001[Music] thank you so today is april 27th of 2021 and i will call the meeting of the wenatchee school board to order and ask that you would stand and join us of the united states of america and into the republic for weekly friends for creation under god indivisible with overseas for all so first on our existence tonight we have our consent agenda which includes the minutes from our regular meeting on april 13th vouchers in payroll personnel report surplus report contracts policy updates and an enrollment and financial report is there a motion to approve the consent agenda i'm going to approve the consent agenda i'll second it okay is there any discussion all of us in favor nope great thing you've got motion carries now we are moving on to citizen common and it is my
002understanding that we have a combination of online and in person and so on if you would call folks out that would be great first and who is keeping the time please so how will the speakers know [Music] those okay are giving public comments this evening have three minutes and apparently those online are not able to see the timer so you can start your timer or i will um give you a verbal um when that time is up okay and abby you are up please repeat um my name is abby danko and i'm a senior at wenatchee high school so as a wenatchee high school senior with six weeks left of my school year i believe we should not return to full-time in-person learning another change especially one that will be so short-lived is not what
003we need right now this year has been so too tumultuous for us that the least you can do is keep it the same if it were up to me i would recommend staying in hybrid as a full-time option i find myself more productive when i'm not in school for eight hours a day and it gives some of us the opportunity to work and save money for college but today i would specifically like to address the argument of students mental health as the reasoning for returning to full-time if that is the rationale leading this decision then i also expect parents and the school board to be pushing for better resources and discussion in schools in regards to mental health when we lost a senior at the beginning of the school year there was a very little
004discussion about it we got a cookie cutter email telling us if we needed resources to email one of our school social workers no one came into zoom rooms to talk with us no one had a discussion about mental health with us only two weeks ago did we have school social workers come into our classrooms to tell us they were there for us because our grade had seen so much loss and change to us seniors that conversation felt three years too late that conversation should have come after we lost a freshman three years ago if this return to full time is truly driven by bettering students mental health then you better make sure that we are that you are providing the proper resources and materials to struggling students instead of choosing not to talk about the
005things that are difficult thank you thank you abby appreciate it next all right next up we have minecraft uh you might need to all right good evening school board i'm monica christensen president of wenatchee education association and i live in wenatchee i am certain we can all agree this has been one of the most challenging years in education any of us have ever experienced with the announcement on thursday to discuss full-time for secondary one ea sent a survey to the secondary teachers netting the following results with 215 respondents 17 supported going back immediately 83 did not 132 teachers commented most of the comments centered around the following themes this year back and forth decision making the decision had been made so i revisit the timing with approximately 20 or so days to go the innumerable
006changes causing stress and my biggest concern the now lack of trust filled towards the district and school board to make a decision and stick with it not one single teacher said they did not want to be in the classroom with their students full time so this is the story of this year close your eyes if you'd like and listen along this feels as if we are on a boat in the middle of the ocean a boat that is capsized with all members on board thrust into the water not knowing what they are in for is terrifying the cold rush of water pounds them in the beginning and the people are certain they cannot manage but they get comfortable with the blue canvas in front of them and they tread on managing and doing well they
007are supported by others treading through the unknown encouraging each other to keep going it will get better the waves become calm and consistent the treading easier but not for long for the seeds are uncertain and one small wave after another crashes into the survivors each way of trusting them below stuttering they make it back to the surface and regroup with small cohorts of people who take reference refuge in leaning on each other providing individual support where needed shouldering the load when necessary but continuing to say look we are succeeding we can do this hang on we can see the shore and with that shore in sight the seas are calm once again all the members of the boat from the young to the old know they have settled into a consistent rhythm and are comforted
008in the knowledge that they will make it and then there it is a monster of a wave out of nowhere nowhere crashing into the survivors plunging them into the depths of change and then unknown once again filled with despair for having worked so hard to make it this far to be once again pummeled by the waves the survivors begin to flounder some succeeding to the sun succumbing to the waves that eventually suck the breath out of them because they have no more to give overly dramatic probably but the comments from teachers are real teachers are part of this equation and they are fighting to keep these kids and themselves afloat i can't do this anymore extreme mental burnout the situation is dire our comments stated by teachers frustrated frustrated by the shifting sounds beneath their
009feet these waves of change cause stress not only in the teachers but the students and parents as well we are almost there the end of the year is in sight please allow us all to make it to the end without another wave of change thank you monica i just also wanted to note that the survey that monaca spoke of is something that i received by email and have distributed to the board of superintendent so thank you hi members of the board my name is summer pease and i am a sophomore at monacci high school today we're all discussing sending six through twelfth graders back in full time in my opinion my peers not only is this a dangerous decision but it's a decision being made without the voice of the student with only 31 in-person
010school days left until summer break it makes little to no sense to introduce such a dramatic change for such little amount of time the current argument is these 31 days will prepare us for a normal 2021-2022 school year now everyone in this room is not the school we all know that during the summer no student wakes up at 6 00 am ready to learn yet we all wake up early on that late august day ready for a new year not even batting in high about how this last month went others argue that the mental health of students is plummeting i can tell you right now it's going to make things only worse not better the anxiety levels will rise all that can be prevented from one change for once in a crazy year we have
011a stable schedule we can rely on a schedule we've kept up for 13 weeks a stress of learning is gone with our small class sizes and our safety of six feet the stress will be brought back with another idea of an unneeded change in this argument it also includes the fact that school board members do not think students have enough structure in their day structure is something that cannot be built in the day to begin with nor by adding four more hours to school day it is something that each person or student has to create for themselves or their life their lifestyle many students have created a good routine for themselves after school which include exercising getting outside working or even having more time to finish homework without stress two and a half hours of
012school gives students to more time to do things they love outside of school this change would disrupt routines that have been created and worked great for students and it would only stress out students and teachers alike as we have to create new routines once again if you vote for us to go back full time you'll be pulling from the ploys of our parents in politics but you hold our features on our hand and we have little to know saying it so i beg the board so please listen to what students want and postpone which return of full-time school so 2021-2022 school year thank you thank you summer okay next up is thank you school board for allowing us to revisit this important topic so tonight i am going to read a letter that myself and
013three of my coworkers wrote together and and here it goes so dear board members as wenatchie's families and parents we are asking the school board to vote to return to full-time school for the remainder of this school year dr butler has stated that students are safer at school than at home our students who are able to come in person half day are doing better emotionally and academically than those who are not coming in it has been seen throughout the region that our students mental health is disintegrating and the best place for students to get help is at school in our opinion this is the most important reason to bring school kids back into the classroom full-time we had been at the point of just making it through this school year as best we could for
