August 11th, 2025 School Board Business Meeting

001I'll call this meeting to an order at 6 PM on August 11th. Um, roll call. Blake >> here. >> Robert, it's going to be late. Merl >> here. >> Glenn >> here. >> Kelsey here. Crystal >> here. >> And Vice Chair Jenny is here. I pledge allegiance 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. >> Do you have any public comments? Are there anybody who'd like to make public comment? >> You want to agenda? Sorry. >> Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Yep. >> Agenda consideration. I'll motion. >> Al so moved. >> I got a second. I'll second it. Thank you. All right. Now, we're ready for any public comments. Diana. Okay. Uh board communication. We want

002to recognize an extended field trip for our middle school outdoor school um September 30th through October 3rd in Newport. Hope everybody has fun on that. Um, and then OSB elections are open for a OSBA board of director position. Do we need to do we need anybody Diane from our from our group to if they're interested? >> Yes. >> You have to >> so on that link that with the announcement in there. So my boss or Merl was interested. And I think you were more on the LPC side of things, but the link that's in the agenda there, if you if we nominate someone, um, then they go to that and fill out the candidate form. >> Has anybody filled out the candidate form or is interested in filling it out? >> No, I have not.

003And I I don't think I'm up to it at this time. I've tried well I've never tried attempted a board on the LPC. >> Okay. >> I think we still have time probably will do it but I don't think I will. >> Okay. >> What's the deadline to >> I think it's the 30th of September. >> We have one more regular meeting before >> we have one more meeting >> one or two meetings before then. one. >> I did uh receive a an email and phone call from a member of the Salem Kaiser board who would like us to nominate him for the Marian position which I think we can do. He has been a chair of the board, Salem Kaiser, and it's on the board. >> But they have nominated another person, and he

004would like a chance to run. >> So, I just put that out there. I know him, and I don't have negatives about him. I don't know him real well. He's a psychologist that practices in as been on the Kaiser board now at least for his second term and Glenn knows him and he can speak. >> Hey Mel. >> Hey. Um actually why don't we put an action item if we're going to do any um nominations for next meeting and then if you want to bring that forward you could. You good with that, Jenny? >> Yeah, I was just going to say it sounds like we have time for a deadline if we if we feel like we want to do that. >> Yeah, let's put that on the board um uh meeting in September for

005board business. >> Okay. >> And he did say he would be willing to be here at the next meeting and meet with us. >> Okay. Hey, put that on our notes and we'll follow up on that. >> Got it. Any other comments on our board communication? >> Okay, hearing none, let's move to our consent agenda. Do we have a motion and a second? >> Anything? >> I'll make a motion we um accept consent agenda as as presented. >> Thank you. I'll second. Thank you. >> All right. Business and budget. >> Sorry. Need to take a vote. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> I'm See, sorry. >> No. Thank you for keeping me. >> Sorry, Jenny. I'm late today. >> Ask for discussion and then >> Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Okay. All those

006in favor say. I >> I >> thank you. Opposed hearing none. Motion passes. Okay. Now we're ready to move on to business and day. >> All right. >> Well, we we are going to change to order here a little bit. Um and so, uh Kim has a presentation on the Grim Road and Donald Road property discussion. And just for the public's knowledge that this is um just an opening discussion about property that we own there on um on the northern boundary of the middle school property. And this conversation started over the a couple times over the course of last year with North Marian Fellowship approaching us to say, you know, what are the future plans of this property? Is there any interest that the district would ever plan to develop it or potentially sell it?

007And so I did invite uh Pastor Jim Twilliger here this this evening. Um and before Kim shares a few uh a few pieces of information about the property, thought uh the the North Marian Fellowship has rented the facilities here for a long time. So, I thought Jim, if you could just say, you know, how long have has the church been in partnership or renting the facilities from the district and maybe a couple of the what you would see as win-wins and the relationship the district has had with North Mar Fellowship. >> Yeah, sure. Um, well, we've been actually renting the facility uh for 18 years. It's crazy uh how long that's been. um but since 2007 and um we just uh obviously I don't know if there's any board members from originally there but I

008know there's some that's been around for a while we since I get this opportunity I just want to thank the board obviously and especially the principles because they're the ones we work with. Um but you guys for allowing us to to meet there and pay rent and be able to use it for obviously our different church activities and ministries. Um and one of the we started it uh 18 years ago. The reason we did that was because we wanted our family, some of you know us, but we had three kids that went through North Brand from K to 12 and all of them are graduating now. But we um were a part of this community for uh quite a few years, I'd say. I think it was uh 10 years before we started the church

009and I was a pastor in Cami and we wanted a church in our community with the community. And so that's really why we did that. we wanted to be partners with people um and to really serve this community. And so we thought what better place than the school to do that. Um and so we've been able to partner in many different ways with the school district. Um it's been a lot of fun. Um we have do different things with and for instance coming up in October. Something we've done for 18 years I believe is uh we call faith and action Sunday. It's the first Sunday of October and we go out and we basically we have church shorten shortened version of church and then from 11 to 1 we go out and serve the community

010but always our uh the beginning we just did for the schools and so we still do so we talk to every principal um and often the superintendent say hey what are different projects and then we we just we do them you know we've it's been great over the 18 years just to do that and to see you know um us be able to and some of we've had a few that have come from the school. A few principles in the past that have come and helped and joined us which is great. Um something that we've done almost since the beginning as well is uh some of you may know about children's ministry called Kingdom Kids. It's on Wednesday nights during the school year basically October through April um beginning of May. And it's for kids

011preschool through grade five. And um it's obviously it's a um it's kind of like what we just did a week ago, our summer kingdom kids, but uh new songs and singing a Bible story and a snack. We did dinner for a while that that since co we haven't picked it up. Um and uh but it's uh it's something that's just great for the kids. We average about 30 to 50 kids that come uh that night. And something we started about five years ago. Um again talking to the principles and um and uh to the superintendent at that time uh a new thing we call growing families and uh it's it's part of mission for our church that's really focused upon reaching out. And so for the last number of years we basically focus on three

012things for families. Parenting, marriage, and finances. And so basically uh we offer two classes a year um and invite people from the community. This last year was something that was a highlight for me. I was able to work with David Sheldon and and Kimberly at the p from primary school and they helped me with the love of logic class and um we did that together. Then Kimberly did a uh Spanish version. So we did one in the fall for in English and then in spring she did one just in Spanish and we did a financial peace class. So and you know pastors and go on and on but uh but it's been a privilege. One of the great things that uh also we've been able to do is because we have we set up and

013take down almost every Sunday except for the summer. or be able to work with the schedule. But during the school year, there's a number of different things at the high school, especially the primary school. Uh is we have a lot of chairs and so for big concerts, uh that we're able to, you know, my wife, most of you know, my wife works at the primary school. Um didn't do that at the beginning, but anyway, she knows that different things that go on and says, "Hey, we've had chairs. We have 200 chairs that and nice chairs for parents, right? rather than kind of the the benches sometimes that especially the primary school that you're sitting on. So we whenever we can we bring those in and set them up, help set up and take them down

014and all that. So that's just you know that's something that we want to continue to do even as we talked about like rebuilding this real one of the reasons we are asking this is because we want to stay as close to North Marian School District as possible. If we have to go to Hubard or Aurora or Donald like that that so be it. But we want to be in the center. That's why we chose the school. We we are North Marian Fellowship. So anyway, enough talking. But that's that's our heart and especially the school board if you hear things um that need assistance and you need some you know we're not a large church about 120 130 people but um we've got a lot of great volunteers who are willing to help out. >> Thank

015Jim. So kind of like we had you know North Marian Youth Athletics here. I think it's always important to, you know, we have partnerships with different agencies or organizations to kind of highlight those. And so, uh, with me being new, uh, last year and knew the new business that they're coming on and to find out that we have property and whatnot, we thought that, well, before we go any further that we would just share a little bit about the property. And this is not a board action item. It's really wanting to know from the board. Are you interested in in us looking into what it might be, what its value might be, what it might eventually take to eventually even consider um putting it on the market for sale? And that's there's a lot of

016meetings and a lot of discussions to happen between now and then. This is really kind of all you really need to do is give me a thumbs up to say, "Yeah, we'd be interested in learning a little bit more about what that might be." or if the board is kind of in a position to say we are not selling that we've made you know we want to keep that as a possible investment whatnot that's just helping uh me direct my time the staff's time a little bit more with a little bit of your input so with that I'll turn it over to Kim >> I appreciate this uh yeah opportunity to share it's been a learning experience for me as well because of course there's a lot of history in a in a local community

