001There we go. All right. That's gonna give me vertigo. Oh, no. I'm gonna I'm gonna switch to uh sharing my screen. Okay. Okay. There we go. We've already read a sentence and take one word out of the sentence. We can make go like this. We have some people that are waiting to get in couple guests. We have it. Hey, can you hear us? Can you give us a thumbs up if you can hear us? Yep, you're all good. Okay, great. Thank you. Perfect. All right. Well, it is 5:31. I say we call this meeting to order. Can everyone stand for the pledge of allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Excellent.
002Thank you everybody. Let's see. Move right on to public comment. Um do we have any public comment? I have not been asked uh to read any statements nor do we have anybody in here in the audience willing to make a public comment or wanting to make a public comment. Excuse me. Perfect. Then we can move on to 5.1 Sent agenda. What do we got? Does he have anything to talk about special? Anything different in there? No, we have some board minutes from last March payroll update. Uh, one new part we do have is we did have to have a we do have a resignation of our did that one our music teacher who had some changes in her home situation. So, uh, she resigned, but did a nice job for us while she was here
003and maybe in the future she can come back. All right. The only kind of significant thing in the speed limit is 55 miles hour. Marshall, you're not muted. Your speed limit's 55 miles an hour. Can I get a second on the consent agenda? Second. All in favor? I very much. Awesome. All right. And now on to 6.0, which will be the financial update and report. And we just so happen to have a guest in person. In person. Miss Nicole Courtney is here in person. So the first slide there is the EEN cash graph. It's a three-year average. Um these reports are as of March. Um and the reminder that that orange yellow line in the center there is our minimum fund balance policy. So we are trending well this year. Does does that say a
004million242? Yes. Okay. Yes. We have some um purchases that we're hoping to um purchase that are one time large purchases like a van. So um this puts us in a really good place to make that purchase. I just remember a couple years ago we were ecstatic when we went above six figures. Yeah. Yes. Now we're seven. I remember my first month $39,000. Exactly. I We're not going to go back there. No. No. And then the next is our general ledger trial balance. Um I provide this. This one's not um required for me to provide, but I provide it. And I also provide the county treasures report so that you can see that I am tying out our GLS every month to our county treasur as far as our cash and investments. Um so this one's
005pretty much just an FYI. Not a lot to discuss on these. There's a page for every fund. [Music] Nothing out of the ordinary here. Nope. Everything tiles reconciled to the county treasur, which is exactly what we want to happen every month. That is from the county treasur, what I tie to. So, you just take your cash there and your ending investments, add them together, and that's how we come up with our cash amount, which is on our cash graph. Perfect. This is our budget status report. This is the report that is required to by an RCW to provide to you. This is um showing that we're as of March and our ending fund balance is at a 26% balance at 1,ion22507. And then our capital projects fund on the next page has an ending fund
006balance of $569,000. that service didn't have any activity during the month of March and our transportation vehicle fund has an ending fund balance of 15,472. Oh, I missed ASB. I'm sorry. ASB has an ending in balance of 27,142. There's transportation. So, rather calm month. Yes. Yeah. Not a lot happening in March. We're still waiting for the legislative session to end. Um I heard the last I heard that it's on track to end on time uh as of end of April in a week. So um once that comes out, I'm really going to start running a lot of projections for next year. Um so that we have a better idea of where our revenues are. I don't think they're going to change much for next year because we're already currently not receiving a lot of federal
007dollars like title one this year. So I don't think a lot will change but I am waiting for for those to get more projections out for budget for 2526. Do you have any information how they're changing the aortionment percentages? No, but I heard today that the overall general the overall um schools are getting 1% statewide. I've heard, but that I wasn't in that um legislative session or I wasn't on a Zoom about that. That was just relayed to me. So, I'm not I haven't read that yet. Yeah, there's a there's a bill from what I understand and they're looking at changing some of the aortionment percentages from, you know, let's say 9% a month to Oh, to the end of the year. So, after the fiscal year. I'm not a fan just because then we
008have to float ourselves to the end of the year and the school's over. So, I'm hoping that that doesn't pass. So it looks like almost what 25% of our aortionment we will receive in July and August. You know when all the kids school I have heard that I have heard that um they're still trying to increase the Mox a little bit and special education but still no final on that probably until the session ends next week. M socks I think we're been hurt for the material supplies and operating cost $35 per FTE which will for us is it will be $2,900 that we can do it on that last year we got $21 per FTE so you know that we almost doubled yeah paramount duty awesome don't get me going any questions for me thank
009you thank you very much Nicole thank you Nicole Quick and easy. All right. Looks like we got Jeff with our operations report now. I'm going to assume because that's what's on the screen. All right. Well, um I'll start with the sport field uh plans in progress. Um old playground equipment's been removed. Um I've begun the process of removing the pearl, relocating it. Um, we'll be spreading it around the new playground area. Um, just reduces maintenance time on maintenance. Uh, trying to kind of mower the tight spots of grass. So, um, we possibly going to look at like surplus and some of that stuff. I've had people ask me. Yeah. Oh, the Are you talking about the playground equipment? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Uh, yeah. So, the playground equipment, it's ready to be surplus. Just got to
010take pictures of it. Um, well, I have pictures of it before I tore it down. those. But um it's kind of stashed in the back corner there, but it is ready to be so including the uh Geo Dome called. Yeah. Uh that that'll be surplus as well. Um uh at the athletic director, uh Kyle Hickman and Coach Nate, they've been in correspondence with ProGrade. Um they'll be coming out on Thursday to take a look at what we got going on. um they want to help with the project. Um to what extent I'm not sure yet, but uh when they come out on Thursday, we'll find out. We'll lay out the plan for them, what we got, the dimensions of the field and everything like that, what plans are as far as moving shipping containers and
