens each and every day and then the they're responsible for the learning and teaching that occurs within their buildings um the research is clear great principles make a significant difference for the outcomes of a school in a community and i am so proud of our leaders um our principals and our assistant principals for the work that they do so thank you thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart from my cabinet teams from from everybody within this organization for the work our principals do laura agreed um agreed we we don't often see our principles in action and um without them none of this learning no learning would occur no no no operations at

048school buildings would occur they play a very significant role and i also am very appreciative of each and every one of them other board members yeah i just want to echo what both of you have said you know our our principals don't always get a lot of recognition but you know they have been uh they're always on the front lines but i i think even more so during cova they've had to troubleshoot kind of new areas so um thank you to all our principals and assistant principals for all the work that you're doing this year and last year um we know it's tough but we're so glad that we have all of you yes big shout out to all of them i think one of the covet has kind of you know put them in

049different places but at the same time they're more visible um so uh i see um shout out to mr weaver who was working the crossing guard a couple weeks ago for a few weeks um and so you know probably not how they would like to be spending their mornings but as parents and students you know we love seeing the smiles and the visibility um and that's just a little bit of of what we see it knowing there's so much more that's happening behind behind um you know when school starts on top of every the roles of a principal so keep up the good work and i also want to add my gratitude um work is very very hard very difficult you've got balls flying all over the place short staffed so the principals and leaders

050in the buildings i really thank you very much and something i want to comment on i don't get around very much but it is funny how often or it is great how often i'll see a principal on a sidewalk or in a corridor going face to face with students and staff and creating good will and that's re taking the time to do that when everything is so full of work is much appreciated thank you you're still there you go i i also want to say thank you to all of our principals for working so hard for the benefit of our students and families for being so welcoming to everyone who's going to their schools i know these are tough times they're called into all kinds of duties right now crossing guards substitute teachers anywhere we

051can put them probably lunchroom helpers pe teachers so i'm really going above and beyond probably working some pretty long days i try not to spy on my my neighbor principal too much um i know they're working really hard for for everybody and doing a great job and it's great to see the kids light up when they see them it's great to see them reaching out to families um even in in kind of these weird tough social times so thank you to all the principals and for the new principles that have have been jumping into new roles um congratulations on your new positions and um i hope it gets normal soon amen to that okay uh next on the agenda and we wish the principals were here though so that we could you know think them

052in person um next year maybe we'll be able to get back to that um we have at the strategic plan on our agenda and paul turn it over to you all right thank you board members thank you for recognizing uh our incredible principles yeah so tonight i'm gonna share my screen here tonight we're going to uh go through the strategic plan uh a strategic plan for student success and really excited about this opportunity to share this with the board i want to kick off with you know the members of our committee parents and community and district staff and students you've heard from a number of these individuals at different points in time through different board meetings where individuals have come to you and spoken to you about the work of the strategic plan tonight i'm

053honored to introduce two other community of our strategic planning committee members arlet lopez rodriguez and steve sandman i'm going to stop sharing my screen and hand the mic over to our left first good afternoon board members and community members my name is arlette lopez rodriguez and i'm a former wsd student and a current stakeholder for the wsd strategic plan in my years in this school system it's taught me several things one of them being that because of my identity coming from a low-income immigrant family i was forced to work twice as hard to access the resources and opportunities that were readily available and accessible to others this experience led me to get involved with the district to develop a vision and a promise to each of our students that despite any barriers they will face

054in their lifetime their time in the wenatchee school district will be a safe thriving place where not only is their education meaningful but their well-being as a human will come first this is why it was so important for me to get involved in a process like the strategic plan planning team because not only was my voice as a student important it was critical for this process in order to have a representative team that included the representation of our student demographic i'd like to i'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work and advocacy done by our superintendent and his team if it wasn't for their work and engagement outside of the schools i wouldn't have personally been made aware of this opportunity to serve on this committee my first conversation with dr gordon

055and mrs haglund as well as two other board members was actually during a listening session with a community in south financially hosted by an organization called cafe this was where i truly saw the significance and importance of these conversations that we need to continue with our administration and elected officials it was soon thereafter when dr gordon in 2019 and his team visited my avid class and engaged in dialogue with 24 of us for an entire class period my avid teacher later expressed to us that the superintendent was very impressed with our collective engagement and he appreciated our insight then he announced that there would be an opportunity for two students to apply for an official seat at the table for the strategic planning team after feeling the excitement and the hope that someone was willing

056to listen to a bunch of 16 year olds i sent out an email and a letter expressing my interest for the opportunity to both mrs agland and dr gordon where they both personally responded and prompted me to the application process and had one of our final discussions regarding the plan i couldn't have felt more pride to have been a part of this work that has been beautifully interpreted by staff the community and of course diana hagwind the content of this plan is especially important today because we need a solid foundation for our schools to adapt and interpret this plan that will come to the benefit of each student not just some and before i close off i just want to acknowledge the leadership the commitment and the lived experiences that every single committee member brought

057to them to the table for over a year for every two weeks without that collective effort to better understand each other's definitions on what it means to provide equity versus equality as well as to be diverse in thought and practices we would have never come to the level of consent and understanding we've concluded with it was pretty hard to express your own definition of equity to some people that potentially will not interpret your answer that way but it is worth the investment and worth the conversation working alongside school administrators parents and teachers i gained experience that i hope to put into practice continuing my higher education after attending the wenatchee school district knowing that this plan has the potential to better the lives of my younger siblings of my neighbors as well as your kids

058i put forth my full support for this plan thank you thank you arletta paul you're muted so whatever you said there had to be a time when i was going to do it too so mr steve sandman thank you paul thanks to the members of the board for giving me a few minutes to address all of you this morning or this afternoon uh my name is steve sandman i am a community member to the strategic planning committee just a quick background on me i have a 43-year marketing background but the most important thing that i thought i brought to this committee is i am a product of the public school system i got a great education i remember my school years unbelievably fondly and i had opportunities through my school systems that i wanted to

059make sure that all kids and all students had to grow and learn and graduate and become productive members of our society now i also have a theater background so i like to use props so why did i volunteer my time for this because of her this is my five and a half year old granddaughter rowan who just entered the school system and she didn't know i was going to do this i really at lewis and clark and love school i love watching her come home from school and her future is on the line just like all other students from what this committee has done and what all of you will do this was an incredible process it was 20 or so people um none of us asked for covet but we all got dealt the

060environment that we worked in and to watch these school administrators and teachers and students and the students were just unbelievably incredibly good at the information they had and the perspective they had some of which i had forgotten because if you can't tell from my looks it's been a long time since i've been in public school but they were incredible in their insight as to what they felt about their schools in the school system and what they'd like to see as our lead put for her siblings uh going forward and now that i have a granddaughter in the school system i have skin in the game and it was very important for me to just least and have this participation in the process this plan is important it is a roadmap for the future of our

061children and our children's children and it means a lot to me and my family and the fact that i got to participate in this problem was uh or this process was unbelievably rewarding to me and i am so proud of the team that paul and diana put together they did a remarkable job facilitating these meetings that have been going on for a year and all of these people remember this please all of these people volunteered their time late into the evening sometimes but when we ran late the work was so important nobody wanted to get off the zoom call and go home we all stayed until we had accomplished the work for the evening we had set out to do this is important work the work that you and future boards do with this plan

