001Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the December 1st meeting of the Akma School Board. Welcome to Franklin Middle School. Uh and first and foremost, welcome Director Shelton. Happy to have you here. Um let's see here. We do offer Spanish interpretation services. Uh Jorge from Language Connection is here. If you need translation assistance in person, please check with Jorge for advice. And Jorge, would you please translate this for us? >> Thank you, Jorge. If you wish to make public comment this afternoon, there are two options for you. The first option is for commenting on agenda items only, and the second option, which comes towards the end of the meeting, is for all other topics. In order to speak tonight, you'll need to sign two forms, the sign-in form and the guidelines form. And we do provide live
002streaming for the meeting. The link can be found on our web page under the board of directors tab. >> Barb, would you please take the role? >> Director Shelton >> here. >> Director Walker >> here. >> Director Navaro Jr. >> here. >> Director Rice >> here. >> President Beckett >> here. Thank you, Barb. And I'm going to introduce Principal Espendola from Franklin to uh introduce a special student for us today. All right. So, welcome to Franklin Middle School. Uh before we get started, I'd like to welcome our ASB president up to do the pledge of allegiance and read our character word of the month. So, Mr. Jack Whitney as our ASB president for this year and he will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. [applause] >> Good evening everyone and please rise for the
003pledge of allegiance. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The December word of the month is altruistic. The definition is demonstrating a selfless concern for the well-being of others. >> Stay up there and see if you want have any questions. Any questions? Think about that. >> Jack, what grade are you in? >> I'm in eighth grade. >> We've seen you at the CTE awards dinners, haven't we? >> Many times. >> Yes. [laughter] Your name was familiar. >> Good luck with this year. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Anyone else? >> Thank you very much. >> Questions. I'm telling you. I was like, they might grill you. [laughter] >> Nice work.
004>> Thank you, Jack. >> Today, the schools of the Yakma School District rest on the ancestral lands of the 14 Confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama nation. The people of the Yakan nation inhabited more than 12 million acres. Franklin, Grant, Kittas, Kat and Yakama counties, Benas Grandasakim. >> Today we honor those native peoples who are tied to the land through history, legends, and culture. We acknowledge our descendants who live in the world today. >> We thank the caretakers of this land who have lived here and continue to live here since time immemorial. An acknowledgement is a simple powerful way to show respect. and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase indigenous people's history and culture. As a school district, we will continue to build upon our relations with the Yakama Nation.
005>> Thank you, Barb. Before we uh get to our uh presentation from Principal Espendola uh regarding Franklin Middle School, um Director Shelton and I have to take our oath of office. So, Dr. Green, will you be helping us with that? Absolutely. I invite you to join me here at the podium. We'll have you stand side by side right here. Make sure we can get you there in the centered in the video. We of course have to document this. So go ahead and raise your hand to the square. Haven't even started yet. Ready? [laughter] >> Need a photo. You got it. >> All right. Almost there. >> Each of you hold these. >> One more photo. >> May I borrow one? >> All right. Wonderful. Thank you. And uh before I administer the oath of office,
006I just want to acknowledge uh Jack. Where's is he still here? Did he take off? He's got things to do, which is good. He's got he's got a full schedule. Jack is also a member of our student senate. So, we're just I wanted to recognize that while he was still here, but I missed out. So, we're proud to have him. And I want to thank the board again for all of their work around student voice as we now reform uh our board. Uh anytime we add a new board member, it is a completely new board. So, we're excited about our new board opportunity. And with that, I will administer the oath of office, the director's oath of office. So, please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. I >> do
007solemnly swear >> domly swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the state of Washington >> and the laws of the state of Washington >> and to faithfully discharge the duties of the office >> to faithfully discharge the duties of the office >> at Yakama School District number seven. >> Director position one and two respectively. position one and two >> respectively. >> According to the best of my ability. >> Thank you. >> There you go. [applause] >> I just gave it away. >> Dr. Green, would you like to introduce uh Principal Espanola? Oh boy. Yes. Yeah. And I think I I'll actually pass this in just a moment. Hang on. I'm pass this just a moment to Maria
008Lucero who uh actually works uh with our executive directors. But uh I just do want to acknowledge that uh what a catch to have uh Principal Espendola here. Um it see I don't even know what it's been three years your second year as principal and it's so nice when we have somebody that is a part of a system assistant principal and then they can move into that lead role. Uh we have many buildings where somebody may come as an individual or a team from the outside but to have him really know what the building was about and then step into that lead role. Uh we're just proud to have him uh working with uh a population that is so important. and our middle school students. If any of you have ever worked with middle school
009students, uh you know that uh as a teacher, uh it's like dog years. Uh one year with middle school students is like seven. Uh it's because they're so interesting, so entertaining, and uh so malleable. And we're grateful again for your team and the work that you put in on behalf of our students and community. Would you like to add anything, Dr. Lucero? I just want to thank uh Principal Espendola for his leadership and for the heart that he has for the work that he does here at Franklin. Thank you Dr. Green and Dr. Lucettle for those kind words. Uh good evening everyone. Uh thank you for the opportunity um to be able to share the work that we have uh happening here at Franklin. There's been a lot of great work that has been done
010over the years um both in my tenure here over the last two years um as principal and even before that. And so before I get started on our presentation, I do want to acknowledge uh the efforts and uh that one of our teachers has made to contributing to the district as a as a whole. And just something that's a little piece of Franklin that's on your guys' table is actually the name plates that you see here um on the table were created by uh Mr. McFaden and his students using his laser engraver. And so Mr. McFaden actually was trying to make his way over there over there, but he's in the daycare line and there's just he's sent us Barb and I a quick email saying, "Hey, I'm not able to make it." But um
