SCSD Regular School Board meeting, 3.17.26

001Pet projects. You're good to go. Okay. This clock says six. That one doesn't. Is that Apple time? Yeah. All right. Well, this clock says six. I will now call to order the March 17, 2026 regular school board meeting of the Stanwood-Cormaino School District Board of Directors. All board members and student advisors are present and accounted for. Thank you. Today we are offering two opportunities for the public to speak. Comments specific to the consent agenda will be allowed prior to the vote on those items. Citizens who have submitted the request to speak either here in person or online during the public comment section of the agenda will be called upon to make their comments at that time, which is near the end of our meeting. Please stand with me for the flight salute. I pledge allegiance

002to 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. All right. You have the agenda before you for the March 17th regular school board meeting. Are there any changes to said agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda as written? Second. That's been moved by Director Murray and seconded by Director King. All in favor of approving the agenda for March 17th, say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Next up, we have our minutes from the March 3rd, 2026 regular school board meeting. Are there any changes or corrections or anything on those? No? All right. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the March 3rd, 2026 meeting? So moved. Second. Moved by Director

003Olson, seconded by Director King. All in favor of approving the minutes from the March 3rd regular school board meeting, say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Now we have the superintendent's report. Thank you very much, Director Evans. We have six items on the superintendent's report plus an addition, and we'll start with donations to be read in by our student reps. The Salem Community School District received the following donations. $2,149.10 from the Sketchett Symphony to cover the transportation costs of the elementary school field trips to attend the Sketchett Symphony at McInn Tide Hall. $150 from the City of Detroit Tribe to Washington to support outdoor education at the Twin City Elementary School. Thank you very much and although I wasn't able to attend either of those I did see pictures from both of those events which

004is a great experience for All of our students that were able to attend so thank you for those donations The next item up on the superintendent's report is the shining star from Stanwood middle school Please? Yes. Thanks, Holly. Cassidy, this is your time. We talked about this. It's going to be awesome. All right. Cassidy is a student who consistently goes above and beyond, especially in the way she approaches her learning with creativity and thoughtfulness. Over the past year and a half, her growth, both academically and socially, has been truly impressive. While she may be quiet, Cassidy has turned that into one of her greatest strengths. She listens carefully, reflects deeply, and shares her ideas with purpose, whether through her writing, class discussions, or collaborative work in both ELA and science. She has a unique ability

005to demonstrate her understanding in creative and innovative ways, often exceeding expectations to show not just what she knows, but how deeply she understands it. Cassidy is also highly reflective, setting goals for herself. and intentionally working to grow, particularly in becoming comfortable socially and building connections with her peers. In every classroom, Cassidy is kind, respectful, and a positive presence. She values the contributions of others while quietly bringing her own strengths to the table, making those around her better. Cassidy's combination of creativity, reflection, and genuine kindness makes her an outstanding student and a valued member of our school community. So Cassidy, great everybody. All right. Cassidy, do you have anyone you want to introduce that's here tonight? I would like to introduce... We're going to invite you over here for a picture and a couple other things.

006All right, ready? One, two, three. Thank you. All right. Congratulations. All right, next on the superintendent's report is the Stanwood Middle School data update. Principal Tim Dickinson and Assistant Principal Hodgers-Masiris. So the report, out. So our goals have not changed since last time we visited. So just to kind of highlight a couple of key points is we're really focused on an awareness of where our kids are and for them to be able to track and monitor their own growth. One of the highlights that we're going to come back and touch on here in a moment is how we identify the gaps for students and plan to deliver those targeted interventions. And you're going to be able to see some great data to support just how effective that's been for us so far this year. I

007can get in there, I guess. Alright, and then within the MTSS goals, it's really focused on helping students to maintain composure and self-regulation in order to be successful in the classrooms. So, we're going to look at some data. We expected to see increased ownership of learning and a lot of growth in ELA and math, and hopefully that will be very evident here as we look at our data. So we just completed our mid-year HHS representative. So this is for ELA for reading. And you can see that we have decreased the number of students below grade level pretty significantly and also increased those students in the green and blue bands there that are well above and above grade level. And if you look at that, it's close to 8 or 9% points there shift overall. pretty

008significant from beginning of the year to middle of the year. iReady is our tool that we use to monitor math growth. You can see very similar trends there. We really shrunk that 32% that was three or more grade level below, down to 24, and shifted those green bands at the top, which is on or above grade level, significantly as well, again, from 18 to 27, so a 90% swing there. So really fantastic work that our staff has done from beginning of the year to middle of the year to get those kind of gains for our students. One of the other things we've done specifically in math is we dedicate Thursdays to Spartan time. Students are identified based on some of the assessments that they take and receive direct instruction from staff. The darker color there

009is the number of students in those grade levels that were identified for intervention over our eight-week intervention session. So over the course of eight weeks, those students received direct instruction in small groups with with an adult, either a parent educator or a classroom teacher. And the lighter color there shows the number of students who were proficient. So they passed the exit assessment at the end of the sessions, demonstrating that they mastered the skills that they were being taught. So very targeted intervention, intensive over eight weeks, and we had quite a few students that went from no mastery of the concept to mastering it and exiting it and being ready to move on to deeper learning. So it's been a very, very impactful tool and those students are celebrated and recognized as they make those achievements.

010leads us to some of the next steps that we see along this path. So we found that students were really highly motivated to be able to engage in the work, seeing that they progress and move along. And we are planning for next year in kind of some collaborative work with some teachers of the high school that use the similar model to offer a block for all of our sixth graders next year that will allow them to kind of go at their own pace to a certain degree where some of our students who are pick up on things quicker and are maybe stronger foundationally in math can go through all of the sixth grade curriculum and all of the seventh grade curriculum by the end of the school year. And students who need maybe a little

011bit more repetition will get a chance to do a module. If they're not proficient, they'll be able to go back and redo the module with some targeted work based on how they've done on the assessments until they gain mastery before moving on. So it will be able to accommodate both acceleration and also remediation throughout the school year and giving kids an opportunity to kind of gain the success that they have built on kind of this year in our Spartan Center model, but applying it to the whole core math instruction. And we believe this will lead to even bigger gains and more confidence and just really helping fill those gaps for students that have those individual needs. discipline data. So one of our goals was about self-regulation and helping kids to be able to maintain themselves

012in the classroom. This shows a huge decrease in the number of classroom exclusions over the first 100 days of school. So last year we had 242 times that a student's behavior became so disruptive that they were asked to leave a classroom, down to only 140 this year. So some of the things that have been put in place to help build skills for students and our teachers, it really decreased the number of times that a student has had to miss out on instruction. Can I just clarify, is that the... 24, 25, is that the whole year or is that the same amount of time? Just the first 100 days. Yeah, just the same amount. So we're comparing the same things. I just wanted to make sure. That's what I thought it was telling me. Yes. Thank

013you. The other thing that we wanted to just touch on, because we didn't get a chance to talk about it last time, is we have developed an attendance team that Holly really helps kind of facilitate and meet with regularly. And by reaching out and meeting with students and connecting with families, they have significantly decreased the amount of chronically absent students that we have. It has just been extremely impactful. We know that if kids are in school more, They're able to learn more, we're able to help get them connected and just really meet them in a different way. The team has just done outstanding work this year to lower those percentages compared to last year. So a big thank you to her and the team for working on that. We wanted to highlight just a few

014things that have been happening. Our ASB leadership classes did a huge fundraiser for a food drive that Evan came and takes photos of as they go and they deliver the food to the food bank. We've had high school volunteers come down to run math nights for us, which have been very well attended and made a big difference for our students. Of course, we continue to recognize students monthly for their achievements and their both academically and behaviorally. We celebrated our honorable students. Our PTO comes in and does a nice donut breakfast for all of those students that maintain excellence with their GPA. We continue to recognize our good news call of the day and our students that are just really demonstrating what it means to be a Spartan. And then we just finished our girls' United

015basketball season, where the two schools actually came together this year to form one team. And it was a really great season. They did very well. So we hope to continue to see an increase in learning as we go through the rest of the year. We know we've caught a little bit more than... quarter left here as we kind of wrap up the school year and we're hoping that all the hard work of our students and our staff really come to come to light as we look at those spring assessments at the end of the year. Yes, if we could go back to the slide nine. I'm still a little confused on that data set. So on that, the dark blue and the light blue. So You identified the way to interpret this is you identified

01642 students for intervention So yeah, so the sixth grade all of our six years to the diagnostic assessment and we identified 42 of them that had little to no proficiency in a given math standard and put them through an eight-week intervention where they met with the teacher once a week, 17 of the 42 students were mastered the standard by the end of our eight weeks. I think probably in the future I'm sure maybe a percentage of students that were mastered would be easier to understand it. Yeah, I think that mastered it. I think the other thing... for me is understanding how close are we coming with other students. So if there's like a, you know, 10 students that we're making a difference on but they're just not there yet, that shows the direction. So that's

017how I was trying to interpret that. So I'll take a look at it. The other question I have is on the next slide on... I was a little confused and part of my ignorance of not understanding. So is this chart representative that there are like three modules? Or is this kind of more of a representation that we have modular type? I tried to condense this down quickly so to just kind of give you a snapshot of it. But we're breaking the 180 school days down into six modules. So roughly 30 days per module. Every 30 days we will look at the data set that we've collected for the students. make a decision about if they've demonstrated proficiency in the standards that were taught. If so, we'll move them on to the next module. If not,

018they'll do a repeat of the previous module based on the standards that they're still struggling with and kind of get another opportunity to learn that with maybe a different teacher, maybe a different... of instruction and then hopefully they will master it the second time around. Okay, that answers my question of understanding that side of it. And then on the attendance data, it's great to see that we're going down on the absenteeism and such. Putting it in perspective towards what goals we've set internally, are we on a path to get to those goals? Oh yeah, the team's blown it out of the water this year. I can't tell you how helpful it is to sit down and they can answer all the questions about what's going on in the home life and what's going on, what

