6/9/2022 School Board Meeting

001all right we'll call the regular meeting for order yeah [Music] of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation okay under discussion um or with the amendment of moving the discussion tide and student seat student choice to uh [Music] under communication i was in favor say goodbye to saying aye aye same time next up is communication that's recognition of retirees student reps and community members yeah so uh let's start with our student reps and so we want to thank you for your service to the board for being just a file part there's a couple pieces i want to talk about here um the sacrifice and the amount of dope adult conversations um that you have to be a part of the reading the connecting with your peers and

002adults to find out what issues are worrisome and then how to address that so we want to thank you for your service number one number two i want to really recognize ken and doris for her internship to nasa uh which is a really cool thing i don't know if you want to talk about it a little bit right now but that's an amazing opportunity so our student reps are just hard-working and high-achieving so during my representatives all right so we got you uh we got you these notebooks and so you can take them along with you but yeah here you go thank you thank you so much for your perspectives and counseling so yeah and then we'll save please always feel free to reach out to us and we'd be happy to provide anybody for

003your work on the board our next one is to um employees who were tired so there's a number of people who emailed me and said they've got something else uh going on tonight so those people who i know will attend we'll start with the closest in proximity um craig reynolds i should i should have noticed yeah so thank you craig for your service to the district yeah no all right and so we had a few other people who notified us and said that they couldn't be here fred ray who's a who's the pea president and i just want to say a couple things about fredberry a lot of times the union president gets a really bad rap people maybe within our community or communities at large i would say that in order to keep teacher

004contracts competitive and something a profession that people want to go into those union those union presidents are needed and their leadership is needed and so uh once upon a time in the valley um teachers were required to do all sorts of stuff beyond their contract and so it's people like fred who really stepped up and led their groups and partnered with the district and uh advocated for teachers so fred ray connie aschel couldn't be here connie has been an instructional coach leadership teacher math teacher at the middle school i was lucky enough to have her as a student i know that a lot of people are she wasn't able to be here but she will be missed and she's just exceptional and always you know she has been for quite some time and then linda

005ledesma who is unable to be here as well and so our last award i wanted to really call out somebody from the community who stepped up when they didn't have to um it was after after the first levy didn't pass um we had one person who reached out to me and really took it upon himself uh contributed all sorts of volunteer hours um and it really fits in with who this person is i believe he has a tattoo that says service above self so peter cole thank you so much for your hard work and dedication and so that's that's all we have to recognize tonight but uh yeah we will get these awards to the people who have earned them and deserve them um so item d uh under that would be the student choice

006out discussion um erica thank you you're gonna lead us with that um um i do want to say i appreciate the effort you put into this and everybody that contributed um to this and i think it warrants a meeting of its own um so i believe we're gonna we're planning on having another meeting that just addresses this topic and hopefully we can we can reach out to the the same parents and students that actually opt into the district and so we have all that information digest it all and come up with the you know plan of attack but i'd like to dedicate you know full meeting i think we tentatively skipped with that for the june 29th for a special meeting just on this topic so i appreciate you coming and all those that are

007here to speak on this on this topic well thank you for having me uh my name is erica hartlap i have two children in this district a ninth grader and a seventh grader and so if my children are here in this district why am i here tonight speaking on behalf of parents who have opted out of the district well after the last uh board meeting board member raynor and riley were aware that we had opted out our children previously our son we adopted out for two years for patterson and our daughter for one year and so uh after the last may 25th meeting i had been approached about why had we opted our children out and that conversation also included why did other families off children out and so opt-out families thought well if we

008have board members listening this is a time to get together and to share why he wants it out several of them have felt that they've never been heard before so in a brief amount of time uh we gathered as much feedback as we could um and so we were able to get feedback from over 30 parents and that encompassed more than 60 kids who walked it out so what did we do we gathered that information the feedback from the parents that were able to talk to about why they opted out and then we consolidated it and this monday uh i had submitted a letter with an attachment for the containing the opt-out reasons from these families and submitted it to the board the superintendent assistant superintendents and then the principals of the schools i trust

009you've removed the letter and it is attached to the public work packet and i understand that after it was submitted there was a request by the teachers union to take out any individual names that were there so if somebody looks at the board packet you're going to see a lot of blank periods and so that wasn't how the letter was initially drafted but for public consumption that's why there are reactions um but the key thing is the reactions don't take away from the feedback the substance of the feedback that was given and rather than read the feedback from all of the parents we expect that the board members and the administration will read it and so i'm just here today to kind of give you seven key takeaways from that feedback and then there are

010also two parents who will also speak um we didn't want everybody to come talk we figured there's enough information in the letter but we thought it important to hear from two of the parents who are currently opting out and they're going to give an overview of what other parents have faced in that similar situation and before i delve into the key takeaways i really do want to thank the parents who came together on short order to do this they are parents who have opted out and they are parents who are happy with where they're at now via patterson another district running start or home school and so they really did not need to take the time to give this opt-out feedback um i appreciate that there will be a follow-up meeting uh to be candid

011i'm not sure how many of these families will uh attend and participate just because they already have something that works for them but i appreciate that there is a follow-up meeting because i do hope that district families will attend because i know district families share these frustrations and so i'm hopeful that this is something that will be remedy so the seven key takeaways first attitude and culture starts at the top so this applies to administration the teachers union the board and the teachers themselves each one of these organizations and people should strive for working relationships and not adversarial relationships or else the district will not be able to provide the excellent educational experience and character development that are two primary goals no one should be permitted to bully a student or a district team member

012and the little things matter when developing a positive culture no foul language no fighting no vandalism no threats all of these things escalate the tension that's already here and are not acceptable something that disheartened me during this process of gathering information was learning about a shared theme of fear there is a fear of speaking out there is a fear about experiences about sharing their experiences with decision makers and because of this fear several parents who have opted out chose not to give feedback is this fear founded or unfounded one of its reasons it really doesn't matter what matters is there is a current fear and people don't want to get feedback and this diamonds the district's ability to serve the parents and students the remaining key takeaways will provide avenues for the district to remove

013this fear and to communicate and model the positive attitude and culture that parents are looking for and being positive doesn't mean that you can't make tough decisions the board the district has to make tough decisions it just means that the district makes tough decisions in a manner that eliminates the fear and so the second key takeaway is leaders must be seen and accessible assistant superintendents the superintendent board members and principals they need to be present at school events and of course you can't be present at all of them but you need to work amongst each other to make sure that you have a representative this is an opportunity to network with the parents and students and in addition to the in-person accessibility updates via across bulletin social media website email are critical to advise parents

014as to upcoming or recent happenings and what decisions you are going to make and what decisions you have made to explain those the third takeaway of school leaders must advise students and parents as to who who to reach out to if there's a problem so maybe on a back to school night there's a representative that stands and you go over what the key mission of the district is to provide an excellent educational experience and to develop character you're communicating with parents and students these are our important priorities and this is what our vision is but then also you're communicating with them this is who you turn to if you have a problem a lot of people aren't familiar with this system they're not comfortable with the system maybe english is a second language there are

015all these barriers to reaching out to the people who make decisions so you need to make it more accessible ford's school leaders must involve others in the decision-making process when the board and superintendent consider decisions impacting the district they must reach out to parents and teachers and then they actually have to consider that input well not everyone is going to be happy with the decisions you make the process is often more important than the result and so just explaining why you made the decisions have worked the fifth takeaway is the middle school and high school must offer advanced math science history and english courses the excuse for not offering these classes is typically financial but this is a short-sighted thinking and i'm going to give you an example so let's say it roughly costs 20

016000 to offer a course for 10 students if the district does not offer these students an advanced class it is highly likely that these students are going to do running start or opt out to another district so let's just say half of these 10 students do that and you have five students who opt out for running start or another district they take with them the 8 800 a year in fte funds so now the district has lost for these five students forty four thousand dollars a year and this only accounts for the hard costs there are intangible costs that are not being considered for instance you're losing student leaders present at the high school these high schoolers have to lose out on having a high school experience and they possibly are not as competitive for

017scholarships in colleges as compared to kids from other districts then there's the disengagement of the students family and not only will you not have those parents involved in our district but as we've really recently seen you might be losing boards and every vote matters we barely pass the levy by 61 votes there are 237 students who have opted out i don't know how many parents voting parents are included in that number but it's probably kills to 61. and i'm not saying that this is a group that didn't vote in favor of the levy i'm just saying this is a concern that needs to be considered when you're choosing not to offer advanced courses and finally there's a triple down effect there's the negative bad press by parents and that's really helpful we know that in

018a small town and when people choose to move here or they're thinking about moving to foster one of the first questions if they are a parent is going to be what is the quality of schools i'm sure we've all been asked that question and generally what is now said is send your kids to richland or hanford don't move it across your head we got to stop that we have to go back to being the district that people want to move to and we can get there also i just want to point out that 20 to 30 years ago when our class sizes were about 150 students we offered advanced courses and we offered alex for our middle school we now have about 250 kids per class so it's it's hard to understand why we don't

019offer those classes now related to these class offering frustrations our parents are concerned about the class sizes in the elementary school one parent inquired this week as to why we're not revealing the fourth grade class that i believe fred bride is leaving and instead we're having a combined fourth and fifth grade class now again there might be valid reasons for the district to do that but the thing is is these valid reasons are not being communicated to the parents so they're left wondering why are these decisions being made six resources are needed in the elementary school to identify learning challenges and communicate with parents i received a feedback today and i just want to add this goes beyond elementary school because i received a comment today from a parent who has a special ed student

020and i just want to read that quickly the parents said after trying for six years in the district and multiple years of adjusted schedules half days half homeschooling his quality of schooling was decreasing or not progressing and his emotional health and self-esteem was taking the parent was sure that if her student had stayed here he was headed for suicide suicidal ideation he dreaded school that much so they transferred him to richland and the homeland parent partnership public school and he's finally thriving which is wonderful but we just wish that prosser could offer that seventh and finally the district and all related entities must stop reacting and we have to start planning this requires a shift in our attitude we can do this we can get back to where we work but we have to believe

021it and then we have to do it it's time to collaborate with the district the board the teachers union and the parents with planning and communication prosper can slow the tide of parents opting out their children from the district as i mentioned at the last meeting the district has a big task i hope this opt-out feedback is helpful guidance as to where to start and i hope that you begin to collaborate with the stakeholders i thank you in all your efforts and for your consideration of the opt-out feedback and for my cause andy elliot and aaron hunt are the two parents who are also speaking tonight good evening speaking event is we have three children ages ten eight six um and ronnie plays my wife's twenty year class this weekend so we'll be doing that

022on saturday night um i'm here tonight may thanks to lisa and jason uh for us to voice why we have haunted our children out across the school district i really want to commend erica for putting together a formal group of parents to gather a tremendous amount of data a very short period of time um because i think anytime you look at a situation like this we've got to quantify um the the impact and if you can't quantify the impact we can't really have effects um hopefully what we're going to express here tonight uh a couple of minutes to earn our trust and bring our family back and post the spring of 2020 for the fall 2012 school year uh we looked at five different choices for school districts uh processor two older children were in

023we looked at uh bickleton said christian looked at christ the king and look at saint joseph's and kevin you know so we did very thorough evaluation every school men met at each one um it was not a easy decision to decide what we were going to do for changing our children but we had to project forward in what we saw and what we're going to see in the future initially made the choice from the saint joseph's catholic school in fall of 2020. um some of the reasons why is the fact that the experience of kv was arranged one educated was fully exceptional one that was fair and average and one that was poor to very poor uh we knew that our children needed to attend one person we were not satisfied with the trajectory of

024the education our children received krv so we didn't see anything better in the future in any postcode environment and and what we saw and lead up to to fall 2020 school year um my wife and i sat down and we watched six board meetings um front to back uh before the fall of 2020 looking for some reason the senator kicked back to psp you know so we were looking for a reason to come back but we saw no plan that was expressed in our kid's education and what they were going to learn in that in that environment um the public school environment during covenant and local school board taking a lesson creative stand against lambda was one of the catalysts for us leading across we quickly saw how far behind they were two kids who

025were at the top of their class across were easily six six months that was hard that was really hard to deal with as a parent that took extra effort from us to help catch those kids up in our time um that's something that this psd may not even know the youngest of the entertainer in the fall in 2020 21 as well they have thrived in a rigorous academic environment and experiences that are pushed ahead uh our kids are given expectations to reach academic excellence and surrounded by instructors and peers that challenge them to succeed mediocrity is not accepted and educators are actively engaged with parents on curriculum and student development every week we get an email from their teachers of what they're doing in class and what to reinforce at home we got none of

