Phoenix-Talent School Board meeting 08-11-2022

001Who would like to go first? That's a good question. I don't see it. Good evening, board. Um, I'm representing three schools today. So, we're going to begin with Brandon. Brandon's not here today. Unfortunately, he had to leave for an emergency, a family emergency. And so, I will be speaking on his behalf. Um, and he wrote, "As an administrator entering a new district, there is a myriad of policies, procedures, and plans that need to be made. There's also the awkwardness that you feel upon entering a district with being the new person. I'm entering my 17th year in education and have been blown away by the genuine kindness shown to my family and me within the school and community. Change and trans and transition can be difficult, but having a supportive group of individuals to help along

002the way has made our move feel like home. I want to publicly thank the district office staff, my new school family at Orchard Hill, and for creating an extremely positive atmosphere. Um, then also Heather was not able to be here, but she also wanted to share um she first wanted to give a shout out to the Boys and Girls Club and Kaylee Morris for um creating another kindergarten um or pre kindergarten program this summer. We have over 20 kids participating and she wrote he have um Everly's actually participating in it and she's loving learning the letter of the day and uh um they're really excited for getting the the little kids ready for big kids school. Uh she also wanted to send a big shout out to Maria Lee and a lot of our district

003staff and staff from across um the valley for an tremendously successful summer school experience. I mean, I'll add to that that um I don't know if any of you follow Talent Maker City on uh Instagram, but I feel like we are their biggest partner. I feel like it like I've been following them this summer and it's just been it it kind of made the summer school, all of the fun art projects and just the the great learning opportunities for all of the students. Um and so Heather and Brandon are both getting excited to start the new school year. Um, I want to add um from PEES that uh and I'm Shauna Schlife, principal at PEES that I want to give a big shout out to our custodians. You know, we had a seismic upgrade last

004summer and so then this summer we're starting off with just things are getting clean and and tight and painted and it's just looking sharp and they just have a really positive attitude every time I come in there. They're working hard and having a good time. So, I just want to give a big shout out to Dave, Mike, and Dustin. And then we've had a lot of other district crew in there this summer. Uh I'd also like to highlight two teachers. They're two newer to the profession teachers and they're both in their second and third year at PES. Jennifer Hawkins and Amy Hartley. I kid you not, since last year and this summer, they have participated in every single PD opportunity that has been provided. They've taken numerous classes and they are just on this really

005big learning journey. Um those two along with I want to make sure I get all of their names. Um Pam Ward, Alita Mark from Talent Middle School, Jenny Brown, Christian Cyros, Jennifer Mohat, Melanie Sprag, Brenda um Bazison Madiraa, that's over half my staff participated in a GLAD training. Um it's going on this week and we're talking six full days of professional development. So they're all just doing a lot of learning and I think it's really going to benefit our students at PES. Lastly, I want to recognize Jenny Brown. She is a TWWI teacher here at PEES and she is on fire for just getting our our our whole TWWI team at both TEES and PEES together to um relook at our biiteracy book. So she's doing a book study and we're meeting tomorrow over on

006that. So just want to give her a shout out for her leadership on that. So that's the positives from PES. Welcome, Catherine Holden. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Katherine Holden. I'm the principal of Talent Middle School. Um, I have just been overwhelmed and amazed at the support that everyone has given us in the district. Um, this time around, I'm throwing just a little bit because we're just accentuating the positive, right? And then later, we're going to do engagement and handbook. Okay, I know. So, it's okay. I'll introduce my two assistant principles and then they're going to come up again with me in a minute. But this is Erica Ooa and Allison Hass and they're um joining me here on the administrative team this year. So we're super excited to have them. Um so

007yeah, I just want to emphasize how helpful everybody has been as we have gotten to understand Talent Middle School, the needs of Talent Middle School, the um strengths of Talent Middle School for sure. Um, so yeah, teachers have been coming in to meet with me and offer their ideas and their insights and that's been very very helpful. Um, and then the district office staff has been incredibly helpful every step of the way. So I like even just in the hiring process. Um, Jessica and Tiffany Britain have been just so amazing and responsive when it comes to supporting me as I'm learning the process while hiring people. Um, really daily there for a while. It felt like we were bringing on new people. So that was exciting to be able to actually make, you know, connect

008all those dots. Um, and then Stephen and the crew, the custodial crew, as well as John and the extended crew have just done an incredible job of stepping in and supporting us with some um, pretty big projects that we needed to tackle in order to open the school and have it feeling really good over there. So that's been amazing to just feel everybody's support. Brent certainly has been hugely supportive. Lambert's been supportive with all my special ed questions. I keep being well what about this empower school what about this empower school um so she has responded um in so many great ways as well so I'm just feeling overwhelming support overwhelming excitement um as well as just a lot of curiosity for what will what will come and as well I just want to mention

009uh the summer school was really really positive it was great to have kids on campus I I love that community partnership and um we're also looking forward to our migrant um education students will have a camp next week Monday through Friday on campus as well So, it's just fun that we've um even in the midst of trying to get everything ready, we've also been interacting with students and seeing a lot of teachers around as well. So, yep. Hi, I'm up here representing Erin Santi. He just texted about and maybe we should just call this Talent Maker City um accentuate the positive because from PT he just said that he's pretty excited. They're exploring some um uh elective offerings for the students in the virtual academy and through mount uh through talent maker city and it

010that might include ceramics, hand toolled and woodworking. So those details should be ironed out in the next couple of weeks. So he wanted to share that with the board. Hi everyone, Kayn Cross, principal of the high school. Good to be here. Um first I just wanted to say thank you. Um, I was able to spend a couple of weeks this spring on campus at the high school and um, I knew it was amazing then just to be able to walk through those experiences, but in our planning and in um, just looking forward at professional development and looking at traditions and all these things that we hold dear, it has been um, just so valuable starting the school year already knowing staff members, knowing their hearts, knowing what they need, knowing um, what they're advocating for

011um for students and families. And so just thank you so much for the opportunity. It has been phenomenal and a great way to start the year. Um this summer we uh hosted summer school for three weeks actually. Um our graduation coach Ben Evans was kind of the point person on those three weeks of summer school for four days. And um kids were in there working hard. We earned 11.75 credits in three weeks, which is phenomenal. um got kids feeling really hopeful and families just feeling refreshed and renewed that their kids are on track and ready to run. So that's great. Um another really positive um thing kind of to piggyback off of Shauna and Talent Maker City, we did pirate camp um for our incoming freshmen. We also had a couple of new students to

012the district attend those um days as well. And it was just amazing for kids to get hands-on learning, experience new things, try some new um some new projects and it it was great and we're really looking forward to expanding that um in coming years. Um and Helica Mendoza who's a counselor and Sam Guyers who is someone who we've contracted with or hired before were really the point people on that and they rocked it. They were you know pivoting as they needed to pivot and moving things and we got feedback and so a lot of credit to them. That was great. Um, we served 34 uh incoming freshmen and new students. Then also um we've we've had the opportunity to attend a lot of professional development um over the summer and it has been such a

013great experience and we are getting things that we are applying right away in our planning and how we're going to greet students, change a few things, um communicate expectations, how we're going to love students a little bit, you know, differently or how we're going to be able to address needs differently. So thank you for those opportunities as well. I do want to throw it over to Dave who will talk a little bit about um what's been going on with sports and activities. That's also positive. Thank you, Kaylin. Hi everyone. Dave Hart, assistant principal and athletic director Monday the fall. We expect about 185. We're getting ready to go with that. Also, our marching band will be back on campus starting Monday. they'll get ready for the season and they've got three competitions that they'll take

