001We will start the meeting right now with the flag salute, please. And if you're able, remove your hats. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Great. Well, um, we have, uh, a very special district highlight tonight. Uh Kevin, do you want to take the lead on the district highlight? >> I'll just take the lead of welcoming them and introducing the two of them. Um Alana Barahas right down there. She has a name tag, a name plate and a beautiful picture on the wall over there. So you are congratulations to you as a junior student board representative. And next to her, Marian Carlson. Marian, you also have the na official
002name plate in front of you. You also have official picture on the wall. And we'd like to welcome you and congratulate you in your new position as junior student representative to the board. Congratulations. >> I I wrote a little quick thing. So, welcome Miriam and Alana. On behalf of the CELA school board, we're proud to welcome our new student uh student board members. Your voice matters and I've already talked individually to you and we're excited to have you at the table as we work together to support CELA students, staff, and families. As representatives, you bring uh a really important perspective to our conversation. you're the experts really uh out of all of us on the board here, you're the most in touch with the hopes, the the concerns, um the daily life at at the
003high school especially, and we hope we're going to get you into the other schools as well. Um and the board has uh a few years ago in increased or enlarged the number of students that are on the um on uh student representatives for the board so that we can get more student voice um because you're the ones impacted by the decisions we make. So we're really glad that you step forward uh um to represent your peers um and uh we look forward to working with you. So, thank you very much for for uh starting your tenure here on the school board with us. Very exciting. Uh all right, our next uh item on the agenda is guidelines for public comment. We do not have any written public comment and we do not have any comment
004from the audience. Uh either we'll move on to item number four, which are the meeting minutes. Uh we have two meeting minutes as we usually do for um the study session September 11th and for the uh regular board meeting on August 28th. I'll move that we approve the meeting minutes from those uh two meetings. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Uh are there any questions or comments about those meeting minutes? >> I would just say I want to apologize specifically to the student reps for missing the September 11th meeting. I got a day job. It's a busy day job in September. So, welcome. >> That you would have been really impressed with their interviews, Joe. For sure. That Yeah, I know. I know. It is great, isn't it? All right. Great. Uh, all
005those in favor of approving the me meeting minutes signify with an I. I. All those opposed and abstensions. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda, which is item number five. Um, and it has a a pretty small human resource action sheet. I don't know if there's anything that we need to highlight on that in particular. Some appointments and resignations. Um, payroll goods and services. Chris, is there anything on either of those two that >> Nothing on payroll goods and services, but I would just like to say um, rest in peace to Rebecca Varnner. We did lose her recently, so I would like to say that tonight. >> Thank you. I'm I'm sorry I moved too quickly through that on the HR, but um yes, thank you for saying that. The whole board feels
006the same. All right. Uh item D is a long list of uh second readings and adoptions um of fairly routine uh policies uh from policy 111, the oath of office. Uh I'm not going to read there's what 10 or so of these here. I won't read all of them, but um are there any I I'll well I guess we'll move for all of these here at the end. Are there any comments or questions about that long list of policy updates? Grading progress reports um dissemination of uh student offenses, notification of threats, non-discrimination, student discipline, use of school facilities, personnel records. A lot of it's kind of clean up and language, Kevin. >> A lot of them has to do with new laws that are enacted and the policies have followed those. And so it's bringing
007all those into line, which are all current policies, but bringing them into line uh with current law. >> Excellent. Uh item E Salude. Item E is an annual program and policy review of the uh highly capable program or what we call high. Um and Hunter is here. Hunter, do you want to kind of give us a thumbnail of what the uh overview is? >> Yeah, so the overview just includes our total current enrollment for students that qualify for highly capable programming. It varies grade level to grade level. Uh it kind of evens out around 25 to 30 students. Once students are in middle school, once students qualify for highly capable services, they stay qualified forever regardless of uh what what their level is. Um, we have our referral window opening up here in October 6th
008is when it opens and and that's open through uh middle of December. And referrals can be made by parents, by teachers, by students themselves, they that'll be sent out to the community on October 6th. And uh and how to do that uh through and we also do universal screening. Um so for any students that might not be referred individually, we do all all second graders and all sixth graders are screened through what's called the KOAT. It's a it's an assessment that can tease out if student might have highly capable cap capabilities. Um and then really how we provide highly capable services based off of our numbers is we the K through eight model we cluster our high cap students together um so they have like-minded peers that they can do extensions with. Um and then
