001Welcome. All right, let's start with roll call. Blake >> Robert. Robert's going to be late. Merl >> here. Kelsey. >> Thanks, Glenn. >> Jenny here. >> We got you, Kelsey. Crystal here. All right, we will move on to 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. All right. If you had a chance, I would take a motion for the agenda. I'll make a motion we approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Perfect. Any discussion? Moving on to a vote. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Do we have any public comments? >> I didn't look. None. We're good. >> All right. ASB Um, I want to
002start off by apologizing on behalf of us because we just recently found out how we're supposed to be coming to the board meetings like like what we're supposed to bring and represent from our school and it's kind of like awkward since we've already been to a few meetings and we didn't know how this work. >> Yeah. You know what? All of us have a lot of grace for each other because this is a learning curve. >> Yeah. >> So, I just appreciate that you actually came back and didn't fail. And thanks again for like being on the cheer team, too. So, you're good. >> Thank you. >> Um, so first off with one of our clubs is been FFA. Um, their most recent activity was they had a stand at Wilco handing out like food
003and cookies and snacks to try and help fund their program. >> Excellent. Um FBLA will have will be having their first uh testing for regionals is this week I'm pretty sure. >> Um our club ASB we've been working on a lot of just our new school dances um assemblies that we do throughout the week and just like uh new ideas about what we can do for our school. Oh yeah, just to mention um we do have a an assembly this Friday for student of the term and I think we're going to have when we come back from break for winter formal or >> NHS Oh yeah, they're starting to plan their blood drive which is going to be February 19th. Um yeah, I think question. Yeah, that's from what we know. That's >> from what
004we know right now. That's it. But we'll definitely come next meeting more prepared and we'll have like um all the clubs tell us what they're up to and what they have going on so you guys are more informed. >> Thank you so much. >> We will not be offended if you're leaving for a game. >> Thank you. >> Have a great one. >> Thank you. I'm getting dee. Hey will not be here tonight. Moving on. Uh we are gonna do I need to read this or we good for acknowledgement just mentioning it >> for the budget. >> Acknowledgement is just fine. >> Okay. So just to acknowledge we have a notice of budget vacancies for and there's an FAQ and a candidate application in here. Um, I'm sure there's more information if you want to
005contact the district office. Diane, >> when are you requesting those be in? >> January 26. >> Okay. >> And just a note that we've moved to an online applica application. So, it's hopefully easier for folks. But if people do have any difficulty accessing it, they can just contact Diane and we can we can always go old school paper pencil if that's helps people. But we thought that the online form would be easier. >> Thanks, Moral >> are all four positions three-year positions and so are older the ones that are already on or returning the other three of them as soon >> their terms are not up yet. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> All right. Moving on. We have to acknowledge an overnight field trip of the high school wrestling tournament December 12th and 13th
006in Kuz Bay. We have also acknowledge overnight field trip high school varsity boys basketball also in Kous Bay December 18th through the 20th. Moving on to consent agenda. I would entertain a motion So >> second. >> Any discussion? >> Hearing none. We'll move to a vote. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Go ahead. You good? >> Okay. Blake was just signed. Okay. Um Oh, I'm sorry. All those opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Number six, business and budget. Wonderful. Thank you all. Um, so, uh, financial reports as well as a memo are available linked on our board agenda. Uh, so tonight I'm going to be sharing with you uh, a couple of couple of details. Uh, first piece I'm going to discuss real quick is a financial report timeline adjustment. and then we'll talk
007uh we'll move into some uh budget variances that we've identified for 25 the current fiscal year 202526 just letting you know where we're sitting and then a quick summary on looking ahead. So in terms of the financial report that is linked on the uh website as well as in in the agenda uh you may notice that this again is a financial report ending October 31, 2025. The financial report that was provided at the November board meeting also was as of October 31, 2025. However, the timing of our board meetings does not allow for the complete what is called close of a financial month by the second Monday of a month. And to provide a financial report on in this case it was I think November 10th for the calendar month of October. it does not
008fully encompass all of that activity that needs to be fully reconciled, reviewed and analyzed. So what we are doing uh moving forward to provide um everybody with a complete and comprehensive financial report as well as the critical analysis of that um at this December meeting I'm presenting the October month end financial report and moving forward your financial reports will be approximately six weeks uh um behind if you will. So our January meeting will have a November close report. I do really believe that um this is going to provide uh more indepth uh information and greater analysis uh for for the board. If there were to be any urgent issues within that that time period between that month end close and the current board meeting, we absolutely would be bringing those to your attention as well.