014part in this year. So, a lot of really good things. Uh once school gets going, we'll launch into lots of different stuff and we'll open up our new staff to clubs they want to start and other activities, but we know we will be busy. We've got about 200 events planned at just the high school this year between sports activities and family engagement opportunities. So, we're looking for a busy year. Thanks, everyone. Good evening, board. Uh, thanks Dave. Uh, everybody was extending Maker City love, so I couldn't be left out. And, um, Townmaker City is busy again this week and next week with our kinder camp. So, we were very fortunate to get the Kinder Jumpstart grant from the Department of Education. We got it early summer, so it's a little small this year. We are

015serving our students, our incoming kindergarten students on IEP, so special education and migrant education. And uh next year, for the next two years, we'll have the grant. We can amp it up. So, I really want to thank Derek Rodman. He's one of our school psychologists. He planned the event. We've got, like I said, Talmaker City. They're building and um learning to code robots this week. Um Bugs R Us has been there. It's a lot of fun. Um our our staff is all special education staff that are running it. Renee Cabrera, Carmen Edwards, Henry Tatiana Ramos Gallardo, Michelle Walter, and Jordan Hehart. So, I want to thank them. And then we have a family engagement piece that we can talk about later, but I want to make sure to thank Karen Calhoun and Lorie Evans who

016are planning that with the grant. Thank you so much. Any more accentuate the positives from the board or anybody? Okay, great. I just had one quick update. Um Rick and I along with a consortium from Talent PD, Phoenix PD and administrators um had a safety and and John was there um had a safety meeting this morning um to talk about just current events related to safety um and also um the future. Um and Rick expressed as he has to the board um his desire to strengthen the SRO program and that was met with a lot of positivity and creativity from um the Phoenix and talent uh PD folks. So I think that's a conversation um there'll be an opportunity to continue that conversation um over the coming months through the safety meeting that we have

017um I think four times. But that was really positive and uh it's good to know um our schools are very safe. Um and we're very thankful for uh the hardworking staff and John and his team um and our administrators for helping drive that. Um but also um our our relationships with Phoenix and Talent PD and our SRO program. So um very positive. Did I miss anything? Okay, great. Uh, now it's time for citizens comments. Do we have anyone in person who signed up for comment? Okay. Do we have anyone online who wishes to make a citizens comment? If you do, please raise your hand. Otherwise, I'm going to spare reading my page long preamble. Okay. You see anyone raising their hand? Okay. All right, seeing none, we will close citizens comments and move to the

018superintendent report. Thank you, Chair Campbell. Um, as I mentioned this before to the board, but really excited about the new staff coming on and um of administrators and a number of new staff members just overall in the district. And uh we've been hiring. We feel really good about the positions we've filled. We've had some very difficult um hard to fill positions, but the team here um has uh filled those and I feel really good about moving forward in the year fully staffed. So that that is um in this day and age it's uh it's difficult but it feels it feels great. I do want to start um I shared that we did lose a staff member last week uh last Friday. Uh we lost Jennifer Chitwood who is a teacher here at Orchard Hill and

019um uh she passed away suddenly. There was a s celebration of life yesterday and there was probably 60 65 staff members uh from all around the district there. So it was great to uh get together and celebrate and talk about um all the great things that um she did for kids and families. and she was absolutely amazing kid connector and went above and beyond to support families especially those that are in really tough situations. Um so she leaves uh leaves us with a lot of lessons that uh we can carry forward in supporting kids and families. So um she'll be missed uh tremendously. In your blue folders, you'll see the welcome back letter that I uh sent out to staff. And um I think there's a calendar in there of inservice uh activities. You guys

020are more than welcome to go to any of the trainings you want. But if uh you really want to uh come to the opening kickoff on Tuesday morning um of the first week of inservice, we will be getting together for its continental breakfast and uh our traditional all staff welcome back. And then something different we're doing on September 1st, we're going to have an all staff barbecue back at the high school uh by preachers barbecue, our very own Bob Staff. So, um you're more than welcome to join us there as we um end our inservice time together. And as you know, we um adjusted. We heard loud and clear that um our staff really wanted extra time to do some professional development, to prep, to really get ready for the year. We've provided that and

021we really feel like we have a good inservice schedule that will do that. Those first three days are heavy on professional development, but that traditional week of inservice should be um uh feel a lot better to our staff and and prepping for the year. Uh thanks to Denise um and Paulie, you mentioned it on an email that it's a herculean effort to get board book uh kind of up and running. Uh but it's super efficient and you got that email from Denise this week um about kind of the process. we will shoot for September 1st to start that um process and um really encourage you to get up to speed on that so we can do that um because it'll be a great resource for us and much more efficient. So Denise, thank you for

022u leading us in that regard. You may have heard last week Talent City Council uh approved the UGB um proposal for Culver Road. So we are um moving forward in plans to uh develop that and that is exciting for many many reasons. We have partners with boys and girls club um the little league and our own uh outdoor discovery program that wants a site out there and now we can finally start putting those plans in place for uh developing that. And then finally, I do want to mention uh it's at the high school today and we have um a new program, Link Crew, that we actually started a few years ago, but we've never been really able to fully implement. Um it's a onboarding process and a engagement process for uh freshmen coming into the

023high school. Um and they are wanting to propose that first day to move from half day to a full day to really make use of what link crew is all about is fun engaging activities in the morning and get to know uh you type activities and then they run through the schedule and then end with an assembly. Um so we're going to work with transportation and see if we can pull that off but that will be a academic calendar change a little bit. I don't think it needs to be a board. Um, we don't need to redo uh an academic calendar. Um, but we will get that notice out to new freshmen here right away if we decide to do that. But I just wanted you guys to know that. Um, which will welcome those

024freshmen and get ready for the year. So, they're excited about it. And that's all I have. Great. Any questions for Brent from the board? Is that a is changing that day a contract change? But they were all the teach everybody was Yeah, it's it's it's actually no additional responsibility for the staff. It'll just be a little bit different uh for kids and families. So, it's not a contract change at all. So, and to tell you the truth, I think it might help transportation um to have one school on minimum day, one school on uh full day. So, Okay, great. we will move on to the program report on family engagement which I know we're all very excited about. So I'll kick that back to you Brent to figure out the order and such. Yeah. And

025I will mention um in your blue folders also there's a draft of my superintendent goals um which is a good leadin to family engagement because that's one of the goals in there. Um but we um if you want to review those and if you I can answer any questions and um if there's any modifications uh we'll bring that back for next meeting. But we are very excited about um uh some special guests that we have at our work session last month. We had talked about uh family engagement and how to uh support our journey in family engagement. uh the OSBA conference that many of you attended. Um that was the focus and we had an amazing guest speaker um that really kind of sparked some ideas. Um and so during our discussion it was um

026an obvious commitment from the board which is the commitment from the staff and I thought it would be worthwhile to share what we've done and where we're going and I have invited Sherry um who is from Chicago. So, I'm not sure where she is in the country right now because she travels around doing this work, but uh she's been supporting us for uh the last year and we have um her support this year as well. So, Sherry, take it away for kind of the introduction and then we have some principles to share as well. Thank you. Um I am actually in uh somewhere in Washington State, not on the Seattle side of the mountains, the other side. I don't really know. It's hard to keep up. Um, I do live in Chicago. I've been doing

027family and community engagement work at the state and federal level for about 25 years now. And I've also done work in Australia as well. Now f first I want to say very few districts that I've worked with have demonstrated the passionate commitment to really reimagining the way that they engage families and being more intentional about that than Phoenix talent. Um I've worked with your schools, especially your middle school and your elementary schools for a little over a year now. Um we started out with doing just a little bit of training that evolved into coaching. Um, so I've worked with each family engagement team at those schools to really help them think about um, family engagement not as a goal, but as a strategy to improve outcomes for students. Um, because really that's why we do