009in high school uh and then we also do intervention for uh for all students but our highly capable students are clustered even further. So they're in homogeneous groups so they're getting instruction at their level at high school. Then it really opens up to uh kind of where their passion and where they're they can do advancement within their courses college in the high school running start etc. Uh one thing we are doing this year is I think getting better at marketing why our program is set up the way it is uh because some of the dynamics that are in place are just total amount of students that are qualify. I think it's larger districts are able to kind of consolidate students across grade level uh across schools in one grade level and have uh a full
010classroom that would be like a self-contained highly capable program. Our numbers don't drive that. Um so that's why we've gone with the clustering model. I think explaining that to our staff and our community is one thing. Marketing it and finding out are the ways we can improve it is something we're actually taking a team uh next month to to find out what's the best uh practices for supporting our highly capable learners. So, but other than that, nothing much changed from years past. This needs to be approved annually so that way we can get additional um additional grant for highly capable services to help fund some of helps fund our program. >> Are those state grants? >> It is a state grant. >> State grants, right? Yep. And um uh are there any questions or or
011concerns about the highly capable program? Do the students have any comments on highcap program questions? We're okay so far. Okay. I It is a question that comes up, I think, to board members every once in a while, and you probably hear from parents and community members as well about it. It's the the not bringing them all into one class is also a philosophy though, correct? As well, right? So, even if we could, would we bring them all into one class or is that kind of up in the air? It's the research that we've gotten and it's been a few years since we've gone through and so that's why part of the reason why we're taking a team to a conference is that when you do that um you lose experiences of being able to be
012mentors to other students in your class it creates kind of a track system the halves and have nots. Uh the other uh dynamic that's at play is we have a dual program that uh it makes it even harder, right? So if we have 20 students in a grade level and 10 of them are in a dual class and 10 are in a monolingual English class, that's just not enough numbers. Um so uh and there's a lot of benefit of having heterogeneous grouping too. So our our program really is meant to have intentional homogeneous grouping with a like skill level students and then also having heterogeneous groups so we can students on both ends of the spectrum regardless of content can learn from each other and that's where the most powerful learning is. If you remove
013all the students uh who have kind of expertise in one specific academic content, uh it it it not only hurts the learners who are might be a little bit further behind, it also doesn't strengthen the learning of of our students who are highly capable to. >> It's a real I I've known that through years of talking about this, it's a real challenge to keep up with those students that get it right away. I know that's just an for teachers that's just a really difficult task, I guess, to differentiate for those students. Um are there did you say that you're taking some teachers with you to this? Yeah. So, we're taking one rep from each uh building site along with myself and Rachel Dibble to go and learn uh about what what are the any new
014updates around um highly capable programs especi especially what I'm interested in is uh given the context of the size of our uh enrollment of students who qualify is this the best model to have um and then if it is how do we market it so that way parents understand it, teachers understand it and um so we continue to get the questions that that come up and that people um are bought into it. >> Excellent. Good. Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll move on. Thank you very much, Hunter. Appreciate that. Uh to the uh school improvement plan for a number of uh CILA schools, the CILA open doors, CIA Academy online, home link, CILA Academy online, CILA Academy Auxiliary. Uh Kevin, this school improvement plan is a state uh mandate, is that right, for
015these particular programs. Um and we are they are helping us to bring those programs up to speed a little bit. >> Yeah. I'll turn most of it over to Hunter because he's in charge of these. But it it's really all of our what we called our alternative learning AL programs, choice programs you've heard before. Uh these are all of them. Um and and they have qualified for support from our state. uh through the school improvement process. So Hunter, you want to add to that? >> Yeah, so um it's called through the office of school improvement, OSSI, and the reason why we need to have these approved is two of these are at the level where we can get additional funding for support. Um it's CILA CILA KA online. Uh and how the school improvement process
016works is you're identified in a cycle. So these were actually identified a few years ago. The program that was identified was our home link uh program that has now shifted to we are CILA KA uh academy. Um the other one that has qualified is uh CIA auxiliary which is our our uh how we serve students that are enrolled at sundown. Uh and so those are our students even though they might not be from our district when they're at sundown they are our students. And so with that the reason why we've qualified for school improvement is uh because of our metrics. A lot of that is around state testing for these specific programs. Uh given CIA Academy, sorry, CILA auxiliary at sundown, that is a highly mobile population where students are there for maximum of 45
