001We're going to start our regular board meeting. Uh we'll start with our board member roll call. Quinn Gore >> here. Jennifer >> here. >> He >> wrapped for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. vision statement. Our vision is to strive for a learning environment that partners with the community to fully prepare lifelong learners to thrive in a complex world. Our mission statement is to engage with students, families, staff, and community members as we provide accessible, relevant, and meaningful educational experiences. We'll start with our community recognition and board member Grace Layman will present. All right. So, the Atoria School District is proud to recognize the invaluable partnership
002between Columbia Memorial Hospital and the Northwest Regional Education Service District in launching the Books for Birth program. This collaborative initiative ensures that every child born in our community starts their journey with the gift of literacy and a foundation for lifelong learning. By providing highquality books to parents before they even leave the hospital, these organizations are making a direct positive impact on early childhood development within our county. We are deeply grateful to Columbia Memorial Hospital for their commitment to family wellness and for opening their doors to this essential educational outreach. Similarly, the expertise and resources provided by the Northwest Regional ESD have been instrumental in bridging the gap between health care and early education. This partnership exemplifies how community leaders can work together to support our youngest residents and their families from day one. It is
003an honor to celebrate this collective vision for a brighter, more literate future in Australia. We look forward to seeing the Books for Birth program flourish and nurture a new generation of readers. With us tonight, we have Liz Rafon from Kodal Hospital. Ali and Abby. You can do say all the letters regional education service. So, thank you ladies. >> Can I can I also mention that um Stephanie was very involved and she pretty much did this. Can you all sort of explain what actually uh family gets when they're in the hospital? >> So, um previously kind of how it started was we did this pilot program with the company called Book Harvest and we were actually doing a two-part kit. And so the families would first get a kit in the family birthing center and it
004was a set of five books with a onesie inside that said book harvest on it. And then the second kit they would receive was in their first wellness visit in the pediatrics clinic and that would be the rest of the books which was five books total. They're all bilingual some contrast books. Um and so it's really really an awesome thing that we're able to provide and um essentially a starter library for newborns and families to be able to start at at such an early age. Um, so we're just really appreciative of the partnership and um, Stephanie's work um, with partnering with us and so we really thank you all. >> Yeah, this was a grant. The grant was >> the CLSD grant and comprehensive state literacy grant is from birth to 12th grade. So because
005it has that birth through prek kind of set aside that we were able to use that money to help support the program. And I know I've talked to some leadership at both the hospital and BSD and they're really excited about this. It's good for our community. We and um the program takes you to live in our district. You can live more in Tennessee across the river. >> Want to get books in families and kids hands. code so the parents can access videos to help them feel more confident in their interactions with their kids with their getting some parent education kind of in small doses too. And they also leave with us some of these handouts that are in front of correct >> the boxes. >> Yeah. Good. >> Thank you. Picture time. >> The daily
006story is writing an article that should be out tomorrow. >> Yeah, it is. >> It's a group effort. >> Picture time. Stephanie, picture time. on my tippy toes. >> Yep. Okay, everybody want to take a few good. >> Thank you again. >> Thank you very representative Quinn. Um so recently our spring sports started but with that starting pizzazz ended their season with getting first in hiphop and second in traditional at state. Um softball is currently ranked first in the USA with seven and one in their only loss being 51 against the Dallas. And there is a girls flag football game tomorrow uh at CH. So, it's a home type football game. Um, seniors have HSSI and every the 14th, 15th, and 16th of this month. And as well as forecasting for uh eighth graders through
007juniors for next year, and that will be April 22nd. Um, seven students recently attended uh the men scholarship and Alexis Torres received $1,000. Um we have peer presentations coming up the 22nd and 23rd uh for our advisories with our senior projects and uh the actual presentations I believe happen May 5th and 7th and uh we are having prom May 2nd and just getting together all the decorations and coordinating with the different food vendors right now. >> What does it cost? >> Tangle. >> Thanks. >> Uh item four is our consent agenda. >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? Anybody post report group of um last Friday I was able to spend actually Thursday and Friday I was able to spend some time at Aster and on