011stuff like that. See where they they want to help. Um so, they seem very motivated. Um they have the equipment, machinery to uh do a lot of heavy work. So, um, I'm eager to find out, you know, just how much they want to help. Depending on how much they help, we told them we'll put a big thing over the scoreboard that says prograde field if you guys really, you know, really want to help. So, that would be awesome. It would definitely uh uh boost uh the amount of time or make it quicker. Yeah. You know, to to level the field and everything like that. kind of get it reseated before football. So, and that's our goal really is just to get that field seated, the grass growing and established by the time football comes so
012they have a nice level playing field. Um, and then we all the other stuff I anticipate will go fairly quickly after that. It's just a matter of acquiring the field goal. Um, so what right now we are in stage one. Uh the remaining task for stage one is moving the shop put pad uh moving or disposing the shipping containers, relocating the bus garage, propane tank, airating and leveling the field seating and then developing irrigation solutions uh that don't uh create safety hazards for the playing field itself. Um so I'm exploring you know various options uh as far as that's concerned. Um, as far as uh Oh, yeah. Asphalt repairs. Um, the asphalt out here on the cross street entrance there that's been repaired. Um, Patriot Paving was the winning contractor with that. They were not
013the cheapest, but um, for what we got, I thought they were the better deal. Um, they did have the experience uh, commiserate to the other companies. However, they wanted to provide us with a 5- in asphalt layer as well as build up the sub layer underneath the asphalt so it can handle the constant driving of buses over it and everything without um affecting the integrity. Um the other companies, they wanted to provide us with 3-in asphalt and no upgrades to the sub layer. So, um, I figured Patriot Paving $12,000 for what they're giving us and $8 to $9,000 for the other companies without the improvements. Patriot Paving I think was the better deal. If the other companies had given us the improved sub layer as well as the additional asphalt, I think that their prices
014would have been somewhere in the same ballpark range. But that is that's a presumption on my part. But um Patriot Pave and they're also local. We have any issues they can be out right now. So there are a number of reasons why I went with Patriot Paving. Um and they did a good job and I think it'll hold up nicely. So we shouldn't have to handle or deal with any more heating asphalt in the future. Yes. Um they also repaired the uh sinking asphalt there behind the bus garage. Um they weren't sure why it was sinking as they dug down. They dug down pretty good bit. So there's no water, there's no leaks or anything like that. There's no pooling of uh anything. They um think that because um back when the old gym used
015to be there, when they demolished it, they figured there's probably rubble underneath there. It finally gave way, settled, and then it sank with the buses driving over it. So, they drove uh they did improve the sub layer with that with ballast and then put 58 minus gravel over that and then put the new pad over that with 5 in pad so it can also handle the gravel. So, it should hold up nicely um until, you know, we need more extensive repair in that area in the future. Um water testing was completed by the Department of Health. Um I partnered with uh Department of Health because uh they will or they have performed the tests for other schools and they performed the test with us um at no cost to the school. Um it also satisfies
016requirements to the state as far as water testing goes. So we won't need to look at getting another water test um for another five years. Um that's assuming that we have no lead in our water. Five parts per billion is the cut off point. Anything less than that, they don't necessarily worry about it. If we have any lead in our water, um they say that most likely 99% of the time it's coming out of the tap itself, not the pipes. Um it's just some faucets, uh they put the the lead in there and they said most of the time you replace those faucets, it fixes the issue right there. So any lead that we find in our water, if there is any, I'll be replacing the faucets just to um fix the issue there. Um
017it'll be interesting. I know I've I've conducted water tests myself in the past and then sent it off to a lab. It'll be interesting to see how the results compare there. Hopefully um they're they're about the same. So So anyway, uh results should be here about four to six weeks uh for that. and then we can post those up uh for everybody to see the results for those. Um fire alarm, smoke detector and sprinkler uh uh system service has been completed. Um we are due for a destructive testing of our sprinkler heads. So that's uh 1% or four heads minimum of each type, whichever number is greater will have to be removed and then replaced with new heads. They'll send the old heads in and for destructive testing. If they pass, great. We don't need
018to worry about anything. If uh one of them fails, we will need to replace every sprinkler head in the school. Um so fingers crossed that they pass just fine because we have a lot of sprinkler heads just like we have a lot of smoke alarms in the school, an insane amount of those. So um I'm hoping that they'll pass just fine. So we will see with that. Um, I'm currently working with Central Washington Fire Protection um to set up a date um probably during the summertime where we'll pull those heads and get those sent off. Uh, the elevator system still remains to be down. Li did come in for an inspection. Um, they weren't able to perform the inspection because there's no power to the elevator currently. They are aware though that Otis put a
019lock on the power box. Um, so not a lot of concern there, but until we get the appropriate months for that repair. Um it it remains um see all right moving on to the transportation report. Washington state summer inspection uh 100% of the buses and the motorpool vehicles um went smoothly. There were no onsets. Everything uh looked good. So it all went smoothly. Um just want to manage expectations there. Two of the buses that we had were maintained by Phil. So, they're in outstanding condition. We just purchased them. Um, and then the other two buses are brand new, so I'm not going to toot my horn too much on that success. Uh, I just have to make sure there's no leaks or anything like that. Maintain things. So, um, but it went well. Thank you,
020Phil, for uh, those two buses and bring those to our attentions. It's been really nice because we had to surplus bus three. Um, so it's nice to have the two little guys there to back us up. So, um, I've been driving them for sports vents. They work great. They're awesome. Comfortable. Um, and, uh, yeah. So, that's, uh, that's the Washington State Patrol inspection. Um, I did pass my CDL test finally. We are good there. Um, so I'm able to that opens up some flexibility within, you know, as our sport program grows and everything. Um that opens up some opportunities for us to provide transportation there. I can just hop on a bus, take them, you know, if uh uh if one of the bus drivers is not available. Um as I mentioned before, bus three