009Uh I made a note that property tax collections uh are underway. So, I know as much as we all grown when we get the bill in the mail for our property tax uh collections, the school counts on those property tax collections for a significant source of our revenue. When people pay their property tax bill, we receive revenue. When people choose not to pay their property tax re bill, we do not receive revenue. So, property tax collections are very impacted by economic indicators and so there are concerns in uh when there are economic issues happening in our communities that can greatly impact the revenue that that a school district sees. And then finally, uh just wanted to share that um a state revenue forecast came out on November 19th, just a week after our last board
010meeting. It did provide a more positive outlook than originally anticipated. However, still uh projects that the state of Oregon budget has a deficit that needs to be uh rectified. uh the legislative uh legislature will be meeting in February and March for what's known as the short session and will decide what adjustments are going to be necessary to the state budget to balance the uh state budget for the bianium which we are now a quarter of the way through already that began July 1 of 25. So any budgetary impacts that they choose to uh make say as announced in in March of 2026, we're already nearly halfway through the bienium. So I will use a perfect example. If they reduced um funding to Oregon Health Plan by 1% because you're already halfway through a a bianium,
011it technically would be almost a 2% essentially a 2% cut in that second year because you it is a it is a reduction to that bienium funding. We will definitely keep the board up to date as we learn more on that. So up on your screen, I've also wanted to point out a few of the um budget impacts that we're already uh aware of for this year. Um this first slide is showing our beginning fund balance and the green bar at the top is showing where our beginning fund balance for our general fund was on July 1 of 2024. So we're talking a year and a half ago now. Our July 1, 2025 budgeted beginning fund balance was 2.021 million. While our audit is in the final stages of being completed, I am expecting that
012that beginning fund balance will come in just a bit short of what was budgeted at 1.895 million, which is a reduction in anticipated resources of 126,000 for this year. Beginning fund balance essentially is what do you expect that you have money money on hand that can be used for your expenditures within the year. So essentially this is $126,000 of revenue that will not be available for this year. Unfortunately on the next slide this is another significant budget impact that um I'm projecting. Uh the green bar is showing our actual transportation costs in uh the 24-25 school year. Uh the hope was that those costs could be reduced for the 202526 school year uh with a reduction in the budgeted amount. Unfortunately, at this point, um our projections are that our transportation costs are going to
013come in closer to 2.8 8 million potentially creating a $500,000 excess expenditure uh over the budget. The financial report that is linked online indicates um this very finding and I I really encourage people to to look through that financial report uh for additional information on where we are projecting our budget may we we may come in under budget on expenses where we may come in over budget on expenses. I've included a quick slide regarding our enrollment. Um you know unfortunately in the month of November we did see a reduction of eight students. Um every student is is critical to our success and we are doing everything we can to engage as many students and retain as many students as we can. But as our state school funding is tied directly to enrollment as well as
014a lot of our grants are tied directly to enrollment uh making sure we we have uh as as many kiddos here as we can attract is is key. So finally looking ahead um this is a table that is included on the bottom of the financial report um this month. Again that financial report is linked in the uh agenda but I added this this month uh to show at this point in time I am projecting our revenue could come in approximately $331,000 above what we budgeted. That is a positive variance. I'm projecting our expenditure variance could be 117,000 and that would mean that is again a positive variance meaning we will spend 117,000 less than budgeted. Again this encompasses that $500,000 excess expenditure on transportation because it is my projection at this point in time that
015there are other buckets that are going to come in under budget. So, you've got certain buckets that that are projected to come in over budget, others projected to come in under. As the year continues to go on, we will be monitoring that and it may require some board action to modify our budget authority between those budget uh buckets, excuse me, budget buckets. At this point, um you know, I am projecting a potential ending fund balance on July 30, excuse me, June 30 of 2026. potentially over 1.7 million. However, I really really need to stress that that positive projection for revenue includes approximately $280,000 of extra revenue we are receiving right now due to our increased transportation costs and due to our ranking statewide. and we are currently projected to receive 80% reimbursement on our transportation
016costs. If one other district comes in $1 per student higher than us on transportation costs, we will drop to a 70% reimbursement. So when I'm saying I think we're going to spend 2.8 million on transportation, if they're giving us 80% and then they drop to 70%, that is $280,000 that we would have to hand back to the state of Oregon. We will not have that answer until May of 2027 after all audits are completed. And I I know we've talked about this, but it's just extremely critical that we continue to stress the importance of our ending fund balance may include funds that are truly not uh yet secure. Additionally, the expenditure variance that I'm showing that is with the idea that we will continue to be extremely conscious of our spending and we have been
017working with our administrators to really work on on on looking at things with a new lens and looking at our expenditures to make sure it is truly the best use of our resources. uh those we must must must must closely continue to monitor all of our expenditures to meet this these targets. So that is the uh financial update I have for you this evening. All right, >> if you guys have any questions, you can send them to me and I will be sure to get you answers uh as soon as I can. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving on. Uh SIA grant. Okay. So, we gave you guys a report um last month about our uh school um SIA grant and gave you information about our expenditures and like how we're planning to the
018thing that they told us we didn't have to do but apparently we did was let you know that we also have grant agreements. And so these are the grant agreements. Um they do need to be approved, right? as so that we can then say tell the state that you have approved and they will release the funds to us. So pull that up and it basically is just the agreements that um can you you you know the agreement part these are uh a a uh intergovernmental agreement uh that indicates uh the parameters of the grant. It'll define the amounts of the grant. It'll define the responsibilities of each party as well as a lot of legal ease. So, you are absolutely welcome to read all 28 pages of the linked grant agreement uh for your uh
019reading pleasure and uh but we will need uh board approval to uh to accept the >> accept the funds. >> And this is also post posted on our website um with our SIA report that we did um in the fall. so that K can look at it. All right. Do I hear a motion? >> We make a motion that we approve the grant as ready to submit. >> Do I hear a second? >> I I'll second that. >> Any discussion? what it was masterfully done. I was hoping I read the whole 28 pages, but I read them on different. >> Thanks, Marl. Okay, hearing none, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Motion carries. Superintendent report. >> All right. Well, this is our annual deeper dive into the
020state report card. And so Desiree and I are going to walk you through how to understand the state report. She's going to take uh first several slides uh until we get into some of the data that are tied to my goals and then we'll kind of tag team it from there. So I'm going to turn it over to her to kind of walk you through how to understand the state report card. Sure. >> So, I won't go into a lot of depth on this just because I know we have a lot of uh the board members have been with us and you guys are familiar, but I just wanted to give just an overview of what you see when we get the state report cards. So, we get two different state report cards for each
021of our schools. The first are just this general profile overview and then the other ones are called detail reports where they go into the more specifics and um longitudinal data on each of the different categories that um we are measured on from the state. So the first section we get to learn a little bit about each of our schools and who they serve. Um the enrollment that is listed is about the first day of school or first day in October um for 25 20 24 25 um as well as just information about our um makeup of our students and our uh staff and who serves our students. Then it has a section about the different pieces of the staff um including what is our generalized FTE, how many counselors and school psychologists do we have.
