001okay the floor is yours jason ah thank you uh jason is in the middle of traveling jason white's the middle of traveling tonight so as vice chairman be leading this meeting so it is 6 04 p.m i'm going to officially call this meeting of the ellensburg school board directors to order we will start with the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag united states one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you before i introduce the board members i would like to remind the public why we are meeting in zoom so while being in phase two allows for public meetings to take place it is only allowed if the organization can do so with necessary restrictions implementing restrictions places undue hardships on the district both financially and with staffing additionally
002the restrictions require those wishing to attend must pre-register for the meeting that is out of compliance with rcw 4230-40 which states conditions to attendance not to be required a member of the public shall not be required as a condition to attendance at a meeting of a governing body to register his or her name and other information to complete a questionnaire or otherwise to fulfill any condition precedent to his or her attendance thus the ellensburg school district board meetings will continue via zoom until such time that proclamation 2028 is repealed or additional guidance is provided from the state all right thank you now i'm going to introduce the board members tonight we are joined by hilda pena alfaro meg ludlum dan schissler jason white i am tasha woods and our student board reps are olivia birth
003and cook jade burroughs and superintendent haverson attendance along with various district administrators all right board uh we do have a change to the agenda superintendent ever yes i'd like to uh add uh an action item to the agenda tonight uh which is uh to present to you uh our recommendations for the starting dates for elementary and secondary as far as bringing back students five days a week and moving to that model for the parents who said that that's the model that they are wanting for the virtual that it includes the virtual academy parents who said that they wanted to be in that model as well and we'll be asking i'll do a presentation of those dates and then ask for you to take a vote on it this was agreed upon in the study session
004so this doesn't need a vote this point to be added to the agenda we can now add this to the agenda this item will be added to the agenda and we will follow up with this item with a public comment period and there will be our regularly scheduled public comment period also so there are two options tonight weren't any questions or concerns okay then we are up to the consent agenda i know that we accept the consent agenda as presented i second dan has moved and hilda has seconded any discussion then with a roll call vote meg aye dan hi hilda hi jason i also vote i the consent agenda is accepted a3a superintendent celebrations yeah so tonight we are celebrating morgan middle school and we have michelle and mike mccloskey here michelle bibbish our
005principal and they have just done an absolutely amazing job of integrating strategies to help support our english language learners as well as they have done an exceptional job of reaching out to all of their students and really ensuring that they have made contact with every single one of their students uh during this pandemic and so just really uh wanted you to have a chance to just hear about the the great work that they're doing so michelle [Music] sorry forgot to unmute myself alright so um i was super excited to be able to present just um even briefly about some of the celebrations at morgan uh we have this you know we're into it more than a year now of of this new life and uh it's been easy to find pitfalls along the way and
006so jinger and hilda got the the full the full excitement on the day that um that this was launched here so um we have as ginger said we knew where all of our kids were we had at least connected with them but it was really us to them and so when we were in december we knew that we had four students who were completely disconnected from our school and it was february when we happened to get all four of them back in school on the same day and so it was i i was probably a little more excited than maybe i should have been about it but it just felt so amazing to know that we had really we got them we got them back in the building um we connected with the families and
007i just have to say our our teachers at morgan have gone so far above and beyond to try to stay connected with kids and families um the counselors reach out regularly and then you know in spite of thinking okay should we send epd for a welfare check should we you know what should we do um kevin shares vic and scott bought and went and did home visits and it sealed the deal and they said they visited with one family for an hour on the front lawn and it was what it took for families to be able to get feel that re-engagement and for the kids to be back and so um and now we see them and they're happy and it's just it's just wonderful so that was that was our first really big like
008i don't know i i like i said i feel still happier about it than than it seems like it should with four kids but it was the final four so um so mike's gonna talk a little bit um about some of our um some more of our um exciting things that are happening at morgan we just want to showcase some of the really great stuff that's happening in spite of our pandemic so when we invited our virtual students back full time with us at the semester over a hundred kids elected to move from the virtual academy to the hybrid model and as a result of that that required us to go to four lunches which is unheard of at the middle school typically you can build a schedule pretty easily with three lunches but if
009you've ever written a master schedule it's a nightmare to begin with but then to try and do it with four lunches was just crazy which ended up meaning we ended up with an extra 30 minutes that we weren't exactly sure what to do with and our kids have been so fabulous this year about making sure they stay masked staying six feet apart walking the right direction of the hallway things like that but honestly that's an incredibly boring way to live your entire life it's very robotic right and for a lot of our kids they really needed an opportunity to have some socialization to have a little bit of fun and for some kids to have a quiet place to actually do their work that they maybe they weren't able to do at home and so
010at that time bulldogs win was born win stands for what i need and it's 30 minutes every day the kids are at school where they get to be engaged in other activities to to meet their needs they could be a study hall time a quiet room where they can do their work but it could also be fun activities like walking doing puzzles minecraft playing cribbage doing art projects um doing silent reading a lot of our kids really just don't even have time to read silently for pleasure and so that's an opportunity for them we had one teacher who did an origami class we had one teacher who did game show arama we have game rooms available for students to play board games with one another and a lot of our students reported it is their
011favorite time of the day because it feels normal to them it feels like it's an opportunity for them to get that socialization that is so very important at the middle school level sorry okay so i'm gonna oh a lot of dollars in the jar after today so we had um [Music] this really cool opportunity that i i didn't even know existed um rebecca wassel who is one of the parents of of our students um happens to have chase who's a sixth grader uh emailed me and said hey just want you to know we've got these kids participating under the umbrella of mms and i said sweet what is it um turns out there's this thing called future city competition and students have the opportunity they have they're required to be mentored um by somebody in
