001oh we're all here as opposed to like yeah absolutely okay we're all here okay so yeah okay well we're good i see okay great springs here too yeah i see happy smiling faces that one nice thanks bob okay do i have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second goal and all those in favor all right hi hi okay we are off and running um we will start off with public comment and as always it's we just read these now actually this will be the last time that um they're read i think um and then as as we all know um we don't comment on them we absorb we hear you we listen and we don't say a word all right um oh wait before we do that uh uh greg allison is gonna
002be our um our lead superintendent he's our substitute superintendent for the night and we're all going to be treat him very nicely and not like a sub and we're going to be honest with him with our answers and we are very happy that you're here greg and um it's just a great thing to see it's sort of your great example of continuing education for all of us that we are all continuously learning so we're really glad you're here okay thank you yeah thanks for the opportunity and i appreciate having slade's guidance uh as well so uh we have three public comments uh that were submitted before four o'clock p.m uh today and i'll go ahead and read the first one and this one is by hobby doherty wood from january 21st hi there i wanted
003to email the school board to express my opinion about opening schools i have been told that there is a vocal group of individuals who are concerned about sending their kids back to school so i am offering a different perspective my family moved to vashon in august when i heard that the vashon school district was thinking about bringing kids back in to in-person learning in hybrid fashion i was really pleased to hear this my husband and i have been running a business caring for our kids and supervising their education for almost a year and we are not sure how much longer we can do this with a kiddo in kindergarten in third grade we are seeing sadness anxiety and frustration increase in both of our kiddos my son who's a kindergartner says i hate school almost
004every morning and my daughter is very bored they both hit a wall with online learning i am in full support of bringing back kids or bringing kids back to school safely and with a solid health plan in place after governor ainsley speech remind recommending kids go back to school sooner than later and sharing that the transmission between smaller kids is not high i'm convinced that we've hit a transition point where the solution of having kids at home online is hurting more than it's helping i hope you'll consider this when when at your two 2-1 or february first meeting to make a choice on behalf of our community thanks very much uh hobby doherty wood and quote forever is composed of now now's by emily dickinson the second letter is submitted by kimberly norris and gator
005lamphere and this is from january 28th hi please include these questions for the board tonight what do the teachers want what does their union say is the public administration going to override the teachers if the teachers don't feel safe if so will the school district fire the teachers who don't want to come back will the will they hire scabs to teach our children when are teachers getting vaccinated what phase are they if age and generational households are not a factor how does the new strain of virus affect reopening plans and safety protocols with double masking recommended for the mutated virus will everyone students included have to wear double masks is the school board superintendent at al looking at data for the newly designed regions or just for vashon specifically what will you do if the
006virus spreads after the reopen and you have to shut it down again why can't we just wait until fall 2021 and after everyone is vaccinated sincerely kimberly norris and gator landfire and the third public comment was submitted i believe sometime today on the 28th and this is by kit gruver to the members of the visd board first i must extend my deep gratitude and respect for all that you have done to lead us all through this unprecedented time your transparency commitment resourcefulness and accountability are exceptional and it would be difficult to find another district that has weathered these challenges with such compassion and professionalism thank you second i want to applaud your efforts toward the consideration of reopening the schools for in-person learning i understand that you are constantly weighing the risks involved for students
007staff and students and i do not envy the task before you i have contemplated this puzzle from many perspectives as a parent i'm grappling with a teenager who is suffering from the social and emotional deprivation that remote schooling has wrought while my son's experience is not as extreme we have all read the news of the devastating toll this isolation is taking on the mental health of many adolescents as a career educator i know how paramount authentic connection is to the transformational nature of learning while i understand the transactional reality of remote instruction is unavoidable the loss of a more vibrant relationship to academia has profound consequences as all too often kids define themselves by their failure to succeed at school and it and it is a rare student who is thriving during this time in
008my current role as hr manager at saw bones i have witnessed the financial and relational strain that many of my employees have faced as they have had to choose between their jobs or parenting many of them trying to piece together a schedule that allows them to do both most of these employees do not have the privilege of working remotely an unemployed parent who can support learning at home or wages that allow for a child care or tutoring budget still we are doing what we can to live with the current coven 19 reality and applauding the teachers for their make the most of a terrible situation as we contemplate next step the safety of our beloved teaching communities first and foremost of course we do not want to place these professionals at risk what is the
009answer prioritizing vaccinations for all educators access to rapid testing and community support of protocol however decisions about how we implement a safe reopening plan should not be made in a blanket policy at the gate but in pathways forged by willing individuals if there is one thing that we have learned at saw bones during this time it is that options compromise and dynamic solutions are essential and refining sometimes on a daily basis is the way forward is there a lane that allows for those who choose to work remotely to work alongside those teachers and families who are open to in-person learning many schools are now successfully serving their youngest students through flexible structures a thoughtful phased approach and vigilant protocols they are as we all know building the plane while flying it and taking calculated risks
010from my perspective this is the only way through as we do not want to face a division that pits the health of our teachers against the health of our students and families the emotional social intellectual and economic impact and importance of school has never been more visible or visceral than during this unintended un unintended but illuminated experience thank you for trying always to find a collaborative and compassionate solutions that weigh the risks and costs of bringing our school community back intentionally safely and one day at a time kit groover parent of a 10th grader okay am i on for the next one you're on okay thank you i once again i'm grateful to be here and i want to continue the tradition that dr mcsheehy has begun by making a land acknowledgment to to begin
011this evening we acknowledge tonight that we are on the traditional homelands of the puella people the pilot people have lived on and stewarded these lands since the beginning of time and continue to do so today we recognize that this land acknowledgement is one small step toward true allyship and we commit to uplifting the voices experiences and histories of the indigenous people of this land and beyond in conjunction of that acknowledgement i just also wanted to share i've been learning a little bit recently about another event that happened in the past week on january 22nd and that's treaty day and a colleague of mine who is an administrator in the ferndale district and a member of the lummi nation uh has shared a bit of their experience in the the ferndale schools and i i just
012thought i'd share a little bit of information from the ferndale public schools site on treaty day on day january 22nd 1855 the united states entered into a solemn agreement with the lummy nation and other nations of the salish sea on that day representatives from these two independent sovereign nations came together in mokoltiyo and made promises to one another about how their respective peoples would share the land and resources of that this region land that had been the traditional homelands of the lummi and other people for more than 150 generations the agreement they signed is called the point elliott treaty treaty day is an important part of all of our history is not just a lummy nation event every one of us who lives in this region has been has benefited from the fact that the
013lummi ancestors and our pioneer ancestors chose to come together in peace to determine a way that we could all share this beautiful land as washingtonians we are all treaty people if it weren't for the treaties between the united states and the 29 sovereign nations within the washington territories we would not have become the state we are today so honor of january 22nd treaty day uh the next uh piece i wanted to share a little bit about uh is the martin luther king junior uh holiday commemoration um on on the 18th and uh activities in schools around black history month there's been a variety of commemorative activities and lessons happening in all three schools past weeks and will continue on into february it's been been a little interesting to observe in a typical year um not
014in distance learning there there would typically be an assembly of some sort and lots of in-class activities to commemorate these holidays and months but in some cases uh we've become more creative and and probably more authentic in in distance learning uh at chautauqua their teachers have uh integrated lots of lessons lessons and discussions uh in into classrooms to honor the dr king holiday they've been using resources from teaching tolerance and the king center and additionally the equity team at chautauqua continues to support the work with resources and training in staff meetings and other professional developments at mcmurray we've implemented a lesson called martin luther king jr and the power of words through homeroom classes and we're planning to highlight a mosaic of black american artists in homeroom through the month of february we're also engaging