028the work that we do. We're not here to engage families. We're here to ensure that students have positive outcomes and engaging families is an important strategy that we can use to get there. and all of your schools have been really creative and thoughtful about how they want to start to change that work um so that they're not doing the same old thing, but they're really reaching families in ways that equip them to be more supportive of um what's happening in the classroom. Really helping families understand the progress that their kids are making and what they can do to support that progress. Um, so it's been very exciting work and we've done a lot of coaching. I've met with each team. Um, we've looked at some of the plans that they've made and thought about how

029we can adapt those plans so they're more intentional. And in the coming year, I'm very excited to be coming back in the next few weeks and visiting each of the school campuses. Um, so I'll be doing family engagement assessments at each campus, which is a comprehensive overview of how familyfriendly the school is. And as a result of the visit and the other um data that we collect, we'll generate a report for each school that really gives them some baseline data on where they are in terms of their family engagement programs and practices right now. Coupled with that, within each report for each school, we'll also have some recommendations for strategies they can use that are grounded in research to really move the needle when it comes to engaging families in ways to transform student outcomes.

030Um, so it's a very exciting year we have planned. We'll be doing more coaching during the year. I'm also going to be observing a few of the events this this fall um and giving them feedback on the strategies that they're implementing there. So, it's really exciting. I did want to mention that as we do the work with the schools, you guys are all welcome to um join us, but even more importantly, I would encourage you to attend the family engagement events as they transform those. Um, so you'll get an opportunity to really hear from families um, what it is they need and really see how the schools are being intentional in their effort to really ground families in what their kids need to know and be able to do and how they can help support

031them um, to reach their goals. And I guess I'll pause there and see if anybody has any questions. Hi, I'm Sarah. I have a just a quick question. Did you say the family engagement events are going to be at each school at the three elementary schools in the middle school? So, um each of the schools is planning a variety of events. We're working with them to help them adapt those events or adjust them so that they are um more aligned with what we know from research. Okay, thank you. And I think maybe if we hear from some principles, Shauna, maybe you can share a little bit about what the elementary has done and and what they have planned um as well. And then if uh any other uh principles want to share as well, I

032want to give a shout out and say hello to Sherry. She's been it's been wonderful working with her. when we first met with her, you know, over a year ago, she started with kind of grounding ourselves in what um what our beliefs and our values are around engagement and what that looks like, what that feels like, what we believe around that. So, she did a fantastic job of setting the stage and helping us when we formed our family engagement um leadership teams, we were thinking about, yay, like what have we always done? but she really helped transform it into to our thinking into what she just said and and thinking about it's a tool and a strategy to help increase student outcomes. So, two of the first things that we're going to be doing is

033changing our conference day. The very first day of school has traditionally been just to come in, meet the teacher, drop off your supplies, see the school, and then you know like welcome. And so we're really being intentional in about three maj major goals for that day, which is to connect to then find a communication tool to so that we can ensure we know how to best communicate with our families and then use that as kind of a launching for our open house, which again was a traditional like we had kind of some events around that, but we really want to use that that um open house at the end of September as an opportunity to do some shared learning with families and to do some goal setting. So, teaching families about some important things like

034fluency and how we're going to measure fluency and the things that they can do to practice at home. And then we'll have the kids separate and then we'll bring the kids in and then we'll have them the families practice those strategies with their kids. Um, and so it's going to be a really great opportunity for families to engage with each other and to learn some skills and to help us, you know, work together because that's the idea. It's it's not about engagement, it's about partnership with our families. Um, so that's two of the two of the things that we're going to be doing at the elementary level to kind of um capitalize on what what we've learned with Sherry around family engagement. Any questions? I thank you so much. I think my question might be

035more for you Sherry um because you're sort of looking at the global perspective and you know you're you're looking at your school. um how do you how do you measure success in this work? What does that look like? Yeah, that's a great question. Um so, one of the things I would say is um most people most most educators and most administrators who who were educators in the past never really had any kind of formal training on how to engage families in meaningful ways. And so what happens is they learn how to do what they're going to do with families from the people that are there when they got to the school. And so they keep doing the same old things over and over and over and it never really changes. And families traditionally come to

036most events when their kids are in kindergarten and first grade. They're super engaged. They show up for everything. But over time, the participation rate really plunges. And part of the reason for that is schools do the same things year after year after year and families think, "Oh, I've already heard that." And it doesn't feel super relevant to me because it's not explicitly connected to my child. And so they stop going. So I would say in terms of measuring success, I don't want us to fall into the trap of looking at the number of people who just show up. That's headcount parent involvement. That doesn't really mean anything because you can get a lot of people to show up and if they go home and they forget everything you said, it doesn't matter. What really matters

037is are they doing things at home that reinforce what's happening in the classroom. So success for me would be are we getting a good number of people to attend our events and then are they doing something as a result of attending. So, one of the things that I've talked with the teams about doing is when you bring families into the school for an event or activity, you should be thinking about this as an opportunity to teach families and not as an opportunity to teach kids. And in the past, many of our school events have been very student focused. We want to really get away from that. It's great for students to come and they should have something to do, but the whole point should be helping families understand what their kids need to know and

038be able to do and what they can do at home to support that. And so teaching these events as an opportunity for families to really become better connected to the curriculum and their own child's progress means they're more likely to do those things at home um once they've attended these events. There's a researcher named Kathy Hoover Dempsey who says families really need three things to be engaged. They need a sense of invitation. They have to believe that it's going to help their kid. And they have to believe that they can do whatever it is you're asking them to do. A sense of self-efficacy. So when we transform these events so that families come in, it's explicitly focused on what their child needs to know and be able to do and the progress that they're making

039to do it. And we give families an opportunity to learn a strategy or a skill that they can do at home that's going to help their child improve. And they see that improvement happening over time. They're going to be much more likely to come back and participate in these events over time. And we're going to see much better outcomes for students as a result. That was a lot of words. Sorry, I get carried away. No, it's great. I appreciate you uh painting the picture for us. Um and thank you Shauna so much. Great. Thank you. Can you hear me? Wonderful. Um so again, I'm Eric Choa um working at the TMS team. So I'm super excited. I didn't get to um have the privilege of working with Sherry. So, I'm excited to see you and

040meet you and and talk parent engagement. Um, at in gathering kind of all of the things that have been done up until this point, COVID, there's a lot of work to be done to rebuild that parent engagement. Um, and so some of the things that, you know, traditional things that are happening, yes, our open house, our student led conferences, um, our fifth grade orientation nights, those kinds of things are are are coming. but also in terms of parent engagement, bringing back the Latino parent nights that were run by Blanca Harland. Um, which were really critical components in engaging our Latino Spanish speaking population. Um, parent education night. So, bringing in um parents to talk to our math department, our uh English department, you know, social studies and figure out those strategies exactly what you're talking

041about, Sherry, just how to engage and what supports and strategies they can provide at home. Um, and so speaking to that, um, coffee with the principal, um, is something that we'd like to implement so that it's kind of a parent listening session. Um, parents coming in, um, feeling welcome to be able to speak to us about kind of what's going on and how it is that we can support not just their student, but maybe other students on our campus. um an electronic parent newsletter that'll be going out um just to what what kinds of things are going on at TMS, how can we support um community resources, those kinds of things. Um a lot of positive um home communication is something that we're going to be focusing on. Um getting teachers to not just call

042when kids are being naughty, um but doing our best to make sure that teachers are reaching out for the positive because that also builds um some trust um for those in our building. And so, um, student celebrations, home visits when necessary to re-engage families that are becoming disconnected, um, referrals out to our community partnerships, um, to make sure families are receiving what they need. Um, one of the things that I walk in as a Spanish speaker into our building, currently we don't have bilingual signage. And so, that's another special project that I'm going to be taking on um, this year. Personal phone call to invite families, not just a postcard. Um, I mean, even I as a family, like I need a reminder. I need like I want to know that they want me there.