012the stem field and through that they create a future city and present it and so three of our sixth graders had the chance to do this because rebecca their chase's mom said that this year they were allowed to have a parent act in the teacher position because of the covet uh restrictions and so these three young men chase wassel miles o'connor and henry samples presented lunaris and took fourth place at state and i just thought you know this is the cool stuff that's out there and now we know about future city and we're excited because uh we're hopeful that we'll have many more future city competitors from morgan so if you've never heard of national history day before it's a non-profit organization that runs this national history day annually it occurs in all 50 states
013plus several the u.s territories and several other countries as well and there's different categories that students can enter their history projects in including documentary exhibit paper and performance and website and a number of years ago i had the opportunity to judge national history day for a couple of years when it was done locally originally i guess and it is truly amazing what the kids can come up with and what their projects are in the depth of their projects and nate bradshaw's students in his advanced social studies class had the opportunity to do national history day this year but it had to be done virtually and so as a result of that he had a number of students who participated and they did incredibly well sam altman cole came in fourth place with his presentation on
014the core of communication at the battle of marathon dominique scapini came in first place for sure me in world war one in the group documentary category uh second place went to theresa garcia greene jasmine rivera when schofield uh on how did bob woodward and carl bernstein first release the watergate scandal information and in the paper category fifth place sarah johnson necromancy uh was a winner in that category and all of these students because they did so well are now heading on to the state competition which is very very exciting morgan students have participated in national history day kind of on and off over the years it really has depended on if there's a teacher willing to lead them because it does take quite a bit of work outside of school and we're really lucky that
015nate bradshaw took that on this year and obviously his kids did incredibly well all right so then uh we have a couple of celebrations from the staff side of things um we the district this year purchased this book el excellence every day for every teacher in the district and one of my pet peeves is when we get things like this and then they become a decor on the shelf and so the building leadership team at morgan um said yeah we're we're in for this we're we're we're ready to take this on and so we have been uh taking apart this book during staff meetings and doing just having these really great conversations in small groups about the impact and i think the number one takeaway to start is that this is not about el sorry
016for those of you who don't use that term every day is english learner so um this is for our students who are learning english as their second language or third language and so the bottom line though is that this is just about good teaching and good teaching is good for every single student and so the author does a great job of speaking about um you know kind of taking the mindset of why do i have to do this i don't have el students in my class and the reality is is that this is all really just great instructional strategies and so i just put a couple of comments about you know when teachers were asked to talk about what's their next steps you know talking about maintaining high standards for all and that tendency we
017have to maybe um inadvertently or out of good intention uh lower the bar for students in some cases just wanting them to achieve but really let's keep the bar high and help them get there and that's what this book is really going to help us do um we really want our students who are who are bilingual to see the asset that that really is and so that's one of our big goals over the course of the next year and then um being able to just take that time that we don't often we don't often take with sometimes especially in a year like this where when you see students just two days a week if they're in hybrid there's a tendency to want to feel like you just have to keep going because you might not
018get through enough um and that value of being able to take a step back for just a moment and analyze the learning so that we can better support students and i thought that was one of the really big a great takeaway was that it's not about analyzing just our teaching it's about what is the learning showing us and um so that just wanted to showcase this book um and then mike was going to be able to share a little bit more so as part of the district initiatives on diversity ginger and hilda and michelle have been leading us through a conversation on the book courageous conversations about race but as a staff we had the opportunity to read the book white fragility which a couple of our staff members had read in the past but
019um i had not had the opportunity to read it and neither had quite a few others the best part of this book was the discussions that came out of it and one of the things that we learn in teacher school is when you put up a powerpoint you do not read the powerpoint to your people guess what i'm going to do i'm going to read the powerpoint because i think this is the quotes are so heartfelt from the from my colleagues who read this book and i wanted to share those one person said in the first chapter i was bothered by the author's assumption that i was racist me no she doesn't know that i'm part african one of my best friends is latinx my immediate family has members from central asia as our group
020moved forward through the book i had significant changes occur to my thoughts of racism and how i am a part of it on a daily basis i love being part of the discussions and hearing the views of my colleagues another person said this book study meant a lot to me i've learned the importance of talking with others about challenging topics including those of race and gender discrimination it is important to have discussions that make you uncomfortable and then grow from them another person said participating in this book study significantly expanded my understanding of white privilege and the insidious ways in which white fragility works to maintain a racist system although i still have a long journey ahead reading and discussing this book helped create a roadmap for me for recognizing naming and changing components of
021systemic racism through building racial stamina rather than maintaining white fragility and another person said reading white fragility as a staff was a bonding experience in a year where separation is the norm we were able to openly discuss racism in the many ways we have benefited from and inadvertently contributed to maintaining systemic racism i believe each person came away from this book club with a renewed commitment to doing their part to eradicate racism in our school and our community and on a personal note it was such an amazing opportunity to hear my colleagues speak and to be able to share my own thoughts the dialogue truly was some of the richest dialogue i think i've ever had in a book group there oftentimes i've done a dozen book groups over the years at school oftentimes i
022don't necessarily look forward to going to them this one i truly look forward to going to every week i was one of those people who used the term uncolorblind and i realized that my good intentions really were well to try and treat everybody equally didn't honor and recognize the rich culture of so many of our students by not recognizing color as an important part of who people are and i think that was the greatest takeaway for me is that my attempts to not be racist actually caused me to have some racism in my own life and so i enjoyed the book so much and i think every single person who participated in it this year it was pretty neat too i'll just say this as a as the book study goes on usually the numbers
023of people who show up to the meetings tends to drop off a little bit this didn't it didn't happen with this group the same number of people who started ended the book study because it was that engaging and the conversations were so rich and so meaningful all right i will stop sharing but we are open to any questions that you maybe have about some of the fabulous things happening at morgan middle school well uh this is not a question i i just want to congratulate michelle it was such an honor to see how excited he was she was to be able to reach to all the kids and make part of the school these four kids that were not part of the school until that day and it was awesome to see her excitement and
