001good evening welcome to the regular session of the Moses Lake School directors board meeting it's Thursday February 20th 2025 and the time is 6 PM Miss D we please take roll for us Ryan Colston here Paul Hill here Karen Jensen here Carla uas here Amy brightenstein here thank you so much if you'll all remove your hats and silence your cell phones we'll stand for the the Pledge of Allegiance okay if we've all had a chance to look over our minute from February 6th Corrections at all I'll to approve February 6 I move we approve the minutes from the February 6 regular meeting okay our second I'll second all in favor I any opposed okay our minutes from February 6th have been approved anyone have any uh changes or additions they'd like to suggest for tonight
002agenda okay okay then I'll take a motion to approve tonight's agenda I move that we adopt tonight's agenda second I'll second okay all in favor I any opposed tonight's agenda has been adopted tonight we will start off with a recognition section if Adam sorer would come up it looks like um you gotta be at the podium volen that's volen told right is that what they call volen at all it's just told but it's it's it's a good one so I'll do it so febru February 17th was National PTA PTO founders day we thought we would take a moment to honor the presidents and all volunteers that are part of the parent teacher organizations they do such an amazing work for our schools and sometimes it goes unnoticed we are so thankful for all the effort
003they put into our students with that we want to take a moment to recognize the PTO presidents although it is truly a group effort so we're going to hand out some certificates here so posted notes to help me make sure they're right you think I need that with this little room it's for the recording for online oh for the recording there's a recording too watching me do this got it cool of pressure okay so let's get started again certificate of appreciation for our PTA and it's a founders day again of February 17th uh let's start with mlhs booster club Stacy lame Layman Layman Garcia am I close lay okay [Applause] awesome thank you stand here we get a picture perfect thank you and next let's do garden Heights Elementary School uh Amy Jones president come
004on up let's give a round of [Applause] applause you are thank you all right next no Vista Elementary I've been there once or twice uh Sabrina Bagwell is the president I will give it to her let's give a round of applause Ste [Applause] next is Midway Elementary School Eder Garcia Lopez hope I said that correctly next we have grath Elementary School Ashley Martinez the president come on [Applause] up and next we have Lake View Elementary School Ren Forester president [Applause] next Long View Elementary School Megan [Applause] sit and Miss Evon is joining there you are beautiful yes thank you all right next is Sage Point Elementary School Anna Luna president next Peninsula Elementary School Shauna Orton uh [Applause] president middle school Judith hunger [Applause] president uh next is Columbia Middle School I give it to
005you not you okay uh next one again is Columbia Middle [Applause] School next is from Larson Heights Elementary School uh Elliot Delong [Applause] president next is from CA Ryan Carpenter president [Applause] next is North Elementary School Carissa moru Moro Moro Moro then next is Park orchard Elementary School Sarah Guama awesome again I want to say thank you to all of you again I know at no Vista we couldn't do it without Sabrina come on up come on Sabrina you're here now yay so you guys are such a big help and we appreciate all you do for our students again it's about the students so thank you so let's get a picture Jennifer you can't leave now there's a picture thank you guys thank you all right so we'll move on to our um consent agenda
006for tonight anybody has any questions or comments tell go ahead and turn on your mic contracts this Nationwide Charter and looking at this is this trip to New York City okay so that's the the bus that will take the students from the airport to the hotel and you know do the transporting of the students in New York probably don't want to send our school bus in it's a little bit of a drive and then I've got a couple of questions on field trips uh which one's this one this is the boy Swim shows mode of travel booster club number of vehicles two but it doesn't say anything else um yes you are correct I I am not aware it says to vehicles um if they did that but I do know sorry I'm losing my
007voice but I do know for most of our Athletics it's either by a school bus or private vehicles um and it's you know done all through the proper channels all of these are it's basically the same thing because it doesn't say who's funding the travel so it's going to be the same question on the other two as well it says funded by boosters yeah it says booster club shows meal on this one meal Arrangement provided by boers and families it just doesn't say anything about Transportation if you go down to the trans or the funding and section of that there's a link that takes you to their spreadsheet of their cost and it has school dist oh School District vehicles for transportation funded by CAA do you see where I'm looking there it's underneath meal
008arrangements and then cost funding sources I mean we're we're working with the form and we're we're trying to transition people to fill out this spreadsheet because it's very clear and it gives them a sample but okay so CAA is paying for the the vehicles okay that's probably be the same thing on any other questions any other one was boys wrestling one vehicle mode booster club um and it just says cost funded by Boost boosters about 4,000 from boosters I just wanted to confirm that that does cover the transportation as well it does they they didn't fill out the spreadsheet so that's something that we're going to try to work on getting them to do that but they are fully funded the trip is fully funded through um outside of most like School District funds I
009have a question on the um old form that we're trying to move away from is when it says under the transportation mode is that to be assumed at that's who's taking care of well what I what I had intended it to mean is what ve what how are we going are we going by school bus are we going by so what's happening is I'm finding out how these are coming in and then how can we better adapt the form so we get the information we want so we're we're getting there but the last one is a girls wrestling girls wrest Transportation it shows booster club one vehicle by cbtech two rental van by Enterprise I I don't know I can find out more about that if you'd like um my guess is they didn't have
010any school buses available so they had to rent a van rather than a charter bus to get there so we don't know if it's covered by boosters or C C it's all um covered by from boosters if you look down in the cost and funding sources again um now he didn't itemize it but 4,000 from boosters everything's covered I'll be sure okay that's the end of my questions so I mean and these have also said about 4,000 from boosters so like how how much of a stickler are we going to be on almost right or or abouts like if it's boosters money what does it matter well I well still raised money I feel like it'd be good to still detail it out good information so one of the changes on the form that isn't
011reflected here um under the cost and funding sources it says preferred to use that spreadsheet well it's been changed now that it's required they need to fill out that spreadsheet so we have an itemized list um of of what the the costs are and you know when you're budgeting it sometimes is approximate but we should be approximating you know over overestimating so yeah but they are fully funded through boosters on this trip want to make sure my my question was um on the welding trip so they they did a really good cost detail list there um and it says that uh all cost are covered by the CTE Department where's that funding come from what do cte's Department yeah CTE is superf funded um and one of the reasons they are superf funded is they