043And so sometimes that's um intentional contact with families, especially our harder harder to reach ones. Um, and then creating some parent meaningful parent volunteer opportunities. And so those are all of the projects and things that we're going to be undertaking at TMS this year. Thank you. Any questions on that? No, thank you. It's wonderful to hear all of it. I'm looking forward to attending some of those events. Eric, Eric has a hard um so I was I didn't get to meet Sherry in person um at our uh Eugene trip in Kosa, but I did get to um chat with Heather and Brandon after they met with her. Um and I'm really excited to get to work with you and to meet you in person as well. Um, a lot of the things that Erica mentioned

044are things that we've done traditionally um that we're looking at um doing more of now that that COVID is non-existent. Um, but one of the things too, uh, being a new principal of a high school and just like Sherry said, you know, as students get older, parents tend to, um, take the back seat and really, uh, especially at the high school want their kids to be independent and handle those things on their own. So really figuring out how can we, uh, partner with parents um, in the beginning so that parents know how to support their kids. oftentimes when we get to high school, um we don't necessarily know how to help our students with the level of math that they're taking or we don't know what kind of um assignments they're doing in some class

045we've never taken before. And so really trying to put that parent lens on um and and look at that. How are we going to partner with parents to do that? Um we're starting that work this fall. I um just sent out a parent letter about registration and welcome to the school year, but also with um a chance for parents to give us some feedback on our vision and mission um at the high school. You know, it's our um parts to really partner with our community and our parents to serve kids where they're at. And obviously our families and our community have ideas of how our school needs to serve them and how our teachers need to be serving our kids. And so, um, I just sent out like a three question survey and I'll be

046pushing that out a lot. And some of the questions just are, what are your educational hopes and dreams for your kids so that we can check in like are we supporting those? Um, as you think about Phoenix High School, what are the expectations that you have for us when we're serving your children? Um, in your opinion and experience, what should our school emphasize to improve students academic performance? A lot of our parents are graduates from our school and so it's great to be able to hear um what they think about that and also in your opinion and experience what should our school emphasize to improve our school culture or to continue on with what great traditions we have and so um I'm really looking forward to just hearing some valuable feedback and then similar to

047what Erica mentioned we are hoping to host I don't know if we'll call it coffee with the principal but just some opportunities for parents to come in and chat with us as administ administrators and also we want to set some of those up in the community too because we know sometimes um school isn't the most comfortable place for every parent and so being out in the community and and partnering with local businesses to see what we can do to engage parents. So that is on top of you know making sure we're doing our Latino nights. We have a a site council. We have a very involved booster club. I'm really excited to meet the the people who are running that. We have a great grad night event that our families love to plan and it's

048kind of a right of passage. All those things that we get to do. Um but really starting to look at how are we serving um our families and our kids um from the lens of our community members. So that's um kind of the big focus at the high school. Um Dave, did you wanna Well, any any more questions from the board? Uh Nancy, did you have any questions? You're joining us remotely. I want to make sure to acknowledge um acknowledge you and give you an opportunity. Thank you so much. I actually don't I'm really excited about the goals. Um it was really great to listen to Sherry um talk about how we want to formulate this parent engagement and for there to have some meaning, not just an opportunity for us to get together with

049families, but really for there to be um genuine authentic connection where people can build trust and build this partnership and collaborative effort because it really does take everybody. Um, I'm excited for all of the ideas that were shared by by the rest of you, too. So, this is this is great. If you can see me, I'm like smiling and really shaking my head because I'm excited about um the wonderful things that are going to be coming up. And I'm also um happy to be a supportive um member in any of these spaces. Well said. Yeah, thank you so much for all the great information and this board um is certainly hungry to support any family engagement efforts that we uh that we have to undertake. So, we'll be here to uh to support and to

050cheer you on and to uh to show up uh to some of these events. So, uh thank you for for doing the work and um we'll be here to support you along the way. All right, great. Uh, so next is the consent agenda. Um, Sarah, did you get all your questions answered on policy and Okay. I just had one clarifying question about um the parent conference um policy. Which one is that? It's at the very end. Um, it talked about that there was going to be maybe an optional policy, but we don't we're not having an optional. So, we don't need a policy around parent conferences. Was that my understand? I just wanted to clarify that. I understood. Yeah. And we talked about that we don't need a policy about um the conferences and I

051think there was elite. Is that what it was or? No, it just says there's a new optional policy to look at, but there wasn't an optional policy included in the packet. So, yeah. So, as a staff, it wasn't recommended to Okay, that I just wanted clarification on um on that answer to my question. A lot of mine was um so I really do appreciate I apologize for how last minute my my questions were. I was really trying to This one was a beast and I was really trying to trying to slog through it. So, it kept being Anyway, so I really appreciate the answers. Um, uh, Denise just really um expediting that and Brent um, so those clarified and and helped me. So, and Tiffany did a lot of that too, too. Yes, this is

052I this is I thought it was like this is this is what we're doing like we need to read this because instruction is important very much so and and we have Jay coming up and just um I know we're not on that part yet but I would just encourage us to um be before well not I mean I appreciate you reading it all and coming up with questions Um, but I think uh I think if we could give staff and Denise about a week, I think that would be good. Um, as we look at Jay before our September 1st meeting. So, um, I digress. Back to the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion uh to approve the consent agenda. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda with the um corrections to the um policies

053as outlined. Wonderful. Thank you. I second that. Okay, I'll second that. Oh, go ahead, Polly. Oh, boy. Now I have to Yeah. All right. Sarah moved and Nancy seconded. Uh any objections? Hearing none. The consent agenda is passed. Action items. We have none. So, um we have recess, but are we okay with forging ahead? Okay, great. We will forge ahead. Uh information and discussion facilities bond update. Is this on? Uh good afternoon board or evening. That's great to be in front of you again. Um got several things to uh go over. Um one the TS TMS concrete policing in the hallways. We ran into a few snafoos, mainly supply issues. Um so we're not going to get the hallways done, but we are going to get the band requested that we did it. So, um,

054we our plan is moving forward to hopefully tackle some of it over Christmas break and some of it over spring break and the remainder over summer because we will have everything dialed in and all the equipment. Good. Um, we are at the tail end of the do remodel. If you haven't been there, you should swing in, take a look. It's I think it's very beautiful and functional. Uh the playground site work at TMS uh was completed today. Fencing comes down tomorrow. The equipment will be delivered on Monday and we're still waiting for our delivery. But uh great thanks to you guys for for pushing forward getting that approval so that I could get it ordered or we wouldn't have it now. Um last night the bond oversight committee meeting uh met and uh went over

055a few things. I thought I would just do a little highlight on that. Um we have about 4.75 million left in bond funds. Uh those funds are for the tees seismic upgrade and the TMS seismic upgrade. The tees we plan on tackling next summer. We're going to get HMK on uh helping us with the contract process. I'll still run the project. The Oh, so T Tees would be next summer. TMS would be summer of 2024. Um uh next year we will drive for another grant for TMS. Um, so keep your fingers crossed and reach out to Brent like every week to see if we've gotten an answer after we submit because because then he'll reach out to me and well I like to keep him involved. Um, finally, one of the last topics at the