011I did want to make sure that we were acknowledging the efforts of Mr. McFaten and his students. the students actually were the ones that um adjusted and um programmed the names into Adobe Illustrator and were able to size them and and get them looking professional so that they fit these name plates. And they were actually able to do it uh within a day's turnaround. And so when uh board director Shelton and uh u board uh board director Beckett were elected, we ended up right after the election creating brand new name plates for you guys to welcome you uh on board. And this just our contribution to you guys and we also contributed some things to TNL as as well. So uh it's a little gift from us. [laughter] All right. So, uh, everything that you
012hear this afternoon is grounded in our work as a professional learning community here at Franklin and making sure that we ensure our mission of everyone learning at high levels. And when we say everyone, we mean everyone. The adults that teach in this building and the students that learn from the adults in this building. We believe that as educators we are continuous learners. And so when we were developing our mission statement, uh it really led to you will hear a lot of schools say all students will hear at high levels, but we wanted to acknowledge the efforts of the adults in this building as well. So any adult that walks through here has the opportunity to engage in high levels of learning uh throughout the school day or throughout the school year. When I entered here
013as the principal of Franklin, um my goal as the principal was to make sure that we were sustaining the work that was already happening within the building. Franklin is a foundational school and so uh the way we identify that is it's a school that is not identified uh for improvement through the state of Washington and through the Washington state improvement framework. And so my goal as the building principal is to sustain that and build upon the success that our teachers were already having in our school building. So when taking over Franklin, it wasn't to just completely overhaul the work that we were already doing. Our teachers were already engaged in the collaborative practices, but there was some fine tweaking and tuning that needed to take place. And so my goal was to create a framework
014for our teachers to follow so that any staff new to Franklin knew how we did business and was able to just come in and learn from their peers, from me as a building principal and from my assistants as they got to know what that system was. What you have on your guys' table is actually a more indepth picture of the foundation of the Franklin Middle School PLC's. And really what that is is it's our promise of ensuring that everyone learns at high levels. And it's to make sure that we are achieving our vision of students entering as learners and exiting as leaders by the time they exit the eighth grade here at Franklin. What our teachers do is our teachers engage in a set of core values that help us achieve our goals. And so
015you'll actually see that as our fourth pillar is the goals are actually our school improvement plan goals. And so we have three goals. We have a academic goal which is centered around literacy and numeracy and we have a students with disabilities and inclusion goal. Those are the two goals that you guys are going to hear about tonight in this presentation. And then we have a goal on attendance. So really this is the framework that grounds our work as collaborative uh teams here at Franklin Middle School. So again our academic uh school our academic goal is focused on literacy and numeracy and we shifted to literacy and numeracy rather than saying reading and math because we needed our staff to understand that it was our collective responsibility in the achievement of this goal that all staff
016were really responsible for teaching literacy and numeracy strategies building wide. And so what we did was when I when we identified this goal, we looked at our Washington school improvement framework data uh to really identify where our needs were in uh identifying the need for literacy and numeracy here at Franklin and um focusing on our students with disabilities. We also looked at our smarter balanced assessment data which fed into the exact strategies we needed to like be unified in throughout the entire school year. And so some of the things that we are doing uh in progress monitoring is this year we have the opportunity to have our star uh benchmark assessment which we give three times a year and then really focusing on something that's pretty unique to Franklin is the my path math um
017program and math my path reading program. those that program is an individualized program that students get to engage in during home room and in their math and ELA classes throughout the week to really fine-tune their skills when it comes to literacy and numeracy here at Franklin Middle School. So students take the benchmark assessment and then that benchmark assessment then communicates with the my path program to con to to create an individualized experience for students that they can engage in not only in the classroom but also at home as well. So, um, going into our literacy goal, uh, our our sorry, our numerousy goal, it says Franklin Middle School will use the PLC process during the 2526 school year to strengthen numerousy outcomes within a specific focus on extending operational strategies and foundational math skills to
018rational numbers, including fractions and decimals. And so a lot of our teachers were going to be like, "Okay, well, how do I apply that content knowledge to my my courses?" And what we did was we developed cross-content academic vocabulary. And it's actually in your guys's additional slides for you guys to see later on. But you will see what that numerousy what those numerousy crosscontent academic vocabulary words look like across band choir PE history so that everybody was really invested in in the goal. The next thing that we worked on was our goal surrounding our students with disabilities. So when we looked at our Washington state uh improvement framework data, we noticed that we were very close to the identifying threshold for our students with disabilities. And as an instructional leadership team, we knew that our
019focus needed to be on our students with disabilities. And so last year what I did um in May is I tapped a team of teachers to go into inclusionary practices and co-eing um on a larger scale. Uh so our discussions centered around the years that we found success in or with our students of disabilities was the years that we were having co-e work on a smaller scale. So what you'll see here is three years worth of data and this is our students with disabilities that were passing the SBA and this is specific to math. And so what you see is we have um 10% of our students with disabilities in the 22 23 school year um that showed proficiency in math and then uh 8% in the 2425 school year that showed proficiency uh in
020math. The gap that you see is the year that we didn't have an inclusionary practice or co-eing model happening uh within our school and that was due to staffing or or the or the person in that position just being too new to the idea of co-eing and and inclusion. And so we needed to rec we needed to recognize that those years where we had inclusion on a small scale, we had some success and we needed to act on it and bring it into the larger picture. And so again, I tapped six individuals, well, eight, so two resource teachers and three ELA teachers and three math teachers to really um dive into the co-eing model and work out the work out the bugs and kind of tweak our system and really develop that here this year