062is important work it is a roadmap for our children and our children's children and their education and when you see paul present this plan i do have an ask because i'm also in sales and sales people don't go away without asking i'm asking you to vote for this plan to move forward so the important work can get done thank you paul i'll turn it back to you steve thank you harlett thank you stephen arlett are our two examples of the incredible humans that we had stepped forward and participate in this process and as steve and our let both beautifully said it this was a long process a longer process than we we originally announced for and they all stuck with it they they they hung in there and the thoughtfulness of this team and how

063this team came together and i'll be clear uh there were a number of disagreements throughout the the entire process and they were thoughtfully discussed and thoughtfully debated but the people on this team literally made it um and again as a reminder i didn't know any of these people i was the new guy it wasn't like i knew any of these individuals i i i met steve one time as i was running through the district early on but i didn't really i never knew steve i didn't know orlando i didn't know individuals on the team they they asked to come on uh and participate and boy did they participate and boy did they nail it so just my incredible gratitude to every member of our team uh that that did reflect you know they're all community

064members there are they we had students we had certified staff administrative staff and classified staff on there we had community members parents we we had uh latino parents anglo parents we it was a diverse group of individuals and thoughts that came to the table um we had people who i knew when i first got here were challenging the district and wanting the district to get better uh and challenging the district forcefully at times and when i saw one of their their names i was like i have to have this person again i didn't know who uh he or she was but i knew i needed to have this person because right out of the gate this individual was saying you know we've got to get better and here are the things that i'm i have

065huge concerns about um so all that to say is just an incredible group of people that i'm so thankful uh that i had an opportunity to get to meet and get to know and get to learn from quite honestly all right so back to the presentation we're going to go with this and then i'll come back to you wenatchee is one of the most beautiful places on earth from the peaks of our mountains to our rivers there are endless wonders here nestled at the confluence of two rivers the rushing wenatchee and the mighty colombia we are a place where people and the land converge we have harnessed the power of our water to power the west and have cultivated our valley to give the world fruits of our labor in wenatchee we have a history

066of doing hard things and making bold moves we choose to honor and celebrate our region's growing diversity respecting the different cultures traditions and stories that enrich our lives and community the spirit of our people moves us forward our innovation does not stop with the land we invest in our children and believe that education is the key to our future success in a place of abundant choices we choose to make this our home where we work and educate our children over the years the wenatchee school district has grown and evolved to meet the unique needs of wenatchee's children and families we recognize the past and embrace the future we have much to celebrate and lift up the wenatchee school district has been a leader in our community state and nation for academic and innovative programs our

067teachers have been recognized for excellence in teaching practices and our support staff for excellence and service our music and art programs are nationally recognized and acclaimed and our athletics have propelled students to professional and collegiate greatness many of our students have achieved incredible heights exceeded our expectations and launched successful lives some of which have returned to our community to teach and lead in our schools many have experienced extreme adversity but triumphed we are no strangers to being out in front taking on challenges and leading with our heads hearts and hands our staff seek to nurture young minds cultivating them with great care and compassion wenatchee school district's new strategic plan will create opportunity and success for each student not just some to accomplish this we will build on our past successes and be honest with

068our current reality to help students overcome barriers fulfill their potential and graduate ready to pursue vocational training college or a career our plan will elevate and expand our past successes and will position us to address new challenges think differently and implement new approaches the strategic plan will be a bold commitment to ensure each student receives rigorous instruction meets grade level standards and is on track to graduate guided by our core values of excellence in learning equity and accountability we will make a promise to our students the strategic plan is a roadmap to fulfill that promise students come to our schools with unique lived experiences at different starting points and in need of individualized attention our promise acknowledges those realities and our strategic plan provides a framework within which each student's differences are assets not liabilities

069both in its development and implementation the strategic plan success relies on collaboration we are grateful for the talents and energy our teachers and staff bring to school every day and we're excited to work together to achieve courageous student outcomes every wsd teacher and staff member has an important role to play in bringing the strategic plan to life so first off just a little back story here diana haglin if you don't know is absolutely amazing uh so that's just putting that on the record there i came to diana i had an idea on uh one of my sleepless sunday nights and i literally showed up monday morning and said hey diana on friday we have this uh staff welcome back wouldn't it be super cool to have this incredible video and she was like you want

070this by friday and i was like yeah and she literally nailed it um and i hope what people see through this video is the hopes dreams aspirations of our strategic plan but also the the understanding that that we have work to do that we have challenges that that confront us and that we're going to be bold with our plan honest with our our community in our students in our our parents and where we're at and we're going to move forward we're going to do better continue to build on what we've done and continue to grow our students but this strategic plan again not by accident by design our journey literally began almost the day i got here and it was through countless opportunities with our community all of our stakeholders i'll guide you over to

071the this picture uh on my screen on the right with me and students behind engaging our students at all different levels students over here visiting schools visiting groups of students to really engage and understand and we asked some really three overarching questions what's working well what's not and what do you need what should i know as the new superintendent our students were were incredibly honest with us over here in this picture with my mr rogers sweater on um this is where a young fourth grade student raised her hand almost at the end where diana and i were getting ready to leave and she she wanted me to know that she couldn't read and the room was completely silent i looked back at the teacher and the young person said i i'm so embarrassed that when

072i go out on recess i think kids are laughing at me because i don't know how to read the point of that story is to tell you that wherever i was in in the groups i engaged people were brutally honest with me and at times things that we don't always want to hear at times we want to hear the happy stories only we heard a lot of that don't get me wrong we heard a lot of really inspiring stories of students who who were accomplishing incredible things but we also engaged our parent communities i know this is way back when with the board previous board we were doing listening sessions this is down at the pivos market over here uh and on my left hand upper screen there that's a picture of the board did

073three big listening sessions again those three overarching questions where community members came out and talked to us about what what they perceived as our school district and where we're at the good uh the challenges and the opportunities and what they wanted me to know we met with our every staff we went to every school and every staff meeting and engaged in different ways down here in the the bottom right hand is a picture of me in my office at a pac meeting probably one of the most impactful parent meetings i've ever been in my life where parents were telling stories of their children and some of them were really hard to hear where their children were struggling struggling with suicide ideation one parent talked about how their their child uh was really struggling and needed

074help and needed support and were literally reaching out we literally have thousands of points of feedback that we've presented to the board to others throughout the strategic plan process here's a quick glimpse of of some of the dates and times and i'll hearken the board back to in august of 2019 so i've been on the job about a month you know 49 days and we started the strategic plan process around our values we came back again in october and then we came back in january with 20 with this current board where we really set those those values the board set those values and i want to say those values have driven the work from the promise statements to your priorities to the work we're doing to reaching out in november and engaging strategic planning committee

075members we didn't just send out an email to our parents in our community we we have incredible media partners the wenatchee world ran a story kpq ran a number of uh radio uh interviews um i was on coho um we were on spanish radio we diana is incredible with social media reaching out trying to get a broad making sure people knew what we were doing there was never any intent to say oh i'm just going to send it out one time no we we pushed it out we did as much as humanly possible to get people to engage with us and roughly over 40 people did and originally we were only going to select 12 people for that but we grew uh we grew that committee in march um we the board will remember this