008Friday um it was it was incoming kindergarten PE day. So, Miss Car show set aside a period to um invite incoming kinders from all over the community. We had a big group from Bumble. We had a group from Simply Kids and then just individual parents bringing their children in. And Miss Garo, I'm I got to tell you, it was really something to see. She had them lined up. She had them stretching and then she did two complete activities with these little tiny kids who were just aruck by the size of that gym. And she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. And the first one was an obstacle course and they just I think they could have done that the whole time. They loved it so much. And then she gave them
009balloons and they spread out through the gym and they they had to stand in place and keep the balloon in the air and it was kind of it was kind of like a dreamlike state with these balloons just colorful balloons floating everywhere and kids smiling. It was really amazing to see and a huge success. I think um they were moving a lot but I counted about 33 kids. So it was a good group. I heard the week before that similarized group came to the library and I know they do a music day too. So that's a huge um plus for those kids and those parents to come in and see the building. And I think it all the more we can do that the more reduces anxiety for new families coming into our school system
010and um so just a really nice successful day for them. >> So a few things uh state testing kicking into gear. So, um, third through 8th grade, 11th grade for the next month or so. Um, but really been spending a lot of time on our RTI handbook. RTI is our response to intervention. So, that's like our tier one is our core and then our tier two is kind of students who need intervention support and then like tier three is kind of that more intensive support before we look at possibly considering like special education. So, it's been a while since we kind of gone through the RJ process. So, we've had the administrative team. We took a group of sped teachers and our literacy coaches in Travis and we direct training at Salem. And so we
011have a really good draft of like a chat handbook for academics. And then we have a meeting at end of April with an MTSS coach, an RTI coach from the ESD that's going to then help us kind of work on an RTI handbook for behavior around like um some good interventions for students who maybe just need some work on appropriate behavior in school and things like that. So by the end we'll have like a really solid RTI process in place and then um hopefully May June I'll have a proposal for you for health because we've postponed the health adoption for a year and then we've also been looking at social studies. So hopefully I'll have a couple of proposals for you in the next. So, um, next week we have our, um, OD state review.
012So, I've been getting all that documents together for them. Um, I've finished up, um, renewing our summer food service program for the summer. Um, and I've re applied for all the um, different sites before the SNAP and the Medicare changes. Um that way if we get them approved, I believe it's five years that they're good for before we have to redo it. Um and our rural sites that we can do non- congregate. Um and also I've been working on reapplying for the C um renewal for the same reason because I think at the current state they expire end of next school year I believe 27. So, if we redo it this year before the changes, um that will go all the way through the 2030 school year. So, I've got most of that done. Um
013and then we've got kind of an updated uh wellness policy that um we're going to get together with the wellness committee, go over any changes that were recommended from the um assessment we did. Um and then we'll bring the wellness policy to the board. >> Good evening. Um so a couple big things that we've been doing. We got the fence moved in out of Louis Clark when they got hit six months ago. We got that moved in and hoping that helps alleviate some traffic in front of Louis and Clark at the end of the school day. Um the lights for Louis and Clark came in yesterday. So we'll be installing those next week. Um the uh we got the flashing installed at the high school spring break and then finished today. Um just trying to
014stop some additional leaks that we have in the high school in some areas. Um oh we have about 90% of our summer stuff scheduled for outside vendors, feature inspections, fire doors, gym floors, like the whole list. So that's good. We're ahead of the game and everything scheduled on our timeline and >> thank you. We'll move on to item B, budget and program information. >> Yeah. So, that was supposed to we had in the study session, but um ran short of time. Um we just have three tonight. Special ed services for our district. I think we did uh EST special services before. We have increased school promise and health services. Um you probably are aware quite a bit of the information about sped other than I look at the allocation amount in the second column and