017like this around the properties but but what we found is back In 2017, the district did purchase three separate tax lots totaling a little over 8.3 acres. Um that purchase price was 300,000. Of course, there was some closing costs on top of that, but at the time there was visions for expansion of uh extracurricular activity fields. Uh there were some drawings uh developed at that time which are linked on the uh memo as well. And since that time uh you know no the development has has not occurred. The properties have been used for essentially some I I tend not to use want to use the word staging but like during the bond project there was dirt relocation and so some soil was moved uh from you know uh the high school site over to that

018site stored there and then able to be relocated back after the construction was done. Um, and so as as Dan was sharing, uh, we really just wanted to present the information to you about, um, you know, the the historical, uh, thought that at that time that it could be used for the expansion of facilities. Um, again, specifically, the thought at that time was parking and, uh, a couple of ball fields. Uh, and just kind of wanted to be able to bring bring the information we do have to you to help you know, decide is this something we'd like to uh invest time in to bring more information to you for more in-depth discussion and and generalized direction. So again, on the board memo, there is a flat map linked. There are the three separate uh

019property details. These are all available for your own viewing either through here or through the Marian County Tax Assessor's Office. the bottom link there though, if we don't mind pulling that facility mockup just to give you an idea of what at that time. This has topography in it. So, it's a little more difficult to see, but um we can see on the left uh hand corner, which is a corner of Grim and Donald Road. The intent was for some parking with uh baseball, softball fields flanked on each end of a potential soccer or football potential field there in in the middle. Uh since the purchase, there has been an easement uh by Northwest Natural that uh would impact some of the parking spots uh that face Grim Road. Uh Northwest Natural has I believe it's

020a 75 foot by 20 foot uh deep 75 foot wide by 20 foot deep easement. Um and you can see some of their um uh structure if you will if you go up on that road. So there would be a little bit of an impact on that. But but this was uh the intended intended one one of the intended thoughts when that when that investment happened. So currently all three properties are zone EFU land so exclusive farm use which is very limited to either income producing farmlands, schools or uh religious facilities, churches as well. So um that is our understanding. Of course um everything would be vetted through the county. We did not invest a a ton of time until we got board direction on on if this is somewhere you'd like us to focus

021our resources, i.e. time at this point. Okay, thank you. I'll go uh round robin and uh ask what you guys think. I'll start with Glenn. >> Um so my big thing is zoning. Um that's a big hurdle. Yeah, maybe. Um so I didn't know how much how much you know kind of forethought has went into that, but it's um that would be probably my biggest concern is that. And then the second part of that would be logistically how would you offer this property in sort of a double blind way so that it was not appearing to be favoritism. Um you know what I mean from a sale standpoint. So that would that would be my two questions. tomorrow. >> Well, I was going to ask what the present zoning was and maybe I maybe I

022just missed it when you were >> EFU. explicit use. It is currently EMU all three separate >> what's what's the term variance or >> I remember it from >> um there was some discussion that we would not even be able to put buildings on it even though the district owned it and it was part of our campus. So, um, that would be one of those hurdles that probably would be want to flushed out pretty pretty early on. >> Yeah. Other other question I would have is how much how much of that property would the church need to do what they would like to do? Is it all eight acres or three acres or four or five? I think if we got to uh a place where we thought that we were interested in selling it,

023we would also probably be working with, you know, some form of real estate type of person to what would maximize the district's benefit from it. So, it wouldn't necessarily be, you know, trying to gear te steer it towards what benefits the church necessarily. And I had that conversation with Jim is that we would put this up on the market. So, I'm not sure, you know, what someone, you know, might advise us would maximize the district's benefit. So, we would be, if we got to that place, we would say we would be leaning on someone who knows how to maximize the district's gain on that. to tag on to that that that is the number one this is a taxpayer asset and that asset would um be you know one of the key pieces that would

024need to be considered in a board determination is what is the value of that asset on the market but what is also that value of the asset having a joining property you know in a in an area that you could be limited so there's assets in dollars and there's assets in in the non-dollar value as well so >> I have that a consideration depending churches and schools there's there's no tax uh that revenue that would come to North Marian but if it were allowed to have a commercial property on it for example or light industrial then there would be but with EFU it doesn't sound like chances are too good but you just have to ask I don't know uh I did have someone approach me a year or two ago about doing a school

025garden and the administrative assistant up at Oregon City is she's really into that kind of thing. Well, I'd be glad to come down and help you do that, but it seems like that that might I didn't know we had the property at the time. Possibility not. That's just a kind of a side issue. Blake, >> with my profession in agriculture, it's kind of a in farming a farm next door, the value of that is very high logistically being close by. And so having a piece of ground for the school right next door would be kind of hard if you already own it to want to pass up not knowing the future. And so it's always a good it can be a good exercise to go down the path and see what's there and what that

026could look like, but it would be uh probably difficult to want to uh pass on it, but it uh to sell it, but it'd be something to at least I don't know. It's having that next door and already paid for is kind of a big deal. So >> Kelsey, yeah, I agree with Blake. Um um my other thought was what what would that um do to our budget because they are leasing from us currently, right? >> Yes. >> That would be part of what we would be bringing back is um yeah what the what a potential you know analysis of that could be. you know, leasing, of course, um if you have somebody who has been a fantastic partner and and doing that, but they are needing to potentially expand, you know, you could be

027looking at maybe a double negative if you don't sell the property and lose a lease. So, you know, that would all be part of presenting that that information. Yeah. >> Yeah. There's there are definitely more questions than answers in the process, water rights and well potentials and all that kind of thing. There's a lot of questions about, you know, um and so that again your questions about zoning and and all these pieces that we just felt like it was important to get the board's vibe first of do we want more information or let's let's focus our >> you know the property currently does have water rights. >> It's my understanding it has nothing. got no water rights. But again, that's what very preliminary look there are no existing wells. Um, from what we've been able

028to gather, uh, there is Seven Up Creek going through uh, but I believe it's more of a irrigation overflow flood mitigation uh, canal from what I've been able to gather. >> I'll ask Crystal. Crystal, do you have any comments? Um, I think I'm probably more aligned with Blake and his in I, um, I, you know, I'm wearing my district hat right now, my schoolboard hat, not my personal hat. Um, and I think having I I think I don't know. I'm I'm torn by it because I would like to see like will this land ever be usable for the district or would it be um accessible for the district to even put like a bleacher on? Because at the time when they did the bond, this was a commitment that we did to uh a master

029plan. But if it's not that they'll ever let us put parking lots or fields there and that sort of thing, then I'm not sure that it's something that I necessarily want to keep. But my biggest thing is I don't want to make a decision to sell this property to fill a funding gap. I want if we sell this property for any reason, it should go back to capital expenses. This is not a fix the bandage type of a situation. This is a capital-based decision. And so, um, I would be interested to see if county would want us to or allow the school district to ever build on that like in a five or 10 year plan. And if their answer is a hard no, then I think we go down that route. My other question

030to the school board is, is this the best use of our um new business manager and our superintendent this school year? >> Okay. >> And I'll leave it on that note. pretty hot idea, but I >> um I'll I'll agree with Crystal's last sentiment of, you know, I don't I don't think it's a good use of your guys's time and resources given all the other conflicting and higher priority things. Um I agree with Blake. We have an asset. I don't think it makes sense to necessarily look at getting rid of something. You know, I' I'd be up for tangling a discussion on on what we can do with that property later, but I don't makes me nervous selling selling property when we're already so small, you know. >> Yeah. >> Well, I think I got

031the feedback that I needed that we needed that uh and I agree it's probably not the the top priority of of our office right now. So, but we would, you know, at some point in time, um, maybe take what we might feel is the next step in learning a little bit more about it to bring more information back to you. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Moving on to item number seven. We have board. >> We have actually So, Kim has >> We actually went Yeah. out of order. >> Yeah. So, yes, we went out of order. So, now we're backing up. >> I am zero. >> Um, can I interrupt really quick? I'm so sorry, but I just want to take a moment to thank um Jim Twilliger for coming to

032the board. >> Yeah. Well, I was going to thank you guys actually. >> Yeah. No, I I appreciate and like I said, we just wanted to throw it out not throw it out there, but we wanted to just let you know what the interest, right? Because you don't know until you and then and then just the privilege that Dan gave me just to share um a thank you to you guys honestly. And as I told that, I told him and Dan, if you hear whatever murmurss, I said that murmurss, you know, of anything that has to do with us, which they've done, just come talk to us, okay? I mean, you know, it only takes one person to get upset or why is the church meeting there or why are they doing this? We're obviously