015interested students which is really cool to become involved in an advisory capacity on those activities to give give greater student voice on what we're doing at bachelon high school the racial equity pact there is planning a february february first next monday all school assembly during smart period to honor martin luther king jr and black history month that assembly will be engaging for students featuring slides breakout rooms and they've hit just a great keynote from a speaker named aaron jones and and she's a fantastic speaker i've heard her several times and so so that should be a great event for the high school so in in particular i know uh the board is going to be taking up a discussion tonight around black lives matter resolution and so it's great to see the schools uh really
016getting a jump start on that that call to action uh in that in work so thank you and as a bet alluded to starting february 11th 11th board meetings will be held in person at vhs and planning for health and safety are underway with nursing nursing services building administration and technology so more to come on on that return to in-person board meetings uh a couple of updates and uh slate i think is going to help me out a little bit with this piece there's as you know by the minute sometimes there are updates regarding the return to in-person learning you may have heard that the governor has announced that the puget sound region will be entering into phase two potentially on monday and this could segue a potential return to uh sporting activities and so
017more to come on that um potentially in february uh staff and and parent q and a sessions were held last week um and we've got a lot of feedback and a lot of great questions from from all staff and and parents involved in that those two activities and then also as you know we had a great board work session uh on thursday the 21st i appreciate all of your your thoughtful questions on that event um we have a team from chautauqua that is visiting salton school district today and that's a that's going to be a really fantastic learning experience about a school district that is opening up in hybrid and and they've been super responsive to rebecca and her team as they they consider a reopening plan for for vashon probably a little bit of
018update on vaccines um vashon's been seeing an increase in in the past week for four vaccines with the mrc and tyler at the pharmacy and so we hope that that'll be a continuing trend and we continue to see improvement on that front uh and then also this week there was a recent cdc report urging a return to classroom instruction as soon as possible and the quote from from the cdc said the preponderance of evidence of available evidence indicates that it can be carried out safely as long as mask wearing and social distancing are maintained research at the centers for disease disease control and prevention wrote the journal of american medical association uh slade did you did you want to add any more to that no but i'll i'll answer bob brought up earlier before the
019meeting uh we did receive an email from chris rakedal and i say we meaning area superintendents actually all state superintendents that's 453. i'll just read it quickly for the board so uh dear superintendents for your information tomorrow morning i will hold a media availability with the president of kaiser permanente washington susan mullaney to announce a partnership to vaccinate k-12 school employees the plan aims to support a safe return to schools across washington then he adds a link the media availability will be held at 11am you may watch live or later by this tbw website and so i know that um you know this uh announcement or there was an indication about this announcement at wednesday's superintendent's meeting for our region we were on the line with uh ospi and their representatives and it looks like
020um again we don't understand that the technicalities because i know that our state has a a finite number of vaccinations coming in um you know per week uh and so how they're allocated and how they're distributed it's been an interesting watch over the last four days one of my colleagues in the superintendent's meeting i think aptly put it that it's it's kind of like hunger games for superintendents um in that if you're familiar with what the hunger games are every you know man or woman or person for themselves that there is a flavor of that you know in our in our region and and probably across the state um i will recognize sarah day and the mrc uh and all those involved in putting forward you know their as as much as they're able to
021go efforts to to vaccinate our staff i'm obviously a proponent of that i understand the governor and and and how they've decided around their phases um i don't think there's a 100 solution for for this particular you know for these particular questions um but it is good to see leadership coming from chris rakedal and responsiveness to area superintendents and i'm sure from our legislators to try to facilitate some type of program but i will say this uh in our quick meeting with ospi this was not a um a solution that we're going to see in the next two weeks this is still what i understand the solution that could take place over the next four to six weeks and that is according to again one of my colleagues said you know if everything goes as
022planned but i'll be quite frank with everybody nothing has gone as planned during covet um there are some exceptions uh i don't want to dismiss you know our our staff's work and everything there's been a lot of planning that we've followed through on but just to just to give you a sense of what's happening in the vaccination world i'm actually more optimistic about our own mrc and and saturday's efforts um however i know that that's um it's a hope that we all hold um and i can only i only know that that information again is changing day by day um and i know on february 1st we may learn even more um when we meet with our our health service partners from king county and from the mrc but this is going to be kind
023of a waiting game and and see as you go so hopefully i don't know if that answers your questions bob because i didn't have a lot of answers but that's what came from chris rakedal today anybody else have questions about vaccinations all right it wasn't a whole lot to cover but i think i covered it thank you yeah i'll just um finish this this piece uh just with some gratitude and and uh highlight uh what you spoke about is about i just want to express uh my sincere gratitude to dr mashihi and and the entire school board for their support and in the learning experience that i've been going through with with my program uh and offering me this this opportunity to expand my knowledge in this particular experience and and others um i'm in
024for those of you don't know i'm in the superintendent certification program at western washington uh university and this is led by uh many of you know dr wayne robbins robertson who was also working he does a number of superintendent searches around the state and and helped hire dr mcsheehy here at vashon and it's a two-year cohort program that includes six courses uh in addition to an ongoing guided internship and uh doing an internship in 2020 and 21 certainly is not without its opportunities uh for observing leadership and trying out new leadership things it's a certainly a dynamic time so i i do appreciate that opportunity and uh incidentally the course that i'm i've just started this this term is public policy formation and practice so so it's a timely opportunity to lead the uh to
025facilitate the board meeting uh indeed so thank you all and uh i appreciate your support and it's been a powerful learning experience for me and helped me in my current practice and then also looking at education from a different lens so thanks so much great just a reminder of the upcoming events on february 11th we'll have a board meeting at uh seven o'clock and this will be in person uh i know john is busy working away for the technology aspects of it we will stream it um and uh and then i know we'll work with sarah day and kind of all the protocols around what that might look like for attestations etc and then we'll have our midwinter break i am planning on taking some time away uh just to let the board know that
026uh my family and i will be doing us uh a little trip during that time uh nothing in large groups uh just us and i'm trying to convince them to go backpacking but i'm not getting too many takers uh for a mid february backpacking trip uh but we do have some other plans and then february 23rd um we'll we'll begin communicating more broadly with the board but uh we have some plans set for 5 30 to 8 pm working with mary fertacus who is a consultant with wazda and then we'll give you more we'll give the provide the public more of an update on at our february 11th meeting with that what that workshop will entail and then we have two board meetings in in march march 11th 25th at the regulars time seven to
027nine pm uh but that kind of concludes the upcoming events and uh i just want to say my appreciation to greg i was just thinking about this um you know i i i've been at every you know we've i've been present every board meeting um and now i you know and there's always been we always have great capable folks in order to to be able to stand in but there's now we're gonna have one more uh in the case if i'm not able to be at a board meeting that can work with our board chair and our vice chair to ensure the continuity of governance you know in our district and that's always uh that's a a real bonus so thanks greg for for extending your learning i won't pressure on whether you're going to
028get your whether you're going to enroll in the doctorate program or not but you probably know how i feel about that and then i'll just turn this back over to zabet okay so uh board member remarks um spring are you able to hear and speak yes i can spring has had technical issues that's why i'm asking for can you hear me yes can you hear me yeah okay okay good yes sorry about those technical issues um they were disruptive um i this is one of the things where i really wish that we were all together in person but i'm looking forward to that opportunity coming up soon um because i want to really extend a very warm welcome to comunidad and the members that are here with us tonight i'm really so glad that you
