001the four board members that are going to be here this evening. So, we will uh call the meeting to order. Stand and remove your hats if you're able. Great. Uh let's see. Our first item on the agenda is uh a couple of district highlights. Um and uh Kevin, we'll let you take it away. >> Sorry about that. Forgot to turn the mic on. Uh some of you are probably aware of what's called a white cane awareness day. And actually, we had a study session the morning of the planning for that. And uh we cleared the parking lot um for that event. I want to recognize that event because it is an event that is probably for many um within our community uh an event that goes unnoticed and I think it does deserve some notice
002and that's why I um worked on making this a district highlight for today to bring awareness to what goes on here. I the credit needs to go where the credit is due and that is to Britney Valikoff. Uh Britney is our teacher of the blind and for low vision vision learners and so she has a lot of responsibility in bringing this to fruition. I want to read something then we have a short video to give you some insight on what took place. On October 9th thesa school district proudly hosted our 11th annual white cane awareness day event in partnership with the Northwest Association for Blind Athletes. This annual celebration is a highlight of the year for students who are blind, low vision, or deafb blind across our region. This year we welcomed 34 students from
003eight school districts across the Yakimo Valley ranging from kindergarten through 12th grade. Students participated in a full day of adaptive sports, team building, uh parolympic style activities designed specifically for blind and low vision athletes. Uh activities included tandem biking, gold ball, and audible auditory frisbee golf. All designed to promote physical activity, confidence, and meaningful social connection. One of the most powerful aspects of the event is watching students connect with others who share similar experiences. For many, this day provides a rare opportunity to build friendships, push personal push personal limits, and celebrate their abilities in an environment designed with their success in mind. We especially we are especially grateful for the community of volunteers who rode tandem bikes miles after miles to ensure every student had a chance to participate as well as adaptive star who
004generously provided adaptive biking equipment for students with significant mobility needs. This year we also had a successful location change moving the event from the middle school to the district office grounds. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback on this transition as the space offered improved accessibility and functional ability for our day's events. A big thank you to the DO staff for their flex flexibility in making this space available. It's a highlight each year to host this event and I am continually reminded of the incredible support we receive from our community and school district. Each year we hear over and over from our families and staff across the reason how thankful they are for CILA in bringing this event and championing students with vision impairments. So that was from Britney to you and to the public to recognize
005uh what what happens here annually each year. And now a short video that she and Lincoln Nan put together uh about what transpires uh on this day. So that we definitely look forward to each year. It brings students from across other districts here and uh Britney is right. The highlight is watching the students interact with adults and interacting with their peers from other districts and and developing those friendships. So uh personally thanks to Britney for doing this. She is the reason why this happens and she deserves all the credits. So just wanted you to be aware of that as a highlight. It is truly a district highlight for our district. I'm going to jump right to number two. And uh the month of October is recognized uh across our region, state, and nation as a
006principal month. And it's a good opportunity to to spotlight the work of our principles, our assistant principles and principles. Uh Heidi Diner has been sharing a lot of this information out on social media. She put this together just for tonight to make sure that everybody has a name uh to the face as well as the positions they hold. And so we're in our school district, we are extremely fortunate to have this team of of professionals lead our schools and the work they do and and the appreciation they should re be receiving not only during this month but throughout the entire school year. So >> thank you very much. And we do definitely appreciate I'll say I do definitely appreciate the the work that went into that white cane event. It's just the definition of equity
007is that students get what they need to be able to be successful. um and obviously our principles. We uh were led by some really outstanding individuals. So um thank you to those those people uh at the helm of those schools. Um and uh while it's October, it's the spotlight on them this month. Um but they do they do great work really year round. So uh thank you very much to those to those teachers and those principles. All right, the next item on the agenda is uh public comment. And I believe we don't I'm just checking with the last person that arrived here. We don't have a public comment this evening. So, we'll move to the approval of the meeting minutes for September 25th and October 9th. Uh I move that we approve the uh regular
008meeting minutes for the September and October meetings. Is there a second? >> Second it. >> Great. And is there any comments or questions on the uh meeting minutes? Okay. Excellent. Uh all those in favor of approving the minutes signify with an I. I. >> All those opposed with an nay and abstensions. Great. We will move on now to the consent agenda which is a series of items that we um will approve or not approve as a unit. Um starting with the human resources action sheet. Uh moving to the payroll goods and services. A number of first readings of policy updates. Um, a little bit on overnight one I think overnight outofstate travel request. Overnight and out of state travel request. Um, some supplemental contracts for certificated staffs. Um, and the last one, item G on
009the consent agenda is the cancellation of warrants. I don't think there's a lot on the human resources sheet. Is there anything we need to >> Oh, I was just going to say it's it's pretty light tonight. This is probably the lightest HR action sheet we've had in a long time. >> It really looks like a record. Yeah. It's nice to know though because we are staffed up as a district. Um so we're we're happy about that. >> Yeah, very very stable uh staffing levels at this point. And for payroll goods and services for October 23rd, 2025, >> I just have one highlight tonight. Um, just to reemphasize a point about rising costs, we have our uh liability insurance uh billing in this payroll goods and services for $8,647. Um, just as a reminder to the
