001thank you for coming we'll start with our flag salute thank you do we have any translation needs tonight doesn't look like it okay we will move on to the approval of the agenda at this time I will accept a motion to approve the agenda I've had a motion all second and a second all in favor I any opposed motion passes 4 z um we will go ahead and move on to our student reps do you guys have a report tonight or anything you'd like to share no I don't have any reports of anything okay we will move on to board member discussion starting with uh director Gerber director Gerber do you have a legislative report yep just really briefly wanted to share some of the stuff that wda has been putting out about the legislative
002session legisl legislative session is still in full swing of course and as we all know the three big items that they were that wo was pushing for schools is MSO funding transportation funding and SP funding the transportation bill that they were pushing has has died so that one's not happening they're still I'm counting on the MSO Bill going through I believe it passed the Senate and it's going to the house um but they already passed it off with like a lower they already kind of slashed the money down from what we wanted what Wasa wanted so it's still there and they're still hoping it'll go it'll pass through and get more M stock funding for us but um overall I think there was this a little disappointed with how things have gone in the legislative
003session for the schools this time around yep thank you that is disappointing but um okay moving next we're gonna discuss the regional gender inclusive schools um I'm not sure who wants to start with that superintendent Perez would you like to start with that kind of yeah that item was added uh to provide an opportunity for the board to discuss the um recent action taken in the Moses Lake School District as we think about our region in the Columbia Basin uh Moses Lake I Believe last Thursday had a board meeting uh some of the contents of their board meeting were published in local media on Wednesday and it it got the conversation going in our area and so in in having conversations with the board members uh you know we do our work in public we
004thought it was important to include an item there about um where Moses Lake was headed and kind of what the conversations were like across our region and across the state okay um I guess we'll I'll open the floor up to board members to start this discussion well I'd like to um I kind of agree with what Moses lake did as a board member um I'm a I got daughters and uh just speaking uh I I've always and I've said this before I always felt the males shouldn't compete with uh females in a sport and and so I I admire most Lake for stepping ahead and go ahead and getting the the ball rolling I think the as we as elected you know I've heard a lot today that they'd like to get it back to
005the community and let the community speak on these and let the state speak and I wish they they'd kind of lead that way I was kind of disappointed with uh superintendent Rick doll the way he kind of presented kind of seemed to be a more of a Strongarm I thought approach is what he was um saying because I mean if you look what the news reported today they were saying I mean that California's already come out then the governor said that that he he agrees that males shouldn't compete with females and I thought that that's um a kind of a good open-minded that and we should we as a state should follow suit I I was kind of disappointed in the way Rick doll explained that that uh the letter and kind of strong kind
006of put their push their agenda but um I think if anything we we as elected officials would would go out and and talk to the community and see see what uh the community what our constituents would agree on and then make sure we would come up with a policy but I don't I mean if uh the superintendent's going to strong arm us I guess there's we just got to sit and wait but um that's my thought on it I'm I'm glad this conversation was brought up tonight because it gives us a opportunity to discuss it as a board and also start to make our community aware of some of the situations that are going on and how it could affect our community too especially if we take a further look at these issues and POS
007and some of the possible ramifications if we do go through with it but I do agree with some of the stuff that Moses lake did do uh Sports especially uh I believe they should be kept separate uh I go to look at it I I follow my granddaughter in volleyball very much and one story that really hit me really hard listening to that is the one on Tuesday night during the address presidential address how he had that one lady that was a volleyball player that took a very severe injury from a transgender athlete and I could see my own granddaughter in that position for safety purposes and that's to me a lot of it is in safety purposes too we need to protect all of our students um and fortunately it is a very touch
008touchy subject with some members of our community and that's what we're here for to discuss it to kind of work look through it see what we want to do as a community and see what our community will do uh what they exactly want us to do too so the uh this topic got brought up to us we wanted to make sure that everybody in the community knew that we were talking about it and that it was an issue that was brought up and that we weren't trying to hide something under the rug um like Ken says I got three daughters um that play sports I got a I got a boy that'll eventually play sports but we also have to as much as I think about them we also have to think about the school
009and what would happen to our student athletes uh especially our seniors um that are that are going to play in hopefully their last season if we were to take some type of measure we know that the uh Washington State superintendent already came down and said that you know there would be consequences to that and so we wanted to let everybody know the public that we would like to hear from them would like to know what your thoughts are um everybody has kids it this topic hits everybody a different way uh there's there's uh one thing that I learned from Jake Mendes Jr was to look at things and try to look at things in a perspective that I don't understand I only see it because I got three daughters and I I want to protect
010them I I don't understand that other side but what I do understand is is that everybody should get a chance to play to be kept safe and at the same time allow kids seniors the opportunity to play their last sport or even next year because of the consequences that we might receive if we decided to follow suit with Moses lake so that is what we kind of wanted the public to know is we want to hear from you guys we want to know your guys's take on this um we all have our own ideas and and things but I don't have a senior that's ready to play her last sport or you know after they're 18 they're they're adults I don't want to take that away from somebody and so neither do they but we
011want to do what's best for our community and so we do need to hear from you guys this is a big decision um this is why I tell Pete that never knew what we all got put into when we signed up for this deal but you sure know now um and that's wanting to do the best thing we can for for our own kids and all the rest of the kids in this community so I'm going to ask that the community please reach out there's five of us please let us hear you let us make us understand what would be the best thing for us to do that we might not take under consideration because we're not in a situation that somebody else is in so school districts been being put in a tough spot