017days. They're going back to their home districts. So that's always going to be a program that's probably going to be in school improvement because we don't have data to show, yeah, they took state tests with us even though they're our students. And then the online program was new last year. And so our hope is that our our data will start to increase using the greenways platform because students have been more successful with that. Uh with that also said is usually students who are choosing to go online they they don't want to be in person. And so a lot of reason why we've qualified for school improvement for those programs is because they don't take the state tests and then so our our our scores don't look good for those programs if we don't have any
018kids taking the tests >> and they they disagregate those from the rest of the population. Correct. >> That's interesting. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. So, every all of our entities that we have to report accurate um enrollment and assessment data and these four are the ones that are the state has deemed that um would need the most support and improving. And it's pretty typical. Alternative programs usually are that way in each district um because it's traditional school hasn't worked for students or families in one way or the other. Um and traditional metrics also don't necessarily capture the that it's working for them. >> And this is their first year on the improvement plan. Is that correct for the >> No, this is actually year three of this cycle. >> Okay. Okay. >> So um in
019in two of these uh auxiliary which is this is the hard part is they're different names. So CEA Academy Auxiliary is sundown and then CIA Academy K through 8 is our online program for K through8. Those two actually come with additional funding. The other two do not come with funding, but we still have to have our school improvement plans approved by the board uh as a requirement from the state. >> Are there any questions about the school improvement plans? The for the student board reps, the the the state takes our state testing and looks at what which schools are struggling or which schools are doing very well. And the schools that are struggling, they give us extra support to help bring those scores up. So, that's what we're talking about right here. All right. And
020then we have for item G, thank you very much, Hunter, for item G, we have a donation of soccer shorts uh that we need to approve or fi finances for soccer shorts. And this comes from a generous donation from Kings Row uh the the uh the CIA restaurant that is a mainstay for many uh many soccer players and other people. We very much appreciate that. And then we have one final item on the consent agenda which is outofstate and overnight travel requests. And there are six of these outofstate travel request. I think one or two got added here to the agenda. Um Lori Ozanic going to a chef an fellowship. Uh Maggie Eussin um and a student going to the National Fight Leadership Conference, excuse me. Morgan Rodriguez to present at the ACTE Career Tech
021Vision Conference. Jeff Anderson to present at the British Columbia Technology Associations in Delta, British Columbia. And then Hunter, Brian, and Rachel and Zach. I think we were just maybe talking about this. Lacy and Jared Brink, Brian Buer attending the Highcap Convention in Belleview, and finally Michelle Garrettson and Michelle Lad uh and Maggie Ein and Sher Brink um doing Washington FACSE board duties. Are there uh any comments or questions about those overnight travel requests? >> I have a comment question. So, of these six travel requests, there's one student traveling. And I know that for the past couple of budget years, we've been very careful about not having non- studentent travel. So, are we feeling a little more flexible? I mean, these are all very important. I we should be doing these things. I'm just curious where
022where we stand like financially. Are we comfortable >> to a point? Not we're not out of the woods by any means, but we're at to a point. Uh many of these uh you know we tried to we tried to take these in that these people that are especially our staff members are in either leadership positions or they're presenting and we we look at those differently. >> There is grant money and then there's also like for example the highcap conference that's part of the budgeted funds that we receive and are expected to do this type of learning for our staff to better the program for our students. Yeah, you will. I would I would say this is kind of an a larger number at one time of staff related travel and that you're probably going to
023see more student related travel as a year progresses. So, good question. >> Yeah. Yeah, I did see that too. I just I just noticed that it was a little more heavily staff than we've seen recently. >> More than likely, you won't see this sheer number uh in coming months. you'll see a more sporadic and then you'll see a larger increase of student related travel too. But yeah, financially we're still in a very similar state than we were before. >> Well, and it's it's a kind of thing like uh paint and carpet that you can put off for a few years. Uh but eventually that starts catching up with you. So it's it's uh it is it is >> to be clear I support it. >> Worthwhile worthwhile stuff, right? All right. Uh uh I will
024move that we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify with an I. I. >> All those opposed and abstaining. All right. We're moving on to item six, which are uh some legal things we need to do for the Wilbur Repnical Education Center uh and some resolutions for um CTE project and signatures and so forth. Uh Kevin, do you want to uh tell us a little bit about uh the Wilbur Rep and the resolutions? >> Well, as you know, we are uh moving forward on um using the generous donation from Mr. Rep uh to enhance our facilities at the high school by constructing a a tech center uh named after him. Uh with that I think you also realize that
025we have because it's eligible for some additional state funding match not a significant amount but enough to to go through the process there are certain things that need to be done in order to qualify for that state match. Both of these in regards to the ED specs as well as the resolutions are are things that need to be done. For those of you who have been on the board for a while, you may have remembered doing these things for other projects that they uh they are required. Whenever you see like u D form D3 you see down there, those those would notify you that these are things that are required to do if you're going to accept state assistance. uh what I the first one on the the educational specifications. This is important process that
