Yakima School District Board Meeting At Discovery Early Learning Center March 31st, 2025

001[Music] Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the March 31st meeting of the AIMA school board. Um, let's see here. First and foremost, uh, we do offer Spanish interpretation services from Jorge with language connection. If you need translation assistance in person, please check with Jorge for it device. I am speaking off of a script that is incorrect. Do we have translation this afternoon? We do not. I apologize. I am incorrect. We do not have translation this afternoon. If you wish to make a public comment, there are two options available for you. The first option for commenting is 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 to this afternoon, you'll need to sign two forms. The sign-in form and the guidelines

002form, which are both located by the door. Liz, would you please take the role? Director Navaro Jr. Present. Director Rice here. Director Walker here. President Beckett here. Vice President Vanova is excused. Thank you. Liz, would you please uh rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance? 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 character word for March is collaborative, promoting, working together effectively to achieve common goals. Today, the schools of the Yakma School District rest on the ancestral lands of the 14 Confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama nation. [Music] The people of the Yakan nation inhabited more than 12 million acres. Kittasat and Yakama counties. Today we honor those

003native 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 [Music] respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase indigenous people's history and culture. It also honors the [Music] truth. As a school district, we will continue to build upon our relations with the Yakama Nation. In today's board's agenda, we have obituaries uh highlighted from both Linda Sir and for Paulyene Wulmouth. If you'd like to read those obituaries, you can find them in our board packet this afternoon. Would you please join me in a moment of silence to honor the memories of

004these members of our school district community? Thank you. And today we are recognizing National Assistant Principles Week. And to help us with that process, I'll turn it over to Director Walker. Thank you. First, we have a proclamation. National Assistant Principles Week, April 7th through 11th, 2025. Whereas assistant principles serve as visionary leaders entrusted with the well-being, development, and success of our students. And whereas assistant principles work collaborative with school leadership, staff, and families to uphold and advance rigorous educational standards, fostering a culture of excellence in our schools. And whereas assistant principles demonstrate exemplary leadership, serving as role models who inspire students to achieve their highest potential. And whereas assistant principles manage a wide range of critical responsibilities including discipline, coaching, teaching, counseling, empowerment, and creating an inclusive and supportive school environment. And whereas National Assistant

005Principles Week provides an opportunity to honor and celebrate the dedicated P through 12 assistant principles who play an essential role in ensuring equitable access to education and supporting the academic, social, and emotional emotional success of all our students. Now therefore, be it resolved that the board of directors of Yakama public schools does hereby proclaim April 7th through 11th, 2025 as National Assistant Principles Week and encourages all members of the community to join in recognizing the invaluable contributions and and tireless efforts of assistant principles in preparing today's students for a bright and successful future. dated this 31st day of March, 2025. Director Rice, would you help us continue the celebration, please? Thank you, President. Um, we've got some recognitions for our assistant principles within the district. As Norm indicated, this is National Assistant Principles Week, April

0067 to 11, 2025. And the Yakimma School District recognizes the significant role that assistant principles play in the overall academic achievement of students. As I read your name, if you're here, please rise and stay standing. And then we'll give you a big round of applause when we're all done. The assistant principles in the Yakama School District include Jose Contrarus, Adams Elementary, Michelle Qualo, Barge Lincoln and Garfield Elementary, John Solar, Discovery Early Learning Center, Cassandra Nali, Gilbert and Mccclure elementaryaries, Arlando Lada, Hoover Elementary, Sydney John Martin Luther King Jr. Junior and Ridgeview Elementary. Ryan Treat Robertson and Roosevelt elementaryaries. Michael Guagleani, Franklin Middle School. Sherry Carol, Franklin Middle School. Cecila Miller, Lewis and Clark Middle School. Artio Chavez, Lewis and Clark Middle School. Nick Mifflin, Washington Middle School. Gonzalo Gillian, Washington Middle School. John Gonzalez, Wilson

007Middle School. Thalia Tali Garcia, Wilson Middle School. Lorenzo Alvarado, Davis High School. Bob Stanley, Davis High School. Hector Kamacho, Davis High School. Jillian Seaha, Davis High School. Paul Stevens, Eisenhower High School. Henry Samson, Eisenhower High School. Ruby Armho, Eisenhower High School. Jana Bourgeois, Eisenhower High School. Lois Manard, Stanton Academy. And Funfam, YBT Tech. Thank you all for being here this afternoon. We very much appreciate everything that you do in the school district and assisting the students and helping the staff make sure that our students are safe, secure, and learning every single day. Please join me in a round of applause. [Applause] We think it might be nice considering it is the end of the day and we do want to get a photo, but we thought maybe we would do the photo outside. That way

008if you do need to get back to the building before the end of the day or if you were lucky enough to be able to head home, you were able to do so easily. So, if we do really appreciate you being here, we do hope that you'll stick around for a photo outside here. Follow Kirsten, please. She will know where to go. [Applause] So many new faces. See, this is We'll move forward to our section for reports to the board. We have three reports today. The first will be President Guerrero from YA to address staffing concerns. Francis, welcome. Good afternoon, dreary afternoon. So, this will be my last staffing report before your next meeting where you're going to vote on your whether or not you do reductions in staff. Although, to be perfectly honest, I

009am absolutely not expecting that at all because the district has been behaving as if there is not going to be a riff. They have been engaging in unassigned pull behavior which should not precede RIT reduction enforce stuff. But speaking of the riff from last year, I just want to bring us back to that because I want to make sure that everyone, including my own members, understands what happens in that process, particularly the recall piece. So last year, we had to cut 62.5 positions. And I'm just going to say 62 for the rest of my report, which means you cut a nurse here, a counselor here, all the academic specialists, etc., etc. Those were not first year teachers. they were veteran teachers that you couldn't just pink slip per the contract. They're guaranteed a job in

010the district. You can pink slip the newest hires. The problem is you couldn't just pink slip the bottom 62 people because maybe 20 of them were special ed teachers and they had to be called back regardless. So in the end 138 people were basically pink slipped to ensure that the original 62 had a position in the district. 200 lives were upended in that riff last year which again I have said before I understand now that we overhired and the only way to correct that was to cut positions. In the end, over a hundred, I stopped counting at a hundred because they continued to do it throughout the summer, but over a hundred people retired, resigned. So, almost everyone on that recall list was given a place in YSD. I think in the end it was

011maybe two that were not recalled, less than a handful. So, here we are now, flash forward. So far, 38 positions across the district have been cut in staffing meetings. So, each building had to look at the projected number of student enrollment for next year and based on that maybe positions were cut. Most stayed static. two or three may be added positions, but in the end, that's still 38 people going into the unassigned pool. And their positions, since we haven't said anything about doing a riff, are going to come from people that have already retired or resigned. Like those positions have basically been saved for those in the unassigned pool. But we have a couple people that are very highly restricted in their certification. And so if you cut them to a half-time position, which several

012were, I think there were like eight positions that were cut to8, 2.5, whatever. And so now you've created four positions that are going to be itinerant point4 here and 6 there. and other positions where those people don't know where they're going to be next year because they can only do the one thing that was cut to 0.5. In addition, looking at those numbers because I have members that have to look at student enrollment in order to look at their own kind of service allocation. And so what we noticed was that if you look at the P223 February headcount for 2024, and I'm looking at one particular building, so we're doing apples to apples, one building, 2024, the count was 838. And the student count this February was 833. And based on the loss of five