012do have requirements what does superf funded mean that means yeah why don't you help me okay for CT there's enhanced funding so they get funded for um more teachers for Less students um and so they have to stay within their their bucket of money overall which Ron is amazing at I think he is like the best in the district at watching his budgets and um give him Kudos all day long um so they also do things like you know they'll make projects and then they'll sell those projects and that money goes back into the CTE as well and so so sometimes you'll see things that that that say you know fundraiser FFA fundraiser that's money that's in the general fund because it was part of that class's grade so it has to be out of
013general fund can't be out of ASB but they've raised money for it so okay and so so it still comes out of the general fund but it's it's allocated to CTE to CTE specific um and they do have requirements with their program for competitions okay and then do we worry like so I'm I'm All About conservatively you know budgeting you know when you when you create budgets you kind of want to over state it um but you also don't want to be unrealistic and I mean uh just the fuel for example 11 miles per gallon at $5 a gallon and it's like I hope it's not five bucks a gallon but and and I hope they're getting a little bit better fuel economy but not much more I understand uh Vehicles pretty well so I'm
014just I'm curious like as we create this budget and does it really like where does it matter you know like how accurate does this need to be how how um retentive do we need to be and and attentive do we need to be looking at stuff like that so when we create budgets um you want your budget to reflect the maximum and you're saying what's that margin between the maximum and whatever and we want to be frugal and I I I believe all you know Ron is doing a really good job of estimating all of that um so your question leads to a deeper thing and we can look into that you know that's Ron Mayberry the C yeah he's he's doing a good job well and I'm just wondering too if there is is
015ever a time that we do go over budget does the board get notified about that because obviously it happens after the fact so I'm I'm curious if if it does happen how do we know about that so that maybe or I guess the question is how can we know about it yeah and then and then if it does happen how do we correct that going forward so we write that down Carol and maybe address that up all right any other question working on getting them to fill out the travel a lot of details in all of those trips uh yeah I have another comment question just or maybe just recognition of the NS Vista donation is there can we that's pretty cool can definitely is there any input there can we get some more insight
016on that abely the mic get to the mic back to the mic they have to be able to hear you at home yep hold it for like three seconds the bottom you could be in the future so I've been working uh two three years now with Home Depot uh they're in our neighborhood we like to work close to us and uh we've been working on getting a fence around our whole playground we're connected to the state park or the city park and so we get a lot of unwanted traffic on our property and then also the opposite happens you know we have our life skill students or even gened students going to that big nice playground because there's a big playground right over there so the concept was I've been working with them for years
017on donation it's all donated the time will be donated I I will be working there too get getting it put in um and we're at the point now that they're trying to get it approved so obviously want to bring it to you first um and it's a fence all the way around with Gates and we're thinking about baseball because I coached baseball last couple Springs you know thinking about making sure that we have the Outfield and all of that um and they're doing Gates they're doing poles they're doing cement they're doing everything and I've been working uh with others just trying to make sure we get everything detailed out on what is getting paid for because we don't want something to slip up and be like oh yeah we got to pay for that now
018um but again it's been like a two and a half year process now of getting that fence and it's going to be huge an example I mean I a year ago I I there was a guy on the playground just like I don't know what he was doing he was like I thought he was on drugs right and ended up being he was a nice guy but I walked up to him I was like okay students are coming out now this is not this is not a place for you to be right now it's school time and he looked at me and didn't say anything and I figured out he just couldn't speak English and he was working out but it's just like random stuff like that they think it's part of the uh playground
019which is not part of the city and if we had the fence just just right there blocking off the two would be obvious for our kids and also for so does that fence kind of run along your Portables on the south end all the way to Central yeah I have it written up it's going to go behind Nova it's going to connect over here to the back side of you wouldn't know what room 16 is but yeah by Central right here aiser area it's going to come around here but then it's also going to go around we already have a fence going to our baseball fields those two are ours not the big one uh but then we're going to close it off here with a a gate because again if you don't have a
020gate it's going to be hard for baseball and for everyone but there's a lot of gates and then so then there's going to be a straight line I walked it out M multiple times straight line to make sure the outfield's good to go um because we rent it out a lot and it's used by uh a lot of baseball organizations and then it's going to come down come this way and then connect and come all the way around our parent pickup and connect to the other Portables on the other side so the only openings we would have would be front office to come in that area and then um the parent pickup area and that's a lot easier you know I have my cameras up all the time but I have like nine of them
021because this is all the entry points and also the way the kids could leave so it'd be nice to have you know these are the two points that somebody could come in uh it's good for safety so very good thank you for looking into that and taking care of it that's awesome chain link F it's gonna be the same I want the same size same look same so yes chain link awesome and they said they can do it and we're doing the same kind of gates and everything um a couple gates are going to be bigger uh over by our parent pickup so uh you know our trucks can get in there and stuff like that uh but most of the gates will be the same ones that we already have on Central there that
022that we close every day so oh that's great huge huge thank you to Home Depot yeah yes yes thank you okay if there are no other questions or did you have something you raise your no okay um motion okay well I'll take a motion to approve our consent agenda for today I move that we approve tonight's consent agenda is there a second I'll second sorry I'm sorry Ryan you can have it who wants to do it I'll second it okay all in favor I I any opposed okay our consent agenda for tonight has been adopted next we'll move on to public comment and I know that there is a written comment so board members be sure that you read that and we have two inperson comments tonight so let me just get to my little
023section that I need to read okay so when your name is called please come to the podium and um go ahead and state your name and um it says where you live but I I hope everyone lives in Moses Lake um you'll have three minute minutes to share your comments uh we'll have a timer up so that it's equal time for everyone please keep your comments civil and remember not to comment on specific students or Personnel matters the board will not address your comments during this time but we refer to the we will refer them to the superintendent um or other staff for followup if necessary so back to the other section now so the first one we have is Andrea cillo uh good evening my name is um Andrea and I'm here as a