033everything's approved by the district, the school board, or especially the principal, the superintendent, but all that to say, we love it here, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Thanks for letting us be here and thanks for letting me come to you. >> Thanks, Jim. >> Thanks, Crystal. Thank you. >> All right. So, we're gonna have a uh financial preview report. >> Absolutely. So, uh wanted to give you kind of a a um preview of what I see for the future for North Marian's uh financial updates. I think it's important for the board to receive uh information on a periodic basis to help guide your decisions. So if we come to you and say are you interested in us looking into you know the value of a piece of property you know having information about other

034financial pieces um if I come to you and say you know what we're really having budget concerns because we're spending a lot to repair a roof and we're going to need to replace a roof down the road you might you know that can help influence other decisions. So per that was only an example. I'm not giving any kind of foreshadowing on anything, but wanted to uh give you an idea of what beginning in September financial reports could look like. I think it's important to um just kind of let you know. My approach is that you should be receiving a financial report that gives you an idea of where we are relative to our budget and where we are relative to prior fiscal years. So while this is only an example, this is probably going to

035be very similar to uh what I will be providing. Um this is an example from another district. These are not North Marian figures. Um and uh but what what I feel like is important for you to see is where were we at this point last year in our revenues and in our expenditures. There are certain lines in which our budget is 90% spent by June 31. We want to make sure we're paying our liability insurance day one. We want to make sure we're paying all of our prepaids right away. Uh however, payroll, for example, our largest expense, of course, is um you know, paid out throughout the year. So, we have little bits of payroll in July, little bit more in August, and then of course we uh have it spread throughout September through June

036is the majority of that. So, I really um just kind of wanted to give you a preview. um if they are technical and will be provided more for a resource for the board on a monthly basis and however it will allow us to point out any situations in which we may have unfavorable uh reports. If revenues are coming in under projections we're going to talk about what may be impacting that. If expenditures are coming in over projections, we're going to talk about uh what what could be driving that and more importantly, what do we need to do? And that is what this report is important to to provide to you is is if we need to make an adjustment to the budget that the budget committee and the board had approved last year, you we

037need you to be able to see the how and the why and where it's going to be adjusted from. So, there's no action at this time. I just wanted to kind of give you uh an example of of what you'll be seeing and we will be happy to work with the board to make sure that that report provides you usable information because if it just feels like a bunch of numbers on a page, then I'm not I'm not doing my job. I want to provide you the data you need to make informed decisions. So, perfect. Any questions on that piece? I don't know if it's Germaine since this is not North Marian figures but uh it provoked the question for me as to what what these various sources are I understand the state school fund

038and general fund but then there's local sources taxes maybe I or other intermediate state federal other >> so that's an excellent point uh and this particular example is a little bit different than what I've used in my past where I like to actually list property taxes instead of lump sum local taxes. So I will take that into account because uh we can be as granular as we want or we could be you know um have things in groups. So so uh you know in an example like this I would I would anticipate that that district um put their uh they may not have that that may be construction excise tax. There's a lot of pieces that go into these and they're actually defined by a state uh document. It's about 200 pages that tells us

039exactly how we're going to code every piece of uh accounting work. But I will I will make a note that um some descriptors or either that or a key somewhere that explains local sources include X, Y, and Z. >> Thank you. Any other comments? Blake, Robert, Glenn? >> Uh, just a question. When's your next state revenue forecast out >> or or >> the state revenue forecast May bad news? So, it's going to be se September. It's probably going to be Yeah, it's going to be the quarterly um revenue offer, right? Um comes out with that. So, um, yeah, we'll we'll definitely be holding with, you know, holding our breath to see >> your September 30th like they right at the very end. I I don't hold me to >> exactly. Yeah. All I know is

040the last one came out the day after my budget last budget was adopted. >> And the other question is, how's the transition going? >> It is, it is great. I I'm really really amazed at a lot of the the pieces that are in place here. Um we definitely are are working to uh keep up. Um we have we have some reduced staffing right now in the office. So that's been um been a little bit of a a piece. And then just a lot of movements. Um I will tell you that having been been through it previously, it's there's a lot of um tax on your business and human resources department after a reduction in force because of the movement of your staff. and and I absolutely am am uh conscious of the impact on our

041buildings. That impact is felt in every single department. And so as you're constantly moving and shifting and adjusting pieces, um that's it's a lot. And you know, it's uh but I just I'm really impressed uh with what's in place here and our administrative team, our staff, everybody has just been phenomenal when I have to say who is that person again, you know, because you you get to know your your your people, right? And and so that's been that's been my biggest piece of of getting to know the the special special tricks and cases and stuff. But absolutely thrilled thrilled to be here. So, thank you. We're trying to kind of streamline those HR and business uh mechanisms and bring them into alignment together. So for instance if there is a posting for you know so

042resignation happens or something happens and we need to post a position you know previously it was well you just emailed and and so then you know email is great for communication but it doesn't necessarily keep things really organized versus our our internal systems have the capability of having one of our principles submit a a job requisition and indicate whose place is that person filling or is that new revenue or all of those things so that everything can be captured in one location and not remembering well where was that email I it was over here I think I know where it was at and that sort of thing so trying to improve those internal processes >> so >> Kelsey do you have any comments about this >> Crystal I don't know if you see it but

043do you have anything >> nope I'm good Great. Thank you. >> So, we have uh last week or actually so was August 1st we were notified that we received a uh a grant from the state and so Dez is going to come up and well she's kind of Kim we had on Friday we also got an update on some federal grants because you were going to give an update that said we don't have any updates on federal grants and then on Friday we got an update >> of course. Yes. uh that that link is also available to you on the on the board uh agenda. There was an update on our federal grant funding. Uh we have um four uh we'll call it, you know, four of our our six uh federal grant buckets have

044been finalized as of right now. Um based on those that are finalized, we have a a almost $10,000 uh positive variance to what we budgeted for those grants to what's actually coming in. There is still uh one that is in preliminary status, the IDA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that is still in a preliminary status. I am hoping we might see a little bit of a increase in that uh to get us closer to the budgeted amount and then another federal grant that is actually received through what they call flowth through dollars. the WAMIT ESD receives the grant, the federal grant and then passes through a proportionate share. Um that amount is also still pending. So uh just we are we are very pleased at how our federal grants have come in. There was a

045lot of you know unknown for a lot of time. Um we um in the industry kind of talked about it being a crisis of confidence. We had you know just really had no idea which way it was going to go. So, we're very pleased that those programs that are so critical to serving oftentimes our underserved populations, those programs are coming through and and not do not anticipate needing to have any serious budget discussions about um things coming in under under where we projected. So, appreciate that. >> All right. >> Yay. >> Dez, take it away. >> So, this is really exciting news for our district that we were awarded this grant. It was a competitive grant, so we had to go out there, make the best plan, and um we were awarded I don't know

046how many they did in total. They had told us initially they were going to award between 30 and 50 grants. Um there were only a hundred schools or districts that were eligible. So, we were one of the 30 to 50, whichever they did, that got selected. So, we were really excited about that. I'm going to give you a little bit of information because we're moving forward really quickly with the processes for this grant. Um, and so we want to make sure that you are aware that we received it and what's happening. So, this grant is aiming to advance literacy skills, including pre-iteracy, reading, and writing with a particular focus on serving children experiencing poverty in Oregon and the highest need schools. Part of the reason why we were eligible of that 100 um PE 100

047school districts that were eligible was because of the students that we serve. Um, this grant is designed to serve kids birth to 12. So through their entire life in their school system. So the allocation looks like this will be about a hundred or $750,000 total over the life of the grant. We will get some money technically from last year and but they didn't award it to us until right now. The um application was until spring. So they're calling it rollover and we will have this year to spend it. Um, so this year we have a total of 300,000 and then after that we have a total of 150,000 a year that we can spend. And as I said, it hits on birth to grade 12. It goes into three buckets of money. So 16% of

048the grant needs to go towards birth and prek. 42% of the grant has to go to kindergarten through fifth grade. And 42% of the grant goes through 6th through 12th. So um requirements of the grant these are the kind of generic requirements. We have to participate in some OD facilitated coaching and professional initiatives. We need to um do ongoing professional development within um all of our schools to all of our staff on early literacy as well as adolescent literacy frameworks which the state put out. Um the early literacy one was driving our lit early literacy work and then the adolescent literacy framework was um developed and released last spring and then we are going to develop and implement a district-wide literacy instructional plan. Um, we have to have that done by 2027, I believe. And