015I realize we spend over $5 million on special edition funds and then $340,000 out of federal and then some some out of SIA grants. So, we're almost at $6 million for spent and you go over a few other columns and we're capped at, we've been talked about this in budget, we're capped at 11%. But our rate right now is uh 19.6%. So, we're losing budgeting a little over 8% there. Um, it will be a point of discussion and contention as we move forward. We have 334 students out of 171 students that are on IEDs and um that's been a lot of a lot of certified a lot of classified employees that are special ed more so than I've ever had in my 30 years in this district but we have some more special ed kids
016so pretty reliable funding u we have to make it reliable um because we have to u spend as much money as close as we can to the monthly money to spend a year here before you can't cut special ed services unless there's dramatic changes in programs. But we've been through also the budget guide we have really two two kinds of special ed services resource rooms and then the consortium and self-contained classrooms. That's special. Any questions about special? And we're looking at the same amount of staffing levels for next year. We've been meeting this week about that. Uh, next one is the um preschool promise. You know, it's interesting about the preschool promise. We've had this publicly for 12, 13 years now, not that long. And um, the way they do it is you have to
017have a certain amount of poverty level in certain areas of your community to have a preschool promise. And when this first came out, uh, they didn't find any schools in our area. and our areas were like Columbia County and Classup County. And I actually got a call and I said, "We're ready. Within, you know, a month we could pull this off." So, we got a preschool promise with how many slots we have? 16 18 slots. And we weren't really supposed to get it, but nobody else was ready for it. And um they haven't been able to expand for a while. So, we've been able to keep this in good and it's been really good so far. We it um it's we have a preschool promise where six 18 slots. We're required to have two uh
018classified people in there and we have one certified teacher. We do have anywhere from 18 to 20 kids in there. Um it's a weird not weird it's just different how they select them. There's a pool of students and there's the same pool of students are in Head Start. Correct. Head start has a different um percentage over poverty level but they could sometimes they have a choice between going to head start or our program. >> Yeah. But it's we don't get to select the kids. They're selected. >> It's selected for us. Yes. >> The kids but then we do have general ed kids that do come to the program also if we have any extra slots open. Um so reliable I'm pretty sure they're going to they are going to continue. I know this this benium
019uh they're going to continue it but there was discussion at the legislative level about uh preschool and this is for three to five year olds and we have three year olds so they're that's true >> they're small so uh but it's good um so really like that program and we moved it out of here down over to Aster where they can be around more kids at their age good and the last one is um health services. Um there's an description of what health services that we provide there. This is equal to two full-time nurses impact all students in the district. This is all funded through general ed funding. There's no special funding for nursing services. Um and for us to keep it, we'll need to budget for the FTE to maintain those services. um are
020nurses. There's one that does shares two elementaryaries and one that shares the middle school high school. I think uh Tara at the elementary has specific dates and she specific schools. I think Olivia goes to each school each day to deal with some special health concerns that kids have. So, um two good quality employees that make your health services good. So, any questions about any of those? What's the uh maybe you already exper the maintenance of effort required? >> Yeah, Travis will explain that. I tried to say something but Travis will explain a little bit better. >> So when we hire staff and dedicate funds for staffing, the state expects those levels to remain the same year after year. And if you don't, you have to explain why you're not maintaining that effort. That's the maintenance
021of effort. And if you have like a large class or you're combining school districts, there are exceptions that you can make to say this is why our maintenance of effort is reducing, but typically they want to see those those funding levels staying pretty consistent. They um yeah because they look at the extra funds that they give us and they want um they want the level to they don't want us to be using it on nonsped items. So they really watch what we spend it on and that our levels stay consistent. There are exemptions. Like if we had a really expensive teacher leave and we hired a less experienced teacher which was cheaper, we can explain that. But there's only a few reasons. >> Programs. >> Yeah. >> Figured your most atrisisk population. We need to
022maintain the service that you provide. Is it supposed to be extra funds for the So, you're supposed to spend the same amount of money on all of your students and then you use these extra funds for your fed students, not not using your your main money, not spending it on anyway. It's just >> they're looking for consistency. >> Yeah. But um and that everyone Yeah. And consistent is the word. >> That's they they really look at it closely. >> All right. So, we'll move to items are the finance report. Um, finance wise this year and things been coming in very smoothly which has been great because at the beginning of the year it sounded like that wasn't going to be the case. This year has turned out much smoother than anticipated. Um, the only other