026that there's no sense of teaching to the lowest common denominator like we have seen as commonplace in psd and public school in general standards are not lower we don't widen the play after two years in this type of academic environment as parents and observing our children we're at a place where we feel we cannot send our kids back to public school or psd for fear they will not be challenged enough things we have loved st joseph's communication is key each teacher sends weekly emails and assignments what is being taught next expectations are very clear for each student academics are rigorous basics are still being taught spilling tests cursive handwriting basic grammar structure at a very early age uh multiplication tables introduced in the second grade um long division in the third grade children are being

027taught how to think not what to say parents are involved in the classroom you're not turned down you have volunteer opportunities for your student's classroom classrooms and behavior are much more controlled than they were for our seven schools uh critical race theory and new health or sexual education curriculum requirements are not taught they're not even mentioned so if you're uncomfortable with some of the crt things and sex ed things are coming down the pipe um you know that's what we have to be aware of in public school and should that should be controlled uh my state was not near as long as eric is but i want to finish with something to say but she's a prosperous mom and she says she says finally foster high school i'm so disappointed with the stories i'm hearing

028from close friends and family coming out of the district and watching board meetings these are not the schools i remember at all two decades two short videos you do not feel comfortable sending our children to this middle school in our high school with the current performance of psd i don't know who the problem is or how we got this way so quickly when i graduated i felt fully prepared for my college and my adult life thanks to my honors english classes ap classes et cetera it sounds like processors no longer offer algebra in middle school if this is true there's no way to compete with most local schools academically or how do our kids can be international thinking more broadly how do our kids come to those in other countries i know we can do

029better why because i've lived in more prosperity i'm tired or settled for mediocrity uh as a group you're taking time to reach out to some other local districts uh required by their curricula and some other counseling things i'm not very important reporting those tonight um but i hope this is starting to figure out how to fix the problems um because it was not easy decision for me to pull my kids out across our school district um and and you know as a parent and a tax payer i want this to be a good school um you know and as a taxpayer here oh you're you need to return your best taxes i want to really thank jason alisa for hearing us out on this and why we aren't satisfied as parents or taxpayers i appreciate

030those words as well um my name is erin hunt and we moved to prosser 16 and a half years ago um i have four children and three of which have um opted to do the running start and that's what what erica asked me to address today my fourth son tyler he actually has been out of the district um and he's actually thriving where he's out and we're grateful for that but i just wanted to talk about why we chose running start and so i just to be short on time i'm gonna give you the top four reasons that our family as well as the other families that i know often for running start um just so we're all on the same page running start is a program where our students are able to attend cbc

031or ybcc and they can get dual credits both for high school as well as for college credits um so the first and most important part is the exponential opportunities and diversification that they get at cdc that's where all of my children decide to go with the cbc cbc route but specifically my children have amazing goals i have one that wants to pursue forensic science i have another one who's looking at being an orthopedic surgeon i have another one that is wanting to get involved with filmmaking and the biggest obstacle that we found with the with the academics here in phs has to do everything with the math as well as the science options we are incredibly lacking especially when it comes to math options for those kids that want to pursue higher education um but

032not only that but it's not just the math and science my children it took it took them from a don't make me go to school to a wow i get to go to school with opportunities that like i said are exponential the other opportunity was dual credits my children were able to not only finish high school early but they were also able to get those college credits which saved us not hundreds but thousands thousands of dollars my one my second daughter's name is michaela and she was able to finish her aaa degree not only that but she was able to finish high school early she did her a she went in as a junior and she was able to jump straight into her major courses and because she wants to pursue masters as well as

033doctorates it matters but she could not have those opportunities that she had stayed in our district and that is really sad because the reason why we moved here like i said was because we wanted to be imposter at the time that we moved here that was the rose that was the place to be for our children and to be honest um we have less than 40 hours until we are finally done with foster school district and that is incredibly sad to me i don't want our family legacy to be the legacy of erica and all of these other amazing kids you need these higher level kids in your school it changes the whole dynamics of your classrooms it pushes other students to excel you need their test scores in order to get the funding that

034you need to continue progressing on the other thing was that was a an amazing blessing to our family was that they could custom design their schedules there's something about that early morning hour of our kids waking up and they loved it because not only could they custom design their classes but they were able to also work in work experiences and they could they basically they had the opportunities to prepare for college long before they hit the university level and for those reasons we chose um to to do the running star route we're very grateful that that was an option because to be straight our kids were just bored more times than not they were the teachers assistants they sat in class with busy work doing nothing they were for they need to have that opportunity

035but those that was the journey of my first group students but i think more important for you as my my fourth student tyler today he just received his certification for mechanical um it's it's a cad certification so he's a sophomore right now everest in high school and because of the courses that he was able to take he now can he's looking at starting his own business and he's only a sophomore but he has his certifications in place now because they had grants in his school and you can say that other districts have more money and that might be true but most of what he grew from were grants that that that parents went after so that their schools could have these programs why can't we have them here prosser truly is a great place to

036be but it needs some major renovations and major fixes in our soils please don't let my family's legacy be the legacy of the other amazing people that live uh aaron i appreciate you guys coming tonight and like i said we'll continue this i believe we've got a [Music] and hopefully start coming up with some solutions so i appreciate it yeah so thank you actually if i may i prepared something to say tonight on why students are leaving i'm obviously not a parent but let's talk about my experience with the process go district my experience with english and history and the humanities in general has been great i took apus history this year with mr gillahunt it was probably one of the hardest classes i've ever taken but it was so rewarding it taught me that

037i'm capable of more than i think i am that i'm capable of great perseverance even in the face of very challenging material as you mentioned i got a summer nasa internship i'm going to be down there two weeks in texas end of july and it says on the website it's meant for kids who have had robust science experiences and it's also meant for kids who haven't and i think the latter reason is part of why i received that internship i sought out that opportunity because i don't know whether i want to go into stem i can't know without having had a great stem experience in my earlier school years so i'm going there to find out if it's right for me because school didn't teach me whether it was right for me back in sixth

038grade i was one of the students taking advanced math my parents had to fight for me to be placed in seventh grade math because i was so incredibly bored this year i took an independent study online calculus course through byu and it was so incredibly challenging and it was harder than it should have been because i didn't have a teacher i could reach out to for help when i was struggling with one of the lessons i didn't have classmates i could collaborate with i was just sitting there alone in front of my computer struggling and struggling and struggling i can't tell you how many times i cried over that course and i took my final on that just yesterday here's hoping i did well but i had to struggle through this because this school does

039not offer a calculus course as for my science experiences i have not had great experiences with the lab sciences whether due to teachers being out for illness or maternity leave and then the pandemic ask me how many experiments and labs we did in my chemistry class this year chemistry is like the lab science i had no labs and that was really disappointing for me because i really enjoy learning about chemistry and i was looking forward to that was past tense there's a lot of things that went away at hms that i think shouldn't have algebra went away i was in the last algebra class at hms i was in the last honors english class at hms i was in one of the last spanish classes at hms and i don't think that's fair to our

040middle schoolers it's just putting them further behind my sister's also a year ahead and now but she's a year behind where i was because there's no algebra at the middle school and i don't think it's setting any of our middle school students up well for high school if they're just taking algebra freshman year that's not setting them up well for a career in math in conclusion i want to be proud to be from prosser i really do and i'm going to do my best to represent as well with the opportunities at breakfast center i didn't stay at phs because the opportunities were great i stayed because my parents thought i needed that high school experience and i don't regret it but i still wish that the academic part of that high school experience could be

041something i knew was going to be great a one size curriculum does not fit all i think you are underestimating the students of this district and what we are capable of we will rise to the bar that you set but if you set that bar low how are we ever going to find our limits how are we ever going to truly know what we're capable of thank you tonight um just one last thing i'd like to think of [Music] um he'll be greatly missed in our school to future from this if the school board doesn't recognize their mistake in this country um thank you for everything i will be also heading out early because i have senior activities tonight so thank you is um so the protocol for addressing the board system let's see you

042may present a concern to the board many time reserved for hearing public comment if this is the case we asked the inquiry to start a meeting sign in noting the topic you intended to address to the board come to the microphone state your name please do not reflect adversely on political or economic view at the background character motives of any individual and please keep your comments concise and non-emotional and free so do we have any that's quite a few i i would ask you know i do i think we all want to hear everybody's comments we do have a big agenda uh if you could just if you could please keep it as concise and brief as you can i would greatly appreciate it so the first up would be megan mentioned you okay [Music]

043thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak from what i'm going to be speaking about is my brother's personal story with his experience with mr lost i feel like it just has to be heard as we all know mr lusk's contract is not being renewed and reports other factions interested in changing their minds mr lusk has supported the staff from students at the school for a very long time he lives up to the same you must be left behind and not only does he support the students at the school but he also makes a great effort in getting residents like i said i'm speaking on behalf of my older brother who does struggle with autism schizophrenia bipolar disorder and also these health conditions make it very difficult for him to make friends and he

044was struggling a lot at school and when he got diagnosed with schizophrenia and we needed a long horse he was going through something that no one else at school understood especially at that age because he got diagnosed with beyond while others get diagnosed at an older age and he didn't feel warm he wasn't deep normal because of something allowed my brother to walk with his class of graduation it was a last-minute decision that my brother made that he feared because [Music] um large crowds and loud noises make his symptoms a lot worse so there was megan can you speak up a little bit louder they're saying they can't carry another room yeah just pick up a little bit out of it so it makes sense for him to be worried since graduation ceremony it's a

045large crowd and it can be very loud sometimes so it makes sense mr los allowed me to spend the day with my brother at the grad walk in the senior luncheon and i was there to make sure he was okay and to come for him if he did start to have an episode that day i got to witness my brother for like a little kid and he had the biggest smile on his face and he got to have fun with his class and he felt normal for once i'm very thankful to mr west for giving my brother the opportunity to have a normal high school experience everyone deserves to feel the joy on their graduation day and mr lusk made that possible to him he didn't have to go through all of that trouble for

046my brother and to be honest most people wouldn't he could have just left it alone and yet he made it possible for my brother mr lusk is a kind man who does not deserve to lose his position and with all that he has done for the school we need to do more for him as a small town community we will not forget this and we will continue to show support um you know retire limits and um i student activities and athletics is a big part of it as well and i was sitting out there waiting for my turn to speak while i was on our social media page and a message came through with two foreign exchange students on campus this year one was tom goodman and he sent a message or he posted something

047and he sent a private message and he said i couldn't have asked for a better high school experience thank you so much and part of his post included you guys gave me the ultimate high school experience this whole year was a blast that is also part of what crosser high school is i just wanted to make sure i included that part of it so i just i that happened while i was out there that was not part of my original one but i wanted to break that up as well so what i am here for tonight i am here tonight to see guidance from the board and its executive mr ellis we know that you have made a lot of difficult decisions this year but as someone who is directly affected by these decisions on

048a daily basis there are many known unknowns that are going to be that are going to become significant wrenches in the gears of page for phs and athletics we are at the end of the school year and the work by the athletic director is in full swing in preparation of the next year but this is all going to come at a halt on whatever mr lust did last day is going to be summer athletics will finish without without an athletic director there's still a list of things that the athletic director would normally take care of during the summer time and i and i'm sure many at phs would like to know what the plan is for the following list of tasks and i will try to just kind of i don't want to put people

049to sleep i will try to get through this part quite quickly so i know some of you have noticed we still need to make sure that there are 14 purchase positions that currently aren't fields that are internally posted and eventually the most active will certainly be posted and used to link to ethos there still needs to be interview committees set up there still need to be interviews set up there's going to be hiring packets and hiring write-ups and recommendations that have been sent to the boards and we should be checks for physicals that expire for our summer athletes let's be camps and tournaments that something to make sure that are paid for transportation arrangements and forms provided and turned in for weight tournaments and tasks uh there's still need to be schedules entered for the

0502022 and 23 fall sports season entered into our arbiter.com may be looking for and entering more a lot of non-league contests for our fall winter and spring sports seasons communications with the other athletic directors in our city and somebody needs to get on board with learning or the new live streaming system so that was a list that i have for the summer who's going to decide when the athletic secretary gets to start and then that right now you're going the wall office of the principal but the athletic director usually gets to decide that based on the wiaas and schedules who's gonna hire the making asb to go out to coaches athletes parents about the fall athletic registrations and schedules those can check coaches files for an up-to-date certification cpr culture schools and trainings who's then