014ourselves and for all of our students and we hoped that things would get back to normal in the fall three things changed our minds the first thing that really impacted our decision and our thinking was the letter written by wenatchee healthcare providers about the adverse effects that the lockdowns were having on our children the second was when school personnel were moved up the list for vaccinations and lastly according to the centers for disease control we can now safely return students to full time for us and for many parents the effects of the lockdown are far worse than the possibility of contracting covenant at school most of the arguments against going back to school have nothing to do with safety or contracting copin this has been a difficult year for both students and our staff by
015going back to school we would be returning to what the students and staff are familiar with our kids in the classroom it would not be yet another change it would be a return to normalcy normalcy and would provide our students with access to mental health services at least six weeks before summer begins for those parents who have children who are struggling we need to offer them the opportunity to send their children back full time we also need to provide a place for our students to have access to a fair and equitable education many many many of our students and you're not hearing from them tonight are trying to work online in situations that are not beneficial to their education or their well-being as a result we are further widening the achievement gap we call on
016our colleagues our union our and our school board please please please we need to be a part of the solution we need to bring educational equality to these struggling families thank you lisa your time is up if you'd like to submit those comments to us in writing we'd be happy to receive them by email thank you so much i'm a teacher at west side high school and also a colleague of lisa pogleton good to see you and uh a parent of four in the district um i'd like to address a few things uh specifically related to the safety of our students uh looking at the data from the washington state department of health if you look at the demographics of all the different age groups in digital and douglas counties the only age groups that
017over the last three weeks have been rising have been the zero to 19 each group um all the other age groups are trending down at this point and um i believe it is in some ways related to the return of in-person schooling uh i certainly understand that that is a an understood risk that we took to help the students there but hopefully that'll work for a little longer i understand that we took this risk for the benefit of the students but uh the lung capacity of little kids is substantially different than that of high schoolers and the cdc guidelines are primarily centered around uh kids in elementary schools they do not apply to the larger to the larger kids to the junior high high school levels which is the reason why many colleges are still
018participating in online schooling as opposed to in-person schooling the outbreaks there are just too prevalent and too difficult to deal with already as we've had kids coming back we've had classrooms shut down and that will just continue to increase that combined with the fact that we have um basically just a handful of weeks left at this point in our curriculum we're trying to wrap things up and to introduce new sets of changes to instead of being able to tie off all the learning that we've been building on the way we normally do at the end of the school year is to difficult it's a difficulty that we will have to face i understand certainly that the arguments for mental health but being in hybrid schooling does give you access to the mental health [Music] tools
019that you have or that you need and i would advocate that the schools continue to promote that to the students um i also think that the long-term learning is definitely well there is a a loss of learning that is undeniable i have a harder time with students who are online and the students are able to come in and talk with me however we have a substantial amount of money that i would ask the school or consider in the future uh hiring more teachers specifically in math because i'm a math and science teacher and i think that we need those um we need extra help too sure the missing polls for people who missed countless little bits and pieces here and there and i think that that's something that needs to be considered going forward as
020a long-term solution hiring people who are as skilled educators to provide more than just uh after school but also to be in the classrooms to double up in teaching for specifically the math classes because of the needs there um there's a lot of things that we need to think about my time is running out um but i would ask that we would consider only returning to in-person schooling fully at the beginning of next year and not making any substance changes at this time thank you thank you we have someone else running one more we have a standard hi um i'm i'm sandra lancaster teacher or teacher librarian here at pioneer and a parent of a senior at wenatchee high school um i'm here to talk to you about library and library budgets and librarians as
021we enter into the season of rehiring i thank you for your time this evening kids who read succeed and they are healthier if kids read for just a few minutes it helps reduce heart rate blood pressure and other measurable measurable distressors reading increases knowledge vocabulary memory and much more reading helps us all be better human beings reading tests are important to measure how we are doing at a school however rather than make better test takers i encourage you to help us schools teachers and librarians to make better readers and to give kids a positive reading identity an identity of a reader who loves to read one who knows what their favorite books are and what they are reading next let's not only foster lifelong learners but lifelong readers adequately funding our libraries with full-time certified
022librarians is imperative it is important because libraries are or should be the hub of our school the safe place where kids go who may not feel like they belong elsewhere it is where kids find books with characters who look or feel like they do libraries and librarians are all about inclusiveness and equal access libraries serve and bridge the gap between our poverty students i'd like to point out in particular or to middle school because it's the only secondary school without a full-time librarian this position has had six different people over the last six years i know this is due to it only being a half-time position now the position is open again for the seventh time in seven years this same school has over 65 percent poverty population a half-time librarian does not allow for
023consistent teaching and services to all students especially with block schedules we use this is not equal access to students at that our other middle school excuse me this is not equitable to students that our other middle schools have in the district i've heard a lot of talk about equal access to our students of color and or poverty these educational justice students and their families rely on well-funded libraries for books information and so much more in their homes please help our most needy students and bridge the gap by staffing all of our libraries with certified full-time teacher librarians and providing funds for needed materials thank you thank you okay that wraps up our assistant comments for this evening okay thank you i also want to acknowledge that the board has received a good number of comments
024by emails and uh i have not responded to all of those but i want to assure you that i have read each and every one except those that maybe came in the last 30 minutes so um i appreciate that input you are being heard and even if you get a direct response from me in particular so moving on next we have asb reports [Music] all right cool first off i just want to say ask ron are you managing all the cameras that are happening in the boardroom right now yeah you are doing a good job man it's it's awesome all right cool so then i just want to start off first off we were able to put on the jan's friends talent show two weeks ago and through that we were able to raise quite
025a bit of money for the women's resource center in the valley as well as some food with a food drive that was associated with that event that happened a couple weeks before that so we're really happy about that um we're also working hard on getting prom ready for this friday we've um got quite a complex plan that was developed um that's awesome for that and then this last weekend we were able to put on a um prom dress giveaway so anybody could come get a free prom dress for prom when they needed one especially since prom was on such a late notice i know it was hard for a lot of people to get dresses in time right that sort of stuff um right now we're putting up some posters around the schools to help
026recognize the students or sorry the sports in the building and at the same time two weeks ago we also had a club fair where all the clubs that are currently in action were able to set up a little booth in between the um two kind of block periods or before both black periods sorry and kind of pitch themselves to everyone and i know that was a big success i know a lot of people were able to join some clubs that they're pretty excited about so that's awesome we also had our elections for the new asp exec team and that is with a president of avery miller vice president of christina blahman secretary of anastasia jarecki and a treasurer of courtney dodge and so we're excited to see what will happen and what's in store for