029could be with us and we're all um looking forward to being able to listen with open hearts and minds to what you're going to share with us tonight and opportunities for our collaboration and partnership with you to uplift all of our latinx students and families and i'm really very excited about being able to present the black lives matter resolution so um yeah there's a lot of really great stuff tonight on the agenda that i'm i'm just feeling really energized about it great okay thank you um bob i have nothing to say i can't really believe that but okay don't be so excited slade are you sure okay uh reagan i don't have anything in particular i just want to [Music] echo spring that i'm excited about the football class matter of resolution and that community
030is able to join us tonight and to just again thank our staff students and families for continuing to work the situation with us as things evolve going through this remarkable year great thank you and toby all right good evening glad to be here tonight uh welcome greg uh thanks for guiding us today i wanted to express uh our appreciation to the sultan school district for taking their time and energy to work with us i think that we're one of at least eight districts that they're supporting and to me it just demonstrates the collaboration between school districts in support of public education which is very exciting um okay um i would um i just want to reiterate actually what all of you said we're all we're i'm so this is a great meeting we have great
031people in attendance i'm really excited about what we're going to be talking about i'm as i said i'm so happy that greg is leading this meeting he and i are leading this meeting um and but i really want to also just take a second to just appreciate the public's patience and the staffs um as we go through this maze of what is going to happen and um we just we just don't know and we i mean i i feel like that the motto of 2021 now 2020 and 2020 has been like we're we're building it as as we're flying it um so we'll just i think the thing that's helping us the most is people being understanding and patient and just just sitting in their patients and in their uh and just being gracious about
032that and i really and i think everyone really is so um big thanks to everybody about that um okay uh ella and need you guys are up uh do you guys oh you guys can figure out what am i did i miss something or you get me slate are you telling me something that i i'm celebrating ella and me oh okay i thought you were like no wait no no no spirit fingers spirit fingers okay ella me whichever one wants to go first off you go okay so we had a student advisory board meeting just this last tuesday and one of the things that we talked about was how students mental health is doing during online learning and i think a lot of people felt that their mental health was definitely struggling just due to
033handling all the social isolation and academic stress other than any other factors that might come into play but students feel that teachers have actually responded well with offering extensions and help and other resources to ease the academic stress but it's still there i think keeping grades up is always something that students worry about um and then there's also some talk that people feel that the schools could do a little more to reach out consistently like beyond just the occasional email but just create a more of a sense of community and support uh even when it's so hard to do so and then um a lighter topic we talked about was some campus beautification projects that dr mcsheehy brought up because he wants the campus to be beautiful and something that students can take pride in
034and so he wants to get a group together involving students to work on like landscaping and possibly getting a reader board like out in front of the high school by 204th and you know just like projects like that i think could even help with mental health um i think that's it for me me do you want to take over yeah for sure um kind of going off what other was talking about with mental health um i think a lot of kids mental health would greatly increase knowing that eventually this school year they would have the opportunity to go back to school like in person and as predicted students feel that safely going back to school really at any point the school year would just be like a great choice even if it surpasses the target
035return date which is april 16th right now and for students going back to in-person learning would be less about improving the academic environment but a lot more for just like building that sense of community and having a larger presence of like student unification um and like ella was talking about students mental health is really not ideal right now so just finishing the year even if it ends up being just the last week of school even i i students would just greatly improve um it would it would greatly improve their morale and it would just end the year on a much higher note i think um so any strides to make sure that something in the terms of in-person learning happens by the end of the school year um i speak for most students when i
036say that it would be greatly appreciated um then on another note asb has been um pushing for hold on one second um oh yeah asb has been pushing for a black ice matter awareness week um which is right now scheduled to be february 22nd through the 26th um and i think more details for that will come as the weeks go by um but i think that's something that um students can take an active part in as well and that's all i have yeah this would be just a great time for anybody to ask some questions for ella and mead and once again uh you guys are rock stars i love my meetings with the students on on tuesdays i was just i i already shared like probably more than 10 times the the joy i
037get with meeting from y'all and the commitment that you've taken because it feels to me like it's at the end of the day you guys are done with your classes i mean it's you know it's an it's an add-on and uh so i i just want to say thank you for both of you you know really pulling through and and being rock star board members but uh other board members yes ask them some questions while you have them because you're lucky to have them anything anybody i just like to maybe expand a little bit on the student mental health issue i think and that's certainly one of the driving concerns um for wanting to return to school as soon as it's safely possible to do so so um but i'm wondering from the student perspective
038but the students that are have our students are having a successful time in the remote situation as well and i'm wondering if there's any possibility for um peer-to-peer uh discussions about supporting struggling students um or more i students who are feeling isolated by other students who are perhaps having a more successful time or just generating maybe a buddy system or is there would there be any kind of appetite for that and do you think that would be helpful for the students it was a student-led initiative i mean just on a personal note like i don't really know what the broad consensus would be but i actually feel like that would be a really good idea and just like i feel like connections with other people are kind of what's missing right now for people so
039just fostering places where you can have like actual conversations even if it's online and just like one-on-one relationships i think would could be very valuable then ella when you were talking about um um more outreach i'm just looking down at my notes the more outreach for the that you think the school should do or could do um what does it what does that look like did you guys talk about what that what more emails or what i mean i think people are sort of always very careful about inundating people's inboxes with emails but at the same time if it's going to be helpful um did either you have a idea of what the group thought that would look like um we didn't really get into that as much i think i mean for me it's
040like different programs i think like even the canned food drive and just like uh encouraging people to participate in that just like things you can participate in that like just since it fosters like a little bit more of a sense of community so not necessarily coming from the school from the administration but maybe coming from the asb or coming from various organizations okay i guess uh great question reagan and i would um if you guys i i think i can speak for the board um that we were all very sympathetic um and i know high schoolers have their own you know needs for social interaction so maybe we can task you with generating some ideas with your peers and i i i know i personally speak for myself only would love to hear them and
041i i suspect we would all love to hear them so um you got a job to do now so sorry you showed up okay anyone else all right thank you both so much i i reiterate what slade is saying we're really lucky to have have you guys on the board it's really helpful to have student voices on this board because otherwise we don't we don't know i mean we think we know um okay uh community dad we are so psyched this has been long in the making yes it has alrighty so we can go ahead and start um are we just going to leave a like that okay um so hi everyone my name is cynthia ramos i'm leo community organizer of coina latina de vacheron and we'll start off with just um with some
042history um so clv was founded over many years many meetings and gatherings but um it was in 2009 when families realized they had so much in common and had a hunger to make things better for our community and for the entire island so families began to make a plan to do so it was in 2009 when it was first dream of having a center where youth could flourish and families could gather in celebration of their culture and themselves and it was in 2009 the family decided to proclaim with their signs at the strawberry festival that we are here and we are your neighbors um a paramount importance our community has been the well-being of the entire island as a matter of fact i will say that every time our community gathers they express concern for
