001Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's 4:00, so I'll call the meeting to order of the October 6th board meeting for the Yakma School District. We do offer interpretation services from Jorge with Language Connection. If you need translation assistance this afternoon, please check with Jorge for a device. And Jorge, would you please translate this for us? >> Thank you very much. If you wish to make public comment this afternoon, there are two options available for you. The first option is for commenting on agenda items only. 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, which I believe were located back by the door. We provide live streaming for the meeting. The
002link can be found on our web page under board of directors or going directly to yd7.org meetings. Barb, would you please take the role? >> Director Walker, >> here. >> Director Navaro Jr., Director Rice >> here >> and President Beckett >> here. >> Vice President Voeva is excused. >> To begin the meeting today, I'd like to invite three students from the Davis News Network to please come to the podium and uh help lead us in the opening ceremonies. Our flag is located over there by the restrooms. So, if you may, please rise and remove your hands for the pledge 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, for liberty and justice for all. >>
003That was our student Crystal. And now, please welcome Valerie and floor for character word of the month. This month's character word of the month is empathetic. Cultivating the ability to understand and share the feelings and perspectives of others. Thank you very much to the three of you for helping start the meeting today. Our part of our tour this afternoon will be with the Davis News Network room. So, this is appropriate to have you guys here with us to begin. Um, at this point, Barb, can we please have the land acknowledgement >> today? The schools of the Yakam School District rest on the ancestral lands of 14 Confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama nation. [Music] The people of the Yakan nation inhabited more than 12 million acres across Adams, Benton, Chalan, Douglas, Franklin, Grant, Kittas,
004Kat and Yakama counties. 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. respect [Music] >> and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase indigenous people's history and culture. It also honors the truth. [Music] As a school district, we will continue to build upon our relations with the Yakama Nation. In the public comment section in Boardocks this afternoon, you'll find the link to a Yakama Herald Republic obituary for one of the members of our Yakama School District family. I'd like to ask you all to please join me in a moment of silence to honor the
005memory of Leanne Kemp Chandler. Thank you. We have recognition of school administration. Dr. Green, would you like to begin? >> Thank you, President Beckett, members of the board. Today, I recognize a group of leaders whose daily efforts shape the success of our schools, our principles. Uh October is National Principles Month and it provides us the opportunity to publicly honor the dedication, skill and heart of the principles that they bring every day to work. Principles are more than managers of a building. Uh they are instructional leaders, culture builders, problem solvers, vision keepers. They set the tone for their schools and they ensure that staff feel supported, students feel safe and safe and engaged and families feel welcomed. Their leadership directly impacts the climate of a school and ultimately the achievement of well-being of every student that
006we serve. In the Yakama school district, our principles lead with courage, compassion, and conviction. They balance countless responsibilities while while never losing sight of our core mission, which is to provide every student with a high quality, equitable education. Their leadership creates the conditions which teachers need to teach their best to students and get them to learn, grow, and thrive. On behalf of the school board and our community, I want to express my deepest gratitude to each of our principles. Your leadership matters. Your influence extends far beyond the walls of your schools, and your daily commitment to excellent continues to make a lasting difference for our students, our staff, and our community. We know that nothing makes a difference for a student like a high-quality teacher in the classroom. But second to student achievement is having
007a high quality principal in every building. and your leadership is that uh high quality need that we have uh that moves us forward collectively. Thank you for the work that you do and the lives that you touch. We celebrate you this month but also every month. I've asked um executive director Hector Mendes to come up and what we're going to have next is he is going to read the names of our principles. We'd like you to come up by building uh just to the center and then maybe you can exit to the left. I think we have uh Kirsten, we have some cookies for each of our participants. There's Melanie. Could you pass that out? Uh but please come up as you're called. I believe the first two and then don't curtsy or anything. We
008just want to recognize you and acknowledge you. Uh and uh just advance with the down arrow, Hector, and thank you for uh taking this on. >> Absolutely. Can you guys Yes. Okay. First off, uh thank you on behalf of of uh TNL. Um I know Dr. for Maria Lucero and Jamie could not be here, but Miss Davidson and I are. So, congratulations. First off, we're going to start with Adams. And can we hold our applause to the very end? That we can give one shout applause. Here we go. To uh name our admin over at Adams Elementary, we have Principal Doug Kapliki and AP Jose Contas. I said hold their applause. I can't do it. >> Yeah, those. Congratulations. >> Next, Barge Lincoln Elementary. We have principal Tory Brennan and AP Michelle Qualo. >> Gar
009Michelle, if you stay there. Uh, >> we also want to congratulate uh Garfield Elementary, Steve Brown, and Michelle Quallo. Thank you for setting the stage, Principal Brown. >> Over at Gilbert Elementary, we have Principal Stephanie Rossback and AP John Solar. And over at Mccclure Elementary, we have Jane Bourgeoa and AP John Solar. Again, at K8 Virtual, we have Miss Brenda Maloney. At Hoover Elementary, we have Julio, Principal Julio Sanchez and AP Cheryl Jordan at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary. Principal Samantha How AP Sid John. At Ridgeview Elementary, we have principal Chris uh Whitehurst and AP Sid John. >> At Whitney Elementary, we have uh Brandon, principal Brandon Hunt and AP Cass Nally. At Discovery Early Learning Center, we have Principal Lucas Jagger and AP Castelli. How you doing? >> At Robertson Elementary, we have uh
010Principal Carrie Davis, AP Ryan Treat. At Roosevelt Elementary, we have Cass Miller, principal, and Ryan Treat, AP. At McKinley Elementary, we have Principal Amanda Vorhees. And at Knobill Elementary, Principal Craig Smith, all the names I just mentioned are elementary and K virtual. Middle Schools, Team Franklin, we have Principal Andrew Espendola, APS of Faith Lindley, and Tahisha Ayalarin. At Lewis and Clark Middle School, we have Principal Vicky Fogles, AP Stephanie Casillas, and Swan Eaton. at Washington Middle School principal Bill Hilton. So Nunes Gonzalo Gillian and at Wilson Middle School principal Ernesto Araisa AP amani Aria and Tally Garcia at AC Davis High School. High School. Dr. Heather Hasty, principal. AP's Bob Stanley, Lorenzo Alvarado, Ector Kamacho, and Jill Sea. At Stanton Academy, we have principal Natalie Riley and AP Arlando L. >> Hey, good job. >>
011Thank you, sir. >> At Eisenhower High School, Principal Eric Diner, AP's Paul Stevens, Ruby Ruby Armiko, Michael Guaglani, Guagliani, thank you, and Henry Samson. I apologize, Mike. >> And YV Tech, >> principal Bonnie Smith, AP Funfam. All right, everyone has been introduced. Let's give a round of applause to our administrative team. >> Wonderful. Thank you, uh, Hector. Thank you, members of the board. Most of all, thank you, uh, to all of our principles. I don't know, uh, uh, Kirsten, where you at? Are we taking them to the stairs and up above on the deck maybe to have a group photo? So, we'd go ahead and invite our principles to go ahead and exit out onto the uh the deck of the ship out there. Heather, you can show them where and uh we'll have Kirsten