019they've connected with and tried to remove the barriers and just the wealth of information. kind of on a personal level that we have and so I'm going to support these kids has just really made such a difference. Thank you. I think the record team had a question. I have a question for you three. Sure. Three of the good things you mentioned. I'm interested to know more. Going back to the modules, I think you mentioned that students can actually accomplish sixth and seventh grade all in one year. Yes. What's the impact on that long term? Does that mean they can take calculus in high school? Well, what it helps us do is in the typical acceleration model, you're having to pick and choose standards to eliminate. Like, we're going to skip this topic, we're going to

020skip that, and just hope that over the course of their years, that doesn't have an adverse impact. And by doing it this way, there's a full exposure to all of the standards, and they're able to accelerate a full grade level by the time they get into high school, so they can go into honors geometry as a freshman and have an opportunity, if they want, to continue and still take calculus or statistics. So would that be a good thing for somebody who's going to science or engineering? Yes. And they have a much stronger foundation by doing it in this format. Second question. You mentioned that there was a drop of 242 to 140. That sounds good, but could you talk more about how that was accomplished? Well I think we spent a lot of time last

021year with establishing our Spartan Pride expectations and building in routines. The other thing that we've done this year, we have another team that's working on specific behavior interventions to support students with feedback that they get each class period and that also helps them be motivated and find the tools to... Maintain appropriate expectations for the behavior of the classroom. So you have you had any feedback from the students themselves on how that happened? Most of them really like it there, you know, they're motivated by getting to see them if they meet their goal every day Some of them get to go and visit. It's kind of like You know like in elementary school, I have a treasure box and stuff like that. We have a more grown up version of something like that where they meet

022their goals. Like I'll have kids that get to come in at lunch time and play Nintendo in my office and play with a friend. Like there's ways that they get to be celebrated and recognized and work towards something that maybe is a challenge for them. In the third subject, you mentioned the improvement in attendance. What do you attribute that change to? I think it's really just the team really showing an interest in the family and the students and building those connections. And there's just a lot of one-on-one opportunities for the staff to get with the kids and talk with them and let them know that they're missed when they're not there. And then just that alone is really probably accounted for a big part of this. And early, yes. From day one. Early and often.

023Yes. I have a question. You answered one of my, I had two, but you answered one of them already. What's the sequence for those kids who accelerate within a year? And then can a student in seventh grade, what happens if a student in seventh grade finishes seventh grade mid-year? So if they're a sixth grader going through and they get through about half of the seventh grade content, then they would go on what we call our foundations course in the seventh grade, which is currently a compressed version with missing standards of two grade levels worth of content. So we're able to kind of pick up that process where they left off and then try to get them through the rest of that eighth grade material so that they can also be accelerated. So there's an opportunity

024for that depending on how they perform. on the standards. Then on the already assessment, are you finding some domains in the tool that students are faring really well on? And then on the converse domains that really are... They're doing really well in outbreak thinking right now. Geometry is the lower area, and I think it has to do with where that fits into our scope and sequence right now. It hasn't been taught heavily. It's sprinkled in in a couple spots. proportion and statistics pretty well. Yeah. So going back to your intensive eight weeks, what are you doing for the students to make proficiency for the rest of high school? So we run through the eight week cycle and so the students that were identified, the total number there, students who were not identified were going to

025be high ready and then we pivot into the next. standard for some of the kids and some will be a repeat of that prior skill at the top. For another eight weeks. For another eight weeks. We're able to fit really two full sessions into a school year because of conference days and holidays and other things. So we get two full cycles out of the year. Okay. And then talking about your mom's one-off. Yes. Is that across the whole entire grade band? Yeah, it's going to be a unique thing for us at San Francisco Next Door. We're sixth grade only. They'll have a two-period block to start their day. And so it'll all be happening at the same time. So we can be flexible with groupings and different teachers to be able to support all of

026the students. How are you supporting students that are not as good at soft break? With math or just in general? With mathematics. I mean, there are some students that really need that guidance of what they're supposed to be doing in that home. Part of what the flexibility of this will allow us to do is that some of the groups will be a little bit larger in size and some will be a little bit smaller. And then when we layer in our special education team on top of that, it adds a whole other grouping that can... access the material in a slightly different way, a little more concrete as they start to develop the skills rather than jumping right into pictorial and abstract thinking. So we're going to try to be utilizing that. Since it's flexible

027and we can rotate every 30 days, we'll be able to kind of help get kids where they need to be and meet them where they're at instead of trying to just move the train along for everybody at the same rate. Can you define chronically absent? It's more than 10%. So 180 days, so 18 days is chronically absent. Okay, and then your math, since everybody else is at that, is there an intent to expand that or is it just like your foundations and then you'll continue using the other system that you had before? The intention is that and we're building in some additional intervention classes specific to 7th and 8th grade as a separate solution or answer to meet the needs of some of those students that didn't have that opportunity already. And then you said

028you guys had a united basketball team, which I genuinely love when the two schools do sports together. It makes me, because they all play together in all of the other leagues, so it does make me feel better when they play together as opposed to against each other. But was that due to participation or coaching or like what sort of? It had a lot to do with the numbers and the rules. That sign up in school. It made sense because We wanted to be able to have a varsity at both the seventh and eighth grade level and then in JV and so by combining the word book to get three distinct teams. Okay, seventh grade went undefeated. Nice. Thank you very much. I just want to say I appreciate the response to the data from previous

029years regarding math achievement and this module plan that will be able to allow for mastery of the standards before it moves on which I think has been a gap previously so I appreciate that and nice job on the attendance because the numbers you know 8% may not look big it is like you said blowing it out of water so nice job on that thank you both for the report appreciate it Director Evans and Superintendent, would it be okay if we let the families go that are here for Shining Star? Would they like to sit through the rest of the presentations? That would be very appropriate, Director Russell. Why don't we take about two minutes to do that and transition. Thank you for that. Usually somebody sits down and then we have a break in between

030that, but they were already sitting. Thank you guys were also attentive though, so that was Next up is our annual alternative learning experience annual report with the principal Christy Auckland and the teacher from Saratoga My slide's backwards. All right, so foundational early learning is important to understand because on the Saratoga side, we start at kindergarten and go all the way up to 10th grade. And so, you know, you think of Lincoln Hill, you're like, why are we talking about early foundation? But we just want to make sure we're pointing out that it applies because we start early with kindergarten. Church Creek Campus, this is the slide I thought we were trying to, sorry. So we house four different programs, and so within Church Creek Campus, we have the Lincoln Hill High School, which is daily

031instruction. We have the Lincoln Hill High School, which is the alternative learning experience, and so that's the remote program. Then we have Lincoln Academy, that's our seventh and eighth graders. And then we have the Saratoga, which is also our ALE program. So tonight, specifically, we're going to be talking about ALEs. Okay, this one's still fine. So just a quick overview of what is ALE, because it's not commonly known to everybody, but of the four programs, the two on Church Creek campus that are ALE, that means that they all are part of their instruction is outside of the traditional classroom setting. And so that's the main. Our alternative learning programs support the overall goals, focus on standards and grade level expectations. We provide learning options for students. We offer high quality courses, alternative to a traditional

032route, and keeping students engaged with schooling and on path to graduation. So just an option. Not all districts have an ALE program, and so ours has been around, at least Saratoga's been around for over 20 years, and Lincoln probably the same. So we're very fortunate to offer that as a learning option for our families in our district. All right, so on the Lincoln Hill side and for the ALE in 2025 we had 0.7 FTE so that means two teachers and we're supporting our ALE students and so that meant that one teacher was a 0.2 so one class period and then I had a one teacher that was a 0.5 so four class periods and then half. And then this year, 2026, I have 1.0 FTE total, so that's four different teachers covering those. So that's

033three different teachers having a 0.2 each to one class period each, or 0.6, and then one teacher is at a 0.4 with two class periods. And the FTE is full-time employment, so that's how it's broken apart for our teachers. It is, I know it looks a little bit goofy, it's important, especially at the high school. area that the teachers endorsed in the area that they're signing off of and so by having the different teachers you can make sure we're getting our math and our ELA covered or our science or whatever that might be so it is important to have more than one person because of those different endorsement areas. And Saratoga is just a little bit different. We are a parent partnership program. And so that means that we also have remote classes that are

034not necessarily online. So at Lincoln, all of their ALE courses are online. And some of our parents are the instructors for our courses. So we have five teachers. I'm sorry, six teachers overall, 5.0 FTE, because some of our teachers work part-time. And again, we are serving grades kindergarten through 10th grade and making sure that we have a good mix of teachers that can support all of those grade levels with their endorsements. And they're the classroom teachers for the one-day week, and they're also their advisors for their students. This is just a quick graphic, just if you're new to Saratoga or just to kind of see how we operate. When we get into enrollment, we go over program requirements with a new family. It's like an interview process because we are really kind of hiring a

035teacher. for no pay. But they're teaching their child. So we want to make sure that they fully understand what their commitment level is on that and the expectations. We also want to see what needs they have and how we can fit those needs. And again, those commitment requirements and how we can support them. Then we look at individualized curriculum for those students, whether they're textbook-based, that parents are directing the instruction. or they are online. So we meet with each family individually and do that. And then that big mushy area in gray, the big blob, is where the learning happens. So it's at-home learning most of the time. They also have one day a week where they come on site for enrichment. Within that, there's a weekly review that we meet with each student individually. And