013students, you're telling me that building had to cut 3.6 positions? When my people look at that, that doesn't look right. That looks really shady. And if it was just that one building, maybe there's an explanation for that. But when you look across the district, last year 2024, our enrollment was 14,810. This year, 14,785. That's only a difference of 25 students. and yet you cut 42 positions based on that. So those numbers don't make sense to us and it looks like we're being fed misinformation to justify what is still essentially a major cut. It's over half of what was last year. It it's still a major cut. um the budget report that was given just at the last meeting, March 25, I feel like even you looked at that and said that doesn't gel with what

014we see in the population of Yakama for student enrollment to have declined so much that it would warrant these kinds of cuts. And I want to make sure that we are comparing always in every report apples to apples because it also looks like we might not be doing that. that maybe this year we're using this report and this year we're using a different report that does show a substantial decline, but it's not using the same apples to apples kind of thing. Last year, again, I understand that we had this financial calamity going on, and so cuts had to be made in every way possible, but they continued to be made all the way into the fall in violation of the contract. In particular, I'm thinking of the situation with YOLO, which I'm sure you remember

015a parent coming very agitated about that. What that did was to bring to my attention the way YOLO was operating. If no one would have touched YOLO, I never would have known it was operating in violation of the contract. But once they tried to cut my staff and I realized that it was being contracted to outside teachers clearly I had issue with that especially if they were trying to fire my people in lie of contracting outside. It became a big ugly mess. And the only reason that we fixed it is because the deputy superintendent reached out to me. And quite frankly, she is the only one on cabinet that I feel 100% I can always rely on her to champion my members. Others may talk and sound like they are our friends, but that's not

016100% of the time. And actions speak louder than words. And actions are not labor's friends. But she always has been. And so when she asked me to compromise, I agreed for one year to compromise and go ahead and allow continued contracting with outside teachers with the understanding that YSD would do something about that program this year. And I have brought it to the superintendent's attention and he has assured me that they are working on it. But again, I worry that that isn't going to get done in time because what that did to my people last year was basically to take four or five veteran teachers who should have had first dibs on the best jobs in the unassigned pool if they had been cut properly in the spring the way those cuts are supposed to

017be made. If such a thing happens again, then those people get stuck with again jobs that aren't necessarily in their best interest or what what they would most want if they had had access to the entire unassigned pool. And I am not going to be willing to compromise a second time. This this is something that the district has known about for the entire year. And I also brought to the superintendent's attention that I don't want any more last minutes cuts being made because those are violations of the contract. If you're going to cut people, they need to know that now in the spring, no later than whenever the last day of school is. They should know that now, not 2 days before school starts. It is difficult enough to have to learn to live with

018the cuts that at every level have affected my members. I have told you repeatedly how the cuts at the administrative level have made it harder for buildings to deal with discipline and that has done horrible things for morale. I hate to tell you this and I've already told the superintendent, but I have two buildings heading into votes of no confidence in their administrators and I feel like a large part of that is simply because they lack resources. They are inadequately staffed with Paris custodians and themselves. I have a third building that just brought to my attention. If not a vote of no confidence, they want to do a climate survey. And all of that comes down to staffing. I know that budget is an issue. I was willing to collaborate with the superintendent on something

019about that state, the way the state does budget because I know I understand that is a huge issue. And in fact, I realize now even more. And I told the superintendent, if there's anything that we can do that me or my people can do to help advocate for revenue in terms of the budgets that are coming out now, I understand that is a huge issue as well. But what I need you to understand is that my people are not seeing why we are making the cuts that we are making and using student enrollment as the justification for that. that the numbers and I told the superintendent this as well. We see one number here and we see one number here and that is a huge discrepancy that is never explained to us. And so of

020course we're going to draw our own conclusions and they are negative conclusions. If there is legitimate reasoning for how budget allocations are being made, I wish it would be more transparent so that my people feel better about the moves that the district is making, feel better about all of the lives that are being upended. That 38 positions that got cut upends another 38 to give them a chance to stay in the building. And then that younger least senior district 38 ends up in the unassigned pool. It's a lot of moving around when you say that there's only a 25 difference, 25 student difference between enrollment this year and last year. Questions? Okay, I repeat, I would love to work with the superintendent and the president in doing another editorial to the state about increasing revenue

021because we know how important that is. Uh Jacob Cooper, chief financial officer. I'll talk a little bit about enrollment and why you might be confused. Um so my whole life is about numbers, right? And the whole system is based on ratios. So we what you're looking at is there's two things. I over projected enrollment last year, which means that we need to cut now to get back to baseline. So high schools in particular, Miss Principal Hasty is behind you. We talked about um Davis and Eisenhower, our two largest buildings. I over projected their enrollment which means this year to bring it back to baseline I need to reduce further. Secondarily I project enrollment which you don't have access to generally because that that changes over time. So I'm projecting downward enrollment. So you're not looking

022at apples to apples. I'm staffing on oranges and you're still looking at apples. So you're not privy to information that I have. I have projected enrollment which is different than the current enrollment. And also I overstaff last year. So that is why net 38 it's the same number that I discussed last board meeting. So it's all numerically driven as the principles can attest. We go to our staffing meetings, they get X amount of teachers for Y students and the whole system is staffed the same way. So if you're looking at enrollment numbers, then I think you and I probably need to have a conversation about which enrollment numbers and at what time, what time of the year is it projected, is it actual. The other thing that you have to account for is program placement.

023So special education if there's a big amount of self-contained students and the way we staff um special ed here is I project enrollment in total including self-contained special ed students and then I back out half of that student when I assign staff because that student is not in full-time right they're not they're not in classrooms full-time but they're also in self-contained so if you look at um the schools the math in and there's let's say there's 50 self-contained students approximately 25 of those will get dropped out of the ratio when I allocate general that staff and then you add CT staffing on top of that. So I guess my point is everything is ratio driven. It's above board. Every principal I believe could tell you how many um teachers I'm giving them per student. 26

024and a half. Correct Hasty? Um and so it's all there. It's just point in time data that you're seeing that you don't have access to because I project enrollment and I'm projecting it downward and so and then certain buildings were overstaffed. So when I over project one year and then I'm projecting downward another, the point in time information is going to be different. So it is all numerically based. It's all ratio driven. And if anybody wants to see the math, I'm more than happy to provide it. I provided a last meeting as well. And so unfortunately I'm I can gladly clear up any confusion you have. Anything if you'd like to know anything else, we'll talk. Any questions, superintendent, members of the board? Thank you, Jake. And thank you, Francis. Thank you. Our second and

025third reports to the board today are school presentations. The first will be from Mr. Jagger, the principal for the Discovery Early Learning Center. Welcome. All right. Well, good evening members of the board. Welcome to Discovery Early Learning Center. Uh, welcome Superintendent Cabinet as well. Thank you for your time to come here and let me update you on the amazing things that are going on here. Um, before I get into it, we do have some of our staff members here. if they wouldn't mind standing up. I'd love for them to stand up and if we could give them a rousing round of applause for all they do for our youngest. Thank you. Thank you. They work with our youngest learners and they are amazing. Lucas, before you continue, can I ask you to really use the

026mic because the the meetings are recorded and the audio is super important. So, please, you know, as somebody as impaired, I appreciate that you did that. Um, so yeah, so I'm Luke Jagger. I'm the principal here at Discovery Early Learning. Just a reminder to the board, um, you have all the slides in your packet. We're just going to go over a few of them tonight. Am I sounding better in the mic? All right. So, first we just want to recognize and thank everyone who has contributed and been in the process of our new building. Uh we have our new building on the left there and then one of our new classrooms on the right there. We're just really excited to have this for our staff. Um our new building now houses six classrooms, our office

027staff, our kitchen. And with this addition, we now have about 95% of our early learning staff all on one site, which is awesome. Um our school sites are still based off site, but otherwise everyone is here. Our six classrooms in the new building are being used for developmental classrooms. Uh these are classrooms with students with IEPs. Uh here at Discovery, our mission is to create an environment that fosters love of learning for all. Uh the values that we recognize as being important for us as a staff are growth, trust, respect, belonging, and adaptability. One thing we've been focusing on this year is our PBS. We're coming from multiple schools still. We're coming together wanting to have one system. Um, and so really focusing on being safe, being friendly, and being a worker with our students.