021has been surplus. Uh bus four is surplus. It's ready to go. Bus four, everything's removed out of it. Camera, the amber lights are disconnected, the red lights are disconnected, signs, everything like that. Bus three is just about there. I just have to remove the um front stop arm dis um and remove the stop paddle and then it should be ready for disposition or surplus I'm sorry. Um um have been working on uh acquiring a new motorpool vehicle or an additional motorpool vehicle rather but clear of Toyota um they so far have been my best bet. They do they are state contract winners. However, unfortunately, they do not have any minivans um uh under the state contract right now. I am having difficulty locating minivans under the state contract. Um there are loads of minivans, Toyota,
022Siennas, whatnot. Um out there, but they don't fall under the state contract. So, um, what the price difference is, um, we're paying 40,000 42,000 for a used minivan, low miles. Brand new, you're looking at about 50 to 54,000 for a brand new one, not under the state contract. So, um, if we decide not to go on a state contract, we will have to go to bid for that. Um, uh, put an ad in the newspaper for two weeks. um see if anybody's interested in throwing some bids our way. After that, I can reach out to various um uh dealerships and see what they have to offer. Um do you have any advice on that, Nicole, as far as you know what we what our options are? Yeah, since it's not we're not using federal dollars,
023we're using our state dollars, our own local dollars, um the requirements aren't tied as much. We just have to follow our purchasing policy. Okay. Um, and I believe I found one on our website um, when I was when I when we were talking about purchasing a van. Yeah. Um, so we have a lot more flexibility with um, the purchase. Okay. Because we're not tied to a specific federal. Okay. And our purchasing policy that requires we go to bid if we're not using um I think that if we stay under $100,000 we don't have to go 75 or $100,000. Yeah. Yeah. So we won't have to go out for bids, but they do like us to have three quotes. It's three different or why like even if it's just an email I'm inquiring and you save
024that documentation that we did the research before, we want specific banner specific. Excellent. Well, in that case, I'll do my due diligence and I will get those estimates and Yeah. And and the board just has to know about it before we make the purchase. Excellent. Yeah. And so I'll present those uh estimates to you guys as soon as possible. Um, there are a number of dealerships that I found that do have those Toyota CNS. Um, and the reason we're looking for the Toyota CNS, they do have the all-wheel drive option, uh, creating a safer transportation up to the pass, whatnot. And, um, very reliable vehicles go a long ways before they be replaced again. I think it's a excellent asset to look at. Thank you, Y. Um, so that uh pretty much, yep, that wraps
025up my maintenance and transportation report for uh this. Excellent. Thank you, Jeff. Superintendent report. All right, on to the superintendent report. Um, as always, starting with enrollment, we did have a family of three that uh moved to to the west side. We have heard some some rumblings that they might be back with us. So, um we're hopeful for that. But you can see our total headcount in FTE after those uh three students uh went over. So, fingers crossed they'll come back. Um if you haven't seen the uh photos from Cape Disappointment, I encourage you to really do that. Um, I think we have two of our students who went to that trip are right here, so maybe they can talk about it a little bit, but pictures were awesome. Um, you guys want to talk
026about it? I don't want to put you on the spot. You don't have to. I think it was really fun. It was a really good event. Yeah, I like the ocean a lot more than desert. I'll say that. That was a lot more fun. So, desert last year, ocean ocean this year. But yeah, very diverse in choices. You guys look like you had fun. I didn't know about the the go-karting, which made me twitch a little bit, but there are lots of smiles. So, I'm glad you guys had fun and hopefully learned a little bit about the the area there as well. So, uh all part of our, you know, focus on outdoor ed and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that here later on in our meeting. But, um we have
027another trip with our middle school kids coming up in June to uh the Mount St. Allen's area. So, getting the getting the kids out and having them do some camping. Um, our staff is thinking about doing a block schedule for u for next year. Block schedule generally is you have longer instructional periods, but less of them. Right now, we're on a seven period day. The staff is thinking about going to a four period day. Instead of a 55minute class, it'd be about, you know, roughly 90 minute class. um still under discussion. So I not sure if that's going to happen or not, but we'll see. So that means you'd have say for example, you'd have classes one, two, three, four on one day, the next day you'd have five, six, seven, and then probably a
028jag time class or a study hall class or a clubs time to do clubs. So again, teachers are being really creative on what they're thinking about, and we're gonna we'll see if that happens. Um I think I emailed the board about this that Uh last week I was contacted by the Department of Commerce about a solar uh system grant or solar panel system grant. Uh we we put we turned one in last year. This is kind of at Jeff's direction and leadership. Uh unfort we unfortunately we didn't receive that grant but obviously they have some dollars left over at the Department of Commerce. So I think they're trying to spend out their remaining grant dollars. So, they asked us to uh to apply. So, I did using the information that Jeff had found the year
029before and submitted it. And hopefully, we'll hear back here in a few weeks. But, it could be a nice chunk of change for us to put a solar panel and all the electrical things that that go with it to, you know, it's uh not going to be huge money maker for us, but it should offset, you know, some of our electrical bill from PSC. So, nice. not a bad thing, but and there's some interface things that our science teachers and math teachers can use to, you know, calculate all the, you know, solar energy and cost savings and all that kind of good stuff. So, we'll see. Knock on wood, hopefully we'll get it. Um, we are entered in to another agreement with School Mint. That's that social mark social media marketing company that we used
030in the past. Um, and I think we are we've already had some good uh response to it. We have a family coming in tomorrow for a tour who has I think a middle school student and a couple we've had a couple other phone calls and um I think we might have some elementary students coming in for a tour uh the following week. So nice. People are seeing all the great things that we do here at at Eastston and um I think we're getting some traction out of it and people are looking for maybe a different different environment for their students and all the positive things that we can offer. Not a lot of other schools are going to, you know, the ocean for a couple days. Yeah. With their kids, but we are. So that