076we came back in that march timeline in that april timeline and where i think three of the strategic planning committee members brought to you the the the work uh of the framework the promise the values and the priorities and then again the board really set those priorities the board was the one who set the priorities on that work and then again in april we gave another preliminary progress report on where we're at with it and again those were out there for the community to see where we were and what we were doing and it continued you know all during a pandemic may of 2021 um really engaging our staff a 30 person large strategic plan group and then a formation of smaller district worker really doing the the the heavy lifting of the plan that

077you see in action steps and others we introduced our big six future ready outcomes in june we presented again to the board of education in august uh continued to seek school leader feedback on our framework and continue to give us more and more uh opportunities to to continue making adjustments in september district large a large group committee action step feedback school leaders facilitated promise statements and in october staff feedback uh community members right we offered an opportunity to engage with our principals and and then open that feedback for over a week and a half where individuals could anonymously give us feedback on a survey giving us that that feedback that the staff members uh felt like we needed to hear and somebody had asked me i mean if you looked at the first iteration to

078now and they the number of touches of staff members to this plan and in our strategic planning committee it is amazing and immense and it really did transform over time um so i i'm super proud of that to tonight where we're at tonight all of that to say is we know who we are we did an honest accounting of who we are as a district from surveys where it was a community-wide survey again just thousands of different uh different uh feedback points that really help us understand who we are and during one of our our community strategic planning meetings this whole phrase came out we're not pretending it came from students when students told to stop pretending stop pretending that you you think you know everything that's going on in our schools stop pretending that

079everything is just fine yeah are there a lot of good things happening but also stop pretending that there are there are some things that we need to to look at and that came from the voice of our students who who told us that that honest accounting when you ask students what's happening in their schools they're telling you there are some good things but there are also some things that we need to address i'm not going to spend a lot of time here but overall in the board you've seen this this data has been presented at different points in time uh over the last year and a half and this one's uh english language arts smarter balance so it's three it's uh four years of data uh five years a day i apologize just giving you

080a quick glimpse when you go diagonally following the color that's a cohort that means for the most part that's the same group of students who move through this is that that academic side of being honest with who we are as an organization um and again this is all students um third through ten through eleventh who takes smarter balance and overall we're doing some good things we're growing some kids if you see on that far hand cohort side but we have work to do we have work to do and then this breaks it down for socially disadvantaged students many times it's 10 to 15 point difference in student outcomes this is that piece of we're not pretending that everything is perfect math all students again you follow the diagonal cohort trend over time and there's some

081areas of concern great concern and then socially disadvantaged students again 15 difference between this group and the previous group at times it's we're stopping we're not pretending that these things aren't happening we're also not pretending that when students leave us and they're not reading and doing math on grade level that we recognize those students aren't going to be future ready every great why deserves a great help every great y deserves a great how why are we doing this why are we doing a strategic plan for our students and how do we continue to make sure that our students each of our students have an opportunity to be future ready ours is a roadmap to fulfill our promise as i said our students come to us with unique lived experiences at different starting points and in

082need of an individual like individualized attention and i'll bring the board back to different conversations on values i hope you remember some of those the words the words that really stuck with me during those meetings was individualized laura with being on both boards i remember distinctly you talking about that how important that it was another we were done with all we were it was a so important about individualized that we're going to do right by our kids that we're going to make sure that they have the necessary supports in place that's why equity became a board value that's why two boards two different boards felt like that was such an important value that we we put in there it's why academic excellence was key but equity and academic excellence go hand in hand they go

083hand in hand and our board knew that our promise we promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready our promises about building a foundation and again this is the we're not pretending we have to we have to build our foundation around diversity around equity and inclusion when i see those words i see students i see ensuring that each of our students are ready from which each student emerges future ready the word merges was a big topic at the strategic planning committee i even pushed on why shouldn't it be graduation why each student graduates future ready and our team the strategic planning team pushed back and said no our students need to be future ready as they leave preschool as they leave second grade as they leave

084third grade it's always getting themselves ready for their next bit of future their future is right now and in 10 minutes and in a year and in five years it's not this magical point when a board member hands a student a diploma on the stage that's not when their emerging future that is a point in time in which they're emerging future ready but that's not the only point in which they're going to emerge future ready we promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready so how does dei connect to the excellence in learning diversity equity inclusion are not new ideas uh or actions they've been around in education a lot longer than i've been around diversity equity inclusion have been mainstays within education here's the difference

085and i'll go back to what our students said we were pretending that those things mattered we're pretending that diversity mattered we were pretending that equity mattered we were pretending that inclusion mattered from a larger education perspective and i think i bring that being in three different states working in large urban school district we're in a small more affluent school district and now being an incredible district of wenatchee diversity how does it show up what does it look like in our school districts diversity looks like creating belonging for all individuals in our school district working to implement hiring practice and recruitment to attract job applicants with diverse experiences and talents and i'll tell you our staff really helped us redo some of the work here in our action steps because we weren't very clear and our

086staff feedback as i'll talk to you a little bit later around some of those action steps we're better because of their feedback ensuring that ap and honor courses enrollment reflect our student demographics by seeking out and inviting students to join we have people who are pushing up saying so you're looking at doing quotas no no we're saying no matter who you are we believe in you currently our statistics is where right around 85 percent of our our honor courses are by white anglo students only i know our latino students our black students our indigenous students our asian students also bring incredible greatness to the table and they need to be reflected in those ap uh in honors courses and we recognize and honor and celebrate our students for their unique experiences in backgrounds equity equity

087looks like students are placed at the heart of the work providing students what they need not one size fits all one of the best ways of looking at this is i have two children i do not treat both of those children the same they're they're only 15 months apart and when they were young everybody thought they were twins they could not be any more different it would be similar that we treat every student the same in our school district and that's not what equity is equity is lifting up the diverse student voices the wide range of voices and giving student voice in their education in their school district intentionally setting time for teacher collaboration is equity and identifying removing barriers for student participation that's equity inclusion is creating belonging for all individuals in the wenatchee

088school district it looks like creating thriving environments where students know they belong in our schools and our classrooms and our playing fields and our buses and our cafeterias and everywhere else within our organization inclusion looks like our district and school is communicating with families in both english and spanish our two most prominent languages so people can see themselves in our district that they know they're welcomed because humans we're always looking for signs cues are we actually being welcomed or is it just pretending that we're welcoming each person our values and i want to hit this again the values that the board set drove this work we brought all of this information back to our strategic planning team all the work that the board did everything was guided by it this promise is personal and it's

089a bold commitment to our to our students to all of our students not just some but to each and every one of our students here's the oh here's the the the strategic plan framework starts with the promise but at the center are our values excellence in learning equity and accountability our priorities the priorities of the board set thriving environments opportunities and partnerships our big six future ready outcomes so when you read our promise statement we promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready future ready are these pieces our students are engaged in high quality instruction rigorous instruction grade level instruction occurring across our organization not in not in certain schools not in certain classrooms but in throughout our pre-k-12 environment that our students receive high levels

090of social emotional support that our students know they belong that our students read on grade level you've heard from us before bored around the work that we're doing around structured literacy transforming the work that our educators are doing supporting our educators so our educators are delivering to our students and delivering on that promise to be reading on grade level and beyond and that they're ready for algebra this is really key ready for algebra ready for algebra quite honestly because algebra is the gatekeeper to college but algebra does not start in eighth and ninth grade algebra starts in kindergarten this is this is a system-wide work that we're doing on track for graduation we know as a freshman if you fail one course your chance of graduating continue to be reduced and involved in real world