024her commitment to work so i what i want to acknowledge that congratulations thank you well i want i'm curious to know what the reaction was when four four students from ellensburg got four of the five top places in that contest and they hadn't even been there before that's amazing i know i yeah i don't know i there it'll be exciting to see what happens with state um and i asked the kids to send me pictures but i haven't gotten any yet because it's all virtual but yeah it's we have got some incredibly talented kids and um we're looking forward to natural his national history day really becoming part of our school culture and i really want to give kudos to nate bradshaw you know brad shaw nate is a local boy he went through ellensburg
025schools himself and has gone on to really become an amazing teacher and uh super proud of him and the kids who have done so well under his tutelage i have to say national history day that's close and dear to my heart in north dakota if people remember joanna markell the previous editor at the daily record we did national history day in junior high seventh and eighth grade and i think our parents were sort of surprised when we signed up for it said oh we're gonna do this because we made it to nationals so we went to washington dc and so our eyes were open wide and it was it was a life-changing experience national history day it's a very very rigorous and good group and opportunity kudos to you guys for allowing your students to
026participate in that oh yeah we're good it's it's going to be more than allowed we're going to encourage i want to send a whole bus next year and i i think that's pretty cool too that and i know there are there are lots of competitions that we we have sent our kids to in the past and it's it's great that that even in the pandemic is still those are still available and we should you know keep a look out for other things i don't know if the wind kids is going on this year or not i think the travel has kind of shut that down but yeah i haven't heard of it this year i know that colette watson who's been our kidwind um advisor in the past is excited to get that going again
027next year um yeah i think there are a bunch of them that that we should keep on the lookout for good job though thanks board members anyone else well thank you michelle and mike and thank you to your entire team at morgan middle school it has been one heck of a year and uh your constant um eye on connecting with students and even in the midst of this doing a staff book study on it on a very difficult but important subject thank you thank you for all of your work that you do thank you thanks for the opportunity to showcase it all right ford we are at administration item b the resolution of surplus property this is an action item yes thanks thanks board member to brian everybody shared to usher wood i'm sorry i
028didn't mean to speak over you ginger i'm you know internet connection it's a little bit slow for me but um i just wanted to uh take a few minutes to talk to you about this resolute resolution to surplus property we're talking about two two of the three portables that are currently located at lincoln uh one one is uh the evergreen mobile it's it's the oldest one in our in our inventory uh 1988 and then the other is a i believe it's a 2001. and we we have space for one of the three portables and thankfully mr dale leslie was was smart enough years ago when he laid out our portable resting spaces to add one more space for a future portable so we were able to to save our our best and newest portable and
029move that over here in june however we do not have space for the other two and so um our i think our best avenue at this point is to go ahead and ask you to surplus them and then i've already been getting all kinds of calls for districts that are scrambling for extra portables out there because with with covet and the need to to add more space and spread chil you know students out there's there's a lot of demand for these portables and so i think i think the best thing to do is to go ahead and and the other option of course is to let garco our contractor just just demolish them and i and i think there's value in these portables and i so i think the best way to go is to
030ask you to surplus them and then we will move the three of them out of the way and so that garco can get in and begin their construction then as soon as school's out in in june so anyway are there are there any questions that you have uh for me about these uh these portable classrooms so okay go ahead well um are we moving students out of lincoln this june i mean next fall well will the sun great question meg so so uh in order in order to get uh lincoln finished by uh september of uh i guess it's gonna be we need to start construction in areas that we can in in lincoln over the summer and so we're going to need to move those portables out of the way because that's that's the
031area where the elevator is going and and uh on top of that uh garco is going to need some layup space where they put their trailers and their some of their equipment and things like that so we're doing our best to accommodate their schedule so they can in turn get us get us into our new building by september of 22. so what we're going to do is as there's four kindergarten classrooms there and there's two special education classrooms where we're going to ask peggy kelleher who's been wonderful and her team to to work within rooms available within uh lincoln for the first oh maybe month or month and a half until we can get them moved up to ida but the four uh kindergarten classrooms we we will have space for them up at mount
032stewart in in the portables there so unfortunately we're going to have to ask our kindergarten teams to move up to mount stewart and the portables there for the first month or month and a half of the year and then once ida is finished and and uh the building's turned over to us then they can then join the rest of their lincoln uh staff and and students uh in the brand new ida nation ironica elementary so that's a great question um we're asking a lot of them and and they've been really concerned about it but um it's going to take some some coordination to pull this off for sure thanks that clears it up okay yeah and so if we if we sell these to another school district are they going to come and get them
033or how does that work yeah so dan we we have already contracted with a moving company to move these portables um and uh that and that was when we found out and working with the city that it was going to be too costly to try and find other places because of the need to create parking and and some roadways and some things like that it just became too expensive to relocate them where we wanted to so um yeah it's tell me or what was the first part of your question again well if when we're if we're surplusing him to another school district somewhere okay gonna we're gonna provide the transportation for them also or is that how's that no so so what what will happen is as i said we we contracted with a moving
034company but that was to move all three over so we'll just have them move the one and by the way it's just to move a portable across town it's 30 000 so these things aren't as portable as the thing and then there's going to be all the costs to to reset the one over there you know we could be looking at 150 to 175 000 by the time we're done getting that over and set in place so what what the new buyer would do is is they would have to then contact this moving company and arrange to have them move to their sites at their expense and and we want to try and coordinate that so this this happens right in the last week of june so that they're out of the way in time