010board, this is one of the areas that is increasing exponentially um over 40% in the last three years. So, just wanted to highlight that bill. um we have to have liability insurance though and it is it is higher. So just wanted to highlight that one. >> Great. Yep. Among uh several different things that we've seen a a drastic increase in. That's that's one for sure. Um the next item on the uh consent agenda is a series of policy updates. I believe all of these are first readings if I'm correct. So, we will have a chance to review these over the course of the next uh month uh and then have the second reading in the vote on adoption or not adoption for these um policy updates starting with uh 6220 um and ending with um
011uh uh policy update 5000 which has to do with recruitment selection and evaluation of staff. Kevin, is there anything there that you want to um draw our attention to specifically? >> I'm going to turn the first one over to Chris uh with regards to 6220. Is that correct? >> 6220 bidder request for proposal requirements. Um the changes the threshold changes that are listed in the the uh changes in this policy are federal procurement requirements. They're under the uniform grant guidance and those have changed and we're required to change our policy. So, >> and then I'll jump in with a series of them. Uh, in your policy review for this month, which is attached there, I there are one, two, three, four, five, six uh six policies that are a result of WASDA's work and updating
012um board of directors standards for all school boards in the state. And so those all result and and they're all revised except for one and one is a new one and that is 1821 standards for individual board members. So as board members I that would be an area over the next month that I would definitely take a look at those. What is how have they been revised? Um, the other one that I would uh encourage you to take a look at is not a policy but a procedure and it's procedure 2020P. It falls within course design, selection and adoption of instructional materials. Uh if you're aware of the Supreme Court case that was over the summer with regards to opt out for religious reasons, this is the procedural language that would go in to abide
013by that Supreme Court case. So it's important that you you know um that it doesn't fall in a policy actually. It actually falls in the procedural part of that language. But you'll see that you'll also know I want to make sure that um Hunter and his team is uh at work for a form uh to uh go with that. So parents when they feel the need to opt out, it goes through the explanation and the form that is needed to verify that. So >> and uh this is a result of a Supreme Court case that was decided I think earlier this year. >> Last summer. Yeah. >> Last summer. Okay. and Hunter the idea will be that they'll have several different forms or one form with several different options in it. >> Uh that's what
014we're working on now. So currently we have about five different forms that uh for different types of optouts for surveys, refusals, for state testing um for just attempt to homeschool and then this. So we wanted to make one form so it's not a a family filling out four or five different forms. We could do it all in one also. So our administrators who oversee that process that they are not trying to navigate between four or five. So we're trying to merge language that way it works for as be consolidated as as possible >> and there are some challenges at the classroom level about how this is all going to operate. Will the forms help kind of smooth that process? Yeah, it it'll highlight that um because we're we're not aware of some some of the
015things that people want to opt out is a whole content area and that's uh that's that would be then more of an intent to homeschool. If it's a specific activity or uh uh lesson that's a little easier, but we can't predict whatever what is in every single text within a student might interact with within a within a school year or throughout their schooling. So that's that's what we're trying to tease out uh in the opt out form is to be specific as possible so parents are aware of what they are choosing to opt opt into or opt out of. >> Great. Thank you. Are there any questions other questions about that issue? So like always when you get policy and first reading you do have a month uh to provide you know if you want
016additional information um if you want to uh talk about how obviously the procedural how they're going to be implemented within the schools or within the district. This is that month period to be able to do that before you go through the formal adoption of those. And I spoke with Kevin yesterday as a kind of a premeating to this meeting. That's that's the worst kind, isn't it? But a meeting for the meeting. Uh and we talked about um policy 1820, which is the uh board um self assessment. And I couldn't remember, it seemed like at one point we were going to do a board. Did we do a board of self assessment? Did you remember doing that, Jamie? I remember talking about doing it. I can't remember if we went through that process. So, that might
017be something that we'd we'd want to um especially uh as as the new year comes around, that might be a good thing for us to come back and look at. Uh along with um 1821, the standards for individual school directors would be ones that I would I would hope we can um pay a special attention to. Okay. Uh our next item is overnight and outofstate uh travel requests and we have Dominic Declair going with some DECA students. Is that to Belleview? I think is that right? Heading over to Belleview for DECA. And then uh certification of supplemental contracts. This is something that we do yearly. I would say annually. It's not more than annually I don't think. Um annually what we do is uh in September every year our executive director for human resources myself
018we sit down we write all the supplemental contracts. 98% of these are driven by uh teacher contract. And so we work with principles throughout the summer to nail down the people that will be receiving the supplementals based on their positions and the responsibility level. Example would be a special ed teacher that has uh an IEP, a case load where they have to write IEPs. They have to have fulfill the case manager responsibilities which are outside their contracted day. That would be an example of a supplemental contract that those teachers would get each year. Um so there's several things with our nurses. They're required to work so many days in in August before school starts and so many days in June after school's out. So they have a supplemental contract to fulfill the responsibilities on both