049we're going to deliver intensive, supplemental, explicit reading and writing interventions as well as acceleration supports. And we're going to work to coordinate K12 staff participation in our literacy program. We also have to engage and coordinate with families and caregivers in supporting literacy development. We need to align our K5 literacy instruction with our early childhood in educational programs. So that includes our preschool as well as working with other daycare providers and preschools in the area to help create better through lines into our program. We're going to strengthen early literacy um language skills, literacy development, and school readiness for our um young kiddos uh in our prek programs. And we're going to implement highquality instructional materials for English language arts with Fidelity. So year one through five, the these are the two big ways we're spending the

050money every year. The big part of our money is that we're going to hire a district literacy coordinator to support district initiatives. Um the scope of this is so big and needs a dedicated person who can really focus on making sure all these initiatives are happening, deliver the professional development, be in classrooms, etc. So we are really excited to bring somebody in who can have that as their focus. they will work underneath me in making sure that these programs go into place and um continue to see positive growth. And then year one, because we have that influx of money, so the 150,000 per year covers one person basically when you have their payroll and associated costs. So year one, we'll have an influx of money basically another 150,000 that we can spend. And so we'll

051use that to make some um purchases like getting a good assessment. we can use K12. Um, we're looking at Star Literacy for that. Uh, we are already using that at our intermediate or our primary school and seeing really good uses of the data. We've been sharing that data with you. So, we're going to use that as well at our intermediate, middle, and high school um to be able to gather better data about where we are at and how we can better serve kids. We're also going to look at a data collection tool because right now we get all that data and it goes into spreadsheets and then we manipulate it ourselves to figure out how to best squeeze it and it takes a lot of manpower and we'd rather have that that manpower in our

052classrooms working directly with teachers not crunching numbers. So um edge of climber is a program through um renaissance which runs star literacy and it basically is a program that allows all the data to feed into a central place groups kids based on where they are having struggles according to the assessments and helps us do interventions for them and I think let's see is that it okay that's it so any questions I told you I was going to do a short sweet today. >> Blake, >> with this program that runs for 5 years, when does it renew? How does that look for if someone if they were to come in and say, "Okay, I know I have a possible job for 5 years, but what does that look like in the future?" >> We don't know.

053Um, right now, this is federal funding that the state of Oregon received that they're pushing back out. So, it's possible that the state will come back and um say, "Okay, we're going to extend this funding with our own." It's possible that there'll be other funding through um the department of ed at the national level or we then have to within that five-year decide how do we adopt this into our general fund budget and make um a funding available for that. The last piece of it is we as part of the application it says per grant funding like this job is dependent on grant funding. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Um who who will do the hiring? um that will be Dan and I and then we'll probably um look to see if we can

054grab a couple principles who will be part of that hiring process >> and it's an indiston posting and so we'll be interviewing this week. >> Yeah. >> And it's in district only based on our collective bargaining agreement because we had um layoffs and rifts how we have to do that process. Bro, >> I'm not sure if I heard right, but I think I did. And I applaud pushing as much of that grant as possible into the classroom as focus there. It just seemed to me in reading over this that much grant money comes with strings attached and you must do this, you must do that. And I wonder how much actually filters down to our focus and our whole that sounds good to me. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. Um I know you don't have

055a crystal ball, but are you expecting gains in literacy this you know this school year out of out of the additional resources and kind of focus on it? >> Yeah, that would be obviously our hope. We know that um we were already starting to see some really positive gains, you know, incremental but positive and going in the right direction. our K5. Um what we're really excited is that this is the first time we've had something where it's like we can put some focus at 612 and we know that that is a spot where we just really have been lacking and not seeing the growth that we need. um both you know on a number of different levels um but specifically around how do we help our content t teachers really understand disciplinary literacy and how

056as a social scientist how do I read as a social scientist how do I read as a scientist how do I read as a mathematician like those reading skills are really specific and are going to help students across the board um and then of course how that intercedes with like lang language acquisition in general and vocabulary development. So, I'm really excited that this I think really allows us an opportunity to look K12 when we have really focused more on early literacy to begin with. >> Crystal, >> I'm good. >> Kelsey, >> I'm good, too. Okay. >> I think it's great. Thank you for everybody who was involved in applying and getting this grant successfully. Um, so my question is about the prek like prior to prek because this is for birth to pre like what

057happens what's I guess what's the goal and maybe that's part of the development of like the outreach and the identifying kids prek before >> yeah there's some of that that we're going to be looking to OD for help and and whatnot. Um, some of it is direct outreach, like how are we working with community organizations who are aware of the kids within our community and how do we connect with them? We're looking at like how do we connect with daycare providers. We know I was talking with someone just the other day that like the North Marian school district in general and including Woodburn in a lot of ways is kind of a daycare desert. Um, we don't have a lot of established daycarees. People do it through homes, through parents, through um you know, relatives,

058friends. Exact. Exactly. So, how do we then just advertise ourselves like, hey, we're going to have an evening where if you're a daycare provider, you can come into the district and we're going to give you some strategies that you can be teaching. Um and then a lot of it is how do we think about ways to connect directly with parents and um whether that is through mailings out to the district etc. How do we help families understand different literacy strategies to support literacy at home? Um so because it's a lot of different layers. So it can be that direct outreach as well as just like here's something you might not have thought about. Mom, you're at home. You're a stay-at-home mom with your kiddo. Have you thought about these easy strategies? Here is a way

059you can sign up for text messages through us to um get at home strategies, which is actually a a technique um that came out of the What Works Clearing House of like a really successful way to help parents learn strategies, little things like that. >> Yeah. >> So, we're really excited for the potential like this is a spot where we can get creative, I think. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you, T. >> All right. Great. >> We have one action item on the agenda and that is to essentially amend the action the board took in March where uh the past practice of the district was that contract teachers uh the board action was a one-year contract and then when teachers come back in the fall they get a each teacher gets a contract and typically

060that contract stated that it lasted a year and Later in the board meeting shortly after this uh vote uh I will give an overview of kind of the contractual processes that are outlined by the state. So what's linked on the agenda is essentially exactly what the board voted to um renew in March with uh the change being that it's through June of 2027. And then we also did remove the names of those people that have resigned so that obviously they're they're not returning because they've resigned from the district. So um it's simply just to put us in alignment with um the state statute that's linked there on the agenda. >> Great. Uh do we hear a motion for that? make a motion we um amend the contract uh the annual contract for teachers to align

061with RS342 or 895. >> Second. I'll second. Any discussion? Take a vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. Motion passes. All right. Just over second. Is that >> all right? So, with that, I would like to and I'm getting all turned around on my agenda here. Got messed up here. So, I know we're at the agenda is to welcome our new high school principal, Nathan Stanley, to give what we are terming the strengths and opportunities report. So, uh, welcome, Nathan. >> Thank you. >> Uh, thanks for having me tonight. Um, so over the course of this spring, um, I took several days, um, to visit with teachers and staff at the high school um, for really two purposes. One, for them to get to know me and um, and vice versa. And then

062the second piece was for me to kind of get some qualitative data um about um the school, what was going well, what what they would like changes around other things like that. And so um if we if you want to go to the next slide. >> Um and and of course we can um you know strengths and opportunities. I think one of the things that we were looking for a as I was asking questions and so um you know these were 15 to 20 minute interviews so pretty short. Um but you know the questions that I asked were you know what do you want me to know? What do I need to know? What advice do you have for me? And uh whatever I could do to get people to kind of you know share

063what was on their mind. And a lot of it was positive. And what what I think is really interesting is as um as challenging as the end of last year was for the staff that the amount of positivity that they shared really speaks um and I think that's one of the the strengths that comes up but um it was really interesting that there were some definite themes that came up both from a perspective of you know what was really good and what people love about this place and that school um to some things that um maybe aren't necessarily bad, but if we focus on can really um have a a force multiplier, so to speak, um for for the the school. So, if you want to go to the next slide. So the strengths that

064came up were uh community and and this the staff repeatedly said that the community that they serve is a a tremendous um positive to working at North Marian High School and uh the personal field, the small setting, those sorts of things were all all uh things that came up uh over and over again. They also said that the relationships that they have and we have a lot of teachers that have have worked elsewhere and they said that there is a unique uh nature to the relationship the student teacher relationship in in particular that they felt that they know their students so much better than um maybe some of the uh teachers the experience that they have at some of our surrounding um uh some of our neighbors. um teacher dedication came up. Um and you