021so that we had something that was sustainable going forward. Um the chart that you see here on the right hand your right hand side is data from our end of our end of unit common assessments. And what we're excited about is that this is just data for our students with disabilities. And in this first common endofunit assessment where it's uh it's assessing a guaranteed standard or or one standard 50% or 52% of our students with disabilities actually met the proficiency within the common end of unit assessment. And so teacher A, what you'll see is teacher A is our teacher who is paired with a resource room teacher doing that co-e model and teacher B is teacher A's partner. And what we saw through that process is that teacher B was also benefiting from that collaborative
022practice and the strategies that teacher A and the resource teacher were engaging in. And so the three of them really showed some, you know, hopeful data um that we that we see here and we're hoping to see this trend like climb. Um I wasn't able to squeeze it into the presentation but I did have a conversation with our seventh grade like team and they were super excited to share that when they gave their end common end of unit assessment uh last week uh they actually saw that they had no students with disabilities in that co-e class um in the intensive category. So we measure intensive strategic benchmark. You might have you might have heard of it as tier 1, tier 2, tier three. Um but really we didn't have in that seventh grade common end
023of unit assessment any students with disabilities identified in that intensive category which was a huge surprise to us and which was just really good data that I wanted to share with you that I wasn't able to get um into the slide in time but um just being able to share that with you guys just is is awesome and we're just hoping to see the trajectory keep going here at Franklin. All right. So, the the next thing I wanted to share was how did we really get to making this work happen uh here at Franklin. So last year in my first year as principal, my goal was to make sure that we were giving the time that teachers needed during districtdirected Mondays to engage in the work, build the products or the units of study and
024really engage in the overall PLC process. And so last year during district directed um Mondays what we did was grade level teams met for about 45 minutes to talk with their partner teacher. So if I was the sixth grade ELA teacher and Mr. Morettto was my partner. We would meet for 45 45 minutes on that Monday and then we would go the the next 45 minutes as a department to share out some of the things that we were what we were doing. This year on on district directed Mondays, we've kind of separated the two. And the reason being is that the feedback from teachers was that they wanted more time with their grade level partners. And so I wanted to honor that and make sure that they had more time with their grade level partners.
025So that first district directed Monday of the month is spent with their grade level partner. And then that second district directed Monday of the month is spent with their entire vertical team to share strategies, ideas, the struggles that were happening within the unit um with each other. And so this work didn't just happen by magic. It it took a lot of kind of tilling the soil and making sure that our teachers were ready to create these units of study and engage in the PLC work. And so that work really happened on our district directed Wednesdays. And last year what we did is when we introduced the concepts of the units of study work, a lot of our teachers said that they knew how to really break down the standards. they knew how to plan. Um,
026but there was some steps and gaps that were missing. And so what I did is I gave our teachers an assessment or a rubric to really gauge what their knowledge base was when it came to the PLC system and the units of study system overall. And then um that is actually in your guys's packet as well. It's the document it's the document that looks like this. So, our department teams actually took this assessment and then what we did was we took the average scores of the assessment and decided to create our coaching plan from where teachers were the lowest and and that was making sure that um teachers had the time to write common assessments that were aligned to the essential standards. So that was that was how we kind of took it step by
027step last year on district directed Wednesdays. We wanted to make sure that the professional development was there for our teaching staff. And then this year our district-directed Wednesdays um I have dedicated that time for our teachers to really refine that process. Those units of studies are meant to be living documents so that they can come back yeartoear and refine them. you know, was this the right guaranteed standard? Was this the right common assessment that they gave? Um, what does the student data, what does our reflection from the past year tell us? What do we need to do differently this year in order to make sure students are successful? And so that is one of the things that I committed as a building leader was to make sure that um teachers this year had the time
028to refine those units of study, create the common assessments, and this year they're also working on proficiency scales. And proficiency scales are kind of like the ladder or the rungs that the the the rungs on the ladder that you take to kind of climb up to achieve the standard um that is needed to show proficiency um on that standard. And so before I move on, I'll open it up to any questions if there there's anything or I can just didn't want to make sure I was going too fast or anything. All right. [snorts] So, on your guys' slide deck, I've also had our ILT calendar on there, and there's an example of a unit of study so that you guys can see how our teachers engage in the unit of study process and plan around
029that and pace out their lessons throughout the unit. So, it could be anywhere between a two to six week unit, uh anywhere between 15 to 30 days. It really just depends on the teacher team and what they decide um it's going to take for a student to achieve the guaranteed standard that they're teaching. So some of the opportunities that um we have and some of the learnings that we're taking away is um we are continuing to focus on our literacy and numeracy strategy schoolwide. That by no means is a perfect system. We continue to engage in those discussions in our instructional leadership team meetings, in our professional learning teams, and really fine-tune what students need in order to be successful um at the grade level that they are currently in. Um and again in talking
030to our teacher teams, it's really making sure that students are achieving at grade level and are ready for the state assessments uh when they come around. And so those are the discussions that are continuing to happen and the opportunities that we continue to engage in as we move throughout this process. Um, one of the things that I do want to highlight is, um, the expanding work on our inclusionary practices and thanks to the support of, uh, Kevin Brennan and and Casey Mitchell, um, we're able to kind of expand those that work on the inclusionary practices side and getting our teachers to fine-tune that system as well. The co-eing model, there is no set prescription for what co-eing looks like. It really is about the partnership that is happening within um that team and the ideas