012follow. Thank you. >> That's okay. I think we'll take about a fivem minute recess to allow that to happen because the next item on our agenda will be the Davis presentation. So, this will give Heather time to take care of that. So, we'll be back in 5 minutes. >> Okay. Thank you all for uh for the uh quick recess. Like to introduce uh Dr. Heather Hasty to do our Davis High School presentation and then tell us about the tour. Welcome. Or I would say I usually say welcome, but technically thank you for having us. Welcome. It was, but it went off. >> Okay, I think we've got it. Okay, welcome to Davis. Appreciate you being here. Welcome to the board and to everyone else. Um, would like to draw your attention to Miss Carol Hull's
013student art on the sides you saw as you were coming in. And some of that was up at the fair. We had a lot of artwork up at the fair. You will also see when you visit Mr. wrist room, you will see some photography that was up at the fair as well. So, it's very cool. And we acknowledge principles, assistant principles. I would also like to acknowledge our instructional facilitator, Alita Miller, who is very helpful and very integral to our leadership team here at Davis. Okay. So, as far as today, a little different than in times past. We will focus on on one area that we are working on here at Davis High School. You have as far as a slide deck, you have a full slide deck that's in the board docs that shows
014multiple slides. I'll only be going through five of them during this time and then you can ask questions at the end. Okay. So first of all at Davis for as a start our shared mission and our promise to our children is that we educate students for success lifelong learning employment and social awareness. This defines why we exist here at Davis. Our vision we are dedicated, honorable and safe. So if you notice the DHS dedicated, honorable and safe. We also have our shared values. Our shared values, our core values at Davis, and you will see this poster all over the school. And it's that at Davis, we do second chances. We apologize. We forgive easily. We respect each other. We keep our promises. We never give up. We encourage one another. We laugh often. We belong.
015And we are family. as far as our shared goals. So, what do our professional learning communities aim to achieve? What are we measuring? We'll talk more about more in depth on these, but our school improvement plan, our goals are increasing freshmen on track, increasing our on-time graduation rate, increasing our reading proficiency, increasing our math proficiency, and increasing our attendance by class period. You also have slides that go more in depth on the goals as well. some of the intentional instructional leadership moves and just leadership moves in in general that we have made. One is with professional learning teams with our PLTS we gave choice. We gave our teachers choice as to what team that they would be on so that they would have the full time on Mondays and Wednesdays to collaborate with that team.
016So, as you know, in high schools, sometimes people teach multiple pieces, right? You have biology and chemistry, maybe the same teacher, but they get to choose which of those teams they would be on to to an extent. If they're a nth grade English teacher teaching all nth grade ELA, they wouldn't be teaching be in a 12th grade PLT. Okay. Their other professional learning teams though have documents that are in a shared drive. I'll talk about in a minute. But that was one thing very intentional that helped us from the get-go four years ago for our teachers to really want to do that work because they had some choice in that work and what that looked like and what team they were working with our building leadership team. So our administrators and our instructional facilitator. So
017last year I had each of them focus on one professional learning team. At Davis we have over 30 teams. Okay. So it's very different looking than perhaps an elementary school might be. And so with our team although we evaluate and oversee a variety of teams, we said we're going to focus on one so that when we meet together and we meet together every Monday, we can talk about how is that team doing? how what is the progress like? How do we share with each other the successes, the challenges of that team? So that we weren't just trying to get to every single team all the time because that wasn't that wasn't something that was doable and that wasn't something then that allowed us to really focus and to work with a team. And so this
018has been really successful. We're doing the same thing this year as well. And when this next bullet, another intentional move, we're focusing on a new shared drive to monitor the PLT progress and the artifacts. So that also is where our teams can see what each other's doing, how they're progressing, get ideas from one another. We've come up with common templates. So we have one common agenda agenda form um a a data analysis form and then our common formative assessments and our scope and sequences are all in a shared drive and each team has a folder so that we can monitor as well and that we can talk about it and then we can see artifacts also schoolwide reading goal. So, this I'm really proud of because a a few years ago, four, three years ago,
019I believe, we focused on reading schoolwide, which meant we came up with our reading goal. Everybody was wrapped around the same um schoolwide reading strategy of marking the text that was vetted through our instructional leadership team as well as all staff. And we really we monitored at that time using the reading inventory. So we had the reading inventory as far as a benchmark assessment that we did three times a year and then last year it was fast brbridge changed to fastbridge. This year we are using the star renaissance assessment. That's something on another slide as well. But the other great thing about the schoolwide reading goal is that we got to the point where the students were tracking their own progress which a high school and high school students tracking their own reading progress. This
020was everybody freshman through seniors. That's a big deal. So in the student led conferences, they were talking to their their parents. What's their Lexile level? Where's their reading level? It it turned the conversation from not just what grade do I have or what am I not passing to where is my reading? How am I improving? Another intentional move that I made as a principal this year was to concentrate the number of staff who teach and support freshmen. So, for example, English, the ELA team, the English um language arts team I went to and I said, "Hey, I'd really like to have a core group of you who all you teach is freshmen." And you know what? I had volunteers, which was incredible. So that was pretty amazing. Not everybody was perfect, but we're good. We
021got people on board who wanted to do that. And then likewise, for example, with science. Okay, we need to have less people who teach biology so that they can concentrate on that. And then you can have crosscurricular um discussions and you can talk about the kiddos that you have and what they need instead of just being super independent. We also have and by the support it's not just the who's teaching our freshmen because remember we have the freshman on track goal. It's also the support. So we have a freshman transition specialist. That is our sole job is working with the freshmen. Okay. And um we also have some other team members within that as well. So that that actually is a a huge thing as we go forward. And then I come to what our