051plan and hold presentation meetings with coaches to review their 2223 sops family id athletic registrations let's review the athletic quotes with them review the asp rules and regulations review the new house bill rules and regulations it doesn't ensure that all the sports have the equipment that they need for the season full presentation or pre-season meetings with the athletes and the parents to go over clearance requirements and eligibility requirements using one of the practices to make sure that the coaches are following through and ensuring athletes on the field are cleared for participation who's going to hold the beginning of the year meetings with asb advisors to review asp rules and law the house bill 1660 rules who's going to go over the requisitions po invoices processes uh who's this process the fail list from the third

052trimester for this current school year from household mphs to go for eligibility for the fall season and who's going to establish who's going to be eligible for the are ineligible for the five weeks and who's going to process the weekly grade checks from there on out who's going to be meeting with parents and the students regarding eligibility or who's going to be running their runnings our eligibility or homeschool eligibility and it's going to be going over the wiaa standards for eligibility and reporting who's going to manage the wiaa regulate regulations for eligibility conduct violations and reporting let's check the field courts schools and other competition and practice spaces for safety of our athletes i think get raw search with names positions jersey numbers from coaches and upload that information to the c athletic websites is

053going to conduct the weekly ag check-in meetings or go to the monthly 18 meetings which are often off sites it's going to figure out transportation information for each team and enter it into or complete the transportation forms and turn them into the transportation department and keep it in mind while doing this what time do they need to arrive how long is it going to take to get there what time do they need a lead processor result in an early dismissal from school and is this going to take away from the already low number of bus drivers who's going to schedule the workers the volunteers the paramedics or officials for contests those can supervise spectators and stupor and students at home and await contests they're going to reschedule the games officials workers volunteers paramedics and transportation

054of contests when needed who's been assisting guiding student athletes with the nc and caa eligibility center and who's checking the student body activities for safety and equity who's reviewing asb building district state health department guidelines before proving student activities and he's going to improve athletic and asb requisitions and purchase orders who's going to have oversight of athletic and asp budgets he's going to manage and have knowledge of the following online sites and programs skyler arbiter.com family id see whackathletic.com nfhs hometown ticketing.com crossourathletics.com wiaa.com site ybiaa site nz.aaa eligibility center and pixelot so that was my list and this may seem like a very expensive list but i want to remind you i'm laura pogba i'm the asp and athletic secretary at the high school i'm the one who assists the athletic director and for those

055of you who know kevin and myself i personally think i'm the funny one of the two but i'm not the athletic director and i'm certain that he could create a far more expensive list and you actually may be even wondering where he is today he's still dutifully fulfilling his athletic director of duties and he's attending an award night at household middle school right now who will also be missing an athletic director next year so please i want to end by asking the dentist for guidance and the plan for the summer and fall seasons for the 22-23 school year thank you very much [Applause] just want to reiterate just a little bit please we do want to hear all your values about your comments if we could please try to keep them as brief as we

056can we've got a lot of comments to get through i don't know i don't know how many we have on zoom if we have any but we want to get to everybody but we still got to conduct the business of the board so if i if you don't mind i would appreciate if you kept it pretty quick and brief thank you my name is susan and i teach science at the high school and last friday the teachers at the high school sent a letter to the the district administration and the foster school board about the proposal's change in graduation requirements and i just wanted to read that letter tonight because i know it's easy to get things lost in email inboxes and all so this is that's all i'm gonna use with the letter that

057we sent last friday so it's it was dated last friday says request for information this letter is regarding the proposed change in graduation requirements the proposal would reduce the amount of credits required to graduate from 26 to 24 credits we request an informative discussion of the pros and cons of this proposal prior to its adoption the purpose of this request is to gain an understanding of the decisions impact on foster high school students teachers and district finances this information will help teachers effectively participate in discussions and promote an atmosphere of transparency with both parents and students specifically we would like to discuss the following questions prior to the adoption proposal number one what outcome is the district striving to achieve with the reduction in graduation requirements number two how does the reduction of credits affect

058how colleges and parents view the rigor of our program number three if a proposal is designed to address financial issues how does the reduction of graduation requirements translate to a reduction in cost to the district number four if a proposal is designed to improve graduation rates how does the reduction in graduation requirements improve graduation rates and to what degree and then number five says on may 25th 2022 that was the last at the last board meeting a list of concerns was presented to the school board um what are your responses to these concerns and there's a link to that document finance says we the teachers of prosser high school understand that the progress school board has the authority to make this decision we are seeking open internal discussions in order to facilitate our inclusion in

059the decision-making process and my understanding is that we are going to be um some of us will be meeting at the at the study session next week and we thank you for that opportunity and that's it thank you and i think to speak to that that discussion was tabled at the last meeting um or so we could have a discussion next wednesday yes just on that specific topic and i think we've got another one for you but you're all there so we appreciate that yeah thank you dan donaldson good evening again i'm going to skip the first part just know that this is not my first vote credits for graduation i follow susan we must maintain the rigor and challenge of the programs here in the prosper school district or we risk disabling those who

060choose to attend the best colleges in the united states even though students who currently exit across our high school and attend two-year colleges or trade schools or those who go directly into the workforce they carry with them a notion of success because they have completed a course of study that prepares them for the world and they have been trained by people who care about them the education they grasp and the manner in which they approach life respect the teachers as professionals listen to us do not reduce the credit requirements we cannot scrap those components nor can we exclude from the overall program an individual who knows so well the intricacies complexities and investments of the service kevin lust who's still in the midst of all this turmoil was working this last week and dealing with

061kids further because education and its nature and magnitude stand somewhere between worship war and sport it is really a big deal and most of you neither separately nor together seem to grasp the favorable impact mr lusk has made upon the students faculties communications facilities and programs beyond that there has been talk of reducing the pay of those responsible for some of the extracurricular activities or those activities themselves if this were the case it would be astoundingly poor judgment sometimes those activities are all that keeps particular kids in school where we can help guide direct or listen to them then a school board meeting during senior week finally in case you missed it we're not going away we do not come here to gripe nor bellyache we are constituents and we vote also are we carrying

062a ten percent budget surplus other districts carry five percent don't they other ideas upkeep of the grounds also six o'clock is a terrible time to hold a meeting let's see if we can't return to seven thank you [Music] don't worry this is um my name is monica flores my kids went to crosser they started the oldest was fifth sixth grade and then fourth and then triangus tommy came on originally was in steady side i am from sunnyside and i just want to take first a thank you thank you to prosser in that um i talked to peter paul about this actually that's why i thought i'd bring it up peter i wrote from sunnyside we have the opportunity and the blessing to say that we have two hometowns because of how we were welcomed in

063and how our kids have been treated i have grandkids down and i don't know what happened i don't know when it happened but we have to admit something has happened that is a part of leadership leadership is accountability it is not ego it is not agenda personal agenda it is not getting mad at someone it is communication even if it is unpleasant as peter and i sorry keep bringing in this peter i think they feel better um even if it's something that isn't comfortable to hear we're adults we still deserve to hear it if you are unsure if you can say it ask your attorneys you have them you pay for them ask their counsel having the feedback of you don't understand the bigger picture or there's more to the story is honestly quite foolish

064on your part because it makes it sound like the individual that we're referring to has done something a lot more is not a good person i strongly suggest you stop saying it and find a right way to say things and funny enough that wasn't what i was going to come here to say but i was all motivated i actually came here to put some perspective this was very last minute for me i suddenly decided to speak so i came to the school board meeting on it was i believe may 25th i probably went before and i spoke um i think i included a little bit of emotion the rest did a very good job of including emotion i believe i referred to the ad by his name only twice and i even asked for clarification

065if my questions comments or concerns were correct and i asked for feedback and i waited the next day i did receive a text message from the president i was very appreciative of that his text was though thank you so much for your kind groups to the board i can't go into the and i'm paraphrasing i can't go into detail it was a very hard decision but there's more to the story i replied back i totally understand small towns like ours we're it's a blessing and a curse we are a family and we treat each other as family and sometimes that family unit can be a hurdle in trying to communicate something difficult but we're family and it still me it still deserves to be said and i waited and i heard nothing else do you

066realize what you guys said in that text to me you didn't acknowledge my concerns you didn't answer my questions you didn't tell me when you were going to respond back you just thanked me for complimenting you and understanding you this board those seats ladies and gentlemen are not your individual seats there are positions aside of those there are rules there are criterias there are expectations and i i'm sorry if this means a tackle in all of you i'm trying to make sure to look at all of you so you don't feel like i could get along with you and i know this is a very passionate subject and for me this isn't about the a.d this is a bigger situation about it all around i don't know why there's no communication you guys are a

067school board if you're not sure how to communicate or not sure what you should do take a look at your students what is a student supposed to do they come in they do the work they get it done and they plan for their future please do the work get it done and plan for our future there's nothing wrong and you feel free to show your work because we would love to see it i don't think we're asking too much for communication i think it's amount of respect i know some of you could say i don't live here anymore it shouldn't matter to me but i love this town i'm very proud of it and i'm thankful and so i'm gonna stay and i'm gonna show up and i'm gonna ask the questions i hope you

068all consider it is no offense to you i just think it's deserved by all because quite honestly and i don't remember who said it there is fear and that's the reason i came back and stepped in was because i had a group of people asking me to speak because they were scared and yes it was staff so you have you have business owners that are worried about what will happen you have citizens that are worried what will happen you have parents that are worried about what happened we all want to be on the same page it shouldn't be that hard to get there and have faith in us maybe we when we might not like what you say we very well be respected and if someone next to me doesn't respect it i'll have your

069back because at least if you have give us the facts opinion people will always have a personal opinion there will be hurt feelings that's what makes us care for one another but the facts please please start communicating those parents deserve it your community deserves it and i know they threatened that they could vote you out but is that a way we want to go do we all want to be mad at each other like this we don't deserve this you're all better than this i know each one of you most of you on an individual level i've seen the kindness you give the patience and the understanding give it now please thank you 30 years and i'm here tonight to kind of give you a little history on why phs went from 24 to 26

070credits to school that background so when the state raised the requirements to 24 the staff at phs looked at what was going to be best for our students based on the failure rate at our school we knew that we had to do something that would give wiggle room for those students we aren't talking about the one student who failed math we're talking about students who were failing two or three or even more classes if we stayed on a six-period day they could earn 24 credits with no room for failure at that time phs staff went into action we looked at a seven period day we looked at block scheduling we looked at trimester and we looked at keeping it as a sixth period day many staff meetings were held pros and cons of all those

071options were discussed we also had to look at 6th period versus 5 30. so much to consider long meetings not only on wednesday work days but on our own time out there trying to figure out what was best for our kids after months of meeting it was decided to go with the trimester to allow flexibility for students with the decision to move to a trimester it meant that students would be earning 7.5 credits a year and could actually reach 24 in three years plus a try we knew that wasn't going to work so they opted to move to 26 so that students would be staying on campus throughout their four years the proposal of 26 credits went to the board and was adopted the staff then jumped in to create new classes that would interest

072students and give them a broader educational experience it was not the perfect first go-round we all lived it we know we all had to adjust teachers and students and yes we heard from the class of 2019 i heard it from my daughter in that class i have all my credits i don't need to stay be the mean parents a child with two parents as teachers yes you get to go all four years to high school and you get to take all classes and stay there all day long this is where a mindset from all concerns need to work with students teachers counselors administration and parents use this time after all requirements are met to try something new take a streams class try a different art class take a shot class for some ela may be

073a passion so take another english class music thanks to mr norris new classes were being added for kids there are so many elected classes that students will benefit from whether they're going to post secondary or the world of work personal finance foods cost accounting marketing advanced computer class and all of this is free to our students so you're probably wondering where i'm going with this i want you to understand the phs staff had two goals one was to be sure that those students who were struggling had support and would be able to succeed second was to give our students the opportunity to explore classes outside of requires possible i ask them before you make any decisions about credits at phs that you meet with the staff listen to them understand the logistics of the change

074most importantly have faith in them they're good so let's not require the minimum of our students let's support them to reach for more thank you claire taylor foreign [Music] okay so i'll start by introducing myself my name is taylor munoz and i have been a special education teacher in the district for six years and i'm a former prosper high school graduate of the class of 2011. as many of you know my parents are employees in the prosper school district and have been nearly my whole life when i left to go to college i never had any doubt in my mind that i wanted to come back to prosser and work in this community to give back to the place that shaped me and hopefully make a difference for future mustangs this is my home and