027them next year that team has already gone ahead and organized and chosen their coordinator teams for next year so that's awesome as well the elections for senate presidents and for the senate groups as well are happening this week i think they are happening this wednesday and then the results are being announced this friday so yeah that's everything for me do you guys have any questions about that about the school anything like i that want to say that you are a refreshing addition to our board meetings thank you well thank you from anybody else okay thanks james thank you guys hi everybody um so today i am doing something slightly different than our normal asb report um and i am just i am just here to talk about our now sixth kind of fif the repeat
028the repeat sixth uh annual spaghetti feed this year we're doing tamales as it is the easiest so it is the easiest to do as a drive-through um so this uh may 6 uh thursday we are we're having our our fundraiser um for avery we have these shirts that we can make that we're making at the school um for avery patton so she is a fifth grader now at newberry with pediatric ovarian cancer and we're raising money for her family um because they're they're struggling enough having a child who is battling cancer and they don't need to be worrying about how much it costs to keep their child alive and anything that we can do to to support them to ease that financial burden is it it's something it's it's enough it's enough that we're that
029we're making we're that we're making that a priority for for our school um and so we have we have tamales for sale and we have shirts for sale and you can pre-order them i have a link to all of the information uh here and so anyone anyone that anyone that's inter that's interested can go find that link it's on our website page um it is on the west side facebook and instagram and i believe we're working on getting getting it on all the all the district sites as well um so we just really we just really want people to come in to spend their money if they are able um we're we're doing it in a sl and not quite our traditional manner but we're doing what we can um and we're just really trying
030to support this family so that is that is the uh basic rundown on what on what's going on for west side we're just kind of preparing to put that on wonderful okay julie you have a question yes is is there a site or anything set up for individuals to donate to and say they can't make it to the tamale um they're there there should be um with uh contact to sheena uh at our at our school and i believe i i believe we can get that set up as well james and to arya you two have had civic leadership positions with um waves and storms and everything around you and we've enjoyed listening to you you've been brave you've exemplified your class is looking out and taking care of the whole world and i just
031want to thank you for that as you come down with your last month well then that's a tribute to both of you thank you i just went and picked up my cap and gown today and it really feels real guys congratulations that's awesome i'll see you at the tamale drive thank you and next on our agenda um so we are going to begin uh discussion of potential action on the return of secondary students to full-time uh instruction and so first i just want to set up you know that the scenario here so we met on march uh 29th last at a special meeting to discuss the topic of returning to school the governor's border of march 25th is what precipitated the meeting because the governor announced that um he was now mandating that schools would
032follow the cdc and doh guidelines reducing potentially in some grade level the social distancing from six feet to three feet the order uh went into effect on march 25th it uh was it was non-negotiable um and so our board was required to meet well i guess we were required to meet his recommendation of the superintendent on that day the superintendent recommended if you have uh looked at the cdc guideline from online you might know that there are multiple levels that are based on community transmission rates either the low or blue rate the yellow or moderate and orange or substantial or high which is red at that time the um cdc now or the community spread numbers um put us in a category where we could return elementary students uh to full-time school or three feet
033of distancing but since our secondary schools were either in the orange or red level that we could not do the same there are a number of topics addressed during that discussion and ultimately the board the majority of the board made decision um to adopt the superintendent's recommendation and that recommendation was to return k5 to full-time in-person instruction but to 6 keep 12 in hybrid for the rest of the year so since that time we have all been watching the community transmission numbers and after the meeting there was a dip and the dip brought us um slightly below the 100 per 100 000 or whatever the number is and so that's why we're here today because at least one board member felt like it was important for us to acknowledge that the numbers had gone down
034and that we should revisit the decision that was made on march 29th so that is my basic introduction of the topic and i will now hand it off to paul and the other board members okay yeah ask the other board ask the board members to have the conversation so i'll i'll maybe start because you know no no surprise i was probably the the biggest advocate for this and i just want to say i i understand the frustration this may cause um it was my hope at the meeting when we made the initial decision that we could plan to open on the 19th and pull the plug and sort of do the opposite but i think we were given information from the health district that made it seem like it was very unlikely the numbers would
035fall within cd guidelines to return six through 12. fast forward even just a week and the unforeseeable happens the numbers fall reliably below the cdc threshold to return six through twelve um [Music] in that same amount of time the health district also issued opinions that kids students were safer in schools not just state and schools safer because of now with activities and whatnot with activities starting back up students with free time are out to be spreading exposure potentially more so the the guidance from the district on record was that students were safer in school um coupled with one of the reasons that we heard not to return 6 through 12 was because standardized testing was going to be taking place and i was going to consume a large portion of the academic um the academic
036year well in that same week or two we got information from the state that the standardized testing is now going to take place in the fall so this potentially opens additional time for for learning so now our 10 hours in hybrid potentially goes to an additional 50 hours of learning for some student i agree it may not make sense to bring everybody back and i think we still have options for those who don't want i realize seniors have less time than others um so i personally felt like it was important to explore the conversation because of the very significant things that have happened and because this is you know we're we're told it's a mental health crisis and we have plenty of evidence of that with with student um student losses that that shouldn't be
037happening um and and that's a very real and serious issue and that was the the impetus for the governor to get us back what is troubling is that we're we're measuring student mental health with um covet infection rates and the two just don't necessarily line up and so i'm not asking anyone to pick or choose what is the greater but you know we were told this was a mental health emergency and that was the impetus of the governor's order with clear direction that every day matters and so i think with even just a month of school left every day can matter for some of these students and then finally the other significant issue that occurred within that timeline since we made our decision was that schools around us decided to open um full-time and that's
038something that needs to be considered some families have students in both districts and so um you know i everyone is is stressed nobody's looking look forward to changes um it's in some ways the way covert has worked we just kind of always have to be on our toes so i think it was it's worth the discussion um because some fairly significant things have occurred since we made that that decision um one thing that was compelling to me and correct me if i'm wrong paul but i think we heard from a logistical standpoint in the original discussion that the district is actually it's based on resources easier to operate it um k through 12 versus how we've carved it out with k through five and so i and correct me if i'm wrong that's not accurate
039transportation lines you're 100 correct so the the pieces that i will have looked at and advocated all along all along is um you know we we put out there that students learn best in person we identified at the start of the pandemic that we had concerns about equity if we couldn't get all students back in classrooms and i think that's still i haven't heard that that change has changed so i'm operating on the premise that you know majority students learn better in person we can now legally offer full-time education to all of our students we unless anything has changed we can technically uh with our resources offer full-time education to our students um you know we've heard a lot in some of the emails and correspondence that but there's no way we can do this