022focus is. And our focus for this year is a schoolwide focus on our multilingual learners and on how they are progressing, how they are growing, how they are growing in their development of the English language, but also how are they progressing in their success as far as grades, sense of belonging, all of those things together. And just as a a a side note, at Davis High School, we have over 500 multilingual learners. So that's a large that's a large number of our population out of 2,300 students. So why that focus and how will we monitor that focus? So first of all, the progress of the multilingual learners in reading what the data that we looked at. So, and and what we're using to monitor. So, we looked at reading benchmark assessment data. And again, to
023go back to what I said earlier, this we first started with the reading inventory and we had that for a number of years. Last year, it was the fast bridge for our reading assessment. This year though, on that first bullet, we've switched to the star reading assessment three times a year. It's given in fall, winter, and spring. But that particular data on reading benchmark showed that hey we we need to work on this. Absolutely. Our freshman on track data. You have some slides that are in the slide deck that are hidden slides that go even more in depth on this and with the historical assessment data on each of these pieces. The freshman on track data. And just as a reminder, freshman on track would be freshmen passing all of their classes. Okay. So, there's
024definitely a difference between all and our multilingual learners monitoring. Another thing, monitoring individual students through case loads. So, something we'll be doing this year as well and tracking is similar to what our migrant graduation specialist does for our migrant students. We have a teacher who will be monitoring our students through a case load and looking at some individual students approximately about 50 of our multilingual learners. So that's another way that we will monitor our WEDA assessment. Now the WEDA assessment is the assessment for language development and growth and progress in our state. WEDA no longer stands for something just as an FYI because it used to be something that had it used to be a multitude of states that banded together for this assessment and now it's just become the WEDA assess assessment in general.
025I did look it up because I know acronyms sometimes people are like what's it mean? And so it truly doesn't it right now. So just so you know um the Smarter Balanced Assessment that's our our state test that our 10th grade students take in ELA and in mathematics. And so since it's multilingual learners in reading, it's that monitoring of the smarter balance assessment in ELA and then our on-time graduation rates. So those are some of the ways that we're monitoring and it's also some of the data we use to say, hey, this is what we need our focus to be. So here on this slide, the all hands- on deck, I want to explain that first because that started out last year as our students using it as as a motto for school spirit and
026all hands on deck and our ASB. And then our instructional leadership team, which is um 19 of our of our teachers and our instructional staff said, "Hey, we would like to use this theme of all hands- on deck for our professional development." and they plan the professional development for August and throughout the year. So they've taken a lot of leadership and ownership there and so and they're very very um intentional in using it because of saying hey all hands on deck isn't just a fun cute saying. It's about a sense of urgency. A sense of urgency that we all need to be wrapped around for for success for progress for our students. So these are just again in your slide deck you have historical data on this but as far as our English language arts
027smarter balance assessment the district right now is at 34.1%. All Davis students are at 46.4 and our multilingual learners are at 7.5. That is a huge difference. It's not an acceptable difference. It's also not acceptable for all of our students to only be at 46.4. And we know this and that's why we are working on this and why this is our goal. Freshman on track right now our freshman on track from last year the Davis percentage was 55% and our multilingual learners for on track was 51%. Again that's about passing all classes. There's less of a gap there but again that's about the classes. So it's it's interesting to look at graduation rate. And this is anticipated because it doesn't come out verified by OSPI until the middle of October. So, we are really close.
028Um, but the anticipated graduation rate for the whole district is 83.4 and all Davis students 91.4 and our multilingual learners 84%. So, you still see you still see that that gap there. And we have done a really good job on raising graduation rates and that's in your slide deck as well. our WEDA assessment that's the um language proficiency. So as far as a district we are at 5.61% proficient and the progressing so growth is 17.69 and then you can compare so with Davis proficient as of last year 3.75 and progressing is 18.32 again coming back to that theme of all hands on deck there's a sense of urgency here and there needs to be So implementation and impact with this focus on our multilingual learners in literacy. So opportunities that we have professional learning teams
029are focused on our multilingual learners this year and as we go forward the data that they're looking at they're looking at all student data then they're comparing that to all students and then compared to our multilingual learners. What's that look like? What's that look like individually? and then discussing as a team looking for where are there some successes and what are we doing different and how can we learn from each other. The seven steps to a languagerich classroom is what seven steps um what it means it's earlier in the slide deck but seven steps to a languagerich classroom is train training that 12 of our teachers had the opportunity to attend a couple summers ago. the district provided that and it was voluntary, but we had 12 12 of our instructional leadership team members choose
030to go to that and they came back. They came back on fire. And so last year, what we did is our instructional leadership team focused on implementing the sevenstep strategies and we did instructional rounds together as an instructional leadership team. And this is really focusing in on our multilingual learners, but it's instructional strategies that are good for all students. One, just one example is not accepting like one of the first steps is not accepting I don't know as an answer. It seems so simplistic, but it's such a big deal. And when we go around and when we walk through classrooms and now you have the sentence stems that you use with students that you've taught them to say what to say instead of I don't know. You will see posters around what to say instead
031of IDK. Okay. And so that gives them ideas and the teachers are not accepting the I don't know from any student is an answer which even when I talk to my own kids, how was your day at school? I don't know. And so anyways, it's nice to be able to redirect a little bit, you know, and then they can use partners. There's all kinds of strategies in there, but um that's one of the first ones and that is the first one now. This year instructional leadership team has ramped that up. We have ramped that up to as administrators. It's all teachers now. So they had training in August. This August all of our staff had training in the seven steps to language rich classroom. And as we go forward through the year, each month we're
032focused on a different strategy as a whole. So all of our teachers and then our learning walks and instructional rounds are related to multilingual learner success specifically focused on those strategies that we're learning through seven steps. And then we connect and talk with each other about it and about what we saw. Highlights some things that that we have increased and that we are super proud of. We have increased our graduation rates and over the last from 21 from to now we've increased by I believe it's 7%. It's in the slide up but I believe that's what it is as a total and we have our goal we made as a fiveyear goal as far as our school improvement plan goal. So we're still working towards reaching that. Our schoolwide focus on reading is something I'm