075always has been my husband grew up here and is a mustang and our son will be a mustang someday as well not only do i teach here but i have also coached here for five years in our district's volleyball programs throughout this school year i've been watching silently and tried to continue my work with students with their best interests in my mind as our town has descended into turmoil and our school board meetings have become something that is quite frankly most closely resembling a circus i have defended our town and district to many and as surrounding areas began to view this situation as lackable on tuesday following a meeting to develop an iep with a student's parents i received word of something that made me question why i am even working here in the first

076place the school board requested that families who have opted out of prosper school district send information in about why they made that choice while i understand the district is not perfect i implore you to think about the ways that you are attempting to collect information for district improvement the school board allowed individuals whose names were protected and kept as initials or anonymous to submit lengthy complaints citing names of individuals who currently work or have worked in the district making claims about them with no foundation for such claims or protection for the individuals that they were listed my name was explicitly included first and last in a document compiled and posted on the district website for the entire community district and any individual who clicked on the link to see the claim made about me was

077that i engaged in unethical behavior my name was listed with administrators full names as well and other teachers by the nature of the information provided and the initials i know who the individual is that submitted this completely untrue claim this is an individual who made multiple years of my work life unbearable continually harassing me and targeting me for no apparent reason other than their own agenda i endured this person's behavior hoping it would go away if i did my own work and did not interact with the individual i finally had to submit a formal request for a meeting with my administrator and the individual when the behavior became so unethical and unbearable that i could not continue to ignore it it was beginning to risk affecting my students and their parents who put their trust

078in me to work with their kids this person had no aspect of their job involved in my department yet was continuing to ask teachers to meet them in their office to speak about the work and decisions being made with my students and slandering the hard work and advocacy i was giving for my students to receive time in their general education classes i had thought after our meeting that this issue was fairly resolved being that this individual no longer worked in the district for the past two years and i had minimal to no contact with them even through the end of their time in the district then to find that this individual who i reported for unethical behavior was given the stage by our school board to write libelous statements about myself and others dragging my

079name through the mud with no repercussions having this posted by an attorney to the website allowing myself my family and my career to be harmed completely disgusting as i sat there with my union president and watched him make upwards of five phone calls over more than an hour to our superintendent and multiple school school board members and explain that not only is this unacceptable it is unlawful and opening the district up to legal issues all i could feel was shock shocked that not one of those people would do what was right shocked that not one of those people even though it had been stated over and over again that this was unacceptable when it was so obviously unacceptable until finally one member stated that they would look into it i thought to myself school board

080you want to know why people are leaving it's because when one of your own is thrown in harm's way for completely unfounded and untrue statements you do nothing to defend them you do nothing to help them you protect an anonymous individual over your own employees and these are the employ and these are the people we're trusting to help our students you've made it possible for others to attack people you're putting your own agendas in front of everything else and i considered myself a true mustang never desiring to work anywhere else that changed on tuesday you want people to stay do something for the kids and staff not yourselves thank you better pictures uh just to clarify i have several statements one for myself one from eva and then one from another person is that okay

081am i able to do that can you blend them a little bit [Music] go for it they are all very important um my name is elise mills i am speaking on behalf of eva petra who is my colleague um go ahead and get to it um the following is the thoughts of a person who wrote it we know that our administration is working within their means to create a successful school experience and we appreciate them for doing everything within their power to support the classroom needs in their building thank you good evening school board my name is eva petrov um i am a parent of two health and middle school students and an educator with foster school district for the last eight years i apologize for not being in attendance tonight my sons have an

082award ceremony at household and parent me trump's teaching me luckily i have friends who are willing to make a voice is heard tonight for that i am grateful i am writing to each of you in hopes that we will find a common ground i know the goal of our schools is to support getting headaches let's go we want the best education possible for everyone that walks through our doors how then is that a possibility with some classroom sizes pushing 30 already for next year due to the loss of a current grade level position beginning of the year numbers usually adjust and additional classes could be negatively affected as well my goal is for you to understand the real issues you are creating with the guise of balancing a budget all evidence-based research will be concluded

083to you that at the end of this letter and as i hope you will use it to provide its actionable app steps to support all across our classrooms i know we can find an agreeable solution to a very important problem according to the washington office of superintendent of public instruction our current report card uh for foster school district has our learners passing the smarter balance assessment at 25 in math and 23.9 play for the 2018-2019 school year the last two years information is not public but i would venture like to guess povid did not do us any favors when i look at this report card i ask myself what can be done as a parent i want to have a strong educational experience with my sons as a teacher i want the resources and the

084ability to reach every learner in my classroom yet i see on the same website a statistic that states that our students to a teacher ratio is 13 to 1 in my building then i realize the entire picture is not apparent this takes all educators in our building and averages averages them against every student to have effective instruction support programs see some smaller class sizes to reach those learners who are true two three even four years below their current grade level this ratio is an representation of what our general education classroom looks like when i realized that same issue is present in our district as board members you are looking at numbers you have an inaccurate idea of what your decision causes and your ramifications to the very people who voted for you to be in

085your position please understand i am evaluated on a rubric every year for my effectiveness as an educator i am put on paper my ability to reach families address academic holes work well with my team and create a learning environment that allows every student to thrive how is it that i have proven myself year after year and yet the board can make inappropriate decisions that negatively affects the very families they were elected to serve especially when stakeholders and community members bring it to your attention it cost one teacher salary to bring class sizes down four to five kids in fourth grade one teacher salary we have four fourth grade positions becoming three and five fifth grade positions becoming four this will influence instructional practices and quality of education i find it hard to believe that any

086stakeholder taxpayer parent or educator would be argued for larger class sizes under the guise of balancing a budget we have a reserve fund balance for a reason please use it these students deserve an equitable class size and our community deserves the very best at this point i'm going to cut down a little bit um we know class size matters because it allows the teacher greater proximity to students and thus more opportunities for one-to-one and small group instruction the one constant in every room with smaller numbers of students is simply the proximity of teacher to teacher to all their students that's it the board knows this you ran on this with the levies for the learning advertisements mailers and videos roughly a minute into the informational video you sent out about the levy a student asks

087about smaller class sizes the teacher shared let me support the general budget and in return provide support to class sizes it is directly impacted by the very levy the district pushed so hard for the voters to approve i trusted you i have trusted you with my sons for the past eight years i am trusting you now we have a cash reserve for prosser we have money in the district to provide support to the only thing that should be supported with that money the students when the next levy vote comes when your positions come up for reelection when our students need you what will you do will you step up or will you balance your budget thank you um the following missive is the thoughts of the person who wrote it i know that our administration

088is working within our means to create a successful school experience uh is this yours oh yeah sorry okay thank you yes it is the person i've done this is working within their needs to create a successful school experience and i appreciate them for doing everything within their power to support the classroom needs in their building thank you my name is elise mills i am a fifth grade teacher at prosser heights elementary unlike most of my wonderful colleagues speaking tonight i am also a prosperous high school graduate class of 09 my unique perspective as both a student and educator in the process school district speaks to my best in interest in the outcomes of this district's performance in turning out well-rounded intelligent kind human fees into the world i know the teachers who taught me here

089in prosser through my time as a student made such a massive impact on my own growth as a person i hope i've done them proud i am speaking tonight on behalf of my fellow educators my colleagues have done an amazing job of illustrating to you how dissolving a fifth grade class as well as yet another fourth grade class will affect the students we have been tasked to instruct i stand with their statements wholeheartedly however i am not here to speak about students i am here to speak directly about the effect this move will have on teachers and teachers alone while it is true that there is no school about students the same can be said about teachers a school does not function if you do not have teachers collapsing the class and causing the surrounding

090classes to balloon to unmanageable numbers will have a cascading impact felt throughout the district this these conditions will alienate and burn out the teachers at stake which will result in even more future turnaround thus negatively affecting the district long term because of the reputation we will have throughout the valley the number one thing i remember from my best training my first year was my mentor saying the tri-cities loves prosser because they train their teachers and then they send their best to richland pasco and penelope even before this the district has had a retention issue it is ludicrous that you would think collapsing these classes would not have a negative impact on that you are removing our support staff you are providing us no resources to be able to perform our jobs effectively and efficiently we

091are not expendable we are professionals we deserve to be treated with respect and with respect to you the board i vehemently oppose the direction you are steering our district to i urge you to meet you to find a more equitable way to balance your budget thank you yes like elise i will also be speaking for another one of my colleagues um as well afterwards but first it's me so to begin i would like to reiterate that this is my own personal decision to speak here today i recognize and i appreciate the advocacy and support of my heights administration on this issue my name is kaylee holloman and i'm a current fifth grade teacher at heights elementary it is my first full school year because of covid as a fifth grade teacher researchers say that on

092average educators make at least 1 500 decisions every day if you're a teacher you know that is true our students are at the core of every decision that we make i strongly believe that this sentiment should bring true in every sector of a school community for this reason i am here today to emphasize the importance of and to urge the board to reconsider the allotment of teaching positions specifically the collapse of the fourth and fifth grade positions at heights elementary the proposed cuts would result in class sizes that are counter-intuitive to the level of student achievement that the board expects and that our students deserve currently fourth grade teachers at heights elementary have class sizes that average 28 students with the collapse of two positions next year not only will those same fourth grade teachers

093be asked to teach a class of 31 students approximately but our fifth grade staff will also have class sizes potentially nearing up to 28 each if the decision to collapse the fifth grade class in addition holds these numbers do not take into consideration potential for additional influx of students as a result of late enrollment or entry into the district i wholeheartedly believe that class sizes directly impact teacher effectiveness and student achievement and i invite anybody who feels differently to substitute in a class of 22 students and then the next day substitute in a class of 30 plus students i love my students and as a teacher i will do anything in my power to help them be successful as learners and as individuals and i know that my colleagues believe the same if we truly

094believe that students should come first i am asking you to please look at the data listen to educators within your district and do what is best for our community thank you for just kind of nervous okay okay oh i'm fine i can do me focus okay now i am nathan harris an incredible fourth grade teacher at crosser heights okay it is no secret that smaller class sizes have a positive correlation with student performance and learning outcomes this isn't new research and is easily defined with the most prominent being the tennessee star experiment mathis's paper has a summary of the results and notes that smaller class sizes provided more personalized attention and more time per student for instruction however i'm not going to talk about the academic side i will instead focus on the other needs

095that are not being met if we look at maslow's hierarchy of needs we see that before a student can learn they need to have some needs met jerry's article covers this photo but i'll summarize the pyramid and compare it to my own personal experiences the first tier is physiological needs are you getting enough to eat have a place to sleep staying comfortably warm or cool and other basic needs to live unfortunately we are currently not even meeting all of these our students do receive food at school and most have a bed to sleep though not all hot this however those staying at the old prosser high school have had it rough prosser is a desert and it gets hot to life-threatening levels and though i hate complaining i will do so in this to prove

096a point this all has a cumulative effect on the students and the whole picture must be seen to understand what you are asking of the students we've had multiple days in the classroom where the temperatures have reached in the 90s there is one tiny portable air conditioner suitable for a small 100 square foot room in a room full of 29 people still we continue to make do with what we can wearing like clothes water and if there isn't enough amount of smoke opening the windows this is just the first straw however and we still have three other tiers to climb before students can self-actualize and want to learn the next tier is safety and it's the biggest one on everyone's mind lately the time of that kind of thing doesn't happen in foster are over

097i shouldn't have to constantly explain to a group of 9 and 10 year old students that yes i will stop anything that comes through the door from getting to you i leave out the harsher realities that i will likely not survive the encounter but i would gladly do it the darkest secret that all teachers hide is that we all hope that we won't know the attacker having a larger class size means that i must take longer to secure my room i must make harder choices like i know i have most of my students in here but they have been cycling out to the bathroom all day so do i have to open the door in hopes it's them coming back or do i leave it shut and keep safe those that i can this is

098a dark darker area of having a larger class but again the whole picture must be seen to fully understand the problems more kids means longer periods of time when a portion of my students are out of supervision on bathroom trips office visits note running and all those little hallway times that are routine parts of how our school functions it also makes it harder to keep track of everyone should i have a student that is a runner or has other difficulties while there are procedures to cover this larger class sizes again puts further stress on us all the next tier is love belonging covet has been very hard on my class we have had a lot of close calls that my students are still processing there has been a lot of debts with some students losing