036we have monthly progress reviews that we do for each. Then we're also looking at assessment data. We use map assessment, measures of academic progress. Been doing that for a long time, right? And we use some IXL diagnostic. And the curriculum itself has diagnostic and assessments built into it. And then of course the Smarter Balanced assessments. I think of all of these, we utilize the math assessment the most. It's very individualized for students. Our parents get those data right away. And we set goals with the students and do that three times a year. We adjust and monitor throughout the year depending on those assessment results and then the individual needs of the students. We offer supplemental materials, skill plans, intervention plans if needed. So these are just our numbers for this year. So in October our

037head count was at 230. And our average through February was 229 with a ratio of about 45.8 students per teacher. Some of our students are part-time. That's really kind of one of the... The great things about our program is because it offers options in whatever percentage works for the family and the student. Some of our students are shared with another school in our district, or they might be shared with a homeschool family who's doing some of the homeschooling on their own. And so that's why we have the decimal points there. We are currently at 235, by the way. Just saying. Just saying. For us, it's been incredible. So for Lincoln, our headcount in October was at 52. So our monthly average through February was 59.5. And so our student-to-teacher ratio was 57.19 to 1. And

038so we have actually also had a lot of growth. And so I really wanted to take a couple minutes to point this out. And so everybody's aware of how I'm saying we're growing, we're growing. So in October of 2024, our headcount for the ALU was 41. And then in February 25, last year, it was at 45. And so last year's average headcount was 40.03. And then because we had that 0.7 FTE, our ratio is 67.19 to 1. For this year in 2025, we're at 52. And now in February we're at 75, and so that was being able to build capacity, collapsing a class, adding in some teachers in to be able to put more students into those sections. And so that makes our average head count. And so again, our ratio is the 59.5, thanks

039Patrick, to one. So that's kind of where we're at. So like I said, we've been growing a lot, which is awesome. Have a wait list, and it's been good. So we have... I'm on a campaign, sorry. One of the things that makes our program unique is that each student has a written student learning plan that is a state requirement. And they're very similar on both sides. They have the same requirements. They're developed by the student and the teacher over at Lincoln. We also include the parent in our, on the Saratoga side for that. On Lincoln's side, it's based on their transcript evaluation, looking at what classes those students need, and keeping them on path to graduate. And on the Saratoga side, mostly based on their grade level and their educational plan to move them and

040prepare them for the next steps. And final approval by the certificated teacher really on both of those. And it includes the high school meetup plan for Lincoln. We also have a weekly check-in, so that is a requirement of our TYCO program in the state of Washington. So that is typically done through a face-to-face meeting or an on-site enrichment day. It can also be done through a Google Meet, but it's important that we have that weekly contact with students so we're connecting with them about their classes. The monthly progress review is also a requirement. So we're looking at how they're meeting their goals according to their learning plan and if things need to be accelerated or modified. If students are not making progress, we work with them to develop an intervention plan. Yes, so I think

041the big thing for both of these slides at both programs is just also the involvement of the students. So the student is involved in where they're at in their classes, they're having those check-ins with the teacher, and just making sure that it's meaningful and fitting the student where they're at and meeting them where they're at and that flexibility that comes. And so we're making sure that we're always doing a self-evaluation. So we are looking at focusing on our core subjects, looking at what students need to be on track, and then really getting the parents' stakeholder feedback through surveys, talking, like Monica was talking about, interviewing each of our students on the Lincoln site. Any student that comes over, whether it's in person or remote, having those interviews and really talking to the students and the

042families and trying to figure out what's going on and making adjustments to figure out what they need. with that, that you're building in those hybrid options and really being able to listen to our students and listen to what they need and being able to create a program that's going to work for them. So thank you. Questions? I'm kind of, and I could just be my ignorance, but we talk about a ratio of 57.19 to one teacher. Does that give enough contact points with the students that we have to do our mission, so to speak, or what we want to do? Yeah, so the way that works on the Lincoln Hill side is, so that teacher, so let's say my class period that I have for remote is first grade. And so within that first grade

043class, I have 14 students that I'm meeting with. And so each of those students have a meeting set up once a week. That's their designated time that they're going to come check in with me. But then throughout the week, they can be emailing, communicating with the teachers, setting up a Google Meet, and having other support. Some students come in and they'll work in the school, the building as well, if they need that extra time. So it's kind of flexible depending on what the student needs. But that's how that's set up. Do we find that this, because we're talking about non-traditional, so to speak, do we find that there's a need for more engagement or the same engagement? How does that work? I think it depends, right? So sometimes we'll have to build an intervention for

044a student, so maybe they need more interaction or more support, so that might be when they come in, or they might have an extra meeting set up, so it's really individualized case by case depending on. And then in the parent part, the program system, the parent is the primary instructor, the role of the teacher is to develop a plan, a weekly check, like Christy just mentioned, and a monthly progress review. We do have some middle schoolers and high schoolers that are mostly our high schoolers, earning high school credits, but also some of our middle schoolers doing online coursework. And so we have looked at those, you know, providing that extra time for students that might need some additional support. So we have some study labs. So two times a week they can come in and

045drop in for a study lab with one of our best teachers. And it's really nice because they don't have to come every time, but they can come in and they can get that individualized support and have somebody just looking over what they're doing and keeping them on track. So those are options. Isn't the state cap 60 to 1? I know. We're growing. Thank you for the report. You know I have a special place in my heart for ALE, of course. It's important to note that about 6.4% of the students in the district access their education through alternative learning experience. So it's important to just keep that in mind as we talk about serving every student. Thank you for the report. Next up is the enrollment report. You can see the enrollment report in front of

046you and it's available on the agenda. The March enrollment report shows 4,623 FTE. That's down 15 from February. Back to normal trend for this time of year. Recall last month was up by three students, if I remember correctly. The average annual FTE is 4,643. That's off by 22 FTE from budgeted enrollment and down 18 from last year's March annual average. Any questions about enrollment? Okay. I'll move on to the Clean Building Act update by Ms. Floyd. an update for you today of the Clean Buildings Compliance. We had an update for you this time last year where we talked about the law that governs the Clean Buildings Act and we'll go through the legislation as well as the building, the covered buildings, some of the compliance requirements, energy usage for our particular buildings, as well as

047some next steps. So the legislation came from House Bill 1257 and it's the Washington Clean Buildings Performance Standard and it is a statewide effort to lower costs and pollution in public buildings and it pushes building owners such as us and others to pursue excellence through energy use optimization. And it also affects the state's existing covered buildings and multifamily buildings. Covered buildings include two tiers. So we have tier one, which are non-residential buildings over 50,000 square feet. And those require an actual performance standard requirement. We have to meet an energy target. be below that target for 12 consecutive months prior to the compliance deadline. Tier 1 deadlines range for our size buildings between 2026 and 2028. Stanwood High School is over 220,000 square feet. We have actually completed the performance standard requirement for Stanwood High School.

048Tier 1B and C are upcoming, as you can see there. Stanwood Middle School is in Tier 1B, and Port Susan Middle School and Stanwood Elementary School are in Tier 1C with compliance meeting by 2028. But recall that the target needs to be met for 12 months prior to that. Tier 2 are buildings between 20,000 and 50,000. And the compliance deadline for that was 2027. However, our district did early compliance. That is complete. And although with Tier 2, we do not need to meet the performance standard at this time because those buildings are under 50,000 square feet. The performance standard may be implemented at some later time by the legislature to have a performance compliant for those size buildings, but as of yet, there is none. So this is an overview of the energy use targets

049for all of our buildings. The target is the second number, column over. The first column represents either the current, as of February, energy usage, or the reported energy usage if we have already reported to the state. So for Stanwood High School and the Tier 2 buildings, which are from Cedar Home down, those were already reported, and those are the compliance targets that we reported to the state. Stanwood Middle School, Port Susan, and Stanwood Elementary School are the current, as of February, energy usage. And then you can see the over and under target. And you can see that some of the Tier 2 are still above target, but again, we don't have to comply on those targets quite yet for Tier 2. And then you can also see those compliance deadlines. I am very happy to

050report that for the three buildings that we need to report over the next couple of years, we currently, as of February, are in compliance. And you can see that the difference there. from December of 2024 we've had a marked reduction in energy usage and I just want to thank our custodial and maintenance department on the great work that they've done on you know doing those HVAC adjustments, asking for custodians to make sure lights are turned off at the end of the day. All of those kinds of things, when we're actually really close to our target, those things make a big difference. And so you can see here that we've done a really good job in those areas. So our hope is that we will be able to actually ask for or submit our compliance early.

051You know, crossing fingers that all of those energy usage targets stay below. Performance standard required for Stanwood Middle is June of 2027 and then for Susan and Stanwood L is June of 28. Our hope is that we can submit those early. We have received early submission incentive authorization. The payments have not come though. So our expectation is that those incentives for doing the tier two early submittal will be approximately $71,000. So we're just waiting for some communication from the utility providers as well as that we're expecting those payments to come. Those incentives were based on 30 cents per square foot. So for the buildings that have already complied, for example, Stanwood High School. The next target will be in 2031. And so we have four years before we need another 12 months of under target

052for compliance in 2031. We have since drifted slightly above our target at Stanford High School. And so we're continuing to monitor that so that we will be in compliance at the next reporting period. You mentioned giving credit to maintenance and custodial for the behavioral side of turning off lights and those type of things. Are there also some what we call technology or hard type improvements that are being made to keep some of those numbers like either boiler replacements, thermostats, electronics, things like that? Some of those things? Some of our planned projects are in that vein. For example, we want to do interior and exterior lighting upgrades to LED, those kinds of things. Our boiler replacements, when we do those, those are more efficient. All of those things that we do as far as our capital

053projects, we try to just kind of inch those energy usage down. And you kind of nailed it. That's all paid through our accounting system. So the utility benefits are generally. The state sets a target that declines. The target gets more rigorous as time goes on. Getting funding to support this. Correct. I also would like to thank McKinstry as well as Department of Commerce. They have been instrumental in helping us through this process because it is a big deal. So just to clarify, obviously I think we've talked about this before, the cycle is every, you said four years? Five. Okay, and it gets more strict every time, or is it we just have to submit every five years for the same level, or we don't? Well, I mean, a lot can happen between now and then.