056at the bond oversight committee meeting was actually changing the focus a little bit. We're at the tail end of the bond projects and to actually convert that meeting group and hopefully recruit some more people to a facilities oversight committee because we'll be doing Culver Road, uh, hopefully sports park. Um, I think it would be great if we got representatives from each of the locations to learn a little more about the priorities and we'll probably be able to pull from a bigger group of uh people that are interested. Any questions? Nancy? Good. Everybody's good. Well, thank you, John. Uh, it was it was interesting because I h I have been by the district office several times this summer. By the way, board chairs are busy. Just keep that in mind if you ever aspire to that

057someday. Um, and uh, I just want to thank you and commend you. And for those of you who don't know, John comes from a construction background as well as um, the ability to, you know, manage the facilities department. He's really, um, a dual slash triple quadruple threat. So, um, we appreciate having that knowledge and expertise. And he's saved the district a lot of of money by, um, also hiring people who have construction backgrounds to be able to do a lot of these projects ourselves without having to hire out, um, you know, external contractors. So, um, not just money, but I'm sure headaches for you, too. So, uh, thank we appreciate all your efforts, uh, to get the schools ready this summer and and the district office redone. So, thank you very much and and all

058as always, thank the board for all of your support. You guys have been wonderful. Yeah. Awesome. Well, and we thank our community for the investment in our facilities, too, and we're we're certainly going to be good stewards of of them. So, um, okay. And that's a great segue into financial update, Brent. Yeah. In your uh blue folders, you'll see uh um as close as possible end of year reporting for um the financial year. We um have ended. You'll see the ending fund balance there of uh um the third column over you'll see 9.688 million. That does, I will tell you that does include the House Bill uh 4026 money uh in anticipation. We do not have that money yet. It's not available to us. They are still writing rule around it. Um it they keep

059continue to reach out to districts uh to see there's some districts that actually need that money sooner than um we necessarily do. So, they're trying to get that done as soon as possible. The reason it's taken a while because they want it uh extremely uh go over it thoroughly and uh because it's going to be subject to audit most likely. So they want to really have the rules dialed in and then release the money and that should be any time. Um for clarity, sorry to interrupt you. Is that the um ADM security? ADM security. Yeah. Thank you. Um the green number uh in the fifth column there, that would be our ending fund balance if we don't receive it. So this year um backfilling ADM is 2.68 million and just if you can imagine if

060we had to cut 2.68 million uh from last year's budget um this year's anticipated ADM um support from the state will be over $4 million. So in two short years, we knew the ADM impact was going to happen and it was almost over $6.5 million in two years and that'll just continue to grow over the final two years of the ADM security. So um it's vital. I we say it all the time. Uh our legislature uh res representatives just to thank them for um continued to stay on it and it was scary that it didn't make it through that one session, but it was unanimous, which I'm not sure what is unanimous anymore, but this was unanimously in the House and the Senate. Um so that's that. I do want to thank Yasmine and her

061business department just for wrapping up that year and preparing for another year. Their summer is super busy. um just because you're wrapping up one fiscal year and preparing and ordering for other fiscal uh year. So I'll entertain any questions. I only see SSR one funds listed on here. Are SR2 is this because it's SR2 and do we get I know we get SR3. Yeah, SR 2 and we'll get a report on that. We did not spend a lot of SR2 and we didn't spend any SR3 money, but I'll have her have a report in September for you on all the federal uh funds and what we have planned for that because we did have to submit a ESR um three spending plan that we have posted on our website as well. So um but we

062will get I'll have her give you uh a breakdown of that. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. So that those monies are not reflected in this ending balance. No, those are all those are all grants and separate revenue uh streams. SR1 is fully fully spent out just because that was the original that was stimulus number one with the uh COVID um you know equipment and protections and things of that nature. SR2 was the second stimulus that had to do with um equipment and protocols and staffing. and SR3 has the same um really rules uh but really expanded into the HVAC systems which I will tell you again thank you to the community that we have brand new HVAC systems um and some staff some school districts are spending all of their SR3 on that. So

063we will have some options for that. So, [Music] it looks like the TV just turned off. Hopefully. Yeah. All right. Any more financial questions for Brent? Okay. Uh, legislative OSBA update. That would start with you, Sarah. We have a meeting next week um with a pretty full agenda, an hourlong lunch meeting. So, I'll have some more um updates beyond that. It was a good summer conference, but I think we talked about that really at our board retreat and really took away some some good information and enjoyed that. and just looking ahead really to what um it's going to be interesting watching the election season and seeing how that's all going to be made up this fall and so kind of just trying to pay attention to to that. So more more next week next time.

064Yeah. Can I say something? Um I just might and you probably heard this um from OSBA and KOSA is really on this as well. this next legislative session for the next bienium on the state school fund is going to be vital for all hands on deck. I think the initial numbers that are coming out are are unrealistic because they're using um one-time money to um to build off when that's not a sustainable funding feature. Um, and so it has to really go back to um, you know, the um, we're 9.3 and I I'm not sure exactly what the number is to kind of carry everything forward, but certainly not close to the quality education model that we've all uh, strived to receive. So, it'll be all hands on deck for for those discussions with our

065legislature. And also not using funds to clean up boats out of the state school fund. If you haven't seen that, just Google it, Oregon School Fund Cleaning Up Boats, and you'll you'll know what I'm talking about. Um, we also, um, we will have to, uh, nominate I'm assuming it'll be Dawn for OSBA board and that'll be on our September 15th agenda. So, um, just be on the lookout for that. Um, anything else? legislative OSBA. I'm glad Brent brought up the funding and then something ran through my mind and then so Okay, if you think about it, let me know. I know when he said Kosa. Um, okay. Let me know if it comes back. Uh, okay. I'll meet a fire update. Go. Um, I attended the Wildflower Recovery Group meeting. Um, the monthly meeting that

066they have and the don't ask me when I hate it if I use an acronym what it is, but the OEM funding was uh has a six-month extension. So, it's out to March of 2023. So, that will help folks who are uh trying to get money after recovery to um rebuild. Um, so that's been extended, which is good news. um those three properties that they're converting into housing units that were hotel units. Um that's the Jackson, the American, and the Loring. I think it's mostly I can't remember which one is the one they're mostly focusing on. There are still um 27 units available now and those can only house like one to two person households because of the small nature of those hotel rooms that they've converted. Um And then also there are a total

067of 84 rooms being used and 132 clients who are still in need of some kind of transitionary or housing at this time. So still quite a few that are waiting. Um also ODHs has um added to their team. I think I mentioned that the last time and each of those they added five more people and I don't know there's a total of four dis dis are case managers as well and they all manage about 35 cases each and so they are all at full capacity um helping fire victims. So that's still going on as we speak. Um it was kind of funny in that meeting I learned that Lucy Brousard was leaving the district. Very sad about that but I'm really excited to see what she's doing in her new endeavor. Um and I messaged

068her in the chat that I was sad that she was leaving. Um, and also they were talking about and I didn't catch sometimes they I have to write or I can't even type as fast. So I try to get the information but they don't really and they don't send a recap of the meeting. So please forgive me if I don't get this perfect. The latest housing that they're um I think it's the in Phoenix where the trailers and things they had 13 that are already spoken for and 107 total and 21 of those the sales are still pending. Um and uh let's see, there was a $565,000 grant um that was given for hardening funds and that is being uh handled through Phoenix and Talent to help people um create a better um let's say