031sets us apart. Um as you know, we are still collective bargaining with our teachers union. Um all of the proposals and counter proposals are on our website at that link. So feel free to uh to look at that. But again we have positive bargaining uh discussions, trade language uh and again until the legislature kind of comes through with a you know financial package things are a little bit on hold just on basically contract language not the uh the financial piece yet. Um, bad news in both of the ha the House and Senate capital budgets, we are outside the allocation for the modernization grant. Um, Senate has us as number nine alternate. Uh, and the House has it as number one alternate. So, everybody above us in the House budget is funded and we are the
032next one to get funded. Um, again, as Nicole was saying, it's supposed to wrap up here on Sunday the 27th. It's not over till it's over, but um I I don't have a lot of hope. I'll be quite frank with you. Um but you know in my state of seeing that we were bypassed for for the grant um I looked into some of the other state budgets that have been approved department of commerce some others and um again nothing's finalized but um if K12 education is supposed to be the paramount duty I have a hard time understanding why some of these other projects are being approved and yet schools can't get decent HVAC or plumbing and not just east but all the small remote schools that are our rural schools that that need this desperate
033funding but instead um we're paying for a cricket field in Marore Park. Perfect. So tell us why because it's Marmore. Tell me how that relates to the paramount duty of the state to provide public education cricket field in Redmond. So I will have quite a list for you. Yeah, not gonna try to get myself wound up because I get a little bit Well, because you know Redmond's strapped for cash anyway. Yeah, I know Redmond, you know, they don't have that tax base there with Microsoft and Amazon. I know they're they're hurting for it. So, yeah, but there's there's quite a few things on there that again I will won't mention until they are finalized. Uh the last part of my report is just a kind of report from our uh education lobbyist at at the
034ESD kind of going through um the various bills that will impact schools. As Nicole was saying, we should receive a little bit of NSOCK money. Last I heard it was $35 for FTE. Uh we should receive a little bit of special education money for our students. Um that's helpful but nowhere near what uh you know statewide we need and no funding for for transportation from what I have seen. Um they're doing some other and it seems like they're kind of the legislaturator is kind of nibbling around the edges to find whatever dollars they can to uh um to save money. Um this is what I mentioned earlier with Nicole. they are looking at delaying some of the payments are changing the structure of those payments. Uh so goes from one fiscal year to another. It's
035not a really a savings of money. It's just kind of a shell game of what they're doing. It's like cutting a foot off the blanket at the bottom. So the top and saying it's longer. Well, with as many districts that went into binding conditions and had to ask for a portion of advancements, it really doesn't make sense that they're trying to even propose delaying them. And with the probably additional districts that will go into binding conditions this year doesn't make sense. Um another creative one I saw that um AL is alternative learning uh funding. Some districts have a pretty robust um virtual learning or alternative learning environment and now the state wants to kind of decrease the allocation for those kids because like they got to fund cricket fields. [Music] Um, I'm not going to
036get into levy lid and things like that because it's still not finalized. Um, you know, retired administrators are going to be able to go back to work, which is great for a lot of people. Um, but and they're looking to change some things with truency petitions because um, after the Becca bill was put in place for what, almost two decades now, now they're realizing it it actually costs a lot of money and things need to change. So, that one is on the uh the docket for a possible change as well. So, again, I don't mean to be doom and gloom with my superintendent reports every month because we got lots of good stuff going, but um the legislative session is not real kind to K12 education, I'll put it that way. Um in a lot
037of areas seems to be funding for certain things, but not for the paramount duty of the state per the constitution. But I digress and With that, I will close my report before I get myself in trouble. Thank you, Aaron. You are welcome. All right, on to 73. Board member reports. Anyone have anything to report? I don't have anything this month. We're here. I'm here. Yep. I don't got anything. Nothing for me. Sat traffic for three and a half hours to get here, but made it. We appreciate when we heard from Aaron and Angelos. Cape disappointment was a huge hit. Yep. They're busy in track season right now. I think some PRs were made over the over the at the last meet this last past Friday. So awesome. Things things are going well. All right. On
038the board business 8.1 resolution 42425 Memorial Day Committee support. Yes. This is the annual resolution that we do the uh that the board if they choose to sign and approve will allow me to work with the memorial committee to and Jeff to figure out what their needs are, electrical, water, ice to make sure the Memorial Day event goes on without a hitch. So, I would just request that the board vote and make a decision on this resolution. I will make a motion to approve said resolution. Second. All in favor? I I I There we go. That Jenn is still here. Thank you very much. Yes, Jen is here. Just out of sight. She's not in the picture, so I don't know. Yeah. All right. On to 8.2. Resolution 52425, Eastn Fire Auxiliary Support and Access.
039So again, an annual resolution that uh I bring to the board for again, Mr. Brian and I to work with the fire auxiliary to support the annual Cascade Crest 100 mile race that they do annually. I think we usually provide uh refrigerator or freezer space for ice and other things that they they need. And um Cascade Crest was generous enough to get us give us a nice donation this past year. So we we thank them for that. Uh, again, this just directs the board or directs myself and Jeff to assist them with whatever the fire auxiliary needs. Perfect. If I get Haley and Jen to motion and second. Make a motion to approve whatever. 8.2. I got it. Hi I 8.3 agreement with open ed and eastn school district. We have a couple guests joining
040us remotely. Uh Grant, are you there? There Grant is with Yes. Loud and clear. Grant is with a company called Open Ed. Um I received some information from them and kind of followed up with what this company does. And I it sounds almost too good to be true, but I wanted them to come talk to the board about what they can offer Eastn School District and what they do as a company. So Grant, if you just want to tell me when to uh you know, advance the slides and go from there, I'll be I'll be the totally fine. Happy to let you drive that that process. So, let me just start uh with who is open ed. And it's it's really hard to to follow somebody who says that we're too good to be true.