028At Discovery, we have three main focuses. Developmental preschool, ECAP preschool, and P3 collaboration. Our developmental program is for students ages 3 to five who qualify for an edi individualized education plan or an IEP. The IEP teams determine how many days a week is appropriate for a student, anywhere from 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, or 5 days a week. And all our options are half day, either in the am or pm. We have nine amazing teachers that teach these classes. Um, some of these students just have specific needs like just speech. So, they come just for those services during the week. We also have agreements with ESD 105 to serve students at their ECAP sites throughout the city uh and head start sites as well and we provide those services they require. Uh, we also

029have our own ECAP programs which is for students four who will enroll in kindergarten the following year. Students qualify primarily based on family income. These classes run five days a week and are full day and we are required to keep 18 students enrolled in those classes at all times. Um we also within the ECAP three of those programs are dual language and three are non-dual language. Uh and both our ECAP and developmental programs are on site here at Discovery. All those classrooms are here and again are taught by our amazing team of professionals. And then lastly, we have the P3 collaborative, which I'm going to get into a little bit more later, too. But students from Discovery, last year when I presented to you, I realized that only 20% of the kids that go into

030kindergarten in the Aqua School District come from Discovery Early Learning Center. So that means 80% of them are out in our private preschools centers, home preschools, those type of things. So we really realize the importance of working with our community partners for this other 80% of these preschool students, trying to get everybody coming kindergarten ready for Yakma School District. All right. So, here right here's like just some numbers of looking at 23 uh from 22 23 23 24 and then this year. Oh, I didn't put it up there but it is about we think it's going to be about 20%. Um so you'll see again we're only serving about 20% of the students here which is important. The work that is being done here is important. It is vital but we also can't ignore the

031other 80% that are in the Yakma community. Um the ends goal number one is about being kindergarten ready for kindergarten. And so we've really been working hard to meet with our partners. You'll see right here uh myself, John Solar, my assistant principal, Noammy Krasco, our instructional facilitator, Hector Mendes, our direct uh director for teaching and learning. Um executive director, I'm sorry, Hector uh um we pro we in multiple combinations. We went out and we visited as many private preschools as possible. This is Happy Feetats. It's a homebased uh preschool center, but we went in and we just talked with them. How can we collaborate with you? How can we support you? How can you support us? Um you know, what is your site look like? They gave us tours. It was really awesome. And then

032we invited them to participate in our P3 collaboration. And that is a team consisting of um early learning staff from Discovery, principles from different YSD schools, uh district administration, our private preschool providers, ESD staff. Um and it's been a really great experience. We've been meeting monthly. We have gone through a rubric, the leadership rubric for making a difference, 10 essential steps to building a prek system. Uh and so we went through that and really scored ourselves and talked about what do we need to do next. So, we set goals, we set vision. Right now, we're talking about what data do we want to collect as a city of Yakama on our preschool students and how do we share that data uh and so that we can make informed decisions on what all kids need as

033far as professional development for their teachers or just needs and resources in general. from that we had a P3 um workshop earlier this month, early learning workshop and it was focused on social emotional learning uh which is actually part of our SIP goals as well and the target audience were parents, private preschool providers, early learning staff and we had very Mary Virginia Maxwell from ESD 105 very knowledgeable she gave a great keynote message and we had one of our kindergarten teachers uh Myra Warz and then Andre Kavos from ESD do breakout sessions all on social emotional. We had um our staff were there, we had private preschool providers there, we had parents there. It was a great night. All right. So, kindergarten readiness, um our scores are on the increase in your packets. I don't

034think I have the slide here. Oh, I do have the slide there. So, on this slide, you can see we go up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down every year. Um we are on the incline though as this next slide shows we are our scores are improving um as a school district are more and more kids every year are coming in kindergarten ready and just one thing I'm going to point out on this because it's not it's not truly up down up down every year because there is a missing year for COVID in there u but still there's kind of that interesting pattern there Um, and then lastly, I just want to talk about our winter celebration. We had a second annual winter celebration here at Discovery where we brought students in, we brought

035their families in, and it was just a celebration of what they have learned this year, all the amazing work that their educators have poured into them. Their families came in, they went into three different rooms or rotations where they did a make it, take it where they got to show their letter recognition skills, their counting skills, their fine motor skills, and they made cocoa bags and uh beaded necklaces and snowmen. They worked on shapes, things like that. But they got to show off to their parents. And then their parents also got to see how they can work on this stuff at home. Um, and it doesn't have to be complicated. Things that they're already doing can reinforce those skills that they are working on in the classroom. So, that is my hopefully under 10 minute

036presentation. And also, Kristen, I'm just going to show off this next slide. I know I wasn't supposed to edit it, but in the top right, I made my own edit there. Are there any questions from the board? I have a question. Thank you. Thank you for the great presentation. Um, I find myself curious about discovery early learning. Um, because it's been it's not been a cohesive program up until now with everybody most everybody all in one place and um having focused attention on the learning for our littlest ones. Um, and when you said that we only have 20% in our early learning programs within all of those little ones that are in Yaka. Um, can you tell me a little bit about the the um kind of professional development you do with the other providers

037and if you have a sense for how many children they touch and if there are families that want to take advantage of this program at Early Learning Center, but generally want to homeschool their kids. Is there a partnership that they can um avail themselves of for that type of learning? Yeah, there's a lot there. Um sorry, I don't know that I can remember it either. I don't know if I know exactly how many kids are out there right now. I know Trevor has shared with me. You got it. Yeah. I what I can share is about five years ago when the strategic plan came into being uh one of the most challenging parts of it and continues to be that we are trying to bring students into our system kindergarten ready when we don't have

038them. So that necess necessitates reaching out uh to the community. Um that has been very very difficult especially when you're talking about funding issues. So, uh, I would look for a potential revamp in our refresh in our strategic plan to address what we can do with students we actually have, but it has been beneficial to get the lay of the land out in our community. And we did have the Bezos Foundation early on when we were looking for a partnership for early learning. Came out and did a study in Yakama. Again, this was right after the pandemic, I believe. And the numbers probably changed somewhat with the what we've seen with the declining uh birth rate. But at that point um what they had shared is that we have 1,200 students right five years ago

039they would say we had uh 1,200 students that didn't have access to to a program. So uh that would be 1,200 coming into our system at that point uh which we know is lower now because again because of uh what we've seen happen with the attrition. So there's a significant issue of having child care for every every student and there are many that choose not to and that does make it challenging which has been what's nice about then trying to have that coordination of reaching out into the different child care centers and develop that relationship which has happened over the last two years to varying degrees of of efficacy I would say. Do you want to elaborate anymore? Yeah. Um yeah we've definitely have grown. I mean, it's a a want. Our private providers out

040there when we go meet with them, they want to come together. There are like some like smaller groups here and there. Um, and I've in put myself into those groups. Um, and so we're trying to get this. I mean, it's massive. I mean, when you think about there's over a hundred preschools on the list that Trevor gave me, and I'm sure there's, and that's five years ago, so I'm sure there's even some more now um that we're trying to work on. And it's been amazing as we do this work. We're having people at the regional and state level hear about it and they want to meet with me and John and talk to us about what they know and they're teaching us so much more about this community that we just weren't aware of. And