012here with the federal government saying hey you better do this and the state government saying hey you better not do that and so um it's been uh strange but I as everyone said I want to assure everyone that we're very aware of this issue we've been discussing it even before the Moses Lake resolution and as soon as we heard about the Moses Lake one we started talking amongst ourselves we asked Dr pret Dr Perez to look into it a bit more for us and just as director peretta said we want to hear more from the community about where to go from this where to go from here um trying to make it the best that we can for all of our student athletes and as like and like has been said we've been thinking about
013the potential consequences for all of our students um one way or the other on this so please talk to us if you have concerns or questions and just know that we are aware of this and watching it very closely um clearly I'm the only female on the school board uh I did play sports in high school and I have three daughters who play sports so this subject feels like it hits pretty close to home for me um I know how I feel personally about it and I and I feel pretty strongly um but I wasn't elected to represent just my own view I was elected to represent the view of our community and so uh just like the other directors have said and encouraged we need to hear from the people of the community I've
014heard from several saying why haven't we followed in Moses lak's footsteps why are you dragging your feet um but some is not all and so we're going to wait and and hopefully continue to hear from people in our community before we make um a decision that's best for our students um while I did catch more fish than all of these guys at our last Retreat um there aren't many things that I that I would say uh there's a reason why women have their own league and why Title 9 exists and so we're we're aware of that and trying to take that into deep consideration as we move forward so um I guess we will wait and see from members of the community and then we'll proceed from there I'd like to uh I appreciate the
015board indicating the the desire to hear from the community and and to hear the different perspectives and I think at this moment it's important that um the community and the students in particular hear from me as superintendent so I want to I want to share a couple things and um challenge the board with a couple of items to consider when we talked about the dignity index a few weeks ago was and I think I've heard some of it tonight I hear because what I hear is I don't want to protect my kids and then I I would hear the exact sentiment on the other side of this I want to protect my kids I want them to be able to participate we agree on that I think we agree on the value of extracurriculars and
016participation in schools and that leads to better outcomes for kids being part of a team and the Lessons Learned there so lots of things we agree on um and as we consider the the position that Moses lake has taken which what everyone indicates appears to be a clear violation of Washington law um it's in alignment with President Trump's executive order again confusing times I think we can agree on that as well there's some conflict here now as you all discuss and consider uh you know what we will do as a school district there's a number of questions to consider but I I'd like you to think about these three uh the first one is around employee rights so imagine the complexity of this if we tell our athletic director or a coach to implement a
017policy which is currently a violation of Washington state law how are we going to be how are we going to assure that employee that they're protected how are we going to assure them that the state of Washington isn't going to take their license how are we going to assure that they're not going to be a face a civil rights lawsuit because they did what we told them to do your only employee is me right and you set policy and and and I developed the procedure and process to go tell our employees what to do um considering the safeguards that need to exist for the potential consequences not only for people who are certificated like me and all of our teachers but also for a number of our administrators and coaches who are out there doing
018this every day that hasn't been figured out yet and and I think we need to move carefully in considering that the second one about well-being and and I um appreciated Ken's comments about the message that President Trump shared was very powerful about the volleyball athlete you saw her there her family was there the story you felt it and and felt compassion and empathy for the individual what again I hope we agree on is that the families of transgender students feel the same sort of P compassion for their kids and I hope we empathize with them because the data is really clear um transgender students marginalized students lgbtq plus Community students um when you look at the data around it in the healthyu survey in the state of Washington and it's very consistent in othell 30%
019of all kids report a sense of sadness or hopelessness at school 60% of transgender students do and sadness and hopelessness and this and the direct connection to self harm and suicide is a real thing in that community and so we should be considering the harm that these kinds of actions might impose on those originally Marg marginalized students it's as powerful and more pervasive than a student injured in volleyball it's as powerful also I think we need to consider that we spent an awful lot of time engaging with the community about safety and belonging it was our first goal area it was goal area one and we only had three outcomes increase the percentage of students that feel a sense of belonging increase the amount of time our students spend in our schools because they feel
020connected and increase the percentage of students that feel safe in our schools this kind of of policy uh flies in the face of those goals it's not going to increase a sense of belonging for a number of our kids particularly those that already feel marginalized and then the last one is I think we need to be very cautious even in conversations like this um in in understanding that our words have so much power and how do we reconcile our own responsibility to foster a supportive learning environment and not further isolate or harm vulnerable students because that's what we're talking about here vulnerability for a particular small number of students across the country and in our community and the other piece about that about sort of the size of the impact and what uh in in
021in a sort of anecdotal informal conversation with superintendant I'm not aware of any transgender um female athletes in oel or in our league um and so it it becomes this broad National political issue that is influencing our work and our student experience over an issue that hasn't uh come come to be a concern in our schools hasn't been directly expressed and and I think we have to be so careful in doing something that um sends a really targeted message to certain kids over something that's not currently occurring in our schools and so I guess my my message to all of you um and and what I feel comfort and safety and not um I don't think that I'm disagreeing with the board but what I am saying is we need to deeply consider these kinds