035for garco yeah okay thank you uh any other questions from the board okay board as a reminder this is an action item i move that we approve resolution for surplusing property dan has moved and hilda has seconded any further discussion okay then with the roll call vote dan hi meg hi hilda hi jason i i also vote i uh so the motion carries thank you brian uh board we're now at 3c uh start dates for in-person schooling uh ginger all right well thank you board appreciate the opportunity to add this to the agenda and so i want to start by just painting the context we're gonna basically come to you and ask you i have two recommendations of two dates uh one for elementary and one for secondary schools that we would like for you
036to vote on and approve as far as the ability to be able to bring back students five days a week in person starting on these dates but to start right before spring break i asked principals to start uh taking the temperature and and talking with teachers about um how could we start thinking about bringing more students back uh throughout the week and uh we had groups of teachers that were excited about it that went to their principal and said you know we're ready to do that now like we we want to we we really understand the need for bringing our students back uh as much as possible and certainly uh that is a value that we have here in ellensburg we know that the virtual environment has definitely worked for some students uh we also
037believe that for that social emotional piece in particular especially at the elementary school level uh but i would say it's important at secondary as well um it is it's to have the opportunity to bring our elementary students back five days a week would really be ideal and as you know what a factor that had been keeping us back from being able to do that was this six foot rule the rule that we had to place desks six feet apart during class and that really limited the number of students that we could bring back which is why we had to go to the hybrid model and so uh as you know so the cdc changed their guidelines on wednesday of spring break so the timing was uh not really very ideal on this but uh but
038we're excited that it happened cdc changed the rule that basically said that what their science was showing is that um there really wasn't that much of a difference between three feet and six feet as far as uh the transmitting of disease and so um they said you know that three feet would would be sufficient especially uh at elementary on that secondary you know if the infection rates were at a certain level and so um that happened on wednesday and then as you know governor inslee at the end of the week officially adopted the cdc recommendations and gave schools across the state the opportunity to place kids three feet apart in classrooms and so during spring break uh jeff whitney and dale uh went out and measured all the classrooms and uh pretty much in every
039classroom in ellensburg we are able to uh at least we're just talking about elementary right now we're able to space uh those desks three feet apart and and have a full class uh there are a few classrooms a little bit smaller so we know that once we get our numbers in uh that we'll we're going to need to do some adjustments different places but we believe that we'll be able to move forward and do this and so right after uh well during spring break there were some principles that were available reached out with them i've met with eea leadership several times and so i am officially recommending you to you that the official start date for bringing all the elementary students back five days a week be april 19th uh we initially put out april
04012th in the communication that went out at the end of spring break as a tentative start date and it was very clear in that communication that it was a tentative date and we felt it was really important to have a goal to to aim for as far as bringing students back and then after several discussions with elementary teachers and i really appreciate them they were very thoughtful in their feedback that they gave us uh and we also met with eea representatives uh we now have a tentative agreement with eea to start with elementary school students bringing our students back five days a week again starting on april 19th with all the same safeguards in place we found after talking with teachers that we really needed to have that extra time we did put out a
041survey to all of our uh virtual academy parents and gave them an opportunity to choose to come back to the five day a week model and it was interesting uh we have about 267 elementary va parents and we had 200 right away fell at the survey so huge thank you to our parents for filling that out right away and those results showed about a third a third a third a third of the va parents saying that they'd like to keep their children in a virtual academy about another third of those parents saying that they def they would want to have their students back in school five days a week and then another third of those parents uh said that it would depend on what happened with their classroom teacher if their classroom teacher was a
042virtual academy teacher and went back to teaching in person that they would want their child to stay with that teacher so the results of the survey too really dictated a need to have more time to really sift through the data and really ensure that we could open uh five days a week in this most smoothest transition and make sure that we have all the safeguards in place that need to be in place and i really have appreciated the opportunity to problem solve with teachers and eea and i 100 percent support the start date of uh april or april 19th again we believe that the start day will provide the smoothest and safest transition for elementary students and i also want to acknowledge that the transition for all teachers is a real heavy lift and i
043think especially for our virtual academy teachers uh many of their classrooms uh have like furniture that was stored there and they literally have to come back and completely set up their classroom again so we are i just really i really want to honor all of uh our teachers and especially uh va teachers amazing efforts this year and uh you know we're working together with our principals our staff and especially our va teachers to help this transition to be successful uh so all we're asking for is to approve that april 19th date again for the start for elementary students uh we continue to work uh with and and negotiate with eea to kind of flush out the rest of the mou and all the other types of supports that need to be in place we had
044two great meetings today one was with eea elementary teachers and eea leadership and then we had another one with kind of a question and answer session with elementary teachers and again just really appreciate the feedback just really shows i think the power of our esd team and listening to each other and making adjustments and really working hard to make it a successful transition for secondary students we know that the the cdc guidelines are a little different for secondary with the schedules that we have we are not able to cohort students and right now the infection rate in kittitas county is above the metric that we need it to be at to be able to open with the three foot rule at the secondary level and so it's really a a plea again to our community
045to just continue to work hard with our masking and and hopefully that getting vaccines if if people are able to do that so that we can bring our overall infection right down so that we even have that opportunity to be able to bring our secondary students back five days a week so for secondary students however we do have a date that we would like for you to approve and so i'm recommending and this date was also ta by eea i'd like to recommend april 26th as the official start date for secondary students and this is assuming that kittitas county public health department and cdc you know that kittitas county public health department fully supports uh the opening at that date as as well as that we're hitting the metrics that we need to hit with
046the cdc guidelines so again it's april 19th for our elementary students and april 26th for our secondary students and when we have the rest of the mou language in place we will bring that to you as well thank you boy just as a reminder um we do have a public comment uh before we take our vote on this so if anyone has any clarifying questions that they would like to ask of superintendent haver now we can do that and then we'll have public comment and we can also discuss before we take our vote dan yeah um ginger is um i know the question i guess is about secondary and and if it's how how will we decide i mean we've got a date but it's contingent upon um lowering our rates of infection um is
