February 26, 2026 Selah School Board Business Meeting

001All of the uh board members are in attendance. Uh so I'll call the meeting to order and please stand if you're able and your remove your caps for the flag salute. All right, great. We are four here and one online. And we'll move to our district highlights. Uh we have two of those today. The first is on the John Campbell kindness counts campaign. And Kevin has some details for us about that. about that. I should know better. Um I have been in JCP numerous times when this is taking place and the best thing to see is the students actually coming and dropping off their ticket into the box. So, uh it is it is a very uh good way to involve the whole school. Uh their anti-bullying pledge as well and um obviously hoping that

002this uh this way of doing it with our some of our youngest learners will pay dividends as they go through uh the different grade levels. So, shout out uh to John Campbell um leadership staff and especially students and and parents. >> Excellent. Thank you very much. The next item on our district, that sounds really cool, by the way. Um, the next item on our agenda is a little update on the end of the season and results for the winter sports for CIA High School sports and activities, I should say. >> Yeah. So, uh, here uh, this is, uh, as you know, our our state tournaments in the state of Washington are split over multiple weekends. And uh last weekend uh well weekends ago, a few weekends ago, our our cheer team competed at the state

003their state version of the state tournament and they took fourth place which was quite an accomplishment for them. And then last weekend was uh WIAA state tournaments which involved wrestling and boys swimming. And uh I want to do a definite shout out to our student athletes uh who were very successful in their state championship appearances. Uh first of all, we do have a state champion to recognize uh by the name of DAN Garcia. DANthony is a state champion. I believe it's 106 uh weight that he is at and I believe he is a very very young state champion as well. So good things to come and congratulations to Dean Anthony. Mario Lamas fifth place finish as well. Miley Zer for a sixth place finish and Cash Burton for an eighth place finish. Getting to the

004state tournament for wrestling is quite an accomplishment. Being on the podium and receiving a medal is is an amazing accomplishment for those as well. So congratulations to all those student athletes and to our our parents who support that and the coaching staffs as well. uh boys swim. Uh Joshua Strand uh 200 meter individual medley. He took third place overall and on top of that he set a new school record. So congratulations to Josh. And we did have a uh 400 relay team who placed seventh. Uh members of that team Ian Ziggler, Josh Strand, Jack Moore, and Carter Goyne. So congratulations to them. uh this weekend coming up and starting actually tomorrow night uh will be uh the second half of the winter sports state tournaments and that includes girls and boys basketball. Uh for the

005first time in school history, both our boys and girls are participating in the state tournament. So quite an accomplishment for both of those teams. And for the girls, it's a little extra special. It is the first time that they've gone to the Washington State uh tournament since 1981. And I have to say as a student at that time, I remember them going to the state tournament in 1981. So, it's a lot of years ago. I I saw some some information that one of the former players from back in 1981 was with the student athletes the other day and probably reminiscing about that experience to them. So, congratulations to uh to the student athletes, to their families who have supported them to get this far and to our coaches and then to entire high school. So,

006there's your update. Uh we'll see how things go this coming week and uh then we'll probably have some shoutouts uh and highlights for the second half of our state tournaments at the coming board meeting. >> Excellent. Thank you very much, Kevin, and congratulations to those athletes and uh people participating in those activities. That's really great. Um, when we talk about student experience, right, as one of the um, Viking Promise pillars, that's that's a big part of it is these extracurricular and co-curricular activities. It's fantastic. All right, we're moving now to district guidelines for public comment. And I'll I'll read our um our guidelines here and then we have uh at least two people signed up and there may be some others as well. We invite all community members to address the board on an issue

007or topic. The agenda item titled suggestions comments from the audience is for any comments related to topics that are not on the agenda. The audience can also provide informal comments on specific agenda items after being recognized by the board president. Individual remarks are limited to three minutes. Patrons making comments are asked to begin by identifying themselves. So, hello my name is. Please appoint a spokesperson if the concern is a group concern. And if desired, you may email written documentation to the executive assistant to be included as part of the official meeting record. While the board will listen to all public comments carefully, the board cannot respond to comments spontaneously or without further deliberation. The board may direct the superintendent to respond to the issues expressed at a later date. Complaints about specific personnel will not

008be heard in open session and will not be part of any record of any public meeting. harassing or derogatory statements about any persons or groups of persons will also not be heard. Okay. And uh the I'll I'll read the names of our uh of our two uh public comment signups and if there's somebody else that wants to join afterwards, you're welcome to. But our first public comment is from Mary Scheler. Good evening. My name is Mary Scheler and actually I have a couple things tonight on a positive note. Um that thank you for the kindness thing. My granddaughter actually got the kindness award for John Campbell. She actually said it was pretty amazing. She was sitting here doing some um testing and math and that the principal called out kindness over the speaker award. And

009I said, "What did you get it for?" And she said, "Because that there was some kids that were crying." And she actually went and she was giving them hugs. And she said that a couple kids put her name in for making them feel warm and welcome and that she just comforted them when they were having really hard days. So that's why she got the kindness award. And on another note, the school district actually put out the STEM for YBCC. And my uncle was a chemistry teacher but a biology teacher for Eisenhower. And then he went to teach when he retired at YBCC. So I actually love STEM but I actually love steam also too. So I took my grandkids because then also a friend of mine teaches at YBCC. So there was three three things

010that I actually got when I was there this last weekend. So I wanted to come and bring them because the thing that I got from there, this first one goes out to the ESD 105 was from the Wenas Mammoth Foundation and one of it is going to be on May 2nd come up and the teachers can get their CTE credits. Um and it was for STEM but also steam supporting steam, science, technology, engineering, art and math. And that one is on the 2nd. And this one's in color. And so the mammoth guy was actually outside and my grandkids were totally excited about this one. The next one is on May 16th and it's not going out to ESD 105 is and this one's $5 for families to go out. And so this one's really cool,

011too. But the next one is actually on June 23rd, 24th, and the 25th. And it's from 4th grade to 12th grade where they can go out and they can learn um they can go dig through the dirt, they can do science, they can do everything, and it's a three-day thing on the weekend. So, I wanted to bring them all out because they can go learn earth science and I think that's absolutely cool for our schools, but for our kids to be able to do that. So, I wanted to bring these out and bring it back to our school. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mary. Appreciate that. Um, our next person signed up is Chris Rodriguez. Um yeah, hello. So to just to add to DeAny's um uh record for the season, uh DeAnthony actually

012went undefeated the entire year and went went through the gut check and he also um went which is one of the hardest tournaments on the West Coast and he actually went undefeated. Um a little notable about my first off my name is Chris Rodriguez. I've talked to you before. Um I am um a fellow uh you know fellow resident but also a longtime advocate for girls wrestling um and girls only wrestling um practices and training uh in SILA. Um one of the things that was a great thing about this year's success was Felicity Fernandez um as a sophomore and she came in um halfway during the season b on on injury. Um she placed sixth at districts um at 110 lbs. Uh Maline Null placed sixth at districts um at 125. Shayla Clark placed sixth

013at districts at 170 lbs. These girls were alternates to go to state. Um some history that was made was Gabby Gonzalez. Uh she's a longtime wrestler. She's been wrestling since she was like a baby. So um but Gabby Gonzalez was the youngest female Viking to ever qualify for WIA state. Uh Miley Zeller um is the first female in CELA's history to head to state back-to-back years. Um she went with my daughter last year. Uh my daughter Anna was the first girl to ever place for CIA High School in um in wrestling. Uh and so she her name is amongst if you go inside the Lynch wrestling room, her name is actually the only female name currently. And then I have Miley's uh little placard that's going to be going up there later too. But Miley

014and um Anna are going to be the only two females on that wall um in Linds over here. If you ever walk over there, um Miley Zeller and Gab Gabby Berquette um are the first two females in Caler Histories to qualify for um for state. Gabby was an alternate last year. And so Gabby uh was an alternate in 2025, but including the alternates, this was the largest group of females to qualify. We had we had four qualify last year. We had six qualify this year. So, um I'm uh I'm here um to speak against the possibility of combining our high school girls wrestling program with the boys for co-ed training and practices. Um as a resident of CILA, a longtime advocate for having girls only uh program at the high school. I've seen firsthand how

015our dedicated girls only program has transformed the lives and built a thriving team. First, let's celebrate the success that we achieved. We just read that since um girls since going girls only, our program has exploded in participation and achievement, mirroring national trends. According to the National Federation of State High School Association, girls wrestling has grown from just 11,496 participants um a decade ago to over 74,000 in the 2425 season. We're going to see where that number is uh this year, making it the fastest growing sport um in America. Um this surge is largely thanks to dedicated programs like ours um which provide a focused environment where girls can build skills without barriers of mixed gender dynamics. Combining them risk undoing the process uh potentially discouraging uh new recruits and causing current athletes to drop out.

016Second, consider um moving uh consider uh comfort and safety. Uh wrestling is an intensely physical and contact sport and many girls um feel more um at ease training and competing with other girls. In a co-ed setting, uh the inevitable uh close physical contact can lead to discomfort, distraction, or even modesty concerns. Uh boys often start wrestling, as we know, boys often start wrestling earlier and may have physical advantages and strength and experience, creating skills gaps um that could could intimidate girls uh or lead to uneven training. Girls might hesitate to fully engage, fear, fearing, excuse me, judgment or injury. Third, equity demands we keep them separate. Add a dedicated girls program ensures tail tailored coaching, equal matt time and opportunities for leadership without competition for boys team from the boys team. Uh merging could dilute

017uh focus on girls development, sidelining their needs um in historical and a historical male-dominated sport. We built something special here. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of advocacy to get a a girls only program at the high school. Um I know because I was a huge part of that. So just let you know. Brandon Gillespie was amazing on that too. By the way, um let's not risk it for a one-sizefits-all approach that ignores these realities. In closing, um our girls program has uh is a beacon of empowerment and growth for our young ladies here in CILA. Combining it with the boys uh would jeopardize safety, comfort, and the momentum we've gained. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Chris. Are there any other uh audience members? Thank you for being here

018by the way. Any other audience members that would like to address the the board? Okay, great. Um we'll move on to meeting minutes. Um and we have two meeting minutes as we usually do to approve. The first is the uh regular meeting minutes of the January 26 22nd um meeting uh with one amendment to it um and the approval of study session meeting minutes for February 12th. I'll move that we approve those meeting minutes. Is there a second? Great. Any comments or questions? All right. All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes signify with an I. I. >> All right. We got Joe, I think, on that one. Uh, all those opposed and abstensions. Great. Although, those meeting minutes are approved. Uh, we'll move on now to approval of the consent agenda. This is