022of questions and so many others before we move forward and um the action that's occurring in our region and occurring in our state what I what I appreciate about your approach is let's pay attention to it let's see where it goes in the meantime let's consider what our words and our actions uh tell our community and tell our students uh because like I've shared many times they're watching us they're watching how we treat each other and they're watching how we disagree and they're watching how we um we manage a very complex issue uh just a a not a rebuttal but I also need you be and and I take what you said and uh to the comment that I said I might not understand U the side of of of a transgender child but at
023the same time and you said that the data shows that there might be a sadness or a not feeling part of it what I don't want it to happen is to take kids that were felt part of something and then caused them to not then not feel safe or to then cause them implementing it what this feels like to me is it jumped some layers through the executive order and now it's actually it's an attempt to put pressure from the executive level and now from the local level to squeeze everyone in the middle hey president Trump said we're doing this hey the school board said we're doing this re doll you better get in line uh Washington state supreme court you better get in line people in Washington you better get in line that that
024this pressing on this issue what I want to step back and remember is every day we have kids showing up in our schools that shouldn't be pressed by these kinds of conversations that we're wrestling with and we can't be Hasty in following down a path um that in a state like Washington is going to end up ultimately being a 90 defeat in Washington state supreme court you pick some battles for sure we all pick battles you pick ones that make sense and you pick ones that make a difference and I I think we need to certainly I hope you hear from constituents and they reach out to you I hope they do the same with me um but there there's also a strategy to decide deciding which battles we're going to go into and what's
025the likely outcome and what at what cost not only at what cost to the students and the staff but what cost fiscally to chase something that the outcome is very very predictable in our state the the only thing that and I guess I'm trying to see the the light in a very black tunnel and it and it and if it brings anything to this community it is the ability to once again sit down and have a discussion somebody on that side somebody on this side to where we can have a sit down and a conversation where it doesn't get heated it's not you against me I'm against you and gets this community talking again whether it be with activists groups whatever but try to find where you can go back to when we could sit
026down have a conversation walk up handshake hug it out and then walk out the door because that's been lost so if if this issue brings that back then I hope we have a few more issues like this I had a couple questions um maybe Pete you can answer uh first of all Moses Lake had to raise money on their own to do their sports program does that put them in a not to say that they can do their own rules but since the public the community raise the money do they what whatever superintendent Rick doll threatening are are they because they provided the funding for the sports yeah I think I think the the issue the issue typically ends up that you know the that the penalty is going to be a funding one um
027I think OPI has been pretty clear they they've haven't penalized anyone over these kinds of issues I I think it's going to end up in the courts long before any sort of fiscal impact on kids I I I don't Moses Lake I don't I don't know the politics there I don't know the people involved but but if I had to think about our own situation if you know if we had to run a levy a second time and ask voters to approve it and they had particular interests that they wanted us to follow we would have to consider okay they they elected us with the mandate to do these things and maybe this was one of the issues there I I don't know that for sure but the the funding issue in Moses Lake um
028I I guess if I was thinking pragmatically about it as a superintendent am am I now going to be spending money on legal fees to address this issue which is I think would probably be the bigger concern from a funding source for us it wouldn't be that that I'm worri that OPI is going to take our funding I I don't believe they're going to go down that road Chris just to piggy back off your question I think would it be an OSI or would it be a WIA that we would probably what do I say face first Pete would that be the first thing that you think we would face yeah uh waa is going to have their own interaction with OPI very soon uh I believe the Amendments that they're considering around transgender athletes
029is to be voted on on the 26th of of March uh so I know that um OPI will certainly weigh in on that if you're the entity that manages our our athletes and the amendment that you're recommending violates state law OPI will certainly weigh in on that I I know I read through those Amendment changes and they had issues for a while and triy to table it but then they decide to keep them keep them going to the vote uh have we got a vote on that as a district and have we decided how we're going to vote yet on those amendments yeah so my understanding is uh typically it's an advisory vote from each athletic director so if there are I don't know the number but if there are 10 teams in the central
030Washington Athletic Conference and 10 ad show up and and they go around the horn and say What is your District advising you to vote um then I I'm assuming it would be well we got six out of 10 we're going to vote this way on the amendment what I have been hearing two things I've been hearing most recently is a number of districts are choosing to abstain from voting for fear of the backlash from uh folks who might say you took a position that violates state law you supported an amendment that went that way and so the fear of civil rights litigation related to even taking a position on the issue the other one is related to what I shared earlier if we direct our athletic director to vote for an amendment that violates state
031law um are we putting that athletic director in a in an inappropriate position so um the window's still open for us to provide counsel and direction for our athletic director but I think those are some things we need some legal legal council on to make sure again we don't jeopardize someone's certificate and we don't jeopardize the the the district by um voting on something that is currently with Washington state law violation what what so what happens to the Democracy if they're allowed to vote right and but now there's a fear factor of them voting you know they had a survey out today 80% of Americans the US were in favor of males not competing with females and so now we're asking our athletic directors we can give them our opinion and Jr and I have
032met with them and and in they're willing to do what we say but I mean but now they got a fear factor of voting why don't we just let if the athletic directors vote whatever way they're and then whatever happens but now there's a Fear Factor so no one wants to vote so we're letting that Community win without I just I'm not unless I'm looking at it wrong am I looking at it wrong no no I have to agree with you when the Fear Factor comes in that's taking democracy away that's not allowing us to vote and state our opinion and no matter which way it goes we accept the consequences or not consequences but the results of it and we go on with it and we work with it that way yeah and I