019ends. So those would be two examples. You can see the rest are spelled out in detail in this document and we're recommending board approval of these supplementals for this school year. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions about those issues? The last one is the cancellation of old warrants, which means we are avoiding checks that weren't cashed. Is that correct? Also a kind of a bookkeeping issue. >> Yeah. Um, this is another annual one that we bring to you guys. Um, any of our old staledated warrants that haven't been claimed, we reach out to these folks and try and get them to void reissue, but some of these are minimal in dollar amounts, so they just kind of hang out there. And so, we're required by the state to turn it over to unclaimed property after
020a certain um time. >> Great. All right. Uh, all that's the uh full consent agenda. Uh, I will move that we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? I'll second. >> Great. Is there any comments or questions on the consent agenda that haven't been asked? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify with an I. >> I. All those opposed and abstensions. Great. All right. We now get to hear from our student board representatives. Do we have two our both of our junior student board representatives are here. or two senior board representatives I think are probably running right now, right? Or or eating oranges after a race maybe. Uh uh uh do you have anything you'd like to add this evening about how things are going with the high school or any
021other comments? [laughter] Good. Marian So what are some of those ideas, Marian? Because there are probably other students that are in, in fact, I know because I have some of them, other students that are in a similar circumstance. What sort of things can Running Start students do that will keep them involved with uh high school? That's a really good idea. Yeah. Excellent. The candy especially is a good a nice move. [laughter] Uh okay. Um thank you very much for both both of you for being here and as always I I talk fast and we sometimes move quickly. If there's anything you want us to slow down on if there's any questions you have, please uh uh stop us and and add your feedback. We really value your feedback and any questions you have. Uh I
022think you're probably asking questions that other people have as well. So, please feel free to uh to do that. Um all right, we'll move on to kind of the meat of the uh of the meeting tonight, which is the um executive director report for student data and information. And Hunter's here with us tonight. We've all been um sent probably I don't know it's been a maybe a couple weeks ago might have been right after our last meeting the um PDF report uh of the data review from um the teaching and learning department uh on 1023. Uh Hunter do you want to uh give us some of the highlights of it or draw our attention to any particular slides? Yeah. So, I mean, I started off with enrollment just to both total enrollment and I wanted
023to highlight that it's that's our current headcount. It's not necessarily our FTE. So, enrollment looks a little higher than what you've probably seen from what Chris has maybe presented in the past, but it does give a snapshot into um how many how many kids are actually coming through our building, especially at the high school level where enrollment is split between different programs and such. Uh and then I broke that down by some of our demographic and I hope you guys keyed in on how our demographics have changed somewhat over time. Uh one I really I highlighted was the last uh kind of program or demographic was our Mckin Vento number. So I've talked to you guys in years past. Mckin Vento is our homeless uh students. Uh it's called McKin Vento. Um that number has
024continued to rise. Uh currently we sit at 88 students that are qualified uh as homeless students in October. Uh and that is uh what we typically see is in October it usually almost doubles by the end of the year. Uh last year we ended with 94. Five years ago we were at I believe it's 20 20 students and but it's been creeping up each year. And the reason why I want to highlight that it just shows that the need in our community uh continues to change. um year by year. And so that's something as is not to make excuse or to say that's put fault on on our our students or anything, but uh the needs of our students have changed drastically. Uh and so that that's one thing. Well, if you just look at
025total number, 88 out of 3,700 students, not that big, but when you look at how much that has grown over time, uh it's pretty drastic. Uh the other uh area I really wanted to highlight is uh our attendance rate. our attendance rate um is much we want it to be at about 90%. So the attendance rate that you looked at were students that were not considered have missed less than 10% of the school year. So about two less than two absences per month. Uh our we want that to be about 90 90% of our students is a good uh kind of baseline we'd want all of our attendance to be at. Um and we're not we're we're not close to that currently. Uh, and so that's going to be a focus um with our with
026our families with our and and do some attendance pushes because that is such a direct impact to student achievement and student learning. Um, if they're not if our students are are not at school, they're missing large amounts of time. It's going to be hard for them to be uh at grade level. >> C can I stop and ask you a question about that? It's at currently it's around 70% overall for the district. Is that right? >> Yeah. Yes. And um isn't there some number per month where you see just a huge drop off? >> Yeah, if it's more than two absences per month, regardless if it's unexcused or excused, uh that's that's typically what we So it's any if you missed 10% or more of a year is there's there's um predictors that you're not
027going to be very successful in school. Uh and so what those bar graph is showing is that's our percentage of students that are are coming to school at a consistent basis. Um, so yeah, I think our high water mark I should pull up because I can't that's too small for me to look uh on a screen there. I'll pull it up on my computer. Our high water mark uh is in fourth grade. It's at 84%. And like I said before before COVID we were close to 90% or at 90% in some grade levels. We have that has not come back. That our tense rate has not come back and it mirrors our assessment data. uh as I as I've started to kind of would dig deeper into and do some comparisons to to our contemporary