065know teachers are sharing this uh and so um but you know they really felt like their colleagues really went the extra mile for a lot of their um staff members and that's something that I've heard for their students. That's something that I've heard uh repeated from other stakeholders. um student potential, the the um theme kept coming up about like the students are capable and they're capable of more. And that's something that they really wanted to push on is is seeing um maximizing the potential of every single student and um our student body as a whole. And then the final thing that came up which was really interesting to me, I had a staff member, I'm going to paraphrase the quote, but he said, "The staff could be really stubborn, but if you had come to

066them with a problem, they're really good at problem solving." And so I think that's something that Lindsay and I have been talking about figuring out how to process issues that some of the issues that we'll see on the next slide. um involving the whole staff as opposed to just you know the two of us making a decision or talking to a few staff members of getting the whole staff involved in a process for how we uh take on uh challenges and issues. So uh so the opportunities that we found one is that I think that the building not being um very old that it provides some geographical challenges in that the main office is in a spot that there aren't a lot of chance interactions with staff. Um, and so something that Lindsay and I

067have discussed um, uh, doing next year is branching out and probably operating out of other areas of the school than the main office. There are times obviously that you know for confidentiality and other um, uh, other situations being in the main office makes a lot of sense and having a connection or communication with the main office is important. Um but something that I started doing the last couple of years is I have a mobile desk where I roll around and um one you learn a lot about the school um from not being in an office. surprise surprise, you know, but um you know, by being at the end of the hallway to being in one of the little aloves where students hang out, being able to see student movement patterns as well as running into

068teachers. And I I think that that um you know, Google um purposefully sets up uh their office setting so that people run into one another. They call them collisions. if you've read the book uh the culture code um that's one of the things they talk about and so I think Lindsay and I both want to be very visible from an administrative standpoint and be some people that are um out and about um uh and very uh present with both students and with staff. um communication. I think that um I talked to a friend of mine who's principal in a high school in the area and I talked a little bit about communication and a plan that we were developing to make sure that we maximize the use of our meetings that we have our our

069staff meetings and uh our written electronic uh communication. uh and then to make sure that we have feedback loops uh built put in place so that we're able to get information back. And so those are that's a really an emphasis that we have we've been talking about the best way um uh communicate with um not only with the staff but with students and with with our our our stakeholders at home or families. One of the questions that I always ask and it's funny the answer that you get is you know like we we want the information but then we get overwhelmed with the amount of information that sometimes can come especially electronically. Um I I have children in the North Clackmus school district and there are times where it can be overwhelming the amount of

070emails and I'm this is what I do for a living, you know, and so uh so I understand, you know, people that with their jobs and families and other things going on. Uh and so we really want to as as far as the family communication really get some feedback on what's the most effective means of communicating um and sometimes you know it's better to overcommunicate than undercommunicate. We know that doubt but kind of hitting that sweet spot so that we don't get unfollowed or or whatever. Um, in another district, uh, the other district, the district I just, uh, finished working in, there were parents that would block the phone number of the school for auto the auto calls and some other things like that. So, we don't want that. Uh, but we do want to

071kind of, uh, zero in on the most effective means of communication with our staff. Uh so something that I think is it it came up as something that needs to be worked on but I think is really cool and when I talk to other principles I it's it's unique in and probably so it probably should be on the on the strengths but one of the things that came up with something that the teachers thought we needed more of was school spirit. So, and I paired that with staff morale because that came up a lot. But, you know, I've been doing this for a while, um, working in in large comprehensive high schools and medium-siz comprehensive high schools. And oftent times the staff is more concerned about other things other than the morale of students. And

072that I thought that that was really cool. And it was really one of the fun things about those meetings that I'm like, this is really cool. I talked to the Tiger principal and she was like, "That's incredible." I, you know, because it's really unique. And so, uh, something that we're coming up with, we actually met with two student leaders today to talk about some things. Um, Tucker, uh, Brock has shared a lot of things about, uh, some things that, um, the school has done in the past that we might be able to bring back. And um so some school spirit, some staff morale, that's a major um goal of ours. That's not something that goes into um a school improvement plan for board approval. Uh you know, but it's something that I think, you know,

073if we we're really going to talk about a theory of action is that if it's a place that on Mondays people are ready to go back to work or go back to school, a lot of the other things will take care of themselves. And so that's sort of um a theme underpinning some of the the work that we're trying to do. Process optimization just means that we just want systems uh and procedures that make sense and and are efficient. And then um and that everyone's on the same page. That is something that comes up. Some of these are not unique to North Marian High School. I'll just say um that um when I left to Walatin and I was talking with some people about some things that we were hearing from staff feedback that a

074lot of them are the same things you know communication um you know let's get everyone on the same page those sorts of things. Um the final thing was about student expectations and again that was just having a a comprehensive and consistent response um and enforcement of school rules so that everyone knows what's expected and um you know we have high expectations for all of our students for their learning and their behavior. And that's it. >> Thank you. I'll go around Robin Blake. Do you feel like the school morale or the um and what did you gather on ways that that that could improve staff morale? >> So from a staff morale and I think that it's not uncommon um to be honest with you. I think postco there are a lot of staffs that feel

075very similarly because education um public education in particular um went through something and it's we're trying to get back to where we were before um in terms of how we feel about our jobs. And so one of the things that we have started to do is come up with a um a calendar. So, we have a a 12-month well uh 9-month calendar of how we can uh demonstrate appreciation for teachers, reinforce the core values that we have. So, recognize both staff and students for doing the things that we think are really important in schools. Um because I think often, you know, you have student of the month and some other thing, honor role and some other things like that, but oftent times some of those other things that are really important um in schools don't

076get recognized. And so finding ways of doing that, we're kind of working on that to kind of set it up for our instructional leaders to help us uh flesh that out a little more. Um, and then opportunities for the staff to socialize both in school, uh, you know, like, uh, whether it be a chili cook off or a potluck lunch, you know, on inservice days or even, um, you know, uh, activities that are outside of school. Um, those are some things that we're going to try to do. interesting on the feedback loops, but even more uh impressive to hear that you want to be with the students and then you don't I mean obviously that feedback's important, but when you're there experiencing it yourself, you can assess those situations being versus being told about them.

077Well, in my experience, you know, they they have, you know, there's something about um having a policeman living on your block that that patrol car parked outside um has an impact on student behavior in hallways. And so I found that whatever people would say when I was in the hallways, it was looked really good. So, um, and so I think that that's something and it does you you know, oftent times, you know, especially with some some roles, um, when I had a lot of my my role being student management, I didn't get to know a a wider section of the student body and we'd get to the end of the year, the senior awards, I'm like, I don't know that kid. I don't know that kid. And so like getting out of my office at

078Walletton allowed me to learn, you know, get to run get to know a lot more students and then in turn they knew me a lot better. So it's it's a a win-win, you know. >> Great. See, I like that whole visibility thing, too. It reminds me when I was in high school back in the 80s, we had this cool teacher that I just never forgot because he always carried around these challenge coins and he put a challenge deal and then he wanted to see pretty much he had 24 48 hours to do that and you either want to hear about or see it but it kept everybody engaged and always and yeah that was a really cool thing. So yeah, I like that whole idea. would you want to comment on the athletics of the

079high school and what things look like for the coming year? >> Well, I you know I think that we have some areas to work on, but you know, I think we're making the right moves and uh I'm really excited uh with uh Tucker Brock's ownership that he's showing. I mean, you know, uh, he's been, you know, uh, communicating with coaches and, uh, other athletic directors and, um, you know, uh, interviewing, uh, people for positions and, uh, is really taking full ownership of it, which is really nice. being a um you know a first year principal and being new to the district and and the school um you know oftent times having been an athletic director myself for a long time people like well what do you think and this and that and uh like while

080there's communication there's not like waiting for me to do things or to tell them what to do which has been really um appreciated and uh you know the passion that he has for the school and athletics I know is going to pay dividends for us down the road. And the other coaches that we've hired and put in place um are doing a lot of the good things communicating and trying to get out there and get numbers up and other things like that. And we have really good facilities. Um you know, there's always room for improvement, but a lot of positives there uh that you know, I I I was the athletic director of a 6A high school uh with one gym. Uh, and so when I was taking my tour and I found three, I