033I think that they will um you know I think there was certainly be an opportunity to to to have a vote The Fear Factor I think if you connect it to the experience of the Moses Lake Board would be very similar they took a vote to do something that is a clear violation of Washington state law now there will be some consequences that they'll have to manage and litigate and deal with um as elected officials right what what I think is different for um [Music] employees are we what guarantees are we giving our employees if they face consequence or litigation for voting in a particular way that's the difference I think between an elected person and someone in the in their role and position who's been directed to vote on something that maybe we have
034you know three nods and consensus on the board but is still inconsistent with Washington state law um you know I imagine situations like this in the next couple of years where an athletic director or superintendent interviews in a particular district and says what was your position on on Amendment such and such with the ads how did your District respond right what are the potential impacts down the road for asking again asking someone this is I I think if you step back and say take out the transgender issue and the controversy around these kinds of topics I think the word used earlier was touchy and sensitive and and all those things that exist around this issue it really is are we are we asking people to violate current law and is that our role is our
035role to establish law or is our role to uphold the law that's been implemented in the state and we advocate in different ways I'm not sure our role is to get our ad to Advocate to change the law I I I don't know I guess what frustrates me with with that is during Co um and I know I've told you this before Pete we had to follow the law and now our state and and superintendent reall was very clear about that message you will follow the law this is the law you will mask you will follow the six-foot rule you will do all of these things you will stay out of school Etc now Washington State doesn't want to follow the law that the federal government has put into place and they're saying no we're
036not going to follow the law but once again we are being held to the standard of follow the law but the but the people who are holding us to that standard won't also follow the law do you see what I'm saying like that that's just it's a fr ating contradiction of um you know we're we're five people in a community of 10,000 people saying we can't we can't do what what our our community wants and what works in our community because we're held to a state standard but the state is not held to a federal standard and and when they are they they refuse to follow but we yet are are still demanded to to follow so it's just it's a it's a frustrating concept to be held to a standard that our governor will
037not also hold up to so and this is kind of a conversation I think we also need to involve our uh us Congressman in uh our federal level to if some of these districts start to move towards that way what kind of protections are they going to uh give us or the employees at the same time since this has now become federal law is the federal government not going to come in and and stand up and back up for us or are they going to step out of it and and not say any word because then we're if they don't then we're out there by ourself uh dealing with state issues so I think this is a really we need to get them involved in this discussion too and I know we're not the only
038District dealing with this subject at the moment so no that's I I agree and also I mean the the ads work for us right the the board a roundabout way so then they're kind of breaking our rule of not listening to us and is kind of how I'm viewing that too and and I had a question for you Pete like I said with only been a year here prior years or whenever these votes for the ads come up do the Eads ever come up and ask the board for their opinion and that's how they vote or does the ad take what he thinks and votes on it no I think every ad that I'm aware of and every superintendent and School Board is having this exact conversation no one's going out on their own on
039this one it's not it's not unusual to ask for counsel so that's how it's been like in the past so this this isn't this isn't would be just because of the issue that's going on he would look to us right what for information or a way to vote what's different is um the the scale and the I guess the intensity of the amendment because there's a few in other years it might have been are we going to have girls flag football how would you like me to vote right this is this is not that issue okay so I just yeah I do want to I do want to touch a little bit on the the controversy about whether or not we're following the law I think it's important to to be consistent with the distinction
040between an executive order and and the law of the land um it's actually my understanding not law U the executive orders that President Trump is putting out that's to be determined at at the um Congressional level um and the other difference that I think we need to acknowledge around covid is many of those executive orders were under emergency Provisions it was a novel experience and they were emergency orders that our state chose to follow because the other thing that I whether or not you agree with Insley or Ferguson or re doll what I think is hard to argue with is Trump has turned over control around schools to the to the to the states and in our state we should we swore an oath to follow state law when they change state law we'll follow
041that law now it's now the conversation right now is who's going to get that law changed and in what way and with what urgency and with what speed and whether or not we want to be at the tip of that spear that's the conversation so I I I do uh like to make sure people understand that um the confusion around um whether or not the executive order is actually law I think needs to to we need to remain clear that that's not how the process works that is I mean you you talked earlier about an attack on democracy and whether or not that was really here in our vote I think it's important if we're going to embrace that part of democracy we embrace all parts of it and rule of law is is the
042foundational component of democracy so we got to follow the law and the law in our state says we do these things uh and we're discussing doing something outside of that and are we prepared to deal with you know the the consequences and how much does our community want us to chase a change in that law it's just going to get worse from here there's there's some laws that are coming up that they're they're trying to pass now that are going to make this one looked um pretty minimal and and so we need to get ready because it's going to be a fight here in the next few years if uh we we uh uh we took a note to to follow law but we also at the same time I don't know if we we
043voted for the same law or not so we just need to make sure that we're all on board and that we uh at the end of the day I know that I can speak for that for the five of us that are up here we just want the best for what is for the kids protect them at all cost get into an education and uh provide an experience for them regard regardless of what side of the eye you sit on so okay unless anyone has anything else to add we will go ahead and move on um we have sad news this meeting um that we are uh losing our director to Chris binsky he is resigning and um I just want to be the first to say how much I've appreciated Getting to Know You