031that they're sharing with each other and constantly going back and forth engaging in the collaborative discussion um to see this is what worked with for students today, what's going to work with them for for them tomorrow, what is my part in this lesson, what's your part in this lesson, and really engaging in that deeper work. and it's been fun to see with the team that um I've tapped in the shoulders to to do that work. Um and before I move on, I do want to read a statement that was provided by our sixth grade math teacher um around the PLT process and the units of study process. And so this is a statement from Kim Gutierrez, my sixth grade math teacher, and I will read it to you guys. During the 2425 school year, my
032partner teacher and I began creating unit of study forms for uh for the follow or for the year. We would meet during our prep and PLT time to identify learning standards in the unit, create learning targets, specify depths of knowledge levels, and then plan our units. We also created common formative and summitative assessments and then recorded our data on the TA on the teacher analysis form. The unit of study form helped to generate conversations about where students did well, areas they could improve on, and strategies we were using. What we began to notice is that even though we were teaching different kids, our data was very similar because we were collaborating so closely. I was in my 11th year of teaching and she was in her third year. But you would never have known the
033difference. Unfortunately, my partner teacher is no longer here this year and I have a new partner. The work that we did last year on the unit of study form has been a great help to my new partner. At the start of the year, we met and I shared the unit of study forms with him. He was able to see the standards and learning targets for each unit and how we had planned each unit last year. Most units were broken down by weeks, but we have modified it this year to show a daily calendar. I think this will be even more useful for next year so we can look back and see what activity we did each day in our unit. We are still doing common formative and summitative assessments and recording our data on the
034form. We are now able to look back at last year's data and compare. Lastly, during the summer, I met with other sixth grade teachers from around the district to plan common assessments. And it was so nice to be able to refer to the unit of study form and know how many days were spent on each unit so we could create a common testing window for our assessments this year. Overall, I have found the units of study form to be a useful tool for planning units, recording data, and collaborating with my team members. So, that is from Kim Gutieras, our sixth grade math teacher. Um, thank you guys again for this opportunity and sharing just a little part of what's happening here at Franklin with all of you. And I will open it up for questions
035if you have any. >> No questions, but a comment. I'm really impressed with three of the things that you articulated. First of all, that every teacher is teaching vocabulary and have committed the to vocabulary across the school. I think that's so powerful. Second of all, that um I'm really pleased with what's happening with your professional learning communities that just it's you're doing it with fidelity and I think that really is making a difference. And third, um Yakama has a long way to go as a district with inclusionary practices and I think your your staff and you are leading the way with that and it's just wonderful to see that. As a former special education teacher, I'd love to see u a sincere effort to um go further into inclusion. So, congratulations to you and your
036staff. >> Thank you for the great presentation. Um I have uh I think probably just one question. You gave us some information about um improvement and growth for your special education students. >> Have you seen equivalent growth for gened kids and highly capable kids in in their um in their school lives? >> Um yeah. So our our our Washington state improvement framework data shows um growth for our not only our students with disabilities but also the growth for our general education population and our multilingual uh learners. And you know I one of the other things I could have focused on was um the growth that our multilingual learners have made as well. And just, you know, to make a long story short, um, we actually did kind of like a the same, uh, method in
037terms of like inclusion with our multilingual learners, but we did it through the co-planning process where we actually have a team of ELA teachers who is who are actually teaching EL classes. Um, and that's for our multilingual learners. and what we've noticed over the last uh three years. So the year um one of the years that I was the interim principal and I was able to bring um this program into into play was three years later we have a pretty high exiting rate um when it comes to our multilingual learners exiting program and making growth. So the first year we started I think we had three uh multilingual learners. The second year was six and last year we had um I would say 17 or 18 multilingual learners uh exit the program um just based
038off of what they learned in those classes. And so we are seeing growth in the gened uh population and in our multilingual learners as well. >> That's great news. Thank you very much. >> Yeah, >> I I do have a comment as well. I had the pleasure of meeting you early in your career, right, as a basketball coach. And I say that to to say that it's awesome to see all those skills you had as a at a b as a basketball coach transition to educational and a strategic leader. It's awesome to see that and I can still see you coaching, you know, being very strategic, shaping the the Franklin Middle School with organizational development concepts and approach, right? teamwork and systems thinking which are all just music to my ears, right? Organizational development. I
039think what else is strategic, operational strategies, framework, vision, mission, uh leadership, collaboration, all those uh terms that are awesome to and and it takes me back again to those days when you were coaching at uh Granger High School. But it's awesome how you're you're shaping the environment here, the educational environment to increase student academic achievement. So I just wanted to commend you. Thank you for your leadership and all the work that you do behalf of students. And also please relay our our our congratulations and our thanks to the faculty and staff here for the work that they're thank you so much for those kind words and I will make sure to relay that message. I I love this place. It's it's an it's an amazing place to work. >> Yeah. Hey, Principal Espendola. Uh, thank
040you. And I I I wanted to ask a question, pitch you a softball here that really wasn't part of your presentation, but uh you've done some tremendous work. Your staff has done fantastic work around the seal of biiteracy >> and students achieving that goal. Can you tell us a little bit about that? The board, keep in mind, you know, they don't I don't think they have that information. So, could you brag up a little bit on some of your other areas of goal number four? >> Yeah. So, um, you know, gosh, you know, I could talk about a lot of the things. I actually have a book that's, uh, our staff has with with with our systems and have all of that in play. Um, but, you know, to what Dr. in referencing what Dr.