019item five. Uh the first item in it is the human resources action sheet followed by payroll, goods and services and then a number of second readings. Um an annual policy review for title one overnight travel requests and donations. So we'll lead off with human resources action sheet. Uh and oh we have some human resources people here. I don't know who to look at. Go with Chris. >> I can go I can go ahead. I've got the HR action in front of me. Um, just to give the board a highlight, uh, at this point, um, as of today, we have a total of 10, uh, resignations on the classified side of things and eight retirements unclassified. So, a total of 18 that we've received. On the certified side of things, we have four retirements and four

020resignations. We received a a resignation today, so that will be on the next board meeting. But, so we have eight total for certificated. So, we're 26 staff members that have notified us uh that they will be leaving um at the end of the school year. So, well, so there's a few classified that that resigned middle of the year, but um this is uh since January 1. So, we had some other resignations earlier in the year that aren't counted in these numbers, but our deadline for early notification uh stipens is Monday. So, we uh we have a um an agreement with our unions and all staff that if they notify us of resignation um effective the end of this their contracted year um there's a $500 uh stipen for those folks because we need to know

021early with our planning around budget development. And then for retirements, if they are notifying us of the retirement, um, they have a thousand dollar stipend as a one-year thing that we've worked with our unions on. So, that's the update for HR action. Anything else from >> any questions from the board or >> student board representatives? We good? Okay. Um, uh, the next item is the payroll goods and services for February of 2026. Chris, is there anything there that you want to draw our attention to? >> There was nothing that I felt that I needed to highlight, but I'm always open for questions if the board has any questions. >> Are there any questions or um statements about the payroll goods and services for February of 2026 from the board? >> Okay, great. We'll move on

022to the uh third item on the agenda which is a second reading and adoption for a number of policies. Uh 21108 21106 2140 5010 6570 6920 6910 1821 and 6220. Um so a good number of those. Uh and this is the again we had a first reading on these. Some of these go back a ways including especially the one standards for individual school directors. We've had we've seen a couple of different meetings and now it's come up for a second reading uh up or down vote I guess I would say. Um are there any Kevin? Are there any of these that you want us to uh to look at in particular? >> Uh no. All the all the ones other than 1821 are the same exactly that you saw the first time uh last uh

023meeting and the probably the meeting before there was discussion and I we ended up with some recommendations by individual board members those are now within that you see those if you've reviewed that uh I think one of the areas was on uh section five uh letter E you'll see that there as well as uh a clarifica clarifying statement at the very end. So those were added based on input from the board. >> And I'll just I'll just uh mention what those are under accountability. Uh um board member patching said uh that because of the uncertainty about federal versus state laws that we strike end all laws and have complying with board policies be the statement for accountability as among four other items. And then um the addition of nothing in these standards a clarifying statement

024of free expression and disscent um which basically says the standards guide ethical conduct and professionalism not viewpoint conformity and respectful disagreement including minority viewpoints is a normal and healthy part of democratic board governance. So those things were added um just to refresh people's memory of of and struck uh on what we had had discussed before. All right. Are there any um comments or questions for the um policies coming up for second reading? >> I I have a few that I'm hoping to get some clarification on and some of the ones I just kind of disagree with. Um the first one is policy 5 50 511. I think it's the sexual harassment district district staff prohibited. I'm not an English major, but I was reading through this and it, you know, it comes down under definitions

025and it drops down to under federal and state law, the term sexual harassment may include um the second bullet point uh where it says creates an an intimidation hostile or an offensive m environment. Intimidation doesn't sound quite right. So, I wonder if it could be if it would sound better as intimidated or intimidated would be a better word. Intimidating for that one. And under the host environment, it says intimidation as well. >> I see. I see. So, creates an intimidating hostile or inens offensive environment. >> Right. >> Okay. >> That one and and has it again intimidation in the bottom paragraph under the bullet points. So for a grammatical sense, it should be in an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment. >> I I think so. I I didn't know. Like I said, I'm not an

026English major or anything. >> Sounds better that way to me. >> Better that way. >> Well, 5011. Any other comments or questions before we vote on these? >> Not Not on that one. Okay. I have one with uh 21106 copy of copy of program compliances. Uh it is actually um item I says district district is in compliance with the statutes which prohibit unequal treatment of individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, etc. I didn't see anything about what statues it's referencing. Again, whether it's state statutes or federal statutes, so I would just kind of like some clarification on that. >> And I don't I don't know the answer to that. This is under a policy called program compliance. Um, and it says annually, honor, before October 1st, the superintendent will determine if the district is

027in compliance with the following program requirements. and it lists them down through um L. And the issue you're looking at is with item I and the question is statutes. Kevin, do you know the answer to that? >> It's going to fit into the discrimination language. Chad, do you want to add anything on this one? I can show it to you. It looks like it's the the list of protected classes there looks to me like it's uh federal civil rights law is the law that they're >> that's what I'm thinking. It's not clarified in there if that's what that is. Is that's what we're referencing or not. >> Yeah, agreed. It is in reference uh to protected class. You could clearly um revise [clears throat] that to spell that out if you feel the need. >>

028Yeah, if we could just put in there if it's white slots that would be great. Yeah, it's uh I will say it's interesting that as you look through this you as you probably know that lots of the policies most of the policies that refer to legal guidance do have the legal reference below. I'm not sure why this one does not. Usually those would have that. I think on this one, if you go to the cross reference references, a lot of those have list the RCWs and the federal laws that dictate the other statutes that are mentioned above, but uh I'm not opposed to clarifying that. >> So, if I were for instance to go to, I don't know, something on non-discrimination 3210, it would refer us to federal or state laws underneath that for cross

029references. So, it kind of takes a little skip to get there >> because there there again in case there's a difference in between federal and state law, I want to be clear on on what we're doing with this. >> All right. So, um we would amend uh item I uh actually we probably would amend cross cross references at the bottom of this policy um proposal uh to include um federal civil rights um protected class language. That does that work? Okay. Uh are there any other questions or concerns about the um second reading and adoption? I again I have another one with um policy 5010 um copy of discrimination free workplace um under examples of employee discrimination. Uh item seven I have a concern with. Uh item seven says prohibiting an employee from using the restroom

030consistent with her his or her gender identity. Um, and my reason for that is gender identity is considered a mental health illness under gender dysphoria. And I just have some concerns about um can't remember the right word for it now. I just have some some concerns about um aiding someone who is having a mental health illness um by um basically letting um biological males into biological female spaces and letting biological females into biological male spaces. So that's basically my concern with using that as an example of what can be discrimination or harassment. Okay. Uh would you like to propose um alternative language or to strike that? >> I would like to propose just striking it. >> Okay. Uh where where would I don't know where we would be legally if we speaking of you know

031federal and state laws. I think both of those probably >> prohibit an employee from using a restroom cons uh or not prohibiting an employee from using a restroom consistent with his or her gender identity. I believe those are both federal and state um requirements, but I maybe somebody else knows more about that. >> We would be in violation of state law, federal laws in question with regards to that, although the uh the Supreme Court's not ruled on that. Uh furthermore, we'd be in violation of of many other policies uh within our within our school district that have already been approved by the board. So, um, the language we've got here has been, uh, gone through by legal analysis at WASDA. I can surely get you further legal analysis from, um, our school district attorney, but

032my first uh, blush of of this would be would we would be in violation of state law, potentially federal law, as well as other policies that are already approved within the school district by by the board. Chad, do you have anything to add to that? Specifically, it'd be uh WAD. All right. W Shinjin's law against discrimination. It speaks specifically to that. So striking it in itself may initially not put you in violation, but if it were to happen and it occurred, we would be we as the district would be in violation of state law. >> And and I understand it is a violation of state law. Um, and I know like Kevin said, the courts have not register not put an opinion. I believe it's at the Supreme Court. I think it went there in

033January if I'm not mist. >> Yeah, it did. You're correct. It did go in January. And it's our understanding we hope to get a decision sometime in in June or July, >> right? >> If not sooner. >> So, that's that's why I'm just wondering if we should strike that in case that opinion comes out at the federal level that it's not or that it's not considered harassment to allow that. I mean, it'll still be it'll still be covered in the policies further down, but as far as it specifically in here as an example, I'm not necessarily sure that that should be in there. And >> I I guess I would say that I would wait until we get that ruling to that we would be in compliance with federal and state law as it currently

034exists if we were to pass this policy. And once state or once federal law is perhaps changed, that might we would have to go through a lot of policies to make those amendments. And that from in my opinion, that would be an appropriate time to address um removing some of that language if it's um if we get legal counsel and if you know if we agree on that um at the point that it changes rather than prior to it changing. >> And I understand that. Um, and I'm that's why I'm not sure about the legal definitions now because that's why it's the Supreme Court because the federal government says no, that's not appropriate and the states have said yes, it is. So, they're in conflict and that's why it's the Supreme Court and then if

035it goes back to um the supremacy clause, it's like the the federal government is the one that dictates it. So, that's kind of where I'm stuck with this right here and felt if it better fit was just be removed altogether. It doesn't mean we still can't hold it as a compliance issue if it comes up like Chad suggested, but it just wouldn't be in here as an example. >> Okay. >> And I'm going to add just another aspect to this. Um there is possibility that our insurance policy uh would be voided without this language in it because >> check on that then. >> Yeah, I will. And I've I've checked on that with previous policies that are in conflict between state law and federal law. It's uh our insurance carrier has told us to follow

036state law as well as our our your attorney the district attorney is to follow state law. Um one of the one of the causes of districts uh of other related topics with regards to policy uh adoption especially in the gender policy adoption has been the most uh the one that's got the most attention. that failure to adopt that policy would put you in violation of state law, which could potentially uh cause you to lose uh your insurance ability because you're not following the policies of our state. I understand definitely where you're coming from, Larry. It's my job to protect the school district from those type of things. Uh they have been enacted by our state legislature. We are a public school in the state of Washington and every indication that I've received from legal counsel,

037insurance companies and others uh at the state level is to follow state law and until there is a change in federal law which is obviously we know that's coming potentially at the Supreme Court level. >> Okay. So we're talking about leaving it in. And I just want to understand we leave this in and the law changes in what six months whenever it is that come out and we're going to revisit this. You said we got to visit one of you said we have to revisit all of our policies that deal with this basically. >> Absolutely. We will. Yeah. because you're going to get new policy with revisions in it based on new new uh federal law that will go to state law. And and I would my assumption is if that if the if the