024parent advocate um first I want to acknowledge a longstanding issue Moses school district has consistently failed to engage with our community in a meaningful way uh despite the Hispanic Latino uh population or demographic making up the largest demographic in our district um translation services have never been prioritized for this meeting um and this is more than just an oversight uh we feel that it's a clear message that our voices are not V valued and we are not welcome in these spaces however the district has no hesitation and receiving additional funding for dual language Learners while failing to provide the necessary Outreach and support for the families that these funds are meant to serve now I want to address an urgent issue the inequitable access to physical education in our elementary schools while some schools in
025our district have full-time peed teachers others do not this creates an undeniable Equity Gap disproportionately affecting students from underfunded schools many of whom come from households living in poverty and communities of color the school's most impacted North Larson Garden Heights and Lake View serve the highest percentage of students living in poverty and once again they are the first to experience cuts when difficult budget decisions are made the students who already have fewer resources should not be the first to feel those decisions we are tired of extending Grace to people who don't understand our lived experiences PE is not just about exercise it's a fundamental part of our child's education children's education um obviously there's research that shows that regular physical activity improves academic performance it enhances mental health and reduces behavioral issues denying Equitable access
026to PE is yet another example of how our most vulnerable students are left behind furthermore the district has failed to provide essential resources for our immigrant families at a time when they are directly under attack by our Federal Administration you are aware of the climate our families are facing yet you continue to ignore those needs when families fear seeking assistance when language barriers prevent them from engaging with their children's education and when schools fail to create those safe spaces it isn't just neglect it is discrimination and quite frankly your silent has book and volumes on that issue um this district has an obligation to serve all students equitably and we demand IM meting action to ensure Equitable access to PE for all students regardless of the income income levels or demographics um we want a
027clear and actionable plan to support immigrant families including language access and Outreach Services we ask for more than words and we need real measurable commitments we expect the school board and District leadership to prioritize the well-being and education of all students oh that was loud thank you so much for your comment okay uh next we have H Guadalupe is it coo Okay it's already on yes I can I can hear you through that good evening my name is Guadalupe goaso and I am here today as a community member parent and most importantly as an advocate for children who are being served unequally by the Moses Lake School District as you may be aware there are currently at least 1,221 students who are being served unequally in regards to physical education while I fully acknowledge that
028Michelle muso conducted an investigation and concluded that there was no formal discrimination the issue Still Remains as a result of this investigation this matter represents a clear inequity ultimately if one student receives 105 minutes of physical education and another student who resides in the same town and attends the same school district is given only 35 minutes that constitutes a clear disparity while I understand that Carol Lewis the superintendent has plans to address these matters for the next school year I feel like it is important to knowe that these Cuts should have never occurred in such an unequal matter to begin with these decisions have had a negative impact on the students and continue to do so each and every day that the district chooses to not take action as a school district it is your
029job to ensure that any Cuts adjustments or decisions made in the future are approach with Equity at the Forefront all students regard regardless of where they are located within this District deserve the same resources attention and opportunities to succeed as a parent it is no longer enough for the Moses Lake School District to merely say that all students are being treated the same especially when your actions say otherwise lastly as a parent and Advocate I urge the Moses Lake School District to be proactive in making decisions that promote fairness and equality for all students our children deserve more than just an investigation that concludes without action they deserve a system and a school a school district that treats them equally and gives them the chance to thrive no matter their background ZIP code or the
030school they attend thank you for your time and attention to this pressing issue I look forward to seeing the necessary steps taken to ensure that the future of our district reflects the values of equality and opportunity for every student thank you okay we'll move on to Old business thank you for turning that off Trisha um the board has some old business before us and um so I just like to kind of give a quick review of what we've already discussed so during the February 6th meeting of uh of our board we held a civil rights hearing to review a complaint uh brought before the board by Mr Larry Dagnon a teacher at North Elementary the complaint involved uh Mr deon's assertion to that the school district has engaged in discrimin practices against minority students in
031the Four elementary schools affected by the changes to the physical education programming for 2425 school year um at that hearing Mr dnan presented his case to the board and we also heard statements from Miss muso and superintendent Lewis representing the school district uh before we move on I want to remind everybody that this is a meeting of the school board not an open public forum for a comment uh the Public Public input will not be taken at all at this time if the board finds it necessary to hear from a member of the public or the district the individual will be called by me up to the podium to answer specific questions at this time I'll open up the floor for board discussion upon the conclusion of our discussion I'll call for a vote to
032determine the decision or ruling of this complaint by the board so you guys have any input comments we are open for discussion don't forget to turn on your mic I borrow my sheet back and I think this is for Larry got a couple questions what parameters on your presentation that you gave the board with a color presentation what parameters were used um to give Larson five days and the other 10 schools four yeah so sorry I think Paul was just confused but go go ahead and come up to the I was still gonna ask questions this is just discussion yeah that's okay though that's okay we can so first of all um the parameters for that it was a sample of how it could be done it doesn't mean Larson would have to be the
033one school without it but there is a logic behind keeping lson as having their own all the time so if you take all of those schools and you divide them by the 911 model which is 82% four out of 5 days larsson's been one of the affected schools therefore Larson shouldn't lose any more PE than they currently have if anyone's going to keep their extra person it should be Larson or a school that has more population and it does say in my presentation to you as a solution if we have a school with a substantially higher population that we could adjust the for fths to where one of them might be you know a possibly a nine a 9/10 whereas one one group might be a 710 so if you had a smaller school that
034was proportionally smaller you could adjust slightly in that in that way you just said you were talking about school population there are seven schools with a greater population of students than Larson that's why I was concerned how the parameters because of all the schools it should be one with a higher student count just because of what's involved in more students I do understand that and your smallest school is currently getting 105 minutes of PE per week so explain that so so I mean if you really want to go by population I I put right there in in the solution adjust it you could take it by a credit system if you needed to you could divide every single class as being a credit then you take that and you divide it by the number of