044Chris and how much I've appreciated your voice on the board and um the time and energy and effort that you have put in to showing up not only to Monday night meetings but to site visits and Schoolboard Retreats and multiple extra meetings and executive sessions this is a very very demanding uh role and you've really taking it in stride and I I really appreciate all of the things that you've done since you've been on the board and and for the things that they learned from you and for the mentorship that you've provided to the board so thank you so much for your service thank you Lindy it's uh yeah uh fortunately I'm going to have to step down to pursue a different career and uh but if it wasn't for being on school board I
045I wouldn't open my eyes to this uh next chapter of my life so I'm excited about it uh it's been a honor and privilege work with everybody up here um it it was nice to have that that last conversation we haven't had a one like that in a while so um but everybody in the admin been pleasure working with everybody there getting to know you um everybody on the board it's it's been an honor and a privilege to definitely develop friendships and um yeah um I know I can call each and every one of you anytime and uh and I know that the the the schools uh board still left in good hands and good decisions and so uh yeah it's been a fun 18 18 months on the school board uh can't imagine you
046know you Lindsay and Ken you guys have been on for years so um all the memories but uh the last 18 months has been I've been on a I was telling Lindsay early I've been on a lot of different boards over my lifetime so uh but the school board this has been really a fun and uh yeah it's timec consuming but good time consuming it's been an honor and a privilege um just to to boots on the ground and being in the schools and um just the camaraderie and you know to to be involved in issues like we just got done talking about so um it's been it's been great I'm sad to do it but uh you know take it one day at a time and see what the what the good Lord has
047planned and that's what I'm looking forward to so uh thank you each and every one of you uh it's been been a pleasure I can't let you go out just like that I I came into this board with you um I walk away with a friend you're not moving anywhere thank God because I chase you um thank you thank you for being who you are thank you for standing up what you believe in thank you for listening to a crazy guy every once in a while in an afternoon or a Friday at the uh the bakery but uh we're going to miss you um there's uh something about about you that just it was just a tip of a glue that you would keep all of us together everybody had a piece in this in
048this board and you were a major part of it and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us listen out that was one of the best things that you had was an ear and I appreciate it and I think you'll do great in the future with whatever you decideed to do um but just don't forget you know there's uh there's four of us that are going to miss you like hell so appreciate it Chris Chris cares about the kids cares about the community and we're going to miss him um there's no uh no breaking the Eternal Bond of a catching alligator together so always have that Chris it's been an absolute pre pleasure to have you on this board uh I know when the three of you come on it was like three
049freshmen coming into a senior class uh but you guys jumped up to the top right off the bat uh you you there was no hesitation and know it felt like me the first year it took me at least a year to get underneath me first before I was understanding everything that was going on but you didn't have that problem uh you were able to Jump Right In be a good contributing member actually I no matter how long you're here in this spot there's still new things that we learn all the time and I learned a lot from you too going through this too so I really appreciate that I just share two things about director binsky one is it seemed like no matter what kind of conference we went to every time he went to
050a session by himself he'd come back and say hey I met so and so from here hey I talk he was always meeting people and sharing and exchanging ideas whether they were from our state or from across the country and I appreciated Chris you know taking those things seriously when he was there the other thing that I'll I'll probably never have again no matter how long I'm superintendent I got to spend an hour with Chris and Mrs Garza out at his Dairy and so he comes to our our sites and does site visits and you know help tries to understand what happens in schools and it was really cool to be in his world for a bit to help have him describe sustainable farming and uh use of equipment and sort of the economics of
051what is a very challenging industry and so I appreciated the opportunity to get to know him in his in his field of employment and uh have appreciated him always being consistent in in what he believes and how he advocates for kids in our community so anyone who steps up and and serves on a board and takes the the risk of putting their name on a ballot they have my my support and endorsement so thank you for the time you serve Chris okay um we have hawaa Elementary School site visit scheduled for March 17th and Marisa will get us our schedules and they're also attached to the board minutes does that say 8 o'cl okay so 8 o'clock on the 17th um at this time I will accept a motion to approve required approvals sorry you
052got something else yeah well no on the required approvals I wanted to discuss something on that okay the school calendar for 25 26 okay we were waiting for for you to come back to have this discussion uh oh okay hit me with it so we had uh I would like to talk to Pete and with that 2526 I'd like to ask Pete what are the chances of putting all of the schools on a either trimester or semester um but have all the schools follow the same um agenda or same schedule instead of right now having you know some schools on one and some schools on the other making it difficult so we wanted to table this until you got back so we could you know discuss it if you guys had any discussions on it
053but it was something that uh I wanted to bring up because I think all the schools on the same thing um program or same schedule would would benefit instead of having to have two different ones going on so Pete yeah I appreciate that this was on the agenda two or three board meetings ago um I talked with director Pera and maybe director Gerber about in our in our one on tws about the challenges of adjusting a particularly a secondary schedule this late in the year it's usually a couple year project that we ask schools to consider the primary concern with the previous calendar if you'll look at January on the this last calendar we would have had um secondary schools no school and conferences elementary kids in in school that would created some conflict and
054confusion in the community in our conversations with the Teachers Association um and with our um principles we are able to merge those two activities so if you'll look at January 22nd that's the significant change that occurred director pruna we put both pk12 we're all going to have that day off so we solved that problem that had brought up the initial question about uh creating confusion in the community uh so that was our solution for this year and then continuing to engage in conversations about semester trimester but the initial concern was solved by that okay um really quick be I I forgot that I wanted to also discuss the overnight student travel requests I know that there had been some questions around um maybe not having enough time uh you know if if student athletes make