043the island as a whole and how they can improve the island as an example of this when trump was first elected in our community experience of sudden rays of avert racism we gathered to create a legal clinic to address our concerns and yet over 60 leaders present that day also wanted to talk about how a part of fashion highway was littered admits huge personal concerns they wanted to make a plan with others to clean it up when the school was seeing teacher cuts we gathered to create delicious a delicious garments a latino buffet of amazing food to raise money for the school's foundation we also supported volunteering hundreds of hours to the school by creating events like the los ninos dia de los muertos so that all our island kids could be enriched by learning
044about other cultures while youth were involved in all these events it wasn't until 2017 that we really had a refunding of sorts as an as an organization it was youth became the central driving force of our organization they infused our group with another level of energy impact talent and fun it was shortly thereafter that we created our center a center where you will regularly see youth gathering to laugh to have fun create rights-based campaigns and planet cree for creating a better island and a better world our adult leaders have been creative about gathering to discuss and plan our concerns long before we even had a center many of the issues we take on are also of interest of other islanders like when parents partner with the teachers union to rally to keep the full bilingual
045preschool open regularly our leaders have ideas that benefit the entire island and recently our latina mamas had the idea to make the school communication more clear and more concise and after discussion with other working moms we realized that this was a need for them as well so it is our youth leaders that regularly remind us that we are about celebration and that there is a great joy in building stronger community together with our adult leaders we created an important force for common good of the of our island we can go to the next slide please all right so latina was created to develop adult youth leaders and to create equal equitable systemic chains um we were founding to develop adult leaders youth leaders to create a systemic change we decided that we are more than
046the sum of our needs and the barriers but that we have talent and ideas to invest for the betterment of our community and for the entire island while we offer some services our services are created in interest of changing the systems that create the need for that service in the first place we are for example interested in long-term economic development rather than long-term charity-based economic support our model for systemic change is comprised of looking at the system that impacts us and asking our community what ideas they have to resolve the issues then we work together to create a plan or campaign to address the concern we do this leaning on the strength of our ideas and experiences this can be difficult because many times institutions look at us as a problem to solve rather than
047a partner to solve problems with together latinos do not see do not just need services they are not clients they are community leaders who are responsible for their thriving and surviving admission of the chronic subtle blows of systemic oppression and we're racism accompanying and encouraging the inherent leadership and power our people have to ignite and reclaim the strength they have to change the very strengths causing trauma in the first place we are about leadership development action for social change unlearning internalized oppression to heal our wounds and unleash our capability some well-meaning teachers and administration come to us with thinking about equity and creative peacemaker approach based on their interest in our community we appreciate that the disparate outreach but we're not concerned about the well-meaning people is because it's not enough and that there is
048a dire need to create an effective system wide approach for equity many times schools have had meetings and asked youth that what they need and there is no follow-up to those concerns we follow up to this concerns that is what we do we not only follow up but we co-create an action and programs to ensure their ideas and talent is honor and catalyzed we are concerned that equity systems are done in a performative way when the school district first began to think about equity we informed them that having two-hour meetings in english in the middle of the day was not a great way to ensure that our stories were essential to an equity plan a plan that would mostly impact the largest group of people of color on the island our latino community our ultimate
049goal is to have not only equity for the latino community but understanding the systems which better harness the ideas talents power of all the island community especially other ignored and undervalued groups like low-income fashion community members honoring our story is our first step toward working with us and we cannot collectively understand and acknowledge the truth of our history we risk the misrepresentation and the erasure of community and their brilliance and that's not a price that we're willing to pay we don't speak for the community so we will not be taking questions this message was approved by the community and we need the to approve any other responses to your questions to make sure they are commonly held views of our leaders next slide please and nicole will be presenting hi everyone um my name is
050nicole i'm the mental health director at puentes um well puentes is its own organization working for mental health and immigration justice um for the latino and immigrant communities beyond um we've been in partnership with comunidad for years our values and just the way we work and partnership is so closely aligned we resonate as a family moving and stepped together to see the latino immigrant communities thrive so i'm speaking tonight as a part of the komunidad team in terms of who kamunidad serves who we work with who we come alongside as co-leaders it's led by latinos for latinos we don't make decisions without a process of community input we find this process deepens our well of ideas and caters solutions to the changing daily reality of those most impacted by the systems we're wanting to shift
051comunidad is intentional getting to know new and unreached latino families their stories their desires especially those that are least often included we understand that it's a privilege to participate in mainstream ways to be able to attend meetings during the middle of the day on a weekend a virtual call is a luxury we purposefully search for those who have not been involved to address together whatever barriers they have to sharing their needs and sharing their ideas with our collective systems change efforts to reach and include as many families as possible our programs function at the community center in homes in the community and through many many many phone calls we don't contact every family every time but we give a hell of an effort as we do include and center the community we recognize that the
052ability to consistently engage may actually be a reflection of privilege rather than a desire to take a role as a community leader comunidad may be latino but our staff can't represent our entire community's experiences in any given moment or any given meeting we always return to and are perpetually engaged in conversations and relationships with the community seeing them as mutual leaders um getting in touch with them before speaking for the whole this is why we host events and outreach to meet them and hear as many voices and ideas in our community as possible in the times and places that work for them i want to touch on an idea of something called the danger of a single story chimamanda ngozi adichie is a nigerian author she shares about a time when her college roommate largely
053due to american media of starving african children assumed that she didn't know how to use a stove treated her with a patronizing well-meaning pity because she had a single story of catastrophe for africans there was no possibility of connection as humans because it was just pity adichie relays her experience of both accomplishments and poverty family unity and political strife saying all of these stories make me who i am to insist on only one of them is to flatten my experience single stories can create stereotypes they make one story become the only story adichie talks about how stories are defined and integrated with the principle of power how they're told who tells them how many are told she says if you want to dispossess a people start the story with indigenous arrows instead of european canons
054start the story of africans at war with another instead of colonization she says stories have been used to dispossess and malign but they've also been used to empower and humanize stories can break the dignity of a people but they can also repair the dignity of a people i say this because latinos and vashon don't have a single story there are layers of privilege within the community and while clv is intentional to include the voices and experiences of those who've been most excluded by traditional systems we will not allow a single story of pity to circulate um often the parameters for meetings or programs or initiatives are set by those in positions of power and privilege when those parameters and those times and those places don't work for our community the community's been blamed this is
055a story told from people in power um in positions of power but it's not one with which we resonate we see the problem is systemic the efforts that have been made toward equity thus far part-time advocates token representation monthly equity meetings they're not enough they were not co-created we do understand you have a lot going on and you're not able to do everything you'd like to do least of which the return to in-person schooling with covid we also understand that or hope that you understand that we too have many projects and initiatives in addition to trying to advocate at the school we have valuable information from our families that would be helpful for transforming the school system the way your resolutions and intentions proclaim that you're dedicated to but we need to be able to
056trust that you're going to follow through when this in-depth trusted input is given to you for free you hired an external equity consultant when you've been getting an equity from your own community for years we're asking you to center impact not intention our time isn't limitless our energy is spent in so many realms health housing mental health policy advocating for better life for latinos and we center our efforts where we can joyfully build the most leaders and change the most systems nothing's more important to our families than their kids and we do hope we can co-create thoughtful educational programs that honor this exemplary devotion as we see in our parents when it comes to mental health i've been witness to students navigating daily environments dominated by this single story of latinos i hear countless times