035PE teachers that's the period you're teaching then it's perfectly Equitable but it was easier as a model to take the 911s which is you know 82% and just put them but in their home school four out of five days if you want to Peak a school and and twist Larson out of there I mean they've been disproportionately affected I I don't think it's right you know we we've sat there and watched these four schools be affected in a really drastic way and and what's happening to your achievement Gap is going to be huge in the future because of this you don't take from the minority schools and and expect them to just continue to to rise to the top you know and the flip side of that you're also taking away every time that the
036schools right now have PE what's supposed to happen is the teachers are supposed to do an intervention well now you have four out of five schools that aren't even getting to offer as much intervention as as the other seven schools so there's a direct learning correlation of The Haves and the Have Nots because of this so so not only are they missing the PE they're also missing the intervention that is supposed to happen from these Educators who would be on their prep period who could then shadow in their their co- teers and say hey here's what we're working on what would you like me to focus on but they aren't getting that equally I had a question for you um so we got a packet during your presentation had some information on it um do
037you have can you tell me what the source of your data collection absolutely abolutely the state OPI report card took it all from there and your own emails that were sent from Mrs muso so everything's right there the state report card I took the population numbers right out of that I matched every single School up what we did to find our minority um community in each school was take the white students and subtract it you know from 100% to find our non-white um I think I think we're okay now thank you for sure um nobody else had any questions for Larry before he sits down no okay I have a question for principles or a principal somebody wants to try and help me answer this are are you here for to that thank you yeah
038hello um hi thank you so much so from your perspective if we changed everyone's schedule right now for PE what impacts would this have on other programs students staff can you just kind of give me a so obviously starting off all of our schools would like to have a full-time PE teacher right I mean that's what we all know would be the best plan and no Vista has the second highest in percentage of Hispanic students at our school and we do get the full-time PE teacher um just I think most people know this just changing the schedule in March it changes life skills schedules you know because again in fall in summer and fall you know the teachers the gened teachers sit down with our life skills teachers and make plans for their students and
039when they get them into reading and when they get them to math so obviously we'd have to change master schedules and classroom schedules then that goes into our you know again the ones with our students with disabilities getting into the classroom you have to change all that and then a lot of our students with disabilities if you change things they takes sometimes it takes a month to get back rolling into a schedule so that's a big difference it would make if we changed it right now um and then off also like when we talk I guess I won't go too much that was the answer to that one yes it would be it it's GNA be tough for and we talked today as principles just making it happen and understanding that it would change literally
040every teacher's skill schedule and but but if we go the other direction like if we were to add more time for everyone then you wouldn't have to change the life skills spots if that makes sense but if we're taking like if we're taking PE from the schools that already have it we'd have to change master schedules and all that kind of stuff so okay um and then I'm not sure who this would be for so I don't think it'd be for you but so thank you um what was the thinking behind determining which schools would split PE teachers that's probably for a Carol thank you well um and one of the principls who's here who could also help with this but there were a lot of factors I know and I I wasn't directly involved
041so I'm speaking a little bit for Robbie right now who who led that um effort but some of the things that were considered were we have um sister schools we call them sister schools um where principles share resources share students sometimes that's where if we um if we don't have space for a kid in a grade level and they need to go to another school then they work with those sister schools first um another big consideration that hasn't really been talked a lot about but was part of the thinking here is some of our schools have um a gym and a cafeteria and some of our schools have um one room that serves as both of those things and so having a PE teacher there during a time when no PE could happen because the
042gym is being used as a cafeteria was also a consideration and so that was part of um part of what factored into that decision making as well and so um so those were two other other big things that we haven't really talked about a lot in this discussion yet and I don't know um either Jennifer or Adam if you want to add anything to that because you were part of those conversations or is that that's that's it yeah yeah yeah no if you could go to the podium so that people could hear at home um but yeah so it was a meeting with all principles all of us Elementary principles were sitting there and then we're this is the budget you know because again we don't have the budget we we're used to we're not
043able to take care of the kids this year the way we would want to obviously and this is what we have this is how many PE teachers we have how are we going to do this and so we had to work on figuring it out and then again we worked with sister schools and we did that for enrollment also so trying to figure out uh how to get it all set up it was it was all of us working together but yes so there's some situations where there's sister schools where during the middle of the day the teacher leaves and they go to different schools because they have a a cafeteria and a gym so that I mean there's all these different considerations trying to understand how to make it work um so it took
044it took a lot I think it was days it wasn't just one day trying to set it all up and understand and then and then when we did dist schools we started working together outside of the meeting trying to understand how to make it work um was there another question on that yeah I'll and I'll add um just one other thing that factored into the idea of how do we allocate the scarce resources that we do have and one thing that also hasn't been talked about um in this conversation is that we we said we can we can employ this many people I mean there was a finite number this is how many people we can employ and we had to make some decisions around um do we do we keep full-time counselors at those
045smaller schools or do we keep full-time PE teachers at those smaller schools and um you know it ideally we would have both we would have all of the resources that we've been used to um and our resources would be equitably distributed um knowing the poverty levels at some of those smaller schools um the decision was made and again not in isolation but the decision was made to keep full-time counselors at all of those schools so we could be sitting here having this conversation around well why doesn't you know why doesn't um Larsson Heights have a full-time counselor you know um versus PE so we just we had to we had to allocate the resources um as best we could in a very short amount of time and then that decision was made to keep the