041we are just really at the foundational level of understanding the early learning private world if that makes sense of what these centers and what these home um homebased uh centers are doing as well. Uh it's exciting though. I mean people want to do this work. People are volunteering. The last meeting we had I was like here's three projects. who wants to volunteer to do them, you know, and people took them. They they wanted to do it. They're it's important to them. Um I just got a meeting invite for a meeting. I can't remember what it was for, but it was for something. And one of our providers was also on there, and they wrote back before I could say, they said, "No, we have a standing meeting with Discovery for this this work we're doing

042that's more important than uh this. Can we reschedule it?" And so, I mean, the our private providers out, they want this to come. Um, as far as parents, I don't know if we're there yet, but I've had some experience with a program called, um, play and learn. Um, which you don't necessarily have to be attached to a preschool to do that. It's more parent bringing the kid in. And, um, so that's something that's on my radar. Just, you know, it's going to be little steps moving the ball down the field. I like to say just constantly tilting. Um, and so I think everything you talked about are the things we're wanting to do that group that P3 group and with and we want when I say just right, we're not just talking about private preschool.

043We want kindergarten teachers there. We want first grade, second grade, third grade. It's P3 for a reason. We're just starting with preschool. We want preschool teachers there as well. Our um we have principles right now. That's been our latest addition. uh but trying to figure out what is the professional development, what do our people need and facilitating that for the whole community, not just our our school staff, but for everybody. The last thing I would just add is that um and I think you know this probably Martha, maybe not everyone, uh the return of on investment for early learning is significant. I think if you look at the learning policy institute, it's about for every $1 invested, it it yields $7. So, it's usually between seven and $10 depending on the study. I think the

044challenge is how to how to fund uh the early learning adequately in our state. When we look at transitional kinder, that's uh not not fully funded now. And uh there's a lot of conversation about how beneficial that is, but they're not expanding that to uh go beyond the small number of districts that are currently um um taking up all of that that funding at this moment. But uh it is it is on the radar of many of our legislators, especially Representative Santos. Yes, I do have a couple questions. You you mentioned that there are six classrooms and all those students are I on IEP. Can you elaborate on that? Does that mean all 300 three students are on IPS? That's what I'm kind of understanding. Yeah. So, I talked about a couple different class. We

045have six classrooms over here. Um, they both run half day. So, there's a morning and a PM group. Every student those six classroom, they are on IEPs. Um, and then we have six classrooms over here that are ECAP classrooms. Um, and they're at about 30% students on IEPs right now. There's 18 in a class. My math is failing me if somebody wants to do that math for me. But um and then there are three classrooms out here kind of in between the two groups that are um inclusive type classrooms where uh I think one classroom is 50/50 students with students on IEPs, students without. Um and I think the other ones are uh I think they're about 60 70% students with IEPs and about 30% students without. Um and those are teachers who have volunteered

046to do that. Uh they came to us and said we want to do this. one of them through a a grant with the University of Denver that we're doing. Um, yeah. So, I think I just ran the numbers I think for this. It might be in one of those other slides, but I think we're 75 or 85% students with IEPs, though. Yeah. Well, and that's how you qualify for these programs. You have to have you have to qualify with an IEP or um through the ECAP standards, which are usually the low social economic. Yeah. And then my next question that's kind of loud is 31% 31.1% are kindergarten ready is that indicate or is that percentage when they start or is that a after a certain amount of time? So I believe that percentage come

047from when students come in that first week of school and they're doing the wall kids assessment. That's how they're scored on that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Lucas. We appreciate the presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you. I do want to invite y'all to come on a tour either now or later to see the new building. Right. Excellent. Do we want to do the the K8 presentation first and then do the tour? I'm hearing a yes in the back. Tour first. Tour first. Okay. We'll be doing the tour first. So, we're going to try to hold this to about 12 minutes. So, we'll be back here in about 12 minutes. [Music] All our classroom in here are identical. They all have the same kind of teacher space and then restroom and cabinetry and all that.

048We call this the teacher fortress. I think we've all had little kids. We know how that goes. Looks like the teacher puts himself or herself in timeout over here. Yeah. So, this classroom and all of them have uh they're in different places, but like they have the the show me five up here and the our be safe, be friendly, be a worker, and we really encourage them to use those as teaching tools. Um they all have like a carpet time or circle time and the library. Um they all have a dramatic play area. And when I say all, I mean both our ECAP and our developmental classes are all set up very similarly. Uh they all have like centers or stations. We do family style meals here and so they're serving each other. They're pouring

049the drink out of the picture. It's really cool. Any questions about the classroom? We we probably don't have a lot on the wall as compared to some of the elementarymentaries that we've seen. Is that um that's strategic that as as they they start with less and then as they learn they add and add and add. Is that how it works or you talking about like in the hallways? No, I'm talking about kind of the things that are up here. Uh well, part of that is we're been told I wish that worked everywhere. It's working here. So, yeah, everything that you'll notice there's they're up there with like putty so that we're not putting or they put like blue tape. It might be the It might be the new building effect because I know that there's

050um by fire coat there's a certain amount to the upper panels. What is it? 18 in. 18 in. So they can have things on the wall, but I know that in some of our buildings they'll they'll start bare and then they'll add especially we were doing that if you think back um four years ago or so when we had the transition kinder and Hector you can speak to that right with with the V, you know, they would purposely have everything. Yeah. So yes, so when we had traditional kinder, we were it was a great tool. We had a lot of manipulatives. Let me say that. But what happens when you bring everything out, then it becomes a zoo, right? It becomes uncontrollable. So what you did is you brought one thing out and you stuck

051with that for like a week or two and really taught them how to take it out, play with it, use it, and put it back. And then you'd add another manipulative. By the time you knew it, you'd have a shelf like what you see around here with all these manipulatives. So the kids understood it took I mean you're talking over months of time before the classroom was an evolving space of manipulatives right because then it's very strategic in how you do it. Um but that's what's happening here as well and I think that's what Dr. Gri was getting at is that there's purpose for that. Yeah. [Applause] How many in here in this class? uh 10 and we might be one less or one more depending on the day or the time of the year,

052but um 10 kids per section. So like in this classroom is our our youngest learners. So these are our kids that just turned three. Um they're most likely coming back next year as four-year-olds. Yeah. Um, I'll save this and not ask it later um on public comment, but are you under the same rules in terms of uh attendance or do you keep track of attendance uh the same way you have to in the K2? I'm saying yes. Are you okay? I'm pausing because I don't I mean absolutely I don't there's not a one method for one one for another. I think the only difference here is you have morning classes and afternoon. So, you know, where whereas you might take role morning and afternoon in a class that has, you know, um you're talking the

053upper grade levels say. Yeah. If you're asking for attendance wise, it'll be the same. Yes, we're always Yeah, there still have same number of dates and we're always tracking data. Maybe I mean absenteeism. Yeah. I know that historically in early childhood I've spent a lot of time there myself. Um, yeah, my assistant principal, I want to give him credit for this. He he tracks our attendance. Um, and he works with families. He sends the letters home. He really makes sure we're on board with the Yako school district policies on attendance. But again, early learning is massive. It's important. We have a poster up in our wall with putty Kyle. Um, uh, that, you know, shows that when a kid enters kindergarten, their tra trajectory based on where they are at as far as being kindergarten