055it to districts and then they win at districts that there isn't the the timeline between districts and state that that we're requesting so um just wanting to some clarification from you uh Dr pre around the timeline that that coaches will be required to give the board when they're transitioning from tournament to to the state so I want to step back just a bit and say that the reason this is going to uh begin to appear on the agenda it's as you remember the wasda review of our policies that we went through and and Marisa has been you know an important piece in getting those uploaded and reviewing those and bringing them before the board and back and forth what we discovered is this has been a policy for a number of years it's just not
056something we've been putting in front of the board I'm not sure when it stopped but we need to start it back up so this is our initial attempt to just to let you know where kids are going what experiences they're having how much it costs those kind of things we should be transparent with our community as it relates to those sort of shortterm we didn't know that was going to happen we're never going to stop a kid or a coach from having an experience um because we it might be the thing that I communicate with you and and reach out individually and say hey just know that this is occurring but there won't be any change to the athlete experience based on us being more diligent about this policy okay great at this time I
057will accept a motion to approve required approvals I'll I'll make a motion for acquired approval I second that I have a motion and a second all in favor I any opposed motion passes 5 Zer I will accept um a motion for required approvals early accounts payable warrants to I'll make a motion for earlier payable accounts payable second I a second I have a motion and a second all in favor I any opposed and I will abstain motion passes 4 Z or four with an exstension I don't know what that is um at this time we'll turn the time over to Dr prz yeah we just have a brief presentation on the ohos um dos integration project and so assistant superintendent Jessica shank uh she's gonna have the bulk of the content but I'll I'll uh
058try and support her work here um when asked just out of curiosity we were hoping Pete that you'd get up at the podium again it's so nice to see you up there you want me to go yeah sure as John wisman likes to say I will allow [Laughter] it well good evening um we are excited to present together now um a brief update about the OS husky um Hub and that is maybe a new term to you up until this point we've been we've been talking about the Dos OS integration and that work really has progressed and the naming of this um presentation is is one piece of evidence around that so the Husky Hub once you once the presentation comes up here um is something that the high school team is starting to talk
059about and hub um initially started as we talked about a location on the campus that would kind of be a hub a place where um we would be able to provide these services and talking with um principal Kat ainson today um in part of their planning the Hub the H Hub actually um they they think of it as helping understanding and belonging and I think that goes to the heart of what their purpose is in this work just gonna pause for a minute because it's much more effective with visuals and on the next slide it's also important that we keep bringing back in front of the board and then also in front of um ourselves every meeting that cat has with her team about this this is front and center of those meetings the purpose
060behind this work is to create systems and resources that ensure all students and staff are known and cared for and that the adults are equipped to protect and prepare students for success that means so much to me because if if we can carry if we can pull this off if we can do this right we're going to create something really special at aalo high school one of the things that we also talked about in some of the early planning and this came out of the uh focus groups we talked 11 different focus groups and got a lot of information back from them about what was important in this work and so we had uh four goal areas that we were paying attention to and so I'm going to be talking about three of those today
061systems of support technical structures and ongoing communication this is a framework that our um our principles and our directors use quite a bit in our work um it's called The Lucky leading losing learning um framework I believe it comes from um a reent Douglas Reeves I believe is a researcher and and author and so we talk about how when we do our work we don't want to be successful just because we were lucky we're successful because we planned intentionally and we know that whatever we did we can replicate and and do again and so that is uh that's what we're trying to do in this work so that when a year from now we're able to report out the successes of the Husky Hub we're going to know why and hopefully like other districts will
062come to us and say how did you do that because it it was it's something worth replicating so systems of support uh last month the um oel High School admin team and counselors went to sunyside high school to meet with their admin and their counselor team and it was a little bit of a like a homecoming for me I I I taught in the sunyside school district for 10 years my daughter graduated from sunyside high school in 2013 and the the consultant that we are working with um in this work he was an interim principal at sunyside high school at the time when my daughter was there and so I was aware of what what the high school was like then I mean she she had a good experience it wasn't awful but their graduation
063rate wasn't what they wanted it to be and to go back on February 12th and see just the amazing systems that they have in place there and talking to Kat um ainson this morning and she said that that visit really helped her see what what we are trying to do like she could see how all those pieces fit together so they gave us an overview of the sunny said High School Journey we um visited classrooms there was a really fantastic student panel where the students talk to us about what their experiences are and what they what they believe about their high school and then the the really powerful part was that the counselors and the administrators were working together this is not work that the admin team atello High School can do alone the counselors
064are an integral piece of that work and there's an article that um that we've been kind of basing a lot of our work on called all hands on deck and so you might hear someone in the high school team at some point talk about ahod because we love acronyms in in in education so we have to turn everything into one but that stands for all hands on deck and that's that is another good visual for the work that we're doing that we all have to support this and do this together uh could you go back with just one slide I do as we transition to to my slide um one of the the things we heard at Sunnyside was I think their graduation rate was around 48% um re so at that time in the