099up to five family members when you have a large class size it's hard to give every student the love and attention they need everyone wants to feel important everyone needs to know that they are at least loved when there is a large class students keep quiet and high because they are afraid they've already lost so much and they don't want you to be one more to absolutely in their head the best way to avoid this is to not have the relationship i know this because it's how i used to think and i promised that i wouldn't let this cycle continue to repeat with a large class size there isn't enough time to build a relationship with everyone most students will not move up the pyramid if they feel that you do not care the next

100tier before students become concerned with personal growth is esteem a student needs to feel valued by their group in a larger group it is easier to get lost in the herd and to know that it doesn't matter if you try because somebody else will always have the answer before you do then even if the teacher does randomly call on you what does it matter there are so many students that i might not call on for dates i've seen it time and time again if i just keep my head down and keep quiet i won't get called off i used to do it all the time in school a larger class size makes it easier to hide and reduces the opportunities for students to perform and feel valued by the community now we've made it to

101the top and we're actually at self-actualization but how many of the students have made it to the top what was once seen as individual smaller problems is actually part of a larger system that is weighing down our students further and further a larger class size has a broad impact on all aspects of a student's life they spend most of their waking moments at school during the school year in any given week i may see these children more than their parents it's heartbreaking to see them settle when i know that we can do better there was a time when pride would not have allowed this when prosser cried would have done better but i'm always reminded of a quote when i think of crossroads pride is good until it is back we can't continue to be

102in denial of short-term problems and keep ignoring this bigger picture we've become too reactionary and will turn on ourselves as soon as things don't go our way however i still have hope for what was is and can be we all do or we have left already please consider the full cost of your decisions because while money problems may last a year or more the ramifications of large class sizes will stay with those students for a lifetime thank you good evening school board um i would initially like to thank the board for their time and service to the district i would like to emphasize that i am an accord and fully comprehend and appreciate the efforts of my administrator to advocate on behalf of this matter i speak from my own perspective as an educator and

103a parent i would echo the sentiments of my colleagues and purchase the board to reconsider their allotment teaching positions specifically for heights in the upcoming school year my name is jennifer hartsfield i'm currently the fifth grade bilingual teacher at heights and have successfully completed my first year of teaching i reside in west richland however came to the classic school district because of the bilingual program despite this year being a difficult one resulting from the aftermath of covid i believe i have had a successful first-year professor not only because i was given the bilingual curriculum to effectively perform my job but i was mentored and supported by an incredible administrator staff and grade level team my prior teaching coursework at wsu along with my graduate degrees from north carolina in areas of global studies solidified ideas

104of equity and community in teaching practices sentiments that i have carried into my own classroom and of which i hold sacred to my yearly profession i have experienced this community not only with my students this year but also with my colleagues at heights i came to prosser to make a difference but i never expected to choir friends at the end of the year these teachers have been the backbone of my teaching experience and i am thankful for the community we have built over the year i am deeply concerned about the decision to remove teaching positions from heights as it will not only affect class size and teacher-student ratio that i believe will negatively impact the community that has been established with our students and our teachers if either the 5th grade or 4th grade positions

105are eliminated i will have 17 students in my classroom being the bilingual teacher whereas my colleagues will have roughly 10 additional students at the beginning of the year not addressing future enrollment throughout the year how is this equitable not only to the benefit of our students but to our teachers i believe this decision will have serious ramifications down the road as a parent of three children who attend richland public schools i would be deeply concerned if one of my children were in a classroom or disappropriation size i respectfully urge the lord to reconsider reinstating the teaching positions at heights thank you for your time christine means um i am here again to speak on behalf of the colleague christine means i am louise mills um to reiterate these are the views of the person who

106wrote this and we are not trying to reflect back on the administration itself dear foster school board and district administration i regret i am not able to attend this meeting in person since i am attending family members graduation from delta high school today i want to thank all the teachers and community members who have turned out at this meeting to highlight the class size and staffing issues at the elementary level i understand the urge to have a balanced budget no business owner wants to look at their balance sheet and see they are operating at a deficit and a school district is no different this hypothetical business owner to decrease their deficit would have to make the tough choice of where to cut fines funds should the quality of their product be decreased should staff be

107asked to do more with fewer resources should staff be replaced if a person leaves the position as a school district our products are the students we graduate each student is a carefully built year by year by various staff members teachers in a way are a slow assembly line who refine and teach academic and social skills through the experiences in the classroom just like equipment in the assembly line when these teachers are overwhelmed poorly supported or not replaced the resulting product can suffer damages this is why class size matters teachers cannot serve students to their fullest potential once class sizes are high when class sizes are high this teacher teachers later down this assembly line have to catch students up because teachers in previous years were overwhelmed students and teachers both suffer in the situations this

108brings me to the staffing issues for the fourth grade team at height elementary traditionally this teaching team has had six members one of which is a dedicated bilingual classroom that has a set class list last year a teacher left the team for another district position so for the 2021-22 school year we had five teachers four of which were general education teachers and one bilingual teacher despite the advocation of principal saban higher level district administration refused to hire other fourth grade teachers this meant that four the four general education teachers started the school year from 27 or 28 students in their classroom these class size numbers were consistent throughout the school year next year we face another staff account one of our general education teachers is retiring and the district administration say they won't replace the

109staff knowledge now our grade level will have four teachers again one of those is a bilingual classroom so there will be three general education fourth grade teachers it is projected since this incoming class is on the small side that we will again start the year with 28 kids in each general education class if no other more fourth grade students enroll in the district principal saban continues to ask this leadership for permission to hire another fourth grade teacher and has been refused this isn't fair to the teachers or the students with the first academic and social needs of our students try as in might we teachers cannot meet student needs as well in large class sizes we return to the assembly line metaphor fourth grade has become a problem area in the machinery of our district

110because staffing isn't being properly maintained yes decisions about budget cuts are tough but i ask the board and district administration to keep this question in mind when making these decisions since we are in the business of educating the future members of our community should decisions be made that sacrifice the quality of their education please remember our business is education and our students are worth the investment of hiring another teacher sincerely christine needs a fourth grade teacher [Music] my name is uh alexander rojas and uh i'm a one-on-one bilingual spectra through the foster accent adventure um my job is to support classes uh i have behavior issues and uh i have uh mainly been with the 5th grade classes this year and as always it has been a crazy roller coaster this year especially this year

111after coming back full time from fall to spring as a para i've seen and heard everything i've seen and stopped fights uh but also kids cussing talking about the genitals uh shootings at the school talking about it you know um every single thing a student especially a fifth grader or anyone shouldn't be thinking about now i believe that instead of cutting teachers pair us or moving them around we need all the help that we can get the fifth grade teachers that i've been working with this year um have been um one of the best they have young wives energetic amazing vibes that we need in the district and moving them around obviously doesn't help we need chemistry in this in this district chemistry that helps uh to become better teachers and uh help out the

112other kids so waking up so we can also tell them hey we should be getting along with everybody you know having too many plus kids is going to make that hard it's not going to improve so i'm not saying that the teachers and parents can't manage but you can't manage that uh of having 28 plus kids but it would be much easier for everyone teachers students and you guys to have a better district so please guys uh think about with all the respect think about what the next decisions you guys make so then i can say that i'm probably i'm part of being an employee [Music] angelo ski i have some family members that are out there um trying to listen the sound isn't super great they're telling me so if they want to or

113feel led to come in and stand that would be welcomed by me as family support some of them are my own children so watching their mom do something that's a little bit out of the comfort zone members of the prosser school board thank you for this opportunity for me to speak tonight as a community member when i was uh timing my speech this week it was only four minutes jason so i think um i think i'm going to stick with it i'm a community member a teacher and a parent and i've resided in prosper since 1990 and have taught in the prosser school district for 23 years on saturday i'll watch my second child walk across the stage at graduation and architecture stadium in addition i have two more children who attend foster schools along

114with my husband who teaches right next door to me in the social studies park department at phs to say the skiing family is invested in the prostate schools is an understatement we love our community and we love being a part of the prosper mustang family a little over two weeks ago at the last board meeting i joined a few hundred people in this auditorium well i thought you were going to be down in the auditorium tonight and listen to 24 community members speak in support of kevin lusk remaining as the av at phs tonight i wish to echo their points and remind the board of the community support that stands behind kevin lest at the previous board meeting one of the speakers kyler bockhoffner read a list of over 20 points concerning the duties of

115our current ad and his wife tonight did a wonderful job with more of those points his points range from liability to concerns to safety the transportation to scheduling i want to encourage the board to remember his points they were excellent ones and illustrating the enormity of the job of athletic director a position you expect a teacher to fill as a stipend or give to an already maxed out building administrators this solution clearly spells catastrophe by those who are closest to prosper mustang athletics i want to encourage you to heed their advice listen to their wisdom please prosper high school needs a full-time ad at that same board meeting two weeks ago we heard very articulate speeches from our current phs students in support of mr lesk a few days later over 300 kids chose to

116participate in a walkout during second period to show their support for mr les please return to their speeches and listen to their words but also observe their actions they support mr alaska and value him as an educator at phs i want to encourage you to do the same value him as an employee when budget cuts to a school system are needed a common practice is to make cuts the furthest away from the students cutting the av impacts hundreds of students on a daily basis this is not a cut furthest from the students if anything this is a cut to the very core that defines our student athletes kevin has helped define phs for decades i want to encourage you to consider other avenues of budget expenditures and cuts that are away from the heart and

117soul of many of our students kevin leske is an educator that i have known for 32 years i had him as a teacher i had him as an ad and i had him as an administrator hundreds if not thousands of people have their own kevin story i have many of those stories including the days my babies were born of how he mentored and called and he advised and led me to be a better an educator and a better person you will not find a harder working employee for the students of prostate high school and any schools than this man his work ethic is like no one i've ever known he is a man of integrity and compassion over the years he's had to make some very difficult decisions which he has done with honesty he

118is a leader who communicates efficiently he listens and he serves kevin is a leader who puts students first and he works for them every day at phs scholarship night earlier this week served as a perfect example of kevin's dedication to our school he graciously seamlessly stepped in to help ryan bailey out as the emcee for the award tonight his enthusiasm and professionalism was amazing to witness for those board members who were at the monday's event i'm hopeful you were able to come to the realization the amazing work ethic kevin has a work ethic and professionalism that we have been able to witness daily for over three decades i'm deeply disappointed by the recent decisions for the prosser schools now is the right time to reconsider and revert reverse it the non-renewal of kevin lust's contract

119as athletic director at phs we need kevin in our ranks at this time our kids deserve to have him as an ad the community needs his energy and his dedication and phs staff needs him as one of our trusted leaders is your decision making concerning this matter supported by your stakeholders and supported by the community you'll excuse me if i have to leave early i have to be here tomorrow morning at 6 30 in the morning along with my husband to get ready for the senior breakfast grad walk and luncheon that's really early but you know what kevin will be here earlier because that's what he does to help us pull it all off and so that's just him so thank you for your time i hope i stayed under four minutes um lasting point

120i didn't i can't read this first part i need it good evening um my name is anita quinn and um i taught in the foster school district for 41 years and i came here um from st jones and i love it at st joe's and when i came here it was just like teaching um that school the support the kids the community so we're talking um it was 1977 and it was unbelievable the quality of the students um i remember it was my second year of teaching or third year teaching and i had school board members kids i had principals kids i had members out of the wsu experiment station it was unbelievable i'm here because um two weeks ago i got a text i was in australia and it said please please pray because

121we've got some tough stuff going on right now and along with my daughter and notified the rest of my kids we all came we all got in on zoom to find out what was happening we were shocked that it was about kevin les and when angela said um that we all have our kevin stories we do and when i listen to erica talk about how mr les followed her over for a scholarship i was like yeah that's what he does i was not only a teacher but i was a coach for 30 years middle school and the high school pep club advisor baccalaureate staff sunshine committee and kevin was always 100 there kevin actually we shared a classroom when we first came to foster high school he was a part-time teacher and an athletic director

122and we shared the science room together i'm here because i i'm confused um i just know there's probably another side of this story and it's like you know i keep thinking what did he do what did he do that has caused this to happen um four children through through prosser high school they are mustangs through and through three of them are in education and they always relate back to what mr les did for them my oldest who's a the assistant vp of student affairs at cdc owes that to kevin les because he got her to start at western uh just being a staff person and that led to this position that she has now and i'm sitting here and i'm listening to everybody um talking i and there's a lot of issues going on the