033super proud of. That's it's just amazing because everybody's been involved including the students and that as you know is a big shift and it's a big shift when you're talking the amount of students that we are. We've had um decline and decrease in our discipline rates over the last five years which we're incredibly proud of as well. Um we've made we've actually been very intentional about plans. In fact, this last year, we made a plan when we were working on our liberatory leadership series and um plan that was specific to our discipline rates with our male students. We have a com collective commitment to multilingual learners. What I mean by that is everybody is committed to the success of our multilingual learners and we've we've gotten to that point where it's all of us and
034we all see that need and that urgency. And then our instructional leadership team. I'm just very proud of our instructional leadership team for taking on for taking on the actual leadership of the professional development in the school and the ownership. And it's no longer what is admin providing as professional development. It's what are our own teachers providing to each other. And that's a really big step. And so that's really neat to see. And that's just diving into one area for right now. And I know that you have a lot more in there, but any questions? Um, Heather, thank you so much for this jam-packed presentation. Um, I noticed that in the presentation itself, the parts that we we have and that are um I'm assuming are available to the p public but weren't presented today.
035Um, you've got some reading data that demonstrates the growth that you've experienced in in reading. I applaud the staff for that, for um really taking that on as a as a goal and the um the attention that's paid to making sure that every child, every student is um a reader and and and someone who understands what they've read. Um, we all know that you don't stop reading once you leave high school, but you need to have that foundation. So, thank you and your staff for taking that on as a focus and for the improvements that we've demon you've demonstrated through the data that we see. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions for Mr. Hasty? Well done. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Um I understand we'll be
036taking a tour. >> Are we doing that now? >> Yes, we are. So we'll be back here in 15 minutes. Okay. 16 18 minutes. We'll get it. We'll be quick. Okay. We're um in recess for 15 minutes. >> Well, welcome everybody. >> Where's the best place for Martha? Uh, right on in here. I think we're just going to be in the studio if she wants to see kind of this is some of the the photography that was at the uh the fair this year. >> Um, >> so the one on the the right actually took sixth place in a a Washington state uh competition and uh this one right here, it's actually in >> it's in Taiwan. There was a student that was at on top of a building looking down on the street in
037Taiwan and it's a family of five ready to cross this busy street and so they're all holding hands. So yeah, it took sixth place in a in a Jones soda bottle competition. >> Exactly. Yeah. And it took best of show and um >> over at the the fair. So yeah. Did they get a lifetime supply of Jones soda or? >> So, um, he was a finalist for it and I think they had they picked the top four that had 250,000 prints of the Joan soda that their photos were printed on the Jones soda. Yeah, it was really neat. Yeah. And this is just from last year's students. So, I don't really recycle years and years past. This is all just last year's uh just really one single class. just my advanced uh photography class. That
038is my first spirit class. So, but I would love to turn it over to some of our DNN anchors here. These these three um we have four main anchors in DNN. That's the Davis News Network. Um they bring news to the students. We have it uh every single week. >> Buenos pirates. Welcome back to DNN. I'm America. And I'm Valerie. >> So, my name is Valerie. Um right now where we're standing is the studio. Um right here is where the two anchors um say and they talk about like things like with collaborations with teachers, students, and we just bring projects together and have other students at school like see what's going on on campus. Um so that they're entertained and get information and don't miss out on any opportunities that are coming up like dances.
039um fundraisers, scholarships, like we give out a lot of information. Students watch it during advisory class every Tuesday and we rotate anchors. So sometimes it's one or the other. In our class, uh we we create a rundown and we come up with um story ideas and people take on packages. Um, everyone does their own packages. Everyone creates their own scripts with the owner information. They collaborate with teachers, with um, staff or with students and get the information needed for their package. And then from there, they go and um, they get the they get the script approved from Mr. and the executive producer and they go on and record and then from there they edit the packages themselves and then they turn it in and then that's when the whole show is together and then the
040anchors they create their own scripts also we try to make it entertaining as possible so we try to have fun with it we try to um mess around sometimes >> hey did you know that today is national love people day love people day that's a real thing >> yes America I love you >> a I love you Valerie >> sometimes we do the games like we did a a baby food tasting challenge and got staff and students to try to guess the flavors of different baby foods >> and so try to mix in that that fun so that we get them to engage in all of the the important information too. So typically our show is about 15 to 16 minutes and we have between 19 and 20 different packages throughout that show. So we
041are very similar to like a newscast where we keep it to 20 to 30 seconds per story and then we throw in the fun stuff in there to keep the kids engaged and when that music turns on of the DNN like the open a lot of times in advisory you see the students stop and then kind of turn and then they they're engaged and they watch the packages that about the the baby food eating and then they watch the packages about the homecoming dance and the sports recaps and then the uh health survey. that we're doing in advisory and then at the end of each show it leads into what's happening in advisory that day. So then the anchors talk and sometimes give us a rundown of okay now in advisory uh juniors you guys
042are going to be doing this and this and this and this is why this is important and freshmen make sure to stay engaged because you're going to be going this and this and this. So >> you guys ever talk about or discuss like social issues as related to what students can do or how it may impact them? Yes, we actually are starting that with the PBIS. Is it >> PBIS? PBIS reminders information. >> Yes. So, we give like reminders to students on like, oh, if you're feeling down, if you're feeling stressed, there's like there's counselors out there that you could go and contact and Yeah. >> And I believe Crystal, you did that story last year, right, about the counselors and which counselors we have available. I I like uh kind of explained to them
043uh the the pirates um that their last name has to correspond to a certain counselor so that everybody knew who their counselor was. I showed them where the counseling hallway is, where you can find the counselors at and like what building, what floor. And I think that Patty was really helpful because freshmen might not know that type of information and even upper classmen maybe some don't like reach out as often as they would like to. So I think that was a really good package to kind of throw in. I'm going to do a package about bowling which is a fall sport and fall sports are coming up. So I kind of want to recruit girls to come join bowling because it's a really good sport. >> Winter sport. Winter sport. Not fall sport. Winter sport.