041Um but I like that. I like how that's presented because it's it it will seem that way. And so I think it's important to to put it out there. So, Open Ed is a distance education virtual learning uh platform that uh is different than all of the other folks that are kind of in the virtual learning space because we consider ourselves um a a connector so to speak of multiple virtual education platforms and curriculum to create individualized education plans that help uh students across the state. So, we uh utilize in Washington the choice transfer process to allow students to enroll um across the state in other districts that they uh want to be a part of. And at a very high level, that's who we are. So, I'm going to walk through briefly a a
042quick slide deck. You can stop me at any point with a question or we can do them all at the end. It's totally fine. Um so, if I can get you to to flip to the next slide. Why should we do this now? One more. Ed, the education environment is changing. You all I mean, I have I've sat here for the last 30 minutes and I'm uh amazed at what you're offering your brickandmortar students, your inerson students. You're already thinking about ways to attract students to your to your district, ways to find that one or two extra families who are interested in doing something different. And you you're already doing that. But there's a whole group of families that after COVID became disenfranchised with education. They um were I don't want to say they're disenfranchised
043with education. They're disenfranchised with a brickandmortar experience. They're looking for something different. They aren't your traditional homeschool families that we might all remember from the 1980s uh and early 1990s. And if you think about those families back then in the 80s and 90s, many of them were actually performing home education illegally. And you the first activists are coming of age in the home education movement that were actually a part of an illegal activity. And now home education is legal in every state. Um, but there has been an incredible jump in what I like to call refugee homeschoolers. And these are people who never woke up uh every day saying, "I'm going to homeschool my kids." But after COVID, they woke up really dis disenchanted and looking for something different. And they're looking to move at
044a speed that isn't traditional. They are wanting to advance faster at their own pace. That's where open ed comes in. Can I get the next slide, please? Washington families lack a ton of options when it comes to this. There is virtual education but as as I believe it's a very standardized virtual approach. It's not an innovative virtual approach or a distance approach to education. Next slide please. So what what are we why are we different? We're different because we're about personalized education plans and personalized education opportunities for students. So what does that mean in practice? Because I'm going to say something that's going to sound absolutely crazy. Every student in open ed has an individualized education plan for their learning path. It doesn't matter if we have a thousand students or 100 students, we will
045have an individualized plan for each kid. And so no one one plan looks alike uh in open ed. So you may have a kid doing edmentum for their for their social studies and egeneuity for their math. Um we allow for crosscurricular platforms to work together so that we can create really specific customized tailored experience for each child. Uh all of this is done in accordance with state rules and state standards to ensure that uh our kids meet those requirements that are required by the department of education. We exclusively partner with public institutions because we believe in a mutually beneficial partnership and we think public schools are important fabric to our communities. Next uh next slide, please. So why would you want to do this? Uh you're already a district that's thinking outside the box. So
046this is a way to increase your reputation in offering innovative solutions and attracting students. It's a way to boost enrollment for kids that you don't have to take on the fiscal requirements of uh increasing your brickandmortar footprint uh or hiring new teachers because we do all of that. And it's a financial benefit to the district because it's a uh revenue share partnership that allows um you all to keep a portion of the per pupil spending from the state and we take a portion and administer the program. So, our goal is to keep the lift very light for you so you're not incurring incurring any additional costs and uh on the other side bringing in a bunch more kids so that you can get some of that more one-time uh one-off funding that you want to
047use to maybe improve a science lab or buy new materials or as I heard earlier maybe you want to buy another car. Um so there's opportunities to just use that money in innovative ways that isn't a part of your normal annual budget. Next slide, please. So, how does it work? Pretty simple. State dollars come down to the partner districts. Partner districts partner with open ed. Like I said, it's a revenue share. Uh we both win. Uh kids win, families win, district wins, open ed wins, and kids are getting the education that they deserve. Next, uh next slide, please. Thank you. So, I talked briefly about this. We are a connector of curriculum. So these are just this is just a snapshot at some of the curricular opportunities that our kids in an open-ended program would
048have access to. I say it's just a snapshot because we actually provide over 70 plus different curricular opportunities for kids in our program to be able to create those individualized learning plans. Next slide please. And currently we use in the district we use, we use Imagine Learning and we use Ingenuity already. Yeah. So you're familiar you're familiar with some of these platforms. we just we use them in a kind of combined ecosystem together and sometimes separate. So, this is an example of what it might look like for a kid. Uh this in this instance, it's a kid in age nine, grade four. Um we learn about him that he loves uh hands-on learning. He struggles with math. So, we're going to find uh curricular options that are going to meet that. So, his social studies
049may be done from Great Hearts Online. His science is going to be rock by rock. um you know, imagine language and literacy and elks math. Now, here's where we get even more exciting. We offer in addition to our curricular library, which is an asynchronous delivery. So, let me be very clear. It is a um self-guided process with a teacher on the side. So, we offer operate in the uh sage uh guide on the side versus sage on the sage on the stage mentality. And so our teachers are coming alongside our students, not lecturing to them from the front. So it's self-paced. Kids are continuing to move and make progress, reporting and touching base with their teachers every week to be able to to show that progress and move through the process. But along with that,
050they get opportunities for synchronous interaction because everybody wants to hang out with other kids. And so we find ways um 30 different ways a week for kids to interact with other kids who are doing virtual learning. And so we have everything from a Lego club to a gardening club to a photography club. We have deep dive learning sessions on anatomy. Uh this week actually we had a uh students follow uh a drone through Egypt uh the pyramids and get a live uh tour from a tour guide uh in Egypt as the drone flew through the the pyramids um and got to ask live questions and be a part of that. So, we're always looking for innovative ways to interact with our students in a synchronous manner, but it's uh our our primary delivery is asynchronous.