023thing I wanted to mention was that um, our budget our first budget meeting is coming up. It's May 6 at Wednesday, May 6th at 5:35. We'll be starting to dig into that May 6th and then last one is May 18th. So, as a reminder, and then also I wanted to kind of um remind you all, these three of you, that your government ethics questionnaire is due a week from today, April 15th. Let me know if you have any issues, need fresh. >> You don't want to go to government's jail, right? Yeah, >> I don't know if I did that or not. >> Sorry. I thought I did. I think I did in my mind. >> Okay. >> Well, and actually someone I talked to out in the hallway, >> he had but he hadn't hit
024submit. >> I was like, I'm pretty sure this block. Yeah. >> Okay. Thanks for the reminder. >> Now move on to item D, our enrollment report. >> Yes. So, we're down four students at 1,700. Um, you know, it's interesting. We're down, you talked about our enrollment being down, but it's really only down 11 kids from the beginning of the school year. And one of the things that we're seeing is from other districts who are really having a hard time with their budgets is because they're showing a lot bigger decrease in their enrollment over the school year and last year for that matter. Um so I know um because I've received some emails from the school district. One of the main reasons they're cutting is they lost a lot of kids. Uh, and a lot like
025we've lost a lot also, but ours are like slowly. They're more more steeper, but our classes are good. >> So, okay, we'll move on to item six, uh, patron comments and questions. Um, at this time I would like to invite any member of the audience that submitted public comment to prepare to speak for about items of interest or concern this evening. Patrons were asked to submit public comment prior to the meeting. We will take comment in the order received. Please begin by stating your name. If you live in the school district, it would be appreciated if you would limit your comments to three minutes so that we can keep the meeting moving in a timely fashion and allow others the opportunity to speak. We ask that you remember that the Oregon law prohibits us from
026discussing specific employees or your job performance. Thank you for your support school district. And look, we have Carl Hbert. >> Hello. Hey. So, everybody knows me, Carl Hbert. I live in the school district a um I have two children in the school district as you know. I'm on budget committee on the equity committee. So, um I bring this up. So we're April coming up the May 1st Mayday uh traditional communist day of celebration. Also labor unions use it as a day to celebrate workers and advocate for workers. Great. So political activity. So last May I was dropping my children off school and I see outside the school with my teachers or whatever was picket signs and out wearing red shirts and I really couldn't read the signs because they were small and maybe my eyesight
027wasn't as good but my both my kids like hey what's going on there like I have no idea what's happening it was on school pro like something's going on they're picketing and chanting and whatever and so drop the kids off and I make some calls I say what's happening on school property. We have a policy against political activity going on. And the answer I got back was, well, what happened? Uh, the union came in, his union came in last minute, asked to do this. Uh, it was approved by the the superintendent office in good faith and then, uh, so apparently majority of the the building principles did not know this was going to go on. They were caught kind of unaware I was like this is happening. So um I asked also hey was school
028supplier used to make bank of signs and how come we're doing this on school time what I was told let's not take this in good faith that oh they need bought the stuff and then uh then the teachers came in whoever's participating came in early whatever um but still you know it was like you know teachers conducting of the union because And if you're talking activity on school grounds, we have a policy against uh I I'll take in good faith that okay, the union bought the supplies. But when you show up to school to work, you need to be working, not working on your class, working on your lesson plans, there's stuff to be done, not showing out, showing outside looking at the parents and and these little kids holding basically a political rally. Now,
029if the union wants to do stuff like that, great. All more power to them. I supported it. Take a day of leave. Take your red shirts and your science. Go stand. You know, the obvious place in that story and do your thing. Hey, I love that. Great. Um, but to do it on school grounds, uh, is against policy. Now, like I said, I think the, um, I think the the sense office, I think it was, and you were gone, I'm leaving. uh I think was proved in good faith but I think was executed in bad faith and it was it was it was political activity disguised as support for teachers and staff. I'm more teachers and staff. That's great. My parents were teachers. I support the school. I support the teachers. I support the district.