054may ratchet down. I will have to get back to you on whether it's already in the law to ratchet down. But they did talk at the time that they set the targets that the plan was to ratchet down. even further and so our target may be more strict next time. Okay, and then it's are we making efforts I mean maybe we're focused on the actual ones that we need to get approved through and after that but are we making efforts at those other tier two buildings to get them closer to compliance in case that becomes Something that we have to do so it's not just like a one-time holy smokes. We gotta do this right now We can kind of do it over time. Yes, absolutely. So when we have projects such as the LED

055lighting those include the tier two schools as well and so our hope is that as we move through the capital projects from the safety infrastructure levy those will help you know to bring tier two down along with the other schools okay and then you kind of touched on it but I just want to clarify that ballpark 71,000 that we get back as that like Good job you did this early. How is that earmarked? Where does that go? What do we get to do with that money? I actually have a call into Commerce about that. I wanted to find out if there are any restrictions on the funds. My understanding was that there was not any restrictions. So I am thinking that it could help to pay for some of the... funds that we've spent on

056projects or reimbursing projects or reimbursing the construe fees, things like that. But I will find out whether there are restrictions around that money. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And thank you to Ruth, Jeff, Kevin, and the rest of the team and community that's involved in this. It is important to note that we opted into an early cycle for approval in an effort to maximize our funds in the district. And we see that early in the sentence. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I actually have one more. Item on the superintendent's report is just an acknowledgement of an item that's on the consent agenda tonight and that is that I'd like to introduce Brenda Hunt who is here this evening and is our next executive director of business services for the district. Brenda will start July

0571. Brenda brings more than two decades of experience in Washington school finance and district operations. She currently serves as the chief executive financial officer for the Monroe School District, where she oversees district accounting, functions, budget development, capital projects, planning, financial reporting, and internal controls. Prior to that, Brenda served in a number of districts, including Shoreline and Bashan Island. She will succeed Ruth Floyd, who's retiring after four-plus years of dedicated service to our district. And so please both join me. We won't say goodbye to Ruth yet, but I will ask that we welcome Brenda to her new leadership role in the Stanley Camino School District. So thank you. Welcome swag for wearing around the district and for where you're at and just welcome to the district Thank you welcome to the team We are now going

058to move on to our consent agenda. Anyone in attendance may speak to the items contained in the consent agenda and only those items contained in the consent agenda. So we have seven items on our consent agenda. Is there any board members that wish to poll an item? Yes, I'd like to poll item four. Okay, so Director King has pulled item number four. Anyone else? All right, so is there anybody in the audience that would like to make comment about consent agenda items one through three and five through seven? No? All right, so is there a motion to approve consent agenda items one through three and five through seven? Seconded. It has been moved by Director King, seconded by Director Russell. All in favor of approving consent agenda items one through three and five through seven

059say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Item number four. Mr. Caldwell is going to come help us out. Yeah. Excited to talk about this one, but let me take you back to January 6th. You may recall there was a gravel dump truck that turned over on the highway 532 on Camino blocking traffic. The moment that was cleared up, there was a three-car head-on collision that backed up traffic again. Both of those accidents prevented our buses from getting home, and we were attempting to get some information and a combination of the mix of jurisdictions that were responding. It was a challenge to try and get some accurate information about what was happening. So afterward, our amazing transportation director, Angie O'Connor, and I started asking around, trying to figure out what we can do to prevent us

060being in a situation like that in the future. We started pulling lots of different threads. We eventually became in contact with Washington State Department of Transportation Division that works on a group called JOGS. So it's another acronym, but Joint Operation Groups. There are several across the state, and we have one here in Snohomish that's about 14 months old. But they invited us to join their JOG, and they meet every once in a while to go over and analyze some incidences and see how to improve incident response. But... As a member of the JOG, we get access to a web-based portal that shows incidents in real time and who's responding. And when you click on it in the portal and all the agencies are responding, you get contact information for the people that are on the

061site. So, if we were members of this during an incident like that back on January 6th, we would be able to click on that incident, see who's responding, know exactly who to call and have their phone numbers and get information we wanted in real time. By joining this, which is free, we would become the second school district in the state to be part of the JOG. It's mostly first responders that are in there. And most of the agencies that are part of a JOG have to give up data as part of it so that they're sharing a lot of data. In this case, we're not giving any student information or any data out. We're only receiving information. It's part of the purpose of the thing. You could also then communicate to parents and community what's

062happening and maybe help us prevent every parent from down to pick up their kids. Yeah, and contribute. Yep. Yeah, so we would get that real-time information without having to disrupt first responders and trying to figure out what's going on and be able to communicate what's happening and hopefully resolve the situation quicker. Yeah. It's a great accomplishment. And you said two districts, Stanwood and Woodton-Kostholmish? Lake Stevens is the other one. Okay, and I think there's 287 districts in the state. Yeah, so we are a very solid group so far. Top 1%. So the state has also said that they're building these jogs across the state. The next one they're building is the Northwest Jog, which will be Whatcom and Skagit in Island County. And they invited us to join that one as well. So we will

063likely, you'll see another. Contract in front of you when that gets formed to join that one so we can just maximize our information so it's replicated there for you That would be a great acronym for it. Yes, I'll keep you throw that in center I appreciate this being pulled out so that we can make the ask the questions and they comment. I also truly appreciate the initiative by you and I'm just director and Angie to seek and find out this program was in motion and you and we get to be in the very front seat because of your initiative. I think it's going to be very fun. Thank you. Anybody got anything else on item number four? No? Is there a motion to approve item number four? Second. It is moved by Director King, seconded

064by, I think I heard Director Olsen first, so we'll take his name down there. All in favor of approving consent agenda item number four, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. All right, up to public comments. We have one request for public comment today. I'm going to give my usual spiel. You're welcome. Citizens wishing to address the board are asked to submit online requests using the public comment link or email shoffman at stanwood.wegnet.edu. two hours before the board meeting start time. For those attending the meeting in person, request forms are available in the boardroom for submission before the meeting start time. Citizens who wish to provide documents to board members will hand them to the reporting secretary for distribution after the meeting. I will then call upon individuals who have requested to speak during the public

065comment section. You will state your name for the record and you will have three minutes to speak. As a matter of order, because this is a board's business meeting, the board is providing an opportunity for the public to comment, but the board does not create discussion on those comments within the meeting, as they are not part of the agenda. Comments will be followed up on after the meeting, if it is appropriate. When it is your turn, again, state your name. For the record, you have three minutes. There is a timer that will pop up. Yellow means one minute left. Red means your time is up. Our one commenter today is Josie DeVries. This is Josie DeVries, and this is the second half of my testimony for last week. On January 26th, the district released the

066outcome of the investigation. Superintendent Rumbod ordered the public was told the violations against Hannah were not substantiated, and the local newspaper amplified that message with a large print and photo. Four facts remain. No grievance was filed against Dr. Hannah until February 2, 25, five months after the incident. Rumbod did not order an investigation. But the topic she assigned did not match the board's request. She directed the investigator to focus on classroom discipline, not the safety of the children or staff. The district document confirming that the violations did occur was released only because of a steady stream of FOIA requests throughout the winter and spring of 2025. Additional FOIA requests regarding Hannah's file were requested and were not released until December 25. They still need to be analyzed and added to the timeline. The timeline does

067not miss. It shows step by step how the truth was delayed, diluted, and disrespected. and it shows how the teacher paid the price for the district silence. The silence spoke of bold-faced hypocrisy by the district because the last public comments claimed the violations against Hannah were unsubstantiated. Sadly, the pattern did not begin with Pulse-A-Lady. In 2021, a community Facebook platform was created by parents. Charter drew a red line in the sand saying that the parents believed the district had not created a safe environment. A year later, Rambal leased her strategic plan. It was filled with lofty words and bold promises, but not one word about student safety. So when the Seltzley incident occurred, the district responded exactly as its own record, we predicted. It minimized, it reframed, it delayed, and it protected the institution instead

068of the children. The topic that I was asked to speak about has to do with the... I'm sorry, I lost my way. What I wanted to talk about was that an effective newspaper does not make itself the center of the story, suing district it claims to support or pressuring the district to pay its legal bills. A scholarship is a worthy idea, but it should be entirely by the standard of coming on news because they missed the story. Thank you. Alright, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today. It's a long one, sorry. Alright, this is the quick part. Topics for a school board discussion. Blake, I like it. Next, student representative reports on school business. Patrick's up first. The Scaffolding Movie Awards breakfast is on Friday at 8 o'clock. A group of leadership students

069will be volunteering at the event, hoping to serve breakfast to the guests in attendance. Our third Pancake Breakfast of the Year will be held next Thursday. This is a quarterly tradition in which leadership students can come to breakfast, pancakes and bacon for the students and staff at Lincoln Hill, and is oftentimes held simultaneously with a small ceremony for student awards and recognition. Our school-wide field trip to the Museum of Pop Culture is confirmed to be happening on March 31st. Permission slips were distributed and emailed digitally during advisory last Thursday. This opportunity is open to all students at Lincoln. including Lincoln Academy and our remote students. Everyone is very excited for what will be our first school-wide field trip in several years. Our roundtable spring student conferences are coming on April 1st and 2nd, and we