091relevant learning our cte programs are critical to our students our priorities over the next five years will be prioritizing actions making changes to ensure all students emerge future ready ready for their futures so this is the work this is the the behind the scenes work that we're going to be doing uh so you have your your priority uh at the top and then you have uh three priority action steps underneath the thriving environment from supporting the social emotional well-being of people with healthy and supportive spaces and how we did this is we looked at it from three different lenses what will the district leadership organizational practices be what are school building leadership practices what does that staff practices look like so we can create thriving environments for our students and staff what is developed facilities

092and operations that reinforce equitable learning opportunities hiring staff that reflect our community and student body and then below those are our measurements where are we going to be how are we going to measure this work how are we going to see that this work feeds into our big six all of this work feeds into the big six which feeds into the priorities which feeds into the values which feeds into the promise statement it all works together this is our opportunities under opportunities three priority action steps building the skills and knowledge of our staff and diversity equity and inclusion building the skills and knowledge of our staff in math and literacy remove systemic barriers and obstacles for each student and then the work underneath each one in the measurements under each one many of our staff

093asked why just math and literacy right now it is not that that art and music and p e and social studies are not important it is right now we're trying to build that foundation that our students are reading on grade level and doing math on grade level consistently across the board partnerships relationships between students staff families schools and the community that enhance student well-being you'll see the three over the top staff teaming collaboration engaging students parents and community fiscal responsibility responsible stewardship and again the different measurements below all of these practices that you see here this is where all of those different staff opportunities where we brought in principals and teachers in different so from a large group to smaller groups really helped us refine that and then putting out the survey helped us refine

094this work even more because this is their work this is the work they're doing this is this is teaching learning leading our classified staff members this is our organization doing the the work of achieving the promise this is the nitty-gritty of it and that's how we're going to make sure that we're we're moving forward toward the big six again we we've recognized these big six these are really important to us we know when students these are again all research based this wasn't just we're grabbing stuff to do stuff this is looking at a deep research and saying what's going to make the biggest difference in the lives of our students we know when students engage in high quality uh instruction we know they're gonna the level of rigor the level of expectation is at a

095much higher level receive high levels of social emotional support students know they belong seen or valued we know this to be so important in the lives of our kids when our kids know they belong they're going to be able to engage in the learning at a much higher level read on grade level and beyond ready for algebra on track for graduation involved in real world relevant learning so the work continues upon uh approval the school improvement plans will be developed so one of the key pieces of this is our school improvement plans in the spring will be made off of this plan so every school improvement plan will have components of this not every aspect of it it will be based on their school and where they're at and what they're doing we'll have that

096soft launch in january full implementation and communication in august i want to stress and we've stressed all along this is a living and breathing strategic plan we're going to work the plan and make adjustments in the action steps and in those areas we're going to be responsive we're going to make sure we know that things are working and when they're not we'll make adjustments to it we'll have a dashboard reporting our progress to the public and then the phasing of our work plans it's gonna be really key again you saw a lot of bullets there under the action steps again not every school is going to be taking on each and every one of those but it will be a phased approach to how we do this work again this is five years and probably

097longer this work will continue to to evolve and it'll continue to to improve the lives of our students so i'm done speaking but i i would finish with i i'm just incredibly proud of the work that's gone into this it's been a tremendous lift tremendous work by literally hundreds and thousands of people because of different touches over time but i would also finish by saying the board's work in this started this work and finishes the work there has been countless community connection points in it but i'll tell you the action steps that's the that's the work of staff that's the hard work and why we've spent these last number of months really engaging our staff really engaging school leaders making sure that we have this right so when we start working the plan that the

098plan works for our students this is a strategic plan for student success laura thank you paul um that was a very uh thorough presentation of the strategic planning process and i appreciate all the hard work that committee members and others who are involved you know every two weeks over a period of a year is a very intense commitment and uh having done those types of things before i know that it can be both stimulating exhausting frustrating and joyful so um thank you uh to everybody that participated and um i'll open it up at this time for board members other board members to comment i just have a quick clarification on your next to last slide it said soft launch i think it's a january 2021 i think you mean 2022 okay just just going backwards

099make sure i don't want the public thinking that it's already we've already had the soft launch this past january so okay thank you thank you so much yeah we're not going backwards to that okay i'd like to um throw in a few words and first of all i want to say how grateful i am and we all should be to every single person who contributed to this huge work so that's thank you then i'd like to go through the highlights of my journey over the last planning interval uh briefly i'm an engineer and an economist a square-minded person not a marketing person and so the as you paul knows this isn't the way i would have gone out about a straight away about a strategic plan but what i want to say is what i

100didn't dream of is far more powerful than what i thought i would have liked to see in my style of plan so that was a good learning exercise for me young people's voices incredibly important and as an analogy the best interview i had before i was on the school board when i was being interviewed and doing listening groups was by a small group of avid students and i relate that as an example of how important intelligent curious insightful young voices are and they were very important in this plan the other uh significant change since about late august i think is what i call the hardening of the plan and paul referred to it once you brought in the district staff and the building staff all of a sudden the measurement and the detail became what

101i described as much more hard muscly and and measurable the next thing i want to say is which is absolutely critical for me is it's a live document that's a different word from what paul used it's open-ended any good plan is dynamic and this has the ability to be that uh so i think that's really really important um then i want to talk a little bit about center centering on diversity equity and inclusion um it's about smart investment and smart management um so i just want to give a non-jargon version about what it's all about it's about being fair it's about giving everyone that good american chance we're all told about and then the one that's often forgotten it's about finding and using all the talent and not being foolishly wasteful basically smart investment smart

102management and so i decided to look at five examples of people who also have diversity inclusion and equity at the heart of their business models how about heavy machinery company john deere well there you are go to their website there's their dei plan as a central part of their business what made me think about that is i happen to belong to rotary a service club a very pragmatic non-political service club and they send us their magazines and last months had a two-page spread on their diversity equity and inclusion plan very practical not pie in the sky so how about consumer world procter and gamble okay they split it into two they have a diversity in inclusion one more geared at using people and then they have a separate equity policy for fairness so then i

103thought let's go for a red-blooded profitable finance company how about goldman sachs well they're pretty much the same as procter gamble so then i thought about how about a hard-nosed federal government place like the federal reserve and that was kind of interesting because each branch has their own plan and they're all different so what i wanted to say with that point is this is mainstream these are people looking ahead for decades and that's why it's important we need improvement there's no question about that we shouldn't sugarcoat where we are they're absolutely exciting uh areas of excellence there's incredibly good work being done and good will and i'm just going to close on the part that i like most of the it is that's centering on partnerships because everybody has to pitch in nobody can do

104this stuff all with spinning their own wheels so when i look at it it's open-ended it's a starting point and i thought i would throw that out as an alternative way of describing the process thank you martin other board members i'd just like to um recognize so you know we've heard from the strategic planning group but i also wanted to just recognize the fact that you were kind of laying some of the groundwork when you first first arrived paul by asking what's working what's not what should the superintendent know um i think that that really was a great way of just hearing what the community had to say and um you know in in a very kind of efficient way rather than having a bunch of town halls but you met with we know lots