057that they feel other stupid less than not strong from a clinical's perspective 75 of the diagnoses for the kids i see are adjustment order meaning that they're adjusting to something traumatic in this case the trauma they're adjusting to is systemic racism this doesn't mean that there's a mental health crisis in the latino community it means that there's a systemic crisis of racial inequity these kids don't see themselves or their people represented in history books or the faces of people in power in positions higher up at the school district much of the support given to latino kids in ell groups may be helpful for learning english but they're done in a way that feeds the narrative that they are quote unquote immigrants in need if they learn english but don't learn how strong and capable they
058are we've failed it's critical to foster spaces where there's more than a single story where they can be strong proud and have tough days where they can be a successful small business owner and need translation support at school where they can call out the flaws of the school system and not get perceived as troublemakers or victims these systems need changing and this community is strong we see your intentions and there's been an impact we're asking you to see it now brandon is up next for the next slide please okay hey how's it going uh so i'm brandon guerrero a current student at vhs and what i was hoping to share with you is achievements that our community has done without and with covet to be fair this was not easy because we have done a
059lot for the community and with the community that we actually had to narrow it down from five pages of accomplishments uh that wouldn't have been possible without you know the mamas and uh young leaders uh let's start off with uh our get out the vote movement we are starting with this because it's important to know where all the confidence came from and how we are able to change the day to day with our strong and loud voices and wills we organize canvassing days phone banks and other events just to show how important it is to vote and also be engaged in the community that we are so that we are trying so hard to build uh sorry i stutter a lot um it was actually really fun there was tamales and cokes which just made
060everything better and to top it off we alone reached out to 1700 people while also being part of the record-setting latino voter outreach in our state it connected us with latinos throughout our region and helped us understand how fun and compelling it was to build our power as a community the that 2018 campaign was the foundation of our latino leadership for us youth also in 2019 the vashon latino youth held the one-day voter registration statewide record for statewide youth and we and we were able to pre-register students in one day we also met up with legislators just so they could learn about us and from us they found us so interesting that they want to come back and listen for more we had so many things planned before covet hit we we would plan to
061meet at thriftway iga and granny's and other locations just to engage with families and we also planned a listening campaign to hear what they wanted and look forward to in the future 12 of us youth uh youth leaders learn to make and maintain a relational meeting with the community relational meetings help us learn from each other and the struggles and barriers we have faced and are and or are facing we look for a perspective from our economically and culturally diverse community these helped us come up with the pop-up mercado pop-up market clv created a program for economic development both youth and adults led the development of a business program that was tailored to their access and resources this this was of great interest to the community because although we had great ideas we had no
062resources and limited information in spanish but with research we learned about the pop-up market in burien and mirrored what they did but with our own ideas it was very successful we had more than 400 people attend our first 2019 pop-up mercado our youth learned about tech skills such as making facebook events using venmo and paypal and canva to make flyers business cards etc 43 leaders made this dream into a possibility from abuelita's cooking to preschoolers handing out tickets and uh our coveted response when coveted hit it was new to us and the families we adapted to what was thrown at us and kept in touch with all families many families were affected by coveted in major ways and eventually got fired and or their hours cut tremendously landscapers construction workers house cleaners and restaurant workers
063were all affected by this on top of that i was forced to learn along with my friends and fellow leaders online most of us didn't have laptops and wi-fi to do this but this was time for leadership our parents and youth both advocated and stood together to make the situation the best possible by helping each other kovid has highlighted many of the injustice and discrepancies given or yeah given the difficulties of rent payments food and other basic needs during covid we called each and every family many times to troubleshoot their unique needs and to catalyze their original ideas our community members and leaders asked us to create a solidarity fund to help families during this unforeseen time and we did we continue to help with food access applications sharing important information advocating for their needs
064of our community and more our elder youth organize themselves to help younger people some even attending online classes with them within weeks of covet hitting our community had created organic programs for for and by the community and then action and celebration we're about helping our community about getting our rights about fun early in 2020 during our dia de los reyes celebration we had over a hundred community attendees community leaders chose to focus economic economic opportunities health and civic engagement and leadership development this is an ongoing and repeating process as all of our work is based on seeking sharing and actualizing the stories of our community into systemic change action clv was in the process of list of a listening campaign as mentioned above with very intention of bringing in new community members to participate in
065our community learnings and the development of action plans in order to truly get the heart of the community identified inequities our community does everything possible to support the future their families and their kids we have a lot of diversity of thought but shared a strong work ethic and a culture to celebrate that's it all right the next slide all right so a lot of partnerships and what that looks like um and our engagement with the wider community we're necessarily we are necessarily discerning and identifying allies who are willing to listen and collaborate with us in our community-led initiatives we believe these these are the type of relationships needed in order to have a successful community outreach program and allow the leaders from our community to address systemic barriers and policy change in a way that
066is honoring of our community brilliance and circumstantial limitations this requires time and requires it considered to consider how cultural systems and immigrant experiences affect our day-to-day lives in the part we have attempted to advise white-led groups how to engage directly with the latino community and ask them not to assume or create initiatives without the latino community's input but our request is that and it's not often heated it takes a lot of time to create trustworthy relationships and provide a space where latinos feel comfortable to be themselves and share their voices sylvia was started for that very reason to create community-led systemic change and the places that impact their daily lives it it's fun to work with us when we build trust and truly create but it takes humility as an organization that is powered by
067community and dependent on relationships collaboration is in our veins lack of participation in partnership has more to do with the discernment about when a project or perspective does not hold our values and not wanting to subject our community to these environments we do not want to encourage the places that do not share power we do not want to ask community to participate in spaces where their voices are tokenized and not actually heated we do not think our time energy and resources are best spent on projects or relationships that are not founded on convinced of or promoting the power talents and the brilliance again of latinos we hope to transform the spaces that have a single story of a community as immigrants in need and we don't ask for a community to occupy spaces when they
068are getting a patronizing well-meaning pity we want to recognize one of our very very loved partner sally adam as she has been a very trusted ally in our community for over a decade her constant relationship building with part with parents bridging the communication gaps between teachers and families and prioritizing of what is important to latino families and an authentic belief in their strengths has given our families a reliable trusted person to support them in navigating the school systems she went above and beyond during cova to make sure families had what they needed to succeed she is constantly thinking about how to support families facing an issue while simultaneously co-creating gathering the ideas to eliminate the issue altogether for future families this is the kind of partner we look for many youth have also mentioned specific
069teachers they have had who see them support them and believe in them we are grateful for these allies and final slide please or is that it oh sorry so we ask we believe the key to better partnership is better relationships so that we can increase the understanding of our collective strengths and how we co-create better solutions as we mentioned we are not authorized to speak for the entire community so cannot take questions in this form but they are there are groups of leaders and organizers ready to have individual meetings with each board member to begin with this relationship building process that we hope will lead to a more productive and joyful school latino community experience we will now ask you each individually if you will are willing to have a one-on-one meeting with us these