070will thus have early early schedules Thursdays, as well as on April 3rd. This will be the same week as our school's fair week. Our leadership team has been at work to produce a video in which some students of all grades are interviewed on why they choose to attend Lincoln Hill High School. The video duly serves as an introduction to our school's purpose and will be on our website as well as a video that will be shown to a panel for the sake of our reaccreditation. As we make our way to being three quarters of the way through the school year, I am as proud as ever of my school as well as my opportunity to represent it on this board. I, as well as everyone I work with now, are firmly looking forward to all

071the exciting prospects of the next few months. So we had our momentia which was super successful. All the tickets sold out online and we did have tickets at the doors too. So I'm just like proud of all the students now. If anyone went and saw it, share your thoughts because it was really good. And then we have our total finalized so that is going to be on April 18th and the theme is A Night in Paradise which our students have voted for during executive elections. And then this Friday we have our pickleball tournament where students were able to sign up online and during lunch. And this is our first time hosting it so hopefully it goes well. And then we have Powder Club in session. We have dates that are available and now we're just

072working on pushing it out and getting those dates finalized. And then ASB has a middle school camp which will take place on April 1st. And at the end of March we're going to be running through all the games and activities that we're going to be having. And then we have class elections the last full week of March where we had interviews all this week for the candidates. And then we have a dessert night for seniors on March 25th. So if anyone has any seniors, there's a dessert night. And then for our student engagement, our students have continued to work hard and their quarter will quickly come to an end when spring break comes around. So that's exciting. And then we wanted to say congratulations to those who won the executive elections and those who are

073in class. And then for spring sports, most of our spring sports have kicked off the season with their first matches already this week and last week. And track has their first jamboree this Wednesday. And then all of our sports teams have all their schedules available online. So if you want to go off to any games, check that out. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have board director reports on business conducted. Director Russell. As far as board business, it's been more or less trying to keep track of all of the legislative things that have come through. And it's not, we'll talk more about it a little bit later, but it's... It's an interesting state budget. I have the pleasure, I for years have volunteered for helping out the kids with the theater, theatrical productions. I

074do have to say that this was a pretty amazing run for Mamma Mia. As was pointed out, we did a little over 2,400 people saw the show. The danger space is 600 is officially 603. We may have snuck a few extra bodies in not everything below the fire, but our limit, but we did it and and those kids should be extremely proud and I was very proud for the whole community that they came forward to do that. So thank you director. Um like director Russell extremely disappointed in our state legislature's approach to the paramount duty to educate the citizens. And then the loose example of requirements that are not educational that take money away from students to meet certain energy needs need to be funded. No more, no more unfunded mandates that don't touch the

075classroom especially. I'm looking forward to this Thursday's Academic Advisory Committee meeting. I'll try and send out the agenda. I appreciate and I'm looking forward to another lovely conversation with that committee. Maybe more to report on that next time. Thank you. I sound on again. Good job. It's fantastic. I am also attending a really good conversation. And as both of my counterparts have spoken about, the legislature really did not do us any huge favor. And as far as our budgets are concerned. So looking forward to our study session this evening and understanding. Thank you. Dr. P? Yeah, hello. I also saw on Mamma Mia! very well done. And also amazing to pack up the place. So we had a real strong... and also I attended the community presentation of the two finalists for Cedar Home Elementary

076School principal. Very informative, including seeing their resumes and hearing them speak, which was a combination of very, very significant. Looking forward to having a really good principal there. Thank you. I did not get to see Mamma Mia. The one time my work makes me travel. I'm out of town both weekends, unfortunately. But my kids did see it. They were very jazzed about it. My daughter was also really excited because apparently on Saturday she Googled what to do near me and Mamma Mia at San Juan High School came up on Google. So she was like, Mom! internet we made Google just so you know I wrap my brain around the legislative session yet it's definitely disappointing to say the least I you know I'd like to think the grown-ups would do better, but we didn't. So,

077again, good conversation coming about budgets and all of those things. So stick around unless you're hungry and you want to go eat dinner. But the last thing I will say is that there is a CFAC slash CFAC meeting on Tuesday, the 24th. So if you have interest in joining that committee, either of them, Come on down. We're having a joint meeting. It's kind of talking about the levy implications and some of that stuff. Yeah. That's all I got. How about you? Just all of what was said before, including Mama Mia, was phenomenal. But last Friday, Dr. Smith and myself and Patrick had the opportunity to go to Northwest USD in Anacortes. As I said, it's super busy and overbooked, so I totally am fine with that. And just to say out loud, one of Patrick's

078comments was, it was good to be there to learn from the others, but also to represent. as an alternative school and that alternative schools and alternative programs have a student body that should be represented as one. You did a good job on that, so I appreciate that and appreciate what you brought back. We will have an SSL team meeting, student superintendent leadership team meeting this Thursday as well. I hope you'll be able to share that with the group. Thank you. We're going to take about a quick five-minute recess before we move into our study session. We'll let everybody use the restroom, get a coffee, or whatever it is. Are we? We're going to stay down here. Yep, and then we're going to move the room around. So just a quick five-minute recess, and then we'll

079be back. All right. The good news is we don't have to do anything fancy because we didn't adjourn. We just put a recess on it. So we'll just dive right in here to our... study session portion of the agenda. Great. I'll take it from here. Yeah, you just to arrange you to the artifacts you have in front of you to two items one actually three items One is the agenda that you can see Really five items on the agenda the first four have to do with budget the budget overview and budget discussion And then the fifth item is a callback of policy 31 41 that was discussed two meetings ago around admission of non-resident students So on the left-hand side is where we'll start, and those pages are numbered in the lower right-hand corner, so

080you can track with us and refer back to them as we move through the discussion tonight. Tonight's goal is to provide a clear picture of the district's current financial position and the factors shaping our budget moving forward. We continue to monitor enrollment trends. which remain one of the most significant drivers of district revenue as enrollment fluctuates and deeply impacts our state funding allocation as well as the decisions of the legislature this week and those implications moving forward. Like many districts across Washington state, we're experiencing structural financial pressure. Just to highlight that it's structural pressure including rising costs from staffing, benefits, operations that are and operations that are growing faster than the state funding structure allows for. We will review a summary of our current budget status which Ruth is going to move into in just

081a moment including projected revenues, expenditures, and areas where we're seeing the greatest financial strain. I just want to say the purpose of this overview is to ensure that the board and the community have a shared understanding of the financial landscape that we're in before discussing potential reductions and reduction strategies. So with that, I'll hand it over to Ruth to start to talk about the enrollment trends and funding implications. Alright, the first page after your agenda is our projected October 1 FTE enrollment for staffing that we use for staffing purposes. If you'll recall, I spoke about before that we have a couple of different ways to look at enrollment. Annual average enrollment is what we're funded on, but we use October 1 for staffing purposes. That is what you're looking at here. You'll see the by

082school and by grade, including breaking out ALE. And I wanted to highlight that some of the changes from the prior year, the overall enrollment we're projecting to be down 97 FTE, and that is 54 at the elementary level. up 10 at the middle school level and down 53 at the high school level. So that's a total of 97. And we talk about bubbles moving through. We have had some lower kindergarten classrooms, and as they move through the grades, you can start to see why the enrollment at elementary is going down. Any questions about that? My memory isn't great. I know you just showed me the enrollment report. Where did we start at for October 2025 for this year? October 2025 for this year, it was 4,667 FTE. Thank you. All right, page two. This is

083an estimate of our budget status for this year projecting through to the end of the current fiscal year, August 31st. And the top portion is a summary of the bottom portion. So I'm going to draw your eye to the bottom portion of this. And in the middle of the page under expenditures and other uses, you'll see that fiscal year 25-26 budgeted expenditures. Budgeted for this year was using $1.3 million, budgeted to use $1.3 million in fund balance. And then the other items on this page are those changes from budget. So we start with a base. where we were with budget and then we had some revenue changes as well as some expenditure changes the revenue changes included basic ed enrollment decrease as you know we had less enrollment and we also had less costs as

084well as far as core core enrollment, but as you know also we had an increase in Running Start and Open Doors, so there's some costs associated with that as well. We've talked about it being a flow through where we pay the colleges for most of that additional enrollment dollar amount. So that ended up being a net of about $600,000. decrease. Special education enrollment as well as our projected safety net allocation, it ended up being net of costs about 1.2 million to the positive. So that's good. State transportation allocation increase was about 275,000 higher than what we had estimated in the budget. And then we have some miscellaneous other revenue items. Our changes on the expenditure side were that we had some salary and benefit as well as non-salary cost savings. And the net of all

085of that is about $147,000. So the increases in revenues less the decreases in... or in yeah decrease in expenditures netted to about 147 000 we started the year not uh september 1st of 2025 at 8.2 million we plan to end the year or we're estimating to end of the year about 8.1 million projection any questions about that are we doing any projections around additional transportation costs due to the impulse on fuel That's for next year. Yes. So those costs will be reflected on the next year. Yeah, I'm just wondering if we're going to see it for the end of the year there, but overall. We may. We may. So these are all projections, and so there will definitely be changes from what it says on this page to what actually happens toward the end of

086the year. So things like increased fuel costs and so on could shift this a little bit. So just to clarify, we had a significant drop in kindergarten this year, but our projections for next year are saying, I mean, we're going to be back up to 298 kindergartners. Yes, I mean it's less than what our projected was for this year, but it's still higher than what we actually got. Yes, we spoke about this actually the demographer Had kindergarten because of the births five years ago Being up a bit. He actually had us growing a hundred Kindergarteners, and so we back that to 50 okay just to remind myself we said that other districts around us felt the bubble of kindergartners last school year the year earlier yeah then what we noticed it did they are they

087seeing a similar trend where like it is up a little bit this year or did it stay pretty stagnant for them there wasn't a significant growth but it's the decline didn't continue So it's stagnant. It's predictable with what the demographer recommended. So it also supports the 50? Yes. The additional 50? Okay. And then does their roll-up reflect 100% cohort retention? K to 1. The roll-up is close to 100%. So the demographer gives us three, low, medium, and high. We went with the low, except kindergarten we went below the low because we were nervous about your point. And so the cohort is rolled up, and then there is a little bit of a bump. beyond the cohort in certain grades we tend to get a bump in second grade we tend to get a bump in