040with three feet but the reality is the mitigation is not going to change in the fall so what we do now is still going to be carried through to the fall i would assume so if we're concerned about not being able to meet standards now the truth will still be there in the fall so to me that's less compelling um and then to talk about increasing both exposure well we've closed classrooms down in hybrid so will we close classrooms down potentially in in full time it's possible but it's it's happening in hybrid and i don't think it's happening i don't think we have reliable evidence that it's happening because students are returned to school like i think it's happening because students have returned to activities in life in general which may you know support the
041position that students were safer in a structured environment but it and correct me if i'm wrong we still have an option for students who don't want to return for families who don't want to return so i feel like this conversation is important that we give students an opportunity um things recognizing things have changed this was not meant to be a bait and swift on any part and and families are going to be inconvenienced and it's another change and as a parent of three um i realize that it's not necessarily something i'm looking forward to but i have two that went back to school and have enjoyed every day of it and i have a middle schooler who is sad and even potentially sadder now that she doesn't get that opportunity so i think we owe
042it to still the students just to have this conversation next um just i guess i just need a clarification in regards to the data because i haven't seen any present day in the or maybe even two weeks so i'm not sure uh and we know that there was an interruption by c uh cdhd that there was going to be an interruption on the data so i'm not sure if i'm missing something in the uh i i noticed the same thing and so what i just noticed today on the wenatchee world they did start republishing those numbers and the 14 day period that they used is dated april 5th to april 18th so that was about a week after two two to two weeks after our last or three weeks after our last meeting where we
043made this decision but nothing official from the health district um it's my understanding that these numbers do come from the health district okay what was the rate uh in chilean county it says uh 148 cases but 185.8 per hundred thousand and that is for 14 day period what i don't know is how that translates to the seven day period that um doh and cdc uses so there's a little bit of a disconnect okay i think we'll get a little bit more of that in a little bit i can give maria something that is factual and recent within the last week the cdc statistics and they're the only ones that have kept the statistics coming up currently um we were in the renzo and i think for three days during the last seven something between the
044ages and mouth so we beat in the orange and the red but there's no question that we are in the red some of the time and who knows what will happen next okay thank you so that is obviously we're still threading in the upper end um which i'm just going to quickly um just you know laura mentioned this that this request was brought up by one person from the board it wasn't actually a consensus from the board to bring this as an agenda item um again the vote the board voted on march 29th and i think you know two for secondary students that would they will remain hybrid for the remainder of the year and that was actually a quote directly taken from our meeting on march 29th from dr gordon um you know our
045current reality is that we are not prepared to provide a safe learning environment for our secondary students mitigation strategies will not change in the fall but we are i i truly believe you don't have what is necessary to follow those mitigation strategies to a deep as a district uh i i truly believe that we need to redirect our focus and our resources to the fall startup so that we can safely return all of our students to full-time instruction all of our students but i really believe that right now with the current rates with the current furniture setup with our classrooms um we can't do that right now esma has different facilities you have different student accounts and your small has different demographics so using um eastmond school district as a reason it's just not apples
046to office in my opinion um so again i'm just gonna ask that we redirect and focus our resources so that we can bring all our kids back safely following the mitigation strategies that the health district and the department of health have established for us my turn i think it is legitimate to make a request to review the decision on full day and hybrid schooling that we made for um weeks ago it's i see it as a review so i consider it my responsibility if we're asked for that to undertake the review rigorously and with an open mind i took the trouble to listen to people across the spectrum and then i weighed up the pluses and minuses as if i had to make the recommendation which is not the fact um because that's the only
047way i could think about it um there's not just one dimension of what the casework rate is there's not just one area like mental health of students who aren't able to school this is a multi-dimensional problem with many many things to consider i very much appreciate what maria said uh in fact i'm going to quote some one of the people i talked to it is very nice to say that you will conserve your energy for the recovery plan in the future but you better darn well do it so that's on our back um so that's another dimension so i could revisit all of the arguments pros and cons generally speaking every choice has some people who are in a plus column and some people who are in the minus column i don't want to do
048that because we pretty much did cover that already i will say that full day elementary seems to be welcome and successful and i hear that from a lot of people so that's good to hear however i don't think middle school and high school are have anything like the same conditions or the same time situation right now so certainly i said to myself what should we ask has the environmental situation changed from what was expected four weeks ago and bouncing between red and orange with everything going on i knew that we could be theoretically able for some of the time not knowing whether we're going to have a whiplash and shut down that was not that's not new that was the way it was four weeks ago too so that hasn't changed have we discovered new
049considerations that justify making the change something that we didn't think about before i don't think so so i have two no's after the review i respect the decision thank you ron so i'm not going to be to that horse but i just want to point out that the board receives whenever we have students going into quarantine that number is increasing significantly both at the elementary and the secondary level and uh you know i i don't want to say oh we can blame that on full-time or on hybrid i i know it's springtime i know we have a lot of students involved in non-school activities where they might have contact with other students from other schools and other backgrounds so that's where you might be optional with some of those activities and we can't control that
050however we are having i believe we had our first in-class transmission this week is that correct oh we've had two this during copenhagen thank you so um also want to point out that just because we have the legal authority to open doesn't mean that we can just go through the motions and do it we have to make smart decisions and with increasing numbers of students going into quarantine and um and if our numbers are going to fluctuate we've seen that a lot in our community but coped doesn't really care whether your community rates at 200 or 150 or whatever if we're just saying okay we're under 200 now we can open up full time in person for secondary cohen really doesn't care so we're not sticking to our mitigating strategies and and i know that
051staff and students are trying but it's what people are doing outside and if we if we have people who aren't following it a hundred percent or students are coming to school um but they're not being completely transparent about the possibility that they might have coveted in their house or symptoms that puts us at risk so i believe that is happening more our nurses know that's that's happening are our administrative staff of our buildings are seeing fewer parents reporting at the elementary level so that does not bode well for um opening up time at every any level also i just wanted to mention that um going back to full time in person does not honor the majority of the sixth through twelfth graders who did a survey prior to our decision about two meetings ago we
052had a majority of students that wanted to stay in a hybrid model for a number of different reasons we heard tonight from monica christensen that 83 percent teachers would like to stay in that hybrid model um i i think it really does disservice if we are taking surveys and not listening to that information particularly for the individuals who are involved in the instruction and the learning and then finally i just want to mention that a majority of our students those who are under 15 are not even eligible for vaccines right now there is a belief i think that oh our kids are fine but i know we have at least one family in our valley who has dealt with a lot of nightmares with their child who postcoded they received immune reaction that that child
053is still dealing with and they wouldn't want that to happen to any other student in our district or in our valley or in our state or in our country but there are thousands of students getting that i know it's a rare case but this is a very frightening thing so i don't think we can just chalk it up to code doesn't have any effects on our students if our students get it they may not be super sick um but they might transmit it to other people who haven't been vaccinated and they also might get a constellation of immunologic symptoms that's quite devastating that they can lose their life no kidding so um i would i would suggest that like maria like martin that although it is good to review it um and i appreciate that