123academic issue it's like whoa i didn't even know about that one um it's like okay the cutting of teachers because i thought when i read all the brochures and everything on when the levy didn't pass and we were going at it at the second time that that that wouldn't happen but i know that you've got a balance the budget i live with the budget um it has to be balanced um so i understand that but it's just i mean it's heartbreaking to hear these teachers talking um i can we've had some roller coaster years being here on all those times like in fact i just said to mr adams i remember when we took a pay cut back in about 2007 2008 we actually took a pay cut um the teachers did so that we

124wouldn't have um the laws and then i just thought but now we're talking about uh an athletic director and when i was talking to my own kids my son who worked for the wiaa he said that sounds like and i'm not sure i didn't need to fact check it but we would be the only 2a school in the state that doesn't have an athletic director and i taught i coached at middle school and i coached in high school and in both places fall and spring and i thought wow here this guy is doing both jobs how does he do that and then when i was watching the um the send-off assembly i saw that online for the kids going to state and there was kevin knowing that he was going to lose his job but

125still doing a great job and the athletic banquet and i watched that and i just thought oh my gosh this i mean i think i would have taken my ball and gone home um i just would have said screw you guys you know you don't want me after all these years of and i just he's such a had such integrity and i remember with the last incident i remember i got called by the lawyer and i just i remember saying to the lawyer have you talked to this guy because he's amazing and i know that i would have if he had left i probably would have gone to where he went because he was such a great person to work for but as an athletic director um and when laura listed all those things because

126i was here before we even before i mean melbourne was the athletic victory but our athletic code was still pretty wasn't as strict as it is now and i served on the board of review many many lunch hours and what are we going to do and a teacher a teacher to do all of those we can give it as a stipend how are they going to do that i know i'm talking fast because you have sat here for so long and i i feel so lucky that we can come and we can't express our thoughts and and i just i'm just really really confused and why him why that's the only one that we've heard about and i guess there's more coming i we haven't heard maybe from what the teachers were saying tonight i

127don't know if teachers know that they're being ripped or cut or whatever you call it but but i just can't imagine not having an athletic director and asking a teacher to do that i don't know how you um take those phone calls in the middle of the night i you know i remember you know having as a coach having to call kevin of different things that happened on our athletic events and who would you call was it do you have a certain teacher and when i was here last week for the um school board meeting i just felt it was a little dysfunctional as far as like what are we gonna do with the high school the old high school and i just thought what's going on is there a plan and i know there's

128got to be there's got to be a plan and i don't mean to and i don't know is it done that done deal it's like kevin gone i know you can't say i know because i know one time i've called school board members before and they said we can't discuss it because it's a personnel issue i'm like okay i'm just i'm really really confused why this one person and how how quick it was when i got that message um so far away from home and to get this message please pray for us we're in some real dire straits right now and i just thought wow this is kind of scary so um once i got on that board i mean i thought okay i got to come to these school board needs because we're we're

129lusting and i i probably um when i go back i grew up in california and when i go back to a classroom union i really don't know those people but man here i can tell you where people live and who live in that house and and the kids and um you know because i i was fortunate that i actually knew when it was time to retire because i was teaching i think i had my eighth third generation where i had a grandparent the parent and then the girl and i knew it was probably time to go about that three generations and so i just feel so fortunate to have to have lived here and um and this is such a great place and kevin is such a part of that such a part of our

130family's life uh what he's done for for our family and my kids thank you school board i know your job isn't easy i have a my husband was a school board member for eight years in the granby school district and he talks a lot about how hard that job is and you have some big decisions to make but i appreciate this time so much and thank you this will not be more than about 35 minutes i just i'm kind of keeping your matters for me were you all set okay thanks for this chance to address you um my name is mark little i just this is my first year out after 40 years as a mustang i also i kind of started thinking about adam i've also coached about 60 sports seasons since i've been

131here so i've been i i i would consider myself like a need i would consider myself a muslim um and i'd like to share a little bit of what i've learned and some things that i believe about education from my experience here um i've been really really fortunate to work with just a bunch of incredible [Music] parents i've had some of your kids in athletics and in a classroom um administrators we've had some really great administrators here that i consider good friends fellow teachers awesome people but most importantly some incredible kids that's what it's all about to me the most important thing we do as educators is we make connections with kids and parents um and other teachers and and with each other kids do best when they know that somebody cares about them those

132those connections are [Music] what what kids what kids think about they they need to know that uh someone thinks about them is checking up with them um you look back at when you were in school what is it you remember is it your math lessons or your uh [Music] social studies lessons do you remember that the people that you went through um i can tell you i've worked with kevin you know he was i was here when he got here for 35 years and there is i cannot name one person even comes close to making connections with kids like kevin has um you can tell by the way that this this community has reacted to that to that news what he means to the kids and the parents and the and listen to the people

133that have spoken before it's huge what he has done and you know another thing about kevin is he was not only made those connections but he's great as his at his job he was he he does it i mean i for many of the years that i coached kevin was the athletic director it was everything was always taken care of always taken care of we never had to worry about buses and [Music] referees and kids being taken care of he did all of that like uh like nobody that i've seen uh he is also an ambassador for foster schools i mean when we go somewhere else all the other athletic directors even all these old codgers like me that have been around forever they always want to know you know what's up with kevin um

134couldn't ask for a better person to work with i don't i don't know that people understand just what a tough job an athletic director is um i think it's really short-sighted and unwise to eliminate that position and i get it i mean i have one question for the school i forgot to ask it when you signed up for this did you know it was going to be this much fun is that the math it's in the syllabus yeah [Music] i know you have a tough job and i know that the budget is a big big deal but i think it's unwise to think that somebody working less than the whole time could be the authority correct i'm 100 sure that nobody or no combination of people could do it as well as the ethical does

135it right now and i can i can promise you nobody uh cares more about this community you couldn't get somebody to do it more than what kevin does and this is stuff everybody knows um [Music] i also think how we treat people matters uh i know and as a parent uh you know what my main thing was are you are people gonna treat my kids right i think i love my kids i i wasn't worried about you know the math lessons or that i wanted to know that that somebody loved my kid kevin does it and uh i kind of echo what anita said i don't get this i really don't get this i mean it's when you find part of what bothers me is is a guy puts in 35 years and i must

136like anita said unless there's something we don't know about it's like uh [Music] i don't [Music] i don't get it he's he's given his you know 35 years of his life um i know that i'm not the only one who keeps wondering you know what's the deal what's the deal why kevin uh and and full disclosure he's he's a he's a good friend of mine as well but it's it's not really about that it's not about it's not even about me and it's and friendship and camping and all that it's about the kids it's about how does this affect how does this affect the kids as educators we always talk about doing what's best for kids you hear that all the time we got to do what's best for kids nobody would nobody would argue

137with that i know i would and i know you guys will absolutely not but it's my fervent belief that cutting the athletic director is definitely not what's best for kids that's the bottom bottom line what's best for you please reconsider the elimination of the athletic director because that's what's best for kids [Music] my name is jason crook j-a-s-o-n-c-r-o-k you can tell it's the end of senior week and my brain's a little bit tired i'll try and keep this short to the point i'm here tonight as a parent of three students in the school district as well as a teacher here in the high school though i represent myself and my own beliefs i haven't discussed this with our administration or emails maybe bumps might give up some other teachers and that sort of thing but

138um i am incredibly blessed to have three children who are incredibly driven very high achieving uh any of their teachers can attest to that both my daughters are in open door one at housel and the other one at heights my son has qualified but he does not feel driven towards the content that is available to him um i'm a math and physics teacher uh and i'm afraid that my passion my wife and i's passion for science and math has rubbed off on my kids um my oldest daughter so my youngest daughter wants to be a large animal veterinarian my son wants to be a mechanical engineer and work for lego and my daughter and we just finished seventh grade she wants to be a zookeeper at disney world and i fully endorse this um i

139love it yes um but i also know the degree that being a zookeeper will require i know the degree that i'm a mechanical engineer will require and i know that our district may not be able to support them uh my wife and i are at a point where we're having to make some difficult decisions i want to be very proud of our high school i want to be very proud of our district i am not sure that we'll be able to support her or my son or my other daughter a little bit later um we currently have at prosser high school one full-time science teacher finishing out this year we fortunately have another one coming up from the middle school um but i i am not counting myself in that list because i have a

140single section of physics that i've had to sort of fight and scrape for seeking out grants and donations in order to give my students hands-on learning experiences we've had the opportunity due to donations from different groups in order to be able to build physical objects with our students and actually give them a chance to learn um but we've been told multiple times we just we don't have uh sufficient funds for certain for a fully for fully stalking our lab or certain things that we might need and we're also told that we're overstaffed we currently have in our brand new building md science rooms we have an amazing cte department i don't want to make it sound like i would disparage that because i think it's fantastic that we have cte in our building and i

141don't think it's something that we should be trying to take away from one area in order to provide something else but i know that we are lacking in lab sciences i know that we are lacking in a lot of different ways right now a quarter of our staff is as marked as cte which i know that they received funding through separate avenues it's not it's not the same funds that is for our typical classroom teachers there's a whole quarter of our staff and our lab sciences seem to be um which i find to be a tragedy currently um i kind of straddle the line of math and science i am trying to really push for higher expectations for our students for our math courses and i'd like to see more opportunities for stem availability for

142our students but as we currently have it right now we don't have those options our staff is caught up with trying to catch those students up who are falling through the cracks and they're not able to get that attention that they need in order to fix their um misunderstanding their gaps in that in their education and we're in a position where we are just trying to maintain rather than see our students excel what i would love to be able to see is a chance to have our classes be able to meet those college readiness requirements that we see them putting out i know harvard puts out that college readiness is considered to be calculus you would have calculus in order to be meeting college readiness or ct or uh computer science courses to go along

143with this college readiness according to nctm is um i have knowledge of overarching ideas of science disciplines earth science life sciences physical sciences engineering and how the practices of science are situated within this context and i don't think that we are currently fulfilling that requirement for our students we're not meeting our stated goal for our business that is [Music] public comment portion so i appreciate everybody that's still here that stayed and appreciate all your comments and i you know i think some of that some of the topics that were discussed could be you know remedy portion of our meetings i think later this month better classes i guess and you know maybe personally i think we should probably look at the budget and i would you know advise everybody that's left in this room everybody

144that's on zoom need a copy of the budget the apportionment document and also the spreadsheets that have been um put out as far as what were being reduced it could be failed or if they'll let me pass um like those documents are available and they've been spoken about plenty of times but maybe there weren't warrants another you know another work session so forth so i guess if we all agree to that anyways thank you on and you're welcome for the rest of the business [Music] we're gonna keep moving next is consent items uh certificated personnel classified personnel a second yeah so we can talk a little bit about that um i have forwarded that contract um to sean mumper for review sean has i think a lot of work on his plate from crossfit school

145district so i'm waiting back he said sometime this week i was hoping for earlier in the week it looks like maybe later later this week hopefully tomorrow but she's asking um i've given it to him and so we in talking with her i think that i have the terms i would expect it at the next meeting or the next schedule i'll keep the board apprised of kind of where we're at with it so you have eyes on it before you get to that point so motion payroll specifically regarding i think i couldn't figure out how many different landscapers were paying attention wanted clarification that's going on the band trip that's you guys um i had a plethora of questions of course you like my response to your collective questions i i didn't yeah i would

146like your response and actually trying to figure out where the emails are 8 10 am so the first question was on and this is in the general fund 905 is the same numbers probably now say the last three okay four three three is is the payment of lyle and mr raynor wanted to see how much has been paid by a month over the year it's roughly the earlier years were minutes were 20 000 and it's gone up a little bit the last couple months obviously because i think we need to have shawn discuss that one what's 434 that's the borderland live wise i think probably twice now so if so prior to this year we have goguardian uh guardian is a filtering system and a monitoring system for our students chromebooks the learning is a

147super great product but line wise is a little bit cheaper and it does a little bit more for us so we're changing to it this year it will still serve as our filter and our monitoring system both in district and out of district for our kids chromebooks we will also be able to add windows devices to line wise which we couldn't with bill guardian before so um remember a couple board meetings ago you questioned the vision software that the cte department had purchased so they did purchase it for the cte department for this year uh but next year or the following year sooner out of that contract we will be able to potentially draw that service and wrap it into limewise case and i also have the same questions thank you you're just coming down

148the stairs and back up no i don't miss that at all my question is i know in previous vouchers it had it different maybe it had a different description and the description says school improvement now that was my question of clarification i mean i understand what i mean i understood what it was but the description has changed slightly it's possible because the funding has changed over the last couple years initially the funding came out of the esser funds then i applied for and got the emergency connectivity fund from the fcc uh then that funded that for a while cindy dean had a grant that funded 200 of those hot spots for a year so it's possible that description has changed with the pots of money that the funding came from so that's just this federal