044Every once in a while, the Davis News Network will pop up on my YouTube feed. >> Oh, really? >> That's good. That's good. >> Um I I really enjoy watching it. >> So, yeah. Yeah. Uh so, Davis has a YouTube page. All of the full shows are all archived on on YouTube and it's under the video announcements tab um on the Davis YouTube page. So, and they go years back. I So, this is ninth year, eighth year of of of DNN. So, so all the classes have their class pictures, even the virtual ones up there, >> the virtual >> virtual Zoom day. We still had shows back then. Uh, so we have I think it's almost 5 years on YouTube now that you can go back and see five years of of videos. Yeah. >>
045Sure. You want to share when the class is? >> Oh, yes. So, this class is a zero period. So, this class starts at 7 in the morning. Um, >> bless your heart. >> The biggest part of this is we are dedicated at for coming at 7 in the morning every single day, Monday through Friday, and bringing brainstorming ideas on how to create a a big pretty like a good show for the Davis students. >> Even in the winter, even yes, we do make sure to say, you know what, hold off. Just >> we're dedicated, honorable, and safe. Save. [Laughter] Well, unfortunately that's all we have for this week. Pirates, make sure to stay dedicated, audible, and safe. Have a great week, pirates. >> Okay, I'll reconvene. First and foremost, thank you to Principal Hasty for
046setting that up and for a wonderful tour of the DNN studio. We'll take this now to our update section. First and foremost, are there any updates from members of the board? >> Um, I have an update. Just a reminder actually for board members. Um, the elections for uh our director area are up. as well as we we school board members also elect members for their local ESD board and there's also um availability to select uh from um two people for east side candidates for the state board of education. um those th that particular position is a contested position. Um Alyssa Dyson, who is a I don't know 40-year member of the Onion Creek School Board, which is a tiny tiny district of about 35 kids um north of Spokane up on the OMAC reservation. um
047she's stepping down from her board and has placed her name into um candidacy for the East Side uh one of one of the East Side um state board of education positions and her contestant I don't know anything about his his um introductory statement that he submitted has literally about 50 words in it and which doesn't tell us anything. Um, and I I'm really sorry about that because it would be nice to know information about somebody that's running for the state board of education considering how impactful their work is on what we do and what districts do um in the bigger scheme of things. Um, Alyssa has a a pretty extensive candidate statement and um I would encourage our our board, each of our members to um select Alyssa. I think she's much more qualified um
048than her opponent. We also are going to vote on several um committee positions representing director area 8. Um, I got a call over the weekend from Bruce Droinger from Nat Cheese, who is uh running for the director area 8 representative that represents us on the WASDA board. And um he asked that I share with the rest of the board his hope that we all will vote for him. Um there's also a position up for nominating committee and um there's a position up for legislative committee that I'm I'm running for. there is um vice president for WASDA for next year and uh president not president president-elect for WASDA for next year and um so we're we have quite a quite a few things to take care of in the elections department. You should have gotten an
049email. I think it came out this last week uh for uh with a with a link to your ballot. >> Yeah. So you your your ballot is yours only. It doesn't belong to anybody else and it's not nobody knows how you vote. It's a secret ballot. So, um I would encourage you all if you haven't already done so to go back and um find that email. And I think in fact we got a reminder today from WAZDA that um elections are still running, still open. So, um, if you if you have any problems, you can call the WASDA office and they'll walk you through that. Um, this is the elections for for WASDA positions are pretty important. Um, these folks represent our area in the discussions at the WASDA board table. at the legislative and
050nominating committee table um and at the state board and the ESD meetings. Um so if you have any questions, let me know. But um that's that's that's that. And then on the 24th and 25th later on this month, I'll be meeting with uh the WASDA legislative committee and determining the um priority statement that we will be crafting for the priorities for WASDA for legislative priorities for this upcoming legislative session which is going to be a long session, Right. What it'll be short session. Ah okay. So um but it will be important. There's a lot of a lot of financial stuff that um we're having the state is having to deal with in in um the area of finance and budget. So as as crazy as last session was, this one I think will be worse.