022Um the teachers defined as anybody who is a teacher, a headteer or special education teacher or physical education teachers. So that's the where that number of teachers is. Um and then it also talks about our retention rate. So how new are our teachers? Do we have teachers who have worked with us for multiple years as well as the retention rate of our principal? Then it breaks down into each of the main categories that we get scores on. And for all of the schools, there are basics like our class size and our regular attenders. And you're going to get both where we're at as well as what the average for the state of Oregon is. And then for our elementary and our middle schools, we also get scores on their English language arts and mathematics and
023science. This does not exist on the primary school because they don't test until third grade. But on uh the intermediate school and the middle school, you get that academic success. And then for the high school, we get our academic success as measured by on-time graduation, our five-year completion rate, and our collegegoing rate. I will just as a disclaimer, these are just images that I grabbed from the state. These are not from our report card. You can but you can see that um I've linked all of our report cards in the board report I provided and they will also be provided on our website and we'll send out tomorrow morning a message to parents letting them know that they can view our school report cards there. And then for our elementary and middle schools, they break
024down the different metrics by our demographic areas. So, our regular attenders, English language arts and mathematics. And then again, we break it down for our high school as well with our regular attenders, English language arts and mathematics. So, with that, um the other piece and I is it the next slide? Yes. Okay. So just as a reminder when we think about the school report cards gives us big information about each of the schools but the actual integrated plan metrics the things we are then measured on as a district are regular attenders third grade reading eighth grade math 9th grade on track to graduate and 10th grade on or 12th grade on time graduation. And with that and this is something that's kind of important. So you're when you see the differences in the data when
025we look at our school report cards that is all the students. So for example in the intermediate school we're seeing the average scores for reading for example of third fourth and fifth grade. But when we talk about it at the district level and when we talk about the district report card because it also has a profile view, it is just for third grade that we're looking at. So you're going to notice, for example, that we're going to talk about third grade reading scores because that's our integrated plan. It's what Dan's um uh goals are written around. But when you look at the intermediate schools reading scores, they're actually going to be lower than the scores we talk about today because we pulled out just the third grade scores. Whereas the report card is talking about
026third, fourth, and fifth grade. Same thing with math at the middle school. It's sixth, seventh, and eighth. But we're going to only talk about eighth grade because that's what we're measured on for the state. >> Okay. So, we're going to kick things off by talking about one of the things that the state looks judges you on is your participation rates. And we've had conversations before about this, especially when you look at those high school numbers being um being much lower. And so um and so you can see that we are above the state average at the intermediate and middle school in both of those areas. And then this kind of takes you into a deeper area where it says, you know, so for instance, at the intermediate school, we met in all categories except that
027we were below that 94.5 uh for students experiencing disabilities and multi-racial students and then obviously did not meet in high school. And so I think it's one of the things to really important that you know this the state brought these expectations around uh probably almost going back all the way back to No Child Left Behind in those eras because that was an era where we wanted to test every single student because you couldn't compare apples to apples if certain schools said, "Hey, we're not going to test every kid. We're not going to maybe test our students with disabilities." And then you'd have these these testing rates that were, you know, not comparable. And so I do think it's really important to keep if we're going to be compared and we are going to be compared
028in the future with neighboring districts and across the state, it's important that we all try to raise it so that we're all we're um we're testing, you know, all students. And I will say, and this is sort of tangental, but there are conversations happening around removing the ease of the opt out because the the the pressure around the accountability conversations that the governor and the legislature have had and you know, school districts have said, so where's the accountability if people can just opt out so easily? So, it'll be really interesting. I don't think that's going to come around in a short session, but I'm really curious as to how does that accountability conversation, you know, uh, play itself out when, uh, it is hard to have apples to apples conversation when opting out is so
029easy. So, that was a tangential comment. >> No, and it's a a good example. And actually, here's our high school participation rate by demographic. Um, one of the, you know, with the point that Dan's making about the ease of opt out for the SBA, um, parents literally just have to fill out a form or let us know like they're not going to do it. We don't have to, we cannot question them. We cannot, we can try to convince them, but it's usually a pretty moot point. Um, whereas the science, for example, the parents actually have to handw write a letter or like type out a letter that explains why their kid needs to opt out. And because it's even that much more of an extra step, we don't get any optouts for science. >> So
030like that that's where you see that difference of like how the ease of the opt out really can impact. The other piece is this. When we are looking at our rates, and you're going to see this um in a couple different spots, and we're thinking about how these rates re like impact, I guess I'll use Dan's youth truth example. When we've talked about youth truth, we talk about wanting to hit a certain threshold so that we can say that the data is really viable, that we have a good representation of the students that we serve, and uh we want to make sure that it really represents what we're doing. But when we have opt out rates at as high as we do at the high school, it's really hard to say like this is good
031data. Um because we know that we have like 25% of kids that aren't taking this assessment. Um, and we know that some of our more historically underserved populations have a higher participation rate than, for example, our white students. So those are also things we want to take into consideration when we look at what this data means in terms of our district and our performance. >> So moving on to talk about regular attenders and we've looked at this data before this and this was based on our goals and and it's almost identical slide. it was uh kind of embargoed at the time. We were told we were able to use it and share it, but these you can see the successes in increasing our regular attenders there. So, we go on to the next slide. And
032this is a 90-day trend of where we're at right now. So, we are uh still trending above last year's totals even across the board. Now, those little trend lines did I was asking De are there are those there for effect or what are those telling us right there? those three little dots and that is actually a comparison to where we were at last year it um or what's >> no it's our current so 3 months ago or like 30 days ago 60 days ago current 90 days ago and so what we can see is currently in the month of like November um December we see a little bit of a down tick but we're still averaging above where we were last year so it's not um and it's it's pretty average if you think about