105of individuals and groups in the community and i feel like that was some really important community work that you did um as as a new superintendent here so um i appreciate that you added that in but i think that along with the strategic planning group all the work that they did over the months and um and instead of creating a mission vision but a promise um i think really resonated with their group and i think it's really going to resonate with our students as well in our communities so i just again for everyone who's been involved um you know from everyone who's given feedback to the strategic planning group to our staff who's chimed in and said hey here's here's how we can tweak some things um i think all of that is incredibly relevant

106and um not just informative but essential in moving forward so i i appreciate the thoroughness of this plan that has occurred really over the last almost two and a half years so um thank you for for sharing all that tonight yeah i've been following um i mean this the whole process even before i was appointed to the board and um have been heavily engaged in the whole process and what's been um the community that's been involved the planning team and whatnot um what i like the most about this is that we're addressing the needs of all students because it's that you know the proof is in the pudding that what we have been doing in the past hasn't worked um it's not working and our uh assessment scores are there to show us that um

107so taking a different approach we you know we've made reference to thinking outside the box and this is not necessarily thinking about the box outside the box but it's looking at all the components within that box um and again it goes back to addressing the student the needs of all students not just the specific student population um of course my favorite line from students is stop pretending because i think this is where we have been for too long making sure that we're checking off boxes um and then moving along um i think we really this plan really stops and looks at the the child as a whole the student and addresses the needs um your presentation was good like i said um you know i've been following it closely i've been heavily involved with it

108um not to minimize your presentation paul but i think steve and arlette said it perfectly um you know their voice was is so powerful and that's just two out of the 20 people that have been involved um you know it's it's definitely it's worth the investment um this is this these this is our community this is our future workforce um and yeah we want to create productive members of society we can't just continue to just check off those boxes and i agree with steve this is important work for our children so thank you for everyone involved uh whether you were part of the committee in the background um you know being informed as a parent as a community member thank you for to everyone good work so i have some questions first it sounds like

109you did some um and this mostly has to do with the public outreach portions of it sounds like there was quite a bit of listening tours kind of predating the focused work on the plan and then we've got the really intentional work that the board and the committee has done and then now is my understanding this most recent pass back to staff to add some details from the last time we saw this has there been another real effort to get this out in front of the community for kind of a review and comment now that we're in a more finalized plan not in that not in the in its current iteration um but i would say that every one of you are our community members um and ultimately when we think about that piece we

110will always know when we put out a survey we don't get great representation across our community and that's just a that's just a fact um and it's not discounting anybody's voice but the the hard work the the framework that's been that was presented to the board way back in march and april um and those that framework hasn't really changed what's changed or the action steps that staff are doing and for me that's a that's a different piece to it um but it's not been out there in that sense julie uh from a survey overall saying uh about these different components no um and i guess we did get a comment on it that i guess i'm a little confused as far as what the staff role has been has it been more involved than just

111rolling out on a two-day training or can you speak to that just a little bit um day training so i what i heard uh the the the public comment was that at the end of a training uh this the principals presented uh the action steps to staff so they did a quick review and what we did was keep the you know each person had an opportunity to individually anonymously provide feedback on the plan and that plan with that with that survey was open i want to say for 10 11 days for for individuals and we know with surveys usually you get your greatest amount of feedback in the first five days and we saw that here we saw a number of people gave feedback early but it was not just that 30 45 minutes at

112the conclusion of uh of i think it was like two fridays ago maybe three fridays ago somewhere around there julie okay and i was just asking because i know we were waiting intentionally we had kind of delayed things to get more staff feedback and i thought that was a good idea so i just wanted to make sure i was understanding what was going on for the staff feedback component um yeah even to that point you like we even paused uh before we were gonna go to the board earlier but we really wanted to keep that that window open for staff members so just you know substantively on it i agree with steve that this is really so important and it really i think requires all these layers of thought and feedback loop and whatnot and

113i know it's been a long time since we last saw this and my mind kind of works in a redline version i really want to be able to track the changes because there's things now on this document i'm looking at that i'm trying to remember how did we get there sounds a little not as actionable as i i would perceive i struggle a little substantively with some of the the lack of focus on academics it just doesn't read that well to me um and i'm i'm wondering if we can treat this in some ways sort of like a budget document where we've now had this we've got it in a final draft we've you know we've seen how it's laid out and i do understand this will morph as as we implement um but i

114think there's maybe some some concepts in there that we could discuss a little and maybe the the community could provide some feedback now that we've sort of introduced this and then take all that feedback see if any little tweaks need to happen and and sort of get it in final i mean i don't want to keep punting it down the road but i think it's important enough that we make sure if we haven't really reached out to community again saying this is what we're looking at you know it's totally up to the board that is 100 up to the board i would uh gently push back respectfully push back i look at hundreds of strategic plans this is one of the most academic focused plans specific plans in literacy and numeracy the two critical areas

115that i demonstrated tonight and how we're going to actually transform learning the piece that we're doing which seattle times has recognized in our in our area of reading instruction have reached out to us because we're doing things that are so unique especially on the west side well quite honestly throughout the whole state of washington where we're at with our reading and it's reflected in this plan where we're at in our math led by mike lane corey kalahar and sarah wall in the areas of numeracy of bringing in the esd and partnering with the esd dr andy boyd who has a doctorate in mathematics who's leading a math research team to to move those pieces and then with our big six recognizing that the the social emotional well-being of our students need to be first but

116then looking at making sure that our students are reading on grade level that we're have we're algebra ready for all of those different components i feel like we have a very very strong academic plan academic focus plan and plan on how we're going to actually achieve it through different lenses that was also a piece that we were really proud of because you'll see many len strategic plans that literally lay it at the feet of teachers and say i hope it all works out for you this plan puts it squarely at the administrative offices first that we have to get our stuff together first and foremost and i feel like we are but then engaging our leaders because everything goes through our school leaders that we as we started this night with and then to our

117staff growing our staff you've heard my goofy saying we gotta grow our big people before we can grow our little people and that's what this plan does it grows our people it doesn't blame our people it lifts our people up to make sure that they can make the the best academic decisions possible when i spoke a couple weeks ago about our staff leading professional development in the area of reading science to to transform kids lives that's what this plan does but it is totally the board's call that is not the superintendent's call uh on what you what what you do next and i recognize that this is a great framework in those areas i was surprised just not to see maybe a little bit more to focus on the two academic areas versus some other

118areas um and then some of the measurements were a little and i know this is probably because we've we've reached out for staff feedback we're different than what we had looked at before i don't see the references to kindergarten readiness and i don't want to dive into that level of minutia but i think that's where my problem in um in being asked to approve it tonight would be is is that i i want to have that better opportunity for myself and maybe for the community to get questions answered about it before it goes final and i don't know how we would reasonably engage the community feedback i i realize it's fine it's it's largely a final draft um and a lot of work has gone into it a lot of very very good work and

119it's not to take away from any of the good work that's gone into it but it is a very important document and there's concepts on there that i don't want to belabor in here but maybe you know conversations will help me understand just like and if there's a way to do that with the community kind of like those learning sessions that you did this is the plan this is what we mean where we can really go down or or so you know receive feedback from them now that they've heard the presentation they've got it available and we can say hey are there little things that we need to tweak because i know we've all and the committee's all been living in it for for a year or more so it makes a lot of sense