041Green is uh talking about um our counseling department and I work really closely in making sure that um our students are high school ready and even our students that don't necessarily have the opportunity to engage in courses here that could give them high school credit, right? So, our traditional like algebra um you know honors honors classes, our algebra, geometry, our Spanish courses um but also give um our students the opportunity to kind of showcase what they have in terms of the skills um their bilingual skills. And so at Franklin, we have a very high turnout of students that um take the syllabi literacy um test. And over the last two years um we have sent I would say close to 200 students to the high schools um with one or more credits. Uh last year
042we had um 30 30 seals of biiteracy. So that meant the kids you know got all four credits on the seal of biiteracy test. Uh this year we have early data. We're about in the 20s and still waiting for for some, you know, students to to come in. But, uh, last year we sent about 110 students with high school, uh, with a credit for for high school. And and it's it's so amazing to see because they're they're students that don't always get to showcase their abilities or um in in some aspects would go into high school um credit deficient in their first quarter if they weren't taking it seriously. Um, but what this does is it kind of motivates them that because of the skills that they have either because it's been taught by us
043um here at Franklin through our Spanish language classes or it's been taught at home um because it is a monolingual household or a bilingual household that students get to showcase their skills, take that test and actually start high school um ahead of the game. And so it's just been kind of a point of pride uh for us here at Franklin to be able to um send students to the high school um college and career ready um you know with with one credit, two credits, three credits, four credits. Sometimes they're even leaving Franklin with six credits because they've done the honors math. So it's just been really exciting to be able to send that over to the high school and you know watch them succeed. Yeah. I just want to add something. Um, congratulations on that.
044By the way, >> the more credits that a student can enter high school with, >> the more flexible their course of study becomes, >> because we we all know that there's a minimum requirement of 24 credits that students must accomplish by the end of their senior year. And because we are in a six period day, 6 periods times 4 years equals 24. It gives them no room >> for anything to happen other than perfection. >> Yeah. and you have given them some wiggle room within their schedule that they can actually take an elective if they want to or take some other class that will help them you know explore a little bit more uh in an area that they that they might have some interest in. If they require 24 credits and we stay with
045the system that we have, which is all, you know, the required classes, they don't have that that flexibility. And your you and your staff have given them a gift by continuing to offer those opportunities for high school credits when they leave middle school. So, congratulations. Good job. Thanks. >> Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much for the presentation. >> All right. And I think the next part is our tour, right? >> And and yes, >> sorry, did I interrupt you? >> Yes, but >> yes. And I think is how we were supposed to say this. Um we do have some other students from uh Davis High School here today. And so before we break for the uh tour here at Franklin, uh if there's no objection, I'd like to modify the agenda and have
046Dr. Mr. Green maybe uh introduce um Mr. Ree and uh we can go through that first and then they can go home work on their homework or whatever it is that they need to do and we can do the tour. >> Okay, >> that's good. Awesome. Thank you guys. >> And then those are stickers by the way. You got a little bit of Franklin with you so those can go right on those laptops and you know you can display them loud and proud for the other middle schools to see. >> I'd like to invite uh Mr. Dr. Lee Ree and uh Gabe Stos, come on up. That's not my intro. And bring all of your students with you. Thank you that are here. We'd love to see them. Uh just uh as they walk up
047here, I just want to acknowledge our CT director, Gabe Stoson, the work that he does. And then Lee Ree. I know that, you know, Lee uh seems like he came into the district about the same time as I did, and I've been in close association with him over the last several years. It's just go so good to see the work that he has done on behalf of our district and working with students. And so I'd like to turn the time over to I think it's starting out with Gabe. Is it you please? >> Good evening everybody. So one of the projects we worked on this year at Davis High School was in the woodworking construction class. Um one of the requirements of all CTE courses as a workbased learning experience. And so with this project,
048we really wanted to simulate the students um learning woodworking skills, learning the construction skills, but really try to make it feel like they were on a job. So when I first approached Mr. Lee Ree about this project, we're like, "Hey, we have some retirees coming up. Is there any way that your students would be able to design some cutting boards um and actually kind of make it like a class competition where, you know, I'm the client. here's the constraints that they need to kind of abide by. Um, but I'll come back in and kind of evaluate what these boards look like and we can continue to fine-tune the design down. So then we could really go truly into the manufacturing phase. I would say that took a couple of weeks, right, with scale drawings, kind
049of some of the safety stuff that does generally go on in a construction class, um, the tools. Um, but when Mr. Ree approached me, he goes, "Hey, I got about 15 different designs. You want to come check them out?" And I was like, "Sure, that sounds great." You know, so I went down there and and the work that the students did was remarkable. They had very awesome designs across the board. But with the timeline that we had, we were like, "Wow, some of these might if if we got to kick out 2530 boards, we're not going to do this in three weeks just due to the complexity of the designs." So the ones that our students have are the ones that I did select as the client and then Mr. RER really did run them
050through the manufacturing of, okay, now we have a solid blueprint. Here's how we're going to manufacture these so we can get these boards ready for three weeks. Um, so with that being said, I'm going to kind of turn this over to Mr. Re. He did really did lead the students on this project and did a very wonderful job. So with that being said, Mr. Lee Re. >> Hi. Uh, I may be a teacher, but I still get nervous talking with adults. Okay. Uh so yes so we [snorts] were actually working on some other projects and then uh when Mr. Sods came into the classroom we were like okay so I don't know if you guys remember but I I uh made an announcement I was like all right guys we're going to pivot so you
051know and I did like a kind of a general survey like are you guys interested in this? You guys want to try tackling this? And they said absolutely it was unanimous. So I have 25 students in that classroom and only three of them were able to come today. uh more wanted to come but they uh no rides and and whatnot. Uh anyways uh so the three weeks was um it was a little bit more than three weeks that the total process took about two months. Um and uh I was get a lot of calls and check-ins like you going to be done in time you gonna be done in time like yeah yeah yeah we will. Uh and uh also I put that pressure back on the students. So the three that are here um
052these were uh three that was was actually uh kind of works out because these are the three that kind of led and where like the quality control right so uh they finished their boards early they were the ones that were supposed to check with the other groups. So each group of about three uh three to four students uh each created about three to four boards. Um, and even even today we had a discussion about, well, if we were to do this again, how could we streamline this to make it better? So, we had a pretty good discussion. Uh, I really enjoyed it. Uh, I think the kids enjoyed it for the most part. Uh, but um, not really about me. We should bring the kids up here and see how what they thought about the
053experience. So, we have Oliver, Thomas, and Francisco. >> [applause] >> Uh yeah, I'm Oliver and good evening everybody. So what I think about this project is you know it's it was a it was a good it was something great to do especially like going to all our retired students that I feel are very important not just for our community but for the future. And you know the process was kind of long and uh but I know I I enjoyed it a lot. Great experience you know in like um making a cutting board like working with something new like it was not something that I had done before but you know it was great to do and something I really enjoy. [applause] >> Hello. Uh, if it works. Hello. Um, my name is Thomas Cameron Beckett.