070meetings will take place on a zoom a saturday afternoon when most of our families are typically not working a reminder that this is a simple yes or no question we are not interested to hear at this time of celebration of all you believe you have already done for the latino community we are asking you to center the impact we have described not your intentions so that we can see true sustainable change and have the possibility of working together towards racial equity so bob hennessey will you meet with leaders and organizers of cornell latina to build our relationships so that we may in the future co-create solutions absolutely thank you toby holmes will you meet with leaders and organizers of coina latina de vachon to build a relationship so that we may in the future co-create
071solutions i look forward to the opportunity it'd be great thanks spring heck will you meet with leaders and organizers of latina de vashon to build a relationship so that we may in the future co-create solutions i would love nothing more thank you the beth mccomber will you meet with leaders and organizations ironizers of queen latina de bastian to build our relationship so that we may in the future co-create solutions yes and i'm free saturday i'm this saturday i'm ready reagan sparks will you meet with leaders and organization to build a relationship so that we made the future code create solutions i would love to thank you okay i i are you is that it that is that thing okay thank you so much for that and i understand that you're not taking questions does anybody
072want to comment on the board about anything that we just heard i i have a uh how to frame this not as a question uh how about a request um i we we're about well in a while about to undertake our budget planning process for the next year and i would encourage um clve to be thinking about uh how as you know this is you you fund what you prioritize and um so i uh i'm hoping to engage that you will find a way to engage in our budget process so that it serves the students you represent um can i quit comment not a question but um i i'm just i'm wanting to really all of us just to keep feeling that those powerful words i don't want to talk a lot just to say
073that i feel s like very deep gratitude for um them for comunidad for all three of you coming tonight and special thank you to the student who came to speak tonight nothing gives me more hope i think um than than youth leadership and um i don't feel anything close to pity when i think about our latino latino families and students and when i think of comunidad and and i think especially even more so after tonight i only think of um like a beautiful force and um and i appreciate their patience with us i think and i'm appreciating that i think we're all really hearing um in a very sincere way about the humility and everything i i was really trying to soak it all in so i'm dabbling so i'll stop but i'm just so
074grateful i learned a lot thank you anybody else not ask a question comment on that okay um thank you all three of you and all who spoke and everybody else who came um we've been really looking forward to this presentation and um i think it was everything we hoped it would be and probably more um i'm really looking forward to our individual conversations with you i think that will be also really productive um and uh and i agree a big shout out to um sally adam who has been um so great for so long um with that with our two communities um okay all right i'll give a shout out to uh to brandon you did a great job thanks for sharing it's great to see the leader you're becoming so nice job yep yep
075okay thank you i feel i feel like i don't know it feels sort of anticlimactic to move on to the next thing uh sorry matt but uh uh and then as slade says if you want to stay please stay um don't feel obliged that you have to stay we always love people staying because we think everything we talk about is so fascinating so we'd love you to stay but understand if you have to move on okay matt thanks a bet um provided to you is our regular monthly financials uh specifically financials through the end of december and then enrollment through the beginning or start of january um i'll touch upon the the dashboard first jody if you can pull that up there it is um so like i said financials through december or 33 of
076our fiscal year as we've noted throughout this entire year thanks to the pandemic or no thanks to the pandemic we're seeing expenditures less than what was budgeted the revenues are coming in steady as projected specifically we see expenditures at 29.3 percent of a 33 of the year with our revenues about 30.8 almost 31 of the year if we look at uh the expenditures in the five and ten year we consistently over the first four months see a slight drop off on expenditures as we knew there would be and then revenues are trailing right about where they should be so as a whole a good year financially and the budget is quite stable any questions on that anti-climactic document uh on to enrollment and good news on the enrollment front for the first time in this
077year we actually gained fte which is a good thing overall from the month of december to january we saw 0.3 gain an fte which is a good thing so we're stabilizing out with enrollment uh specifically if you look at the middle tables and i like to always point out from december to january for chautauqua they saw a gain of a little over one ft and that is a brand new student coming in from outside the district uh mcmurray is stable right where it was from december to january and then the high school lost a slight fte with links staying about the same like i said overall was a gain from december to january so we hope to see that trend moving forward with either gain or staying stable with our average uh dropping to 26.99
078students off of budget so overall like i said a good enrollment month and we hope that continues any questions what's happening with the running start are they why are they oh we typically don't uh get those numbers till later in the month that's why okay okay those come in from the community colleges colleges about mid-month to end the month okay uh great is that it i don't have that thanks jody you call that a report [Laughter] [Music] okay um reagan and i went to uh the high school which is uh experience as we all know now in zoom when you sort of suddenly appear in a meeting um and we got to be there for the very first day of the third quarter third quarter first day of the second semester um so reagan you
079want to go talk about it uh sure um i uh i guess the the takeaway for me um is a that um our staff and our students have become much more adept at the technology and i was impressed in every class we were in how many were on camera that the class sounded like a cohesive class and that our staff wasn't no longer struggling with the technology itself and and things were really fluid that way so that was encouraging um i was also struck just in the range of the student responses i mean we were we were only in each class for a few minutes at a time but even so i you could hear there's a lot of interactive things going on between the students and the teachers as they got to know each
080other on the first day of the term and you could just hear in their voices which students were doing fine with the situation and which students maybe felt more strained or confused or tired of what was happening so i think i think the takeaway for me was just to honor many perspectives on what's happening now and then the prospect of returning to school eventually that everyone is in a different place and we need to be mindful and honor and be you know valid the date where everyone is at and and recognize that there's many different points of view going forward um but uh you know the high school is uh we also heard about eventual reopening plans for the high school assuming the virus permits us to do that and the situation doesn't regress again
081and there's a lot of exciting things happening with looking at what chautauqua's going through right now with their process and learning and building off of that process and consulting with other districts there are other secondary schools in the state that are currently open for in-person learning public schools not just private schools so there's there's a there's a base of support and information out there to draw on and i found that was very encouraging talking to danny and gus about their process and looking ahead to doing that and just how much planning is involved in that process and that all the details you know you we can't even really imagine um all the detail that goes into that and how much labor and effort goes into trying to move in to move back into the in
082person it seems like it would be more simple to just come back in person but especially under the covet environment obviously it's it's not it's quite a bit more involved to keep everyone safe so but i felt very reassured by how much thought and details going into that and we'll see in april if we look like the virus is going to let us get there but overall i think my my sense was that we have a very hard-working staff and administration we have very hardworking students and everyone is tired of this current situation and hoping to move on to the next step um whether that's totally getting back to normal and being in person post-covered or at least having some more community building opportunities while we're within covid um so yeah i think that was
083i guess that's the gist of my um overall takeaway from what we discussed and and heard from the visit yeah i would i would reiterate that um i wasn't yeah i was impressed with and just people i mean just like we are here i mean we just sort of gotten used to this little boxes and i don't think anybody wants to be in the box anymore but they're they're doing it um i also um well gus was talking about the the several uh teachers who have in person students um the kate dunnigan and eric mortensen and kathleen i want to say ricky vick it's not great is it slade he's not listening uh uh and how creative they've been that two of them are uh you know there's a woodworking teacher and jewelry teacher and