120to you but there may be things because we're so in it that may seem so obvious and you know able to follow through on that um you know like you said sending it out to staff led to some very helpful modifications and so i like i said i don't want to add more process to it but i think it's so important that that we have time to really see it look at it get questions answered and then thoughtfully um consider it but that's just and again from my perspective it's been since may since this even or june since we last looked at this and yes i did read it before the meeting and whatnot um but hearing it with the presentation is helpful but again it's it's such an important decision that kind of like

121a budget i kind of want to look at it hear it see it you know ask some questions about it and then and then thoughtfully move on with it so that would be my julie i think you bring up some good points i think are i mean i think this plan uh has room to grow in the future right so it's it's a dynamic plan um and just kind of on your point of kindergarten readiness i think that is an area that probably everybody in the district at least all the board members know that that's an area that um that our district could use a lot of help we have a lot of students who don't have exposure to preschool um you know again it's it's an issue of economics and an issue that there's

122not enough spots in the valley so until um our legislature decides that that's a priority and can fund that i think it will continue to be kind of um an area where we are not probably going to see every kid scoring well on that law five kind of readiness however you know i think if we're addressing literacy at the third grade level you know that you know regard that's saying regardless of whether you've had preschool or not we're going to make sure that you're reading on grade level by third grade that's huge and the same thing with numeracy issues so i i think these are some really basic issues that we're focusing on to start getting our scores and not not just our scores but our kids capability at reading you know at reaching standard

123and being able to go above and beyond so i think you know we can certainly add things in the future if things are going well but we have to start somewhere and i think these are some really basic areas that i think as paul said the research points us towards that these are going to give us kind of the biggest um push for making improvements yeah the piece that i'd say on the kindergarten readiness we talked about that a lot at the end of the day it was out of our control i couldn't put something in our plan that i had no financial responsibility over or to transform this district of saying moving it would take millions and millions of dollars to move it towards we're gonna add more uh preschool um we talked about

124that uh we because that that was a big board conversation but ultimately i couldn't measure something that was totally out of our control um and reading on great by third grade it starts in our preschools we're doing that work uh in our preschools we're doing that work in first our kinder first and second grade as well um so that work is there but the other piece uh that was mentioned were other areas there are only so many things that can go into a plan uh mike schmoker says it best he has a clear book uh educational researcher focus when our focus is all over the place we do not do well we do not do well i agree with that paul what i do not agree with is that we have no ability to impact

125kindergarten readiness i think we absolutely do have a role to play as a partner in kindergarten readiness and there we hope i hope that legislation does come forward and make pre-k universal pre-k a reality um because we sorely need it this is not this less like a lot of other things where this is not just a local problem this is a national problem and i'm gonna look at um you know the student data that was presented and it was disaggregated in a couple different ways but there are lots of other ways to disaggregate data i think that the goals that are presented or the action steps if that's what you call them um you know it's just a starting place and what i'm hoping is that this plan um is just like this year's beginning

126in that every year there's a layer added to it that you have your working you know your working plan each year i think if we look at the data that was presented this is nothing to be proud about i mean we've made some gains um but uh it's nowhere near where it needs to be you know it's great to have 27 percent gains in ela for all students you know with that fourth grade cohort but we also have slipped back with uh in math with all students it's those are just absolutely not acceptable numbers to have and so to me even though there are parts of the plan that i disagree with or parts of things that i you that you say that i disagree with i think we've been a long time without a

127strong plan and if we don't start somewhere we're going to be nowhere and i worry about i worry about julia talked about putting it out to the community and how are we gonna do that and it's gonna be a whole i think it's gonna it's gonna we can we can open the floodgates and get email or board comment you know at public meeting um but we don't have a comprehensive method of integrating community-wide gathering and integrating community-wide feedback beyond what we've already done so you know in my mind it's what's the question do we do we use this as our starting block and do we move forward to improve it you know from here or build not necessarily improve yes and build out build out the detail as we go forward because i would like

128to see more specific it's great to say all kiddos are going to be reading at grade level in um and all kids are going to be at grade level in math it's fabulous to say that and in my mind we need some stepping stones you know to kind of get there foundationally every student feeling like they belong and they're safe at school is imperative we need every student to feel that and i and when i say every i do mean every um when we talk about dei work we you know maybe that immediate i'm just gonna say in my mind sometimes the immediate thought is to go to the disenfranchised members of our student population whether that be ethnically or whatever but when i say every i mean every like students that are already um

129you know on the pathway to be successful they have you know supportive family good you know socioeconomic status at home i want those students to feel safe and involved and successful i want those students at the other end of all those spectrums to us also feel safe so you know there are some things that i disagree with i would have liked to have seen maybe more a comprehensive involvement in um with all community members no matter where they came from having the opportunity to give input i said that from the very first day that i met you paul that i was worried about that so this shouldn't be new news to you certainly but i do think it's important to start and to build out the detail to build in a process can we build

130in a process going forward over the next year where we develop our work plan past this um a method of collecting more stu more more community input and building the building the plan from there that's my that's my comment speak um so for me as a um that's one of the things that i actually appreciated the most out of this plan was that the listening sessions and going out to the community to really engage the students the parents and see how can we address the academic needs of our students as a whole um yeah could we have improved it probably yes um you know the fact that and maybe i missed it so i was an employee at the last when the last strategic plan was developed for the school district laura you were involved

131with it and it kind of reminded me you know when you have a strategic plan that's super dense full of information um what we had seven seven different categories and within each category there was like 15 other ones and there was 15a 15b um you get lost in so much for me the strategic plan feels so student focused center academically socially but also community tied or driven i'm not sure if i'm expressing this correctly i i i guess what i saw from this strategic plan versus the one that happened what probably like close to 10 years ago um seven eight years ago um it allowed for that student voice that student engagement for that parent voice um and it was a diverse voice um and like laura said not just race but um just different

132outreach um and me it's probably because i'm looking at it from a different lens something that hadn't happened in our community in our educational system um so again i i you know from what i experienced parents community students were given a very good platform and opportunity to voice uh the direction of this my concern is that we would be discrediting or devaluing all the time and investment invest that these community and our students um and our strategic plan committee have um invested into the whole process as well uh we are two plus years into it i um it's an open-ended plan i i agree i would have to agree that it needs to be it's not a static plan but that should allow for continuous improvement i'd like to pick up on what laura said

133at the end point that i'm agreeing with you laura this is a start as several people said this is a live dynamic open-ended plan and then i'm going to move to things that are different in my technique from this paul said that we focus on a very few things my idea is you basically have an inventory of promotable other strategic priorities and that can bog everybody down but within the umbrella style of this strategic plan the logical thing to do and the work plan for 22 whether from the beginning of the year to august is exactly this is you develop probably annual detailed plans that fit within the strategic plan that carry the strategic plan forward and that's the kind of detail that i think julie is reaching for perhaps but maybe not and that

134is certainly capable of being accommodated in these sort of reserve actions more details fleshing things out and then getting back to the process if i remember rightly we began with a swot analysis which was basically developed by what the public surveys said were priorities and from the swot analysis then this was transformed into an actionable document and so i'll go back in a circle to i think laura summed it up um it's really important to start this is a um an improvable and dynamic document uh i feel that it is it's uh each one of us is not none of us is going to get exactly what we want but i think we can center around that this is a very good start and we can talk about what we think can be included in