026our architects take us through which is really to determine the needs of the people who are going to be working in there and the needs of our students who are going to be using those spaces. And so the specifications are getting down to the detail of what's going to be in those classrooms, what's the what's what's going to be needed in order to provide and meet what what we believe will wanted for our students. Uh Chris, you want to add anything more to those? >> It's good. You covered it. >> Pictures and equipment, drinking fountains, bubblers, lockers, it's that kind of stuff, right? Well, and pictures, >> all kinds of different things. >> I don't know if your packet Do you have the report in your packet of the what the Wilbur Rep Center might
027look like? That look, doesn't that look awesome? I'm really excited about that. uh it uh when I was in Norway in 2022, they had spent similar amounts of money uh to really beef up their CTE programs and to track students in that direction and towards college. Uh and it was one thing that I thought I really want to bring that emphasis home back to uh the CELA school district. And I just think we're moving in the right direction with all that stuff. It's it's really good. This is also timely in preparation for the October study session where Brent Harding uh from Knack Architecture will come in remotely and present to you uh where we've been, where we currently are, and where we're going with both of the projects. So, it'll be a good insight. Uh
028he's going to update us on the schedule, going to update us on the renditions that they have. You see some some of those probably within the the uh ED specs, but uh in more detail. uh give you just some general information. Then we've left some time for a lot of questions that you may have about either the either of the two projects, but normal things that we do when we start to move through these projects. >> Excellent. And we'll need to do each of these um separately to have a votes on each of these separately. So, I move that we uh approve the Wilbur Rep tech center educational specifications. Is there a second on that? >> I'll second. >> Great. Uh all those in favor signify with an I. I. All those opposed with a
029nay and abstensions. Uh that passes. Uh item B resolution 2025-9 authorization of signatures CTE edition project 202520 racial imbalance CTE new inloo D3 SHs outdoor covered workard. And these are all things required by the state in order for us to get matching funds. Uh are there or at least funds, not necessarily matching, right? But additional funds. It is matching. Great. Fantastic. Um I move that we approve those uh three resolutions. Yep. Thank you. All those in favor signify with an I. I. All those opposed and abstensions. All right. We're moving on to item seven, which is putting our new board representatives on the spot. Uh, and since it's your first one, you may not have an update. Um but what what we'd like is uh you know for you to kind of look ahead at
030the agenda and to ask your um networks at the school and uh uh you have younger brothers that are in the school system as well, Marian, to kind of get a sense of how their buildings are and what's happening at their buildings. You can use that as well um to give us your sense of how things are going. Let me just quickly ask, do you have an update? How about this, Aliana? How's the start of the school year so far? Going good. How's choir so far? What What are you working on? You want to give us a hint? All right. Well, that's the first thing you right talk about on the spot. You have a microphone now. Uh the phone lines are open. You can vote for All right. So, uh thank you very much
031for being here. Um and and uh we we as I said, we will be visiting schools throughout the quarter and throughout the year. Um and we will send text messages to you to try and invite you along on some of those visits. Board members will so that you really get a sense of the whole district. Um, I think probably sometime this fall, I haven't talked to Kevin about this. Um, it might be a good idea for for us to go around this building and kind of meet the people that are involved in the administration building cuz not a lot of people get to see that side of the district and that's kind of the side that we deal with. So, uh, that'd be a good a good tour to have I think sometimes. So, stay
032tuned for that. Uh, all right. We um have moved a couple of things to our next is it will be the study session or the maybe the study session or maybe the next uh business meeting. Um including some student data that we're going to review um uh so that there's not a report from the executive director of student learning. Uh and Chris, we don't have a report from you right now. We put some of that off as well. So we're moving on to item 10, which is the superintendent report. All right, I do have a few items for you. Nothing really earthshattering, but just some events. Uh we had a community forum uh on Tuesday that I led. All kinds of different topics were uh provided uh for me to speak to. Um we had
033two uh parents show. Unfortunately, there was not more, but the two parents got a lot of really good information and they got a lot of uh questions answered not only about the topics what that were presented but also uh a lot of other things too. So, we we did spend the three of us in a very small conversation uh talking about public educations, talking about our schools and programs and uh I think both people who uh who attended felt it was very worthwhile. So, next one is I believe in mid November and so we'll start publicizing that as well. Homecoming week, I know our high school students know that next week is a full week of homecoming, traditional, very traditional things. Uh, also spirit week for the district. So, you'll see all kinds of different