047that that's going to be a day-to-day decision or a a weekly decision or how how are we going to is that dependent on what dr larson figures out about our recommendation i think over over time as we get closer that date i mean we're still going to prepare we're going to be measuring classrooms we're going to be working together to get the plans in place and all of that um i think at this point predicted is kind of a rise in the infection rates and then a decline uh and so if in fact that trend happens the way um you know i think dr larson has mentioned that a couple of times that he's predicting that maybe he'll go back down again then april 26 will be a good date and if it seems like
048it's rising and you know the week before we'll be we have noon zooms with dr larson every week uh so i think that we'll be just looking at it you know overall and day to day i think we would kind of go back to some of the same process that we had in place with our first mou but those are some of the details uh dan that we're working through that we'll be able to bring back to you okay yeah and it it just comes back again to the same community awareness that you know we as a community if we want our kids in school we have to be careful that means washing hands it means wearing masks it means keeping apart from each other not doing big groups and this is not wearing a
049mask is not to keep you from getting sick it's to keep you from infecting someone else if you happen to be sick and we we don't know if we're infected or not for several days before so you could be out there talking with your friends and passing it on to them without knowing um so that's why it's so critical to to keep being careful with how we how we interact with each other for at least for a while yet until we get a whole bunch more people um inoculated yep i appreciate that dan i agree well um this is amazing news that we have the possibility to make our kids come back to elementary level on april 19 and i really am thankful for all the world administrators and teachers put even working during spring
050break and i would like to second quantum set as well as ginger that we are a community we are all interrelated so it's in our hands to make the kids from secondary level come back on april 26th we definitely can do that we have to be vaccinated washing has we're in our mouth and gives a distance so if we work as a community together we certainly can accomplish that and have our kids back to school on april 26th we'll be like that thank you hilda so i'm giving any other board members go ahead meg i have nothing to add except ditto it's well said by both of you we've just got to keep keep the community keep working as a community to make this possible so to clarify ginger um during spring break when our
051district heard about uh the cdc's changing in the three foot guidelines even though it was on spring break we immediately had administrators working to solve what it would look like and take to get us back yes i was i was working on it and uh you know with the executive team we were working on it and i sent out information to uh principals and then there was a few principles i try really hard not to interact with the principals during their break but a few principals really wanted to meet so we did end up meeting uh together and we were able and appreciate eea were able to contact some of them as well and then we've been able to work together and and i think we're on track to put together a really good plan
052i'm very appreciative i know we all are of everyone who is in there measuring rooms again uh checking to make sure that everything's okay again um because this has been the direction of the district since we were shut down in march it was immediately watching administrators saying okay what can we do how far can we go what can we what can we do um so i'm glad that you didn't wait after that cdc announcement and i was actually surprised at how quickly that blackboard announcement hit my hit my parent email it was pretty immediate um right forward any other questions okay at this point we are going to uh open this up for public comment um matt i'm out of practice i know you're not uh public we are gonna have this section to be
053public comment uh it will be just pertaining to this agenda item and then you will have another chance to do public comment uh further into the meeting um matt are you good to go if i read that let's go ahead and i'll get the screen share set up thank you individuals wishing to be heard by the board will first be recognized by the chair individuals will add their names to the document that is in the zoom chat box or individuals will be recognized within zoom by using the icon to show they are raising their hand once the chair calls on an individual they will identify themselves by stating their name and address for the record individuals will proceed to make comments within the three minute time limit in order to provide equal opportunity for comments
054an individual's microphone will be turned off at the minute time limit the chair may interrupt or terminate an individual statement when is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant the board as a whole has the final decision in determining the appropriateness of all such rulings in accordance with the open public meetings act 4230 oh and there went my thing sorry uh agendas and topic must be set in advance of the meeting board members will not respond to public comment during the meeting additionally comments can be submitted to the board at board at esd401.org hey the first person that i have on the list is corey wright get him unlocked can you hear me okay yep go ahead okay i have only heard that about 9 000 times in my own job or the last
055few months so i apologize for having to have that uh board and uh superintendent haber thank you for this opportunity my name is corey wright i live at 610 heron farm lane uh i just want to say first off that i am fully in support of these reopening dates i appreciate the work that has gone into this as you know uh the board of county commissioners along with the superintendents of every public school in this county and board presidents from two districts as well as uh first responders public uh our public health officer and our chief medical officer kbh all supported the three-foot ruling from the pdc and i was very pleased with with the uh broad support of this across our across the education spectrum as well as our local leaders i just want
056to say that i understand the logistical hurdles that go with this being married to a teacher she is right now grappling with how this is going to work but i am pleased that this is this is a broadly supported uh measured by our educators who who i've been in contact with i know that that they want to have our students back in school five days a week i am pleased to hear that our community is struggling right now especially as we move towards our first metric measurement date uh april 12th to see whether we stay in phase three or move back to phase two i think it's critical that if we do move back to phase two that we have still have our kids moving into school the uh community is going to be struggling
057if if we do in fact move back again and my concern as a as a commissioner is that we are still as as board members said trying to get folks to follow the common sense guidelines and as we uh look at the possibility of moving back i think it's critical that our kids are in school because the vaccinations are available those folks especially the teachers have had the accelerated rates to get that done the opportunity is there if folks feel the risk there's no reason why they can't go in and and get that vaccination i think it's time to start looking ahead and i am glad to hear that dates are set and our community members can start to count on those dates as moving forward and i understand they're you know as as situations