046counseling counseling staff whole at each of our elementary schools um and again it was it was a terrible time and it was a really tough decision but that was that was part of what factored into that as well obviously all the elementary principles we would not be in this situation so obviously that's the direction we would like to go as Elementary principales having a PE teacher in our building obviously so so as the principal since I've got you here at the podium um as a principal could your teachers if they are lacking PE um could they potentially take their class to the gym and do PE time I mean is that a possibility okay so I mean there there might be a solution there for some I I don't know if it's a it's practice
047we've used before but I mean I looking into all of that I mean it all could happen but there has to be discussions and probably I mean Mia discussions and such but yeah okay do you feel like an mlea discussion is kind of of the biggest hindrance on that or like why yeah why hasn't it happened I plead the fifth I got yeah I sorry I don't mean to yeah I don't want to I don't want to answer that question bring you the stick but I love I love me some ml so I don't I don't yeah oh my question um during these talks with the principles about the discussion of the PE teachers um it wasn't brought up ra or was was it brought brought up about ratio in um Spanish or English or
048anything like that I don't think anybody because I was thinking my school my NS Vista was the second highest because it is second highest in percentage for the students not for the district when you do the data differently for the district we're not the second highest but we're the second highest Hispanic compared to my population or poverty or any of that yeah I think we're two or three on that too okay and we have a full-time PE teacher so I just had to do with the funding and this is the PE teachers that we have my PE teacher wasn't a first three year so then you know I kind of went in that direction of the funding is this what are we going to do how are we going to make this work and I'm
049kind of proud of how our elementary schools and other schools have done this year with our students uh we're taking a lot of the brunt the you know all the staff classified certified and I don't know if the students are taking as much as I thought they were going to so I'm proud of I mean again this is what we are given make it happen and I think it's happening which is really exciting because there was a lot of summer work um some more than others but lot of Summer work to make it as smooth as it is right now you may you may not be able to speak to this at all I don't know if there's a PE teacher in the audience but I'm I'm wondering what PE teachers think about changing things
050right now um I don't think we have any PE staff here tonight but I do know that I did receive one letter from the PE staff but I I just kind of wanted them to expound on that but it doesn't sound like anybody came tonight unfortunately I I do know that all the PE teachers all the elementary PE teachers signed that letter right so right that was a pretty um pretty powerful letter about wanting to be involved so that's good um any other comments questions oh yeah no you're thank you my my question my thoughts my heart kind of turns to like and I've I've visited North um and discussed uh with the principal there just ideas climate feeling um and I I don't know I I feel like it's fair to say that there
051obviously is inequity right like it's and it's not ideal but the way that decisions had to get made is is kind of the the way it's shaken down and um and it needs to get fixed I I feel like we're we're I mean we see it we we feel it we want to we want to have it better um and so just having it brought up and having it made sure of like I think this is this is what our community is for right we need Community to bring up items that other community members can't see and like I was enlightened by a lot just going to visit the school and talk to them and ask them questions and you know I feel like of a lot of people I I have um I've had
052many opportunities to see outside of my own home and what it's like in other homes and difficulties that you know every home is different and and so I I I don't know I I feel like we're we need to figure it out we need to get it fixed we need to listen and um I don't have any uh doubt that it'll get fixed like we're yeah we're we're on it and so we want to be we want to be here for the community and the community spoke really loud passing a levy and I think this is the right track to get back to a a stable um District so I believe that you're right and I think there's some things that can be fixed for sure we have improvements to be made always so keep
053CLE I'm in those mountains and yeah anything else from anybody no okay um I don't think I had anything else either so okay well if there's no other comments from the board we'll proceed with the vote so the motion before us tonight is to determine whether or not uh the complaint brought uh by Mr Dagnon has Merit um in a civil rights action is warranted by the district um so at this time it's our motion to uphold Mr Dagnon civil rights complaint or is there a motion to uphold the district's notion that no civil rights were violated I move the we uphold the district's notion that no civil rights violation took place I'll second okay all those in favor I I BS are that no violations have been have been have taken have taken place
054wasn't really sure exactly how to say that um this concludes our discussion on this matter and we'll now proceed to the rest of our agenda items thank you everybody for your participation okay so new business uh we have policy and procedure 2221 um school school closure and and inclement weather um let's see Ryan Shannon can you please present this one for us hey first try it worked uh absolutely so policy 2221 speaks directly to um school closures uh and so this will be the first reading of some minor changes that we want to bring to the board uh regarding that specific policy uh We've included the procedure uh in there and I think it's important to know that you know typically that's something the district uh deals board sets policy The District staff uh brings
055forward procedure but I put the procedure uh in the agenda as well simply because it was a conversation piece uh last meeting and I thought it was important for you to see kind of where the work's going in on the proced cedal site as well uh one of the key factors uh if you take a look at uh policy 2221 language wise is to increase it from Simply being just a school closure policy to also speaking directly to indoor recess requirements uh and how that will be determined uh by building staff based on different weather variables and then we changed uh some language speaking to the distribution to our community about notification of those school closures uh and subsequent indoor recess commentary as well so just some slight changes in language but just wanted to
056bring that forward to the board for first reading as well questions I knew you were gonna have one that's not sure you didn't know that you're right it's probably so uh the The Avenues of of information on the procedure page um it says go to the district's website or the Facebook page uh it doesn't talk about parent square at all like is there do we want to say through the software like is that something because the parent Square could change eventually and and that's why it's worded worded that way because it's distributed through parent square and that subsequently ends up on uh our Facebook page it goes out that way and also to the we to the website so it's left that way to be a little bit ambiguous in case that platform does change
057in the future just one this looks good it's perfect I will leave that and we'll bring it forward next uh meeting for a second and vote okay thank you okay um so policy, 1400 is one that we we actually took a look at last summer because we changed the board meeting dates from the first or the second and fourth Thursdays to the first and third so this is a policy that you're fairly familiar with um but in our review of wasda current model policy there is some additional language added so you can see that in the proposed policy 1400 you can see the um added language in red and so um one has to do with um just adding that if it's not a remote meeting um and that we can have remote meetings if