084then the ap uh chemistry teacher and just how creative they're being getting kids in because it because it's just woodworking and it's jewelry and you can't really do that online and it's ap chemistry and so they've been super creative i mean and i just yeah my hat is off to all like all teachers in the district really about how creative they've been about making these classes work as much and how much that's meant to the students yeah and to be able to have that that contact and to be able to do it safely so you know again that's another um reinforcing sign that we have had probably more more students and and staff coming and going at the high school throughout this period and we've still been able to keep it a safe environment for
085everyone there so that um that's encouraging yep yep so bob and toby and spring it was as good as those those uh visits always are they're all that's like the highlight it's a little weird though to like pop in and be like huh especially when you pop into your son's spanish class and he goes yeah i'm always relieved when i just managed to not screw up the in and out myself and get lost somewhere exactly pop into someone else's class um i do any of you guys have questions for us because we have such a thorough report there that i can't imagine you have questions for us anybody bob nothing okay oh slade i'm sorry do you have a question for us i don't have a question i just think it's important to go ahead
086and recognize the teachers that we visited so that's kara warren meyerhoffer stephen floyd andy james and lou mangio so yeah so thank you yeah this is waters yeah absolutely we were cruising and yeah it was good beginning a quarter three uh congratulations to everybody on finishing the first two yeah the way we go on the second half of the year and andy james killing it as the substitute english teacher yeah so that was good um okay yeah and and of course thanks to danny and gus for taking time out of their schedule too sure we can throw them in there um okay so on to discussions um we have two items up and the first i i don't want to say one is more exciting than the other but one is pretty much more exciting
087than the other uh toby and uh spring you guys are um you guys are up all right thank you um i'll just uh kind of introduce what uh we're talking about uh for this discussion uh related to the black lives matter and schools resolution and then spring will take it from there um really you know we have so much to learn and we have so much action to take and our goal is to make a true impact and this is one of those exercises as we went through we're kind of hitting ourselves on the forehead thinking we needed to do this before not and so very happy that we're talking about this tonight and uh and intending to move forward with it we worked as a team to uh to produce and edit uh the
088resolution uh to declare support for the national black lives matter at school week of action and uh that was actually a good fabulous conversation spring slade stephanie and i really got into the weeds and uh was excited to have an engaging conversation and actively work through that process um because rachel eckerdy remains a critical pillar in and the clear priority for for the board in the district and uh is going to be uh you know centering a lot of the work that we do moving forward as we contemplate um you know reviewing our strategy dusting that off for me one of the most exciting things about this process and the work was how centering the black lives matter 13 guiding principles are and how they relate to our values as a district and the and
089the priorities that we have and it really for me it felt like it just ties this action all together please if you didn't before the board meeting go back and read through the principles in the description and they're very centering in this work and they range you know you'll see from loving engagement diversity empathy also principles addressing gender and privilege and misogyny and these tie into even our current uh school values and and our in our mission so for me this is really an important piece uh an important resolution that has a foundation that goes well beyond just the black lives matter week of engagement in school and supported by these important foundationable foundational principles um and so i really i anticipate it's going to have an impact on and help us guide our decisions
090uh going forward and supporting the work that is being done in the buildings so very excited to uh to be here with spring to present this resolution spring i'll hand the floor over to you okay thank you i'm going to go ahead and do our first reading of the resolution just a couple of pages feel free again to reference it in the board packet on page 25. a resolution of the board of directors of the vashon island school district number 400 king county bashan washington to declare support for the national black lives matter at school week of action whereas schools should be engaged in creating pathways to freedom and justice for all black indigenous people of color and whereas or our understanding of history and events is shaped by the stories we learn and the
091voice tell them and whereas school systems have a responsibility to their students and the communities they serve to nurture young people who have the courage and skills to confront personal systemic and societal racism and recognize the many types of privilege that exist in our society and whereas the intersectionality of oppression and privilege is unique to each of our school buildings and neighborhoods and whereas individual educators students and families of the vashon island school district have long engaged in action to bring awareness to issues of racial and social justice including creating teacher-led and student-led racial equity teams advocating for participating in comprehensive professional learning on culturally responsive and trauma-informed instruction the hosting of school-wide celebrations of inclusion and diversity teaching about black excellence black movements and contributions and looking to decolonize our libraries and school reading
092lists and whereas the black lives matter movement has raised awareness that injustices that exist at the intersections of race class and gender including mass incarceration police brutality poverty unaffordable housing income disparity transphobia homophobia unjust immigration policies gender inequality and poor acts to health care and whereas teachers parents scholars and administrators across the country have come together to proclaim a week of action affirmation and solidarity to be called black lives matter at school week of action and whereas the purpose of the week of action is to spark an ongoing movement a reflection and honest conversations in school communities for people of all ages to engage with issues of social justice equity the intersectionality of oppression and the legacy of institutionalized racism and oppression that has plagued the united states since its founding and whereas the black
093lives matter at school week of action is endorsed by the national education association and was first conceived by teachers in seattle in 2016. and whereas the national demands of the 2019 black lives matter at school week of action aligned with the vashon island school district state state of desire and continued efforts to practice restorative justice to combat disproportionate discipline for students of color and marginalized populations in our schools diversify the educator workforce incorporate more culturally relevant curriculum and culturally sustaining pedagogy into our schools and increase staffing for counseling and student support services and whereas the work of dismantling systems of oppression and moving towards becoming an anti-racist organization requires an open and continuous dialogue between all members of our community and whereas this continued dialogue belongs in our classrooms at our kitchen tables and everywhere
094in our community now therefore be it resolved that the board of directors of the vashlan island school district 402 king county fashon washington endorses and encourages our community to participate in the black lives matter at school week of action to be held yearly during the month of february be it further resolved that the board educators students and families to incorporate the 13 guiding principles of the black lives matter movement into their discussions about race and privilege all year long by teaching a black lives matter at school lesson showing solidarity with the black lives matter movement in our attire attending an anti-racist event in support of racial equity singing songs that acknowledge our history of oppression and the struggle for justice reading a book that challenges our world view making art that celebrates the diversity of
095our community listening to the experiences of people who are different from us and talking with our children about how each of us can work to build a more just and equitable society it was really fun to be able to read that tonight um i we didn't make this beautiful documenta for ourselves these are this is these things are the beautiful thing is that the there are so many schools who are doing these resolutions and sometimes we can think like oh this feels performative oh what does this document really mean and that's what one of the things i think i really recognize is as a board we get to formalize our commitment to dismantling racism in our educational system and so but a lot of the real work is going to happen because it's going to
096be carried out by our teachers boots on the ground and our staff and so tomorrow we have a meeting our racial equity meeting um that occurs with parents and friends for racial equity and the leadership team and shout out to there were a lot of um the gang from parents and friends for racial equity that were watching the board meeting tonight and hooting and hollering when comunidad was presenting um but we're all gonna tomorrow we're gonna come together and we're gonna talk about and explore um what are meaningful ways that we can apply those searching principles and then the staff and leadership are gonna just take that away and it'll be really exciting and there'll be opportunities hopefully for us to just continue to support um and contribute provide input about black lives matter action
097week and how we're gonna make this um formal document resolution be something that's more than just a piece of paper and and something that we are committed to every day of the year not just one week out of the year so i don't know if there's any staff that have questions i know you probably all read over it not staff but you fellow board directors or anybody um or comments but um maybe opening it up to if just anybody wants to add or or ask a question you know i'll jump in spring i i just have go ahead sorry i'm sorry i just have a real quick just um edit edit question the third paragraph on the second page there's a date there of 2019 is that the correct date do you want to say