028districts in the area. Uh for those that our assessment scores are lower that we should be uh pretty close to. We're about 10% 10 to 15% depending on what grade level we're looking at lower uh for achievement rate on assessment. We're 15% lower almost every grade level uh in attendance. right before co the principal was it Colton right before principal or right before co as well >> we had some uh goals to meet and 90% was the goal and we were knocking on the door constantly of it we ever got past it but put that in comparison with these and that's a big >> yeah it other districts their their attendance rates dipped just like ours did theirs have come back ours have have not um so that's that if I had to say anything
029of of a concern concern. One of the biggest thing that's hurting our achievement rates, my prediction would be if our attendance rates uh get to a level that we'd want, we would see our uh achievement scores go up as well. Uh going to our assessments, uh I guess any questions? Was there anything from the data I needed to clarify that you guys looked at in the report? No. >> I had one curiosity, Hunter. Is there any way any other correlations with the students that are missing 10% or two times a month? Um any correlations with extracurricular activities because it seems like at least when I was going to school you wanted to practice that day you were going to school that day. >> Yeah. So no I would say it's our students that are not
030necessarily connected to extracurricular activities. um the and and the extracurricular activities don't count. So at first I thought you were asking if uh extracurricular is causing uh our attendance rate, but those those are excused absences that don't necessarily go into uh that that attendance rate formula. Um but no, I would say it's our students that are um are not involved in extracurriculars more so. Yes. Correct. Correct. Uh this slide in front of you, the state has moved from looking at three or four threes and fours on the assessment. Uh this was a change they made last year. Uh at least in how they communicated it that really the last time we do state assessments for ELA and for math are in 10th grade. And that that is supposed to show that they if they have
031a three or four, it really means they are ready to start college right then in 10th grade. Um so they've changed how they want us to look at uh the data. So really two, threes, and fours are what we would would expect our students to to be at. So this is the percentages of students that are two, threes, and fours. And this is somewhat comparable to our our neighboring uh contemporary districts, somewhat lower. Um but then if we look at our threes, and fours, um those those those are low. It's a concern and and it has been a concern. Uh the the some of the causes I would say of of our assessment trends, I wouldn't say there's one specific cause. attendance. I my personal belief and what data has shown, research has shown is
032that that that's going to be one of the factors, but it's multiaceted and I I look at it uh given the context of our district is a K through8 kind of analysis of what the causes are and a 9 through 12 because uh from what I've seen there's there's different uh some different reasonings. Um, so I'll start with um the the K through eight. Uh, three to about three years ago, uh, we did we didn't have priority standards as a district. We had our state standards. Uh, for as you guys know, there's there's a lot of standards that we expected to teach. Uh, the you need to be able to focus on what are the most important that that would show uh, improvement in learning. So we prioritize those and how that goes is we
033identify priority standards. What are the most meaningful standards within all the grade level standards because you're not going to be able to hit all of them in depth throughout the school year. There's just too many. So you prioritize the ones that have the most impact. Then you unpack those. Then you create learning targets and then you create success criteria and then you develop your scope and sequence. So we did that three years ago because that hadn't been done before. Uh but we gave complete autonomy uh to to the grade levels because we only had one grade level per uh for the whole district. Uh what we have found what we found uh uh last year was that some of the prioritized standards uh when we're looking at other districts what they've prioritized don't match. Um
034uh and our this was something I wanted to address last year but uh the state also told us I told you guys last year that they were coming out with new standards that they were going to set priorities statewide which is a blessing to know there's no argument matter this is what we need to be teaching. It gives clarity. Um we were supposed to have those last year. Um so we were we've been waiting to start this process again. Uh the the state just told us so we're about a year they're about a year late in getting us those new standards. Math is supposed to be coming out coming out with new standards uh within this within the next few weeks. Uh ELA standards are supposed to be coming out early this this spring of
035this school year. So that's the K through that's really the kind of the K through8 uh I guess problem or uh kind of theory of solution to to address some of our our um our achievement concerns, our achievement data is to have those priority standards and start that process fresh and to make sure we are lock and barrel making sure we're following those. Um, with that, uh, I I would, it's been at least eight years since we've done an ELA adoption within, uh, elementary literacy. Uh, one thing we have seen over time with our elementary literacy curriculum is it's, uh, really heavy on reading. Uh, and it's, uh, is very very light uh, in writing and writing. Our writing scores when we look at our SBA data is what's dragged down some of our literacy
036uh, uh, scores. Um so an emphas and it's also more of a framework. It's not necessarily a set curriculum that that we can go to to say this is what we're teaching on day 10. Uh so it's more of a looking for more of a scriptive curriculum would be uh could be an option um is something we're going to explore moving to high school. Uh so and the other thing I I last year when I presented on data um we presented when I asked you guys had was to have a cohort to follow because it's hard to say this grade level for this year. This is where that's a snapshot of where they're at in time. Um so I pulled together a cohort data for our current nth grade cohort one because they have not
037had any interruptions in testing over the past five years. um other cohorts if we went higher uh they they had COVID interrupt where they didn't test or they don't take a test every single year in high school. So this is our our our trend data uh for our current 9th grade cohort going back into fourth grade. You can see our we are trending up overall with a high watermark in seventh grade. That seventh grade ELA that's a that is a consistent phenomenon we see in seventh grade ELA. one of our higher achieving uh um grade levels. And then you can see our math score. If you go to the next slide, Jennifer, uh math is trending down. This is also uh on a statewide webinar, math has regressed across the district and across the nation