069environment around their housing. So it's not apt to be as fire combustible as it was before. So that's what I have to report. Thank you. Brent, you have anything? Yeah. No, thanks Paulolly for attending those meetings and sharing out. I just want to uh share that I had the opportunity of going to a playground dedication at Blue Heron Park. Um and Sarah was there as well and and what a park. If you haven't been down there, I encourage you to drive down there, get out, walk around. It is absolutely amazing. Um handicap accessible. Um just just a real cool route build. I know the city of Phoenix, some grant funds, Bear Creek Valley Rotary would have been a big part of that and some other private donor. So, um, that was fun to see. I'd

070never seen the squishy squares for, um, to create flat accessibility. I'm looking at Tiffany first, but to create the flat accessibility to all of the playground and then like Brent shared with the um the Maragor with the bench available also for a wheelchair to be in there at at the zero gravity kind was impressive. So yes, as Brent said, um and they're still looking for donations for shade will be coming and um trees. So still some work to happen down there, but really really an impressive work with the city of Phoenix. Fantastic. Okay, we'll move on to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Any updates from that committee? Yeah, Kelly Soder would love to share. This is Kelly Soder, our new equity and community care director that is new to us, former elementary principal of the year

071in Oregon in 2019 or 17 or Hi, I'm Kelly Soder. Thanks for having me. I am I just want to echo what other folks said, too. I'm obviously new to the district and just such a warm welcome. So many friendly faces. Such a nice such a wonderful transition. So, thank you. I'd love to see talk a little bit about um EDI and then if I can steal another minute or two, you're a little ahead on your agenda. Um I'd like to talk a little bit about community care, too. So, I have just the most fabulous like things uh to to have a chance to participate in. Obviously, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Um supporting our TWWI program teachers is also something I get the opportunity to do. And then the community care grant with the state

072of Oregon. So, I just I have a dream I have a dream job. First, um I our our EDI focus a we've had a great opportunity this summer to have a a couple of trainings and professional development opportunities and it's a great way to recharge. We had a large group participate in a training called coaching for educational equity. Um that'll be a partnership that we continue with the Oregon Center for Educational Equity as well as e the ESD. Um we hope to send to to continue to to build capacity in our buildings around that coaching model. Um we have a large group I think 25 attending a training next week um called taking it up which is another equity based training. We also have the Southern Oregon Equity Summit that's happening regionally hosted down in

073Ashlin next week. So we are not done with professional development yet. great opportunities to build our our leadership and expand the equity voice. Um, something that I would love to share with you as we get into September is we'll be re reinvigorating, restarting, re-energizing our district EDI committee. I'm really looking to expand our membership. Um, looking to kind of refocus on on how to expand that districtwide, hoping to bring youth, middle school, high school youth into that voice as well. Um, and that's something we'll be doing as we get into gear in September and August and September. We'll give you an update on that in September. Um, community care, we've hired three fabulous community care specialists, Laura Mallette, uh, Rosario Medina, and Katie McCormack. They will be housed at each of our three elementary schools.

074Um, two of the three are currently doing a training this week. It's like a 42-hour training with the Oregon Family Support Network. They'll come out as certificated family support specialists with the state of Oregon, eligible for certificates and all kinds of good things. And I heard from Rosario today saying she was just thrilled. It's like everything she needed and she can't wait to get back and get to work. Katie will do that training in September. Um, and our community care team is just like chomping at the bit to get going. Um, and there are very well established folks in our community that are just the right people for the right for the right work. We're thrilled to participate in that grant. Um, and last but not least, um, I'm I just want to give a

075plug for for Jenny Brown and the the just the hardworking folks that didn't really take a summer break and we're really our TWWI team is going to be amazing. Um, while we continue 150% full full steam ahead, we're also going to do kind of a year of study. Um, it's been a while since we've really kind of comprehensively evaluated the the dual immersion program in the district. Um, and we just really want to take this opportunity to study what's working, what are we celebrating, and really kind of set our vision and path for the next 10 years forward. So, those are a couple of things that we've been working on. Any questions for me? I have a question. Can you tell a little bit about the community care program and what it is? Sure. It's

076a a participation grant with the organ OD. Um, we're one of four districts in the state. Um they have a ver variety of representation small, large, rural, urban. Um so we are great fortunate to be one of their districts. Um it is a three-year grant with a very hopeful particip very hopeful five years. Um and the focus is really around student wellness and mental health supports and obviously that can come about in lots of different ways around removing barriers and providing support and making connections and relationships. Um, and our specialists will also have the opportunity with a lot of technical assistance and training to really get in deeper around student wellness and mental health. They won't be and aren't let me mental health therapists, right? Um, but this family support specialist will really give them

077another layer of support to dive in deeper with with student support, family support. And we really want it to be focused on the family. When you support the whole family, everyone in the family benefits, most especially the children. All right. Any other questions or anything to add, Nancy? Thank you. Um, thank you, Kelly. That was a lovely summary of all of the great work that it's happening. And most excitingly, I'd love to um invite other folks that participated in the um CFI training this summer. I think it was it was just so impactful and my hope is that we really we really start to build capacity as Kelly mentioned around education around this work. We all hear equity, diversity, and inclusion so often. And I think lots of us are like, "What does that mean?

078Some of us are really excited to jump in and get started and some of us might be a little bit more comp um apprehensive and that's okay." And the hope is really that we start to build common language com like awareness awareness. I mean, one of the things that I really took away from that training is that um personal responsibility when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion and what does it really mean, right? It can mean so many things for so many of us. And um and I'm excited. I'm excited to re to just have a renewed commitment. And it's really for me it has really been about not so much like shaming and blaming but really how do we start to do this again? How do we start from a clean slate? Utilize

079that all the amazing knowledge that has been um shared or gained throughout these years and how do we just continue to do this work in a more intentional strategized personal way. I think sometimes we also think like oh so and so is doing that that's their role not my and really this work impacts us all or my hope is that it is a very personal endeavor for all of us that we're consistently striving to be better it is not a destination it's not like been there I did this training I'm done I'm inoculated but really that it is it is um a continuous effort of growth and acknowledgement and awareness And really we continue to say we um I know we value the families that we get to serve and how do we serve them

080in a way that it's meaningful to them that we are then able truly supporting their efforts. I would part of the conversation that was shared earlier um about family engagement just continue to just continuously confirms my um commitment and dedication to serving families because we want people to succeed and and I think educators, administrators, you all do so much and and there's all of these wonderful things that we can still do to just continue to tweak it, improve, um magnify the the work that we're doing. So, I'm excited. I'm excited to have other participants, other um members of the board, other members of the administration team, you know, at all different levels. We need to really um come together and start to have these conversations because none of us are experts at everything. We all

081come in with our incredible skill sets and experiences and how can we just come together and support this work in a way that it's really going to create positive changes for success for not only um our students but the families and us ourselves as well. So I'm excited. I think it's all great things and um ready to continue to put this work in. Thank you so much Nancy Kelly. Thank you so much. Appreciate that update and uh we're excited to have even more dedication and focus on on these efforts. Um and uh it's going to be a good year. Um Sarah passed me a note to ask if we could take a brief recess to let administrators go, but I didn't know if we if we might need them for Does anyone have any questions

082on handbooks for our principles who are here? Okay, I'm going to just call a five minute recess because I think we have some board members who would like to introduce themselves to our new um administrators. So, we'll take a five minute recess and we'll come back. Do I need to do something? Okay. All right. We are reconvened. Um, out of state student activity trips. Any questions on that? Should be pretty pretty straightforward. Straightforward. I'm interested to know where the band's going to go. It's not on there yet, but that's my own personal. You can ask Brent that along with the where we're at on the on the grant. Seismic grant. Yeah. On the seismic grant. Yeah. Okay. Uh budget committee vacancies. Um we have three. So I think Denise is going to let those folks