065state of Washington they would come in and say you either need to fire your principal fire half the teachers or choose this new model so on Sunny Side they chose well instead of getting rid of 50 teachers we're going to get rid of one principle and and try something different that was the pressure they put on you at that time but what what I think is important about their their Journey was even though their graduate was 48 it was actually lower than that because the number of their kids in their alternative school didn't graduate at all either that's what we need to begin to think about here in othell we celebrate a graduation rate 9 through 12 at othell high school but all those Dohs kids are pulled out into another entity and don't impact
066that graduation rate now we're going to be able to really talk about every kid in our system a secondary system in in a consistent way now when we were there um Dr Selena shared with me what he used to do as a principal he would ask these three questions to students in class he'd walk in and ask him and uh so I gave it a try I I went into I think six or seven classrooms and I sat down with two or three kids in every classroom and I asked them those three questions what are you learning about it's something we all do and have I've done that for you years number two I think speaks to some of the like you can't always touch or feel or or explain to someone what happens at
067Dohs but one of the things I think those students can answer is if you get stuck how do you get help who do you ask they know who to go ask um the the students at Sunnyside High School which probably has 500 more kids in hours probably 2,000 kids at that school um they could answer that question and then the last one was it's it felt odd to me and so I even pre it to the kidss and said hey this might this might feel a little weird but I'm going to I'm going to the guy told me to ask this question so I'm going to ask it and so I asked them does your teacher like you and their initial response was like that's a really dumb question and then they would launch into
068um they all said yes so of the 12 kids I spoke to all 12 said yes then I asked them to Define that and it was things like she doesn't shut us down when we have a question she comes and helps when we walk in the door she says hello she knows all of our names those sorts of little behaviors that Chuck challenges us to think about um that's what the students are experienced on the other end and so when we are thinking about this integration project for dos to OHS how are those cool things that are happening and what are those cool things that are happening on a small scale at Dohs how do we begin to have more of those with more adults at oelo high school I'm glad you mentioned the size
069of sunyside high school because it it is a large high school and one of the concerns that we heard in our focus groups was the concern of how large our high school is already and what that's going to mean when we have more students there we also heard the concern that part of the reason students like Desert Oasis is because it's small and it and it feel and it feels more comfortable and but I think when we were at Sunnyside as large it as it is it didn't feel big the systems and the the way that they have things set up felt really comfortable and and so again that's another goal that we have for the work that we're doing at El High School this slide is actually one that I took from one of
070um Kat ainson slides that she used um at a recent staff presentation she's working with her school Improvement team and her counselors and again I just want to start giving you some of the words that you might hear um her and her team using the first is CBE and that stands for connect believe and envision and what really surprised me when we were at Sunnyside is that the students use that too they talk about the CBE at their school and they can talk about examples about how they're connected to the school how they believe in themselves and how they can Envision their Futures and that was really powerful the other thing that the team talks about a lot is the conceptual framework and this comes from the powerless to powerful work U by Dr Selena
071and the idea that we're creating a culture for learning by Design not chance so think back to that lucky leading um losing I miss one luy learning um that we're that we're leading this work and um so we're focusing on Academic Press making sure that students are learning what they need to at high levels that there's relational trust and that we are providing the supports not just for the students but also for the adults okay technical structures so this gets into some of the questions that a lot of people have had like what what exactly are you going to do can you please give us some details so one of the first ones is Josh tovar's position at oel high school and I'll let um Pete jump in on this a little bit if you
072want wants to but his official title he's going to really have two one is assistant principal at aello high school and one is the director of Student Success at the district level um do you want to talk about any of the nuances between those two uh Josh will certainly has some expertise around um some of our intense interventions with some of our our students and families that are involved in gang culture and he also has uh some of the deepest understanding in the state around how to interact with um agencies dealing with treny and attendance so Josh will handle some of those issues all of his work though will occur on the ell high school campus and this image that you see here is the current Technology Building the old district office that brick building
073there and Jessica will talk a little bit about how we're going to utilize that space so that space was identified I mean as we all know space is very limited out out of the low high school we did not want to try to put more Portables in and so we were looking at what space was available to us and that building is right there and so we started looking at it really closely uh spacewise and so the decision has been made that we're going to be moving the technology department out of there and ell High School will use all of the space there with the exception of the server room that's got to stay put but the rest of that space is going to be utilized in different ways and Cat and her team are
074still working out exactly who will be there um Josh and some of um his staff will be there um to maintain the online learning program and and some counseling supports there might be other counselors from the high school school that um have office space there but that's that's a still a big work in progress but it is progress that we are we have identified that building and now the work is okay so where does the technology department go and at our next update we'll we'll be able to provide those details um anything else on that no I I know you sometimes get yeah was this building sitting empty no no it's it's uh currently has our our Tech director the tech uh service folks and um significant storage area we etch all the computer equipment
075in the district it's it's a workspace um we we did look at the possibility of utilizing the current Dohs because that will be empty um we didn't love that idea because we want to be able to if we want to sell that if the board decides we're going to Surplus it and do something with it we don't want to put activities in there so we're going to empty that out we have some empty classrooms at McFarland that we considered as a location but we you're trying to limit and sort of the pros and cons discussion around it putting technical help and and sort of Maintenance folks in an area with students it didn't seem that like it made sense for either side um but and what this really is going to involve is some rearranging