081was like, "Oh my lord, you know, this is incredible." So, uh, and yeah. So, thank you, >> Glenn. >> Um, not really any questions other than, and this is probably more directed at us, I'm assuming ASB is going to have representatives here again for a meetings like >> Yeah. So, with everything that happened at the end of last year, um, the the elections were not held. So they'll be held right at the beginning of the year. Um and so we're working on that. As like I said, we were meeting with students today just to talk about some ideas that they had for the year. Uh and then um some some questions that they had about elections and some other things like that. So yeah, we will >> I always appreciate their interactions with us. So

082>> yeah, definitely. Crystal, >> I'm good. I just want to say um thank you for coming to the board and I look for forward to working with you in the future and um thank you for your presentation. I'm sure I have a laundry list of questions, but I'll run those through Dan. >> Sounds good. >> Kelsey, um yeah, I like the visibility um statement that you said that you're going to do this year, too. Um, excited to get back the school spirit and stuff and ride. I think that's needed and exciting. Um, and excited to have you. I think it's going to be a great great year and the future looks good. >> Yeah. >> Well, I'm excited to be here. So, >> I'm excited to have you, too. And Lindsay at the high school,

083too. I think that's going to be a great great support. She knows 75% of the kids already. So, welcome. >> Yeah. So, I appreciate uh all the time Nathan put in. You know, I've you know, told him as many times as he could get here in the spring and then, you know, quickly he marched himself towards a goal of getting to meet every staff member, which I think, you know, to be able to do that before June or by the middle of June. It's a significant accomplishment. So, thank you for all that time. All right. >> So, Dez, on this, do you wanna Where do you want to be for since we're sharing before I launch into uh the contract renewal and evaluation process? Where do you want to move up front? >> Yeah, >>

084I have only two slides. I feel like you want to stay there. Okay. All right. Okay. So earlier uh this evening, you voted to renew contracts to for contract teachers to a two-year contract. And so, um, initially I planned on giving this presentation in in October, but given the timeline of what we what I asked you to do tonight, teachers coming back getting, uh, for contract teachers getting a two-year contract, I thought I'd give an overview of um, kind of all these terms that we use and that are outlined in statute. So, we've got on the opening slide here, probationary status, contract status, renewal, non-renewal, and non-extension, and what does it all mean, and where does evaluation fit into this? So, I'm going to walk you through these terms and how they're outlined in statute.

085So, a licensed probationary period is applies to all TSPC licensed employees. So those are our teachers that are licensed and they serve a probationary period of up to three years. So state law requires that they do at least one year of probation, a district could shorten it. Um, and now the state legislature did pass a law that says that if a teacher gets to contract, what's called contract status in the state of Oregon, so let's say a teacher teaches for 5 years in Woodford. And so by you know by the nature of being three years they achieve contract status and then they come to us and become a teacher their probationary period is maxed out at 2 years. So that is a brand new law that just got passed that if a teacher achieves contract

086status in the state of Oregon when they apply to a new district, their their max contract uh is for two years and uh you know school districts and school boards uh I mean it's just one more thing to keep track of. So it is what it is. get passed. And so it's just one more thing that we and the rules I don't think have been written yet to know like how do we know like where does that come in and you know so a lot of things to figure out. I'll wait to we're actually going to a Gary Heman Robertson legislative like okay here's all the new stuff you need to know meeting this Thursday. So maybe that'll be spelled out for us. So, uh, and so that annual renewal process happens every March by

087March 15th. So, so here's what you need to know. For probationary employees, these are one-year contracts, and the board may non-renew or dismiss a probationary teacher for what's called any cause deemed in good faith sufficient, which essentially means that it is not based on a performance standard. It is not based on a disciplinary measure. It's did the if I were to bring a non-renewal recommendation for you. Uh did I do so basically in good faith like I don't have a a false motive or anything like that is that you know the essentially it is it is a pretty low standard for the board to act to nonrenew uh a teacher within the first three years in those probationary time periods. And I think what's equally or is very important to know is those actions are

088not subject to grievance or or a fair dismissal appeals board. So when the board if I were to bring a non-renewal to the board, the board approved that non-renewal, that's where it stops. It does not go beyond the local school board any further for probationary. Okay. So, makes those probationary periods super important as we get into what happens next. So, a contract teacher, so I've linked the OS's in here. So, if you want to go into deep reading there, they're all linked there. And this is what the board did. This states that contract teacher shall be employed by a school district pursuant to two-year employment contracts. So, the state once they move off of probationary status, they move into where they get a two-year contract. And that annual renewal that you do every March, another

089two years. Another two years. Another two years. Okay. Well, and well, let me back up because it doesn't add on it, but it's it it >> it renews it for another two years. Okay. So, you're making every March, you're making a 2-year commitment with every employee listed. So, what you just did there earlier, you just made a two-year commitment to everybody on that list. >> Wait, I'm going backwards now. Just kidding. >> Go ahead, Marl. >> Is that a mandated requirement or you sign a two-year contract and the end of two years sign another? >> So, every March when you renew. So, so when those employees get that letter here in a couple of weeks, it'll state that they their employment contract is from July 1 of 2025 to June 30, 2027. Next year, they'll

090get another letter that will say that'll be another two years. Those same employees, if no actions taken, those same teachers will get a two-year agreement. >> Now, I understand what you're saying. My question though is is that a a statutory requirement or if you sign a two-year contract, it's a two-year contract. Can you let it run for two years and then renew it or does it have to be a revolving charge account? >> It has to be revolving, >> but we have the opportunity. >> You have worked toward nonrenewal. >> Yeah, you can work towards non-renewal with like a year. >> So that's what gets to my next kind of second sub bullet there. So, if there were actions to be taken, the action to be taken is in the first year of that 2-year

091contract is to non-extend that contract. >> Mhm. >> So, that's why all these terms get floated around and no one really knows what they mean. is that so that that the if the board if there was a recommendation to come to the board to non-extend a contract and the board voted to non-extend it to what you're getting at is that basically puts that two-year contract will come to an end >> the following year. Now that's essentially the process you're describing. It's just um very specific >> I I I guess although I I I think it might be a little different as it relates to staff and morale if you spend that second year doing the what's the term PIA missing I don't >> plan of assistance or you know they're referred to oftentimes loosely as

092a plan or a plan of assistance. The the legal description is a program of assistance for improvement. So >> maybe that's not all bad. I'm I'm just imagining how that might feel. >> Yep. >> Going through that second year, but with that kind of hanging over. >> So for a non-extension, it's also written in the statute that a teacher must be on the plan of assistance for the board to to vote to non-extend. >> Okay. So kind of wrapping up on the next one, next slide. So that OS outlines the reasons for the non-extension or dismissal of a contract teacher. So basically it says there's nine reasons why you can either non-extend or dismiss a contract teacher. Um and so of those I picked out the one that would be most likely would be an

093inadequate performance would be the most common reason for the non-extension of a contracts teacher's employment contract. So that would be the most common. Here's an important piece is the non-extension non-renewal. So we played this out. So in year one, we non-extend and if year two you voted to non-renew, then that two-year contract then would come to an end or dismissal. All of those are uh they can be appealed to the fair dismissal appeals board. So, if the board votes to take any of those actions, there can be an appeal to this board. Um, I've linked all the information about that board. The there's there's three people that there's it's actually about 24 people, but for each case is is heard by three people. A school board member in an district in Oregon, a teacher, and

094then essentially kind of a community member, somebody not affiliated with the school district. So there would be three people that hear that and then would vote to either uphold or reject a board's board's action. So So those are those are all the steps. So I think it's really important that we because sometimes we brush we kind of blow through that March boat and not realize the commitments we're making. So, I think it's really important that we kind of understand these commitments we're making. >> And so, I want to make a connection to the to the teacher evaluation piece because, um, >> well, why don't I go ahead and turn it over to Dez who's been working on this quite a bit. >> Sure. So, uh, this is just more of a reminder of the teacher

095evaluation process that we talked about, um, in the spring that has come into place. Um, teachers, like Dan said, are on one of three cycles. They're either in their probationary cycle, which is their first three years or potentially two based on the new law. They're in their formative cycle, um, or their summitative cycle. When they're in their probationary cycle, they have a minimum of four formal or four observations where principles or administrators are in their classrooms watching the teaching process. They complete a yearly self-evaluation. They set two annual student learning and growth goals and one professional goal. And they have a yearly evaluation from their supervisor using our evaluation rubric. From there, once they have removed themselves or gotten off of the probationary cycle, their first year is on their formative cycle. And the formative