054ready. they can't be there in the upper levels if they're not here. And so we really stressed with our parents the importance of being here at a young level. It's interesting you bring that up because I actually come from a high school background. I taught high school for uh 8 years and then I was at a district level for 9 years and I've never had necessarily the conversations or the lack of importance from I feel like the parent rate that they have at early learning. And I I wonder if it's just you know they just haven't had that experience yet or it's just preschool so they don't think it's as important. Uh but it's been something that we've been addressing and having those conversations that is vital that the kids are here every day. [Music]

055Okay. So it is I'll uh I'll start here. So this one we actually added quite a few things. So, when the building came in, there were about 12t pieces. And so, this one presented some weird challenges, but we do have a walk-in freezer, walk-in cooler, and then all tile floors throughout. So, you can basically fill it up like a bathtub. Um, and like Lucas was, please don't, but we haven't tried yet. Like Lucas was talking about, it does, you know, they feed a lot of kids out of here with a lot of dishes. So, it has a full commercial conveyor dishwasher, multiple sinks, um, and then a huge dry storage area for for that kitchen staff. So, just a nice a nice big kitchen for for what they need. Trying to think of what else

056we have in here. But do we export food out from here to other locations through the I don't think we do anymore. I don't I think we have it here. I think that was a plan. I don't think it's happening yet. Yeah. Yeah. But we do not. We don't import food anymore, which is nice. They used to have to haul in food daily for this facility. Before this facility, I mean, we had basically the size of a portable. Yeah. It was probably about from here to that wall. Yeah. And then they shipped in food daily. So, yeah. During transportation. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Perfect. [Music] Okay, we can resume if I can have your attention for a few more minutes here. Our third and final report to the board today will be from Brenda Malan, our

057principal from K8 Virtual. Welcome, Brenda. Thank you. It works. All right. Good evening, everyone. First, I'd like to extend my gratitude to Principal Jagger for hosting this meeting. I'd also like to thank the board of directors and the cabinet members for giving me a chance to speak tonight. It's truly an honor to share with you all the great things happening at K8 and how we're making a meaningful impact on our students and families. Now, I'd like to introduce you to what K8 is. Oh, man. To start off with, our tiny and fabulous school is located by 40th in Kerna. And as you can see, K8 Virtual, it's all online. We have in-person tutoring. We also have certificated teachers to support our students. We also are able to enroll our students in classes at their neighborhood

058school. We also give our students opportunities to participate in afterchool activities. We've added this year counseling service and life coaching services as well. A key part of what makes K8 so successful is our parent partnership. Our parent partnership is a collaborative education model where parents take the lead in their child's instruction while partnering with K8 for resources, support, and enrichment opportunities. So, what does our parent partnership look like? Parents and students come in, they select their own curriculum. So with reading, we have about 20 different sets of options for parents to pick from. Math, science, social studies, history. We also even offer guitar. It's truly personalized education tailored to meet the needs of our students. We have some students in eighth grade that have already passed geometry. However, we do have some students in eighth

059grade that haven't been to school since kindergarten. And so, we actually have them in classes where we're teaching them how to read. These students with the parent partnership are also able to enroll in classes at their local school. So, if they want to take advanced orchestra, they can. We offer in-person tutoring. We also have teachers to support parents for academic guidance. We also have opportunities for them to uh participate in sports and clubs in their neighborhood school. And these students are also allowed to have counseling services and to utilize our life coaching services. When you look at our parent partnership, you can see Oh, sorry. It's hard going back and forth between the glasses. So, I'm losing myself here. So, now that you have a better understanding of K8 and our parent partnership, let's talk

060about our enrollment numbers and the growth we've seen this year. As you can see from the chart, last year in June, we had 205 students total for K8. Right now in March, we're at 205 students. When you look at our parent partnership numbers, you can see that our growth reflects how dedicated the staff at K8 is to growing our program. So, as you can see, we've had the parent partnership, this is our third year, and the first two years, we had a total of two students in it. Right now, we're currently at 29 students and still recruiting. K8 Virtual has taken intentional steps to expand. We worked at the Central Washington State Fair. I'd like to give a special shout out and thank you to the cabinet members, to the teaching and learning uh staff

061members, as well as our K8 staff who man the booths at the fair. We're currently making phone calls and mailing letters to families that currently live in the Yakama School District. Oh, we're making phone calls and mailing letters to students and families that currently live in the Yakama School District. However, the families are sending their students out of district. We have about a thousand of those students that we're trying to recruit back to the Yakama school district. Most importantly, the staff at K8 Virtual has built a program that we believe in and one that we would send our own kids to. Now, let's shift our focus to the goals at K8 Virtual. Our first goal is to increase the percentage of students successfully completing all their courses from 23% last year to 50% this year.

062As you can see, we've had a great success in our students passing their courses. Part of the success is due to offering students in-person tutoring. This goal directly aligns with our strategic plan of ensuring that 19 out of 20 students graduate on time. After all, if you can help our students pass their courses and become successful in stu in school, we're setting them on the right path to graduate. Building on our commitment to student success, let's move on to our next goal. By the end of this year, K8 Virtual would like to establish counseling and life coaching services. We would like 50% of all of our students to utilize these services. One of our strategic goals for the Yakama School District is to ensure that 19 out of 20 students feel connected to both their

063peers and adults at school. As you can see, this year at K8 Virtual, we now offer uh Clayful Life Coaching where it's an app that students can use. They can put it either on their phone or their computer and within 30 seconds they're connected to a life coach who has a certificated counseling certificate. We also now offer counseling services twice a week. We hired Colleen Kuznney. She's a retiree hire and she really focuses on students and staff well-being. The other piece that we've added this year are many in-person opportunities for students to come to K8. So now we have a student and family orientation where all families come. We offer tutoring and we have many family events. Our ultimate goal at K8 is to create a safe and supportive environment where every student feels valued.

064I'd like to thank you again for the opportunity to share our incredible progress happening at K8 Virtual and our parent partnership. Thank you for your time, support, and commitment to the success of our students. Thank you, Brenda. Are they any questions for members of the board? Brenda, can you help me understand? Maybe it's because it's late in the day and it's math. Um, but I don't understand the numbers that you gave us for enrollment or participation or there was two last year and now there's 24. And can you go over that part again, please? Absolutely. Can we go back to the slideshow? So right now in March, our K8 So there's two sides to K8 virtual. K8 virtual and our parent partnership. And so right now we currently have 205 students in our K8 virtual

065program. Our homeschool parent partnership, we have 29 students. And so when you look at the months, in September we started with zero kids and then in November we got to two and then December four and now we're all the way at 29 students. And so I would say with the phone calls and the letters home to parents, that's really how we're increasing our numbers. And we're really focused on our in district students that are currently going out of district for services right now. Do do you know where they're going? Do we have any idea? Yeah, we have the whole list. And so some are just your typical teachers teaching, let's say, in Wapto. They take their kids to Wapau. So there's there's some of that, but there are 300 students K through five that are

066currently doing other online platforms for the state of Washington. OMAC, Walaw Wala, Tushi, it's a wide variety, but we have all of that information. We have it on a spreadsheet so we know who we're targeting to get back to the Yakama school district. So, it's not like the um eighth graders that disappeared after kindergarten. Nope. Okay. That w that that was my one concern is that we didn't have kids that had just disappeared into their bedroom somewhere and nobody was teaching them. Yeah. Not those kids. Okay. Thanks. Yep. Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation this [Applause] afternoon. And I don't believe I said it myself. So, I'll reiterate what Brenda said and say thank you to Lucas and to everyone here for hosting us today. We appreciate that very much. The other building was