054dr gordon when one board member says let's bring this back up and talk about it i understand that it raises anxiety level amongst the community and staff and students and it is our duty to honor every board member's request it is his duty as our superintendent but as a board we make those decisions but i feel that this is not the time for us to go back to full time i i look forward to the fall when we have more pieces in place when we have more hopefully we're closer to herd immunity in the fall and hopefully we'll be closer to getting our students vaccinated at some point here in the year so um this is this is a marathon it's not a sprint and we're still in it so um i'm just going to
055leave it at that thank you thank you all for your thoughtful and thorough comments i don't have anything really new to add to any of it um i feel that the um the numbers have you know we've been missing numbers in the published in the newspaper for some amount of time they just came out again either today and yesterday and so i in order for me to feel comfortable um voting to you know move here and kiddos back to school right now the numbers would have to be significantly lower for some period of time and in my view they have not been we are different from each month as has been mentioned their facilities are newer their ventilation systems are better their ability to circulate students and staff around the building safely is different than
056ours we can only evaluate the circumstances that exist in our own district and i truly want every child to be back in school i really really do but i want to do it safely and i want to do it in a measured thoughtful way with my colleagues on the board everybody's opinion is important and valued not only here at this table but also for our students our staff and our parents and families and i do appreciate that everybody holds a slightly different view of the situation and i'm not sure at this time if you want to take a vote or uh how did the board feel have do we need to just offer a verbal consensus uh based off of robert's rules the the previous action just stands there would need to be uh a
057motion for a new action be taken if we wanted to do something different but what i'm hearing from the board is that there's consensus to move forward with the current action that was made on march 29th so no further action needs to be done as of right now unless there's a board member who feels that there's a proposal that they would like to put forward and emotions certainly could be put up on the table at this time but as superintendents stated in with a lack of emotion um the past motion stands and we would continue as we decided at the last meeting is there anybody who wants to put a motion on the table i'm i'm not going to put a motion on the table because i know exactly how it would it would go
058but i just want to say i do appreciate um that having this conversation i do like i said i i know it caused some anxiety but i think it is our responsibility when when things change as dramatically potentially as they did um that we have to take a hard look to make sure we made the right decisions or the best decision on the information we have so i'm not going to belabor it more but i do appreciate everybody's thoughts and comments and being respectful about it and doing what we think is all the best for our students our district and our teachers so great thank you i think civil discourse is probably the best role modeling that we can do right now and i think the board did a really good job of that tonight
059so thank you all for participating after all that should be a little poem but it's dead instead we're going to have a very special presentation we're going to do the uh action item first the uh uh the revolution yes yeah so this should go very quickly though okay so this is the resolution um resolution 0-21 the emergency waiver of high school graduation requirements and could you please give us background on that yeah so this is similar to last year where the state gave the board the authorization to give the superintendent authorization to waive up to two elective credits um but with that it is not just a carp launch wave it is the counseling team any credit bearing class that they the counseling the administration team would have a robust conversation with the student and
060any guardians or any potential family members so the student would know all the impacts of that waiver so that that's the general gift of this resolution regarding the resolution i'll move that we adopt the resolution um number 01-21 thank you second one i did have a question paul um because people are probably not seeing that on their screens right now um i believe in the fourth paragraph it taught alright sorry the third paragraph it talks about the board will establish graduation requirements at a minimum satisfy those established by the state board of education so if you could talk about how the state board of education's requirements for credits are a little bit different than we have in our two high schools thank you yeah absolutely so uh the core 24 probably the best way to
061to know the state standards those are the expectations that have the core content area plus uh additional elective courses um the website follows that very specifically uh the high school currently is a 30 it's the core 24 plus additional uh credits so we go above and beyond at the high school i guess my question would be for students at our different schools this waiver would allow them to graduate like if they're in the grade zone and worried about graduating what would be their requirements for graduation no it's okay so it is working again with your counselor with your administrative team uh at either of the high schools um to make sure they're really having those conversations about these two elective courses may be getting in the way due to covet due to online or hybrid
062or whatever the situation is family situation and that's where that conversation starts from but it is a it's a very robust conversation with a student with the family to making sure that they understand the impact of it especially if it had some college impact to it if they're waiting um a world language course that maybe is needed at a to or your college for that student they have to have those types of conversations so it is not just waiting to wave to make it easier but we also recognize many students and families have encountered a number of obstacles throughout this entire coven experience and this is one way that we can support our students so they can move forward hopefully that did it sorry about the first answer is there any further discussion [Music] very
063special presentation on budget tonight and i've got some very special friends with me tonight uh to help uh us navigate through this budget update and i first say you know this is this is a an unusual first budget update uh mainly because it doesn't have a whole lot of numbers in it and jeanette will kind of talk through that the why behind that one uh the legislation the legislators jumped past their the state budget but there's other reasons as well and with this tonight ron's going to be kind of navigating with us he's going to be scrolling the screen up for our community to see for the people in the room to see so you're going to be hearing a little bit of uh asking ron to to roll up so i'll take the first
064part of our budget and for board members and staff members uh you've heard me say this before a budget truly is a value statement a budget is about what a district what an organization values in the in the work that we're trying to accomplish and that's what we're talking about tonight really setting that foundational work around our our uh the value of what our district does and we're truly leaning in um as the board knows it and i believe our community knows and our different stakeholders we're working vigorously on developing a new strategic plan but the board of education set the values around excellence in learning equity and accountability that drives our work that literally drives it we talk about those three values on a consistent basis at the cabinet level and at the school
065leadership level as well those are critical to us we talk about those pieces and i hope you'll be able to see how those are reflected in the presentation tonight and at our special board meeting coming up that we'll talk a little bit more about the goal is to be better bottom line we're an organization that is driven ronnie can scroll up a little bit for it the the goal for us is always to continue getting better that's what we want to be we want to be better at the end of the day for our students that's what we're trying to create highly in a highly effective system continue to lift up the entire organization we're focused on academic and social emotional outcomes for each student operating no excuses related to a child's background or their
066neighborhood commit to working collaboratively or willing to embrace our current reality focus on self in system improvement demand that the values of the organization drive improvement our goal is to truly become a highly effective education system with a promise to build a foundation of diversity equity and inclusion from which each student emerges future ready we're a district that is serving 7 600 amazing scholars encompassing elementary middle high school a newly created online wenatchee internet encounter our tech center regional tech center um all things we're so proud of and incredible work that happens all the time but we also recognize we need to keep getting better and making sure every one of our students emerges future ready because the great organizations are really looking at each and every student and for us racial equity for our