058there's a declared emergency so um in posting on the doors of our facilities um that we're having a meeting we don't have to do that we can post on the website if we have an emergency and have to have a remote meeting um when was this last updated so we looked at it um in um July July 25th um no but I mean like that's so crazy you would think that before the pandemic they would have put something in there like that as a suggestion yes and um the pandemic sort of highlighted some of those needs to have remote meetings and so so now it's going to be in the Poli so now it's there just in case so okay yes um and so um another one under the meeting conduct and order of business
059has to do with um weapons um at board meetings and and then um public attendance and comment there's the um just the additional piece about public comment occurring orally and written um by and the submission has to be by 12: PM um on the day of the meeting and um there's just a couple other quick little under the bulleted list there at the end just adding you know SL defining under legal standard around lialis or slanderous because lots of people Define liable and slander in different ways so according to Legal standard um and then just a little language change on the Discrimination part but it doesn't really change the meaning and then finally um the meeting recordings um as of June 30th 2024 all meetings um need to be recorded before it was an option
060Moses Lake's been doing that for a long time so it's not really a change for us but it is being recommended to go into the policy and it says that they have to be maintained for at least one year but our our system holds on to them yeah yeah we maintain them for longer than that um that's just the legal the strictly legal um policy is that it has to be for at least a year um I can tell you I'm glad we have them for longer than a year because there's been many times where I've gone back and looked at meetings from farther than a year ago me too okay any questions on that there any questions PA motion to adopt it oh okay yeah this is a first reading so you don't you
061can't can um we can bring it back for a second reading but if you want to get it over with now you can do that too okay okay I move we adopt uh the changes to policy 1400 effective tonight okay is there a second I'll second that okay all in favor I i00 red and amended okay thank you right we'll move on to our information items for this evening and it looks like first up is our superintendent report got to talk more than I did tonight [Laughter] so put you on the spot we took advantage of your um you coming to this meeting see in a couple years yeah after school crosswalks we have lots of participation from our public from our staff from everyone so thanks for being here everyone um okay so here
062we go for tonight um first of all I'm going to say we we passed a levy um and that's actually the uh not the very most recent uh data there um and I I've said this many times um but this isn't just about money for the school district certainly the money that's going to come into our district is going to allow us to um improve our programming over what we've got this year for our kids and um we're so grateful for that and grateful to the the community um who who stood up and supported Moses Lake School District but this is really about steps toward our community gaining confidence in our school district and so while this is a a huge Victory and a a big celebration um this is just the beginning and now
063I know that I feel and I know that our board feels and our staff feels um the tremendous responsibility we have now to uphold our promises that we made to the community and so um so now the work begins of that um we you know we we said how we were going to spend that money and we need to make good on those those promises that we made and I know that we will and um and I'm just very proud of our community and how far we've come in a really short amount of time um since you know I always go back to the date of May 2nd um which was the day that you know that we found out that we had some some serious problems and um and I just I think about
064how far we've come in that short amount of time as a community and so I'm just I want to say thank you to everyone who supported this Levy and to the people who who said no everybody had their reason and another thing I'm hugely proud of um is the amount of of Voters that came out I mean it was a phenomenal voter turnout uh whether people voted yes or no um people came out and voted and and use their voice and that is also um equally as much of a victory as as the levy passing that people are getting engaged and so for the folks that that said no to this everybody had a reason for that and particularly if their reason is they still are not feeling like they can trust the school district
065that's understandable and our Outreach to our community again it doesn't stop now because we passed the levy in fact it it starts again um because um my it's you know 60% is is good enough to pass but it's not good enough um for for me um in our relationship with our community so that's that's it's great news and we still have a lot of work to do and we'll continue to do that sure actual numbers are yeah because I I did this before I left and then I didn't update it today so yes what are they now okay so yes was was um 6,673 uh no is 4520 and the total amount that voted um is 11,193 yes and there is yeah it it really is yeah yep and um not that it's a competition
066and I'm I'm happy for all the districts that had successful measures but um but we did have um at least at the first count we had the highest percentage of or turn out in Grant County here in Moses Lake and so that's that's really um really wonderful so let's keep it up so not just in this election but in every election yes right because it's important all the time not just when there's a levy out there did y pass theirs um last I heard they did not so yeah yes we feel that pain we do we do and you know and honestly on the Wednesday you know I had we we had two plans um to enact and and we were ready to move forward if our Levy didn't pass and um and I I
067was not looking forward to carrying out that plan but but we would have right because we still have over 8,000 kids in our community that need a strong school system and so we would have made the best of what we had which is what we're doing this year and um I'm I'm grateful that we didn't have to to go forward with that plan so okay so that being said here's our our kind of I just thought okay so so now what um we have some some procedural steps that we need to take um so we have collected bargaining agreements with three labor unions so we have our principal's Union our teachers union and our classified Union and so one of our next jobs to do in Fairly short order is to build out a financial
068picture with some flexible calculations you know if this then that and you know how would it look if we did this or that um and really um just solidify some things about what does our financial picture look like like now that we know that we're going to have Levy money going forward as a reminder we will not see that money until May of 2026 so we still have a a pretty um pretty hard um situation to move into next school year um so we need to share those financial realities with our labor unions because they you know that's part of contracts and part of the discussions we need to have early on so fairly soon within the next couple of weeks we'll be doing that and then um as we come into the spring we'll
069negotiate with our labor union um because we have open full open contracts um with our teachers and our principes and um pay is always open for our classified staff and so um so we'll have to go into those those negotiations with um you know a realistic picture and um an open to bargain um with programming um as as we said throughout the whole entire Levy campaign you know we're going to be about what do our kids need and then that's how we're going to base our decisions going forward so we need to dive into to what what are a student needs what does the data tell us um and then we need to and this is this is huge and this was a big part of the conversations tonight um is that equitable distribution of