038and globally. So math is going to be a big push coming out from OSPI. And if I jump to high school of of kind of reasons or predictions of why our data is is what it is, um we have had refusals a little bit higher than the state average. And then when I went and looked at the students who actually uh refused to take the tests and the state calls them uh uh refusals, it's 90 almost 90% of the students who refuse w would have I would have we would have predicted based off our other data that they would have been through force on the assessment. So, we went from some of our students that uh if they would have taken the test would have bumped our scores up to really they're dragging our scores
039down. My prediction was it's about a 10 to 15 percentage point swing in achievement uh based off of just that 5%. >> Are they are they taking it be I'm thinking we were talking about Miriam about running start. Are some of those students that would have scored highly not taking it because they're not coming to the high school or it's just other reasons? >> A a few. But we don't have a ton of students in running start. Um more of it is a belief that I don't want my my my student to take to take the test. Yeah. Um >> and it's and so that's and we have that's that's one of the opt forms we talked about earlier um that we're we're going to try to consolidate. But if we can really if we
040want our data to show uh most accurately uh and positively, it's getting all as many of our students to test as possible. Um some of the other uh kind of um factors within the high school um data is it's not a requirement to graduate anymore. And uh kids know that and uh it's hard to to say this you have to do this assessment when they see the light at the end of the tunnel. They're like no I'm already I've already completed my graduates graduation pathway. Uh the uh we also have a lot of data that shows our kids are being really successful. uh one where we're graduating at a high rate. Two, they're going to postsecary options at a higher rate than average and they're persisting at a higher rate than average. So, one assessment
041is it's important for us to look at. It's not the end- all beall. I do we do have some urgency to make some uh some some changes um with our standards and potentially our curriculum uh because it I mean it is not to say it's not a concern. And it absolutely is and it's something that uh we we're aware of. >> So if I'm summarizing it uh uh at elementary school, some of it's curriculum that might uh uh be adopted especially at the younger ages that has more focus on writing. Some of it is a clearer priority standards set by the state which will get us on track with everybody else in the area. And then at the high school, some of it's not taking the test or not taking it seriously. >> Yeah. Well,
042and the the other thing with high school, too, is we we intentionally moved to uh we wanted student choice and student options built into the high school experience. Um and with that, we went to a trimester system on a five period day. Uh the logistics of how that plays out is uh you might not take math, you're not going to take math all year long, and you're not going to take English all year long. So, you could be taking a test that you're not even in that class anymore or you haven't uh gone through the full scope and sequence that you would have if you had been in a year-long class. The the positive that is we have a lot more options that kids can explore, earn different credits, earn dual credits. Um we're earn
043our district for our size has more dual credit opportunities and 67% of our students at the high school a year ago earned dual credit. uh which is head and shoulders above our contemporary districts. So it's it's a given and take. We could go to a more traditional schedule. Uh the choices and options would be more limited for our students and the amount of credits that are uh the kids could take with them on to post-secary would be would be less. Uh so that's an intentional choice that our high schools made that I would argue uh is is a good one. Could it be possible that even like the CTE for example that's going to be more driven towards a let's say math base and so they don't have as much English or could that hurt
044some of our scoring in theory? >> Yes. Yes. Um the the one as I was diving into this in this data, the one um kind of anomaly I I noticed uh our CTE applied math actually had a higher um achievement rate than our traditional math within that within the algebra setting which also lends to hands-on like lecturing lecturing doesn't really necessarily work for for teenage students. uh the hands on. So there's it's there's not there hasn't there isn't one clear way I would say yep this is causing it. There's a lot of different factors that go into it. Yeah. >> Other questions or comments? >> Comment from me. Um, this is just I mean it's very it's very high level and what what it was done for and Hunter and I spoke about this is
045to is to provide a whole bunch of different type of data and then allow you to choose if there's specific data that you want Hunter to Hunter and his team to look into. So if it you also got some disciplinary data as well, enrollment data, demographic data, student achievement data. If if there is anything in there that you would like, we can make that happen for data report number two, which would be in what a couple months likely. >> Well, the cohort is very effective. If we see every time, and I'm not naming any, but it gets to a certain grade level or a certain subject and that's where every time you kind of see that. >> Yeah. then we know that it potentially teaching issue you know or we start rearranging stuff from there
046that's that's going to be a helpful for us >> and um I can also summer slide is something I've usually talked about um so I could do a few different cohorts more of like a younger elementary cohort that would be more internal data um with our I Ready and then I could do like the the the nth grade cohort if you wanted to look at a couple different cohorts to see um the The one thing with our curriculum within elementary as well, what we we noticed is it's it's very light on foundational literacy skills. So, phmic awareness and funological awareness, we've had to supplement that with other curriculum, which is part of the reason why I said with the new standards coming out, it might be time to to look at is there a curriculum