051So stay tuned. More at 11. I think that's it. >> Any other updates? >> Then Dr. Green, we'll go to the superintendent update. >> Uh thank you. Uh, as you'll find in your public content on your board docs, uh, the first item is the Great Washington Apple Crunch Day, which is October 8th, 2025. Uh, this is a day where at noon, um, students and staff alike will take a bite out of an apple. These apples, I understand, are donated. We're talking quite a few apples for our district. uh this is uh being uh forwarded to us and shared from our uh food service department. So I met with Cassie who has explained uh how they're involved in this and uh promoting fresh fruits and food for our our students and it's a part of our
052initiative then moving forward to having more uh fresh uh u preparation of meals done locally. So, if you'd like to join us, um, just somewhere around noon, October 8th, take a bite of an apple and you're in. All right. So, that's the first item. Would you like to elaborate in or is that accurate? Do you know anything else about the crunch? That's it. Okay. Bite down. Okay. Uh, other items that I'd share with you is we have a um I'd like to invite uh Kirsten Fitter uh to address the board around our legislative priority development. >> Thank you, Dr. Green. Uh Martha, I really appreciate your WASDA legislative update because I too feel that this will be a critical session. So I'm here today um to present just general topics for the legislative priorities for
053the Yakima School District to get your feedback on that so that my team can continue our work in preparing the um final document. in your board docs. You might have to refresh because it was added just prior to this meeting, but there is a memo for me and um it talks about the 2026 legislative session and just our intended focus areas for 2026. Last year we had four focus areas and we are still hitting those four but we have reorganized uh transportation and MSOCs to be kind of an MSOC plus if you will so that they are together and then bringing to the forefront as item number one our local revenue equity and system finance reform. So that is the LEA and levy uh lid guard rails that you know that you um were so
054uh critical in last session and in supporting Dr. Green in all of the um different opportunities that he had with the legislature to um speak to that. So we would like to continue that momentum and have that as an important part of our legislative priorities for this year. in addition um to continue requesting a fully funding of special education. And um as you know, our our state or our substitute coverage is a very expensive um part of our uh um budget and we would like the state to be continue to be very aware of that and the expenses that come in from substitute coverage. So we wanted to include that as number three. And then as I had um explained before, we would do the MSOC plus which would have our transportation and our MSOCs
055in that and everything of course would be um more narrated in a way that that folks can understand. And lastly, we would update our gaps in funding document. So that is something that is on your screen and looks like this if you're looking for it. Um but we will add in that number one. I'll work with Jake on how we can best illustrate our uh impact from um the levy lid and LEA impact. So with your support of these four um my team will uh begin working on this process. Any questions, comments? >> Do you need um approval from the board? I don't think formal approval just um your support in moving forward. Uh I did include the timeline for my team's project on the back or the second page. Um so we will following
056um your support of these four topics. We will begin our work. >> Thank you. Much appreciated. Uh a few more items. One is to notify the board that I was uh I received an invitation from our new executive director of the Washington Association of School Administrators, Jeff Snell, who is the former uh superintendent of the Vancouver School District. This is his initial year uh to join the WASA school funding coalition. So that kickoff took place today. Uh many of the members of which there were about 18 um have been on the committee for quite a few years. uh there are about oh four or five superintendents and the rest is made up of other uh representative agencies across the state. So this is not recognized as one of the three big funding committees but this
057is one that does bring uh some greater attention to the school funding issue. So it's good to be a part of that and I'm sure that all of those at least to my awareness will be virtual. Uh in addition speaking about funding a reminder to everyone that the 30th if I haven't mentioned this previously uh in October of last year we had a navigation a navigating public education funding session which was held in the uh uh Davis High School performing arts center and that was uh we had two speakers um it was uh TJ Kelly the uh uh CFO of OSPI and Dr. Dr. David Knight from the University of Washington. It was facilitated by then um assistant director at WASA, Dan Steel. And uh this year uh it would be then our second so
058it's beginning to be an annual event. So this is the second annual navigating public education funding session. We will hold it in the same location. Uh the speakers will be uh in order. Dan Steele, who is now retired from WASA but is now an independent consultant. uh Marissa Wthbone took his place at WASA. She will speak as well. And then the third will be Dr. David Knight coming here to uh again uh present information about uh the funding issues and how they relate to our area here in central Washington. I'm very excited about this opportunity. I will be reaching out uh to superintendent and uh board members across our region. I did meet with Trisha Lubach today and uh she did offer to uh disseminate the invitation uh in our area through uh through WASDA.
059So uh we finalized or are finalizing that invitation document. I will send it to you as an update but wanted you aware of that opportunity and to let you know that I was part of that new coalition through WASA or at least my participation being new of that coalition. Lastly, I've asked uh for a few moments of uh time here from uh Jake Cooper, our CFO, uh to you might remember that last meeting I I was speaking about some of the disparities or discrepancies or variations between what districts ask for and in bond allocation across the state. And taking the example of Northshore or Isiqua or Belleview having those numbers reach uh close to or over a billion dollars in the last 15 years and Yakima has not had a bond in that time. So
060it would be goose egg or a zero for us. Uh I've asked him to share some additional statistics in Washington state and where we're situated. So uh for the final part of my superintendence update, I'll uh defer here to uh Jake Cooper. >> Thanks Dr. Green. Um so members of the board, if you do have that document in your uh superintendent update, um it's the top 25 school districts and you will notice a few things and I'll walk you through a little bit is um Seattle doesn't have any bond measures on the document. Um that's because they're large enough to run capital levies and so they do not need to run a bond measure. So their tax base is of and significant of size that they just continually run capital levies to build and modernize
061and rebuild their building. So um the same for Lake Is that why is that an advantage to them? >> Uh that has an advantage to them because it's a simple majority and there's no validation requirement. So and then Seattle of course I think passes every taxing measure that comes before it. Um which is interesting. But um the thing Washington same thing if you notice they only have just under 400 million as the second largest district. That is because um when I was their neighbor in Isiqua they had started to fail bond measures um again and again. And so they failed three or four in a row and then they finally got large enough to start to run capital measures of a magnitude that could actually rebuild schools. Um but as Dr. Green pointed out, you
062will notice there's only one district with a goose egg and zero in the top 25. Um roughly if you look at the averages at the bottom of the document about just under 600 million, 586 million is the average. And I said as as those are underinflated because um when I think about Isiqua for example um this is from 2010 so it's missing some bond measures under my tenure but we also ran capital measures uh tech capital levies worth several hundred million during that same time period. So this document is for bonds only and a lot of districts including Northshore as an example also has a cap levy annually on top of that. So um so to to round it out I would say is um of the top 25 districts we have not had a
063capital measure in since this is since 2010 and the average of course is 586 million and the median is 450 million. So for a district our size, we have not sought any bond measures or capital improvements of any magnitude. And um fortunately or unfortunately that is reflected in some of our facility conditions. And as I joke with my colleagues, we have an elementary school built when Truman was president. That would be Hoover. And so it's been a long time since a capital measure. Um is there anything else you'd like me to add, superintendent? >> No, thank you. any questions about the uh u slide that we have displayed or any other question related to bond information that we could provide. In looking at this um page, the slide that um is in our packet, there