030But I think it was executed in bad faith and there was some shenanigans going on. And so then, you know, we sit here in February and I listen to this the uh the the union's representative con concerned about losing couple days for next school year because of the shift with with uh uh Thanksgiving, the whole week. Now, they end up getting the two days. They didn't lose pay, which is great. But I find it ironic and dishonest to sit up here and be concerned about two days to pay when they have time during a school day to get to go back to being in violation of policy on school grounds. So I guess my ask is and my concern is that if this is going to be asked again, it be it be denied is
031there were a lot of their parents that were concerned about it. Now you as a board have been doing in my opinion great job of looking at all of the issues confronting the district. We're looking at these this declining enrollment which is due to all sorts of things. You're coming up all kinds of kind of really cool ways to address it particularly the online uh charter school which I think is really cool. But when this stuff happens it pressure things out for me. And this this isn't the reason people are leaving but it is a reason because people don't want to have activity when they're dropping their kids off at school. So anyhow uh that's what I got to say. So I've asked that if if it's asked again it it be not allowed to
032happen on school grounds and and if it's as be like for support team like well let's look at it and and really scrutinize what exactly they're asking for because the optics of it were horrible last year. It was horrible optics. All right, we are going to move on to item seven, which is information. Um, item eight is unfinished business any nine is new business starting with the June 30th, 2025 financial audit approval. >> So, we have a presentation. David from Holly Rogers is on the line and he was just gonna go over the um the communication governing board that is didn't get any. >> Good evening everyone. >> Yeah. >> Can y'all hear me? >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Wonderful. Thank you to the board for having this evening. As Mindy mentioned, my name is
033David Bletzo. the audit, one of the audit managers with Poly Rogers and Company. I've been working on the Histori School District audit for a couple years now and here to present the results of the fiscal 24 to 25 audit. As a reminder of the board, you're not getting audited because of anything you did wrong. It's a matter of public law. Everyone in Oregon gets audited every single year. Uh with that being said, Mindy, did you have a chance to distribute the board letter I sent to you a couple hours ago? >> Yes, they have it. Yes. >> Wonderful. Cool. Um, I'm going to start with that document if folks want to kind of shuffle that in front of them. It should be about nine or 10 pages. Uh, once everyone has a brief moment to
034shuffle there. Uh, the first page of the governing body letter has three bullet points right there at the top. That's kind of the highlight rule or the three objectives of our audit. We did an audit uh to essentially see gap rules that is a barely accepted accounting principles or do you follow all of the accounting rules that are required for a government in the United States. The second one is limited work over Oregon municipal audit law. That's things like teacher experience reporting budget to actuals as well as bid quote compliance. And the third audit that we did this year is over your federal spending. Uh when you spend more than $750,000 of federal funds, you're required to have a separate financial audit over those programs. Uh if you all could flip to page two, there's
035results audit section with uh numbers one, two, and three. Uh the results of the audit section um are as follows. Uh we issued an unmodified opinion on the majority of the school district's report. We did issue a modification for Gazby 96 of explaining what that is. Uh, Gazsby's are both the governing body that writes all of the accounting rules and every time write a rule, they issue a numbered statement. Statement 96 was required to be implemented for fiscal year 2023 and the district has not uh implemented thus far as it results to the audit itself. This is what we refer to as a governmentwide only item. That's a long way to say it shows up on the statement that position similar to the pensions do. It has no impact on your funds or what you
036budget for or really what money you spend on an annual basis. The second bullet point notes we did not have any issues with state minimum standards. Again, that's things like bid quote compliance, all teacher experience reporting. And the third one refers to the federal single audit that we did this year. We actually did two different single audits. We looked at both title 1A spending as well as the child nutrition cluster, noting no issues across both of those single audits. Outside of that, we did implement another new accounting rule this year, Gazby statement 101 for compensated absences. It largely expands the width and breadth of reporting of compensated absences to include things like sick time instead of just vacation. Um, the next couple pages of the board letter go over a couple upcoming accounting rules. Statements