038Supreme Court does rule on that, uh there will be lots of language within our current policies and within current state law that we will need to look at for sure and significant revisions across the board in our policies which would then go into other means of communication that we have whether that be information on our website, information in student handbooks, all those type of things would have to be revised. Yes, for sure. My hope is that we find that information out sooner. Uh it, if you can recall, the last one that we had, a similar one was with regards to um oh the ability for um for parents to opt their children out of uh and the Supreme Court ruled on that and we didn't find out. And then we waited and waited and waited

039waited for the legal opinions to come out with regards to the Supreme Court's ruling and then WADA had to uh you know revise policies based on that or enact policy based on that and it did take a while for us to get to it. So my hope is that and we again we are far from from controlling the Supreme Court [laughter] and they'll rule when they feel when they feel it necessary. uh that it's done in a timely manner for us so we can get the information out because it will make change for sure. >> Okay. >> And I from what I hear you saying Kevin, it takes a while even if the Supreme Court were to rule definitively in June. It takes a while for the legal issues related to that ruling to work

040its way even through the state level. I'm thinking about when the original Civil Rights Act was enacted. It wasn't an instantaneous light switch. it was uh the uh that the states supreme courts and the state appellet courts we it had to work through for individual examples. So some of it's for employees, some of it's for students. Those two might have different classifications when it comes to legal authority. Um so it uh when it happens if it well when the decision is reached um it may be it may take a while for that to um filter down I guess maybe is the right thing to say. >> Yeah that's correct. And and you know sometimes we hope that the Supreme Court decisions will be clear and concise enough to trickle down to the needs that we

041have within a public school setting. um sometimes they look at those those decisions very differently uh than maybe we want them to to make it you know precise exact of what's expected of us. So that that then brings a whole bunch of other people uh legal people involved into it until it gets to us and then puts it in an accident to a policy. Obviously when the Supreme Court makes their decision at sometimes sometimes they it's automatic. It happens right then and there. Other times they do put a a time on when it's going to be expected to be implemented. So, we'll we'll wait and see, but I I do fully expect that there to be a ruling one way or another that will help move us forward. >> Yeah. U sorry, Larry. [clears throat]

042Um I've dealt with this same issue personally since I've been on the board. There are a lot of policies that I've approved that have language like this that I don't agree with, but ultimately we're dealing with the same issue that we're dealing at the federal level where federal is uh supreme to state and state is supreme to the school board. And it does make me question at times why do we even have a school board? We're closest to the people. We're the lowest level of elected government. And yet we don't get to make decisions for what's best in our school district because we're mostly dictated by Washington state law. And if the federal department of justice in some of these issues decides that it's not that important to enforce federal law within the states, then

043the states get a lot of liberty in how they um uh practice these laws within them. And so yeah, it creates uh moral problems for different people and it goes both ways. So I I agree with you. I don't agree with a lot of this language, but until um until law changes, we have to default to the laws that uh are above us. >> All right. Uh on on that issue, are there any other comments or questions about that particular policy? Larry, I I'm I'm I want to give you a chance. Do you want to make a motion to amend that or do you want to uh wait and make a motion once the Supreme Court >> Well, I want to I want to hear what Kevin has to say when he checks with our

044insurance. um because this is just um examples and not actually the codifying it. So my initial objection is to why is that in there as an example? That's it. Not not that we're going to enforce it or not enforce it. That's something different. >> So if it if it's doesn't have to be in there because of insurance purposes or something, my vote is to take it out. >> Okay. So, we we will I I I'll if it's okay, I'll have a a vote on these policies and procedures. Um and um we can vote yes or no on whether we adopt these policies and procedures. Um and then if we want to change them based on what our insurance company says later, uh we can bring that motion back to the floor. That's okay to remove

045that item. >> That's what's fine with me. >> Um and I I appreciate um the sensitivity that people have to this subject. It's definitely, you know, a very um uh u a very complex issue and um I'm glad that we recognize that as a board um and are are being careful but also um you know stating what we believe as well. So, all right. Um are are there any other items on the uh agenda for the um second reading and adoption on the policies that have been listed? >> Oh, I just have two more. >> Yeah. >> Sorry, Derek. >> No, go ahead. Okay, the first one I just have a question on and it is 21108 um the copy of the learning assistance program which I think is a good program it sounds like

046when I read through this my my question is is this going to cover because it's if I understand correctly it's def it's it's dispensing funds to help students who need um counseling or whatever towards getting their grades up but it doesn't say anything here what the limitation ations might be. So my first place I always went is like, okay, would this be something that if a kid decides, well, it's going to help me from my school grades to have counseling outside of school hours. Would our policy cover that? Would we be forced or to to pay for those counseling or would it be their insurance? >> So what kind of things does Lap cover? lap also known as learning assistance program is for students who are not um meeting grade level expectations or standards. Okay.

047And so there is funding that comes to school districts based on those who are not meeting uh the standards. Um to answer Larry's question, I have it has not been my experience to have that be a responsibility of the school district to provide that level of counseling for an outside entity. Uh more specifically and probably one of the number one reasons why is we have that service within our schools already. Um if it let's say it was a middle school counselor, there are three middle school counselors at the middle school plus a mental health professional that would be able to step in and provide those services if if requested. >> I was just I was just curious because it doesn't have any like set limitation on it just like is this an open-ended thing that

048somebody's going to request especially when with the budget cuts and stuff that we're that we're looking at facing. We we do have families request and we do have individual students request counselors and counseling support um that that could lead to their academic be a possibility of having the reason for their academic difficult difficulties. So yeah that I mean that's realistic that students do reach out to our counselors as well as parents reach out and ask that their child are provided counseling services as well. Do we have a a resource list we can give them for counselors outside the district to go to? >> We do. The counselors have that as well. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> The la the last one I have Yeah. Um is >> 6220 um copy of the bid

049request um proposal requirements um and it's down under furniture supplies and equipment. Um third bullet point down number three. Um, it just says, and I'm confused with this, so hope clarification. Me if I have it up here so it's easier for me to look at. >> Larry, can you say that what what section you were referring to again? >> No, it's under um it's section one, procurement and public works using non-federal funds. And then item A is furniture, supplies, and equipment. >> Okay. >> And then there's three bullet points. And then the last bullet point where it says over 75,000 it has five at least the one I have it has it has five five numbers and I'm looking at the third one. Um I got to bring it up because I can't read my

050own writing once I highlight something. >> Ensuring that the district takes steps to asssure that when possible the district will use small or minority businesses, women's businesses, enterprises and labor surplus firms. >> Yes. >> Okay. So my and I know that that that's a recommendation from the state and the state uses the same process. They always look to use minority and small business and women's own businesses. Um my concern where is where it says will use. So at some point will we be stuck paying higher higher for those materials as opposed to another business that doesn't meet that criteria? >> Go ahead, Chris. >> It does say when possible. Um, anything over 75,000 we do go to uh competitive bid and we would go with the lowest responsible bidder. I think what they're saying is

051when possible you'd want to go that route, >> right? And I don't I don't know. Again, it might be nitpicking words, but when possible is subject to, you know, if we say, "Well, it's not possible." And the business says it is possible. >> Yeah. >> Now you guys got to do that or now we're going to go to court over it, >> right? Yeah. So, I mean, if we could just rephrase in a way um may or or give credence or wait to or something like that so we're not locked into policy states. >> I I think the will is dictated by state law. >> I think so too. I was just going to say I can look up the state law on that if you want to table it. It's fine. >> Okay. So,

052>> yeah. I just want some clarification because I I know from working for the state >> the trainings we had are all the same thing. We will give precedence to them if they meet certain requirements in the same way but it doesn't say we will buy forward from them. >> Okay. And so we will uh the if with with um we'll we'll table that if that's with okay with other board members until we find further clarification on whether that's a state law or whether we have any flexibility on that. Um we'll pull 6220 from the uh agenda um policy um consent agenda until Chris gives us some more information about that. >> All right, we good. Right. Thank you, Larry. Derek, I think >> the only thing I want to add is uh I'm I'm

053good with everything else on the consent agenda, but I'd like to um vote on 1821 separately. >> Great. Okay. Um let's uh let's move on and we will we'll vote on everything except for 1821 um and 6220 which has been tabled. Um we'll vote on 1821 separately. Let's move on to the annual policy review for title one. Um, and Kevin, uh, would you like to take us through that policy review? I'd be happy to. This is annual and ever since that I have been a superintendent and that the district has received title one funding. It annually comes to the board for their approval. We need to show the board approve the title one policy in the minutes. It's also part of compliance that we have. Uh not sure that involves a state auditor. I know

054that it does involve the review from OSPI that we do. Uh when they come in and check that we're in compliance with with things like this and so they look at the board minutes to see that it has been approved by the board. This is not anything new. I spoke in speaking with Christy who who is uh the one who is in leadership of this policy on a day-to-day basis. Uh she mentioned to me that there is no changes uh in it from the last time the last time the board annually approved it. Um and that if you had other questions she'd be happy to answer that. The title one there are three components of it. uh parent and family engagement annually uh title one plans again annually and budget set aides which are annually

055and she as she states they're all involved with compliance with receiving title one funds. So if we if we accept title one funds then we're saying that we're going to comply and do these things. >> Great. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments about the annual policy review for title one 4130? And these are things we're already doing. Okay. This is the first time hearing of this. So that's what is what is title one specifically? So just title one is a federal is federal funding and it's for students who are determined to be in poverty. And so the district receives federal funding to support the learning of those students >> for a specific purpose. >> Yeah. Their academic purposes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a big part of Christiey's job is title one um

056um allocation um and federal funds coming from that. Any other questions or comments for the title one review? All right, we'll move on to the overnight travel request and there are three of those. There's a HOSA state Spokane uh conference. Um there's an FCCLA state leadership conference. Both those are in Spokane. Are they at the same time? Are you guys going the same time? maybe not no different time. And then uh the last one is the state flora culture uh conference. I believe that's an FFA uh conference that's happening March 13th and 14th in Snomish. Are there any questions or comments about the overnight travel request? Okay, good luck to all of those students. I hope those are those are uh uh um uh growing opportunities for everyone. The last item on the consent agenda

057is a donation uh for the Sila High School metal shop, a virtual welding uh a piece of equipment and technology that's coming from Perry Tech by way of Kevin, can you tell us how it ended up in CILA? [laughter] Yeah, we make we make some good hires and and sometimes those good hires pay off not only by what they do on a day-to-day with our students but their uh their past their past work experience and uh Mr. Sorenson here um used to be an instructor at Perry Tech and so he still has connections with the folks at Perry Tech and um that in a roundabout way led to a virtual welder that was not being used at Perry Tech and finding a home for it where it was going to be used and that's how