0982021. that's a good question maybe is that a typo we missed yeah i think we'll fix that thanks yeah that's all everything else sounds wonderful i just want to be sure we're doing this now right now yeah i read that out loud and i was thinking okay it's kind of hard to remember what year it is sometimes these days any other thoughts comments um i i would say you know what i'm thinking back when uh when greg you were talking about um at mcmurray what their the program they're doing they call it you know called the power of words and that this is what we are witness to right now this is the power words these are just it's just two pages of words but when we sign this it becomes more than just words
099and it becomes this this document that is will become a sort of a guiding force and will really is as as you said toby is one of the pillars of this of where we are now in this in this district and where we want to be um it's not just a week of black lives matter or you know people of color matter it's it's it's all 52 weeks and so this is a great jumping off point and spring to your point as that tomorrow i mean it's sort of the way it's all sort of lined up it's sort of is funny that you know the community that comes to today with their really powerful presentation and then we have this and then tomorrow we have our racial equity meeting and then the work we're going
100to start doing with the strategic plan i just feel like we're we're you know as i as i was saying to someone this afternoon you know we're we might be late to the party but we're at the party we're getting there you know and and come on aboard it's all it's time it is very much time so um uh anybody else want to say anything get slayed it's a a few uh thoughts if you permit me um just recognize this movement started in 2016 uh in seattle and i appreciate spring reaching out and it looks like we can have some partnership with some early learners in this work to probably help us you know kind of move this forward the second uh thing i want to note is that spring is right we reviewed probably
101five or six examples and we reviewed seattle's uh you know amongst them and what you know the example that we that we followed was from olympia and so i just want to kind of give a citation where the probably the citation is is warranted um this is a shift we have a few weeks before our second reading on the 11th um and so i just encourage board members to you know consider every paragraph every action that and and and what that may lead to because uh from community dot nicole um a meeting quite some time ago with them and nicole spoke quite passionately who was speaking with us tonight i don't know she's still on i don't think she is um spoken about the intentions versus impacts and it's messy work and we don't get
102there tomorrow um but i want to i just want to recognize that the the impacts are are when we you know when i don't believe this work is going to be finished when any of us you know when our kids are gone and i may be not the leader of this district but we we will struggle to make sure that that race is not the determining factor for how kids are successful in our district and how they feel like they belong we heard that tonight um and so uh we haven't figured it out yet we haven't figured out the relationship with community dot we haven't figured out a lot of things and so it means there's a lot of work to do this is a great step forward i'm i'm very happy and proud that
103our that our staff is ready for this an eager and leaning into it and so i'm i'm even more grateful that we have a board that that that wants to move it forward um even if it's not in the most you know like a wonderful presented package and it may not be and but i'm i'm just eager to get the work done i can't wait for tomorrow's meeting to get more feedback um and happy that the other districts you know in front of us like uh seattle and olympia have have been there before us because it just means there's resources for us to to uh to draw up on uh and i thanks toby and spring for presenting this tonight absolutely thank you both for the work you've been putting into this um so i'm
104sorry i'm just getting over to the agenda i so i can actually see it because um oh okay so i i mean from the sublime to the ridiculous no from the um from the something to protocol this is a good one um greg here we go uh this this item uh is uh in response to i think director hennessey came up in new business with uh an idea around uh how a board members might get a an agenda item on the agenda and so jody slade and i did some just some research and kind of centered on a draft for first reading of uh the board operating protocol board meeting agenda and i'll just quickly read it the board chair and superintendent will set the agenda for each scheduled board meeting individual board members should
105work with the board chair and the superintendent to place an issue or concern on the agenda the board chair will follow up with the board member if there are any questions uh follow-up questions regarding the issue and concern the board chair will communicate the requests to the entire board if there are three members who wish to place the issue of concern on the agenda will replace be placed on the agenda in a subsequent meeting um thanks craig and wait i just want to go back i do not want to imply that this is ridiculous this is not ridiculous this is bob this is a good thing that we're clarifying this this has been sort of like haunting yeah i did i did it this has been haunting this board and the previous board and so
106it's really nice to get it in writing and i really appreciate you being a squeaky wheel on this um okay so does anybody have any uh comments about this why are you laughing he calls himself a squeaky reality okay venus squeaky will is i think that's that serves i've heard pain in the butt i guess i just had one quick comment which is um just to clear i appreciate this yeah it's it's very practical and i don't i don't know i mean i hear what you're saying i don't know that it has been haunting us as a board i mean we are all you know we're all pretty like any of those formal policies protocols we really follow but this was sort of something that was like we got to decide how we wanted to
107do it right and we just needed consensus about that clear communication and then we all know right and it was kind of happening organically but now we have it's really nice to formalize things but and to clarify no no decisions are made here other than what we're just putting on the agenda right that's all that all this you know contacting the board share three people have to agree it's not like the discussion about what we're right so we're really continuing to follow um it here too it's oh what is it i get ospi mixed up with opmi opmi right yeah no whatever you know what i'm talking about [Laughter] thank you that's it right this is just to get something onto the agenda so if bob wants to talk about that every day we should
108have spaghetti at school he needs to convince three of us that it should get onto the agenda bob needs to convince two of you about spanish oh well there needs to be three of you thank you for pointing that out yes there is there needs to be three people this is why we hold on bob it's an algebra equation and it'll always be bob it'll be bob and two other board members no um so but to the point is that like it just is to get it on to the agenda and then it comes up and the five of us discuss it and we all realize that spaghetti every day is the best thing and we pass it and then it becomes spaghetti every day right bun bob bob yeah hold on he's getting his
109props i was looking for my bob is right shirt and i actually have one yeah i'm sure you do okay so this is uh that's the first read thanks jody um okay so consent actually can i just ask uh i don't think any i don't think uh anybody asked if there were questions or considerations this round i mean i i know it was explained but oh yeah right this is a good place for discussion because uh at the next one it's traditional that there would be a recommendation for the you know for the board to approve this and add it into the protocols so just just want to pause and just ask if there were any other questions or any comments from board members great thanks okay uh consent agenda the only thing i want
110to say is that there are we're seeing some people who are retiring in here in the um uh dr stephen floyd retiring and we will have a big uh recognition of everyone who's retiring at the end of the year but you know they're sort of they're they kind of slip in here but so we're not ignoring you dr floyd by not making a big thing out of you like you did that all right so uh do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda uh yeah contented moved the second reagan were you seconding or were you questioning i was seconding but i got out seconded by toby don't win okay uh okay all those in favor all right hi all right okay great uh consent agenda passes do we have any new business uh
111i just wanted to make a quick comment on consent agenda items not to over dwell on it but often when people retire they they submit a really meaningful letter sometimes there's real nuggets in there that we can learn from think about how we can improve what we do other times it's just another moment of gratitude uh but it's nice i appreciate it when when we hear that and so i know we passed this uh and we'll be celebrating those employees who are retiring and moving elsewhere but um so i think just a friendly reminder it's good to go read these in the board packs um right toby thank you for remembering that because we don't close that uh judy because because um stephen brings up a great point about his love of the arts and
112the theater and student theater and how important it has been to the high school and um he hopes that it doesn't disappear after he retires and i i must be speaking for myself but i really hope it doesn't disappear either but um okay so no further business then we are adjourned thank you toby thank you all for a great meeting thank you all for your work greg nice job you can come back any time well thank you thanks for the backup slate i needed all i could get everything went well yeah and uh cynthia i see you're still here thank you if you're actually sometimes we leave our computers so thank you stacy interpreter stacy thank you all right okay all right thanks