067students is critical have that definition of their racial equity is when race does not determine quality of life opportunities and outcomes right now and we're not unusual in many districts but right now for our latino students i can tell you where we're going to be for the the vast majority of our latino students in the vast majority of our white students i have that data up there and i want to be clear this is an akovic pandemic data right here is four year average of smarter balance assessment this is what we talked about in the board's value of accountability part of that accountability is transparency and being humble with where we're at acknowledging it but at the top of the header we have to get better we have to get better uh just quick examples
068third grade reading for your average latino students are 20 scoring at a 26 proficient rate if you're a white student in our district you're you're at a 60 proficient right 60 percent of our white students are proficient 26 of our latinos and third grade reading are for finish proficient so you can see that across the board ron if you would move up so for us it's it's really trying to be very thoughtful about improvement strategies alignment of our pk12 system that leads with diversity equity inclusion supporting educational staff with research-based practices you've heard from dr stacy bain around the reading work we're starting to see some emerging data that is super exciting some emerging data it's not exactly where we want to be but anecdotally heard just yesterday from a couple educators who for the
069first time in this one teacher's classroom a first grade teacher is no longer two or three kids into chapter books at this time of the year it is her entire class and she had something somewhat you know she was pushing me a little bit she was like i don't have enough books for all these kids to read because they're getting into their decoding they're able to tackle these chapter books and she's seeing it as an educator but again is it across the system no and for a great system to be a great system it should it cannot be teacher by teacher or school by school and that's what we meant by it does not matter neighborhood or your background and we're adamant about that it's not okay but for us it's doing those pieces and
070i'm super proud because i i've got a cabinet administrative team and people throughout this entire organization who are really pushing on improvement another one of those pieces is the work being led by mike and stacey and others within learning and teaching around bringing a math team together to really focus in on our math work you saw that slide before math is a greater struggle in our district a much greater struggle for our students across the board so i'm proud of the leadership and the willingness to have honest truthful conversations about where we're at what we're going to do principles this is a big piece principles is instructional leaders we see when it's working really well that at our middle school when they have the assistant principals when they have the coaches and their our leaders
071are free to be in those classrooms thinking and talking about instruction all the time and that's why we're so adamant about adding in uh assistant principles mike and stacy we'll talk about that a little bit later but systems focused approach to ensure that every student thrives not by accident but by design that if not by having change dance the kids are successful here it is 100 by design and it's purposeful for all all of us we know we've heard a lot about social emotional creating a thriving environment where students are seen know they belong and can be their authentic selves critical we know as educators that when students feel safe from a physical to emotional they are going to their their learning is going to go at a much higher rate if they're not feeling
072safe for whatever reason physically or emotionally the learning will take a back seat every day of the week it's why i'm so proud of the work the district has done way before i got here around social emotional learning and that we're going to continue to wrap that up and make sure that that is evident in every classroom in every school we see in our district so with that we hand it off to jeanette as she talks about a number of questions she pushes us on literally every day and so proud to have jeanette on our team and the work she's doing daily to to really push our organization to be better and really be thoughtful about the financial decisions we're making paul is uh moving and shaking over there running behind him feverishly um so
073one of the things that i constantly think about and push people on and push myself on um is you know fiscal responsibility we deal with taxpayer money uh local taxpayer money that comes directly to us via the county and then also taxpayer money that goes to the states and the federal government that comes to us through lots of different groups right so to me i want to treat it like i would my own personal mind like you you don't just go out and spend most people don't go out and spend willy-nilly and not recall and think about what they're spending their money on and why is it important should i keep doing it should i stop my subscription those kinds of questions right so that's the same thing in terms of business and same thing
074in terms of education things are constantly changing we need to make sure that we're making the best financial investment and the things that we buy or the way we spend our money that we can whether that's stacking or whether that's a pen or pencil the same concept make sure you're making the best investment you can um so i've listed a number of questions here that i kind of think through um obviously every situation is different but really it's evaluating why do we need this and do we still need it and why um so or if we don't have it are we going to be missing something are we going to be missing an important stop to a process those kinds of things um so you guys can definitely feel free to read those questions to
075me again it's that constant evaluation you're constantly evaluating yourself and your budget and making sure that you can explain and that's how i talk to principals and directors about the lies i want you to be able to stand up to anybody and say yes this is important for our school in your life or this is important for my staff and your life this is important for our community and our kids and here's why um you know that front page of the newspaper test right we don't like to well we love to be on the front page of the newspaper um but it's a good thing we do um so you know just make sure that you can always justify what you're what you're doing and what you're spending your funds on so in terms of
076timeline um so i didn't just like dream this up overnight we've been working on the budget for a number of months now uh meeting with buildings meeting uh kelly and i have practically been spending like four weeks together every week looking at enrollment which has dramatically changed from last year so trying to keep up on that and continue to change i'm thinking for the next few years just with the academic hopefully coming to a close looking at you know building a five-year budget that involves the departments and the buildings and everyone involved with that making sure that voices are heard also projections from closing out this last year so that's kind of what's been going on up until now and will be happening for the next few months but today we're at the board presentation
077uh it'll be pretty high level today as paul said not really any numbers uh just because the legislature just finished on saturday i guess um but we will talk kind of about enrollment and the impact and the things that we're looking at right now and then a high level revenue what we know and then um staffing as well just those big changes that you guys should be aware of um or just you know even little changes too so that leads us to the next meeting which will be may 17th and that will be a board workshop so that's a regular regularly scheduled board workshop and we are going to turn it into a budget workshop because that's really fun um so that's where you guys will get all the numbers and so we'll go over
078the legislative budget and what the impacts of that is there's a lot in there this year um so we'll go through that we'll go through any revenue updates expenditure updates and non-stopping costs so kind of look at those five-year budgets that we're working on and then also look at the fund balance and kind of where we're thinking we're gonna end so hopefully at the end of that meeting you guys will have a good handle on what you will likely see kind of throughout the summer right as we're getting to that final budget june 22nd we will do basically just an update and then we'll also put in there all the other non-operating funds so we'll put those in there as well budget is due to the esd on the 12th of july and it's available
079for the public at that time as well july 27th is my planned date for the budget public hearing so we'll do that i believe as part of the first part of the regularly scheduled board meeting is what we did last year so plan on that and then august 10th do just another quick update and presentation if there's any changes after the yes we reviewed it we'll give it a doc then we'll start all over the constant cycle budget never dies um so looking at enrollment as you guys know our enrollment um has gone through quite a lot of change over and over and over and over again this year um so what we looked at was the february counts that's when we started really looking at staffing needs and building needs for next year so