088sixth grade we tend to get a bump in mine so a little bit of that but not much because it we took the low thank you so at the end of the day you said our original budget we were projected to use How much of our fund balance? $1.39 million. $1.391 million. And then, but we did not. We were able to. $147,000. We're estimating about $150,000. I say, you know, between $300,000 and nothing. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. I mean, so that feels better. But there is some costs, like Director Murray just brought up around, you know, the fuel that is. going up right now. Well, and just to speak to that point, every year that you have to make these reductions, it gets harder to find a spot to make reductions from. So I appreciate the

089hard work there, but I imagine we're probably pretty thin already. We'll discuss that here in a little bit. Thank you. Any other questions about the first two pages? All right, now we're getting into 2026-27. There are two what we call models here, and they look very similar. The first model is assuming that we will use about $1.5 million in fund balance next year, and that reflects some changes from the current year. So we roll current year budget into... next year's budget and then we have changes from there and that includes revenue changes of an enrollment decrease and but we have our educational programs and operations levy up to the voter approved amount which would be an increase so that nearly offsets the enrollment decrease Safety net allocation and transportation allocation, we don't feel confident that

090we will get the same dollar amounts as we did this year, so we're backing off on that a little bit going into next year as far as how much we're projecting revenue-wise for those two items. And then transition to kindergarten. This has an asterisk because it's a bit up in the air how the state will implement what the legislature did with the transition to kindergarten program. We have assumed in this budget model, A, that we will lose one TK classroom next year. So go from three classrooms to two. The unfortunate part is that there are additional program rules that still need to be given to us. We don't know the rules at this point. So we don't know who's going to qualify for those particular programs at the moment. Correct. Because they haven't finalized all

091of them. So as we move through and we hopefully find out some additional information, this, my anticipation is that it may get worse that we may need to look at additional TK but I want more information first so I wanted to do the one that I thought was pretty clear just because the slots that they are allocating are about 30 to 35 percent less and so that would mean one-third of our slots Expenditure carryover from the prior year, the $147,000 that we talked about on the prior page. 25, 26 positions unfilled or hired mid-year. What that means is that when we hire a position mid-year, we're only paying for, say, half of a year. And then when we move that position into the next fiscal year, we have to annualize it. So that becomes twice

092as expensive for that position in the next fiscal year. So that's what that is. And then salary benefit increases. We have an estimated $2 million there. This includes the cost of IPD, which is the inflationary measure that they put on salaries. The state does provide funding for that, but not the entire amount that we pay because the number of positions that the state funds, as well as the salaries that the state funds, are both. less than what we have. And isn't the IPD historically lower than the COLA? The IPD, it used to be CPI, and then they changed IPD, which tends to be lower. Correct. So then in our bargaining agreements, do we provide raises based on IPD or based on COLA? IPD. IPD represents COLA. Impressive. And then we have some non-salary cost increases

093of estimate of about $750,000. I can tell you that just one line item in the budget of thousands of line items is $280,000, and that's the anticipated risk pool in premium increase, member increase. That's a 30% increase, not just for our district, over two years statewide. So that... $280,000 is just for this projection for this coming year. So the small, a very small percentage of MSOC that they put this next year. Correct. It was, yes, the MSOC. It's in line with the IPD. But when you, when one line item goes up 18%, pretty much takes care of most of that. Okay, and then, so net changes. After all is said and done, we have a decrease in revenues, we have an increase in expenditures, a total general fund impact to about $4 million. Planned use

094of the prior year fund balance, $1.5 million brings proposed or recommended or proposed reductions of $2.5 million. So I wanted to, I mentioned it before regarding TK, but just that this is a draft and what you see on April may likely will change based on additional information in not only TK but other capital programs. Any questions on there? So Model B, you can put them side to side, side by side, and they are nearly the same. The only difference is down at the bottom you'll notice that planned use of prior year fund balance is nothing, which means that we would need to increase our reductions to the $4 million impact to fund balance next year. Just to know what the impact would be as far as staff, it would require additional reductions of 10 certificated

095FTE, 48 pair hours per day, or eight six-hour pairs, or other classified reductions. So that equals the $1.5 million. So that would be on top of whatever reductions we would do to get to the $2.5 million. I lost track of this particular bill, so I don't know if you might know. There was a bill that was kind of traveling through the system that had to do with how much fund balance, minimally, each school district was supposed to carry. Did that actually make it through? It did not go anywhere this session. Okay. Minimum and maximum based on the size of the district, below or above $2,000. Yeah, it was supposed to be like $8 million or something. Yeah, it was a minimum, a percentage, minimum, a percentage, maximum, like 8%. However, it was an interesting way

096to state it. They talked about that percentage against your state funding. So like your apportionment money, rather than your total revenues or your total expenditures, which is how we're used to looking at things. It was an odd way to calculate it. So they can control it, but they use it better. So out of curiosity, what prompts the 1.5? I mean, where does that, like, wind up 1.6 or 1.4? We felt that that was similar to what we've spent down in prior years. So we've had history of that kind of dipping into fund balance. And it also brings us down to a level that we still felt comfortable would be, you know, a good balance to move forward into the future years with. And just to clarify, even with the 1.5, there's a high likelihood that

097at one point or more during the year, we would dip below that 5%, but aggregate we would come out above that at the end of the year. Yes, and that's because of the way that our abortion and infirmary is. And that's predicted for next year at the end of August of 27. Yeah. But the slope is consistent. I really don't care for these numbers. Yeah. Page five. Yes. So page five is a summarized plan to get to the 2.5 million. We did not do model B. Our recommendation at this point, I think, is to use 1.5 million. But we did on the model B let you know what the additional Types of reductions might look like ten more on top of the 14 correct. Yeah, 24 and a half. Correct Certificated up to you that

098doesn't count the classified powers typically just a Frame of reference typically we've been able to absorb the reductions through retirement resignation We have some retirements and resignations that come in so far but 24.5 or 14.5 is above the typical retirement resignation amount that we typically get. Significantly. So we wouldn't be able to manage that with natural attrition like we have maybe historically? That would be what I would predict is we wouldn't be able to manage it through natural attrition. So this reduction of non-athletic stipends mean elimination of some or just reduction in... what we would offer as far as the stipends go? Correct. It would be a reduction of what would be offered to students. Pure activities. So we'd actually reduce activities. We would reduce activities. It would be a choice. We'd look at participation,

099student involvement, and make decisions based on that. We would have that based on the participation that they've had over the past few years. Would that be a billing decision? Or would that be a system? Building decision. We would point back to the directors. That could kind of create a situation where one school has a hard activity and one school doesn't have an activity. But that's how it is now. Yeah, that's true. I mean, and it's your students at this school are excited about that, but they're excited about something different, and that would be the only way you could do it, right? We've identified a few at the high school, so one school that have. Low attendance local dissipation that could be options Is there a way to absorb this at the high school or the

100two middle schools? We've talked before about the ASB budget being extremely high and that some of these are ASB driven activities that some of the stipends we paid for out of the ASB budget. That hasn't been our policy or procedure here, but definitely if something is reduced and there we would have a conversation about whether we would allow ASB to bring it back. And there's already been some discussion with students and advisors about using that balance of the ASB fund for the students in the school when they raise it. Are you going to have this conversation with the SLT? Not tomorrow, no. Or not Thursday. But are you going to talk to them? Sure. Yeah. It depends on where the program or activity reduction would be at with students. Do we anticipate the FTE positions

101to be pretty much across the whole district? I mean, it's not like. Yeah, it's like any particular. Christine, do you want to? I should have discussed your chair. Here's the chair. Thanks, Christine. Yes. Question about identified positions already. I guess I'm kind of trying to get a sense as to would we see this more across the whole, like a percentage across the whole district, or would there be some schools that may? Feel a little bit more because because of enrollment some schools will feel more. Yes we have we have a gap which will Need a tenant area revision next year. It's growing between the two middle schools So you'll see more staffing at Stanley middle school than you would at Port Susan The same to some of the elementary schools and widening gap Twin Cities

102now our largest elementary Smallest building. Yeah, right so So go ahead, Christine, as far as what's identified. Currently, we have six certificated staff who have let us know for retirement or resignation. And then we have seven certificated staff that have expressed an interest in taking a leave, maybe not a full 1.0 FTE leave, but it could be a partial leave. And so... I am able to take a look at those and see how I can move staff around from buildings where we're going to have to make a reduction and see if I can place those who are displaced from their current school. So I go through and take a look at that. Right now, though, even with the Model A, we believe that we might have to look at a layoff type status, the reduction

103in force for some individuals. With leave, we also have to bring somebody in that still additional benefits, right? It depends on if they take an unpaid leave or a paid leave. So what does this look like for an average in class size? Are we going to add a student, two students, three students each class? How do we balance that out? Because FTE is not dropping as dramatically. It is too early for us to know specifically right now. The building principals have a schedule that they work off of as far as providing master schedule data for me. And so usually after spring break, about by mid-April, we will have a better idea of what the student enrollment, that roll-up is actually. going to be for students especially at the older grades what they have signed up

104for for courses and then we would be able to answer that question for you certainly when you're making a reduction in FTE for staff there will be an increase in the size of the classes yeah and just the ability really to offer classes that make me say that 10 or 12 students now We would reduce those offerings. That's basically the biggest challenge. It's at our high school level. And middle school, we have alternative classes or electives, where if an elective only has smaller students. Or already P classes. So I'm wondering if this newer model that we're looking at, at Stanford Middle for mathematics, is that going to carry over to Fort Susan? And is that going to potentially serve being able to have a reduction in staffing in mathematics? That model is definitely a beta