076here at the district office that we're working with our our staff through so those last two pieces The Hub classes and the teacher assignments I'm going to save the details on that for the next time cat and her team are giving you those details in fact we have an on almost all day meeting tomorrow where we're working on on that very specifically what's important to know though about the Hub is it's not just for dos students it's for all students who might need extra help or extra support in different ways and so that'll be um I think a some people have been questioning oh you're just going to have kind of take the Dohs students as a group where they are now and just move them over to the high school campus and keep them
077separate that that's not the plan um but there will be specialized support for them and anybody else who needs it so the last slide here is ongoing communication um that's another big piece of this plan every focus group said we need to have strong communication about this each of these bullet points are actually um ideas that Josh Tovar um provided to me as possibilities so um he's still going to have a very active role in how we reach out and connect with parents and the community and um and all of you as well so um I won't read those to you but just different ideas around both written um in person and and spoken communication so that people have the opportunity to ask questions and give us feedback and we might think we've got a
078great plan moving forward but if we get feedback that we need to maybe make some alterations we're open to that and we and we really do want that feedback so any questions I don't I don't think I have any anybody else any questions from the students well so from what I'm understanding is the Dos students will be with like the students right so they're not going to have like their own husky Pack building or are they not the way the freshmen have their husky Pack building um I think that the students that are um coming from Dohs they are going to um at least for these first two years be definitely scheduled into those Hub classes um so they're they're still going to have I think some sense of togetherness um as they're in those
079classes together but they will also have um other classes outside of the Hub as well I have a question so when you say um when the Dohs students need support like what is that support look like it's a really good question and it's different for almost every individual student so maybe it's extra counseling um it might be um work with credit retrieval so if if students are behind um and they're not they're worried that they're not going to graduate on time that might be part of it um the slide that had the picture of the Technology Building there's one large room in there that has some outside doors and we're thinking that that would be a good place for the computer lab for the AL so like if if students are coming in like either
080for evening school or they're just dropping in to work on some things because they need flexible schedules there's really easy access for them and space for them there um we have a lot of Community Partners who um have offices across the district and kind of little cubby holes and places all over um that maybe that there's office space there that we can centralize support so maybe you're looking for a job or you needing extra help um with Transportation or I mean there's so many different needs that students might have and we can make it more One-Stop shopping not not a real question just more of a of I guess a praise just a little bit I appreciate the information on on this deal because it's been constant um and and I very appreciate that I'm
081pretty sure the rest of us do because it's it it's it's kept us up up to date so that if we do get questions we don't feel like well we we haven't hurt so thank you for that it's important that we get this right um and like I said if we get it right it's going to be a really good thing if we get it wrong it's it we can't risk hurting kids and so yes thank you so much okay we will move on to public comment um our our cut off for public comment is 645 or at least before the meeting so do we have anything that came in before the meeting no I shared that with Mr Mendes the the logistics of it and so I'll catch up with him afterward okay um
082moving on to upcoming events like we talked about earlier March 17th we have our hawaa site visit which is at 8:00 a.m. and then on the 24th we have our regular scheduled board meeting is there anything else we have a FFA dinner uh on March the 15th if you guys want to go and support the kids uh for the FFA it'll be is also an auction uh it's a silent auction uh live auction uh dinner uh it'll be held out at uh uh the bull sale well Bull Bar jfms grch Bourn so yeah I just want to Pig you back on that that we uh uh bought a um in the live auction last year we had bought the labor from the FFA students and uh they came out and they built me a chicken
083cpop like um I just out of scrap metal and whatever I had there at the farm and they actually donated extra hours and and they didn't have to but they were phenomenal um they got a good good thing going there so they were uh it was great so if you guys are anybody looking for um you know necessarily have to get an item you can buy uh labor so something to keep in mind so yeah it's a great cause um also this Friday I'm um involved with adopt the calf program and some of our sixth grader classrooms have adopted it but I have a uh school class second graders from Odessa coming to the farm even though we're not a active dairy farm there's still some and cattle there and they adopt the calves that
084this classrooms come but they're coming this Friday from 9: to 12 12 and I'm just inviting anybody else on the board here if you want to come out and U see that but I thought that was kind of neat that another schools coming to visit and uh it's been great being involved in it and stuff so good deal I guess I should have said it during board discussions but we will be bringing up the discussion of bringing back the Ronald McDonald farm to the high school Pete laughed at me a few times when I brought it up but we will be bringing that back somehow I I just really appreciate the way you say Ronald McDonald that's what I remember it [Laughter] like um okay we will move on to board self assessment of the
085meeting good meeting good agenda sad to see my friend Chris step down agreed I appreciate our board discussion um you know we we aren't always going to see eye to eye on every subject that we talk about which is what makes America great what makes our our community great is that um we can agree to disagree and and still move forward and and do what's best for kids and so um I appreciate our board discussion that we had today and that we uh actually that we always have um appreciate our student reps showing up as well we miss miles but we're thankful for our two girls uh great presentation on the Husky Hub I I thought I know Pete you're going to miss my comments from bringing up the past but uh uh Sunnyside was
086our rival when we were there so but it's nice to see that you're working with Sunnyside they're they're great um great school to work with uh but in my time they were rival so um but it's great to that you got someone a benchmark to work off of when we're in integrate in the Desert Oasis and the high school so um yeah okay at this time we will um adjourn into an executive session for 45 minutes to discuss the sale or lease of a land and the performance of a Public Employee this meeting is adjourned