135the future and i am feel that it's time to go ahead so i guess i'll just i i realize there's not a great way to incorporate you know more public comment at this point but i think we we started it with the swot analysis and and reaching out to the public and now we've convened this plan and i certainly the committee and i don't want to take away from what they did it was a little discouraged though to see that there's only we're all community members and things but if i looked at that list there's six identified as community members and so my concern is is does this reflect what what we heard well enough i know there's not a great way to get that and it's going to have to be the living breathing

136moving forward i i would like to maybe see that reflected in the plan that we're going to reevaluate goals or or do the things kind of that that laura and and martin spoke about to ensure that we do keep it as a moving document because i'm a little bit concerned that you know we we need one we need to start but if we adopt this put a lot of emphasis into it what what is the timeline to re-look at it or to to adjust things i in my perfect world there'd be sort of a framework or a measurable for that so i would just recommend that we we work the plan so i literally said it in the presentation i've said it from the first day that this would be a living breathing document these

137weren't words that that that i made up this is what we're we've been doing this is what i said on day one this is what i said tonight in the presentation uh that it was continuously be re-evaluating but before we started adding new stuff to it i'd like to at least kick it off and start working the plan for a few weeks at least before we change the plan uh again i it is i'm very proud of this plan um i'm proud of the team i'm proud of their community members i'm proud of i i heard you laura we had over 3 touch points 000 touch points of individuals who are giving me feedback and diana feedback and then this group feedback we have community members every one of those people live in our community

138on the strategic planning every board member lives in this community to say we didn't have community feedback to say that at a two board meetings where one at a regular scheduled meeting and a workshop where we literally unveiled the framework where community members saw those pieces but we had thousands of different people we've engaged face-to-face one-on-one surveys i heard what the board said engage people you tell me another superintendent who came in i'm dead serious you tell me one other superintendent who came in on day one and engaged in in very different communities i remember the cafe meeting and none of these meetings were easy these were people asking pointed questions about our district and what we're doing and how we're doing our work in students telling me stories of how they they've been treated

139at times i've engaged i'm proud of the engagement i'm proud of the work that we've done i've we have listened we've created the i think a really good plan um i sit here and i'm like wow at least i'm i'm super excited about the plan maybe but just like go too far down down that rabbit hole because i don't think anybody is um you know wanting to rip up this work and throw i mean foundationally i think every person on this board said we appreciate the hard work that has gone into it and we appreciate the framework that is there but the board you know deserves to also provide feedback for what we feel is missing or could be added and that is not to discount your efforts or any of the people's efforts who

140participated in this plan because if if not for you and all the people who spent all those meetings together and filled out surveys and everything else you know we wouldn't even have this but what i'm hearing is that board members would like some recognition in the plan and this doesn't mean completely rewriting it some recognition we've heard you say that's a living breathing document but perhaps in the plan there's there is some recognition that this is a dynamic living breathing document and that it will be revisited and updated you know maybe to you that's completely obvious but maybe for the rest of us who don't work in strategic planning every day that isn't so apparent so please don't take me with me oh i i i yes i take you this personally because this is

141a lot of work and it's been hard so i do take it personal um no i i was literally just responding saying that you you wanted me to get out into the community we got out into our community but i i hear you i hear what you're saying um and we can make sure that that aspect is woven in in that soft launch in january again this is that this is kind of that that framework and the hard piece to it will include that aspect to it around the work plans around what i wrote what i've said um about the about this being a living breathing document absolutely absolutely so thank you for that laura yeah i think foundationally we like it you know foundationally we like we like the idea that we have a

142plan we haven't had a plan in a long time we need a plan we absolutely need a plan and we need a student-centric plan you know that focuses on academic achievement and long-term success of every student who comes through our district our students deserve that our community deserves that so this is a good foundational plan and i think you know with evolution over time and maybe a few ads right now we're all good at least that's what i heard i didn't hear anybody say let's throw it out the window and start over because it's no good nobody said that i think the big six is a great place to start along with making sure that we're meeting those goals to add to that promise for our students as laura said making sure that every student

143feels that sense of belonging in our district and with that i'm if it's all right with the board i'm going to move that the boards support the strategic plan to move forward into action outlined in the timeline given okay there's a motion on the floor is there a second i'll second okay thank you martin is there any discussion i personally just i again appreciate all the work that has gone into it for my own being this being the first strategic plan i've ever been involved with to me it doesn't read as academically as i'd like it to so i need more time personally to get my head around it i'd like to see that one measurable in it i don't think anything needs to be ripped apart or massively modified but i i'm not prepared

144personally to make a decision on it tonight i'd like to see it come before another meeting maybe in a week so i can personally get some questions maybe answered on it um but i'm just one of five so i will support what the board does any further discussion no okay so there's a motion on the floor um it's been moved and seconded so this is a roll call vote uh michelle hi martin you were muted but i lipread you to say i i hit the wrong space i maria hi julie i'll abstain okay i laura is i so i think uh that motion carries and we will move forward and look forward to the evolution of the plan in the future knowing that this is not the final form and that we will be seeing

145more of the things that the board asked for in the future okay moving forward uh next on our agenda is uh board communications are there any board members that have any communication items they'd like to share with the rest of the board you know i do ok [Music] um as brian higgins mentioned um he invited the board to attend the migrant bilingual avid uh info night he was super well attended uh i got to participate in most of his uh playbook uh culture playbook presentation uh eric anderson martin was there as well as amber burke so good work happening um and um moving on to a different theme in regards to partnerships uh ryan higgins also mentioned bringing in woody lotz to his avid class i was fortunate enough to be on the hiring committee

146this summer with the numerica performing arts center to hire the new executive director and one of my having worked in the district uh we we've had programs that work in partnership with the mpac and uh you know such as every kid at the pack and so hopefully we can continue those partnerships make sure that all of our children are being exposed to the arts um and that there's no um socio-economic barrier uh for our kids at an early age to experience that so hopefully we can continue those with those partnerships now that we're starting slowly starting to reopen um another uh good opportunity that i received this week or last week i can't remember last week um i got to take a little bit of a tour with um pathways to parenting last month or

147last board made in two weeks ago we approved the grads grant through our contracts and um you know i reached out because i wanted to know more about the program and the good work that they're doing and so i'm hoping that um more of our district and our board members become engaged with the work that they do so we can better um create a stronger partnership with the services that they're providing for our youth that are in high needs of supports getting our graduation rates to go up not just supporting young moms but also young fathers so i encourage the rest of my colleagues on the board as well as superintendent gordon to just really look into the program and see how we can create a stronger partnership with that service they do service our

148students in the district um yeah i think that that's it for me oh and then um again speaking about partnerships uh michelle and i got to have a little meeting with some west side and high school students last week great discussion awesome uh dr gordon was there as well uh i won't go into the details but just to say that we it was a great conversation with high school students on how we can continue that partnership and have that student voice that stream representation at all of our board meetings um and hopefully we can um continue that work and and and see that uh hear that voice and see that student representation uh more engaged in our school board that's it for me thank you maria thanks maria the students always have such great robust

149conversation and i so appreciate that we've had two meetings with uh high school students at wenatchee high school in west side and so it's great to hear how they would like to have a greater voice in our district and um it's it's been really exciting to hear that so i just wanted to remind people if you've been checking your wasda emails as you know there's been some voting for state officers some of that wrapped up today there's also the legislative general assembly is this weekend i know last year we sat down and had kind of all our different lists and we kind of sorted through all that i know it's been rather busy we've been working on lots of different things i would like to take last year's list forward for our priorities however if