051Next slide, please. So, uh this is where I was talking about I need to update the slide. This says we only do 20 plus events. We actually are now at 30, but they're academic workshops. Um this is also in these live uh sessions is also where we have tutoring opportunities. Every opened ed kid has the opportunity for one-on-one tutoring with a teacher or group tutoring sessions. Uh we are in all four time zones. So, uh there's never an opport never a chance that a kid's not going to be able to find um a tutor available to work with them. They just have to go through our portal, schedule the opportunity, and they can have that one-on-one session to work through any issues that they're having. Next slide, please. So, been around, as I mentioned, for
05215 years. 97% of our families, we're really proud of this statistic, would recommend us to a friend. Um they they love uh interacting with us, they love the education that they get. We've served over 25,000 students in that time range. And uh as I mentioned, we have over 75 different course offerings for our K12 students. Next slide. I'm just going to lay this up on the screen. This is a quote from a a family who um who uses open ed. Give you a little bit of time to read that when comfortable. Feel free to go to the next slide. This is another another quote from a from an open ed student. We really attract the gamut of students. It's a very interesting mix, but most of our students um have never been in a traditional
053public school classroom before. We really attract those homeschool students uh who are who are interested in in finding a little bit more guard rails. Next slide, please. So, what do our partner schools use us for? This is uh this is always an interesting question. We we talk to our superintendent partners and we say, "So, what did what did the the working with opened get you the ability to do?" Um, and these are just a couple of the things that we've heard heard about. One, uh, one district, uh, used it for kind of a one-time pay increase for teachers. Um, they've added portable classrooms with our dollars. They purchased new buses, new textbooks for an entire district. Um, they're remodeling some of their buildings with it. Um, they're able to bring uh more aids into the
054large classrooms and they're able to pro provide more tutoring opportunities and mentoring opportunities for their own students. One of them that's not on here, we have a partner in Oregon. Uh he he made me pull it off the slide because he was slightly embarrassed, but he's using it to put in a new football field. Um he his small district could never afford to to put in an artificial field until their partnership with Open Ed. And after three years of partnering, they are putting in a brand new uh turf field for their for their community. And as he pointed out, it's a community uh investment. Uh because in their small community, a lot of people use the football stadium for every every type of community activity. What's really important to recognize is a partnership with open
055ed gives you resources to work with your current brickandmortar kids. So it's not just an investment in kids that are looking for education differently. It's an investment in your kids. And so it's an opportunity to work uh with those with those kids and find find new and innovative ways to help your local kids. Maybe you can uh make that two days at the beach, four days at the beach. Who knows? Uh next slide, please. These are just a couple of the quotes uh from our superintendent that that like us. Uh Jolen Ford uh from Nebo, she oversees um 8,000 open ed kids that are enrolled in her district. Uh Ryan Hawkins uh in Nissa, Oregon has uh a thousand kids actually, 1100 kids in his district from open ed. Uh and Corey, he uh oversees
056digital learning for the Iron County School District and they have uh 1,200 kids uh from open ed in their districts. So what is what does it look like if we were to do something? Great question. uh we would we have a partnership agreement that I think is available uh for you guys to review and hopefully give your superintendent the authority to sign. We will then start a rigorous compliance mapping process. Um and what that is is we are going to hire attorneys in Washington. We're not going to hire somebody who doesn't live there to uh help us map our entire program to the uh Washington state standards. also understanding that the Washington Department of Education is uh a little bit of a bear and so we are prepared to uh take the time it we
057need to do to get approved and check all the boxes and dot all of uh dot all the eyes and cross all the tees uh to make them happy and then once we've done that we would start to look at enrolling families into the program. My best early gues guesstimate uh just based upon my experience with departments of ed is we would probably be looking at the earliest an a start time for this program of middle of next year. So like a January 2nd semester kind of a pilot program get a few families in work out the kinks and be ready to go full scale for the 26 27 school year. Um we're very used to a midyear start. it actually is nice because no one's really expecting it and you're able to do kind
058of a small handful of kids u and get the the kinks worked out of the system. So, um that's that is who open ed is. I'm now happy to take any questions. Oh, I should leave with this. I should should before before questions um I just want to take one off the table. You're gonna ask me how much does it cost to start today? uh it costs zero dollars from the district. If I fail to enroll a kid, I pay you pay me nothing. So I only get paid if we enroll children. Um so we are fixated on how we get kids into the program. Um and we will front all of the cost on the compliance side. So, uh, we just need to know, and the reason we jump through hoops in this order
059is we need to know that we have that partner on the back end once we've jumped through the compliance hoops, um, to to make that a worthwhile expenditure on our part. Grant, you you currently aren't working with anybody in Washington, right? No, you would be our firm. You would you would bring open ed to the market, which is we're really excited. We we we kind of like that. I'm okay with I I love it. And I'll tell you, I have employees who live in Washington who are uh eagerly awaiting the outcome of this phone call. Great. Doesn't that pretty much mean that pretty much anyone they signed up, we just tied to Eastern right away? Correct. So, we get first dibs. Yes. Yes. Even better. Like like I like how you prefaced it with it
060sounds too good to be true, but I like the I like the concept. I like the opportunity. And a lot of the partners we already working with. We work with and math and language arts and we work with Ingenuity for some of our online classes, Spanish, and then some of our credit retrieval. So, they're they're programs we've used before. Well, especially when you factor in especi on the west side, what 25% of students in most of your schools left for home school, never came back. Yeah. Yep. One of the benefits of our program, I know you haven't asked anything, but I like to I don't like to have a ton of silence, is um we will um for families who need internet connectivity if that's an issue or technology is an issue, we have reimbursement
061funds uh for those educational expenses. So, we take care of that uh out of the portion that you are sending our direction. So, out of that revenue share, we're making sure that they have the computer they need, the internet they need to be able to operate. Nice. And what's what's the cost to the family or is that covered by enrollment in the school? It's covered by the enrollment in the school. Okay. So, this is a this is a free athome learning opportunity for families that will feel uh will have a look and feel a lot closer to what they are accustomed to as a homeschool family than maybe sitting down in an edmentum like full courseware uh opportunity. So this will feel a lot more familiar to them. Um we have both a parent support
062team and a and a learner support team because we consider the families who use our program as valuable as the kids who are in it. And so we are always looking to find ways to meet the needs of our our parents as well as our kids because what we find is if one of those equations is offkilter, it's going to lead to an issue down the road. So, we want to make sure that at all times parents know they have open lines of communication with us and kids have open lines of communications with us. And we have two separate specialty teams that work on either side of that equation. I like it. Yeah, you weren't kidding when you said it sounded too good to be true. That's kind of kind of my thinking uh is
063it's kind of a but I mean I I'm I'd be excited for the chance to be a pioneer in the state. Yes. Piloting starting a new program, a new way to learn. you know it because there are a lot of kids that I'm one of them that doesn't learn the regular way that you know having each kid have their own learning plan would be huge and support from open ed support from us and the aspect I look at too is I mean how many parents work odd hours and they don't get to spend time with their kids and so that gets to be a issue where the children aren't able to learn in school because, you know, even divorced families, you know, kids go here, kids go there. Times are taking care of younger siblings.