067still under construction last time I was in it, so it's nice to see it after it's been completed. So, we're moving to our section on updates. We'll begin with updates from members of the board. Does any board member wish to update the group? I know that the superintendent has a whole mini presentation for us on the legislature, so I won't steal his thunder with that. Um but just a reminder that um this week on the 1st, that's the first day that WASDA members can submit proposals for next year's general assembly. So, if you have proposals that um are not in our current platform and you'd like to bring them forward and have a discussion about them, we can certainly do that. We have until um the beginning of May to turn those in and they

068have to be approved at a board meeting before we submit them. Thank you, Director Rice. Hearing nothing else, we'll move to Dr. Green for the superintendent's update. Uh, thank you so much. Um, I'll start out with the Senate and House bill update if we could uh pull that up. And Jake, if you would like make any comment, just let me know because you and I have not talked about this and there might be some overlap. Uh, but I did share a uh document with the board earlier. I believe it was late last night, so you may not have had time to look through this, but I wanted to take you through what's happened recently when we look at the Senate and House budget proposals. So, if you go to the next slide, so I broken

069it down according to tone and support to K12 budget priorities and new revenue plans. There on that first slide, uh the Senate bill uh is more friendly towards public education. Um, we have direct investments in MSOC, which is maintenance, supplies, and operating costs, special education, pension, colas. Uh, we're not seeing that in the transportation area. So, you might have recall that we we had coined the phrase statewide the big three. The big three being special education, MSOC, and transportation. Uh, the House is more cautious about the funding, and they are proposing in the House 13 billion in new taxes versus the 17 billion in new taxes at the Senate level. If you go to the next slide, so you can see the big three funding comparison, MSO, special education, transportation. If we start at the

070bottom, you can see that there's no bill movement on transportation. So, uh that is essentially dead at this time and we're not hopeful in those areas. Uh we are seeing significant opportunity in the Senate proposal uh in special education, which is that second um uh second row of the first column. Uh so you'll see 967 million for K12 and 47 million uh as well for DCYF including uh multipliers lower safety net threshold for special education. Looks like we have a quick typo there. I apologize for that. And cap removal. Uh the house proposal is is much more limited and provides zero for MSOC at the moment. So uh this is the current status. Um if you go to the next slide then just summarize the summit the senate budget is stronger prioritizes MSOC special education

071pension colas uh seb and is more comprehensive in address in addressing our needs. So just again uh a highle overview uh we'll probably get in the details maybe a little bit more with Jake maybe not but uh do you have any questions that maybe we could answer around the Senate and House proposals that came out within the last week? No, I can provide some color commentary like would you mind going back one slide just to put and most of my update this evening was going to be about um the differences in the two chambers budgets and superintendent if we could go to the MSOC slide would be helpful. So, just to put some context to how big the numbers are, the swings, the MOC total there on the Senate side, you look at the 174

072million, that's an additional $1.8 million for Yakama when you put it on a local perspective. Um, so that is a one of the larger swings. The special education funding has been very volatile and even the bill itself continues to be amended. um if it was to be enacted in total we would we would increase by uh I don't I don't want to estimate now but it's it's a couple million dollars at a minimum so there are big swings there and what is not on the superintendent slide and I'll talk about later is the uh large differences in pension contributions and uh Dr. Green did touch upon the two different there's a $4 billion gap in revenue that hasn't been approved yet by either chamber. So that that still has a lot of water to go

073under the bridge when you're talking about 13 versus 17 billion on the revenue or tax side. Just to put it bring it home that is those numbers really mean something when you start to drill them down at the local level. And the Senate proposal is contingent upon new taxes. So just be aware there that if uh taxes are not approved then that does not happen. So in this session more than ever they've used K12 as the tip of the spear for revenue increases and we've seen quotes like you know no new revenue no new K12 funding so it it has put K12 in a even we are the paramount duty but has put us in a very interesting place any questions okay and I'll go through the rest of the superintendent update rather quickly I

074I do want to follow up um Franny made some comments and I want to thank her personally Uh she is the first um uh YA president uh and there have been three in my time here and she is the first to extend any type of opportunity to collaborate together and approach the legislature. So I think that is a huge um olive branch and a huge opportunity. So as you know uh we've already engaged in um writing a co-op an op-ed uh that was in the Herald uh thanks to Franny's efforts. So to have that happen and then know that uh we have the opportunity then to join forces and uh go to the legislature is something that I really appreciate. Uh, also I did want to call out just in one of the things that

075Franny mentioned. Um, I just wanted to kind of memorialize this here that there was a mention of uh, two of our buildings where we have uh, leaders there have been votes taken. Uh, I think she alluded to and then followed up with the statement that um, she believes that those are because of lack of resources. So, I I just think that it's very important at this point when we're talking about uh honoring our assistant principles and the work that they do uh just how important those positions are. And we did intentionally uh reduce at the administrative level knowing that we had to stay far away from the classroom as possible, which is very difficult when you're talking about a an occupation that is 85 to 87% uh human capital. And we know, and this is

076one of those statements that will always come back and haunt somebody, but I'm willing to put it out there because it is the truth. It's uh what makes a difference in our profession is people, people and people. So uh that is the most important thing that connection that's made and having those teachers in the classroom making that difference. But uh in making the statement that we have uh uh you know principles out there that uh may have some challenges uh with staff or may be struggling and recognizing that that could be because of resources I think is very valuable to know uh so that if that does surface later on that hopefully there is advocacy on behalf of those principles to recognize uh the efforts that they're taking at a time where there has been

077attrition even in that support. The last two items that I just want to share is that uh we do have uh just a great announcement. We have I'm looking out if she's still here. Is Heather still here? As did she I'm gonna call out that she skipped out. That's terrible. I shouldn't do that. Uh but Heather Hasty uh one our wonderful AC Davis High School principal uh did reach out to the AWSP was so that's the association of Washington School Principles and the Washington School uh administrators um organization typically for central services and administrators. They hold a conference every June uh in Spokane and she was picked up. I think she's the incoming president for the principles association if memory serves correct. Uh but she did submit a u a program a uh presentation uh

078which will highlight the faith-based partnership that we have in our district. So very excited to have her engaged in that. And uh Omar who must be making sure she gets Oh, there he is. He's here. Thank you Omar. So Omar I think is going to be a part of that as well. And uh you know, I think while we have Omar here, it is just amazing. I got to tell you this, there's there's just so many great things that happen in our district. and uh just having the faith-based partnership be something that I was able to walk into and that had nothing to do with any but anything but the effort of uh Omar and having that outreach initially and then just keeping that flywheel moving forward and having quarterly those meetings with faith-based partners

079so that we have each each building has one, two, potentially three faith-based partnerships that uh that that provide services for students uh that are um non-cclesiastical services in supporting them and just making our community stronger. So, I'm looking forward uh hopefully I'll be able to sneak away for the day and drive up there to Spokane and see the presentation and say a few words and come back, but if not, we will be well represented by both Omar and Heather Hasty. And then lastly, we have our 2025 WASA. So, that's again the superintendent central services administration uh awards banquet. Uh if you remember last year, I believe it was held at the country club, Yakama Country Club. It looks like there's a theme for golf courses. So it's at Apple Tree this year, May 15th. So

080not to be out east valley, west valley, I guess, home and away. Uh that is on May 15th. May 15th from 5:30 to 7:30. Uh Liz, we will reach out to make sure that you have an invitation. Uh you can turn us down, that's that's fine. But if you would like to be there, uh we will make sure that you're taken care of. And uh typically there's a community award, student award. It's a great time for all of the districts to come together with their schoolboard members and recognize people in their community. So, uh, we're looking forward to that on the 15th of May at Apple Tree. And that concludes my superintendent update for this evening. Are there any questions for the superintendent before we move on? In that case, thank you, Dr. Green. We'll