047adoption uh to consider >> at a really high level. Hunter, is there a trend away from um these kinds of uh standardized assessments or are states, I mean, nationally, are states um uh still as committed to these kinds of assessments as they were, you know, going back 20 years or so? >> Yeah, I Kevin might be able to answer that question better than I. Uh >> it seems like there's been a little bit of backing off of >> how much we put into reading these. >> Yeah. I think that's fair and I think that's a a nationwide trend and it maybe even get more so with uh the changes with the Department of Education. Remember our state assessment requirements are based on federal assessment requirements. um our state has made choices with regards to how
048they're going to meet the federal requirements, but if there are lessened or no federal requirements for state assessments, then you may see some changes. This is uh state testing is and standardized testing is very cyclical and I many of us older like me can remember all students going to the auditorium which used to be right over there and taking a test altogether and uh that was found to be not real productive and so we went away from state standardized testing for a long long period of time in education. uh then we focused on especially high school students taking uh ACT and SAT testing. So there was a huge emphasis on that and that was at a time where the the idea was to get uh all students into college and university level. Well, we found
049that that wasn't really going to work real well and it's now turned out turned out that we have a lot of students in debt uh for that idea. Um we then navigated our way through our state with uh regards to uh the wasle and th those type of things and found that that really was not the way to do things. And now we are uh how many years have we been in the esback? We are now what 10 >> over yeah over 10 12 there's also the and MSPs in between the wasel and and uh SBA. >> So I'm not sure where the next cycle is but there for sure. um when the smarter balanced in our state was used as a graduation requirement, I think we can all look back as our student achievement
050data based on that test, it was a lot higher. And since that change in our state to not be to not have that be a required completion of that assessment and bringing in all the other ways that students can meet graduation requirement, our scores have have gone down for a variety of reason. that not being the only reason, but there are variety of reasons. And so I I do see the the assessment of a standard use of a standardized test, the pendulum swings back and forth as with lots of things within public education. And I do would not be surprised if we see at a time and place where states are not going to be required to pro to have standardized assessments anymore. Yeah, it it's it's very helpful to compare like as you said
051to uh district districts that are in our area. I mean, I think that's really useful to kind of see, you know, where where we are in comparison to them. Um, yeah, I I it it has its value for sure, these standardized tests do. Um, but I I I also like that we you've included here other data points. Uh there were some great data points that came from the ERDC last year about as you said persistence in higher education. Um number of people that get degrees after graduation, how many high school credits are earned in college credits, which were in the top 12 in the in the whole state compared to districts much larger than ours. So there are a lot of ways to slice it. Um but I I I do think there's there's a
052lot of value in in looking at these. It used to be common core, the SBA, right? Smarter balance. And it's all Pearson, I guess, when you look right down to the bottom of it. Um, I I I really appreciate this data, uh, Hunter. I know we all do. Um, and, uh, we look forward to seeing, uh, what the next report looks like. >> Awesome. >> Do you want to say anything about referrals? >> Yeah, I hope that you noticed our referrals uh, have ticked down this year. And I think I know just from a very informal perspect when I walk into schools and in schools every single day it is it feels calmer. Uh even our special cohort that's in fourth grade you can see their referrals have gone down as comparison last year. So
053our systems uh are working. Um I you can also see somewhat cohort data. seeing that court come through. If you looked at previous years from kinder uh to JCP to to CIS, uh they have gone down. So, our behavioral systems are supporting our students and our >> Yeah, it sure looks like that. I mean, if you were to draw trend lines, those are those are fantastic on referrals and behavior. >> Yeah. >> Okay, any other questions? >> Excellent. Thank you very much, Hunter. Um, we are now, let me get back to my agenda here, uh, at the enrollment update and we've seen a little preview of the where we are with enrollment. Chris, do you want to give us the, uh, the rest of the enrollment update? >> Okay. Um, as a reminder, back in
054September, uh, when we, well, when we projected enrollment earlier during budget season last year, um, we projected, uh, 73 FTE lower than what the projection was for the prior school year. And we use a cohort survival method when we, it's a statistical method looking at the survival rate from one grade to the next for all kids. So, we ended up with a projection. um we felt based on our numbers and our smaller class sizes moving through the system, we would drop our projection by 73. So, I'll I'll start with that. In September, uh we came out of the gate with we were 50 over our projected enrollment. Um we were basically uh in in as of the October count, we are 37.5 over projection. So when you look at that and as a reminder with
055our projection, that's how those are the numbers we use to drive the amount of staff that we hire. We especially in our basic education program, we use our projected enrollment. That's what drives funding for staff. So we staff our district that way. And then in October, we're sitting, like I said, 37 over uh projection. Um if you look down the line on the report that's in the board docs uh you can see that kindergarten is nine under projection. Um John Campbell is almost 11 under projection. CIS is just two over projection. Middle schools 15 over projection and the high school is 32 over projection. Um and then we have some online numbers where we're uh over um at our 912 online program. Anyway, nets down to the 37 over projection. And as a reminder, we
056do see enrollment decline slowly over the course of the year. It's not uncommon. Pretty much all high schools lose well, all high schools that I know of lose enrollment during the school year. It's it's inevitable. Um, but we're sitting in an okay place right now. Uh, our projection method has been uh statistically sound over the years. We normally land pretty close to what our projected number is. And and we're actually funded based on year-end average of our enrollment. So that's when we project enrollment, we're assuming that that's our going to be our right around our year-end average for enrollment. So they take all the school months in and we end with a year-end average. So that's where we're at. Um just a couple other notes, our CTE, FTE is running over projection right now. um