033it it's cold and flu season kids are getting sick. So, we're seeing our generalized rates over the last 90 days starting to tick down a little bit, but still averaging higher um in some cases almost 10% higher than last year. >> Yeah. So, those are great numbers to see that 90-day trend still trending above last year's where we already made some improvements. So, um, I don't think we'll take a ton of time going through each of these, but we just wanted, again, this is our kind of deeper dive into data for you to look at to see, you know, where are we at for high school in terms of regular attendance. You've got the state, and then you can look at demographic groups. Um, and and you'll see, you know, notice migrant up there quite
034a bit higher. Might be a smaller s smaller size of students, but you'll see that bar higher across this the attendance u in every school. Just kind of going through those numbers there. Any question on attendance? All right, let's move on into third grade reading. So again, we saw a 10% uh increase in um in our scores there, which is great. And I think that one of the things that you know uh any of these skills, whether it be reading or math, are skills that are accumulated over time. So I think that this this is really a testament to um you know, the the primary school as well as our third grade teachers to have kids uh at a higher reading level uh by the end of third grade. anything to add to that or
035we want to jump to the next slide. >> Yeah, the next slide. >> Okay, >> so the one piece and this demographic aspect of it is something we really wanted to bring up because what we are seeing is while we saw a 10% increase, we're seeing our gap widening actually. And so the thought of like how do we specifically think about the reading skills that our students who have been historically underserved, what do they need? How do we improve that? And we know that when we put in those systems of support correctly, it's kind of the rising tide raises all ships, right? We we will see an improvement across the board. Um because that average when you have like our white majority of our student, you know, students, uh our white students 45% pass rate
036compared to our 26% overall. we see how like the low numbers for our historically underserved students are really pulling our sports down right now. And I would say that the other thing if you go back to the very beginning of the school year before the school year started and I shared you know what are what's our focus for this year it was focus on feedback it was focus on getting better at collaborative teams and then also language acquisition and I would say that for our buildings the focus has been the feedback and the collaborative teams have been a little bit more technical to put in place with the new evaluation system. So, we've spent a little bit more time with our principles saying we need to spend more time on that third focus of the
037language acquisition piece because that is definitely where uh we're we're languishing a little bit. Um I do know that that's been a primary a higher focus at the middle school this year. they they've given it a little bit more attention and Dez uh not tomorrow Wednesday has a meeting with our all our EL uh D teachers to again to focus that how does their work get its way right into the classroom every single classroom these I mean these next two ones are kind of like my favorite slides in terms of kind of like you can see okay so this is you know not the same group of students. But what can we see? Is there some predictability here in terms of how our kids perform year in year out at a certain grade level even
038though the the kids might be different? You know, the standards should be the same, the teaching practices should be the same and getting better. You know, what can we see here? And so this just shows you year in and year out at third through in those different grade grade levels of how do our students perform at that grade year in and year out. But then it's always good to know what does the cohort do. So so for our current um so last year's fifth graders now our sixth graders be interesting to see they you know you see that growth of where they went from you know 27% passing to 35% to 42%. What is that group going to do next year or this actually this year as sixth graders? So that gives you, you know,
039that's some pretty decent trend as you look at that fifth and sixth grade in ELA as you see kids and fourth for that matter progress through. >> And for me, what's exciting about this and this is those discussions we've been having since I first came here is with ELA. This is us also seeing students now having had a solid experience from kindergarten through. Right. So last year's third grade class, the fourth grade class um cohort was our first group of kiddos that had had amplified kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and then moved on to third grade. Um this year's third grade class. So we're going to keep seeing those kind of I'm we're seeing growth. We're seeing like, oh, this is kind of working the way we want it to work. And so I'm excited
040to see as students have those kind of like unified experiences where we're really moving through the curriculum with fidelity, how we're seeing that trend kind of built upward. >> Moving on to math. Any questions on reading. Okay, moving on to math. Again, we saw um a 6% gain in that and you know getting ourselves closer to our goal, closer to the state. Obviously, the state went up because that 27% was the state last year, I'm pretty sure. Um, so we've seen that goal before. Uh, moving on to the the demographics. And so, uh, again, you see our white students outperforming our other groups. Um, you know, and, uh, you know, I also want to point out that the difference between our female students and male students because a lot of work went done years ago
041to try to balance that out. And so we can see definitely a trend there that we need to, you know, whenever a group of students is not performing to the capabilities we think they have, we got to ask ourselves, you know, why is that? What might we do differently? Um, and I think I've expressed to the board before, you know, math is is has so much language into it now. It is not just wrote memorization of math facts. there's so much thinking and uh re frankly reading involved that you're seeing um you know especially for our language students it becoming more challenging again here's the similar sort of thing so you can look what is there any predictability of how kids are going to do depending on their grade level um you see some arrows
042going up some going down um and then we'll move to the cohort group. And so you don't necessarily see the same trend line that you saw in um that you saw in the reading, but you can definitely see a nice with that eighth grade group, you know, getting a good bump there. >> I do have a question. So what do we think's going on with the math scores of the 11th >> where it was from 14 to 29 to 8? Like what would make that sort of a dime? >> Participation rate. >> You think that's it? >> Yeah. And I think um it's a combo of participation rate and then opt out by not trying very hard. We heard rumors from or not rumors. We heard teacher observation. Um they were just like, "Yep, kids
043are just click click click but how fast can I get through this test?" Okay. >> And I think the conversations that we've had at the board level, I know Blake brought this up at an earlier board meeting, is how do you create the culture? We're doing your best every single time. Everybody tries to, you know, everybody's trying uh create, you know, a culture where we're all going to do our best on this test. We're not going to opt out. I mean, those are some things that we need to we need to focus at the building level. So, we'll spend too much time on these last two because we've we've talked about these. We don't have the the the deeper data uh to dig into on here, but you know, you can see that we're on
044the ninth grade on track, that we're um you know, we're right there at the state level. We're pretty close to our goal. Um so, there's that data. Any questions on ninth grade on track? >> How do we know right now? Well, I'll preface it this. Will we have a report on where we're at for ninth grade on track for nth graders? >> Yes. Yeah. Um, so we can bring that data probably fairly soon because they've had their first round of grades, right? So that's why we have to kind of wait. >> Um, I know the other piece that is happening this year kind of in twofold. One, the high school was really working hard to reinstitute our nth grade success teams. um and that that is really coming at the um expectations of the state.