105model right now. I believe in it. I think there's a lot of good things with the model as far as having students meet standard. It doesn't increase staffing needs. No, but I'm wondering if that model is going to allow us to collapse the amount of teachers that we need. There would still be capacity and it would be an elective. Just to confirm, remind me, I'm pretty sure when there was those SAB changes, it was changed to even like a part-time employee costs us the same amount of money for benefits as a full-time employee, correct? If they work 630 hours or are anticipated to work 630 hours or more in a fiscal. school year then they get said benefits if they decline benefits the district still pays the $16,000 to Seb to go into the pool

106for the people who do take So I know like historically we had like contract shares have we already done the work to sort of minimize that impact of Like contract shares or part-time or whatever that cost is to make sure that we have that like I just know Yeah, we are analyzing what that looks like now in general though Well, there's a lot of reasons why we prefer that we can have a full-time employee we have a full-time employee not only on the physical side, but You know in the classroom side too One of the things I will mention also for the last three years, we have been in a reduction type situation. And over the course of that time, we have only had two employees where we have not been able to place them

107in a position. So we do try really hard to find places for all of the staff members. So we're hopeful for this spring when we take a look at next fall. But again, it all depends on The students who show up and those staff members who maybe will choose to resign or retire, that always helps us. We encourage staff to try to notify us as soon as possible because then that also helps from having to go deeper with our reduction plan. I can definitely attempt more questions, but I'll keep moving through the agenda if that's all right. We've already jumped ahead, I think, to number four, but let me just back up a little bit. Thanks, Christine. We were just talking about it a little bit, but just kind of a summary of the budget

108cutting principles that we've worked around over the last four years, and that is to, you've heard it said a lot, keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. That is still what we anticipate trying to do. The challenge with that is that after four years, we've cut from central office, we've cut from administrators, we've cut from MSOC, and all of the things that are part of this away from the classroom, and don't have some of those available to us now that we did have in the past. An example of that is, for instance, central office. Our central office ranks 227 out of 295 around staffing for districts comparable to student and staff ratio. So I wanted to say that. The other thing is we'll continue to do that around. Student to measure

109student impact it was mentioned earlier around, you know equitable reductions across the system What what hasn't what productions may have an impact on? students Some students more than others and then lastly just sustainability As we look five years out and we project five years out. We can't project what the legislature would do will do Unfortunately, but how do we make sure that we maintain? the 5% board minimum for that compliance and also for compliance or just thinking about what happens if we have unforeseen circumstances. The next thing I want to talk about is the community and stakeholder communication. As we move through this process, this board has been getting updates from me over the last few weeks that you may have seen in the Friday messages that have gone out, several updates around the budget

110and budget position. We have the combined CFAC meeting next week, and as we get into April, we anticipate that we would have to make a decision. at the equal median around a potential reduced education plan. We also think it's important that the board communicates, has communication that remains consistent so that the community clearly understands what the implications are, what the factors are that are leading to potential reductions, and why the decisions are made, and what a timeline looks like moving forward. have open sessions like this and thank the community that's here tonight for being involved in it so that there's continued trust and clarity that's built in open dialogue around where we're at with our budget position. This would be a time for questions and answers, discussion, feedback from the board on a final recommendation

111or a recommendation at least to date and next steps for a timeline moving forward. So for me personally, and I understand the challenge, I understand what we have to do, and it's quite a task, and I don't fault that. I still personally strongly believe that there are certain things that anchor our students to school, and some of those may be extracurricular activities. And so I want to be hesitant. Especially since in comparison to a lot of the other budget parts. I mean teachers, all of that type of stuff are large dollar amounts. But looking at keeping those kids anchored at school and if there's a club or an event or theater or sports or something that anchors them to school, then we try to do everything we can to find a solution to that. Whether

112that be... you know using you know encourage them to find a way to do that through ASB or some other thing but not not lose those and I think we actually had a little bit of conversation with the student leadership we met with the student advisory but that's one of the things that the students were saying was all the things that kept them tied to the school and anchor to the school so my concern would be that and the second concern is is obviously it's there's no easy answer is class sizes, we lose some of our staff and our class sizes and that also to me impacts student learning. We have the greatest, I think we have the greatest teachers and certificate of staff in the area. I think they'll meet the challenge, but I

113think we're adding more burden to them by having to deal with with more students rather than finding ways to to alleviate the class size. And that's not on you guys. That's more frustration with the system and the state and everything else. That's just part of it. We do have great teachers, great support staff, great bus drivers, great staff system-wide. All the staff. Four years in unfortunately talked about earlier the staffing reductions are what we are faced with using as a mechanism to to Make the cuts. I think we can safely say that we probably rule out Plan B right like we definitely think that there needs to be some usage of Do we have a consensus that some usage of general fund would be required? We don't want to look at what it looks like

114to cut $4 million, right? Like, 2.5 is already alarming. In a non-voting manner. In a non-voting manner. Do we have a consensus? I would concur with you. I think I would coach it in saying that I'm comfortable. at this point, but we're getting into a hard stop. Yeah. Well, the hard stop is coming here. There is going to come a day. Coming here, but it's not 5%. Yeah, we're moving forward year by year, and then if we keep going, we have to stop some point. Yeah. I mean, it capitalized, right? Like, every year, the number gets bigger. So I think the general consensus would be We like plan a I'm not sure that's the feedback you're looking for from us We don't like cuts we don't nobody like the two, but yeah, nobody likes cats

115And we understand there they're gonna hurt and some of them are gonna be very unpopular, but I They're probably gonna happen. It's part of planning We say anything about after this next year for instance Some constraint on how much farther can go into reserves. Well, the board has policy around 5% and You can change that as board for sure absolutely and We would rely on structural change with the funding model for us to I think to change the trajectory unless our enrollment shifts in an opposite direction than it is right now. Which by the way is not different than most districts in the state. It's not different. The birth rate continues to go down. We see students using different options for schools, for schooling. And we actually have had less of an enrollment drop than

116some of our neighboring districts. I think to have an honest work study, your discussion about those, we're also putting some hope in some changes occurring in the next budget cycle. Legislative budget cycle. It was very disappointing this year that there was no movement on any of the big three. That was the push, that has been the push for... legislative cycle and just the structural deficit isn't you know isn't being improved upon from the state. Right, so I'm just curious what's the typical revenue for one of our certificate of teachers from the OSPI? Around $86,000. That's what I thought. What's the average salary for a teacher at STEM? And the 86,000 is we get some regionalization. So we're going to top up on that. But around 150,000 or more? With salary and benefits. With salary and

117benefits, right. But what that says is that we're not being funded appropriately for our teaching style. It's incumbent upon all of us to begin to lobby the legislature to remind them that McLeary wasn't a fix. And that really, as the system ages in experience and education, because we use the salary grid, our collection is way less than what our students, our teachers are earning. And rightfully so. So that creates a deficit. It's not the structural bills. There's also the funding model in general of what the FTE is. Right, it's messed up. The fact that we're having to pay out of our levy dollars for those additional positions because it's not covered in the general funding model. That's my point. It doesn't do anyone any good. We knew from the beginning it was... a flawed model

118it was going to be re-examined in 2022 and it wasn't so one of the things this is not for tonight's agenda but one of the things maybe miranda you can decide if we want to look there are boards out there that are more on an advocacy side where they as a board take more of a stance or position on the advocacy side that might be something we may want to look at as Study your discussion. We might our local legislators to come to a study session and present to us their thinking about education funding. Or a session like this in general. So they can hear what's happening firsthand. One of our constituents wrote a letter to the editor just expressing frustration over outreach to our local legislators with no response. I do think that as

119the adults in the system it is as the elected official adults in our system it is our job to sort of spearhead that advocacy piece of it I know at one of the WASDA trainings a couple years ago they talked specifically about McCleary and the overall reduction like the dollar amount gets better bigger but the percentage of spending gets smaller and sort of the Shell game the shell games that they play with the money to move it from one side to the other and he had Yeah, he had some interesting comments in our cards to what his opinion was on what it would take to fix that system. Again, I don't know if he's right or wrong, but his opinion was pretty specific. He had a generalized plan in mind. But I think probably... something

120that school districts as a whole are going to have to look into because you can't keep shrinking, like growing what you want us to do or what we're required to do and shrinking our money that we get to do it. And to the point, like we have great staff and we want to keep our great staff. To do that, you have to be competitive with salaries and wages and all of the benefits and stuff like that. And so, you know, it's... the pot of money is not big enough. Not here. Yeah. I mean, I think to your point, Director Russell, probably a conversation to be had is, you know, is that something that certain members of the board are interested in would be to spearhead some larger level advocacy? We have, this board has a

121regional meeting in April, which I think would be a good opportunity to discuss with surrounding boards of directors about, What's what's moving in the local and what can move to the state level to one? We will continue to update you as we know more about the implications from the legislator and Likely be back in equal with the resolution coming before you in that meeting And if anyone has questions or feedback, the CFAC feedback meeting is a great opportunity to do that, just like the board meeting time. The question I was trying to understand the cycle of, we're in a state bull for fuel. How do we purchase our fuel and what the price is? The state cooperative. Cooperative. Yes, yeah. They have a list. Have a list of vendors who are in our region Coleman

122is our regional vendor So if we see hyperinflation and diesel most of our buses are diesel Yeah, it's based on the rack rate plus so we pay what it is Plus a percentage. It may be transitory. It may be longer-lasting. It's just curious Okay, this is date fuel co-op Edge against price increase we can't let's would be bad. It was by head to stabilize the price I'm not sure about that Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you I'll have some questions about the finance on the other district attendance situation So let's move into policy 3141. We've stacked the two discussions together, the budget and this was called to come back for a study session. You are familiar with the policy 3141, which is admission of non-resident students, last updated in May of 2019.