070resources um that's been I think a little bit of a missing piece in many conversations for Moses Lake for a long time um and thinking about you know are we are we being Equitable with what our students are getting um and and I can say that you know we have um fairly even distribution of resources um not really particularly at the elementary level not really thinking about how many kids go to school at each of these schools and so we do need to consider things though like poverty and like um student needs you know what are our what are our test scores look like at these schools which schools need the most support for reading for math for other things for social emotional so we need to think about those things and then we need
071to staff based on student needs um and I I got the question over and over again you know as soon as pass well are we going to hire people are we going to hire people and the answer is always probably but we need to take a look at what our students need first and then we're going to hire based on what our kids need so um because our kids do need staff um okay and then central office team um we know we're going to have some changes we've had some retirements that have occurred and so um with that um there's a lot of input being gathered right now um particularly from our principles and so we'll be thinking about and I'll be sharing with the the board because it's part of part of our agreement
072that you know if we're going to make um significant changes to central office staffing that we we talk about that and so I'll be sharing um as as some decisions are are pondered we'll be sharing with the board um and then we'll have some positions to post and higher um in a little bit so okay and then philosophical um I think that one of the things that we really need to work on in our our our moving forward and our growing um as a school district and as a community are the ideas that and I just threw these on here it's kind of what was in my heart um last week about a week ago you know that we that we commit to lifting up and supporting each other and um along with that goes
073you know and assuming that people have positive intent in the actions that they're taking we're never going to be perfect people are going to do things that have unintended consequences um but we first go to that mindset of of lifting up and supporting rather than accusing um that we and that goes right in the next one that we don't jump to accusations um before we've asked questions before we've um you know seen all sides of a of a story um that we trust one another enough to have direct conversations at the last board meeting I talked about an anonymous letter that I had received and um you know that might be where somebody was at that time and feeling like they didn't have the uh the level of trust that it would take to come
074have a have a face-to-face conversation or share who they are um but I want to move towards a place where we prove that we can trust each other enough to have those direct conversations and that um if we if we voice an opposing Viewpoint we're not going to be punished um or that we're just going to be able to have a conversation because that is how we're going to grow and move forward and gain even more trust in our community and and honestly internally is by having those tough conversations and walking away and saying wow okay that was a little bit difficult but nothing bad happened we just shared our thoughts um and you know and then also that we share resources rather than competing for them um we we are um our resources come
075in one big lump sum of money uh to our school district they don't come for this school or that school there's a few little tiny grants that do but for the most part it's just here you go Moses Lake Community you guys figure out how to make the most and the best of this money to educate our kids and so um so that we um grow into a place where we're really thinking about sharing with one another rather than competing with one another okay and if we do that we become team Moses lake right okay now team Moses lake is going to be riding mostly almost always on yellow buses and so I just want to make a point about that we've had a lot of um things come up about you know we talk
076about these field trips and places where kids are going and um we talk about charter buses and we had a an overuse of charter buses over the last few years that was not solely responsible for but was a part of our our draining of our our fund balance and so I just want to share with the board that um it would be a very rare circumstance that we would go to hey we're going to use a charter bus and I know that it was shared at our last board meeting that a group that's actually traveling tomorrow um that the only option was a charter buz but when we dug deeper um we found out we have lots of and I knew this already we have lots of good friends in other school districts and so
077when Moses Lake doesn't have a yellow bus oftentimes another school district does and so um so we're we're fostering those relationships with other school districts so that if we don't have a bus and a driver we can oftentimes call on one of them and they'll um you know we we pay them obviously to do it but it's a lot less than a charter bus and so um so the trip that's going tomorrow is going to be on a bus from Warden soes driver from warden so we're grateful to our friends in Warden and and honestly I sent a message out to all the Grant County superintendents and about five of them said yeah we can help you you know so we live in a great a great place so the Greater Community is willing to
078help so but not in New York we're not taking a yellow bus all Way New York so they're gonna have to have a charter there paid for by the by the the boosters can I get a hold of a district there yeah we we thought about it for about a minute but that's a little bit far so okay and then just as a reminder um we are watching those Federal changes and announcements that we keep hearing this list has not changed since last time um but and I don't think I need to read it out loud but we do have all of those things that we're watching and um we're getting some updates from um our state superintendent from OPI but there really isn't any new guidance yet and so what you do in these
079situations is you follow your previous guidance until there's actually a change in in what the official guidance is um and we have um some you know some state law considerations um as well as what's coming from the federal government so we will continue to just watch these things um we get information almost daily about some of these things but again it's most of the information is uh sit tight and wait um we're still processing and thinking about it so so we will be introducing probably policy change um for some of these things as as it evolves so just want to make sure that you know that that's still on our radar so any questions all right I do okay now that we've passed our Levy we know that we don't get Levy money until May
080when do we start getting our Lea money does it have to wait till then or does it that doesn't come till 2026 yeah so um so we just we have some waiting to do because the Lea Money Follows the the levy so that's that calendar year so um so we just we but we know that we can plan for it and we know that we need to do some um really specific budget projections and cash flows to look at you know how much of a fund balance are we going to have going into next year how much of how much play we have in that so that we can frontload a few things while not ever going negative and um we'll we'll have that figured out fairly soon so that we can you know to
081the best of our ability and again remember you know a few weeks ago I said you know if I asked you how much are you going to spend on groceries in May of 2027 you could probably tell me how much you think you're going to spend but that could change right so uh we have to remain fairly flexible but also um as accurate as we can in our projections and our thinking and and we will so okay all right any other questions well thank you you okay next we have so March 4th is our next AIT committee um and I'd like to do that one if we're okay okay thank you all right um next we have our stupid uh our I almost said superintendent [Laughter] sorry superent yeah our student representative comments uh I