064And I I' I'd be willing to give it a shot. Absolutely. Put my put my faith in to make the choice, but I'd be willing to make the choice for go with it. Yeah. You know, and especially when there's no cost to the families. Yeah. No cost to the families. And really, it doesn't sound like there's much risk for the district's cost to speak of. So, but it will help kids learn throughout the state. Sounds Hi, can I I'm Shaunie. I'm with Open Ed. Um, my husband and I sold a home a few years ago in Pasco in Tri Cities, and there are so many homeschool families on that side of the state that are looking for an option like this. So you guys would truly be heroes to help the families of Washington living
065there. I was constantly asked, "When do we get, you know, a program like this in Washington?" I'm like, "Not yet. Not yet." So yeah, it's a great opportunity. Yeah. Little little least in getting our name out there, being kind of leading the way in more ways than one. I mean, I can think of two families within, I don't know, a half mile of me that are in our district that are homeschooling their kids because they just don't they they don't want their kids in the district and they don't want them in any district, but this I know that this would probably be a program that they would jump in on because they still get to have their kids at home and they get to tailor their entire education. I I don't see a problem with
066this at all whatsoever. Yep. Yep. Oh, I'm I'm good with it. this point I just need a motion from the board. Can I get a motion? I make a motion to let Aaron go forth and do what he needs to do with open ed to make this I second motion. Sorry guys, if you thought this was a real formal group, you're you're at the wrong district. I love it. This is awesome. Awesome. Great district. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks for your time this evening. And Erin, we'll be in touch uh later this week. That sounds great. Okay. Bye. Bye. I got to drop off to everybody. Thank you. Have a good one. Thanks, Ken. Well, that could be very exciting for us. That is that could be uh pretty exciting. Yeah. You took away
067my agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. I can see open ed field. What's that? Open Ed Field, you know. Oh, yeah. Built by Proate. Yeah. All right. What are we moving on to now? Um, arm policy discussion. Oh, boy. Policy discussion. So, I like all of them. All the policies that I looked at. The only one that I was kind of meh was 6970. the stipulations for naming school buildings. Yeah, there there were three policies that I kind of earmarked as that was 6925 which was architect services. Um 6970 the school naming and 6971 which was uh work of art that had to be included. Yeah, I again I'll leave that to the up to the board to decide, but I think everything else there looked great. Uh uh 6905 is for site acquisition. Um I don't
068know if we need a board policy on that because it's kind of few and far between for us, but it doesn't probably hurt to have it. But yeah, you know, the three that I looked at were 6925, 6970 like you, Chris, and then 6971. And I believe those were all in the discretionary. Yes. Yeah. I mean those I'm sorry. This is a typo. This should be essential. Just realize that I' I'd be willing to go with the laws to policies on and adopt those except for 6970, 6971, and 6925 just so we're not stuck in a framework of this is how you have to do it, right? I would agree with that. Um Erin, I just have a quick question on 68.882, which is the sale of property. It's sounding like we're going to roll
069with this policy, but it that WASDA has what would the policy be if we didn't have anything like what do we have do we have anything that would direct us? I mean it just out of curiosity on that one when I saw that come up I was like I was like I didn't realize that we would operate without having that when we have the Cresto house. So I was just curious. Yeah, we we've had that policy a similar policy. I can't I think it was encumb encumbered in another policy. I can't quite think of the the number up the top. My it was in there somewhere. Um okay. It might not be a bad idea to have that, you know, in case we do. No, I think we should there there should definitely be some
070a specific policy on sale of property. It's not sales aren't done on a napkin anymore. I should know. Okay. Uh Chris, are we working with that? Was that Do we qualify that as a motion? Uh I will make the motion. Get a motion to what you said earlier. I second what Chris said earlier. Let's do that. All in favor? I So we are accepting WAZA policies with the exception of 6920, 6970, and 6971. Correct. Okay. Yes, very much. All right. Um, now we're on to 9.1 OSPI outdoor education report 2024. This again, I saw a quote that said Eastn School in there. Well, that's probably one of the reasons I put it on here. This was a study that OSPI did uh regarding, you know, the recent outdoor ed program that they have funded throughout
071the state. And it just has a lot of data on it and basically it says getting kids outside is good for him. Yeah, imagine that. Who would have thought it? That's what I kind of got out of. But yeah, there are some uh some nice quotes from I got to find the quotes here, but from our East staff. I'm not sure which staff member it was, but Oh, there we go. East school. So, we're getting publicized at OSPI, too. But awesome. you know, we couldn't be doing a lot of things that we were doing without, you know, the grant dollars. And now with budgets as tight as they are, I don't know if this will get funded again at the state level, but um you know, we have spent a lot of time and money
072this year kind of purchasing goods that we'll need for next year, the next year after tents, you know, cooking stoves, uh what else? Barbecues, backpacks. So those things that you know we can use year after year uh you know so then it'll be up to us to you know fund you know transportation and some of the consumables but I just thought it was nice to see that you know nice that's awesome people across the state are seeing good things when you get kids outside and I know you know our students here are always outside but in a lot of schools they never are. Yeah. So for us it's pretty normal but and for a lot of places it's not. So I just wanted to highlight that. I thought it was that's great. It was quite
073interesting and uh please read when you you have a chance. Um 9.2 the fall WASDA conference presentation. This was I wish Jen was still with us but um they are calling for presenters at WASDA conference in November. This will be held in Seattle this year. Um hopefully it'll be better than the last session. But she had mentioned that uh possibly do we want to present at the conference and what do we want to present? Um you know there's been quite a few things that we've been through over the you know last three years starting with $39,000 in the bank to over a million now. Right. You know how we got there. Um you know we we've gone through a whole lot of stuff in a pretty short time frame. um you know our success with