149stimulus school improvement four for the record just so you guys know too our t-mobile contract technically ends uh august 1st july 31st somewhere in there we currently have 288 hot spots still out with our families i applied for but have not heard yet back from uh the fcc for the emergency connectivity fund round three if i'm granted that i'm going to keep those 288 hot spots with our families for an additional year i think it's needed in the community it's kind of a hassle for our department to deal with but if they're going to give me the funding for it i'm going to leave them with the students for another year if i don't get the funding they will come back august first and how much are they 20 a month or 17 20 i've

150got a deal on that okay it's 20. so 57.60 a month 5700. that and we do have some families that that really are in me i would hate to pull them uh but it's an expense for the district to keep them in their homes up until now we've had funding so we'll see how it goes next one is 443 college board you don't have to answer that one if you want to talk about that so those are uh sat oh exams and we pay them but the students also pay us back all right we can't answer exactly anyway that's that's how it works i know the accommodations for us [Music] so that's that's the payment to the witnesses okay okay next one is which is the kennewick school district for 77.55 that's our science kits

151that we get refurbished through kenwood oh have we talked to teachers about how that's working i think that would be good feedback because they are refurbished and what i'm hearing is that's causing an issue because they're older and there's not necessarily instructions and not every kit has all the parts so i would like to hear feedback from the teachers as that how that's working if that's something we should continue not sure if deanna if she's on here or not for sure she is but from the teachers yeah i've never had a single teacher tell me that ever i mean maybe tammy's heard that but they go to the kennewick and they're um refurbished each year now there is a there are new kits and those are being switched out it's like a one-year change year

152over year um to up to an updated version they go to training to get their teacher manuals um i i have never heard that before we have had some issues with teachers uh putting all the materials back when they were returned and then we got billed by kennewick because they weren't they didn't return everything and we had to do some uh extra trips to get some things returned that weren't put in the kits but i have never heard that before so i just encourage you if you had a teacher that shared that to direct them to me so that i can help okay we them talked about 476 t-mobile the next one is 481 which is two um [Music] i'm sorry yes 469 is a check payable to our food service in prosser we sometimes

153cater meals cookies water things like that and that's what that's what these are various programs like um migrant programs in here is that a that's a local process 481 is uh [Music] united schools insurance program i think united schools so uh it's the parent company our insurance companies liability so whenever we have a claim it's our fault which is what this was it's a thousand dollar deductible cut thank you so that's that's what that one was and then 486 to the washington society of personnel from the washington society of personnel association waspa that was a boot camp for mrhr lady kim felton she typically goes to that annual conference everywhere so that's the registration thank you okay how about 483 to wsu for eight thousand two hundred [Music] english language learners there was a handful

154of um and program 64 is that no is what's 64 indiana is that title four title three bilingual um it's professional development for bilingual education so let's say there was like five teachers any other questions vouchers i would like to create a provided made document that listed our fuel expenses from september to basically include this game right now may and that would include oh that's right includes this payment on the doctor and like craig said we've been staying right around 20 and in march it went up to 39 000 [Music] uh and we've actually started saving money it went down to 28. so that's my sarcasm tonight there was november a discussion about grants through the state and i think also from the fed's federal government for electric buses so that i mean i don't

155know that's still available maybe for like an in-town route to save i thought we did talk about you know i think we're still kind of waiting for that to come this is a few years ago they were pushing propane buses and um the short run costs were that it was cheaper because there were grants the long-run costs proved that it wasn't and so if you were a district you know kind of bid on that then the long runs would price you out you know a lot of rural districts like hey cost savings um small rural districts actually some of their transportation sometimes comes out of ea because they're so spread out so that's it that's one key you know like thing we'll have to keep in mind that what are the upfront costs and then

156what's the depreciation the long run costs [Music] okay any other questions on vouchers in payroll bring that i got [Music] procedures 2145 suicide prevention questions comments concerns or an emergency type of waiver for the district to intervene if there was no other option that we could approve it on a case-by-case basis but the other ones know there i had one question on staff training um within this have we researched or planned um what that training would look like and when that may take place we do yeah we have safe schools which is an online provider one of the benefits of it is it logs and tracks teachers so you don't have to collect sign-in sheets and you can pull that data pretty quickly and so that's one um i think when we start talking about

157suicide prevention there are a lot of people um both locally and regionally um who can provide also different i think aspects of um to students who died by suicide or mental health and things like that so i think that there's there's a more than one side professionally developed people on so you know how do you refer a kid if um you know that he doesn't have you know like his mental health is in question um who are the you know what are the resources how do you have those conversations and then i think that there's a general kind of liability piece about like this is this is the training that we're required to give here are the steps that you're going to take throughout the district so both procedural and i think that there's kind

158of an understanding component so i think we need a motion [Music] second to move this forward correctly [Music] uh second reading of policy 1805 open government trainings any questions concerns there's been a motion in a second to approve policy 1805 open government trains all those in favor signify the same night okay all right opposite sign motion second reading of policy and procedure 6102 district fundraising which includes the grant request form i only had one question and i thought i saw it before but maybe i didn't was there a max dollar figure that can be fundraised deanna do you know the answer to that well i don't i don't know that there's a max dollar figure and um and we didn't put one in the policy i think there's certainly limits to what people could raise

159and that they're going to have to request an amount in their form so elisa do you remember we didn't talk about that we don't have a limit set in the policy but in the form they have to fill out it has to be approved by an administrator before they can yeah we did talk about you and you know the item and grant specifically if someone's trying to get you know a big big grant that would get you know the whole school that's great but yeah it would be on a case-by-case basis okay so somebody could try to get a hundred thousand dollar donation and it would be improved it would go through the process of improving other people yeah no one gets that it's not like park launch everything will be approved as it goes

160yeah nobody can out no ferraris no no lamborghinis what fun is that well probably none all right do we uh do a motion in a second to [Music] all those in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries deanna and elise i want to thank you for your work in that policy and uh helping develop that i think that'll be beneficial [Music] conflict of interest nepotism so matt is it item six on the conflicts of interest that was added in school districts were fewer than 200 fta students divormed from the styles of the director or the superintendent as a certified or classified staff yeah i believe was that what we put in there no um we added uh i remember andy requested him what he wanted was in the event of an emergency staffing that

161we could employ like spouses or in the same building a temporary basis there's there's no limitation on spouses which is nepotism policies well i didn't mean i meant young men no that's still allowed yeah that would not prohibit anyone's spouse from working in the district that's not the thing that's addresses it addresses spouses and family members from supervising people i think andy used it that his teacher his wife took a temporary decision [Music] district approval of these exemptions will be granted by the supreme court so they intended for an emergency situation that language needs to be happened i just remember so we put we put in there shared with the board so the board would have if there was ever any i guess uh concerns with what we were doing at the board would be

162able to express that so you know or yeah concerns or um if we want to include emergency but i think we get into when we start using the vocabulary emergencies like how do you define that all right my concern is that's not how it reads approval of these exemptions will be granted by the superintendent and shared with the work so it says you get to do it and then you get to tell us about it yeah i ideally and this is me i always work to try and keep everybody apprised of things um in in the border prize so my commitment will be before that's ever signed off my i'm sharing that with you guys so well and i don't i'm not i don't disagree with that but i think if we have a policy

163that may be yours stat you know stature or the way you operate now but for event you know in future boards and future superintendents uh maybe it should be yeah granted by the superintendent and the board what we can do is amend the language so approve it with amended language that says will be shared with the board prior to superintendent approval so this is granted by the superintendent in conjunction with the report okay [Music] okay so um we can bring it back yeah yeah it's up to the work or just approve it for the final with the amended language usually second and final or synonymous i would say amend item f to read second distribution several of these conventions will be granted by the superintendent in conjunction with poor approval vomiting doors that were not

164in that sentence and bring them back for a second finally [Music] uh moved in second to [Music] bring this back with uh all right next uh is temporary out of endorsement waivers um so i i just want to say here so there's two items on the board packet that my office submitted in the fall tammy did it their things once they're approved they go into the minutes and then we have some reporting we do in the this time of the year and when we went to go upload them and put them into the report they weren't there they were never added to the board packets so that's just a communication issue that tammy and i are solving because she does a lot of that leg work for board packet items so this one in this

165endorsement waiver and then the highly capable program plan was in the fall too but uh between the two of us we missed that it didn't get included in the packet so our apologies on that so you're saying it was actually approved in a board meeting but it was it was submitted but it was back in a previous assistant and then so tammy submits it and then a bunch of the other uh waivers were in there but that one was for whatever reason that one was missed or wasn't included and we didn't catch that it wasn't included so it wasn't approved and now we're playing catch up right this is cat this is doing it because it didn't get get approved in the fall my my question will probably go for this one and the next

166one as well um are we non-compliant by not doing that in august no no we just have to do it i mean for me i feel non-compliant because it didn't get done in the fall like it was supposed to but as long as it goes to the board it's it it's not an issue and this teacher actually maria she actually finished her degree she's no longer out of an endorsement but we so we won't have to do it for her next year so i guess continue my question so if it got missed and uh technically she was teaching without a proper certificate i'm just trying to wrap my hands around my head around so she has she has a certificate a teaching certificate but she's teaching bilingual education and not history so we've actually approved

167an out of endorsement waiver for her i think three years but she just finished her master's in her elementary teaching recently so we normally approve them in the fall but like i said hers was submitted and then it wasn't included in the packet and so when we missed that so it's the fact that we're doing it now is like the state knows we're doing it now they don't have a problem with it it's a title ii report that we have to submit which is um a teacher and report about their endorsements and those kinds of things thank you great [Music] signify by saying aye uh central washington university college in the high school program interlocal agreement for uh 22 and 23. yeah this is this is the this is just our agreement that allows us

168to offer their college and high school courses at um phs we have to approve it this has to be approved every year uh yeah we do it year to year i'll make a motion then to look through the central washington university college in the classroom and a local agreement washington university for next year the discussion all those papers signify by saying aye aye i did have one question deanna at this point we have one teacher and she's teaching um math is that correct uh so since for central we only do the math classes suits central we actually have two pre-calculus and statistics for the all the all of our other college and the high school classes are through eastern okay thank you you're welcome i'm moving to item h highly capable program plan approval um

169[Music] are there any changes in this plan from last year's plan or this wait is this a blast plan and it was missed this is this year's plan also it's the other item that was submitted in the fall that did get included in the packet so we complete the highly capable grant basically each year um with what we're offering for the year and then um then that's the board's supposed to prove that so that was another thing that was submitted in the fall tammy submitted it didn't get included in the packet i missed that um so yeah our our program is is changing some for next year uh but for this year no okay we have a motion and a second any other questions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye motion moving

170on to resolution number zero nine two two declaring surplus and equipment and supplies i think we should have sean can talk about technology surplus that's junk not needed i think what you're looking at is general surplus so it's from old apartments buildings i believe that's not just my tech surplus correct yeah that's just the surplus from everything uh there's probably furniture books miscellaneous i have some technology on there i believe the surplus sale is the 16th 18th that's coming up quick in the next couple of months maintenance takes care of that for our district the other questions concerned about to approve resolution number zero 922 declaring surplus of equipment and supplies [Music] called bo alisa yes myself yes thanks john yeah okay that was is [Music] do we have a contract i have three bits

171are they going to send us a contract uh i wouldn't that's probably my bad for same contract let me take your awards [Music] we have a motion and just for clarification there's there's not going to be a contract to outline the terms of moving that has the price of seventy one thousand four hundred dollars we're just doing that in good faith so it's a it's a quote and it's you know june 14 became your review forty-two hundred dollars there's wood strand moving to the old high school this is a big big blue just go forward flat rate 1400 a day guaranteed nine hour work days to list what they're doing and how much it is by each day the recommendation says i guess my concern is usually in this scope this size or when i

172moved or have items move i sign a contract or it's presented to me but the scope of work is going to be who's carrying the insurance what's going to happen and i think we need to see that the the only thing that i would comment on this is um i know brian worked really hard on this for a couple of months it's really it's really challenging because it is a really big job and ultimately they're moving everything everything in the school is getting moved and and they have to start moving uh the things out of riverview on tuesday for the construction timeline to be met [Music] i mean it's it's an estimate that says what they're doing i mean oh and i mean i understand that people are confused or i mean this is unusual