096cycle is um not as stringent as the um summitive cycle or probationary. So they kind of get a year on year off. So during the formative year they have a minimum of three observations. Again they do a yearly self-evaluation. They set the same goals two student learning and growth goals and one professional goal but their supervisor will not complete a formal evaluation on them. Um and then once they've completed that year, they move into year two. Again, a minimum of three observations. I will say most teachers get more than that, but three are the ones that we have to have as part of our process. They complete a yearly self-evaluation. They're do their goal setting, and then again, they'll get their yearly evaluation from their supervisor using the rubric. Um we talked about this in

097the spring. They're evaluated on four domains. that are standards of practice, planning and preparation, learning environment, learning experience, and principal teaching. And the yearly evaluation, the rubric is informed by classroom observations, observations of other professional responsibilities in including staff meetings, participation in PLC's, a collection of evidence and examples aligned to the rubric. So, samples of their lesson plan, samples of assessments they've done, um data we have on did you collect your grades on time and submit this paperwork on time and complete your professional responsibilities. And then additional evidence that the staff member can provide to us because we as much as we can get into classrooms, we will never see everything that a teacher does um on a day-to-day basis. >> So, leaving that slide up there. Um so, just to kind of want to

098highlight the four domains there. So, planning and preparation is kind of the things you don't always see a teacher doing in preparing for lessons. Each of those four bullets there, planning, preparation, learning environments, learning experiences, and principal teaching, each have about six standards within them. So, you can think there's about 24 standards that people are being evaluated on. So learning environments has more to do what you'd probably see more things about how the classroom feels, how the classroom is run in terms of and how it's managed is what you'd probably see in those learning environments. Uh that particular domain. Learning experiences is probably going to be more about that direct teaching. What is the teacher doing? What are the kids doing in response to the teacher's teaching? And the principle of teaching is probably more

099of those professional responsibilities, the things that uh how they collaborate with others, things like that that necessarily aren't always as visible in the classroom. And so again, there's about 24 different standards. >> 22. All right. >> There's some of them have like five instead of six. >> Yeah. So those are the areas where uh they are evaluated. So next slide. So board action on teacher contracts serves to validate and certify the effectiveness of its evaluation system. I don't know I put my initials there because I don't know if anybody quoted that but that's my quote. So, uh, so, so it's there now. And so I feel like the board when it takes its action in March is really validating this process that if we're bringing you a recommendation to move a probationary teacher or renew

100them for another year or move them from probationary to contract or that we're going to give somebody another two-year contract, you're really work you're really validating and certifying the effectiveness of of the evaluation system. And I really actually feel like this is a really even a better time than in October to bring this up because we are rolling out this new evaluation system here in two weeks with our staff. Um and with our administrators and um I think it's I I don't think I know it's going to be wellreceived. it does has put a ton of work into removing a lot of the barriers that make the the system cumbersome and really trying to uh pinpoint it about feedback. So, um I also wanted the board to know that there are multiple steps in place

101prior to the non-renewal of a probationary teachers contract. So that doesn't just come before the board in March without our administrators going through a lot of different steps that I require of them before something comes like that to the board. We are really working to document making sure we're clear with the concerns that we may have um before that and that plan program of assistance for improvement PAS will be a training that will take place this year for all administrators and that those plans are outlined both in statute and collective bargaining agreements uh with the union. So if you know if we get to a place where we have those things in front of the board know that they're also very outlined from what I expect of administrators on those. Um and ultimately evaluation doesn't

102necessarily improve teacher performance. Feedback is what improves teacher performance. And so you've really got to remember that the evaluation is kind of the culmination of a lot of these things. But really, we're aiming our work on making sure that our principles are giving effective feedback. And one of the in our admin retreat last week, we we discussed about the importance of feedback being a two-way street that if the feedback that a principal gives a teacher is not helpful, that needs to be communicated. And so I've been working with our principles about having almost like their own exit ticket to where after they give feedback after being in a classroom that they would automatically send the teacher, you know, very brief kind of survey. How effective was this? You know, what could I do to give

103you more effective feedback? Because I think it's really important that feedback goes up and down the chain of command. it cannot just be a downward uh um process. It has to go up the chain of command as well. Um and so our principles were really receptive to that idea. I asked them to come up with a proposal that we could entertain. And so um it evaluation's obviously critically important, but really the only way to improve teacher performance is through effective feedback. So >> great questions. >> Kelsey, >> Crystal, >> I'm good. >> All right. I have a question. Um, on the notion that feedback improves teacher performance, why would we not be doing an evaluation in year one? >> So um, so on that, so I think the year piece gets a little muddy. Okay.

104So, if you think about a teacher going from probationary status to contract status, they've had three years in a row of a full of full evaluations. So, the state state law requires that contract teachers, so the people that are non-probationary, >> that contract teachers get a full evaluation once every two years. >> Okay? So these are people that went through three years of getting evaluated every year and now they move into contract status and now they go on an alternating year as far as the full evaluation piece. Now that's the minimum. So if we had somebody that let's say that a principal gave did their did their full evaluation and there were some areas where growth was you know the principal and this did happen this last year principal said I'm going to put you

105on a full cycle again next year so that we can monitor >> okay >> those things. >> So maybe not you're not bad enough to go into a PIA but I want to continue to monitor you kind of thing. Okay, I see >> we can always do more on the full evaluation. The state requires that once you're in contract status, you have to get a full evaluation once every two years, >> but we could do more if we wanted to. >> We could do more if we wanted to. And I would think that at the same time, let's being really strategic though in terms of, you know, if we have a high performer, yeah, >> taking that responsibility off of our principles to do that full evaluation, let's let's not >> waste that time. >>

106Agreed. Yep. >> So, Glenn, >> um, so I guess maybe a scenario, maybe a question. This data that we're gathering because that's a lot of data points and a lot of information. Um, are we sharing it with future employeeers ever? >> What's that on the on staff? >> What do what do we what are we required to share >> like in to like someone who call for a reference? >> Yeah, reference can be pretty broad. >> Reference can be pretty broad. I didn't know like are we uh like is there any any scenario where we're actually sharing documentation? No. No. like that kind of >> no that's personnel file related that would be protected. So then now that we're mandated to do two years, I'm assuming we cannot ask for anything still, but just a

107>> um I mean now that we're consider, you know, we have to count >> um time served, we you know, we're still at that scenario of just collecting as we bring in new employees, um just either a letter of reference or something very general. >> Okay. And it speaks to the importance of those probationary years, especially if they are cut down to two, because having been in other districts and you know, like anywhere, there are people who move through that process who maybe shouldn't have. Yeah. >> Um who suddenly aren't in contract status and we, you know, the the time to make sure we have the right employee at the job is during those probationary years. >> Yeah. Okay. For sure. If I'm understanding right, you're saying that when it comes to to the March

108time and our decision that we can have confidence if you're recommending you're not recommending non-extension or non-renewal or or either way that you've done these steps and that that P AI has is in place and functioning and working. >> Yeah, >> in thinking about evaluations, I think Ezri said that that this new rubric, this four domains or whatever is less time consuming. It is less time consuming in that it is better organized and and more like streamlined and clear um for sure but simultaneously uh the feedback we've got from teachers who looked at it said it's far more rigorous also like the expectations are higher things where we had teachers say well I used to get a four on this but when I look at this I would score myself a two and it's like

109okay well here's what a four looks like you know this is how we expect you to up your game. >> Well, that's what I had picked up on is that it's time consuming is a criticism and the resources consumed sort of that those two go together I guess and the subjectivity of the system but it sounds like this one you feel is a pretty good uh change for us. >> It's excellent. Yeah, it's absolutely excellent. And part of when dad talks Dan talks about the um like two long working together at this point when we talk about the time consuming part it's not even the about the rubric. It is about the old system we put it into which was called talent ed and that was super cumbersome because it was just kind of an

110outdated electron electronic system that um just doesn't work very well. So, we've streamlined that um also and that's where a lot of the time is going to be saved both on the teacher and the um the administrator. >> For sure. >> You know, I I think if it if it results in better teachers, it's worth it. And the ones you brought in that time, I don't know if you cherry picked them or not, but they were positive about it. >> Yes. >> Yeah. They were the entire committee. It was strong and mighty. >> Okay. >> Robert, >> uh I just have a question for dad. Okay. >> Blake, >> when you talk on the observations, who does those? >> Those are principles. >> Principles do it. And so, just a rough count on the high