150people have new priorities if you want to download the general assembly manual you can certainly go through and send your top ten to paul um the meeting is actually friday and saturday and i'm signed up as the legislative rep to be the delegate uh i don't know if anybody else signed up if there are three of us if there's more than two of us signed up we need to post something for opma um so i don't i don't know if anybody else signed up wave your hand if you did no okay so we're not there would be no opma violations if it's just me so we don't need to post it so um i would recommend that if you have any um prioritizations for our district that you want to change different from last year's

151please send that to paul by close a business on thursday at 4 30 and that way he can get it to me for my month or my friday morning start time thanks thank you michelle could someone please send us the list of the top 10 from last year i know i've seen it but i have no idea where it is so i know we had a very long conversation about it last year and uh very robust so not much has changed i i know we had early childhood education as a priority on there as well as high poverty schools and lots of other things but yeah thanks paul if you can send that out to everybody that'd be great okay anyone else a little bit to add talk about wazda two years ago i went

152to a wellness wellness seminar there and got educated in on teacher and school stress and i think it has a proper name but november is supposed to be the time when the days get shorter and it's colder and the adrenaline excitement of the new year wears off and teachers need extra and all staff truck drivers everybody uh bus drivers everybody uh gratitude was the word that they expressed and i think this year with uh staff shortages and coveted and coming back after uh absences this is especially important time to give every kind of support to the wellness of all our very loyal and wonderful employees so that's kind of i wanted to lead in with that and then we talked a little bit about it before about challenges and problems and areas of excellence and

153i'm just going to say that that avid week evening was an absolutely excellent example but then there was another area this weekend i go to the state migrant education advisory committee annual meeting and i've got asked to give a report on what's going on in the district so i went and asked the assistant director of special programs to give me an idea i have no idea that i just saw the tip of the iceberg in terms of amazing and effective programs in bilingual education summer programs reach outs to families and i just want to recognize i missed the pac meeting on at the beginning of october but i show god in education about how much wonderful work is being done by very dedicated employees and i want to thank them and wish everybody well thanks

154thank you martin just briefly i i want to let staff know that i really appreciate them sending us those reminders of the events now that things are starting to open up and it hasn't worked for my schedule necessarily to get out to them but i i appreciate those opportunities and i hear that they're very valuable and well received so i'm grateful that we're we're getting those reminders and notices of of things happening in the district um and to dovetail on what martin's uh comment about helping out our staff i think that ties into the the comment we got a little earlier about volunteers in the classroom um if if we could shore that up for everybody um i know now with holidays and things starting teachers have i think started inquiring about getting volunteers in

155classes is what i'm hearing and now there's confusion when parents are signing up and then not being allowed to but we're allowed to on field trips understanding all the the masking the backs policies apply to the volunteers i think maybe that's what has folks a little confused is hey i filled out all the paperwork i got i complied with everything the teacher said they want some help today and to martin's point i think the teachers could use some help sometimes um and so it's it's just making sure that we've communicated that how that program is working both to our staff so that they're not making requests that we can't fulfill and then to our parents as well who have gone through the process to get completed i think um that's kind of what i've heard

156now with this lead up to holiday season and wanting additional support in the classrooms so that's all i've got good thoughts i like that uh okay so turning it over to paul for this superintendent's report just on a couple pieces uh so last week uh mr houston spoke about athletics um and concerned or at the last meeting that last week at the last meeting during public comment he brought up athletics and feeling like just some different issues occurring in i want to be clear we're following the department of health guidelines and department of health guidelines also dictate athletics and how we how we test who we test um all of the different pieces and i i i absolutely empathize with there it's frustrating it's hard um but i hope you know that we are literally

157just following the guidelines we we we read them we understand them we try to decipher them the best that we can but we are we're held to those guidelines um we're not making those guidelines up those are from the depart washington state department of health under athletics you go down you you scroll down and there is information that we have to who has to be tested who doesn't have to be tested and he brought up yeah for those who are vaccinated there are different rules around it but those are the department of health guidelines that our district and all other districts i assume i shouldn't say that i'm going to assume that other districts are are following those same guidelines um tonight and julie just brought it up as well on the volunteerism um so

158on october 14th and then in last week's weekly update or wsd uh weekly we sent out it's a pretty short piece on volunteering and it it too it follows the department of health it's very short and sweet [Music] literally going to read it to you buildings are open to public volunteers who are in the building for an educational purpose are allowed however classroom volunteers are not allowed so in order to limit the total number of people in the classroom volunteers are not allowed for classroom parties or to eat meals with students volunteers are required to follow all staff and safety protocols so we're really being very clear about those who are working with our teachers on those different pieces on that educational absolutely volunteers must fully be vaccinated by october 18th or receive a medical

159or religious exemption those are not wsd guidelines uh again those are department of health guidelines that we're following vaccine verification must be submitted to the human resource department volunteers must wear a mask and then we have a link in there today we have over a hundred people who who've uh filled out that that link now i do know we had one building where we did have uh less than stellar communication on that and we were really working to make sure that that doesn't happen again but we did there i feel like we have really clear guidance and it's short it's sweet and we will continue to make sure that we're 100 in our system we're communicating the right message all the time uh but again humans make errors um so we've got that piece out

160there i think that was what i had for paul i'd like to throw out i filled in the volunteer vaccination approval and got a reply within two hours which surprised me that how quick it was yeah we try to we try to be really responsive you were so we're trying to make sure that all of those pieces are followed we're trying to be as close to to doh and others as possible um and again with the the volunteer piece there is that wsd piece that we're saying here in the educational piece we were going to have volunteers come in but we're not going to have uh volunteers come in for the parties it's just fewer people into our schools um so that that piece was not a doh piece that was a wsd decision on

161the but the volunteers as far as being vaccinated in those pieces in in masking and showing your information those are the standard over the uh doh recommendations all right i think i got my list done there uh oh um uh mrs petro brought up um the the the training that occurred with staff a few weeks ago um again that it that was not recorded by us so it has taken some time uh my understanding we we do have it i'll we're gonna work to to get that posted um out there but that is not our staff who recorded that so it does take a little bit more time so we'll get that posted uh and out there um my update is uh you know i i apologize if i i am always as you know

162there's good and bad with paul gordon there's good uh paul is one of the most passionate people you'll probably meet in this area and the bad is sometimes paul's the most passionate person you meet in this area so if i uh if i went uh a little bit to gung-ho there i apologize that that was not my intent my intent is uh recognizing incredible humans who've done incredible work and i i always appreciate the board so thank you for that thank you laura for for checking me sometimes when my passion gets the best of me so i appreciate that but i try to own my stuff i try to own my stuff so back to you laura thank you appreciate that paul so i do have a quick question about the dei did i not

163see that there is a requirement that board members also participate in fdi yep so i don't recall being invited to the training but how are we going to be fulfilling that requirement is so we'll we'll be working uh with dr theresa lance on that in the coming months so you'll you'll have that opportunity so this one broader from an inclusionary perspective that was the vast majority of it was around inclusion um and then a little bit toward the end around gender identity which we also have to make sure our staff are trained on as well so that's kind of a big picture but i'll have that out but absolutely we'll be having training on the dei from the board uh to administrative and other staff members so thank you laura okay sounds good all right

164if there's no further business sub before