037103, 104. Neither one of those will be tremendously impactful to the reporting nor your staff's time like the past couple have been. Uh, on the final two pages of the governing body letter, there are a couple recommendations and comments to the board. Happy to kind of walk you through them. I will note numbers one, two, three, and four are the exact same that was there last year. It will likely be there this year. It's nothing you did wrong, just matters of uh things we bring to nearly everyone's attention state. The first one uh relates to just the size of the business office. Mindy has to wear a couple different hats. So, in order to be agile enough to do her job, she has access to a couple different items in brief. Uh the second one
038is just a general reminder to the board to continue doing the good work as far as government's activities and to articulate them in the minutes. The third one is referring to fidelity insurance coverage. This is something I've told every single government in Oregon uh every single year. Uh at any point in the year, you have more cash in a district bank account than you have fidelity insurance for. That isured across every school district of any measurable size in the state. Nothing really you can do about that. It's not a specific comment about FDIC insurance nor about your staff. It's just going to have a communication about insurance thresholds. Uh the fourth one is something similar. Uh you contract out to the education service district to host your accounting software. In doing that, there is a
039small downstream risk that if the ESD itself were to have a data integrity issue or get hacked, your employees information could be exposed. Uh we've seen no evidence of that, but it's just a general comment we give to everyone who has ESD hosting. The fifth item is the only one new this year. We in our review of bank reconciliations, we noticed a couple steel data checks. Uh so it's just recommendation to take a look at those and consider turning them over to the state unclaimed property department. >> Uh that's kind of the highlight reel of the audit. I'm happy to go through the actual audit report to the extent anyone's interested in hearing me talk about accounting at this uh this evening or happy to answer any questions y'all may have. You want to go
040in? >> I don't want. >> No. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you everyone. I appreciate you having this evening and thank you again to Mindy and the rest of the business office for assisting us for the audit this year. >> Thank you, David. I move to approve the June 30th, 2025 financial audit. I'll second those in favor. >> I move to item B, the resolution 2025 20226005 recommendation guide to coaching. This was a based on public comment last meeting um in which you spoke and um asked for the board support on it. I figured the support would be in the form of a resolution. I've read the whole thing and I'm find that it's good resource the board would like to I'll make a motion to approve the 2526 005 recognition uh guide book to
041coaching. >> All those in favor >> can we read it? >> Resolution. I can read it. It's right here. >> We're on the last page. >> Um, Atoria School District Board of Directors, a resolution recognizing the guide book to coaching as a philosophical reference for athletic programs. Whereas the Atoria School District recognizes that athletics are a vital component of a student's education. And whereas the district seeks to promote a culture that prioritizes the mastery of fundamentals and team excellence. And whereas the a guide book to coaching authored by Bob Ellburg and Dave Gasser provides a framework emphasizing student well-being, competence, safety, respect, parental engagement, and mentorship. And whereas the district believes that these core strategies effectively prepare students for lifelong success, they'll therefore be it resolved by the Atoria School District board of directors. Section
042one, the board of director directors recognizes the 2026 version of a guide book to coaching accessed on April 8, 2026 as a supplemental philosophical resource that aligns with the district's values for athletic departments, coaches, and staff. Section two, the board supports the core principles outlined in this resolution and encourages the athletic director to use these values as benchmarks for training, recruitment, and coaching staff adoption for staff guidance. Adopted this 8th day of April, 2026. Thanks. Uh item C policy G CBD E G DBD E military absence reading >> the military one just um changes the amount of days someone can have the military maybe it's not changing just update And it also state they can use their own update policy. >> Do we have a lot of staff who utilize them? >> You know, I