054I, um, part I enjoyed about making the boards was, um, I'd guess oiling them. I enjoyed that part the most. And also sanding. And I also hope that the retirees loved them cuz I put my time into that. And I enjoyed putting my time. And um what else am I going to say? I also enjoyed getting to work my partners on this job and I hope I get to work with partners again sometime. Um thank you very much. [applause] >> Hi, my name is Francisco. Um I'm not really much of a public person. Well, [laughter] uh, the most part I I enjoyed was making it with friends. Uh, difficult part was waiting [laughter] for it to dry, then the sanding. It was pretty difficult, but at the same time, it was a fun. Thank you.
055[applause] I didn't realize I was going to put them on the spot so blatantly, but uh they did a great job. So, I should have said uh questions for them instead of having them just come up with something on top of their head. But uh yeah, if you would if you have particular questions about the process that would make it more easy for them to to answer, that would be uh great, I think. Yeah, >> I don't have a particular question. And I'm I want to congratulate you on coming out of this with all 10 fingers. And I wanted also to tell you that the boards were lovely. They really were. Um we had retirees come up to us afterward and tell us how much they appreciated those and how they will have a a
056place of honor in their home. Um, they're not only nice nicely done, but they're also um something that you can use every day. Most of them weren't going to use them to cut on. By the way, congratulations on on all your work, your hard work with these. Um, these these are a keepsake for folks. So you they have a piece of Davis High School in their house. >> And yes, so the safety thing uh they will tell you over and over again that uh my number one rule is to always walk away with the same number of fingers >> [laughter] >> uh every day. You know, count them when you come in, count them when you go out. Toes, too. I'll just uh add to what Director Rice said. I know that the retirees appreciated
057them very much. There was an extremely professional job and I think it's really really special uh for the retirees to know that they were handcrafted by students in our own district. So, we can't thank you enough and I hope you're very proud of the work that you put in on that. It really turned out nicely. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you for being here. [applause] >> Okay. At this point, we'll take a 12minute tour. >> Okay, everybody ready? This takes us to section C in our agenda for updates. The first item on the list are updates from members of the board. Does any board member have anything they'd like to report back on? >> Yeah. Um, Norm and I and Dr. Green and Barb were at the um WAZDA annual conference the weekend
058before this last one. And it was in Seattle and Barb actually did a workshop and I had I got rave reviews from everybody that I talked to that said that you did a wonderful job and that you should come back and do it again. [laughter] But she did a workshop on for um assistance to the board and um then we h we were there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and left Saturday. Right. Um Wednesday, Norm and I were in um >> Thursday. Yeah, we arrived Wednesday night. >> Yeah. Okay. Thursday we were in the law conference which is a pre-conference workshop that is pretty much all day and it updates board members on changes to current law um best practices that have come bubbling up through the through the system. And um it's it's always a bit
059of an eye openener the law conference because you know these are lawyers that that do put the conference you know are the keynote speakers for the conference and they um I think they come into that their sole purpose is to scare school directors to death. [laughter] >> No. Um and Pam next year perhaps or in the interim between now and then there is a workshop for um for new board members and I really hope that you take advantage of attending that either next year or [clears throat] between now and then. Um I asked if there would be a workshop for in the past they've done like a winter um session for one for the east side of the state and one for the west side. They didn't know if they were going to do that.