045We had to go through an audit of our program um through to get our high school success dollars and one of the things they identified when they did the audit was that our previous systems were lacking and they were correct um in that. So Lindsay is working really hard. They're meeting like every couple times a month I believe where they're looking at grading practices. They're looking at like failure rates. They're looking at trends. Um, so I can I'll like get some information or possibly have come have her present because she she's had some really interesting observations too where and we brought this data last year if you'll remember um where we kind of could say like okay where do we have issues where if like a students passed everything but is some for some reason
046failing math for example where do we have students who maybe failing two classes what's our percentage of students who are basically failing everything and of those students what percentage of them have attendance rates that are really low? And I know that they shared with Dan and I like they were able to have a really good conversation and shift the conversation away a little bit from the typical, well, they are never here. Because they were able to pull that data out and say, okay, these kids are never here. We understand why they failed their classes. We got to be here to pass. We're going to talk about them a different time because the question is, how do we get them to come to school, but these kids are here every day? why are they failing? And
047so they're going through empathy interviews and doing different things to kind of get to the root cause of like what's causing this failure right here when we know you're coming every day. This is not about missing information. This is about you not engaging. So um so I I think we're going to we can we'll bring extra data and I know they're doing a lot of specific work on that this year. Excellent. And so this is one where we do, you know, have some current concerns and we uh, you know, Nathan Stanley brought a report. So we did, they did do a pretty good dive into the data to figure out that, you know, that d that dip was not those aren't necessarily students that were here with us the entire time. And and so I
048do think that the high school is doing some work around making sure that we see improvement on this and tracking kids and making sure we're having conversations with kids who are not um you know currently scheduled to graduate on time. You have any more thing anything to add to that? >> Yeah, I mean I think this problem has layers to it that are really complex. whether it is students who are with us for a really short amount of time and then we you know like the amount of data we were able to see where it's like this student was with us for a month and then disappeared. Um students who were with us for interd district transfers and then disappeared and because we didn't do the proper communication we should have we couldn't say nope
049you're back to your old district. Um, and then the this I think the issue on top of that that they're really also surfacing is how are they having those um conversations in an ongoing way with kids about like are you aware of where you're at? What does how are they actually using advisory to say let's look at your transcript? Do you know how many credits you have? What's the next conversation that you need to have? And then some of those conversations just hadn't been happening. And so there were surprised people who were being informed kind of uh for the first time of like hey your kid's not going to graduate. And so what are the systems that need to be put into place so that those conversations you know because sometimes you can do everything
050you're supposed to be doing but if you still haven't had a conversation with the family then we're missing a major component of support. >> Any questions? I'm just trying to figure out I don't know if it's a disconnect or how are we going from math in 8th grade with a 15% reaching target of Latinos to an on, you know, an ontime graduation where they clearly have to take math for a certain number of credit hours. Um, and we're popping to 71%. I'm I'm How do I follow that? >> Right. So, I think there's a couple things that um that you're like that are true observations and if we brought specifically last year the data around like how many kids um passed the state test, how many students from the eighth grade passed their math class
051even though they didn't pass their state test and how many of those students passed algebra 1. Right? So all those things when you, you know, kind of do the math on them start to create some questions. The other piece though, um, you know, there's always going to be a disconnect, I think, to a certain level of what I can do in class when I'm getting support and I'm doing my homework, etc., and I'm doing the work to earn a grade versus can I apply that knowledge in a new situation when I'm given a test cold, right? Um, and so there's sometimes a disconnect between that, like you're failing a test score, but I' I've done all my homework, right? Like what actually mean what does it mean to earn a passing grade in a class?
052And those that is an age-old question of like grading practices that are is really difficult. >> It also, I think, is a reflection of the herculean efforts that are sometimes having to be put into place to get a kid across the finish line. And one of the things that we at least have some on track on like on time, you know, track to graduate and then graduation rates that actually match. I came from a district where it was completely inverted. We had like a 10% n on track to graduate rate and then this you know 80% graduation rate and it was like what are you doing? It's like we are grabbing the kids and dragging them across the finish line. So, at least we don't have that quite as much. But we know that there's
053a lot of systems that are being put into place to get kids across the finish line. And I will say if we think about Kim's reports around how we're spending money, it's a really c it's really expensive to get kids to graduate if they don't leave nth grade on track because we are using FTE to have them retake classes that they should have passed. That's the first time we are doing FTE and funding like our opportunity center, etc. to get credit recovery. We're funding summer school to get credit recovery. Like we're doing all this work to get them caught back up where it's like it'd be a lot easier. It's kind of the ounce of prevention and pound of cure concept. It'd be a lot cheaper and a lot easier to actually get them on
054track, on time, all those things. ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade versus what else do we need to now throw at you to get you across the finish line. So, um your observation is correct. It is kind of that inverted triangle concept. Um especially when we know it also speaks your question speaks to this larger thing of we're graduating them, but are they actually ready? >> Do we did we send them out to the world? >> Did we send them out to the world with the actual skills they needed? So that's the other piece too that that's it's a question right. Um now I would argue just with state tests and stuff like they are a snapshot of a kid's skill and not necessarily completely reflective of like oh they're not ready for the workforce
055but I also know that we can look at statistics from what the workforce is telling us and they're saying not always ready not just about our students but students in general >> students in general. Yeah. >> Anybody else? Thanks for the data. That was great. >> All right. So, next up is a first reading of for policy IIA instructional materials. So um when we adopted this in uh you adopted this in October uh we there were some conversations around you know how effectively are we communicating with parents regarding required reading materials. And so, uh, Desiree, uh, put together a team of teachers, uh, secondary teachers, uh, middle and high school to talk about how can we come up with a better way of communicating with families regarding the readings that their kids will do. And,