082just wanted to uh on behalf of like the students of Moses Lake School District just to thank the public for uh doing their civic duty and going out and voting uh we are all greatly appreciative uh for everyone who voted uh thank you I also just wanted to give a quick shout out that this is a National FFA week and I know that you know being a very rural farming Community uh agriculture plays a large part in our lives and I know we have a lot of FFA alumni throughout the town and uh yeah just giving everyone a quick shout out no shocker but I have a couple of things since last time Ryan didn't take our silence as a move to adjourn the meeting um we have registration for next year's classes um Tuesday
083they did a curriculum walk for the high schoolers at least at Moses Lake High School I don't know what that kind of looked like for Vanguard um students had the opportunity to kind of like walk around and see what classes were about and what they kind of what direction they wanted to take for the next school year and to get to know the teachers that they might potentially have which is pretty influential in their ability to decide what classes they want to take and then Wednesday and Thursday well this Thursday I guess it's technically um some students that were representing clubs and uh classes went over to Middle Schools and promoted what they went there for and answered questions that like those incoming new Mavs are going to be having about high school and about
084classes and um we were able to help hopefully make that transition from e8th grade to freshman a little bit smoother um and then today and tomorrow there's a curriculum night at the like high school and then next week on Monday and Tuesday 8th grade registration nights will be held at I think just their own uh buildings and then spring Sports will be coming up and starting up in two weeks nervous scary but exciting um and then we also had a very successful Valentine's Day sale at the Moses Lake High School um there were floral arrangements by the floral design class there were Cookies By The Culinary department and there were various jewelry pieces from the Contemporary jewelry class and that was really successful and it was really nice to see different community members come in
085that aren't attending High School currently willing to pitch in and take some of what the students are working on and making it's nice to see that support so thank you okay so we'll move on to board comments Ryan we'll start with you um I don't know if I have any board comments today I'm appreciative of our community um there's been a lot of difficulties and a lot of people have stepped up and it's uh it's great to see see communities work together and I love being able to go out to the schools and so shout out to other uh principles I'm I'm I'm watching out for you I'm coming out I need to come visit you tomor um yeah de okay I'll be there tomorrow NS Vista is my my elementary school and so yeah
086and uh anyway I appreciate everybody's hard work and it's it's tough and there's a lot that we can always complain about and and there's so many people that silently serve and do so much and and I just don't want it to go under appreciated and unnoticed and uh I love our community I really do and I'm grateful to to be a part of it so I've got a couple first one's a question for our student reps you sure you don't want to hang out for another year and train up some Juniors so they know what they're doing down to BYU Provo so no thanks [Music] no so many words second we let some other talented students take over second is just a thank you to our community our staff um everybody that had a part
087in any way in this Levy campaign um I really really appreciate the people that started out against our Levy but they took the time to get information because that was huge because there was a good percentage that I think that flipped because they actually got actual information instead of the information on Facebook so I really really appreciate that from everybody and my last is I guess it's about time for ledge update why Mazda and our at least our local legislators are concentrating on the big three this year M soo's special ed in transportation they're all moving none of them have been killed yet it looks like there's a potential that we could get some not huge increases but some increases on all three of them so yeah and of course and then it's it's that's
088season where it's time to start testifying both Pro and cons so that's it well I'm never loss for words so um wanted to show appreciation for all the community and us you know really bonding together and seeing the numbers out helping support um something that was needed um big time and when we think back to May 2nd that's that's been six months seven months it's like wow I mean I you know where where we were and where we are is pretty amazing and it's it's all because of you know all of us so thank you again and thank you for the support and 11,000 votes in Moses Lake is not anything to shake a stick at not not when our when our general elections pulling three 30 30,000 if we're lucky across the whole County
089I mean that's a that's a big you know yes or no it doesn't matter just showing up and and like Carol said pointing out the fact that that's your right and and practicing that right so and there's a lot of people that have put their themselves into bad bad ways to help protect that right and I'm not I'm not tired of winning I mean I don't know about you guys but kind of feels good right now so um I also had a really quick note about n Vista how excited I was now I'm not an Alum from nista however my sister when and this is kind of living through her experience we were my folks were living just down the street so she would walk to school well we had a wiener dog that was
090super like mag magical about getting out of the backyard and he would always end up buring out under the fence and he would end up at the at the window of my sister's classroom and just crazy knowing that she was in there and so they would have to she would have to pull herself out of school and walking back and you know so having a fence right so anyway shout out to shout out to Oscar the wiener dog he was he was a good reason why we really need that fence action out there so that's exciting and thank you again to Home Depot the only reason no more lawn he was crazy so crazy that's all I got thank you I just I just want to give a shout out to the community also and
091say thank you it's so important our kids just deserve this and our staff and and it was a work well done so yeah thank you one more one more real quick F uh PTO PTA PTO PTA thank you i' that's been around since I've been a kid and and and it's recognition and everybody that was here and everybody that's here still thank you guys we couldn't do it without that partnership that we have with those parents and those relatives and friends and you know it's it's it's definitely a um a labor of love so thank you guys sorry meant to put that in yes um PTO PTA very that's very very important I remember a trip that my high school growing up we couldn't afford to go to even though we won State and PTA
092came out and they did a huge fundraiser and they made it happen for us so yeah I'm a big fan and thank you all for all that you do it's a lot of work so um and yeah other than that just I'm congratulations everyone on the levy like it's really exciting and it's everything we wanted so woohooo um we do not have any other agenda items tonight so um I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn and then um we but before I get the motion I just need to stay say we do have um an executive session to discuss the uh performance of a public employee and also possible litigation um neither will have any action to follow okay so my motion we adjourn I will approve for a second approve it's been
093a long day a second Paul yes all right all in favor hi hi okay we uh February 20th meeting is now burned