173that there wouldn't be a contract that either we're gonna we're gonna pay them for this work and these are the services they're gonna be provided and they're licensed and bonded and i mean did we have a contract last summer no no we just hope we just hope they show it and do it don't damage things good faith and promise and that everyone's nice that actually the damage piece is the only piece that i would be overly worried about that's a lot of stuff yeah because i mean they can invoice us [Music] it's an estimate there could be five days less depends on that's the maximum within the charge [Music] i think you should table that's a lot of money to not have a contract thing that was just about spending and you start tuesday right

174well we could have a special meeting tomorrow or we after graduation on saturday post four and come back in here after the graduation ceremony so tell me tuesday i they they're starting to move they have to move starting tuesday before the for fowler because they're taking all those portables out of the um out at riverview we can do it monday too monday or tuesday morning or no they start monday morning so a couple items i think at least you're referring to is you know insurance the scope of work um i don't disagree with that it is a lot of money i think that's proven i would send the bond when you have to wait [Music] um i do not have a second that i remember so it's uh the motion's gonna die for the lack

175of the second i think we need to i think we need more information before we approve it but like i said we're going to have to fast traffic if they have to start moving the work has to start on tuesday so it looks like um what's everybody doing now tonight [Music] what about you calling on lunchtime we've done that before caller zoom on lunchtime just for one day um [Music] yeah all right so 12 o'clock i can i can actually be present for 12 o'clock i can do that so i will be 12 o'clock [Music] we'll move to table uh this interview will help you move until monday at 12. that's my motion okay yeah i wasn't paying for signify by saying hi boys and girls club folks have been here for the entirety of

176it i appreciate that it's been fun i know would you mind if we bumped up the least agreement with the boys and girls what's your plan of the future yeah no it's not i don't think it's a long discussion but it's a it's an important discussion i'll say that so so brian aids and chris cisneros are here um we had it we spoke with them it was a smaller meeting with uh at the district office and initially the boys and girls club was looking at building a new facility and so they really looked at kind of our bow egg or old the old cte building at old phs and so they they want to know about a long-term lease agreement in working with prosper school district to use those facilities now that they're vacant and

177so as we know that um it's a it's a pretty good location uh right across from the city park right across from the library um within walking proximity um of both in the schools um and so yeah yeah so there's there's a lot of benefit behind it but uh yeah the discussions are in their infancy but uh we want to know if um that's an interest in the district and at some point we can move forward and start talking um kind of more more details about what that long-term lease agreement would look like so they have the practice field there i mean and they're already you guys are already in the white church so they're we're already working on it with them around partnerships so yeah brian anything you want to add no i mean

178it's one of those pieces that we've been working to [Music] unite two program facilities in the prosper community to a single program facility that's more safe efficient effective affirming of the dignity and work of the kids and looking at a renovation of that space uh came in at about 200 square foot versus 290 square foot from new some bui large dollars in it to bring it up to a great standard of care for kids and we'd love to continue that partnership with the school district to serve your kids so boys and girls club i see as a is a multiplier in the equation and so uh schools schools can't do it alone and so we have really effective programs within our community like boys and girls club they really can assist our students with enriching

179activities after the day tutoring support and even even giving students a meaningful mentor or or adult caring adult figure within their life and so i really appreciate the work that they do and i think that it's mutually beneficial and i would like to see the facility used and still full you know filled with kids and full schools or full facilities or facilities so no i think it's a i think it's a great idea to keep exploring that and you get to do good work so i appreciate it so you know oh i think we should do everything to make this happen fast efficiently as possible i don't think there's any organization in foster more supported and no longer than the cross representatives so whatever we can do you know part of our discussions have been

180around facilities and how we can use facilities um boys and girls club definitely has a vision but as we start talking um with them and developing the details of a plan uh we'll bring that back to the board and uh of course that plays into our larger conversation about improvement of facilities throughout the district did you that's exciting yeah all right we'll be meeting in the future so i appreciate it thanks for sharing yeah thanks for waiting um all right we're going to go back to uh item a discussion i didn't plan for future work yeah so we've had i think one of our next meetings is around facilities but um just to bring it back to the board um there are a number of different discussions hanging out there that i think it's important

181to put back on the radar so we can get those handled throughout the summer months or we can start work on them the student handbook we're talking about student discipline um the budget of course um we've been talking extensively about that but as we go through july and you know into august and look at improving that um really defining what we want out of that we talked about the extracurricular code of conduct code of conduct used to be the athletic code but i think they've extended that to all extracurricular programs summer work this could be at our next meeting we usually have the maintenance director present at the onset of summer just talking about different facilities work that they're going to do and then looping back around at the start of the year to see

182the progress they made on that i mentioned it briefly um there's a conversation hanging out around out there about uh redistricting based upon the census uh that we need to have and then student board reps we need to select our new student board reps i know that they've been advertising that at the high school if you know any um high school students that are interested in either state or local political politics i think this is a great learning experience for them um but yeah we'll need to find some more student board reps to fill those positions and help help inform our decisions uh for next year so that's all i had for plans for future work yeah um all right next thing is informational items and graduation yeah june 11th part piper 10 o'clock um

183typically the sun's out i don't know if it will be sunny or rainy this time around but if you look on the forecast the morning before and it's sunny wear sunscreen so yeah this is uh in talking with board members and this is a unique processor but it's it's one of these it's like super bowl sunday um for board members it's watching their their work kind of come to fruition and so it's a special event and i i think you're really going to enjoy it seeing those kids walk across the stage and it's a really neat experience to be there be up there and congratulate them in their diploma many kids being the first in their generation to graduate you are the first child in their family sometimes those yeah usually usually they have the

184gym uh staged for that and so they transition indoors um so yeah there's usually a contingency plan in case things get massive now if we start the ceremony it starts raining somewhere in the middle of it that's more difficult to transition so yeah thank you for that i'm looking forward to it i know that um assistant superintendents report great so quick things um number one we've been approved by the state for the community eligibility provision that was a requirement that the legislature gave to us we have been approved the state says that they will pay the difference between what the cep reimbursement rate is and what it is as non-cep that makes any sense so for example the cp rate [Music] so all kids eat free it's like 3.51 but the the rate under the

185seamless summer or seamless food service program is like four dollars or 61 something like that so that difference my understanding is the state is going to basically hold this harmless so it should be revenue neutral but hopefully there'll be more kid i mean they're eating free now so i'm not sure there'll be more but um so cdp's been approved the other thing i i'm just my main focus now is trying to get a draft of the 2223 budget and maybe just for a conversation quickly for what the calendar looks like we're required to have a draft of the budget by july 10th that's actually a sunday so it's really july 8th and then the board has to actually adopt the budget by the end of august [Music] i'm planning on having it 95 done we'll

186have some conversations and probably a study session or two if we can squeeze that in to let you know what it looks like and then i'm basically done june 30th so it's been good pretty fun yeah but it hasn't been real i'll touch on my my update so that's that's thank you craig uh deanna so first thing is i'm sorry i'm not there tonight um i'm not feeling really good today and i was exposed by a co-worker to cover a couple days ago well monday or tuesday so i felt it was better safe than sorry and come and breathe on everybody two things um our district construction materials committee approved both the arts and the k5bla curriculum adoption so those will be coming to the board in the future after our review period and then

187the second thing is i we had our sexual health um parent meeting the overview this week we i was kind of surprised i thought more parents would we're going would attend but we did have 30 people in the meeting some of those were our some of our folks that teach some of the curriculum and then from that so far i've had about 12 people volunteer for the committee maybe with a couple emails maybe closer to 15. so we're going to start those meetings here um in the next couple of weeks to start reviewing the standards and then looking at curriculum and that's all for me [Music] yeah i just had a couple couple different pieces i there have been different events this week um so i just want to uh thank you great support members

188for showing up to all those senior events um and uh the curriculum uh committee meeting that deanna had i know that one of you were able to attend so thank you so much for that um we have tomorrow we actually have a treat for the students we have some seattle seahawks who are coming in and gonna do some speaking to the high school students so that should be a neat a neat deal and then of course looking at craig had said he's done there will be a gap but we're looking gap between when the new business manager comes on and when craig leaves and so we're looking at some creative solutions in order to resolve that so that's all i have thank you very much reports uh lisa um i just had a few comments

189on the comments that were made during public comment and some reflections uh scholarship night um i believe the class size this year is 227 and the number of students foster students that are opting out are 237 that's an entire class so it's the magnitude of that i don't think can be overemphasized it's a huge amount we need to address that um talking about higher level classes i know that when i graduated from foster high school mrs warner's british college british literature is how i got through law school when i talked to other people when i talked to katie elliott those are the classes that got us through graduate school she taught us how to study she taught us and i i know that's what did it for me and we have to capture and bring

190those classes back we're graduating wonderful students but can they go to college and compete in in a college chemistry class with the students that took advantage placement called chemistry and had labs and we have students that have had no lab in a chemistry class all year that's inadequate um so we need to probably consider that and implement it as soon as possible and then also we need to have a plan um for sports what's going to happen after monday who's who's the point person who's go to that needs to be addressed and taken care of and those are my thoughts thank you um well i was at scholarship night um i was quite impressed by the amount of scholarships and the level of achievement of the kids and then last night i went to baccalaureate

191it was extremely well done and um one of the planners and it was beautiful and i think next week is the thrive luncheon that we've all invited to so check your calendars he really would be excited for more than ever thank you thank you thank you i am always impressed with the um the willingness of the uh community and the parents to step forward and this world staff community parents to step forward and to share their thoughts we do have some big big issues that are are before and we do have some big decisions that we have have made and some big decisions that we still have to make and and um you know none of those decisions aren't ever easy um that's our job right just to keep moving forward and making trying to

192make the best decisions that we can so um in preparing for graduation versus our last grandchild that's graduated this year from yeah so i'm pretty excited about that and um i'm kind of sad about that too you know it's kind of a happy sad moment she's been vegetarian though and so i'm looking forward to saturday and um just moving forward but i did appreciate everybody that gave a talk let me guess who's going thank you you know i think it's great to have um you know public come in and speak on the topics that they're passionate about i think that's a whole part of this process of being not only you know small community but i think it's you know we all we all contribute to the same goal and you know i'm grateful that

193parents and and and teachers community members all the above came and spoke at not only this meeting but the last meeting but i don't want it to stop i mean they we all need to play an active role in how this school moves forward and we all need to contribute and i think um you know i think it's it's great that that they came and i hope they continue to come and invest their time energy looking at you know like the budget for instance uh looking at that looking at you all the spreadsheets that we've seen um that now i think the public is starting to gain enough interest that they're seeing i mean we've seen them for the last three or four months and now it's coming to life so i think that's good

194uh lastly i did attend the meeting on i don't even know what day it was the sex ed meeting that deanna put on i thought she did a great job on tuesday i thought she did a great job explaining it kind of the next processes um i do have and again i'll probably reach out to you tomorrow i've got a few people that are interested but again i was a little disappointed in the people that i mean i was i was disappointed in the number of people that were there um it was great to have parents and back you know staff there but again this is a you know another hot button item i guess would be the word um and we didn't see that many people there so hopefully the world will spread and

195we get more people you know to contribute to the curriculum on that so thank you for coming jason i appreciate it no problem and that's all i've got so i have one thing else i want to say and he just stood up so it reminded me that with um with all the troubles that we've seen in the schools um especially the the latest shootings in texas i was very grateful for the safety officers the trained safety officers that we have here at crossroads and i am very grateful for all all of the coverage that we have with our our trade safety officer so thank you yeah thank you yeah yeah i know that there was some debate um when initially the board chose to equip officers and put one in every building but when when

196tragedies like this occur i think that we're grateful and prospered that we do have people who are former law enforcement and on campus and there and willing to protect our children so thank you glenn and please thank the rest of the security officers as the lead security officer we really appreciate your work thank you all right with that that's the balance of the agenda we will um i guess i'd gladly hit this thing uh executives usually we the german terrorist obsession or convene sorry this said we're going to start an executive session rcw 42.30.110.1g and that's to evaluate the qualification of an applicant for public complaint or to review the performance of a public employee however discussion by governing body of salaries wages and other conditions of employment generally applied within the agency shall occur

197in a meeting open to the public and when a governing body elects to take final action hiring setting the salary of the individual employee or a class of employees or discharging or disciplining an employee this action shall be taken into meeting open to the public and we will have an executive session for uh let's do let's do 40 minutes to start with we currently have 24 24 people online are we going to open zoom back up um just briefly to adjourn yeah yeah no decisions [Music] all right and the meeting is adjourned thank you that should be about 20 minutes how