111school. There's 30 teachers. And so, what kind of do they sit through a class? Does the teacher know what's happening? Do they just show up? Can you lay out a little bit of what that looks like? And if you're a teacher, how how they're prepped for it, how that feels, and how the principal works. just kind of give us a little >> I mean there's definitely lots of schools of thought. You don't have to, you know, tell somebody you're coming. Um and let if I >> Yep, I'm ready. >> Okay. In case those could be spelled out in different collective bargaining agreements, you know, so if I don't have our collective bargaining agreement memorized. So, uh so you can show up unannounced. Um you know, and there's not a time our contract's pretty, you know,

112generous. It doesn't have a minimum time requirement. Um, and so I mean you could do more than four. You could do you could, you know, in general I would say at least that 20 to 30 minute being in there. Uh, if you're really wanting to kind of see I would say at least that time. I mean sometimes there's independent work and so you know the kids are doing so you you know it might not be the best use of the principal's time to stay in there to see independent work but kind of depends on what the principal's in there looking for as well. So I think I covered some of those questions >> right now I just sometimes we gather all this information and then getting that information to the decision makers can be kind

113of a hard thing to to do. And so once the principles put all that together who's reviewing and analyzing that? The principles are they're the ones that make the final decision, but we do a lot of work to calibrate them um on a couple levels. One is we do walkthroughs together where we then say, "What did you see? This is what I saw." Um we also can look at scores to look for trends. Do we see that this one seems to be scoring people at a pretty high level versus this one's a little harder? Do we need to calibrate ourselves on that level? The other thing I'll I'll add to what Dan said, um, part of the reason why we don't tell teachers we're coming is because we want to see what does the day-to-day

114look like. Um, and for our probationary teachers, because they have four, one of those is considered a formal observation. They're in for the entirety of the period. They meet with the principal ahead of time and say, "This is what you're going to see. This is what my lesson plan is." And they meet with them after to debrief. The reason why we don't have a ton of formals, because I came from a district where we had like two formals a year and two or three um informals is because when you know your principles there, you bring out all the dog and pony show, right? And you're going to use your best tricks and you're going to make sure you have the best PowerPoint and you're going to use all the bells and whistles. Um and then

115we want to see but what happens when you didn't know I was coming? Um, and so that kind of mix of like when do we stop in? Any teacher though can ask for a formal. They can say tomorrow I'd love for you to come in and see me. I'm doing this really cool lesson. I'd like for you to come see it. Any of those are always open invitations to teachers. >> And I think in our contract I don't that you know like if you got an evaluate or observation and some feedback that you disagreed with, you could say, "Hey, can I'd like Dez to come in and take a look." you can have another administrator come in and take a look at the classroom to kind of so the teachers can request that as well.

116And that was one of the things the pre-observation or what's you know typically kind of called a formal where you have this mandatory pre and mandatory post is we we really remove those from the contract teachers because again it was another thing for the principles remember do I have to do that for this one and not have to do that you know it's like just go in the classrooms and give feedback like like quit having the mental gymnastics of the things you have to remember to do just get in the classrooms and give feedback. So, we kind of try to remove all the this one you have to do at this and this one you have to do at that. >> The other piece I'll add um that the teachers in the evaluation committee actually

117specifically asks for there to be opportunities for people who weren't their supervisors to come and do observations and contribute to it. So, the evaluation at the end as I said it's about evidence that we've collected and that evidence can be the principal. Yeah, I saw you teach three times, but also and Dan saw you teach once and here's what he said and Desire saw you teach once and here's what she said. And we're compiling all that evidence to make an evaluation and place you on the rubric. And the teachers in that team said, "We really find it valuable to know other eyes are on our classroom and giving us feedback." >> Great. And we've also um some of the feedback I heard especially towards the end of last year is that that I was not

118as visible in the classrooms as maybe some would like. And so one of the things that we did for this year and our meeting schedule with principles is we've ex uh and I meet with the principles on the second week of every month and I meet with them one-on-one on the fourth week of every month. Uh, and so I've expanded those from an hour to an hour and a half where the meeting portion with the principal is 45 minutes and then we go into the classrooms and do 45 minutes of walkthrough. So Dez and I will be in classrooms with the principles uh in each building the second week of every month and I will be with the principles the fourth week of every month going into each classroom. So that's a priority of mine

119to be more present. >> Very cool. >> Cool. a I haven't worked out with board leadership on the on the board retreat, but one idea I had was to uh within those domains, there's a few that we've had earmarked that are going to be like high priorities for us this year and that we would do an exercise with the board at the board retreat to give you kind of the descriptors of those domains and say, "What would you expect to see in a classroom under with this kind of description? have the board go through that and then compare what you said you would think you'd see with what our principles said they would be looking for and see >> it'd be I think that'd be interesting to see what you would expect to see going

120into classroom on a particular area and compare that to what our principles say maybe we'll do it maybe we won't all right okay so next on the agenda is I I've linked these draft policies. Uh OSBA provided those to us uh to all districts. Uh they are not uh up for they have not been approved yet. They went to the governor's office to get reviewed. I don't know what's going to happen there. Um, and so I'm just providing those to you, um, so that you can know what I know. And, um, I have my notes from the last board meeting. Um, and I'm reading things like be careful, wait and see. Uh, so I'm just following that lead a little bit. And uh I did meet with Nathan and Lindsay today and we talked a

121little bit about and I think I've mentioned before the high school is probably the place where the the biggest, you know, change is going to take place. And so um Nathan and Lindsay have some ideas of of where they think they could go, but they really kind of want their staff input and staff uh uh to buy into some of that. I think you'll probably see the high school leaning more towards what the middle schools had. Um, and so, um, I think the wait and see is the path that we're on, but you have what I you know what I know. >> I have a question on that. So, and this is probably a question for you. Um, can you implement some of that stuff basically just without board approval rather than do midyear changes

122because I don't want your year to look super chaotic. Um, but this is coming, >> right? And so I didn't know. I mean, it's pretty late to get ahead of of school starting. Um, but I didn't know what I didn't kind of I I just kind of wanted to go get your feel for >> Well, the way I read the the policy the draft policies, I don't see a in the most kind of liberal sense of student access to to their devices. I don't see that a lot different than what's been in a lot of schools. Okay. So, to answer your question, I think that we if Nathan and the high school staff say this is our new cell phone policy, I think we could do that without your approval. >> Okay. >> Yeah. because

123we were meeting I can't speak for the board but >> you know I would rather than you know come in midstream and change what you guys are already doing maybe you want to start that year out with you know what I mean sort of the expectation >> um I think you'll see an increase in way you know at the high school >> I think you'll see some increase in expectations at the high school I think that you know not knowing until OSBA you know if those if that stays then I I think that this process of the board adopting policies will probably not be very difficult. >> Yeah. >> I think if that if that comes back and that is there's the options are too loose, then we're probably having a different conversation. I don't

124know. But I think I think moving the high school closer to what the middle schools had is probably the direction we're going. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And then we have just the annual updates of of what we have going on for staff there during um so we have new teacher orientation, new staff orientation on the on the next next Friday already the 22nd. Um and so um this is where we bring all our new employees in and we turn on the fire hose and then we say remember all this stuff. So, uh, so yeah, it's it's good though. It's a good chance to connect with them. Uh, Amy's here and they'll have a time to meet with new classified employees. Uh, UNM is asked to do have their new employees because there's there's only a

125tiny group of teachers and so they've asked for do something the following the following week. Any questions on that? And then we have the inservice week. I lost my >> and so similar to what we've done. Um so and then we'll my my address will be talking about feedback the two-way street to greatness. And then um yeah, there you have it. >> And you're welcome. >> I was going to say, do you want us to come? >> Uh you're welcome to come >> on that. >> Yeah. So that welcome back on Tuesday would be great. Um, and Dez will be walking people through the new evaluation process more from a technical standpoint of kind of where where they can find the information and then it'll be a good handoff because then the principles will take

126care of it from there the next couple of days. So, so yes, if you'd like to be there Tuesday at 7:45, be great to see them. Anything else on that, Diane, that we cover? Is that cover it? >> Yeah. Okay. >> Are we good? >> Back to school night. >> And then back to school nights Wednesday >> 27th. >> The 27th and been working with our principles and get collaborating on communication. I know that both primary and intermediate have been collaborating on their communication so those events go well for families. Okay. Great. Anything else? I'm going to adjourn this meeting at 7:46.