060Um but I I guess there's some kind of a mailing list that they've got for new board members and so you may have gotten something on that already. Um, but it really is is a good prequel to things that you're going to be dealing with as a board member. >> So, um, I hope that you get a chance to take advantage of that. >> I will. Thank you. Um, I went to two sessions that were not that were follow-on sessions of leading through turbulent times, which was um they were they were good sessions. It used to be a two-part and then they broke it up and it's they the presenters tried to pair it down to one part twice and they couldn't get there. So we they kept it at two parts but it was
061um it was very good. It was um done by the Northshore school board members and Northshore went through some turbulent times of their own over the last few years and it was there was a lot of learning that they took advantage of through that process and they shared with us what their leadership [clears throat] looked like during that time. Um, I took advantage of a large schools caucus session where they talked about levies and bonds and um it was there there are some horror stories and there are some um stories that will um warm your heart about levies and bonds that have um have or have not had the opportunity to get passed by their community. And then the last the last day um we were all in a uh breakfast session with Kathy Davis
062as the presenter. Kathy is uh the principal of the year for Washington State. Um she's the principal at Ruby Bridges Elementary in um Northshore. And her her whole presentation was how she developed this school whose sole mission is belonging. And um I think it was probably one of the highlights of the s the whole conference. Um there's they have a high um special ed population in this school and it was it was very affirming to listen to her and how she turned that school around. and um used this the topic of belonging to really bring everyone together and we know that a lot of our schools are using that also as their mission. So, um it was it was really encouraging to hear her and I don't I don't know if you have anything to
063add. Oh, a couple things [laughter] >> actually that the presentation from Northshore was Ruby Bridges is a model of inclusion. It's probably a national model of of how to go about the process of inclusion of all kids and creating a sense of belonging for all kids is very powerful. So, I think some of our administrators have have actually toured Ruby Bridges and had a presentation there >> and we worked with >> Yeah. >> Miss Bridges a number of years ago. >> Oh. Um, >> well, we worked with Ruby Bridges came here herself as a presenter >> at one point. >> Yeah. Well, I wanted to follow up a little on the law conference because there's some things coming down the road that that we probably really need to take a deep dive into. There's some
064major changes in law and a lot of the conference focused on school discipline law and school discipline policy. And there's some big changes this year and some of them are good and some of them make you wonder you know they should have spent a little more time in the smokefield room working it out I think because there are some things that are kind of scary in the law. So um but uh there is a model policy was Washington state school directors association has already developed a model policy that incorporates the new law and so I'm I mentioned to Ryan earlier I think at at some point we should probably be taking our district policy and and go through it and update it so it's consistent with new state law and with and using the model
065policy as a guide to help us do probably something we could do in our retreat in January is take a look at >> done that already >> there I'm not going to go into all the details but there's there was a lot of stuff in it around discipline and what you can do and can't do and what administrators can do and what teachers can do and so there's a lot of new stuff in there that we want to make sure we're doing the right thing for our students and and for our staff. So, um, that was one. Another one, uh, um, oh, that's more of the discipline policy. I'm not going to go into that now. Another another thing that's of concern, and this has to do with um special ed law, um, is the
066concern of highcost need students. It's it's a it's a major we have students that and other districts do too. We have students whose costs of their services run half a million to a million dollars a year and that's more and more that's a major cost in a student in a system and so we have to be prepared to deal with that under undera lasts um who knows what's coming out of the feds is certainly not consistent with what's happening at the state level. So, those are some things that we'll need to be sorting out as well around policy, including Title N policy right now, uh, Title 9 policy around sexual harassment and other kinds of sexually oriented topics. There's major conflict between what's happening at Title 9 at the federal level and what our state
067policies and procedures are coming out of OSBI and some of those are going to go into court. So, we're meanwhile as schools, we're still caught having to make sure that we're doing the right things by our students and families and uh also following the law. So, that's not going to be an easy one. So, those are some things coming down the road. Um, one other thing that came out of, um, at one of our events we were at, we we were at a table with the Union Gap School District and one of their concerns they expressed to us was transition of eighth graders and that's always a challenge for our eighth graders coming in from Union Gap to here. U, in fact, I noticed on our agenda tonight that um, we have an event coming
068up later this week or early next week for eighth graders. uh have we invited the Union Gap eighth graders to be there so that they're good. So they felt like they weren't getting everything they need all the time. And so and it's easy to forget because they're in a different district, but we want them to feel ready to go and welcome when they arrive here as ninth graders. So, and again, [snorts] we also had the conversation, we used to meet once a year, I think, with Union Gap, and that fell by the wayside um when COVID hit and we haven't reestablished that, but they expressed interest in at least having one meeting a year in conjunction with them to talk about shared interests and concerns. So, we might want to think about doing that. Um,
069and again, I I I attended a different one on bonds than you did. And unfortunately, it had more the one I attended had more to do with levies than bonds. And so, it wasn't as timely as one on bonds because we don't need a levy right now, but it would have been helpful to have more on bonds. Um, so I won't go into that right now. Again, that's that's kind of my summary of the it was a really good conference and and um it was nice to go to one. It's been a few years since I've been able to attend, so it was nice to update myself. So, I don't know, Trevor, did you want to add anything? >> Okay. I just want to let the board know that my grandchildren invited me to a
070trip on the 16th, so I couldn't say no. So, I'll be missing our last board meeting of 2012. Just want to let the board know. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, I've informed the board in previous weeks about the AWSL award, which is the um Association of Washington School Leaders, a culture kickoff award. Uh, this was the inaugural year of that award. We had two schools identified. One is Davis High School and the others was Adams Elementary. Uh they will receive their award uh tomorrow uh Davis High School at 12:30 uh p.m. and Adams uh at uh 1:00 p.m. So I'll be at both of those events. Just informing the board of that celebratory uh nature that's happening uh uh tomorrow. As far as other announcements, just dovetailing off of what was shared previously, we did