058it ended up uh with our students being able to use it. So, it's a great donation. It's going to be a great piece of equipment for our students to be using. >> Excellent. I'm just looking at pictures of what those look like online. That's kind of cool. Kind of a augmented reality kind of computer system that they've got there. Great. Okay. So, um Joe, how we doing? Any questions or comments? I don't mean to leave you out. >> No, I'm I'm good. I'm with you guys. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh all right. So, uh I move that we adopt the consent agenda or approve the consent agenda. Um accepting items 6220, which we'll table for our next business meeting. Uh and accepting 1821, which we'll vote on separately, standards for individual school directors. Uh I

059move that we uh approve the consent agenda is oh and inclusive of um the uh grammatical change uh that Larry pointed out earlier uh to be included. Okay. Uh is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Second it. >> Great. And all those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify with an I. >> I. >> All those opposed and abstensions. All right. The consent agenda passes. We'll move on now to 1821, which is standards for individual school directors. Um, and this was something I mentioned earlier is something that has, um, been slightly amended since the last time we looked at it. Um, to include a statement for further board members that, um, dissent uh, is is welcome and healthy. And this is not meant to, um, um, to stifle that descent. Um, and uh

060for Larry's uh um um taking out of the words uh and laws and just have it be board policies. Uh and um some of that is some of what we've just discussed here tonight. Um are there any comments or questions about 1821 standards for I'll move that we adopt 1821 standards for individual school directors. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Right. And any comments or questions about 1821? >> I think we've had discussion before on this one, so might as well just vote and get it off the table. >> Okay, great. Um and um I'll I'll just call right now for a vote. Um all those in favor of passing 1821 standards for individual school directors signify with an I. I >> I. >> Okay. All those opposed with a nay. nay >> and

061abstensions. All right. 1821 passes standards for individual school directors. Uh, all right. We'll move on now to um a couple of issues that uh the board wanted to have a conversation about um that are uh I guess you would say um assessment issues uh in the middle and high school grading scale as well as acceptance of late assignments. We've been given some study session materials with um explanation of standardsbased grading uh grading scales and late assignment policy. Um I I we have Hunter here with us this evening and and maybe what we can do is um Hunter could and anyone else could help answer questions for us. Um and I I think this issue was brought by Derek. So Derek, are there questions that you want to ask Hunter or anyone uh or any comments

062you want to make about middle and high school grading scale? We'll start with that one first. Or maybe I don't know. >> Yeah, I'll just I'll just reiterate why why I brought these to the board and it's because um I mean I've been harping on test scores and I know that there are people in the community who are concerned about that and we hear um from our presentations that test scores are not an accurate measure of student performance. But what we're seeing is not real great. And so I'm just rather than complaining, I'm trying to come up with solutions on hey, how can we raise the bar for students in CILA because um like our students here are they're successful students at CILA. They're not disadvantaged by what's going on. They're taking the harder classes.

063They're doing the harder thing. But there's a large group of students below them who are being disadvantaged and not getting the rigorous education in my opinion. And so, how can we just set higher expectations for everybody um to try to raise the bar and um make sure that they're ready to move on after um in a more uniform manner. And I I think uh as Superintendent McCay pointed out, we've had the standardsbased grading now implemented for over a decade and it doesn't appear to be working. So maybe we should look at something that may be changing course. Um, and so what I really what my propo proposal is with the grades is to go to a standard grading scale from 6th through 12th grade. So, um, and get away from the standardbased grading. So, we're

064not having some of our teachers using that and some of our teachers using, for example, the college in the classroom grading scale. Um, and then, uh, acceptance of late assignments. I know that there are, uh, policies and state laws that dictate what we can do there. Um, but how do we encourage our students to have a higher standard on performance and being timely in their submissions while catering to the the minority of students who need the exceptions? Like I understand there are exceptions and we need to allow those, but for most of the students, I think we need to raise the bar ac here in the district. And so, and then I guess probably the third thing is if um some of the testing we're doing is not indicative of student performance, uh maybe we

065should investigate. Do we have to do those? And is there an alternative that would be a better indicator? I'm I'm just trying to increase um the reputation of the school district out in the community and and you know obviously try to help the students as well feel like they're going to be successful after they graduate. >> Great. Thank you. Derek Hunter, could you maybe talk us through so it was 2013 2013 when we moved to standardsbased grading. What's the philosophy behind that versus the grading system maybe that the college and the high school uses? >> Sure. I mean, I think we all the adults in the room all grew up on uh 90 90 to 100% 90 to 100% is an A. Uh 80 80 to 89 is in the B range, 70 to 79

066is C, etc. Uh standardsbased grading is something that has been in place in elementary for long time. It's it's a one through four scale. It's how all of our rubrics are based. When the Common Core State Standards came out, that's when standardsbased grading for secondary became more of a emphasis um what what was found was there's a lot of students um and this is this is not necess but students that had the skills um but they didn't they didn't have the the points like they could pass the end of course assessment they had all the skills they might need uh they had all the skills they would need for a class but they didn't necessarily uh turn in their assignments or had the grades but they had the skills. It's also what's led to the

067state adopting uh competency based grading uh which is something that is I believe part of state uh policy now. Um so with the easiest way to explain I think for both of the the subjects that are brought up um would probably starting with the the late assignments. I know right now at the high school there's three essentially deadlines for each trimester. There's two midra deadlines. Uh they're about three weeks apart. Anything after the each deadline, late work is not accepted. It's it goes in as a zero. Um so there's a a midri deadline about a third of the way through the trimester and then two-thirds through the trimester, end of trimester, there's no other late work accepted. Um I checked with that with Mr. Monty today to see if is that the current policy in

068practice. Part of the reason why they've came up with that system was in previous procedure uh with our school uh school proce uh procedure was it was written that no late late work cannot students cannot be dinged for turning in work late uh and that was revised this September but it was already in student handbooks. So, that's something that um I think having more it's something I think I I'm in agreeance with having more deadlines um being more firm and official for students uh could be beneficial. Um and it's something that we could have more frequent uh deadlines that are built throughout trimesters for our students. It's something I think we've heard our students say as well um when we've had students come and share and I think that's why they added an additional midtry

069deadline um this year compared to last year. Last year there was just one partway through the trimester. Does that make sense? So I'll stop there on on the the late work that any questions around that or >> Well, there's the kind of the philosophy of um if they can prove that they can do it, that's great. Let's not worry about when they turn their homework in, but also kind of the sensible part of it, which is that there got to be deadlines at some point. impress you probably that's that's a lot of work for teachers to keep track of when things are being turned in and keeping kids on pace with everything else. So there were we've shifted a little bit more towards deadlines. Is that correct? >> Yeah. At the high school there's three

070separate deadlines that late work is not accepted. Anything before that deadline once it passes is it's not accepted. >> And how about at the middle school? middle school. I'm not exactly sure where what they've done a lot of work around their grading this year with having a new principal and trying I know they they have tried to align to make sure the middle school's grading practices is similar to the high school because it was pretty v it was pretty different um coming into this year and they did a lot of work this fall. So, I know they're they're basically lock step with the high school now in regards to their grading and conversion uh and how they convert to letter grades and then and I would assume that their their late work policy is similar.

071>> They try deadlines for for late work. Do instructors have the authority to implement their own stricter deadlines? >> They don't. They do not have the authority for stricter deadlines, but they do have the authority to be a little flexible depending on the students. >> Yeah. I think anything stricter we would want to do um districtwide and not have it be uh teacher specific. >> Imagining a syllabus laid out and you're a third of the way through a trimester. Anything up to that third of the way turn in at that >> that's the that's the current practice right now at at the at the high school. Yeah. So um finding that perfect balance of what is what is reasonable and also is not too too firm. Um we could do where it's within a week.

072Right now it's basically three weeks and we have a mid-tri deadline. Three weeks the second midri deadline and then three weeks and it's the end of the three to four weeks end of the trimester. >> Athletes are held to a standard with it. >> Correct. >> Their stuff on time. >> Yeah. Correct. >> On time because they need the grade for that week. >> Right. >> But I wonder do are how do instructors feel about having that more blacks I mean do they get just bombarded at that >> they get bombarded at those at those mid-trial deadlines and it's a lot so I if in in my opinion it wouldn't necessarily my my decision but I would having um more frequent deadlines I think would uh within like a week's you know have a every

073week everything you can turn thing up within the last week but um would be I I think would be a happy middle ground it still gives some flexibility to students it doesn't overwhelm whelm uh teachers they were they were a lot more overwhelmed when they just had one mid-try deadline previously just halfway through a trimester having two has helped a lot it it's a yeah you know students are like I can turn this in >> manage >> yeah well so >> right well and yeah space practiced is the right way to do it as well so if they're doing everything all at once you're not getting that space practiced in as well um so there there is uh it's a bit easier to adjust deadline um late work assignments than it might be to adjust

074uh standardsbased grading if we were to make a shift as a district. Um maybe you could explain a little bit about uh why we shifted or or what it would look to go to. >> Yeah. And that was it was a little bit before my time here at least uh in the district office role. I know there was a standardsbased grading uh committee that worked for multiple years to develop the system they have now. I think it was formally decided the practice that's in place now at the high school uh was in around 2021 is when they uh change from the they more traditional grading to this um or at least it was schoolwide. Um so a lot of that was doing what does the research out there say what's best for for for showing

075students learning uh within standardsbased grading. Um it's when we went away with from extra credit policies um where kids are just chasing points and not necessarily caring as much about the learning. With any major overhaul change like this, it's also hard. It's confusing to to to families when we've all been trained. A 90 is an A. Uh a 50 is an F. Um but on a one through four scale, a two is 50%. That means you're still showing some proficiency. A three is showing you're at grade level. that's a 75% that shouldn't be a C. So there was a lot of discussion around that team of how they came up with that conversion because it's also state law that on the official high school transcript we had to put in letter grades and letter grades

076mean a certain amount of GPA points. So if we were to look at this I we would probably need to pull together a grading committee together again and bring this up as a as a uh what are what is currently happening with our standardsbased grading? What are the pitfalls? Is there anything uh in the in the middle ground that might help? I know one thing they've been working on um uh kind of increasing is the 21st century skills around responsibility like all all this the soft skills that we usually call um that are not academic necessarily having those having more weight which turning in late work late those types of things uh being more of a part of a grade that might might be the the middle ground that the the I think the teachers

077I've heard from them say that they would appreciate as well. So that would be my recommendation as we pull that team together if we feel like this is something that's that's urgent. >> That that's a a group called employability skills I think at the high school level. >> Yeah. >> Durable skills you might call it something like that. >> So So I I think the teacher should have the freedom in the classroom to dictate when their deadlines are for their assignments. They should come up with their curriculum as long as it's compliant with policy and law. Um so I don't want to take that freedom away from them. I'm just saying like if your deadline is Friday, then unless there's some reason for you not to turn in your assignment on Friday for that, say