043know we just had one because that person was on leave. >> So, um one >> just one. We have more because I know we sometimes celebrate them like Veterans Day or that type of stuff but from a lease standpoint just one recently gone for couple months five weeks item DVDA moving now for virtual public to school student enrollment. Yeah, it has nothing to do with us crazy school but history from now on because we'll be watching closely. It just talks about it just talks about a percentage of you can hold the percentage of your kids without releasing them. And we've never gotten to a point where we had two like if our 3% is whatever 15 20 students we never even got close to there. But I honestly I don't know what I would do
044if I got older because um feel like I have a responsibility to like carry out a good program for kids. If they don't want to be here because something's wrong, then we need to have better programs to hold them back. And I think it's one of the things that we've learned through our process with our charter school is there are districts in the valley and other places that are not releasing kids. And um now that they're not released, they're not there is not signing the form and those kids then come to us. >> I the policy IGB program exemptions. >> Yeah. So this is another one as Grace mentioned before. This was last adopted in 2003. A lot has happened since then. And it was not when we got this new policy. it wasn't even
045close to what it would look like. So, um this will be updated. Um this just has to do with uh the ability the parents to opt out um specifically having a disability and there's a court case down at the very bottom um for a disability accommodation. So, that's what the whole the exemption policy is for parents out. Moving on to item 10 comments a register. >> Yeah, a couple things. Um, a few things. Um I want to state this before the next meeting but all schools I've already started but doing a lot of activities around the column centennial and then we have three days in a row where we're spending the whole day up there just con up there and been working really closely with um class county historical society and they're going to have
046activities for kids to do and learning activities up the column. So that's been been great. Um, I have scheduled next month. I've wanted to do this for years, but I've scheduled next month for the validictorians to come and they better come. They can budget the last time. So, otherwise to get the other group to come, but they'll all be here and we'll honor them. Um, Representative Wanich is here and I know Tyler and Grace and maybe they can talk a little about to really proud of our kids um at the middle school and some of the com uh conversations that they had and questions they had for her were really insightful and um um not only talked about school but some of the things that their families are going through and their fears and things
047like that. So, it's good. Um over the next three weeks starting next Thursday I'm doing presentations at each of the schools and um the presentations are on three things. One I promised them each uh twice a year I will go share the strategic plan indicators with them. We just shared with the board a month or two ago. So I'm sharing that and I talk a little bit about the budget and what we can look for. And I'm also people are real uh curious about the charter school. other questions and um that so I did also attend a state dance competition and our girls took uh first in uh hiphop and second in traditional. I thought they should win first in both but I was a little biased on that. Um and we've been Mindy and
048I have been in meetings all week um with departments and uh administrators on budgets and uh they've been very good so far. I just wanted to mention um Rhonda's not here tonight because her she and two other drivers drove down to Koquil and picked up our new used vehicles from them and are driving them home now and so they she was so hopeful that they're going to work out get them out into a fleet. Um is having some struggles like broke down. These are minis that we got. Um we have a large bus that broke down yesterday. So she has been having to do a lot of rearranging vehicle wise. for happy should have been on other ones because there was a whole disc but it's fine. >> They have low miles >> nothing. >>
049Thank you. Um, I thought I'd just share what the student body is thinking of this proposed change by Mr. Jackson. And obviously the class the classes below this um aren't too fond of this if they obviously have that status. Um, but I think it's a great proposed idea. I just think I don't know. I was doing the numbers and he was talking about the next class of 25 people in this category and our class has seven. That's I did the math and it's like right now for my class it's one in 20 people would be val Victorian and then and this next year it be about one in six if the number stayed the same and to me I feel like although we shouldn't be chasing this this title or like this prestige I feel