074outdoor ed that we have and um but it's just something having almost no sports programs to now having eight. Yeah. Uh to you know kind of and kids that are actually playing them, you know, rebounding a district, so to speak. So again, we don't have to make a decision right now, but I I thought I' I'd bring it up and maybe when we had the the full board here, we could talk about it more. You're okay talking. It'd be a great idea about what we want to do. Uh, I wouldn't want to, you know, probably would be good to have a board member there. Oh, I'll go. But you want me to talk? How about maybe virtually you could be there or something. Um, because it we are virtual. There's no guarantee I won't be
075tailgating. We we are a team, you know. It's I'll go with you. It takes everybody here to to make this this ship happen. So, I've bailed on the last few. But just an idea. I'll bring it up again in May and we can kind of finalize things. No, I think it would be a good idea. You know, I agree. I'll jump in. You guys tell me what to jump in on. We're still working on trying to get our sound wall out there. Yeah. And if we can get Eastston's name out there with Open Ed Wazda and you know, we're not just this little tiny school. We are we're making waves. We're a small school, but we'll kick your tail if we need to. So, exactly. So, that's that was my thought. I thought Aaron will
076stand behind you. It would be it would be a good idea for us to to to do that. And yeah, I know. I think I like that idea. Okay. So I'll I'll bring it bring it back to uh the May meeting as well for us to discuss and we are now I think executive session I think we're going to postpone that one until May or yeah till May when we have unless there's absolutely something crucial we need to discuss. Um, no. Okay. No, I'm okay. If there's crucial things, I'll speak with you individually. Yeah. Okay. And then now, um, Oh, wait. Do we need a motion to postpone the executive session? Can I get a motion to postpone executive session till next month? I'll make the motion to postpone executive session to next month. Second.
077All in favor? I. All right. on to 11 110 for the good of the district sharing of any good news. I I do have some good news I'd like to share. Perfect. Um I would like to sponsorships to publicly thank all of our sponsors. There's a couple of them we we have um that's awesome. One of them I know is uh near and dear with Red Mountain Coffee, Mr. Mr. Brown and his family. So I again just want to thank all the work that they've done for us uh and you know making things happen at Eastn for our students. Absolutely. Couldn't do it without them. Um you know this the summit has been very generous with our snow sports Cascade Crest with ASB you know just getting a nice sense of uh community at the
078school which is which is awesome. So they're on the website now. We've sent them a little packet. Actually, Angela packed the little packets with a little plaque, little thank you plaque and some, you know, Eastn swag stickers and whatnot just to say, you know, just a general thank you to to to our sponsors. So, we do appreciate them and we're always looking for more. So, um, but good good things are happening here at Eastston. So, that's awesome. Couple other things I' I'd like to share. Again, this is good good news. This is one of our new social media ads from uh School [Music] Mint. [Music] Nice. Just showing all the kind of cool things we do here at the school. And speaking of cool things that we do here at the school, this is some
079drone footage done by I I shouldn't say drone, quadcopter footage. um from our students. Again, this is raw footage, so it's not uh hasn't been edited. So, can't remember exactly where this drone's going, but quadcopter. Quadcopter. Thank you. Thank you very much. We don't have drones here at the Houston. Yeah. Now, Jeff doesn't have to get on the roof, right? Safety first. If you would have told me 20 years ago, you can have this little handheld thing and you can take videos of It's just It's just amazing, you know. What do you thinkers check out the roofs during the winter time when we need an inspection on a house? Yeah. Uh we are looking at actually getting our high school kids FFA certified in quadcopters. That be awesome. Do it for real estate. they could
080do it for weddings, uh, you know, professionally. So, um, we're looking at that with Mr. P for next year. And this is a real passion of his. So, we're taking his passion and run with it. Yeah. We don't have to watch the whole thing. I was just impressed with kind of along those same lines, all the stuff our kids can do now. Oh, yeah. at at the ski area. We partnered with Swiftwater, the alternative school, uh last winter and we had a intern, 17-year-old senior come and intern for a couple weeks up there and actually we as soon as he turns 18, he'll be brought on full-time year round as welding assistant and up to welder. So, just the quality of the picture. Oh, yeah. I was just, maybe it's just me in my antiquated
081ways, but I was impressed. Don't show my junkyard. Okay, stop. Nope. Stop. Stop. And we'll stop. But I again, I was just impressed with what Mr. P and our students are doing. It's Yeah. No, that's it's pretty pretty incredible. So, and that is my good news. Nice. Anyone else have anything? Um, quick question. Um, have we ever thought about doing like I know this sounds dinosauresque, um, but like paper trifold brochures for the school that get set out around the county and advertising the school. I don't know if it's something that we want to do. It's something that I can pretty easily put together and we can all kind of brainstorm it and see if we want. But with this open ed opportunity being thrown out there, it might be something that's worthy. I know
082that I get a lot of clients that are like, "Well, what are the schools like?" And I can't tell them like who to go. Like, I can tell them what the school options are, but I it'd be really nice if we could just hand that out. I guarantee you that Cleon doesn't have that. It was just something that I was like, "Oh, that it's something that's easy for me to throw into packets and we can literally drop them anywhere in the county at different businesses and it might catch someone's eye who's just driving through town or here for vacation. So, options there. can definitely work on that with uh with our students and Mr. Pete. You bet. That's a great idea. I'll chat with Patrick next week about it and see what we want to
083do because they're super easy to put together in Canva. Canva is awesome. Yes, it is. It's beauty, beautiful thing. Chris, you have I don't either. Nothing new. All right. Good. Student members, I'm good. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I been wanting to do that all night. Okay. Exile