078an English essay, then it needs to be there. Um because when these kids go off to college, when they go off to work, Ricky might find this a little bit ironic with me, but [laughter] um but for the most part, you don't get any liberty, especially if you go off to college. Um and I learned that in my first semester at college, they don't care. Um your professors don't. And um but my what I want to ask is so if if is it correct that a 45% can be a C minus right now? >> Yeah. Because a 45% would be a a a two uh a little a little less than a two on uh on so they have a one one and a half two two and yeah and so it's uh it converts

079to what would be our lowest um credit bearing grade which is a C minus. Um, but it's based off of off of the standard. It's not off of total. It's not saying you got 45% of the questions correct. It's saying on this standard of the qu what we asked of you, you're showing um you're showing some level profic proficiency, not at grade level all the way proficient, but you have some that would say, yeah, in we would say you understand this in some ways. So that would be some credit. >> Yeah. And and that's probably where I struggle with this the most is that say you get a 50%. Well, that's a 2.0. 0. Well, in no college is that a 2.0. The only way that that is is if uh college the college course

080grades on a um on a curve, you know, and of course, we know that is a peer-to-peer grading system. However, they decide to grade on the curve. But as far as a gross score, I just I I I really struggle with that and I know a lot of parents do as well. >> It doesn't sound like it is gross score though. Is that right? >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Grow Can you explain what you mean by gross >> Sorry. gross percentage. So, for example, if you go and there are uh 10 questions on on a test or a quiz and you get seven of them correct, that's 70%. That's the system that we all grew up with and we understand. But, um what you're saying is that you can go and get five out of

081the 10 questions correct or whatever that standard is that the teacher is asking and that is actually a 2.0 or a C. Yeah, it depends more on like um if all the questions if all the questions are on the same standard uh or or if there's one question for each all 10 questions are all different standards, they would be different grades for each individual question. That makes sense. Uh because the standards have so many parts to them. Um, so we we we don't necessarily want in standardsbased grading, it's not recommended that you're asking the same standard multiple times on an assessment because if you can show that you're proficient in it on a few different ways of asking that question, you're showing proficient. You're showing proficiency. So the idea would be that you would um

082you're grading more on the actual standard rather than the the 10 total questions that might be asked. >> Yeah. So, I'm I was just in here [clears throat] taking some notes and then thinking about the seniors that we had here the last meeting talking about their experiences here and about the um the difficulties of figuring out for the college classes that we take college standards, but the high school classes high school standards. and how that can be confusing because you have two different gradebased standards at the same high school and then you throw in if you're an athlete and you play football or or tennis, right? You got to all of a sudden you got to hand your stuff in weekly when you're involved in that sport, but as soon as it's done you don't.

083And then um you have we had one before. So the teachers got hit with all this extra work and the the teachers that I hear feedback from it's like they would it's more of an effort for them like you said they get slammed or somebody said they get slammed right. So all of a sudden they have this ton of work that they have to dig through and figure out especially ones by the end of the quarter. So, this sounds like a very confusing system already in place because depending on if you're an athlete or not and athletes are below the poverty line as well, there no, you know, it's not the the higher functioning kids or the ones not in poverty that play athletes. There's all kinds. And so, they're they're trying to juggle this

084standard as well. Um, and I I would have a hard time doing it in high school. I don't know if if I'm the only one in this room that that feels that way. And so it seems like it would be better overall if we had just one base standard. And I know somebody had mentioned that turning in work late according to the standards I have in front of me are no consequences. But you were talking about going back to consequences for late work whether it's half credit, third credit, whatever. Some consequence I feel needs to be done if you hand in work late just to encourage work to be handed on time. it would make life easier on the instructors um and get and and help set that policy of like, okay, we're going to

085make it so everybody gets their grades in on time, whether you're an athlete or not an athlete, whether you're a college taking college classes or not, so that everything is balanced and the same. >> Those are the things I'm hearing. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Sarah or Joe, do you want to uh add anything? I I'm very much on the side of timelines. I I agree with Derek in that sense like if you know in college those standards are gonna students are going to be held those standards in in the real world when you have a work assignment you turn it in you get it done when it needs to be done. So I'm I'm I'm a little bit of a stickler there too. I mean and I I agree. I think it probably it

086keeps everyone accountable, teachers and students alike. Um, and so that's kind of where I lie. I think, um, if something's due on Friday the 27th, then turn in on Friday the 27th. >> Thank you, Joe. Um, there I will say from a college perspective, it's very much up to each instructor. So, some have paths to redemption. They're sometimes called. Um, sometime if it's due Friday, sometimes they'll give them until Sunday to turn it in. Some are very flexible like our our policy is here which is can be confusing as well I think. Um but I see students adjusting to those various contexts. I'm kind of curious from our student representatives how do you feel about adjusting to these different contexts as you as you move through the system? Um, I think one thing I've really

087enjoyed while going to school here is that a lot of teachers have their own rules on their late work policies and just like their like work policies cuz in my English class it's you have a week or like a week or two to revise your essays and then they have to be turned back in or you don't get to revise it at all. And I think if I genuinely just think it should be up to the teachers. I mean, having a schoolwide policy would be difficult because you have math and math is diff way different than revising an English essay. Um, so I just think it should be up to teachers or just departments in general. Uh, I'm kind of on the other side where I would like a more streamlined approach because it can

088be really confusing as a student when you're held to different standards and then also when those standards aren't weighted the same. like an A for a college level English class or um or a TA class or PA PE class, they're weighted at the same. So, I think that if the board and the school district was looking into changing the grading scale, I think you should also really consider changing the weight of classes because like in my TA period right now, I have 100%. But the amount of work I do for that is so minimal compared to when I'm taking a college level calculus class where there's tests weekly and um exams often. So I think that that's another kind of issue that students are really frustrated with um especially those who are taking higher level

089classes. So if you were looking into us, I would think that that's another huge piece of the puzzle that would be have to be considered. >> So waiting the GPA, other schools do that. We've chosen not to do that. Um, once you go apply to college, by the way, they have their own systems for waiting it. So, they throw ours out and they have their own policy. Um, but that might incentivize some students to challenge themselves if it made their GPA different um from other people maybe that didn't take that challenge. Aliana and Miriam Miriam, you take college classes, so you may have a perspective on this as well. Um, I'm in both the college and high school classes as many of us are. And I I feel like both uh points of view can

090be looked at differently and can be recognized. I think that grading it based off like um what the class type is like English math could be beneficial, but I don't think that would uh be helpful to the majority of students because if you have an F in math, that could very differently affect um your competency in English. And if they're weighted at the same thing, then I don't think that would be fair. >> And Miriam, how about you? What's your experience been with uh um homework policies at the college? >> Well, like just talking about like deadlines in particular, I've had like even since middle school, like I've like it's just drilled into me like I'm like if you have a deadline, you have a deadline. You get it done in time. Like like I'm

091trying to think like in Monasuri, so this is sixth grade. So I'm like it's you're you're young and what they do is you they give you all of your work at the beginning of the week and say it has to be done by the end of the day and like you don't get like like sometimes it's big projects and so you have to work on it and you have to get it done. So I don't know like just growing up even my parents have always been like you get it done like when it is due like you have to make the time and like I'm involved in sports and like I have a bunch of other stuff going on and I still find the time. So, I think having those strict deadlines is really helpful,

092especially transitioning like from high school into college cuz I mean I haven't gone to the high school, but like it's like it seems like there's not like just talking to other people, it doesn't seem like there's a bunch of deadlines that you have to like be like like that you're thinking of all the time, but there is in college. Like that's a big part of the stress in college. So, yeah, I think >> Thank you. I I really appreciate your input. We all appreciate your input on that for sure. Um maybe if we could we have a a um round table coming up with middle school and high school principles in the spring. That might be a nice topic for them to to us to answer ask questions of them and get a better sense

093of maybe what they see in staff opinion. Um and then go from there. Is that >> I think that'd be great. I uh like I said, I wasn't I haven't been involved a ton in the grading practices of how they currently come to play. I just know what I've heard from from teachers, from our admin, and also from our students that I I definitely think firmer deadlines is something I think would benefit our students. It would lighten the load on our teachers. Uh the standardsbased grading uh change is not some is something that I think needs more more input from the people that are doing it. Um, and I I but I'm also super open to to change it, but I just don't want to speak for the people that are actually implementing it. >>

094My guess is you'll get a mixture of opinions uh about that. Some people like standardsbased is really good for um it it addresses some equity issues for families that maybe um struggle to have homework uh done at home and so forth. Um but uh other people are concerned about the accountability of of what happens in class. So, uh, if we could maybe have that as a topic when we when we meet with the middle school and high school principal. I see Kevin nodding his head. Um, okay. >> What else? I know this is discussion has been uh one that's gone on for a few months and it's good to finally get to where we can have you can have the discussion uh amongst yourselves. What is it? Are there things that you would like Hunter

095and I to do to continue moving this topic that you brought forward as a board and now have discussed? What is it you want us to do? And and you don't have to answer right now, but um one one suggestion of placing it on to to hear from the principles at the round tables. Yes, that I think that's what else or are there other things that you think would be beneficial to you um that Hunter and I can work on in the coming months? Uh, I can tell you that I would like to see a system more aligned with the college courses that we're having here, similar grading scales in place um to make things more uniformed because like I said earlier, everything seems pretty scattered here and there depending on who you are, what

096you're doing, what sport you're in, things like that. And it gets confusing. >> Yeah, it's my understanding also and and this may not be right. just questioned a little bit about the college and the high school grading scales is that they differentiate there is differences in the grading scales based on the content area of the college in the high school class. So for my own personal knowledge, I want to be able to see what those differences are. So if a student's taking a calculus class and they have a grading scale that looks like this, what does it look like for an English class? >> Right. Yeah. it. I'm not necessarily saying it should match >> pace for pace. We should get as close to it as we can. >> I know I know the University

097of Washington 111 and 131 classes, college and the high school, which I don't think we use anymore. We're at central now. Correct. >> But they were standards based. Yeah. >> So it it it really does vary. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I would agree with that. I mean, if an 89% is deemed an A minus in calculus, but it's a 92% in English, that that's close enough that I'm okay with that. um what where my issue is is where a 75% is an A minus. Like I just it doesn't compute to me. And so so I think just making that those scales uniform and bringing it uh more in line like Larry said with the college expectations would do a great service to our students. I mean ultimately we've we pushed a lot towards CTE and