064are a lot of districts that are our size, our demographic um presentation that have um multiple bonds. I mean, Auburn has like five. Yeah, Auburn Auburn is a bond passing culture. They they usually run them every they run them in shorter intervals but quite frequently and so they have been very successful and they do have similar demographics to us um for the most part even though they're in King County. They do have very that's a very wise point. They're very similar demographics. But then you look at uh Pasco as well. I mean they did take a few tries to pass the bond for their high school construction but ultimately it was successful. I think I think they've got another high school in the works, don't they? >> Yeah, because they had I think Tijuana is
065the largest high school. It was the largest high school in the state for a longer period of time. They were extraordinarily overcrowded. >> That reminds me just to share the latest information I have. I don't have uh figures after 2023 but as of 2023 when you look at the uh months that uh bonds you you run bonds being February, November, April and August uh the highest pass rate for a bond in 2023 was uh February and the bonds were passing at just slightly over a percentage like hundreds of percentage points over 40%. So just be aware that uh bonds are typically um passing at under 50% average. What's interesting here with the top 25 is you do see a higher average pass rate here with uh 79 bonds being attempted and 42 passing over the
066past 15 years. >> Dr. Green's correct the average has been stubborn right around 40% for decades in Washington state. And I often joke with my uh elected officials that we do we have a supermajority bar and most folks aren't elected at a supermajority level. And so it it's hard to pass a measure at 60%. It is a difficult thing to do. So >> which uh just probably one more plug here for our community. I think it's important to just recognize that Yakama did support the last levy at 60 over 65%. So, when we're talking about that supermajority, it's uh the the community has been very good to the Yakama School District with levies and uh we certainly shouldn't begrudge anything with bonds. Uh they passed uh one of the past three bonds that we've actually
067asked for. So, um which isn't far out from what the numbers that we see here on this list. It's just been a long time since we've gone to the community for any bond. >> And superintendent remind it 2008 n >> nine I think nine >> for Davis and Ike. >> Yeah. I have one question. Um, going back to the community um, presentation that you have coming up for school funding, did you provide the date and I was otherwise occupied when you said that? >> I may not have. So, let's just assume that I did not say the date. It's the 30th of uh, October. So that is a Thursday >> and the time is >> uh the time is 6:00 to 8 in the evening. Um so Dr. Knight I was lucky enough to uh
068recruit Dr. Knight to come and speak at downtown Rotary. >> So that is our largest Rotary group here in town which is going to be nice to have him at least in that forum be able to address some of the different uh disparities that he can see and share that within that setting. uh and then he's staying into the evening and uh hopefully we'll have all comers then be able to hear a little bit more in depth about that presentation and benefit from Marissa Wrathbone and Dan Steel being there. So, uh, October 30th, 6:00 to 8 in the performing arts center here at Davis. Having been to the one last year, um even as a longtime board member, I found it really really informative and would encourage the community if they have that evening available
069um to come to the see the new performing arts center at Davis and listen to those presentations because the community in public in general general doesn't understand school funding at all, even a little bit. And to be able to have a an opportunity to listen to some of the top-notch presenters in in public education on that is is really a great opportunity >> and it's very difficult to understand. So just recognizing that uh it's not made easy and it's not something that uh certainly somebody that's not steeped in what it looks like uh it being financed with public education should not be expected to understand it which is why it's uh important to have these sessions to be able to peel back the layers and really understand the impact of how property values affect things
070and uh um what legisl legislative uh bills do to uh create uh disparities between uh rich districts and poor districts when talking about property values. So, there's a lot of nuance that I think is um understandably lost on the greater community uh who because it's easy to believe that everybody receives kind of the same funding and that's certainly not the case and it's nice to understand why and how that happens. So, thank you for that uh uh testimonial. >> Thank you, Dr. Green. Under the highlights for community engagement section, we have a list of the upcoming schoolboard meetings and there's an attachment which dives into the community opportunities within some of our school buildings and for the community events that are occurring there. Is there anything in particular you wanted to call out? I know
071it's a it's a fabulous list that is being added to all the time and it's available to everyone in the board docs. That'll take us to our first opportunity for public comment. Do we have anybody signed up for public comment on agenda items? >> No, we do not. >> Thank you very much. We'll move on then to our first on our list of approvals this evening. This will be the approval of the board of directors to appoint disciplinary appeal council members. And for that I'll turn it over to Chief Legal Counsel Robert No. >> Thank you. Uh the board has empowered a five member panel called the DAC, the discipline appeal council to uh preside over appeals of disciplinary matters. Uh the WAC that allows for their appointment limits their terms to three years. Uh
072the terms are coming up. So, we're asking that the board reappoint the five members uh listed in the action letter to the positions for another three-year term. Thank you. >> Just one question. Are are those members teachers, administrators, a combination of the above? Um what what is their role in the district? >> Omar could probably answer this better, but my understanding is they're all attorneys. They they're volunteering their time. >> Oh, they're volunteers. >> serve on this um as members of the DAC. >> Okay. >> The board is being asked to approve or excuse me to appoint the discipline appeal council members listed in the action letter. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Just one other comment. Um I think it would
073be helpful to to know something about who they are. Um I mean I I'm I'm sure that they've been vetted in some way and I trust I trust our administrators and our leaders, but it a part of me is nervous about voting to place people in something I know absolutely nothing about them. So I think in the future it would be helpful to at least have a brief bio on these people. That's all. >> And as a point of information, are these mostly all being reappointed of these are these people who have served in the past or are they new appointments? >> I think three three of them are being reappointed and two of them will be new. >> Two will be new but three are approval. I recognize some names and I certainly recognize
074one who is a parent of a of a school district student. Um, and I appreciate their volunteerism. We can work on the bio later for the future. Yeah. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Our second approval tonight is for resolution 01.25.26 which is the 25 through 27 capital bianium budget for minor works projects grant funding at YBT and we'll turn it over to our assistant superintendent of finance Mr. Cooper. >> Good evening for your recommended adoption this evening was resolution 012526. This is a uh refuncter resolution um because it is required for us to receipt that grant that we've received and Miss uh Smith actually went after um for just under a million dollars for capital improvements to YVTEC. As you'll note um I think a
075very salient part of the board letter is this certification is provided to affirm the district's commitment to full compliance terms of the grant and all applicable state and federal requirements. So, um, I would recommend a do pass on this and if there's any questions on the details, um, we'd be happy to answer them. >> I move for approval of resolution 01.25.26. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion? >> Hearing none. And without objection, all in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you all. We look forward to doing the projects over the next next 18 to 24 months. >> Excellent. The third approval on our list today is an a motion to adjust the schoolboard meeting calendar in November of 2025.