050like maybe if we added another team it didn't even have to be GPA related be taking a certain amount of college credits could get you it or something for uh students to just look forward too as well. I just feel like one in six people for this the highest thing is a little too high for me. >> Yeah. >> Um thanks for your input and um the dance team. Congratulations to the dance team and um it was neat to hear about the uh books from birth and just the community collaboration. Um yeah, I don't know. Feels like everything's going pretty good. I'm excited about the progress with the virtual charter school and um that's all. I will echo what Craig said about um it was it was really neat to see the kids interact with
051Monichi. That was seemed to go really well. Um new fence at this park does look really nice and I'm glad that lights are coming. I've gotten several complaints about the flashing lights not working. >> So have I. >> Yeah, I bet you have. >> And it'll be nice to have some parking there. kind of a dangerous spot. Thanks Carl for public comment tonight and my sharing policy. >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you. I appreciate that input too about student body that those numbers are put things a little bit into perspective that I don't know just appreciate that. Um I also wanted to say thank you to um Mike Kelly for being proactive in securing the eligibilities um and thinking about that for us um as a district. They really appreciate that. Um and then um
052I was going to mention about the visit with the senator as well. Um it was a really interesting I was actually a little bit emotional in um the group of students that um there's still a lot of fear among our students in um just they're going to be here um and if they are safe and um um and then also just fear of the future in general. And I I don't like across the board. It didn't matter what group of students it was. And I I don't know as a district how to directly impact that. But I want like I feel like the fact that they keep showing up to school tells us that they are they do feel safe in in our schools and I appreciate that. Um but it was um kind of
053heartbreaking some of the comments and questions um just things that I definitely wasn't thinking about as a senator. And then there were the overachievers that were going to be neurosurgeons and CRNAs related to have their own stressors. But anyway, um I it really impacted me. I was very emotional restless that day was really just so >> well they would like to ask my family to be saved. >> Yeah. >> To her. >> Yeah. Or am I gonna like is there a chance that I might not be a citizen? >> Yeah. Like so. But even the questions about like will I have enough money to do something after high school? Like if my family doesn't have money, can I go to college? Like I don't know. Just like all the things like I was definitely not
054thinking about that when I was 12. >> That's all. >> Thank you. Um, thanks you guys for going to that. Um, it's definitely kind of nice to for everybody to see this perspective of um, somebody that maybe wasn't born here or has different backgrounds. um because uh I don't think people really understand the true feeling of what these children feel or express or what they live through on the daily unless they're in their shoes just like anybody else of course but I think there's an extra fear on top of what already goes on of like insecurities daily life. Um so thank you guys for going and being able to set that up with her and everything. Um, I'm excited for prompt to hear how it goes with the tangle theme. I think that's going to
055be fun. Um, yeah, I think that's it for me. I am excited to see how Mr. Jackson's proposal is going to go. Can't wait to roll out. Um, I know it does put in perspective like, oh, one in every six, but if one in every those children are going to just try to do um, you know, get out of their comfort zone and try more, like, I'm all for it. Like, everybody could be a valid Victorian for me if they if they're willing to want to exceed beyond, you know, what their limitations are. So, I think that's awesome. I can't wait to hear all the comments he gets. And, yeah, that's it for me. Um, our future meetings are Wednesday, May 13th, we're at 5:45 a board study session and followed uh by 7 o'clock
056for a regular board meeting. Um now we move on to item 12 session for award is 192 officer and any public body and public officer member who does not request an open hearing. Representatives of the new media and staff shall be allowed to attend session. All other members of the audience are absolutely good. Representatively direct or nor otherwise disclose any deliberations or anything said about the subject during the executive session except to state a general subject of session as previously announced. No decision may be made in executive session. At the end of the session, we will return to open session and welcome the audience back into the room. Go. >> All right. Now we are moving on to open session. Um and then we are ready to adjourn the meeting. Can I get >> I
057move to adjourn the meeting. I'll second. >> All in favor? >> All right. feeding it.