083know um that that's coming up. See if they would like to reapply. And then of course anybody else in the community who would like to apply um is more than welcome to do so. And we thank those folks for their service and we hope they are interested in uh serving again. Um student handbooks. Any questions on student handbooks? Okay. Um meal prices. Any questions on the meal prices? We're still having the opportunity to be in no cost only cost is at the high school. Correct. For students, there's we're we're districtwide community eligibility program. So, no cost um at all. There is a provision now that uh we do have to set a meal price for uh second meals at lunchtime and that is something that Sedexo is working out and we'll have to um and

084you have some information in your blue folders. We will these numbers may change a little bit. We're still getting information I talked to Jasmine today. uh still getting information from the state to set these, but when we uh have it for action item next board meeting, they'll be um the correct and accurate numbers and these may still be them. This is our best guess right now. Are we one of the few schools in the valley, districts in the valley that has the opportunity to have no cost to the students meals? I think I saw something on Facebook about cost coming back to one of the local districts. So, that's what's Yeah. Let me ask this question. This is a good question, too. And and what probably one of the few that has a district-wide community

085eligibility program because it it has to do with just uh um your level of poverty at each school. This is a three-year program and after we're in the second year after next school year, we'll have to reapply. And um our poverty rate went down because of this the types of students we lost uh and families that really um disproportionately impacted our um families that that um are under the poverty rate. So that is going to be an interesting relication piece. We we feel like our elementarymentaries will still qualify, but we're not sure our secondary schools will. But that's what I I'll just say I'm I'm a little concerned about the second meal thing. Um and I'm wondering how many if we have data on how many of those we've you know how many of second

086meals happen throughout the school year and what the cost it it doesn't um happened I actually hear about and I don't know data off the top of my head. I hear it more at the middle school level than anywhere else. Um but it's there was a waiver. We didn't have to do that for the last few years and now we have to actually establish a meal price um if that happens. So u but we we have other programs and we want to um also some kids just take milk. So we need to have a separate um potential price for that for some reason even though we're on a community eligibility. But I'll have Yasm mean come next uh meeting and and really establish these. that that was a waiver that is gone that we don't

087have anymore for second place. Okay. I mean, I I just I just the reason that concerns me is just equity issues. And the whole reason, you know, we have we're part of the um community provision in the first place is to not to not put kids in the position to be turned away if they're hungry um and and deal with the whole So I I'd be really if we do have some data I mean I would be curious to see I don't know about the rest of you if the board wanted to um or if the district wanted to subsidize that if you know what is it five grand a year whatever ever it is. Um that I would be interested in seeing that information. So I would I would also be interested in seeing

088that information. Yeah. No kid goes hungry, right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I'm thinking about my little brother in school. He would have he would have been a second meal guy quite quite a bit. So, well, I'm also interested in um portion size where what does a meal at the ele elementary, middle, high school, are they the same? Do they look a little different? And because if at middle school, that's potentially where the higher numbers are. Are they more in line with what an elementary school meal looks like versus a high school meal? So, well, yeah, and there's options for salad bars, which are, you know, you can differentiate on how much you take, you have to take a certain size, but um even even if we do subsidize, which could be a potential, we have to

089establish a second meal price by federal law. So, and then we can look at seeing we can ask Sedexo to get some data for us next time. Okay, great. Um surplus items, any questions on that? You have anything to add on Okay. Yeah, pretty straightforward. Um, water testing. Did you want to kind of tee this up? Yeah. So, um, we're required every five years, I think, to, uh, do our water testing, and it seems like it was a quick five years, but it was 5 years ago that we tested all of our, uh, faucets and outlets and everything. Um, and at that time we had um a few that we needed to fix and repair and and and so we did that. This time we had I think six on there was there or three

090or um there were some that we had to retest and repair. Uh typically if they fail it's because that that faucet or fountain has not been used in a long time and so it fails that test and so running it simply is the fix. Sometimes it needs to um be mechanically and and some other fixtures that we need on that. But uh John does a great job. Uh we budget for it. We we have it all in a spreadsheet. It's super easy now for our um staff to collect the data and we or collect the samples and we send it off and and then we go throughout that process. So I commend him for systematizing another big job that happens every five years. We have to post this on our website and it is posted

091I believe. Isn't Isn't there a second testing of a different standard metal? Is it I'm going to embarrass myself if I say what I'm thinking because I know it's not going to be right. Um, isn't it besides Is it radon? No, that's another test we do, right? Because that was going to be what I was but I was like that's not right. It's a se that's a separate um that's a separate uh required test as well that I think's every three years uh that we do. Yeah, this is a this is just uh testing the water and the water. And you may you may see every once in a while you read about districts that have had uh you know an excess of lead in their water or and have to make some pretty significant

092changes. Um, and that's why exactly why we have these every five years. But yeah, that was good that you were thinking what she was thinking. Oh, radon. It's Well, it's staggering to see how many faucets and such there are in the district. That was that was quite a list. So, great. Yes. Great job, John and team. Um, okay. This one I'm assuming we'll have no discussion about. Um, no, I'm just kidding. Board operating agreement and self-evaluation. Did you have a chance to take a look and um any any questions or thoughts on on these? Sarah and I I'll just introduce that Sarah and I met with Brent last week or the week before um and took some of the examples that we had and tried to we tried to um pare it down while also

093capturing the essence and and really focus on some of the bigger picture stuff. Um and also, you know, try to keep it um not several pages long. Um uh and then the uh we settled on the the self-evaluation form that you see um because it did have a rating scale and it leaves leaves some room there for um you know improvement and then a chance to explain um your responses too. So um Sarah do you have anything to add? No, I appreciate the um opening paragraph, you know, really keeping students um at the forefront and and setting the tone for um both of these uh documents and and the roles that we that we play in in serving the students in our district. And and Brent pointed out um at that meeting that there's no

094middle ground on the board self-evaluation. you really it doesn't give you an opportunity to you know put a three for a five really got to land somewhere and so I think that in us looking at our own self-evaluation that that's helpful and I I felt like this scale too provided like um Michael said opportunity for comments and and and conversation with each other. So not only you know what are we doing but um I like you know strengths and areas of growth um as well. So this is what we collaboratively came up with to present to you guys. So we tweaked some of the things on this trying to keep it to 10 as well tweaked some of those um these that felt a little bit more appropriate for our district. I want to say

095the first time that I read through these um this called the board self-evaluation form I thought that a couple of them were like the same thing but as I read it again they were different so when the first time I read I thought why are they saying the same thing again but it is different it's a little nuance about it so but I thought they were great I appreciate all the work on this and how quick that was to turn around when we were talking about oh this will be in like some other far off Um, but that was awesome. Thank you for all your work on this for sure. And and Brent and Denise were a big part of helping us get to that place. So, uh, yes. So, I think that, um, in

096addition to adopting this, I think we'll have to determine when it is that we'll do these things. Um, so that that will be something that we'll have to figure out. But um uh yeah, there was there was another document that we talked about that's not these but expounded a little bit that we thought would be helpful for onboarding new members, but it's not included in the packet, but it may be something that um we talk about including or um looking at. And did we talk about maybe doing that in the board? Um and there was one point specifically that I felt we could clarify um for on boarding new members um orientation. Yes. Um it was one of the examples but it was definitely wordier and um but could be helpful in um covering orient