034ways to show spirit. It involves things that that are going on during the school day. It involves activities. It involves athletics. and involves a parade on Wednesday for the community. So, uh all kinds of things. Uh I'll kind of provide a overview of that uh in board notes tomorrow so you know when things are happening. Uh next time uh you get together is our October study session on the 9th. I've shared with you that uh a portion of that study session or the whole if whatever is is choose will be devoted to more information from the district's architect uh with regards to the Wilbur wrap project and the field turf project. Uh 10:10 the following day is a no school day for our students. It is a teacher training inservice day not only here but
035it's one of those ones in in our state that has been used for a teacher inservice day. So students will not be in session but many of our staff will be here. Uh two things as we look into October as far as weeks we have a traditional safety week uh which is October 20th through 24th. Do a lot of our training, our drilling, our communicating on the importance of school safety. That's done a lot at the building level but also some diff district stuff as well. You have a board meeting on the 23rd of October and believe it or not we are already getting ready for fall parent conferences. It doesn't seem like we should be thinking that far ahead, but we are uh last full week of October, October 27th through 30 31st. So
036there you go. >> Great. Thank you very much. Um and uh I I I want uh well, we'll move on to uh board communications. Is there anyone that has board communications? Any comments or questions from the board? I I've been we've all been receiving um uh emails from Becky Goss who's the new um athletic director at the high school. Does she have a second role at the high school? Assistant principal and athletic director at the high school. And I just wanted to commend her tonight for the communication that she's had with us. It's it's a different style than the the previous athletic director. And it I feel um very involved in what's going on with the spirit week that's coming up and with the the events that are coming. It's nice to have a one
037place to check to see uh everything that's happening. Um so excellent job for Becky. I'm just think she's doing terrific work so far. Okay. >> Now, I got to do a shout out for Becky, too, because um she put on two events that really were a lot that she did to lead to their success and the planning organization, getting the resources, getting the right people in the right place. And uh these are not easy events to put on, but they both turned out to be really really special events and ones that I think hopefully we can continue. The first one was uh an outdoor high school volleyball match. We are the first our CEA Vikings High School and the Eastmont Wildcats are the first teams in Washington State who have ever done a sanctioned WIAA
038volleyball match. Four records. So, a huge accomplishment and Becky had a tremendous amount to do with that. Yakama Sports uh association was a great partner with that. And then um our students who a lot of them assisted that day with putting a court together, but our our custodial and maintenance teams did a fantastic job of adjusting their responsibilities to uh get that get that court put down and make it a safe venue. And it and it turned out to be just an incredible night. Um, the weather was perfect. Uh, just Chris and I were both there. It just was, it was one of those nights I will remember for a long time seeing our student athletes and Eastmont uh, out there playing volleyball under the lights on a soccer football stadium. >> I would just
039note that uh, Becky did a really nice job figuring out when to uh, look at having that that match outside. They um, the sport court was already at the Sundoo. the timing was. So, the cost to rent it was minimal and it was paid for out of their fundraising account. So, I always like to add that when uh since we're in a you know tight place with our budget and she was very responsible with that. So, worked good. So, I'm not sure that she'll ever do the second event the same time that she does the outdoor volleyball, but Friday night, last Friday night, in a home football game with West Valley, uh we did a she did and led a uh a recognition of salute to service and she invited uh members of of all
040kinds of different services, armed services, our local first responders, invited them to the game. They set up different uh different locations where they could have community and student involvement. We had our our police department, fire department, uh ambulance services, we also had members from um uh the training center join us. And uh as well as um West Valley High School has had a traditional ROC program, they were also invited and they actually did the colors which was fantastic as well. So, it brought out not only those who are um supporters of our athletic program, but brought a whole bunch of other people out to an event uh that was very well attended. Uh we got lots of great props from not only our supporters and families, but the West Valley just had great things to
041say about doing that. So, it was really nice to hear that. And anytime that a Viking can beat a Ram in a game, always a very good night. And so hats off and congratulations to our football team, but also really uh to Becky and her organization of planning those two events. So well done. >> I did like seeing it recognized as a a former Mid Valley rivals in the paper. They they noted that. I thought, all right, there we go. But now what? We have East Valley for Homecoming or Oll for Homecoming? >> We are tonight and Toppenish for >> Toppenish. Okay. >> So yeah. Yeah, they're >> coming up. Okay, great. All right. Uh I think it it may be a record. It may not be. I'm not sure. But we're done very quickly
042today. Thank you for adjusting the agenda for the the people that have to uh leave quickly today or and so that the people that are not here today don't miss too much. So, I really appreciate that. All right. Uh with that, we will adjourn the meeting.