056and it was focused on it was the English English teachers, the middle and high school. And and so um obviously on the screen there is the sentence that's going to be added or I'm recommending be added to the policy is the superintendent will develop processes to communicate with students and caregivers both core and supplemental instructional materials that will be required for any courses. And so this is essentially you the board you know putting the expectation on the superintendent to make sure that this communication happens. And so that's my recommendation for changes in the policy. Um, and what you can see also there is that this is already in place for a second trimester. Correct. >> Is that that the expectation is that we are communicating with families what it is their kids are going to
057be required to read. And I think if you scroll down further in there is, you know, what we're trying to do is kind of not make assumptions about what people's backgrounds, beliefs, just informing them. And then that can lead to conversations of whether there's there needs to be opt out uh options for them and hopefully gives our te also just gives our teachers a template to work from to be able to to communicate those things. And then I have added um a paragraph in the if you go back to the memo. So this is an excerpt from our employee handbook that I've already made changes into that so that this becomes the expectation that this form gets gets used and that it becomes a documented expectation. So, um, one other thing just to kind of
058note is that we've started a practice this year where when you adopt a policy, I send out a communication to all staff about what policies have been adopted. And then for those that are really kind of more of day-to-day interactions that staff might have, I added add some more explanation. So uh should this policy get adopted at the January meeting then it would have its kind of its own highlight of this this policy got adopted. These are the expectations that we we use this form and we communicate with families >> questions does that like so when you adopt the policy like that and it says that you're going to develop that can go back to the highlight part. Yeah. >> Um, so does that like let's say you're hopefully you don't have another superintendent, but
059if we do someday, right? >> Does that does will that superintendent develop his own as well or or does this carry this carries on? >> Well, the expectation carries on and the board supervises the superintendent. So whether whether you know and we might find that maybe we need to add more to this. It's just mainly setting the expectation. So if this form doesn't doesn't meet our mark and we're we're still hearing concerns about communication, then the expectation would be superintendent, we're still having this issue that that communication to students and families is not happening to the degree we want it to. So the expectation for whoever's in this chair would continue even if it's me because if we're not hitting the mark. >> Yeah. Um, >> how will how will we know when I mean
060are we going to know when you develop that? How are we going to know that's happening? >> So that's I mean it should be happening. That's why kind of why I asked Dez is like hey this is happening this term is that we want these part of the course syllabus. So each trimester includes a section in your course syllabus that outlines all required long form for the term and that we cover cover this information so that it should be happening. And so obviously like a lot of things you don't know it's not happening until someone says it's not happening and then you you address it. And so then wherever that breakdown is, uh, we can address it, you know. So, >> and part of it will be how we hold the principles accountable. They, um,
061at both the middle school and the high school, teachers are expected to turn in a copy of their syllabus every term so that their principal has it. So when you get that random call from a parent, you can go through your file and and so that's where we would be asking them to be double-checking those things. Anything else? >> I have a couple of questions. >> One is the supplemental and classroom materials and I think I raised that last meeting that they're not subject really to review. It's up to the future. uh Mammu Taylor Spencer Lewis just kind of waved that off because he said well that that Supreme Court decision just it was self accessed materials but our classroom library and supplemental materials are not self access they're brought into the classroom and that's
062just a a concern I think the other thing that gave me a little pause was the 5,000 word length because that says to me anything that's not longer than 15 to 20 pages can be used or supplement material and I would just ask the question why would we choose and maybe it's not even an issue maybe we're not of sensitive and controversial material when we have so much casings to work on it raised that question. >> I think in terms of you know the number I think part of it is that I think to ask a teacher to provide a communication over an article they may find relevant that they hey I just read an article that's relevant to this history lesson we're doing. I'm going to use this as a supplemental material. Now if
063there's controversy in it hopefully we also have other policies about communicating that. So hopefully those are being raised if it's if it's a if there's something controversial in it. Um, so I think that this was more of trying to get out the books that are being required for reading and really trying to say, you know, you're you're you're teacher, you're giving my student the expectation you will read this book and you're going to be graded at some level for either your knowledge or whatever skills you gain from reading this book. That that's what needs to be communicated upon. I mean there's no doubt that that there can be uh you know teachers will make choices uh you know they find a video that tries to make an illustration uh of of a point that they're
064trying to make. Maybe they didn't kind of watch it through a different lens that maybe that there's content. I I mean I've dealt with those things before where someone says, "Hey, I thought a video I saw a video I thought it would make a great illustrative point." blows up on them because it was offensive to some. Um, and so I mean I don't think there's any way of mitigating every possible scenario. It's trying to build our system so that we know what to do when it happens or in this case as much preventable prevent prevention as we can >> or pro proactive communication. >> Correct. Yes. The other thing that shows up in this materials selection policy is that if there's an objection by parent or anyone that's allowed to do that, board isn't, but
065it continues until the whole process runs its course. And Supreme Court decided and Mammu vi Taylor, no, it doesn't. It stops until we work through this thing and reach the conclusion, but this policy allows it to continue until that appeal and committee and all that. >> I'm not 100% familiar with that court case, but my recollection of it was refusing to let the student opt out. >> Yes, that's right. And so I think that that's the key component here. Uh at least for our administration like parental rights and opting out, you know, should always be the rule of the day that if someone says, "Yeah, I'm just not comfortable with this." Um don't want this. Um then as far there's two parts to that is yes, you will get to opt out. Now, if there's
066a reconsideration process for those other families that may be okay with that book or they go through a review process, yes, that would stay in. But I think the crux of that particular case was the school would say, "No, you're not opting out. We're not going to let you." >> Yeah, that was a key issue. Uh but there were some others I notice in our policy here in Hamburg policy and say well we may not be able to tell you the age of the material the age and grade level. We may or may not and I thought well why why not is there any problem with determining that? So that was also a factor that >> sure if I know where that was at. >> I'm not sure I do either. Like you talking about