080we rolled all of those up i did look at the cohort survival and that was actually pretty close to kind of what i was planning as well it's about 99 uh and now analysis of the birth rate information um and so we looked at that kind of looked at the trends did some projections um we also have a few other things and tools and things that are impacting us this year the pre-registration and wia enrollment surveys so we looked at that information you know if students said that they were going to go back next year to their regular schools we moved them back did as much of that work as we could um pinnacles prep we also analyzed the enrollment effects there so we could get some accurate information so hopefully we have less surprises
081next fall also cte is expanding offerings at the middle school all the middle schools and the high schools so we've got a lot of awesome change and expansion there that we're excited about and then wia the big question was at least in my head for enrollment for just over the next several years what does that look like what's sydney gonna be and i guess we'll just tell right okay so the next thing is revenues at this time and i have not had a chance to dive into the state budget yet that will happen the end of this week so i'll have more information on that like i said that may 17th meeting but there's a number of things that were being tossed around um during the session um that you know could impact the district
082and what that impact is we'll find out later but enrollment called harmless transportation hold harmless those are things that are specific to pathetic changes and that distracts um and hopefully the legislature heard kind of our you know reasoning on so we'll see what that looks like and again not sure exactly what that will do um also we know our rationalization is going down it's going down one percent every year and so that impacts our state funding and then also just determining what the ipd which is the implicit price diff later that's in the state budget what that is and that's also where the benefit rates for retirement and insurance are set so local levy um i'm basically going to use the same information that i used when i was when we were doing the levy
083um election and so four percent enrollment or four percent assessed value growth and then the voter approved tax credits that we just had approved by the voters and investment earnings unfortunately are down due to lower interest rates at the county so um i will be budgeting lower lower interest rates also we have coveted funding corresponding and so once we get final information on that that will be included in the budget as well because we will be spending those funds over the next um the remainder of this year into next year and then potentially even into the school year after that most of our allocations should hopefully be available if they're not i'll just use last year's for our federal grants like title one and things like that uh 21st century we do have um one
084grant that is expiry and we are working to try to either find a way to continue support for those programs or um asking ospi if we can potentially extend that so hopefully i'll have more information at the may 17th meeting and then newberry expires next school year and then pioneer orchard mission view and columbia expire the year after that so that will be kind of just an ongoing thing for the next few years that we'll be talking about so next thing is stopping and i'm gonna share the microphone with my good friend mike and he's gonna kind of kick us off thank you uh our work around implementing a multi-tiered system of supports for academic behavior and social emotional well-being aligns with our values of equity and excellence and learning this work is about strengthening
085tier one instruction it's about making improvements to our system of interventions and it's about increasing inclusionary practices and opportunities for all students uh in order to do that we make a commitment around providing heterogeneous groupings of students which provide support as much as possible in the tier 1 general education class like i said as much as possible and as much as appropriate for each individual student our secondary teams are a little ways down the road with this work and i have the privilege of being in a meeting with them on wednesday and one of our middle school leaders uh said to me that this is the most transformational work that he has ever been a part of in the wenatchee school district next slide wrong conservative service of this work as paul mentioned er was
086previously mentioned elementary associate principals will be taking the lead on the behavioral and social emotional components of our mtss system instructional coaches uh have valiantly stepped into that role when previous cuts were made but the responsibility is more appropriately led by building administrators our instructional coaches will then be able to refine their focus on providing for instructional support and modeling in the areas of ela and math the elementary associate principles will also provide the day-to-day management so that principals are able to provide the level of leadership required to realize long-term systemic growth in tier one instruction interventions and equitable practices next slide please and stacey ban is going to speak to this life we're building on what executive director mike lane was speaking about in terms of securing core and ensuring that all scholars are
087able to read write spell and think mathematically we also are going to be working on an intervention system of support that is uh pretty sleek in design it's off of the recommendation of dr susan hall and as a an elementary principal team we've been working on the 10 success factors which is our flagship publication that is the model for how intervention will move forward if we look about at staffing then we know that the micro bilingual staffing will remain unchanged and we look at title 1 staffing we'll have two certificated staff members in every elementary building what we're going to do in terms of the intervention style is flood the intervention block with high levels of collaboration with grade level team educators as well as para educators etc so when we think about intervention support
088we're going to be going by skill by scholar using very sleek data to move scholars in and out what the research faired out two years ago was that when um scholars have the opportunity to transition to an intervention system every three weeks rotating scholars through by skill that has the highest gains of acceleration in student performance and that's what we're going for thank you wrap it all up on the back end with operations um so we have some change in structure at the district office a little bit not really a change in staffing fte just really re-imagining what the executive structure looks like um so we will have an executive director of teaching and learning and then underneath of that executive director will be assistant executive directors one in charge of elementaries and one in
089charge of secondary schools amongst many other duties as assigned which is for all of us right um so that change is happening also district-wide um with our you know increased focus on equity we are looking at how to do better as paul mentioned as we're all mentioning so we will be looking forward to that work we're still kind of in in the infant stages of that but we will be working towards that and potentially having a staff member to focus on that work and help us help guide us with that also looking at kind of that equity and access piece we feel a real need for having a district office translator so our spanish-speaking families have more access to the district office and feel more comfortable calling and knowing that somebody is available that they
090can speak to and understand so that is a change also um administrative assistant to support the finance slash operations as the operations will be added to the finance bucket and then hr slash payroll departments as well so just your shared support staff there also um in the tech world really a replacement position that at the very start of the pandemic was not replaced is a mobile device specialist we have a lot more devices in our system and so the physician is very well needed and so we are proposing to replace that position i believe that's all i got for you guys unless you have questions [Music] i think we have on our on our computers our laptops too and then i just really uh appreciate everybody's work on this presentation um you know what what
091a pleasure there is to hear the words equity in a budget report so uh i think we're all moving in the right direction i'm glad that we got those board values incorporated into our budget for our reasons why and i'm really excited to see kind of these newer pieces being added to support that equity in our in our district so um thanks to you and the rest of that who presented i i think this is it's long overdue but it's okay we're we're heading in the right direction and it is incumbent upon us to do better for all our students so i it's hard data to look at um but we know that we can do better and we must so thank you i will i feel like michelle said um thank you to every
092egypt every one of you guys for on the initiative and also the passion um that we can do better for all of our students um but at the same time being physically responsible about it um you know it kind of echoes what michelle says that i personally look forward to the day where equity inclusion is not part of our vocabulary because we are doing it every day it's not something that sticks out because we aren't doing it um so i you know again i appreciate the passion so i i i'm looking forward to see this through um for the betterment of our district um i do have a question in regards to um enrollment did we complete we um complete the study for the boundaries um and if so did that help in any way