081move to our uh very full and very excitingly busy spring calendar that board members and everyone can find in board docs and I'll introduce uh Kirstston Fitter, our chief communications officer to discuss a few opportunities to highlight for community engagement. Thank you, President Beckett. And we have indirectly worked on this as a new section, a new offering to the board meeting. So we'll see how it goes. So, for the highlights for community engagement, we have a few things going on. First, just want to mention that we do have a board meeting um in April, which is the business meeting on April 15th at 7 p.m. at Central Services. There's also the May 1st WASDA director 8 regional meeting in Thorp. And then I'm going to move down to some school events because it is the

082season. We have a lot going on for our schools. Um, you can I know you can all read the list that's in board docs, but there's a few that I wanted to point out. Um, we do have the we just concluded the Davis spring musical and Eisenhower's is coming up. That will be Anastasia. It opens on April 17 and goes through April 26. It looks like that was that was Davis. That was Did I say it wrong? Yeah, we just concluded Eisenhower. And next is Davis. Thank you, Superintendent Green. And then we have um so so many varsity sports going on. And I just want to draw people's attention to if you want to see both Eisenhower and Davis to try to go tomorrow at 3:00 and watch their tennis match, they will be playing

083one another. And then many others that are going on, fast pitch, baseball, soccer, golf, uh, throughout the the month, district events, something near and dear to my heart, and I won't go over it too much because I did last time, but that is the Japanese cultural fair and show, and that is on April 17th. I will mention that um, on April 11th, we are welcoming 81 visitors from Japan in the Yaka community. So look out for them when they are here. And then uh hopefully we will see you at the May 8th YSD excellence and education event which is our staff awards. Looking forward to that. And then the rest are so so many graduation events that I will go over next time. And since this is the new section called highlights for community engagement,

084my peers found out about that immediately and have a public announcement for me to read for the community's benefit. And that is that there is a Native American parent committee meeting as part of the federal title 6 grant process through easy. Easy stands for electronic application system for Indian education. The Yakama School District will hold a Native American parent committee meeting on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 at 6 PM at Franklin Middle School. This public announcement satisfies the required public hearing element for the grant. The committee includes parents of Native American students, tribal representatives, teachers, and when appropriate, Native American secondary students. This concludes the highlights of the engagement section. Thank you, Kirsten. Are there any questions for Kirsten before? Awesome. Thank you so much. That takes us to Mr. Cooper for our I believe we're

085calling this off the cuff. Correct. Would would the board of superendent mind if I don't I'm podium dependent with some papers. Would you mind if I do my report seated? Thank you. They're my my colleagues are more coordinated than me. Oh, the mic's on. I will let go. Um, so two weeks ago, I was able to give you what we what the tea leaves were looking like. And as we thought, as we said during that meeting, um, between last meeting and this, all the things happened that we said were going to happen. There was a revenue forecast was down $845 million. Both the chambers released their respective budgets and their revenue plans accordingly. And now we are in the sausage making stage. So here's what we do know. We know currently that both chambers the

086IPD or the COLA is set at 2 and a half%. I would assume there's agreement there. Okay. One of the major salary pieces is is known which helps us in the back office start to build final salary schedules etc. And so that helps us move forward. What we don't know is still very large. Preliminarily, and I'm not going to talk about the special education budget or the bill in particular um that enhanced that funding, but right now when I examined the Senate and House and I looked at their mandatory benefits and their Moxs, there's about a $3.2 million gap. That is not insignificant. You recall when I gave the report last time approximately three three and a half million in enrollment driven staffing reductions which President Greer we referred to earlier and then we had

087slated given what we currently noted about $4 million in additional reductions on top for 7 million and change. So you can see that $3.2 million is a big deal. It changes a lot of things one way or the other. And so this is the time of year I like to say what we don't know. So we don't know retirement contribution rates yet. There's a big swing there. Um, one chamber uh has savings of um let's see, the House has uh let's see 1.6 there's $1.6 million swing between the House and Senate proposals on their retirement contribution rates. And that might not seem like a lot, but remember I told you those are that that's savings. So those are the cola in reverse. and both chambers have lower contribution rates. However, the Senate has a larger

088increase. So, that's one thing we have to watch um going forward. On the special education side, my colleagues are still just hoping and praying and trying to figure out how that bill moves forward. There's a lot of moving parts in it. Um so, again, not a lot of clarity on special education yet. That's a big big piece of the Tumblr, but mandatory benefits, retirement, big deal. And then um ultimately MSOC figure. The Senate, as we talked about, it drives about $1.8 million, $1.6 million um in MSOcks. The House provides about $660,000 just for their inflationary adjustments. So there's a swing of 1.2 million. And I say all that like, please, Jake, stop nattering on. But I want to let you everybody know what conceptually the plan would be going forward. We have made baseline revenue

089and expenditure assumptions in the next week or so. Cabinet and myself will be making some final decisions on reductions or recommendations for reductions because there there are still some things we're struggling through ourselves. That will be finalized. We'll work with human resources then to determine what the next steps are and what those step next steps are will be dependent upon each bargaining group unit individually and then of course what that broader picture says. I don't believe we're going to be able to have final actionable budget data by the 15th but there's going to be still some more tea leaves between now and then. So, what you'll be presented with on the 15th and likely is I will take kind of the middle and worst case of each chamber, even though there's both positives and we'll

090move forward with an actionable plan based on what a reasonable person would assume some of the variables could be because that's my job and that'll be presented for you. So, we don't have final numbers yet. Um, again, sign a die, which is my two favorite words generally, is April 27th. So there's a lot of work to do and there's also a lot of politics around the tax implications. So again K12 is at the tip of the spear for tax increases which is both a risk and reward position depending upon who you ask but again there's there's a lot of politics. I know the House is meant to debate their budget I believe this weekend and we'll see. I've heard from some colleagues they don't have the votes to pass their budget whether that's true or

091not. Um there's always a lot of conjecture at this time of the year in Olympia. I'm looking at Martha because she's been through a lot of these sessions with us and so that's what we don't know. There's still multiple million dollar swings uh in state revenue. Um and until we have final numbers, we will be move forward as uh in a conservative yet prudent fashion and make reductions that we need to ensure financial solveny. Then once the legislature is finished, we'll revisit those revenue amounts and budget amounts as we have them finalized. So I'm again long session this time of year you're kind of in a in a in an abyss when when it's conference time but um there is still a huge gap and superintendent talked about the four that a4 $4 billion gap

092in revenue that is not insignificant um across the state. So that's that's kind of my update for the night. Again as we discussed things are happening and pretend yes. Um Mr. Cooper, could you remind the board what um what a percentage of IPD means to the district? So, you talked about a 2.2% IPD. Yes. Yeah. Uh the 2.5 2.5 that's uh about just under 2 just under 2.6 million for the local levy uh or that amount. So, I was talking to assistant superintendent Muretta next to me last year was 3.7. And as I've said and I'll say many times, an IPD is great and a cola good a big goodsized cola is great for the individual. It's really tough on the organization's finances because we have to figure out how to fund that for all

093our non-state funded uh positions which we have a lot of federal employees as well. And um on the federal side, I wish I knew what was going to happen. I do not. I'm not going to pretend I know what's going to happen at the federal level. and if anybody knew they would be betting on that and making more money than our annual salary. So, um if there was any questions, I'd be happy to entertain them. Um but a very interesting time in Olympia that could impact us all in ways. Any any questions or concerns or comments? Okay. Thank you, Jake. It'll be a very interesting 28 days. It will. That will take us to our first opportunity for public comment. Liz, do we have anyone signed up for public comment? Bunker. Bunker, I understand you're