098college in the classroom um which I've come on board with. Um, but maybe we could have a syllabus for each class with week one, week two, week three because that would align with college a lot more closely and and um and and then we put it online so parents can see it. That way you don't have guys like me coming to the principal saying, "Hey, why was my kid shown this video in the class that I object to?" And we could go back and say, "Well, you know, it was online on the syllabus that you were able to review." I think there are a lot of problems we could solve. Um it would take a lot of time and I understand that. But once it's there, I think it would solve a lot of problems

099in the community and ultimately when we're looking at funding for levies and bonds, if we can raise the reputation of the school district, um it makes it a lot easier to go to the taxpayers and ask for money. So that that's also part of the reason why I'm I'm trying to raise the bar. And I I guess I would say as Larry has pointed out, we want to make sure what we're doing is researched uh backed. Um so um and and has teacher input. Um yeah. And that we hear from the principles. >> Yeah. So so moving forward for me the next step. It's not to move quickly. That that's not my goal. It's to have the discussion and make sure whatever we implement is like Dan said researched, well thought out, and that it's

100going to be successful. Um and so I think for me the next steps for you would be to go and get input from the teachers and the principles. Okay. >> Yeah, that was my my thought was to pull together a a district um secondary grading uh committee and and look at what's out there. Whether whether what do secondary schools do I I know a majority of high schools uh actually Kevin and I talked about this today. Only about 10% of high schools do a standardsbased grading. Uh I also know that some in our West Valley in particular is moving their secondary from a traditional grading scale to a standards space. So I think there's some schools that we might if we were to change we'd be going uh opposite of some schools. So that's why

101I want I don't know enough about it to say this is what we should do or know we shouldn't be move changing. Uh but I don't want the experts in the field both locally and see what's out there before we make any decisions. So I appreciate that it's not something that we want to change by [laughter] by end of the year. It's >> and I know I know ex kids when they they they perform better when they know what's coming when they have outlined um even the kids that like that I worked with in the past when they're struggling if they know an outline of like this is my day this is my week this is my month this is the work I have to get done this is the test by this date this

102even if they don't get it done they seem to at least make more of an effort to get it done. And that's what concerns me with all these different t dates and times and standards and things like that is is you take a kid who struggles and all of a sudden he's got to keep track of all these different things. If he's going to go like why I can just I I can just hand this in whenever I want or still with and even if I don't matter because all I need is a 45 and I pass. And that's the last thing I want is the kid to lose heart because he doesn't understand because he's got all these different things he's got to put together. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. One last point.

103>> Yeah. >> So, as the board, it it's your policy and you do have a policy, okay, that guides the work 2420. And if you haven't reviewed that, I would encourage you to do so as well as the procedural part of that because that gets into what you know are the actionable things that are going on in the schools. So I if you haven't taken the time to review those, uh please do. I also included information within the packet of information you had as well. If you think there's other areas that Hunter and I can gather more information for, we'd be happy to do so. Okay. 2420. It's called grading and progress reports. >> You mailed it to us earlier. >> Yeah, >> it's part of that packet, Larry. >> Um, so at CIA High

104School, we have this like boot camp thing. It takes both it takes place both in like the fall and the spring, I believe. Um, so would taking away the late work policy also take away the opportunity for students to like turn their incompletes into like a somewhat of a C-grade probably. >> So sort of a grade retrieval program or credit retrieval program. I imagine that would be this is why it's a big ship to turn, right? We would bump into some of those issues. >> That's one of our most of our interventions at the high school are built around uh grades. um we don't necessarily have uh because we have so many different course offerings it's hard to have a metric that is common ac across so grades is something we intervene on pretty consistently

105boot camp is one that teachers uh at certain specific times I think we offer it twice a trimester now at the mid- trimester deadlines to say which students do you have that um they're they're far behind uh but they if they were to come in and work um for a sustained period of time after school would be able to to to still earn earn credit and and earn a C minus. We have some students that there's it's not realistic um where even with boot camp they're not going to get a passing grade. They're going to fail the course, but there are a pretty good chunk of students that do that intervention is uh does it get them to a passing grade. So I that's I don't know the answer to that question. If we were

106to change uh in regards to that we'd have to it would change in some some regard, but my hope is that we'd still have some type of intervention for students. Well, I I I think standardsbased if if we continue that way or we change it, if we've been doing it for a number of years, it's helpful to communicate why we're doing it uh to the public as as uh transparency and trust. Um and it does take a little bit of explaining standards does because it's not what we grew up with. All right, let's move on to uh item number seven. Um we have a resolution 2026 recommendation or excuse me recommending construction contract award field turf northwest Tarquette Sports. Um Kevin, would you like to uh talk us through the Oh, Chris, would you like

107to talk us through this? >> We We've both been pretty involved with all of this. We're excited to bring this resolution before the board tonight for approval. Um this is a recommendation to accept a base bid with two alternates for the Sila High School turf project. So, the um contractor uh Field Turf North America, Target Sports, we build turfs how we refer to them. Um this resolution uh would approve a total contract amount of 2,10167423. So, we're asking that the board approve this resolution tonight. And this is coming through the King County Cooperative. So, we get a little better deal on the the because it's um it's not a bulk purchase, but they're a bulk purchaser. So, we get some discount. >> We were very pleased at the difference in the total cost of the

108contract by going through KCDA. It was significantly lower. >> So much so that what we had early talked about maybe having to put some capital money towards fencing, we think now we can cover that capital expense. >> Yeah. Fantastic. All right. Um, I move that we approve the resolution 2026-1. Um, is there a second? >> Second. >> Are there questions or comments? >> So, this is our all-in price without the fencing. Is that correct? >> With the fencing. Yeah. So, just as a reminder, we were looking at three and a half million and now we're looking at 2.1. So, >> and and it also includes the equipment to maintain the field. >> So, are you going to have them throwing a track for that extra [laughter] be great. >> Great. >> All right. Uh, all

109those in favor signify with an I. >> I. >> All those opposed. Abstensions. All right. Resolution 2026-1 passes. Hey, that's our first resolution for the year, right? Hey, nice. We've launched. Uh, all right. We're here for the student board representative report. We've reached item eight. Uh, let's start with the junior board representatives. Is there anything you'd like to share with the board um from the past month? >> Long pause. All right, let's move to the seniors. That was my deadline right there. That was it. Miam, >> it's okay to say no. >> Yeah. Yeah. uh be thinking for next month what you want to talk to the board about. Uh Claire and uh Charlie please. >> Okay. So, um when we had our student panel here, um we got onto the topic of like advisory

110and students talked about how like they thought it was really important and um at now at the high school there's um been this thing going around about the possibility of next year um students who are enrolled in three college in the classroom classes in one trimester will be given an option to take a study hall as uh one of their class periods for the day. And so I'm not really sure like how far along in the process that is or um if that really will be something that's approved in the case. But um I know all my friends who are also enrolled in a lot of uh college courses were like wow this sounds like a really fantastic idea and like we would have loved to see this because currently now like you you can't

111simply take um a study hall. Uh so I think this would be a really great opportunity for students and in replace of that advisory because it would be students who are using this time responsibly um to get their classwork done. So that was something that sounds really exciting and I'm excited to see where that goes. >> We'll call it the Charlie Miller honorary study hall. I remember Charlie especially spoke out about needing that advisory period to catch up a little bit. Yeah, >> I really do think that would be a really great opportunity for students and that gives a full hour, especially for student athletes. Um, I know I've had a lot of trouble trying to fit in two practices in a day as well as five full like classes. I think like three of

112those ended up being like college classes in that trimester. Um, so I really do think that would be a great opportunity and way for students to be able to meet deadline policies and to be able to um maintain good grades. Um yeah. >> Oh, I also want to talk about um did you um syllabuses that were brought up and um as a student I think having a class syllabus is like probably the most important like the most helpful thing at the beginning of a trimester. Um we have one teacher at the high school, Mrs. Thompson. She is a fantastic English teacher who is really um setting students up for success in college. and um she lays out clearly at the beginning of the trimester all the due dates for and clearly all the assignments and

113essays and um as a student that is just so helpful. So if there was a way that high school could implement that teachers are required to give syllabuses um out to their students. I know that that would be um like an extra burden placed on teachers, but in a way I think it would also help alleviate some of the issues of coming um to with too much work um students turning in too much work late and um as a student it's just super helpful to see that clearly um and I think that would be a really great thing for students to have and teachers. >> Thank you Claire. Other any other thing any questions for our student board representatives? a great job. Thank you. All right, we'll move on now to the next item, which

114is an update uh on the Viking Promise 2.0. Um and uh the to go back just a little bit in history, we've we've sort of altered it to make it a bit more simple and streamlined. And one of those areas that's seen the most change is through the student experience, I don't know, pillar, if you want to call it that. Um and we have a board presentation here of the Viking Promise 2.0. I'm not sure who's presenting on this here. This is Hunter. Okay, great. Hunter, would you like to talk us through these slides here? >> Yeah. So, I'll go through just the visuals and kind of where we're at. This has been an interesting process having never done led something like this before. Um, so I'm learning a lot in regards to graphic design.