093for the enrollment future projections yeah so that study has been completed uh the davis study um so yeah it will help us as we look it'll help us on on a couple of fronts uh one as we're engaging into the evaluation of lewis and clark um the dual language program those those numbers are going to be really important for us um long term because they they also look at the birth rate as jeanette did as well so there's a lot of meaty data in there that we're going to be using on a regular basis and there's other implications for that davis uh study as well that will um for the board of directors at that time to really look at um the forget the term but kind of the regionalization of each of the the
094board members where they're seated where we're at on that piece as well in that other area where we would be using it or did i hit him i think you got it all yeah hey any other questions or comments do you have a budget yeah i'll make a comment because it's really important i think even though it's already been said twice uh budgets are plans and most people start thinking about numbers with dollars in front of them they're not their plans so i think the fact that the legislature didn't give you any dollar numbers early it's almost a good thing that we're looking at it from that point of view of goals objectives and criteria and then another thing i am looking forward to learning what plans you can make for after school so programs
095that are very dear to my heart and i know that 21st century the idea was they were a bridge to us taking responsibility and so all i'm going to say i look forward to hearing what the plan is hey moving along to voice communication are there any communications that the board members to share with the restaurant they're the legislative update so obviously you all heard the legislative session is done hooray go ahead um but on that note we actually had a alleged rep meeting today and they said so now we get to start planning for the 2022. so technically we're not done but we are looking forward so um there was a list of builds that have been passed at both houses and sent to the governor some of which he's already signed um the
096proclamation we had tonight was one of those and um and there are some that he hasn't signed yet they're not anticipating any details of these education bills but i think it's pretty exciting one of the bills that i think i've mentioned in the past was house bill 1476 which which was about enrollment revenue and my understanding is it kind of morphed into something else right jeanette so it so it originally it had a two-year coverage of looking at basically last year's enrollment data is kind of something that we could use for um next year's in the following years or is it this year next year anyway i'm a little confused i guess but um but they the house and the senate had to agree and so they they have it for one year for now
097so i think it's the one year for for next year and then i could be wrong and then the second year they will bring up at the next legislative session they'll see if they can get an extension on it so they're gonna kind of give it to us one piece at a time i think but um but that might help us with some of our budget short calls with enrollment um but for now for only for one year but um boston will be sending out something about all the bills how they did something to keep in mind is that for any bills that didn't pass they the distance that they got in the legislative session is where they can pick up for the next session because it's kind of like a two over two year
098session so if there are bills that um uh and was there should be coming out with this in the next week or two they'll probably send something out if they send something to me and you all don't get it i'll send it to paul and kim and they can port it out but if there are bills that we want to start supporting now for next year that are that didn't have much success we can kind of start talking to our legislators now saying okay well what didn't you like about it or how can we move this forward so um so like i said it is a process so um it's pretty exciting but i i think there were a number of education bills that um that were successful so that's pretty exciting um additionally just
099because we just had a great topic on equity in our budget the equity conference again is may 18th 19th i know laura's already signed up through kim i requested tonight for kim because i hadn't sent her that message yet so i would like to encourage everybody to sign up for that if you can it is a two half day on the may 18th and 19th 8 30 to 12 30 both days even if you can only go one day it's a really fabulous conference and then i think it lends us to have more conversations about equity if we've all kind of seen the presentation so um i would highly recommend the conference and it's and kim can find us up so it can't get any easier than that right so anyway i just i want
100to thank all the folks who sent us sent the board comments about tonight's meeting and did public comments we we do appreciate everyone's voice thank you challenge the superintendent report um just start with huge gratitude for uh everybody who made uh our return of our elementary students such a success uh so proud of our educators so proud of our classified staff our administrative staff and all the countless hours in time that went into it and it has been my all accounts very successful very successful super proud so bored i i just want to reach back out to you and say thank you for uh bringing our elementary students back but a huge shout out to to our staff across the board for making that happen really proud of that been out there a number of
101days and seeing the work seeing what's happening and continuing to follow through with the mitigating strategies that that continues to be that practice we're really proud of that um uh just quickly uh as some of you may know sometimes i'm a little bit of a control freak as my wife likes to remind me um i too want to recognize the board for such a a good conversation and i would agree i think it brought up a lot of anxiety but i think the conversation of how each board member handled it was absolutely as laura said a model for how you have these types of conversations uh respectful with great amount of dignity uh so i i as a superintendent who again has some control issues uh i i sincerely appreciate uh the work that you
102are doing and and then finally to uh ron and caleb i don't know any other district who's our other superintendents are asking to do the things we're doing because behind the scenes what people don't know is we're trying out our spanish translation uh behind the scenes which will be a regular thing for our organization going forward uh for our district but ron and caleb's gonna be taking over the spaceship over there uh incoming meetings but i just sincerely appreciate ron's willingness to try to think with us trying to figure this thing out and it hasn't always been easy when i come in and i say hey i want to move this over here he's like really you know told me that yesterday um so i i just appreciate the flexibility and the thought that went
103into it and for air it looked from my perspective it looked so much better than the last time we did it and we're just gonna keep improving so ron and caleb and all the it team who continues to keep us up and running each day thank you that's it for me so update me on the spanish translation thing so does that mean that on our recording the translation is already available it will be it will be so this was our first time to just to try behind the scenes to see where it's working i know ron if you have uh is it anna i don't know so anna's on the scene behind the scenes doing this and for this one we will send it out but in future people will be able to access it
104i'm going to hand it over to the expert i'm going to i've see they can already me but in the future we'll have a spanish channel people will have to join our meeting as a guest and they're going to listen and banish the three uh there's no there's no easy way to do a stream in two languages so our screen will continue to be in english but we'll have a spanish option for people to join and listen and fan into the whole meeting so if you've been in the background translating as you've been going the whole time so and we're recording that so we can upload that tomorrow and the next day so we haven't finished audio for anybody who watches after tonight but in the future we'll have a way for the spanish community
105to join the meeting and listen in your native language that's great nice on the road another goal is asl uh but we've got a few things to figure out do we have any uh speaking folks who are helping us to evaluate it like try it out test test drivers to make sure that they're feeling like it was that might be a super good way to do the next meeting again so if i'm watching this from home do i have that spanish english option okay uh look a little different they'll join the meeting and they'll switch their liking thank you anna reagan for complaining for us this evening [Music] i saw her on the screen earlier all right so now the school board will reset into executive session for a period of 30 minutes to evaluate
106the qualifications of an applicant for public employment or to review the performance of a staff member pursuant to district policy 1410 and rcw 42.30.110. this discussion will be closed to the public the school board is not expected to take final action following the executive session so thank you all for joining us thank you thank you