058change there may be some um movement of those dates but just to have those on the calendar looking forward to them is a huge step for our county so i appreciate consideration of this and i just want to register my support thank you very much thank you corey wright okay the next person i have on the list is donna grassell thank you uh matt i appreciate it can you hear me yep go ahead um donna grassel 200 cedar cove road ellensburg teacher at morgan middle school and president of eea i just first wanted to say teachers of course are in favor and always have been in favor of bringing everyone back as soon as possible but also making sure that we do that in the safest way possible for our our students our families our
059teachers so we appreciate very much the opportunity to get vaccinated we encourage everyone to take advantage of that as quickly as possible i encourage anyone who is available to go volunteer at the vaccine clinic because i did it during spring break and it was awesome so many amazing people i saw former students i hadn't seen in 15 years it was great so if you have the time volunteer they are wonderful and it feels so good to be part of the solution so um that's a great opportunity and i just wanted to also quickly say that i appreciate the uh collaborative effort with district admin and um eea leadership in moving forward with this thank you very much thank you donna just double checking the list and making sure that no one has their hand up
060i see no one else on the list and let me just refresh that again [Music] um would you like me to help i've got elsie siskey hang on just a moment just remind people you can sign up on the on the list that's in the chat box or you can raise your hand using the zoom icon at the bottom finder okay ask lc to unmute um i just like i'd like to thank you for coming up with the start date and giving me all of these opportunities to speak up and i look forward to being in school soon that's it thank you thank you elsie let me just double check the sign up sheet again i see no one on the oh i've got angela having noticed a moment faster to unmute okay go ahead
061thank you sorry my cell phone's about to die but i also just wanted to say thank you to ginger and to everyone for you know having to listen to me for the last couple of months asking begging pleading to get the kids back and everyone's hard work even over spring break i really appreciate it and i look forward to my kids going back and i look forward to having my middle school students back soon too so thank you angela not seeing anyone else on the list and i am not seeing any other hands raised would you like me to set the timer yes please so we're going to set a timer for 30 seconds uh that gives you 30 seconds to either add your name to the list or raise your hand with the zoom
062reaction which is at the bottom of the screen hey that is it okay without seeing any further hands raised or having anyone add their names to the list we are closing public comments uh for this uh agenda item or this is an action item i would like to move that we approve the recommendation for the reopening dates that have been given to us pending future developments on the secondary side and the community side i'll second it meg has moved and jason has seconded is there any further discussion i think we're we're really ready to do this we've been kind of chomping at the bit for many months and it's it's uh it's time i agree dan i think it's exciting and with it and it's with much work uh and creative thinking that our district
063is able to take this step uh big thank you to everyone involved everyone who came to the board meetings um to to lend their voice and support um big thank you to district administrators and building administrators who are working all of our esd staff i'm especially a big thank you to our teachers who now are transitioning again and it's it's difficult to transition again and thank you to our families who are transitioning again but this is uh this is esd and this is our school so i think this is an exciting vote and an exciting moment and much needed in our community before before you asked for the vote can i just read back the motion to make sure that i've got it right yes thank you matt uh it's start date for k through
064five of april 2021 for in-person learning five days a week and a start date of april 26 2021 for secondary students that's correct okay all right thank you and with that i'll call a roll call vote meg um i dan hi hilda i jason i also vote i uh we have in-person start dates in april for our schools and community yes that's very exciting uh and i and i do want to reiterate um dr larson in our community health has been working very very hard uh very glad that commissioner cory wright came this really is our game now yet uh ellensburg like this is up to us of whether we stay in phase three whether our kids get to stay in school whether we get to still do sports and whether we get to have
065rodeo this year and we can do this but we have to do it uh we are on to the business portion for a asset preservation report i believe this is brian yes thank you brian thank you board congratulations on getting students back in school that's exciting um so this is a this this is a little bit of a silly report um why we're approving our greenhouse at the high school each year but the background on that is and dan asked some good questions of me earlier today the asset preservation program is required for us to maintain our our buildings and structures and demonstrate over a 30-year period that we are doing just that so that when they are eligible for state match every 30 years the state will then award us with state matching construction
066funds and so that's what the asset preservation program is for and currently the only structure in our entire entire district on the on this program is the high school greenhouse and so and so uh mr lee has to go around once a year and do an assessment on the building and then add that data into osbi's construction database and and that he has done that we are required to bring that report to you each once a year and uh that's what this is for and so and so it shows the building at about 80.6 one percent condition and and it it has dropped a little bit from last year as as dan schisler pointed out um the reason it it did drop is is that there's an expectation that over time uh concrete um uh
067windows and things like that are going to decline over time and so and so that was the answer for why it declined a little bit it's not for lack of maintenance it's just it's just father time does that to a structure so so i i would ask your approval of of this uh condition and assessment report and then what would let you know that next year about this time you will be seeing not only the greenhouse but you'll be seeing morgan middle school and you'll be seeing mount stewart the new the new mount stewart elementary school you'll be seeing the early learning center which is right behind mount stewart and then you'll be seeing ida nason erotica on this list too and so and so um then it'll be our our job to take care
068of those buildings for 30 years and and when that time is up they too will be eligible for state match are there any questions at all about the asset preservation program no just a clarification this is not an action but just an informational item oh i don't believe we have to take action right joshua yeah why is morgan only now uh getting on the list or is what is it on been on for five years and we have to do something i would the news i understand their joy sorry mate a great question meg the reason is it is not on is you of a board have not yet officially accepted morgan and i and i can give you an update on morgan just as of last week uh we we sent our our final
069uh pay app request into graham we finally worked all the financial details out on the settlements and all that on those kinds of things and so now the ball's in their court to to send us an invoice we will make the final payment and then we will begin uh the the one month closeout process and and that ensures that uh the building is is is uh done and completed to our expectations and uh anyway before that's all done uh it does not get added on to uh our inventory list and another reason that we we kind of delayed things a little bit was it it helped us qualify for about two and a half million more in match for elementary schools because once we once we ask you to approve this uh news new building