094signed up for. Welcome. Hello. It's my many years ago that was I have to say that my attention is always on the Yakima school district but was has drawn me down here today uh is the early childhood uh discovery site to see it because my first job in Yakama in 1970 through the ESD D was to come to the old Castleville for one of our first Head Start U and provide speech therapy there through the ESD and um it's just terrific to see what has developed but it also makes my head spin and terms of terminology and application and following kids to postsecary success because I also spent 13 years on the state board of education where I've had many years of studying opportunity. had a chance to uh serve on uh some of the

095uh strategic planning committee a few years ago in that vision of postsecary success and I just completed 10 years I think it was on the epic school board uh the EP epic program board and so what I would just like to say to board members who I feel are my peeps here it's the only reason why I get to come down and talk is that um it's It seems to me and you know I don't read everything these days but it seems to me the legislation around early childhood um is a piece that I would like to make sure I know that you're a policy board policy-led board for the K8 K12 excuse me and postsecary success but I'd like to be assured that you're keeping your eye on early childhood um uh legislation I

096was shocked when I opened up uh an email recently. I was shocked I even bothered to open it up uh because it was a legislative report on early childhood legislation and there are like 20 pieces of legislation. Uh and so I'm just want to mention that it needs to be followed by our local board as well. uh and we'll park early childhood with that. I'm thrilled with what's happening, I think it's very very um confusing in terms of all the avenues and as long as somebody understands that and you're working together, uh just keep doing the good work. But Brenda um Maloney, I have to say this uh virtual the K8 virtual program is something that was so new to me. I had guess I dropped out of sight over pieces like that because I

097remember when we we would start with the trailers for kids behind the skills center to come for um supplementary work and then get to graduation to have a K8 uh virtual is something that I'll be spending a lot of attention to as well. Congratulations on that. Thank you, Bunker. That takes us to our section of approvals. And the first one on our list today is the asset prevention program. And to address that will be Mr. Maretta. Anthony. [Music] Thank you very much, President Beckett. Um, oh, I excuse me, I opened up the wrong one. I'll open up the IOS report. Um the asset preservation um annual report in summary is every year we have to go by uh have our department give uh an asset of of an assessment of where uh our buildings are

098and how they fit within the standards that are put together by the state. And then Kyle, is it once every seven years? uh we have to have an independent third party do it and for us uh it was the u lofbr who puts it together and in and in in essence this report just basically says that we are in compliance. Um, one of the things though is that this is something that has to be done by a third party. And this year, uh, in cooperation with OSPI, we were able to run a, uh, training program, uh, for for Eastern Washington school districts. Uh, we then had our uh, director certified to be able to do this himself. As I said, every seven years it has to be done by an independent third party and then

099we will enter into a reciprocating agreement where we do it for another like-sized district and then they can have the likes district do it for us. Um because whether they are dollars provided by the state, it's still part of our overall budget and every time we can save some money, uh we hope that that has a trickle down effect back to the districts itself. And so with that, if there's any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer. And if it's out of my uh league, I have uh Kyle Sautic, our our maintenance director here also. Excellent. Thank you, Anthony. The board is being asked to approve the 2025 asset prevention program annual report as presented and was included in your vote or docs. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Is there any

100discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Anthony. You're welcome. And thank you. The second item on our list of approvals this afternoon is for Director Navaro Jr. to travel to the NO conference. Raymond, do you want to preface this? Sure. Thank you, Mr. President. So, I'm asking for approval to travel to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the 42nd annual conference of NALEO, which is a gathering of elected and appointed officials and thought leaders from across the country uh to that are getting together to to discuss important issues regarding education, healthc care. uh one big thing in healthcare is mental health and uh also technology AI I think is going to be a hot topic and additional topics as well. So it's um

101in the past it's always been an excellent opportunity for professional development. There are two sessions that I'm I'm very interested in attending in regards to education and we know with um the state of our education in in the United States is changing it and looks like there might be some uh big changes coming up as well. So there's going to be a discussion on the future of public education in regards to federal and uh state policies and also there's another session I like to attend if possible is mental health support for Latino communities and so how that we can do what a discussion on that also you know during this conference there's access to national leaders I've formed some great um partnerships and relationships with u many individuals in many different positions from um local

102mayors, city council individuals to um state representatives to senators at and and our congress individuals at the national level. So getting to getting access to our national leaders and and providing input and and comments and so forth ideas uh to the the uh discore the national discourse on a lot of these topics excuse me also opportunity to learn about policy situations or solutions and best practices and of course it's always an opportunity for networking and collaboration. So I just uh would ask the board uh for your consideration and uh providing me approval to attend this wonderful conference. Thank you. The board is being asked to approve travel for director Navaro Jr. to the NLEO conference in Atlanta, Georgia for the estimated amount of $3,500 on July 20 July 25th, 2025. Do we have a motion?

103So moved. Do we have a second? The motion will fill for lack of a second unless you second the motion. There's only four of us here. So yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, then I'll second. Okay. Okay. I didn't I was I can Okay. So we have the motion and the second. So we can now have discussion. Is there discussion on the motion? I have a comment. Um this is the first time that that I'm aware that the board has been advised that director Navaro would like to attend this conference. uh since we have little knowledge of what our budget is going to look like this coming year and we know what it looked like last year. I think um approving this at the end of March for a conference that's at the end of July is

104a little premature and it's a little I think that I think it's a little spendy for a conference and I think it sends the wrong message to approve this motion at this time. Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing no further discussion. Uh Liz, I guess I'll ask for a roll call vote on this today, please. Director Navaro Jr. I. Director Rice, no. Director Walker, yes. President Beckett, yes. Motion passes. Motion carries. Thank you all very much. We'll move to our second opportunity for public comment this afternoon. Andy is checking. Okay. Thank you very much, Andy. And at this point, we'll get to our first section of policy governance. We're looking to Mr. Cooper, please, for treatment of students and their parents. This is policy 1000.2.1. Thank you, President Beckett. Before you this evening for

105your review and um hopefully ultimate adoption is policy 1000.2.1. Now, this policy um is one where it highlights the district's interface with our students and our families, our st our parents. And in the data, you will find as we go out and build these reports, we send requests out for information for a half dozen different departments. So you'll see in there all the way from uh details on our policy and procedures on how we interact with students and staff, how we collect data, how we secure that data, what our clear communication expectations are, and then of course um appeal rights. Um and then we also touch on uh HIV and HIV as well. So the report has a lot of good data in it and um currently uh we are in compliance or testing to

106compliance and throughout the report and I'd be happy to entertain any questions for you. And then on a personal aside superintendent will get nervous when I say that. Um throughout my career I've interacted with families at different levels depending upon the departments I've supervised. I want to let you know that I've had the honor to supervise the enrollment department for the last two years in Yakima and to a te the um parents and students I interact with on an appeal basis have been wonderful. They have been polite and proactive and I don't haven't often got that throughout my career. So I would be remiss not to tell the community and staff and the board that my interactions on, you know, on one-on-one level about a sensitive topics have been spectacular in Yakama. So um that's

107just another way I would demonstrate the the proof that we are working with our families and students in a in a cohesive and competent way. So recommend you pass on this. Mr. Cooper, are there any questions from the of from the board? Dr. Green, do we have need for executive session this afternoon? We do not. Okay. If we have no need for executive session, then our next board meeting will be April 15th at 7 p.m. Point of order. Don't we need to approve that report? Xync this we need to do the survey on for the survey. Okay. First read. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, um as I was saying, tax day 7 p.m. is our next board meeting and until then we are adjourned. Thank you.