067>> in the policy or in the >> or in the communication tool >> it says when uh when possible will include the age or reading level of the book. And I thought, well, when is it not possible to do so? >> Well, >> so the the a good example for with that um is like when you pull up McBTH from Shakespeare, >> there like on the resources I have, the range of what it says is appropriate, like, oh, who would this be good for is kind of up in the air and part of it is because it's a classic. it's part of the canon and a lot of people believe it's required reading that is you know should be available. Um some of it is about like well which version are you doing in a
068bridge version? Are you doing this? Are you doing that? So sometimes it's hard to say like oh this is for suitable for 12-year-olds. It's not writings like that are not like um a movie where it's rated R, it's rated PG-13 etc. Like we they don't do that to books. So a lot of the times it is about looking at experts who are making a good judgment. That's why we use things like common sense media or we look at like the National Library Association because those are people who have some expertise um and they can give it but sometimes they just don't exist. Sometimes it's a it's a piece of reading material that's just so old that no one's done that kind of analysis on it or it's so new and they haven't quite done that
069analysis on it. I would say um I think for me and when we were working on developing these things what I would ask is that we assume good intentions on the part of the teacher and I know that's not always easy to do. um if you've had a bad experience, you know, there's reasons why we have policies in place where people can file a complaint or a concern or they can go to their principal. Um but for the most part, and I can say this having been in education a long time, I have not met a teacher who's like, "Let's see how much trouble I can get into." They just it's not worth it. the the level of hassle it is to teach three different books simultaneously because you pick something that a chunk of
070your class won't read. It just isn't worth it. Um I when I was meeting with the teachers about this, I was talking specifically with a teacher who had had a a book that a few te parents said like I'm not so you know um okay with this. a few more parents opted out and the next year she didn't teach it. She's like that was not worth it and she took it off her syllabus. I just haven't had a lot of experience where a teacher just deliberately like I want to see if I can make a bunch of parents upset at me >> and really upset kids. I think there are times where they make a instructional decision that doesn't jive with a parent's value and that is something we can't always predict for everybody. Um,
071we do the best we can based on what is the theme we're trying to get to, what's a good piece of writing that is both engaging and interesting to kids. It will hook them and you know there's that changes constantly, right? Uh, in terms of the generation and sensibilities and and what's in the the world right now that's interesting to them. Um, and so finding those be pieces of literature that it's engaging that will that will really allow them to want to be reading and and connected that changes. But I just I' I've known a lot of English teachers and I just have not met one who is like I want to see if I can really make my job hard today and and do something. I'll point out too part of the long read
072definition 5,000 words is about 10 pages double spaced. So on a single space like a normal article it's less than five pages. So pretty short like we and we did that 5,000word because that is that we we did we wanted it anything that's substantial we want it listed. So this covers most novellas, most short stories, etc. would be covered under this. >> I would just I would just like to say, you know, I've had some issues with this IIA in the past and I am willing to let Dez and Dan implement this and see how it goes. Um, I think that, you know, if it was up to me, I'd have everything a policy, but I did phone a few friends and I was reminded that we don't direct the teachers, we direct our superintendent
073and it was really hard for me. Um, so I think you know when he when Desenham brought this to me personally, it really did suffice my intentions of it gives parents the right to say no. And that's what I was looking for. If a parent disagrees, they can say no. If a parent wants an alternate book, they can say I want an alternate book. It created a area for communication which I felt was the lacking piece and the basis of it. >> Um I'm not sure I would ever opt my son out of any of what I've had or what I've seen, but I do want to hold that parental line and the parental right to be able to say no when you want to say no. And so that's why I would be supporting
074IIA right now. And we even like this um form was something that hasn't existed that we developed specifically so we can start tracking these things better too. Um because right now there is an element of opting out that's a little almost like anecdotal you know like we knew we had some families opt out but like really getting them to write things down and have conversations um is a huge part of it. And I will tell you a big part of all of this conversation that we've been having with the teachers is an additional component of like understanding we a few years ago we focused on the concept of culturally responsive literature and culturally responsive teaching and we've had discussions with our teachers about like what is the culture of North Marian and how do we
075pick culturally responsive books to match the culture of our community and when we see mass optouts which we don't get I mean even some of the most um like the most we've had on a book is like five like a family like five families be like nope none not me. Um so even then we still have the majority of our students who are like nope this is great. the the thing that like Jenny brought up and and Crystal brought up that we've really tried to address is the concept that like we want to make sure that families know though we're not just assuming like it's fine until they're upset about it because like all good parents we're chugging along doing the best we can and we aren't always reading over our kids shoulders or like
076let me read the novel you're reading like no I'm kind of busy you know I have a lot of other things to read in my life so how do we make sure we're at least communicating so that parents can take a moment and pause and go, "Oo, I read from the teacher that I might have a concern. I want to ask more questions and create opportunities for communication." >> What we don't want to have happen actually is people to discover that, and this is how it's typically been prior to this, is they discover that they don't want to have their kid read something after their kid has already read it. and then they're upset and then it's like I don't want to remove this so my kid doesn't read more of it. Um and we
077know that that's not good for anybody. So instead we want to be proactive, get it in front of them and say you get to make a choice. Do you have more questions that we can answer for you? And I think the teachers were way on board with that. They're like absolutely we can get behind just being proactive about the communication so that we don't have to deal with it on the aftermath. we know that we've already given them an option opportunity up ahead of um everything to do their own like research or ask questions. >> And I if I could just add a couple things. One, I really appreciate Crystal's comments about, you know, working through and developing this. And I realize that the the language in the policy is super vanilla. I mean, it's
078just like it's just one sentence. But I guess also that's I was more you know when issues come up I would rather actually give you the end product of what's actually going to happen versus to spend time in policy. You know you know I think policy broadly written allows whichever board whichever superintendent to deal with the situations at the time. And so I think that hopefully you also see in this that when issues come up and we will have issues whether it's this or that or the other is I'm going to show you what the end product and the solution is before I bring you uh a major overhaul of a policy because I think that what I've given you is actually boots on the ground what's going to happen with teachers in parents. And