097during orientation for new board members or student um representatives as well. Yeah. And I I know the document you're talking about and it was I think it was kind of labeled like an option one or two on a board operating agreement and we thought it was more of a onboarding and and maybe that's something I think we have a work session in January maybe that might be good timing to to look at that. We can take a look at that especially closer to election season and have that in place be a good idea for sure. Yeah. Nancy, do you have any thoughts, questions? Okay. No, thank you. None at this time. Um, it's interesting. I will share I've been attending the OSBA's board chair cafes, which is where a collection of board chairs gather to

098just chat about um, you know, what's going on in our districts and um, help grow as board chairs. And there's a lot of districts adopting these um operating agreements and um and self-evaluations and um we talked a lot about you know it was interesting hearing from boards who have had um have had some board members recently who um are uh who might make things difficult or you know want to challenge the status quo or or what what have you. Um but also districts adopting it um like us just thinking about you know establishing those norms now um so that the culture the collegial culture that we've built is preserved um and so I appreciate all of your willingness to do this and also again self-evaluation is board policy. Yeah. So, so, uh, appreciate all your

099thoughts and perspective and I think we'll we'll take that up for action on September 1st. Um, did you want to talk about timing or do we want to have discussion about when Oh, yeah. or do we want to wait to do that? I think we can I think we have some time to talk about that. Um, but if you have any thoughts or suggestions now, um, you look like you want to say something. Yeah, I would I would just say maybe um when Rick and Don are here and maybe that's a conversation that they can weigh into and we do have some time um and maybe this first time we do a initial beginning of the year and then we establish a yearly um um kind of a yearly mark later in the spring to

100have it every year. But yeah, uh really kind of getting a baseline possibly earlier and then having a standard date later. Why don't we put board operating agreement um and or or really self-evaluation um timing? Why don't we put that as a information and discussion? Then we can discuss for next meeting. Does that work? Okay. I think I'm going to chime in now. I feel like maybe we could just group that in with Brent's time and then we have all of that evaluation stuff all in one slot. Sure. We do it before then, of course, but at that time. Yeah, that might be a good time to do that. Sure. Yeah, I think I think that's a good idea. I think I also have mixed feelings about the timing of when that happens, too. So,

101I think it might be um it's always kind of follows the statute, but it always comes to what feels to me as a weird time of year. So, um I you know when I think about the timing of when we would do the self-evaluation um going into our summer season and when we do retreats and really planning and strategic visioning and all that good stuff seems like it. So I I think it'll be a good discussion. We should definitely uh build some time to to flesh that out in greater detail. So um Okay, great. And then uh board policy section J, you should have that already. So um if you don't have any questions now, let's take the next couple weeks and just you could feel free to submit any questions you have and um

102if we can address those before we get it to um the meeting and the consent agenda um makes it a little bit more streamlined. But I I do appreciate everybody's uh attention and um focus on those and um that's what we do. We pass policies and it's really important work especially the policies around our students and staff. So um I have a question. Yeah. When is that on consent the next meeting? September 1st. Y it's on information discussion for next meeting. Jay will be in the consent agenda for the for the next meeting. Is that Yeah, but we just got it last like week like just a couple of days ago. Yeah. So that when um usually it's been it and it will be so when Michael is asking to um get your questions in

103early, we have a responsibility to get ours get that out to you guys u sooner. I and J are pretty big. Is JB like I was I was a beast and so uh and we'll we'll entertain questions but we'll look at K and I think K and L are next or something like that. U but we'll try to get those um out to you a lot sooner. Uh so you can have a quite a bit of time to do that a full two weeks prior to the information discussions. We also had fewer meetings too the last few months. So that might have laid into that too. Well, I'm not going to lie, it was summer. Yeah. And it was summer. Exactly. Again, you guys are doing a gigantic lift on something that has um been

104uh needed to happen in a while. And um and like Sarah said before, I mean it's a talk about a a good learning. Um yeah. Okay. Hold. I so we're so for this meet I have on my calendar that we were information and discussion for Jay was for the September 1st board meeting but it's that's what I had on my calendar but it's this So, can you because I put the dates on my calendar based on on the calendar that you gave. So, can you give us an updated calendar so I can try to um because Yeah. Okay, that would be helpful. Thank you. That makes sense. And you're very organized with your impress. I Yeah, I know. So, right. I just re I just take it as it comes. Oh, we're doing this page

105and I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to finish that and 200 whatever, right? So, I Okay, tracking. Thank you. Hurry up. it. Yeah, it's a big undertaking. I appreciate it. Well, how I guess I apologize. I'm gonna just expound on this. How is everyone else going through this process? I waited till the last minute like you and yesterday I was reading all this stuff and then I see the email with your questions that I didn't have the guts to turn into anyone because I had the same questions. So, I appreciate you doing that. Well, I I didn't I haven't gone late. I just can't do it more than about an hour at a time. Oh, I know. Because I Yeah, I know. Um, and it's it's too much

106it's too much information. So, I really did start, but it was summer and I didn't. So, I'm interested to hear how how everyone else is doing. I have to do like you is make an intent that I have to start doing it. Like after this board meeting, I have to start. Okay. I can't wait. Yeah, like this time I did the same thing. Yeah, I think I'm about three4s of the way through it. I just started reading it when I got it last week for J. Yeah. Um, yeah, there is a lot of information going on there, but yeah. Yeah, I'm almost there. And lean on that document. I This is my pro. I lean heavily on the the summary document um and which allows me to kind of jump to each policy and and

107look for those specific things. Um so that's kind of my process and then if there's something that I want to examine more closely I'll go back and look at it. But but the summary documents geez sorry the summary document that Denise puts together is really helpful to help you know separate the this is just a simple deletion or this is just a simple you know typo or something compared to something you know the things that are more substantive. So, um, so thank you for putting those together because it's really helpful, um, to, um, help manage the time because it is I don't Nancy, do you have how do you slog through this? Really slowly. I actually appreciate the things that you are um you're sharing because it it is it's really massive and I you

108know I'm busy so I've just been taking chunks at a time but I don't have any anything different than what you have all shared. So did we get the summary piece yet for this one that's in September? I don't remember now Denise. Sorry. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Great. So, I have one more thing. Yeah. So, when when you Denise, when you put together our packet for the next one, it's on the the top, what's it called? Consent agenda. Um, could you include that? Uh, I always have to go back and look for the dumb thing. Could you include it with the actual policy on that for that date when you do the folder? I didn't I don't know if I saw this last time. Okay, cool. That'll be in board book. Yeah, then we can go

109look. Okay. So that's why my dates are off. And Nancy Denise was just saying we we changed the calendar and lost a couple board meetings. That's that's why the schedule's off too a little bit on the policy stuff. So, yeah, because I show I had until August 28th to have that read. Well, well, no, but that's consent agenda. It's better to have the questions for information and discussion. And that was my phone. And I think to for to myself and our staff over there that we will we'll try to send out K&L prior to the board packet. So you have an actual extra week a full two weeks to do that. So if we can get that done um early next week we can get that out. And that seems like what it has been

110as well. It feels like it's been we just lost those meetings. So that's where I got behind. So I do appreciate all the staff's effort and especially the questions too. So thank you. Okay, great. And uh next meeting's agenda is is in your packet to review. It's in the blue folder, correct? Yeah. So take a look at that. And if you have any questions or suggestions for that, please get a hold of me um before uh at least a week before the next meeting. Um and when is the superintendent board operating agreement? When are we having that discussion? Good question. Do we have that calendared even superintendent board operating agreement? I don't think we've nailed that down yet. Okay. That'd be a good thing to do though. Yeah. Okay. Since we did the one right

111now, the next one is the superintendent board operating, right? Yeah. Do you want to add that to information discussion? Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Just sort of talk about next steps for that. Yeah. Okay. We add that as well. Sounds good. All right. Anything else? Okay. We are adjourned.