070it adds additional square footage and and seats available seats for students and if it would obviously have hurt our um our match dollar amount from the state so that's that's why it's been delayed one of one of the reasons it's been delayed did that answer your question yeah thank you i knew all that but thanks i've forgotten that's okay any other questions all right uh brian 4b financial report for december and january yes board well we're playing a little bit of catch-up so you have um two months there a little extra reading for you is exactly what you need right now isn't it um anyway december and january reports uh the the thing to point out for you in december's report is um uh we we did kind of finalize the the last 9.5 million
071in bond sales and so and so i wrote that up a little bit as an explanation i still get the question well why did we only sell 8.82 million of the nine and a half million dollars worth of bonds but yet we brought in you know over 9.6 million dollars in revenues and that was because it was a great time to sell bonds and and buyers out there in the market were eager to buy our bonds and pay us a premium for it and so we we actually brought in enough money to to uh of course cover our 9.5 million in proceeds but also the cost of selling the bonds and so and we did all that with a true interest rate of 0.73 so anyway i thought i would write that in just in
072case you get questions on that but that's that's the last of our 59.5 million in bonds and so um there's that and then in the january reports again that would be how we doing to budget you know is a great question during covid times it's i think everybody's finding that they're spending a little bit less because because all of their students are not back in full time but we're also this year unlike last year we're receiving less revenues from the state because our counts are down and our enrollment's down so through five months of the year we we should be at 41.6 percent if we were exactly on budget and our revenues are down to 37 and our expenditures are down even further to 35.4 percent so again that's that's directly attributable to colbit and
073us not having kids you know in school five days a week so um it's all really i could see that was was in the reports are there any other questions about the the reports meg major muted yeah oh shoot i thought they were like that we were still using last year's enrollment figures for the state revenue is that not true or is that that's only in a bill going forward alleges in the legislature yeah meg the the problem is um uh they they allowed us to to use last year's average enrollment for last year's uh state apportionment payments but this year they switched to actual and so given that we are you know we're we're just a little over 200 fte down that's reflected in our revenues and given that we're only really transporting i
074think if i remember right maybe ginger can help me with a number but roughly around 650 students per day and and that's about a third of what we normally transport so as a consequence our transportation revenues are down too because you know they're they're paying us for butts in the seat and right now just not as many of those so yeah yeah i know that going forward yeah anyway i'll say something report okay anybody else uh thank you brian for both those reports all right thanks ford we are on to individual board reports uh we'll start with dan dan is there an early learning report yeah just that the the next uh book giveaway down at the catholic church on the south side is april 7th so if your kids um birth through five like
075to read or you like to read to them it's a good way to get a book or two and keep them getting ready for kindergarten it's noon on the 7th thank you dan student board reports olivia i'm trying to see i think i saw you in here and jayden um yeah uh i'm in here um i'll talk about the legislative meeting that jaden and i went to with meg um it was a little over a week ago i think and i spoke on the transportation bill and um jayden spoke on the credit bill and it was really nice going to it it was really fun it was cool to see people from other school districts too and it was interesting to hear all their stories and also elsie sisky came as well and also spoke
076on the transportation bill so yeah that's all i have to report and then jayden had some things too yep and to quickly uh add on to olivia's point it was also a wonderful chance to actually see the faces and communicate with our representatives so directly and that was such a great opportunity that i think more student involvement would really benefit from and then for my specific report i just wanted to update you all that the student senate got all of the questions about the student experience and that we have another meeting next tuesday to refine the survey that we're going to send out to the student body and sometime i hope at least two meetings from now we should be able to report back to you on how students have felt reopening from covid and
077what has really been challenging and what would really be important to them going forward thank you board thank you jaden and olivia for lending your voices and leading with your voices uh and jayden i think you're right uh student voice is really important and the representatives really do want to hear hear that and so when you guys take time out to do that it really is very effective uh hilda for equity teaching and learning do you have a report uh yes i do uh i like to share with the world a little bit uh about our third session that we have and we started the session with a small group discussion about how race had impacted the life of all the participants we did it in small groups and thanks to the fourth agreement uh
078and be respectful with each other and speak the through i think it was a very successful conversation and then jen presents us with uh some data about the district and the disparities that still exist between the hispanic groups english english language learners and the other groups specifically in ap courses and it was very interesting to see uh sat to know that the disparities are there but it's a very good starting point and i think that it makes the group feel more engaged and willing to participate and do something in order to try to have to have a more equity environment for all the students and then we talk about a compass which is really like a tool in order to engage in uh conversations difficult conversations specifically about race and finally i talked a little
079bit that was the part that i did uh about a a book uh for martha that is called ibrahim candy and uh it's it's uh very for me it was very enlightened because uh he talked about what is what is the meaning of being a racist or an anti-racist and what he does is that he put it in terms of um what do you do in a specific uh within a specific circumstances so usually there is a lot of pushback or is very difficult to say well i is really i am racist because we think that this is part of our identity but his proposition is that we think about we are racist if we do not act when we see some racism in front of us and we do not act so i think
080that that was very well received by the group that we are moving forward and uh doing a lot of like planting seeds that they are gonna in the future in the near future hopefully we'll uh we will see the results and moving forward to more more equity in all the spaces in the school districts i don't know if ginger one two wants to add something else well that's it that's all i have thank you hilda i want to add on that i attended a pacific education institute conference in an afternoon ginger was there and jen was there and i think other esd members were there a board remember that is who we teamed up with pei um to support um learning uh at ida nace and veronica uh ginger is there anything you want to
081add on that yeah we're so lucky to have megan rivard uh be our facilitator for uh us here in ellensburg and as many of you know she was a i think a chemistry teacher at the high school at one point and she's done a lot of work with our summer programs and she's super excited to do professional development really for all of our teachers but for especially for all of our elementary school uh teachers and what a great opportunity in the spring she's going to be having several professional development opportunities and i know we have a lot that we're working on but even into the summer and throughout next year on how we can get our kids outside and do in the outdoors and and really uh their model is called field stem so using