057our special ed uh population that we're serving at this point in time. Um we're serving uh 505 um FTE in our for our special education group. Uh we're 11 over projection there. Uh TBIP, which is transitional bilingual instructional program, we're running 27 over projection and we're right on the target with our transitional kindergarten and so on and so forth. So we're we're sitting pretty good right now. Any questions on that? We're still open at all grades. >> We're still open to Well, of course, we take all residents. We never close to residents, but for non-resident students that apply to come here, it's a application process. We are um open unless we see significant discipline problems or attendance issues that are problematic. And so there's the board policy stipulates how we do that. >> Right. So,
058we've been open K12 like for the last couple of years pretty consistent. Yes. And I know several years ago we would be like closed at the high school or >> Yeah. >> So are we seeing an influx of out of district students being open helping enrollment? >> It's we're we're pretty consistent on our numbers yeartoear um for out of district students coming in. What what's happening with our enrollment like most of our neighboring districts is the kindergarten numbers are coming in lower and then we have these smaller classes moving through our system. So, we can see that down the line. We can see as these small classes move through, our total enrollment is going to continue to we ran it out four or five years and we're about losing about 1.8% 1.7 to 2% of
059our enrollment every year. >> Yeah. >> This past year, we have had a an increase in the amount of families from out of district that would want their child to attend the high school and start there as a nth grader. with a little bit more so um with requests um some from private schools and some from public schools. So that that would be something I would say that our high schools specifically we've seen a little we've seen increase in the in the request to go there. Some of those have not been able to be filled because we have a larger population in the ninth grade. And so, uh, but others that that went through the process, filled out the, uh, forms and got all the information and met with administration were able to get spots
060when they were available. >> Chris, do we have any way of tracking how many in district students are attending other open district >> migration rate in and out? Right. Um, we do have record of those. They they get released to go to other districts. So, there's paperwork Kevin signs those and the new superintendent where they want to go signs. And so, we have Yeah, we have a record of that. >> Data data basically says it's it's somewhat equal between the two >> and not necessarily increasing or decreasing. It's sort of standard from what we and uh Chris for the 37 that we're over. Does that uh make a difference in the year-end budget? uh that obviously is going to help us at the end of the year for the budget. Do you know does that
061have any number that we can put on that? >> If we were to land 37 over projection at the end of the year, that'd be 370,000. We get about 10,000 per FTE. Um but in a normal year, we would lose 25 to 35 FTE over the course of the year. We're probably >> end up at 37. We won't end at Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Great. We would all welcome that if that did happen. >> Yeah, sure. Let's hang on to those two. Yeah, >> the data says the trend data says that doesn't usually happen, >> right? Right. Excellent. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll move on to the superintendent update. Kevin, >> we are in the midst uh and almost done. Tomorrow will be our last day. It's of safety week
062although it's we safety is a priority obviously for the entire year but uh we recognize safety week and do a lot of communications during this week. We do a lot of drills during this week as well. Um and actually yesterday uh I was not able to be involved but Chris represented the district office along with other folks. uh we partnered with the Covenant Church and did a reunification drill where a small group of students and families uh played out as actors and then our partners in safety. We had representatives from the fire department, um other representatives from other services, >> city was there, police department, and we did a reunification drill of what it would be like if we had to had to move our students to a different location. And the Covenant Church is
063a location that was uh identified and some there's been some work with partnering with them in case of and so we had to at least go through the process of of seeing what would happen and we according to Joe and Chris there was lots to be learned about that just actually going through it with even a small amount of students. Um we we learned about some perspective from parents that were part of that. Um, we learned that you can never plan for a one-lane road closure at the time you're doing this uh on McGonagal, which actually there was a construction run closure that we had to navigate at the same time this was going on. But it was u it was a beneficial drill and now that expands. That was the high school drill and
064now we'll slow we'll expand into the other buildings and doing these reunification drills as well. was the idea that you you had kids bust from the high school up to uh Covenant Church in McGonagal. >> Yeah. And then and then practice with a small group of how that happens and then practice with really the most important is how do you how do you get the student to the parent in a in a way that needs to be done appropriately. >> Yeah, Chris was there. So Chris, anything else you want to say about that? I just thought that it was nice to have our partners there, fire department, CALIP PD, and parents that showed up to volunteer to be part of the process with their students really was that was nice to see because they also
065heard how chaotic typically when these situations happen, how chaotic it is. And for the people that are in key positions for the school district to lead this effort in an an emergency, they've got to be cool, calm, and collected, which is very difficult, right? But the CIA PD made a a really good point that if you're not if if stress is is hard for you and you're not able to stay calm to to get through it, then you probably better volunteer and say you're not really ready for the job. But it it was it was well done. Appreciated it. The ESD 105, the sock, which were part of for our safety, they were there and they were instrumental in the in the process as well. >> Chris Weeden came and Yes. Yeah. Great. >> Yeah.