115And so, uh, as you all the top of this, this is our our current draft, uh, visual. It's already changed since, uh, actually yesterday. today. There were some changes to it. Uh you can see that the Viking Prom is at the top and the four pillars are at the bottom. Rigorous engaging classrooms, future ready, student experience, and family and community engagement. One of the things that's already changed is on my screen, the blue and the text read really well, but um as I project you, you can't. So, I've already changed some of the color schemes so it you can actually read it. So, this is the the some of the graphic. We're going to tweak get some feedback around this. Um this is what we started with. This is encaps encaptures that this is the

116whole Viking promise. Uh and then breaking broken down by pillar. Rigorous engaging classrooms is the one we spend the most amount of time put our focus on. Uh future ready just to give you an idea of what the visuals look like a little more clearly. Uh student experience and how we define that. Uh and then family and community engagement. So there's where the visuals are at the process. So you guys all know where we're at to date. So last year I was kind of given the the charge to uh embark on the process of revising the Viking promise. It started with getting stakeholder feedback. What made sense? What doesn't make sense? What's missing? Uh and overwhelmingly there was too much in the initial Viking promise is what we heard from people. There was seven different

117pillars. Uh they were all they they were all interrelated. So it was a little confusing and it wasn't really there wasn't any clearer outcomes with it. So we condensed those from seven into four with the new one being called student experience that encapsulated some of the ones that we condensed. So that was in the spring of 2025 and we have a a definition of what student experience is now that was um kind of created by multiple different groups. Then in August of this year you saw the the released the first graphic of what the Viking promise was. uh through uh this fall into winter, we've gathered input from different stakeholders on what uh what next for the Viking Promise. It can't just be visuals. So, currently what we're working on, what we've heard is as

118I I've worked with different groups, both students uh families and staff, especially a lot from our administrators is uh we don't want this to be just visuals. We want this to be something that we are working towards. So, right now we're currently developing three-year goals for each pillar within the Viking Promise. I'll talk a little bit about that now. And Jen, can you move Joe out of the top right corner just so I can make sure I'm missing? There you go. Sorry Joe, you were blocking my text here on the screen. Um, so, uh, about two about a month and a half ago, we asked our admin team to dei to begin to develop goals for each pillar. Uh, and what that came up with was more like frequency goals. Uh so we had to

119come back to that first draft of goals that they they developed and and said we really want these goals that uh for the pillars to be student outcome goals. So an example of that in in rigorous engaging classrooms they were writing goals for how many times um teacher feedback was given or how many times they they went to did walkthroughs through classrooms and u whether it was a thousand for a year. Those are great strategies but they don't necessarily like to what end is that. So, we're pushing our teams to come up with student outcome goals. So, as of right now, we have first draft academic goals for rigorous aging classrooms that are tied to improving our academic scores. Um, I'm I don't have them here because um they're not quite finalized yet and they're

120not pretty, but I I I'm going to bring them here so you guys can see what those are. Uh math specifically at the second at the high school level is something that I asked our our high school team and they were they didn't need to ask them. they already aware that needs to be a goal for them. We need to improve our math data at the high school. Uh the goals, how we're going to organize them are uh by grade bands, K through 2, 3rd through 5th, 6th through 8th, and 9th through 12th. The reason why we have those bands is one, our schools kind of fall lay out that way generally anyway, but also we're assessed differently by the state um and how and we're graded differently by the state depending on what grade

121band we're looking at. So actually the third through 8th are assessed weighted uh through the school improvement um frameworks the same and the high schools assessed differently in regards to the how they are u graded as a school. Um so when finalized the goal would be that the goals are all aligned K through 12. It incorporates all the school improvement frameworks kind of the grades that we get as a as a district for each school and it's organized through the Viking promise. That's the end goal. Um, so our next steps is we're going to continue to refine the rigorous engaging classroom goals. That's our first pillar we're working on. It's the most important. Those are going to be the academic goals. There'll be some academic goals probably in other ones too, but that one's going

122to be the most meaty academic goals. We're going to develop student experience goals um specifically around attendance. Attendance is from my perspective something that we need to improve as a district. I think it will also help improve our academic goals. So we will you will see academic goals for regress engaging classroom. We'll also see attendance goals for each building for our district uh improving for the next three years. And then we need to develop future ready and family and communication goals. Once all those are finalized, my vision is that we would post those goals uh onto the website and have interactive links within the visuals and not have them have just be infographics, but you can actually interact with and have each of the words within each pillar have a different goal that you that

123will expand to an interactive link. So, um that's where we're currently at right now. We're we're developing goals and we'll bring those for feedback once they are a little more um complete and then also gotten feedback from from different staff members uh or different staff groups and we'll bring them here for you guys to review. >> Great. Thank you, Hunter. Are there questions or feedback for Hunter from the board? >> This has been a very interesting process. I will have to say Hunter Mitch started that at the beginning and and I echo that. I think what you see now is a different vision than we may have once had and and we're now going past just having something that looks good with some great educational wording on there. We're going to student outcomes. Uh we're

124going to evidence. We're going to goals with trying to attain a certain level certain percentage if that may be whatever that is to be determined. But it's once we got clearer on what we were doing and we got away from the seven pillars and started to look at four pillars, it it it helped us take this to the next level. And I hope that I hope that that is what you're hoping for as well. This this does serve as your strategic plan as the board of directors of where the district should be going. Um, so the the latest part with really getting set on in including going away from like Hunter said the actionable things that we're doing and really focusing on the student in outcomes is is is what we we are we have

125now realized that's really where we should be going instead of all the other stuff that's involved in the Viking promise >> there. At one point we had sort of look fors when people were doing classroom visits. Will that do I hear us going a little bit away from that or will that be part of >> So we still use those looks fors consistently when we go into into walks but what we're finding what what I think I'm most excited about is we're going to have something that we can say this is what's important to us as a district. This is the areas we need to grow in and here's the progress we're making towards it. Uh because right now what we kind of get we get hit from all sides of what whether people think

126we're doing a good job or a bad job or they're indifferent about it. It can be something to say this is based off of feedback we've heard from the school board, from our administrators, from our students. These are the this is the data that we say we think is really important and it encompasses all parts of what school is. We can say this is um this is what we're focusing and it gives a little bit more accountability for when I'm working with a team or any of our administrators are working with teachers to say remember our our goal is this. This is why we're doing this initiative versus having it be just um strategies. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Hunter. Appreciate that update on how things are going. And it's been it

127has been um years in the making and it's been I don't know. It's been not for us. It's been kind of fun to watch it shift. Uh so I I appreciate all the work that's gone into that. We we certainly all do. Uh we'll move on now to the uh item number 10, which is the associate superintendent for district operations. Um, this is uh enrollment staffing projections, enrollment update, and financial status update. >> Excellent. I think I'll go through the the quick the quicker ones first. And this this presentation is not going to take a long time. We want to give you an overview tonight. Um, we'll come back at the March study session. Kevin and I will be providing more information about what this means to us and how it's um being used in

128our budget planning for next year. But I'll start very quickly. I know you all were in um included in the email from the auditors, the state auditor's office about our entrance conference because we've been in the midst of our audit here for the last uh few weeks through their planning and now just they completed fieldwork yesterday. So uh we good news I met with the auditor this morning on a zoom call. Our audit is very clean. Um they have a couple minor recommendations but otherwise uh we passed with flying colors which we appreciate very much. The federal uh program they audited is our nutrition program and that no recommendations there. So it's very good. So they will be in the next couple weeks they'll be scheduling an exit conference to go over the official results

129of the audit. You'll all be invited if you are interested in attending. Otherwise, well, either way, I'll be providing just the highlights to the board at the next business meeting once we have the final um report from the auditors. >> Great. Good. Great work on getting clean reports on those. That's that's terrific. We love hearing that. >> All right. Uh next up on the enrollment update, this is the February enrollment update. Uh you saw in the email that I sent out to the whole district that we saw an increase of 3 FTE from January to February. Increases are always good and not decreases. We always look forward to that. When you look at February 25 through February 26, we had a total decrease of 48 FTE. Um, as we know, we we're seeing an enrollment

130uh slide a little bit decline. Uh, and then as of uh February, we're 20 FTE over projection. So, that's that's a good thing for the district. We staff to our projection. We're 20 over. You figure every FTE is worth $10,000 from the state. We're funded on our year-end average and we're sitting 20 over right now. We'll see a little bit of a slide through the end of the year, but Kevin and I both think we'll probably land around 10 over projection, which is actually awesome. That's where we want to be. So, um, that's the enrollment update. Any questions on that? You can see on the linked spreadsheet where the the increases and decreases fell across the district. All right. Okay. The last uh quick update before I get into the projections. uh our January financial

131status report. You can see there that uh as of January, we're 41.67% through the school year. We've received 37.3% of our budgeted revenues and expended 40.6% of our budgeted appropriations. So, we're sitting pretty darn close. We lag on our revenues a little bit. Um we still have uh authorizations for some grants coming through the state. We just got one today, but uh so our our collections on those lag a little bit. So that's not uncommon to see a 2 to 3% difference in where we're at in the school year to to that. So um we're slightly under the expenditure projection. So we're we're actually looking really well. um January aortionment report, and we'll talk more about this at the study session, uh came in favorably for our special ed program, our transportation program, um and

132our CTE programs. So, we're seeing more revenue coming in than what we budgeted. We're serving more kids in those areas, so we're driving more funding, and so that will help our bottom line at the end of the year. So, we'll talk more about that at the study session. Any questions on those reports before I move into the projections? Yeah, I'll try to be coordinated with my own screen and that screen. All right, we'll dive in. Oh, dive in here. Um, just the the first slide here will show you our overall enrollment. Um, we've gone over this several times. You can see there that the 2627 projections on the far right. you'll see a decline from this current school year uh which is projected to be 109 FTE lower than where we're at um or what

133we budgeted for this school year. So you can see our small well I'll get to the the actual you'll be able to see it closer here. So we project enrollment using a and I'm for Larry's benefit we use a cohort survival method. So really it's looking at the survival rate from one grade to the next. We run it two different ways. We run it on a six-year historical um average. So, we're looking at equally weighting the last six years. And it looks at how many first graders make it to second to third to fourth. So, we run it on a straight cohort and we also run it on a weighted cohort. And weighted looks at the last four years with the most heavily weighting, the most current um years so that we can see it

134both ways. And we start with those projections and then we we sit down and we go through the projections. I go through it with Kevin first and then our cabinet and we massage the numbers based on where we're where we're at right now with our projections. So we also look at um factors such as the birth rate. We look at the uh private school. The only private school we have in CIA is Agopy land. Um they have very few students uh there. So we really haven't been impacted uh to any length by like St or Lal St. Joe's um and those. So that's an a good thing for us. Okay. So the projection, this is a lot of numbers on here. So just overall, this is the straight cohort survival projection. So you can see

135there over six six years in 2021. That's a five-year average because of COVID. Uh but on the far right is where we landed with the straight projection. And I'll get to the summary page, which makes it a lot easier to to look at. This one is the weighted projection. So on the far right is what uh we come up with for a weighted projection using that four-year look back. And then this is the summary page. So you can see both the weighted and the straight there on the far left. Um those uh projections we take and we come up with that tan u middle column where what our end result of what our 26 27 enrollment projection will be. Um, I ran these projections in December. Each month when the enrollment comes out, I go

136back and I look at where we're at and I look at what the the model produces to make sure that um, typically if you have a big swing one way or another, it could impact your numbers. So, we want to make sure we don't want to revise it. Normally, I revise the projection in February if it's needed, but we don't need to based on the numbers. Um, this is a comparison with the 2526 projection. So you can see there on the far right are the differences. So starting at the top with uh kindergarten, we're projecting and kindergarten's really um you know thinking about where are the numbers coming in each year. It's probably I hate to say it this way, it's it's a little bit of a crapshoot at kindergarten because we don't have a