123You can see the second page in is labeled Artifact B. Thank you for putting this together, Mrs. Allen, on the admission of elders and students, which is the first reading that you saw in March of our last meeting. And you can see the red lines that were in there. Once again, bold underline is new language. And then lastly, based on that discussion, Artifact C, which is a next version, which tried to capture what the conversation was. And so I'll just point you to the back of the first page on Artifact C, letter G, that, like I said, tried to capture what the conversation was. Now it reads, whether the student is making or has made adequate progress with grade level standards. Or is there an appropriate number of credits to be considered on track to

124graduation? The student may not be admitted, or not making or not made adequate progress towards grade level standards, or credit deficient. So we tried to capture what we thought we heard in the discussion on our first reading. Just a point of clarification from my own reference. Is this technically a second reading of that edition? This is not a second reading. This is neither. This is neither. Anything coming out of this would come back to a first reading. Right, because it's titled Second Reading 317, Today's Date. So that's why I was referencing that. Is that me? No, everything will go back to a first reading. That's what I thought. So to synthesize the conversation that Director Olson had was, Basically, you wanted it to be checkpoints quarterly, and we would say we could, we wouldn't have

125to, but we could say you are not on track at this point, and so we could withdraw. that non-resident labor. Yeah, the idea is somebody is coming to this district because for some reason it's not working where they are. And the thinking is they'll come here and it'll be a fresh start and more support or whatever, and they will be successful. And so if that's not the case, and if the notion that this would be a better place for that to be better progress, it's not happening. Conversations have to be held along the way. and say perhaps this is not the best place for you and then at semester will be released back to their home district. We view the economics of this out of district placement both directions. So if the receiving district and

126sending district sees the potential for abuse for some students at very high cost and then the district might expedite. So high cost students coming here, and how do we catch that? We don't generally see students coming from other districts, being sent by other districts. It's generally a family choice or a student choice. And they'll carry their cumulative file with them that would give us the data. We already have language already in there that protects the district from having to absorb a high cost student. Yeah, I was wondering about more specifics. I see that. I was wondering about specifics about that issue. I guess we can evaluate based on whether we can provide, etc. But that doesn't sound specific. I think you might be referring to letter D, which is whether appropriate educational programs or services

127are available to improve the student's condition as stated in the release of the district. Yeah, and that sounds like it's subject to a lot of interpretation. And also, I mean, actually, I would see an E and F. There's different kinds of high costs. Well, and I think we just look to see, can we support this student in a way that the student needs to be supported wherever they're from? Right. And wherever they're from. Doesn't matter where they're from. If they have an IEP, typically, we wouldn't, Dr. Smith, Vika, review that person's IEP and determine whether we have. appropriate program and placement in a program for a student such as that and then would make a recommendation to accept or not accept in conjunction with that building principle? It starts at the building principle and central

128office staff typically in teaching and learning is the staff member. But looking at the conditions that you have in policy as a filter to see will they be best served here? Are they better served in their home district? We have, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but it's hundreds of students coming from out of district to our district. It's probably an outflow of the number as well. And this is, it's not that every student who comes here is not going to be successful. Most are. The idea here is to give protection to the building principal and the program director to be able to say, you know, this isn't working. And that's a rare case. But the principal needs to be able to fall back on policy and say it's not

129about personality, it's about policy. And it gives some support to... the program director or the principal to say this is what is already, just as it's in place at entrance. And I think the policy helps maybe students and families recognize that it may or may not be the best situation. Because we want to make sure that wherever the student is, if they're here, Arlington, or Marysville, that they're in the best situation that they can be. making progress. We talked tonight about us being kind of in the forefront with Lincoln Hill and having alternative, how many other districts within our immediate area have those capabilities? Are we a magnet for some? Are we getting some students because of that? Most. So I would think more about most of our students that come to Lincoln Hill are

130coming from in-district. Saratoga, we have more out-of-district students that transfer and are served at Saratoga. Some districts don't accept any students from out-of-district. Mainly because they don't have room. They don't have room. They lean onto the first bullet that there's going to be a program capacity. That's right. Does this, the language that has been put in here, which is paragraph G, correct, whether the student is making or has mediatical progress, is this part of the entry criteria? Yes. Okay. So then that would be making progress before they come into our program? This, this, letter G is just an additional Guidepost I would say when we look at whether students are going to be best served in this district I would say I like to welcome all students who want to serve in this district and

131come to our district But but it's a helpful filter to say is it going to be the best part for you? Is there anything else that I'm missing in this that we need to talk about or feel the language is okay? I guess the question is, like, you know. Put it back on the agenda. I guess we're welcome. Yeah, it would be like, which consensus, which version do you want to see as your first reading? My preference would be Article C. The discussion at the board meeting was really around B, that the time frame was. Yes, that was my sticking point, is that it feels mid-year. We review it every year, right? We review this. They have to reapply every year. Is it necessary to say, we can also pull you out mid-year, I guess

132would be... Well, I guess all I can do is say I speak from experience, having filled that role. There have been times, especially at the high school level, where it's not working for that student. And even a referral to the alternative program wasn't appropriate for that student, although that was sometimes attempted as well. So it's really, it's giving, in this case, I guess, Colin and Mike Washington and Crystal Laughlin the opportunity to say it's not working. And or be able to say, I'm looking at your application. And those people can go online and they can take a look at all the information they need to look at besides what the student brings with them. And they know whether there's an opportunity for that student to be successful here or not. And this just gives them

133one more piece of criteria to say yes or no. I guess to my point. I'm watching Collin, not his head. Yeah, like, I think to my point, like, for letter G, to me, I, sure, you can have which other version of that that you would like to have. I don't mind the additional clarifications there. The part I dislike. It's the bolded part in B about a variance may be revoked at the end of each semester if the student does not earn adequate credit to be considered on track for graduation, which happens to be in both of these. That is the piece that, I guess, trips me up. But again consensus is they get the consensus is is that I'm the only one that gets stuck on that then you know If it's okay, I'd like

134to hear from those in our administrative staff of implementation Yes, I was just Jennifer. I would think that this is very fair and you guys to give whatever feedback On how you see that that statement and an implementation I can take two examples. I'm like Director Olson saying it doesn't come up a lot, but if it's out of district and attendance is a persistent issue, because the attendance could link to a discipline issue, but a high school student could go and connect. They have friends still, so they struggle to get there. That's a conversation where I think... the policy would add some clarity to the conversation. But that's one piece. And that doesn't, back to your point, Greg, it doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen. Or a student shows up, he or she

135just, the behavior piece, and maybe it's because it's a long trip, or maybe it's because of factors like that. But those are just two examples that could come up where... And I think it's hard socially because a kid who goes to school takes a connection and it's hard for them to see your best place is probably going to be the school that's two blocks from your house instead of 20 miles from your house. I will add to that this is new language that we have always just reviewed applications for in district, you know, non- non-resident students once a year and so we at the administrative building administrative level have always had the opportunity to decide at the end of the school year whether or not a student would continue sort of based on a variety

136of things their progress academics, attendance, you know, several things. Moving to the potential of revoking a semester really does kind of speak most to our high school level because what this would do potentially is cut a student off at semester that is not making that adequate progress rather than waiting until the end of the year. So you could look at it one of two ways. It's an early intervention for that student, you know, recognizing that they're not necessarily in the right placement for themselves to be successful. Or you can look at it, I think, from a little bit of what your lens is, Director Evans, about, you know, that feels kind of harsh. One of the things that we talked about in this proposal was thinking about our resources and wanting to serve our students

137most adequately. And when we have students in our system that aren't making the progress that we want them to, it is taking resources away from maybe other opportunities for students. And I think one of our goals is that we would always want to prioritize the students in our community before potentially providing resources for students who are in those non-resilient categories. No, that's super helpful. That is the piece that I, like, why would we do it? I guess that's the piece that I... Well, I think too it has compounding effect. So if a student isn't doing well, they're likely at the high school level potentially going to need access to additional intervention or credit recovery or things like that. It makes an impact on our graduation rates. So there's many places in which we as a

138system absorb those. impacts in different ways and by adding this language it just gives us the opportunity for an early review and early response to that rather than you know potentially waiting a whole school year to make a decision around students. So as staff you would be welcome to that change as opposed to seeing it more as like a burden of like man I gotta review this student twice a year instead of once a year you would like that would be a welcome change. It's a may, but I must. Right. But it would be, okay. So theoretically, you could basically, taking our board policy, you guys could, you would then turn it into a policy procedure. It may be an intervention process at that first meeting, the first semester, and you sit down with the

139students and parents and everybody and say, hey, look, this is what could happen because we have. this language, let's see what we can do so it becomes a motivational tool rather than just a tool to remove them from the system. And there is a right of appeal to OSPI. It goes past Ryan, it goes past us, it goes to OSPI, and they intervene. So are we comfortable with the language, do we think? Yeah, that's super helpful, and I'm comfortable with either. Version that anybody would want to move forward. So if your recommendation is C I can be on board with that as well Anybody else have a consensus other than C? I appreciate Lizanne's interpretation I am making sure that when we're looking at procedure that we're weighing the cost benefit versus the expense I

140think is critical in this budget situation that we're in because our resident students need to come first. Yep, and I want any student that walks through our doors to be successful, and I want to be able to provide, you know, let's talk about interventions for them to help them be that way. I think that's our answer. Okay. Is that our whole agenda? I think it's the end of this. All right. I'd like to know when you did this. This was pretty cool to do and bring in all of the discussion. Yeah. I find quite interesting. Thank you. Thanks for sticking around. Yes, I appreciate it. All right. With that said, I believe there is no further business, so we can adjourn our meeting and go home.