066Another thing and this is uh this these types of drills um are are also part of our overall safety plan that we do have the school-based drills as as probably you many of our parents aware of about comes through on parent square and all that so forth. We are leading up to a um a a much larger drill and that will take place uh after school is out. Um where we have a potentially an active shooter situation and then drill that and allow our partners to drill at the same time and use the resources we have and make sure our communication which is always the challenge. all the other things we've done, all the mapping we've done, be able to use those uh in a drill format. And so you're going to hear more about
067a full what we call what the professionals in this area, which is our partners with uh Sock and then uh police department, sheriff's department, is a fullscale drill. And so that fullscale drill will be after school is out, but we'll use the middle school as our site to have that full-scale drill. It it could include um you know partners from the hospital, uh Washington State Patrol, anything that would be a partner that would respond to a pretty significant event at a school. Uh we're going to be invited. And so, uh our city, our public works will all be there. It it could it could be uh people responding to the drill where they would be not just staged at the school that actually having to go and respond to it and then how our law
068enforcement partners would um would go into the school and practice what they have been taught about um going into schools and uh dealing with uh threats. More to come on that. So, okay. So, that's safety week, parent conference week next week that follows it up. Please remember parent conference week in includes some um half days, early release days in order to get the parent conferences done. I know that does create some uh confusion because it is out of the normal way that we do school during the week, but we view parent conferences as one of the most important things we have for parents to be able to get insight on how their individual student is doing. So know those are going on. Amazingly enough, uh it's the October board meeting, which means October is almost
069over and uh before you know it, we will be at the end of the first trimester, uh signifying the end of a third of the school year. So, um we get into the the the scheduling of uh nontraditional five-day school weeks approaching in November as we have Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and then we get into the Christmas holidays. So, just know that all those are going on. They're very traditional, very annual things that we do. I also want to remind you uh that it also brings about in the months of November and December is that we have single meetings in those months. Uh so one board meeting per month and those meetings are in the middle of the month. That's my report. Anything else? >> I had a quick question, Kevin. Uh and I wasn't I
070didn't plan on this, but I see a refresh of the uh Viking Promise in the back of the room. >> Yeah. So you'll see uh the poster on the wall used to be the poster that was turned the other way uh in a landscape and that was the ship and that's been replaced from uh Viking Promise 2.0 O and the work that a lot of us have done, the board included last year of going through that with Hunter and I and uh I charged uh Hunter with his great artistic abilities his ability to navigate technology a lot better than I to be able to put something and that was going to be easily to read and easily to understand and really spoke about something that we're all consistent with and that is Vikings. And so
071Hunter, anything to say about the work you've done with that? No, we'll just uh so that's just the the main uh graphic visualization of the Viking promise. We'll have uh by the end of the year, we'll have more visualizations for each uh core pillar, the four pillars that will be built out. will look similar, but I have a little more detail. >> Yeah, especially with student experience because that really is our our new new area that we want to focus on. But you will start to see those uh they just received 200 of those posters today. And so we'll be able to start to get those out and replace the Viking ship uh one with with the new 2.0 one. >> Yeah. I hadn't even seen that poster yet. So, >> looks great. >> Yeah,
072looks good. >> Brand new. All right. Um, any other questions for Kevin? Board communications. [snorts] I have a couple of quick Oh, I got the Viking Promise one done. Oh, uh, tonight's read and treat at I think at JCP and Robert Lintz Elementary, so the teachers are staying late tonight to do some reading with families and kids. And I understand there's snow cones in one of the classrooms. Uh, so if people are interested, they could just walk over. actually like it might be in a half an hour from now. Uh so maybe after you go home and get something to eat and come back down and get some candy from uh Robert Lintson. Is it JCP as well? >> It's it's all elementary uh but hosted at JCP. >> Oh, nice. Oh, so I shouldn't
073go over to Robert. >> I don't believe it's at Lince as well, is it? >> I The reason I ask is I was at Robert Lince today. Had a wonderful visit, a school visit. I encourage our uh our board members to make sure that we're making those school visits. Um, it is the obviously a responsibility of the board members to to do those things and it's just a treat. I mean, not a candy treat. It's a it's a spiritual treat to go in and a morale treat, I guess I should say, to go in and see how incredibly hard those teachers are working, the people working in the lunchroom, the um the parapros uh uh out at recess. I went into the self-contained classroom. I saw the dual classroom. Uh is doing an amazing job
074there. She has another um uh uh admin intern this year which is very helpful for her but also I think growing some of our own talent uh as we go through this process. Anyway, Robert Lintz um is is doing great great work uh this year. They're off to an awesome start. Um, and um, I I I I oftentimes think it's 5 minutes into a visit, I wish everybody could see the schools. Everybody could go into the schools because they would feel a lot better about things. There's a lot of kind of negative chatter. It's really easy to to kind of, you know, pick isolated incidents and say, "Ah, this thing's really bugging me." and and those are important, but the big picture is when you go in, you're just impressed by how much love and
075dedication our teachers, our administrators, and our staff put into every day when they're there. It was I was felt super hopeful um after going to visit them and I'm going to go visit JCP tomorrow. Um uh and uh I know I'll have the same experience there. So that's that's my board communication. >> Clarification, read and treat is at Linds. It's all elementary. It's at Lynch, not a JCP. >> Oh, nice. Okay. Excellent. Great building. I just love going in that building, too. It's such a nice brand. >> Yeah. And then they also, this is all parent engagement stuff. Uh so that the three elementary principles decided instead of doing events separately, they do them all together. It has provided some benefit. Uh the next one after tonight is at CIS and that's the Polar Express,
076correct? >> Of family event. So >> great. I love it when families get to come. YBC has just started to have family nights and I think that that makes so much sense to to involve the community that way and obviously for for our school district families are are the absolute heart of the whole thing. So I think that's terrific and um uh I think that's all I have. Anybody else? Okay. Excellent. Our next meeting isn't for a month. Is that right? A little less than a month. >> 13th of November. >> 13th November. >> All right. And thank you the people that are here this evening and thank you Hunter for your presentation. Uh all right with that the meeting is adjourned.