137cohort to look at. But we've been pretty accurate in our our projections. We're dropping it again because our class sizes coming in and kinder have been lower. So, we're taking a conservative approach with kinder. They're 15 down from the projection this year. John Campbell is 39 less than they uh we projected this year. CIS is 30 less. Uh middle school's 31 and high school's 14. So, just as a reminder that the middle school, grades 6 through 12 are really they're the largest classes that we've talked about this. Um so, every year one of those larger classes is leaving us and these smaller classes are coming up. So that's what's driving our declining enrollment. Um so and we'll talk more about this at the study session. So that's one 109 less in in a projection than

138we have this year. And this next slide is just gives you where we're at as of February. Um just more for if you wanted to compare what our projections are next year for fourth grade, say compared to where we're at right now in third grade. Okay. So, we did run the projection out to 2930 because we wanted to see the impacts moving forward or what the projected impacts are. We will be losing uh we're going to be in an enrollment decline for a while because these larger classes are moving through the system. So, you can see there out to 2930. So, if you're looking at uh 2425, we saw our first decline at 52 FTE. This year we're projecting a decline, which we probably won't be at 63 because we are running over projection. Next

139year looking at, and I'm going across the bottom. I know it's hard to see with that across the bottom there, but 109 for 2627, 75 for 2728, 68 for 2829, and 119. So you're really looking over a 4-year period um looking at a total decline of uh over 5 years. So we are preparing and the biggest thing that we need to do to be fiscally responsible is to take a look at what that produces in staffing and try to keep up through attrition on making reductions across the district. We're 84% people so we have to do it. We have to stay up with what the projections showing us. Um, and again with the staffing projections. Oh, sorry. Oops. >> All right. So the staffing projection reminder those enrollment the enrollment projection drives staffing. So we

140again we take a look at the enrollment projection we look at staffing projections and that's where we start our work with our principles and our directors to um try to align those. So, as we work through these last few months of the year, and of course, when the final legislative budget comes out in the next couple of weeks, we'll be looking at if there which we don't expect any changes to the funding formula. Normally, we would look at that. we would make updates to our project our projections for staffing and we would amend accordingly um based on those changes but we're not going to see any changes on that from what we're seeing on the two budgets that are the house and senate budgets that came out. Okay. So with that um this slide is

141just a quick reference in our teachers or or how the state funds us at these different levels. So the factors come into play when we're looking at our staffing projection. K3 at 17 to1, 46 is 27 and then 78's 28.53 and 912 is 28.74. We have slightly different factors for our CTE programs and so on and so forth. But those are those are the that's the allocation model. So we um as a district you get so many staff allocated to you and then we as a district make the decision how the staffing is made up but we do have compliance requirements for K3. If we don't meet that 17 to1 for the K3 band then we don't get the full funding. Um and we also have with our our counseling and and this and that

142you have to meet thresholds or you don't get your full funding. So those are the things we look at when we're staffing for this. Um so this slide will give you it gives you the the actual projections for staffing using that projection for 2627. You can see for the buildings on the the last four columns to the right you'll have a certificated FTE generated and then and then the actual. So as an example for kinder we're generating 15.662 662 FTE for teachers and we have 15.857. So we're slightly over staffed there at 0.195 FTE. We had a a a resignation that we didn't fill this year. So they actually were running under projection this current school year. So the impact is not as much there. That that 15 FTE that they're uh the projections lower

143for next year would have driven more of an overage if they wouldn't have been under this year. If that makes sense. John Campbell. I won't go through all the schools, but like for John Campbell, we're uh we generate 31.921 and the actual is 34.892. So we're just under 3FT overstaffed at uh John Campbell Elementary. So you can see down the line there on the yellow column on the right that every school is overstaffed. So to total about 10.2 two FTE over which drives which is make it's about $1.3 million that um is what that calculates to. So what we've been doing is meeting with our principles and going through a lot of conversations about how we can accomplish reductions and looking at our attrition. It's really been uh us waiting on the attrition coming through

144and saying okay how does that we have a hiring freeze going. We are not posting in any positions. We're looking at, okay, this job's now open. How can we um make changes within our system with other staff so that we don't have to go out to the outside to hire? We need to find the reductions. That's our our project right now. Uh this is the classified side of things. You can see same same oh sorry same concept is the with what's generated and what the schools have on staff. You can see that we are overstaffed uh across the district with the exception of the high school for classified. Our big challenge here is we do staff um mainly hours for duties at our elementary school because we our basic yet allocations aren't enough to handle

145all the duties that we need to have for supervision. So we are our interest right now is to really take a hard look at the duties uh the funding for duties and also just for the basic education side of things in the buildings and see where we can find um reductions to help us uh try to balance that. So right now if you look at the total at the bottom we're 88.75 hours a day over um for the district and that equates to about $712,000. So we're working on on those conversations as well. Um, this slide gives you what our our teachers contract uh, negotiated contract requires. These are the class- size targets. If we if any teacher goes over other than the specialists aren't included, PE band and those, but if they go over

146these uh, numbers, these are the caps, then they drive overload pay and the contract specifies what that looks like. Chad's the one that's involved or in uh in charge of going through those um all the class sizes in the district twice a year and then he determines any overload pay that teachers will receive for that. And then this just is a re it just reiterates what our uh budget timeline looks like. Um, one thing that I need to add in the March uh, date here that I hadn't updated is we do have a budget study session coming up in March. So, um, I'll get that added, but otherwise, we're moving through our process. Um, a lot of conversations going on right now, waiting for the final legislative budget. We pretty much know what's going to

147happen there and we know what what our work is. And so we're going to bring back a lot of information for you at the March study session and have those conversations about what our next steps are. >> Great. >> Uh I think we're on the question slide. Is that right? >> Yes. And and just to kind of reiterate, there's going to be a much more um much more conversation about this, especially at our next is it our study session or at the at the study session in two weeks or so from now >> um to kind of think about what the plan is. This is more or less an update about >> setting us up for that further conversation. Yes, >> understand it. Okay, great. Are there any questions or or comments for Chris this

148evening? just a real quick uh comment. So, it's it's kind of a positive that we are getting a little bit smaller classes because when we had that architect's report last year, um from what I remember, we have a certain the state dictates how many students per square foot we can have at the high school today. >> And so, I think we were either 10 or 12 students above our square footage aotment at the high school. And there's been discussion about that over the last couple years that how do we make it bigger? Well, we are expanding it. Um, so that helps, but also we'll be well under that with the decrease. Now, the problem then is that we lose funding and we have to cut people, but hopefully it's slow enough that it'll just be

149through attrition. So, I don't know that there's a major problem there. >> It's a nice silver lining there, Derek, for sure. >> Yeah, thank you. That's great. >> We like that. >> Thanks, Derek, for the positive. We appreciate that. But, uh, yeah, you're I you'll get a little bit more into the so-called weeds of what we're doing, um, on the study session so we can have great interaction with with some of the some of the items we're considering, some of the ideas just to throw things at you and see what you think. >> Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate all that work, Chris, and your team. Uh, >> definitely. It's a team effort. >> Yes. Yes, for sure. Um, superintendent update. Great. Uh, now we are uh we are about to head into Oh, board

150of board communications. Excuse me. Board communications. Anyone uh have anything they'd like to offer for the good of the order? >> I I just have a question real quick. I've spaced it off and had to write it down. Um, so I was I was told that the soccer team is now going to be playing at Soozo for this year while the field is getting done. >> Okay. Do we know um it's like I know the the parents have to go pay to park and stuff over there. Are they going to have to do that for this season? >> This is only competitions that will be over there. We have the practice area between middle school and the space that's a available. So there's I think six contests. >> Yeah. I I've not heard about that,

151but it brings up a good point. >> Uh if there's going to be pay for parking required there. I don't believe so, but I will definitely check in. I know when I I know when I coached over there and both when I went and saw we had even the coaches and everybody had to pay to park there. So, I don't know if I don't know what the contract was for us to go there um like what it costs or if the the parents are going to be required to park or if something was all wrapped together. Those are those are my questions because I find >> those are good questions. In fact, we can we'll go back to the to the contract and and we can ask follow-up questions with them to see if we

152can get free parking during those contests to part of that contract. So, >> I guess I my other question when I first heard that was why didn't we use the middle school football field? >> It's not a regulation soccer field. Not big enough. >> Not wide enough. >> Okay. >> No, believe me, I was thinking the same thing. [laughter] >> No go. >> That's what every That's what the parents when they brought this Yeah. like did you know this? I was like no. It would also we'd have challenges in regards to our track and field as well. >> Yeah. So, >> I figured it was something with the size of it. >> Yeah. It didn't didn't quite work out. I know. That's what I was thinking toward some other location. But Soozo's the kids are

153going to get get a great experience playing on Soozo and they get the for the younger underassman get the opportunity to play on turf which they're going to then be able to play on, you know, for real. So, >> great. Any other board communication? >> Just real quick, I want to thank everybody here for the extra discussion regarding the grading and this um deadlines. I appreciate that. I know it took a lot of extra time tonight um and also with the policies. So, thank you for all your extra time with that. And then also to the school board representatives, one one thing I've really noticed with you and I want to thank you is that your attendance has really been excellent. I think I've been on the board for two years. Um and you've been

154as a group have had the best attendance of any student uh rep group and so thank you. >> Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Um I I I'll just thank Sarah uh and Brian at the CIA Intermediate and CIA Middle School for hosting Sarah and I um for board uh tours and and visits to the buildings. I have one more to go and I'll complete my bingo card for the year. So I've got Cila High School to go, which is funny because that's the one I used to go to all the time. But um uh I'll probably go there tomorrow and then I'd like to try and go a second time to each of the schools. So I'd encourage and challenge our board members to make sure that they make those board visits to the schools. They

155love It seems weird because as a teacher I would be like, "Get out of my classroom." They love having us come in there. I feel kind of funny about it. I don't want to bug them, but they're always so nice to us when we go there. Um and it was great seeing friends um working in those schools, and it's just fills your heart when you see the kids. Um it just I don't know you you walk into the school and you realize how hard the job is and how wonderful the job is at the same time. So it I I I encourage you to go and get a a good dose of uh a nice feeling about CIA schools uh by going there. Any other board communication? Joe, we good? >> We're good. Yeah, I

156got to get moving here, but Kevin said he's going to call me for the executive session. >> Great. Thank you for joining us, Joe. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you all. Talk to you soon. >> All right. And we are going to adjourn to an executive session. Um so we will suspend the meeting for I'll say half an hour maybe is probably a good time to shoot for. We'll be back at 7:03 to uh conclude the meeting. Obviously uh members of the audience don't have to stay and the uh uh uh school board members uh the student representatives don't have to stay either. Thank you all for coming and we'll be back shortly. Hey,