076>> Happy to address >> Dr. Green. >> Yes. The uh information is that the board has already approved a schoolboard meeting schedule which was done on August 19th. There is an adjustment that we would like to make, a scheduling issue that would uh necessitate a change. Uh that change would be from uh Monday, November 3rd to two days later that same week to Wednesday, November 5th. The meeting would still be at 4 o'clock p.m. like they are on Mondays and it would be held at Lewis and Clark. That is the day that we're uh having our next site visitation. So the request is to then uh make that proposed move from Monday, November 3rd to Wednesday, November 5th. I move that the um school board meeting calendar be adjusted for the month of November to
077move November 3rd meeting to November 5th. >> Do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. There any discussion on the motion? I I may not be able to attend that because of the change, but I'm wondering given that the 4th the preceding day would be elections day is so that the meeting on the 5th will that be the beginning of our new uh our board members for new with new terms and are we will we have elections on that and during that meeting? No, the the new board members aren't certified >> or aren't sworn in until after the election is certified, which is a few weeks after. >> All right. I just wanted to make sure that >> Okay. >> Yeah. I too am currently scheduled to be out of town on
078the 5th. I might be able to change my schedule, but I can't guarantee it. Is Graciiela available on that day? >> I think so. >> I think she is. So, we could still have quorum if both Raymond and I are gone, but Yeah. That's something to consider. >> We will research that as well as we move forward. >> Okay, >> that's a good point. Uh, all righty. Do we have the motion on the table? Uh, any further discussion? >> If not, all in favor of the motion, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Thank you very much. We have our second opportunity for public comment. This would be on any other items. A very angelic duo at the end of the table. I Okay, thank you very much. Uh that will
079take us then to our policy governance section. The first report is on policy 1000.2.7 emergency superintendent succession. Mr. Marietta, if you can see anything, please enlighten us. >> You know, my middle name is Jesus. >> Um, policy 1000.2.7. Um, is the super emergency superintendent secession plan. It is primarily the same report which I have given every year. There is slight changes based on the changing of the deputy sup superintendent. Um and a little footnote in there that currently there are five assistant superintendent and in January there will be four. Um you've had this uh policy for a week. Would you like me to elaborate anymore? It is simply if something were to happen to the superintendent, we have checks and balances in place so that the deputy or the assistant superintendent could take over temporarily
080in in the superintendent's absence until a new permanent superintendent is selected. >> Thank you, Mr. Mietta. And as you mentioned, it is attached in board docs. Does any member have any question comment? If you have additions or suggestions, um, feel free to send them in. It looks like the survey will be sent tomorrow and will be due back by the 15th for the board meeting on the 21st. Our second item under policy governance is report 1000.2.8, compensation and benefits. And again to Mr. Maretta. >> Thank you. Uh this is uh a compliance um presentation to share with the board that uh in respect to not jeopardizing the fiscal integrity of the Yakimma school district in regards to employment compensation and benefits. I interpret this to mean that the district will not exceed its financial resources
081with respect to compensation of employees, consultants and contractors. Uh simplistically put this is the evidence of compliance where the district is not overspending. Um there are some specifics to the reductions of positions which we had took uh on April 15th. I would like to point out there was um uh 46 reduced positions but based on attrition and the work of HR uh we lost no employee. uh would utilize the bargaining uh unit language which we have to be able to shift employees to open uh positions or um utilize a riff and then recall those individuals to open positions. So uh we are in compliance. >> Thank you again. That survey will be sent tomorrow due back by the 15th. Are there any comments or additions corrections? Feel free to send them in if you have
082them. Our third item under policy governance tonight is a report on 1000.2.9 which is communication and support to the board. And I'll turn that over to Mr. No. >> Thank you. Before you is the executive limitation monitoring report related to communication and support to the board. Um it lists all the areas where the superintendent is required to provide information and keep the board informed u as to the goings and comingings of the board and the the district in general so that the board can can do its function. U each of the areas you'll notice that we've provided evidence of compliance. uh we are maintaining that the superintendent is in compliance with this monitoring report. We ask that you uh agree with that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Bob. Any questions? Same timeline for the survey
083and for having it back by the 15th for the board meeting on the 21st. Our last policy governance item is 1000.3.4, which is the president's role. And I believe I'm turning this one back over to Bob again. We do have one change to this policy. Thank you. Um, had to refresh my memory real quick on this. This is the uh the policy that talks about the president's role and what what we uh thought was necessary to change was the fact that there was you know if the president's not available then obviously the the vice president presides over the board meetings but we thought what happens in the event that they're both not present. So we we've uh recommended the change to include that in the absence of both of them then the most senior member
084of the board who's president would preside. We ask that you approve this change to this policy. >> We've been fortunate that both president and vice president haven't missed at the same time in the last few weeks but with travel schedules it has become closer and closer to happening. So, I'm looking at you, Director Rice. That particular change is noted. If anyone has any other changes they would like to see added, uh, please um, let us know. Again, the survey will be sent tomorrow. And I believe that is the last of our policies for mention and review today. Do we have we have a closed session on our list today? Yes, we do. >> We are in need of a closed session. Um, Mr. President, we're looking to talk about collective bargaining issues in a closed
085session under the authority of RCW 423140 and we will need 20 minutes for that. >> We'll have a closed session. And where will that take place? We are going to have this in the the foyer of the performing arts center. >> Excellent. Okay. So, we will uh move to a closed session for 20 minutes and we will be back at that time. >> Thank you all very much. We are adjourned.