071have um uh Kathy Davis uh the principal at Ruby Bridges. Uh by the way, Ruby Bridges is about 550 students. She's the only principal there. Uh they also had the teacher of the year. Uh so she was principal of the year and teacher of the year in that building. Uh we did go there under the uh Balmer group grant that we received along with the in conjunction with the work at the University of Washington around inclusion and belonging. So this last year, all of our elementary uh principles and early learning principles went to see Ruby Bridges Elementary and um hear uh uh Cath Kathy Davis speak. Uh she did a phenomenal job. Uh so I'd just like to echo that. I have already been in touch with her on the way home. Uh she and
072I spoke. I did go to her session afterwards. Um it was probably the best closing co uh keynote that I've heard. uh we will be trying to bring her to uh in some capacity to uh work with our leaders and perhaps uh there's a possible keynote in the future. Uh we had a an inclusion kickoff this last year in August to all of our staff uh which was very wellreceived and I think that this could be a nice uh way of keeping the momentum going from an actual practitioner here in Washington state and show the movement that has been made uh in their building. So, uh, we're grateful to Kathy Davis and her staff for the work that they've done and the model, uh, that they're, uh, displaying for us and around the state. And,
073uh, we're very fortunate to have, uh, them as, um, colleagues and, uh, and help us mentor mentor us through this process of inclusionary practices. Uh, the ledge priorities are out. Uh I know um Martha was at that large caucus session and uh I will send you a link this evening to the legislative priorities for our district which have been pre-approved. You just have not seen them in hard copy form or on the website. So that'll be forthcoming. Uh Martha they or director Rice the the I had several people comment on on how they really appreciated the legisl legislative priorities the document that was shared out. So kudos to our uh communications department. Ashley, please convey that. So uh heard every everything from school directors to superintendents and I think Marissa Wthbone even said something today
074uh in a meeting that I had with her. Uh for those of you that don't know, Marissa Wthbone is the assistant u governance director at U uh uh Washington Association for School Administrators uh formerly at WASDA for the school directors. uh and the reason for bringing her name up is I was also part of a coalition today. It is the uh coalition for school funding and uh that is made up of eight statewide educational associations of of nearly 8,000 leaders. So I was invited to be a part of that group. Um during this session today, I was able to report out on the soups group, which is still being recognized as the um the first group in the state to fully address uh state funding along with uh the big idea group of uh uh
075Representative Santos and then of course the uh equity task force that came out of House Bill 2049. Uh so this is a fourth entity. This is not at the same kind of level that uh of recognition that the other three groups are are are receiving. Um I have not been a part of this session before. Uh and I'm I'm gathering that this has existed for a while and it's being reestablished. So it's it's really interesting that this organization representing everything from uh school professionals to the business community to CTE principles uh I think I said superintendents, school directors uh is engaging in this process as well. and I'll send you a link also to the school funding coalition uh site so that you could see that also and know what's happening with respect to that
076um that group. And uh I think that's all that I have for you this evening. Just uh I would reiterate the um impression that uh Barb Fiscus left in her celebration as she shakes her head in her uh presentation. Um there is already talk significant talk about having a strand for um um our executive assistance and working with the board. Uh I was able to be in that room. There were I think four superintendent uh there was about 20 um 22 22. So both uh I think we all expected to have a very small number and to have so many people and uh have Barb uh share her insight. I think that everything that she shared could be a strand in itself. So I think in the future we'll we're likely to see at was
077a an opportunity that didn't exist previously and I think it speaks very highly of Barb to be named to that and uh already be approached at developing a uh strand for WADA. So I also wanted to recognize that you all know how valuable she is and she keeps everything functioning. So thank you Barb and congratulations on on that presentation. Thank you, Dr. Green. Our highlights for community engagement are uh noted in board docs. We have the upcoming board meeting schedules. There's also the action or excuse me, the engagement highlights, which is uh four pages of events coming up in different buildings around the district. So, I'd encourage you to check that out. And if you want to uh attend any of those, please be sure to let Barb or Dr. green no so we can
078make sure that that can be accommodated. This will take us to our first uh opportunity for comment from the public. Do we have anyone signed up? >> Not at this time. >> Move right on then to policy governance section D. We have the approval of ratings for policy 1000.2.6 and 1000.2.3. We only have two responses uh for both of those uh policies, but both of those uh responses that came in did indicate uh board and superintendent compliance. Does any member of the board wish to add or elaborate on any comments? >> I turned mine in late. seems to be that's the the norm anymore. Anyway, um I also I agree with the the um recommendations and the the evaluations that came out of these two um these two policies because both um ratings came in
079as 100% compliance. I move that we approve the ratings for 1,00.2.6 and for 1,00.2.3. >> Second. >> Been moved and second to approve both uh ratings 1000.2.6 and 1000.2.3. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much, Barb. on our agenda. I don't have an actual call for that second spot for public comment. Can I insert that here since we're close to the end? So, we do have our second opportunity which would be for any other uh item or topic if anybody has signed up. >> There still is no one signed up. >> Just making sure. Thank you very much. Uh uh Dr. Green, do we have need for executive session this evening? Uh we do not but I have one
080comment or >> if I may. >> Absolutely. >> Uh I neglected to recognize I know that director uh Rice was calling out the importance of our WASDA uh conference. Uh I did want to call out that our new director Pam Shelton is signed up for the boot camp online. So that's already been taken care of. So that was one item. And um >> um I think that's Oh, the other one is um if it's okay with the board. So, you give me the give me the go-ahad. Since we weren't able to have all 25 of the wood shop students here, I would be happy to attend their class and thank them on behalf of the board. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Well, um again, thank you to the staff
081and students at Franklin Middle School for hosting us here today. Um again, welcome, Director Shelton. >> Thank you. And we have our next meeting December 16th at 7 p.m. We'll miss you, Director Navaro. Uh but we'll be meeting at central services on the 16th at 7:00. And until then, we are adjourned.