082those stem problem solving skills but also doing it outside and learning how to really appreciate our environment and really become invested in supporting our environment you know as they move out and graduate and then taking a project-based approach and the other thing that i really appreciate about pacific education institute which really uh was a guide for the naming of our new elementary school is that they uh really honor uh the native american culture and traditions that are in each of the areas in our counties in washington and so i'm super excited to see how we can continue to integrate uh the rich native american culture that exists here in kittitas county as we continue to partner with pacific education institute thank you ginger uh meg is there a legislative report yes there is the legislator
083later is uh chugging along toward the end of the session um things are picking up speed as as we go along a few bills that we haven't talked about much but that we didn't like have died uh which is good uh like not allowing not allowing civics to count for social studies credit things like that um there's a the bill for uh emergency waiver of high school graduation credits for the pandemic or actually for emergencies in general in the future uh that that bill uh has passed but uh the district has to have to present a plan for how we're going to implement that and then we'll have to we'll need to approve a resolution accepting that plan or whatever the resolution will say but anyway uh that will be coming up uh spring assessment
084plan the uh uh state department of education has well the no the federal department of education is not allowing uh schools to to not do assessments or is requiring schools to do assessments this spring despite the pandemic but we are we can uh come up with proposals not to do as much testing and that's what the state has done they're doing a random sampling of testing uh 50 000 students instead of 700 000 students only one test in each grade level except all uh english language uh learners will be tested i believe um there's been some there was a webinar and a public comment period and so on and so forth and uh the the plan should have been submitted the state's plan should have been submitted to the department of education last week so
085um we'll see where that that will keep moving along uh both the house and senate senate have released their budgets there's all kinds of uh both agreement and disagreement in there they uh the the bills that both that have have passed to cause uh future state funding or i guess next year and beyond uh to be based on next year and the year after to be based on uh enrollment before the pandemic and and there's also an adjustment for uh transportation of some kind uh the way they they have been those have been adopted as policies but not as money not as budget budgeted funds and uh the senate and house have different ways of funding those uh policies but uh and i'm not uh inclined to get into the details and try to move
086that conversation one way or another just fund it and it and it will be funded at least by federal funds if the state doesn't the state may rely more on federal funds and their own funds on that but i don't think there's a whole lot we can do about it but there should be there should be some relief on that and this is relates to what brian was talking about i had not realized that this year we were not being held harmless and we're not going to be held harmless anyway but we were not going to be aided supported on those issues um let's see and uh there's of course there's all kinds of detail and you know money for things we like but maybe not as much money as we'd like but uh but
087one small thing i found in the capital budget is that there are going there are proposed uh nutrition grants that would cover uh our expenses some of our expenses relating to elimination of styrofoam trays possibly even the dishwasher itself uh we need one dishwasher as i recall so that was a little bright spot in the budget that that i found thank you meg uh for keeping track of all that it is a lot on the legislative side right now so thank you for reporting it back dan yeah is there any progress on the prototypical model no it's not it's it's uh i mean there is nothing in this legislative session that moves that any farther than it was already moving there is a study group set up which has a deadline outside of your horizon
088my outside of uh like the outside of it's sometime in 22 end of 22 i think that they're they have recommendations due and there were some bills to try to speed that up but it didn't really slow down the pass okay thank you that prototypical model is a tough one especially after our vote tonight it's very exciting to bring uh students back but we've also heard the conversation of we need students to come back to school because of mental health and to be a support that way currently esd is not funded for mental health or for our nursing staff at current staffing levels thankfully that is funded by our community who has passed a levy and so the levy is the only thing that is funding the mental health for our students and staff and
089until the legislature picks that up and changes its terrible name a prototypical model uh it is still going to rely on our community through that levy to support mental health of our students um and and that i don't believe that that's the way it should be funded but that's the current model but there is a little bit of uh i don't know how much money in the budget for for uh for counseling and what's this other thing something safety so anyway uh but it's pandemic related and it doesn't really address this the larger structural problem that you're both talking about but meg will stay on ledge committee and she will fix it [Laughter] thank you meg all right we are into our second uh public comment um matt are you ready yep all right i
090will read this again individuals wishing to be heard by the board will first be recognized by the chair individuals will add their names to the document that is in the zoom chat box or individuals will be recognized within zoom by using the icon to show they are raising their hand once the chair calls on an individual they will identify themselves by stating their name and address for the record individuals will proceed to make comments within the three minute time limit in order to provide equal opportunity for comments an individual's microphone will be turned off at the three minute time limit the chair may interrupt or terminate an individual statement when is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant the board as a whole has a final decision in determining the appropriateness of all such
091rulings in accordance with the open public meetings act 4230 agendas and topic must be set in advance of the meeting board members will not respond to public comment during the meeting additionally comments can be submitted to the board at board esd 401.org matt has anyone signed up on our document i'm just refreshing it and taking a look here got no one signed up at the moment i will re-post it just in case someone needs that link um otherwise i can set a timer yes please set the timer for 30 seconds so just remind everyone you can sign up on the link that's in the chat box or you can raise your hand uh with the reaction at the bottom of your zoom window okay i have no one that has signed up and i have
092no one that is raising their hand you uh then we are closing uh public comments at this time board 8a proposed items for future consideration i would like that we talk a little bit about the equity policy uh on during study session next session noted remember is anyone else do we have an executive session okay uh 9b board calendar 9c clarification and next steps okay d the signing of official documents i do have documents that do need to be signed so if you make your way i'm looking at the list from the last warrant so i have signatures from tasha and dan and so i do need two other folks to come in and sign those please and then i have stuff for jason as well okay thank you board that lands us at adjournment
093dan some moves to adjourn and i believe hilda and meg also moved to adjourn uh thank you this meeting is officially adjourned thank you bye