079to Dez's last point is the fact that this really got the entire English department 6 through 12 at the table to discuss we've got an issue to solve and I think it got their buy in throughout it because of her leadership to say we need to be better communicators. Well, I if I could read just a couple of sentences yet and then I I think I I think too that communication is is key. And if parents know and they really know and our goal is is educational achievement. It's not some belief or ideology. And so I have noted also that uh I appreciate the proactive approach. I do and I think we're doing that and always well written always. >> Um any other comments? I know Kelsey and Blake we haven't chimed in. So if
080you have anything I don't want to ignore you on the line. You good? you >> Robert said you're good so I'm gonna go with that. So before we adjourn the meeting because we're right at the very end there's so and I'm gonna ask actually Kelsey so this future meetings intentive agenda this was basically bas does is that helpful Kelsey >> yeah it is >> okay >> and so on that just to give a few highlights of what's coming and so uh you can see middle school report in January ruary primary intermediate school reports at the end of January. I know UNM was not here but and I know it was in our my weekly update. We've been done done some really good work with UNM in preparation for bargaining. Bargaining is going to kick off
081on February 10th just to put that on your radar. Also, and you've been on these emails, strategic planning team has their first meeting tomorrow. Um and Jenny and Blake are on that. Also, Heidi Tori and former board members going to be on the group as well. Um, and then this the last thing on the upcoming meeting agenda is this budget 101. We're going to probably kick that down a month into February, but I did ask Kim to share a few things about what does that even mean? >> Perfect. So, uh, you know, I've seen this called a lot of different things in a lot of places, but, uh, essentially it's a free budget committee, uh, uh, workshop or information session. And it really is just a tool to help equip both the board and the
082budget committee should they choose to join us. we will be sure to be uh encouraging them to join us. But just really a tool to to lay the groundwork for the work that we are going to be doing when the district brings the proposed budget to that first budget committee meeting. It's outlining the process. Sometimes new budget committee members are often a little bit surprised at at the process and and what is allowable per state law and what is not allowable per state law. the budget committee process is defined in state law. So, it's very uh it's just a very helpful opportunity to to really set the expectations, outline the roles and responsibilities. It's also going to be an opportunity for me to share some of my ideas for uh how we could um look
083at our budget maybe through some different lenses uh involving um a little uh different approach with some of our different stakeholders and uh making sure that we are looking at the why. If we are looking to make changes to our budget, if we are looking to invest in something or make a reduction in something else, why? what is what is that return that we are expecting to achieve with that um and not just well we've always we've always had that and so sometimes it it creates a little bit of a well wait I've always I've always had that okay why do we need to keep doing it and we've had great conversations with our staff we you know at times we'll get a request for uh a purchase of something and and the inquiry for
084more information is not to question their their suggestion for that purchase, but instead to make sure we are not duplicating our resources. Do we already have that resource that can be achieved and save that money and put it towards our our staff that are so critical to keeping our our students moving forward? So, um it's just a little bit of a different approach. Sometimes it can be um a little a little um surprising, but I think the fact once you in involve people and let them really um our our administrators and our department leaders and our our stakeholders, they know what works in their buildings. They know what works with their kids at home and they know and that feedback is so critical for for especially in a business office. We kind of while we
085work in a school, we don't work in the school, right? And our experts are in these buildings every day. So listening to them, where do they need help? Where do they need those resources to be focused is exactly my approach to to building a budget. >> Excellent. >> Yeah. Just want to give you a heads up as to what that meant and uh likely moving that into February now, but just wanted to in case you What is budget 101? There you have it. >> Are you envisioning a joint session for that? um and more of a work session setting. >> Yeah, we're believing the February work session is probably going to be the best platform for that so that it could be a more collaborative um a two-way conversationbased versus a um you know a
086board meeting. We have it's still a public meeting. We still have our certain rules, but the work sessions are really meant to be a little bit more of an engagement. Um still kind of figuring out exactly how that looks. Sometimes there's, you know, maybe little little, hey, put your heads together and here's a bunch of post-it notes and jot it down or what. But, you know, the feedback from our board members, our budget committee, and then inviting our community to come and and provide that feedback, you know, it's it's it's critical that we listen to our stakeholders. It's also critical that we find a way to hear the voices that don't often speak up. And that is my concern. And I I shouldn't say that is my concern. That is a big concern of mine
087that oftent times our loud voices get heard and they get heard very well but what about some of those voices that aren't comfortable coming to a public session and how do we get how do we get those voices when they're unspoken >> to possibly your question is I'll make sure that within the budget committee that is this is are we labeling this as a budget committee meeting or If not, which would probably be my preference would be to communicate to budget committee members is you are the audience and we encourage you to jot your questions down. The participation conversation would be just like any other board meeting where you're having a conversation with us. Budget committee members, if you have questions, schedule an appointment afterwards with Kim or me and we'll walk you through those
088questions because we want to make sure we're following all the public meeting laws regarding their their role in that meeting. We we definitely want to get them up to speed and get them excited about doing the work, but it wouldn't be a budget committee meeting. >> Good. >> Yeah. Any other questions? >> What are we doing about to go back on I I are you bringing back? >> So, I'm I'm not hearing any recommendations of language changes. So, it'll be back on the January uh agenda for adoption. >> Okay. I searched and searched and I didn't find your additional sentence change in my link. >> Really? >> No, I was looking too. That's why I was like a little bit confused on it. >> I printed what was on the policy statement and it's just
089not on mine. >> It I just pulled it up and it wasn't >> I off of the memo >> if you go if you're going to the website. Yeah, that's that's the >> hasn't been adopted yet. So, this is just >> that's why I was like, what? >> So, I go to the exact same thing you're on. >> We're on the same >> That is strange. >> I know. I opened it a couple different times thinking it was updated. >> Uhhuh. Same thing. >> We are on. So, yeah, my K up. I think I know and I will do some soothing but I think I know >> I think we're show comments. >> Okay, I will make sure that you have it and so yeah, sorry about that. >> Okay, that's fine. And you're adding
090that to our list. >> Yeah. >> Okay, so I will adjourn at 7:15. Thank you. Are those