001I have 4:30. Uh so we will gather the meeting to order. Please stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. Let me turn this on. There's a change to our consent agenda. Uh, and Kevin, I lost the notes on the consent agenda change. It's um is it D? >> It is actually has the I the agenda item E student discipline. Yes. So uh last at our last uh board meeting um business meeting. Um we had a first reading of uh item E which is the student discipline policy. Since that's happened, uh, WASDA has come out with a revised version of the revised version of the student discipline policy. Um, and so we'll have a first reading of that and then we'll do our second reading at the next meeting. Um, is the is the
002change and I just want to notify people of that at the start of the meeting. Change to the agenda. Uh, let's start though, um, with the district highlights. Uh, Mr. McCain. Well, I'm gonna pass it right down to the two new faces to my right. And Sarah, do you want to start or do you want Brian to? >> Uh, hi, I'm Sarah Ken. I am the new director of student experience, uh, which entails CTE and math. Um, my family and I just actually just bought a house in CILA and my oldest child just started kindergarten at R. Okay, so we're we're now the a CILA crew. >> Fantastic. Where were you before CILA? Um, I taught in the well taught in the Highland School District for four years and then I was a math coordinator
003there for three years and then before Highland I was in Grand View for four years. >> It sounds like you're from the valley originally. >> I'm not. Um, I actually grew up in Montana and then went to school at Oregon State um and ended up in Grand View through Teach for America. >> Oh, fantastic. Yeah, great. Well, welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah, great to have you. >> And my name is Brian Buer. I'm the new principal at CIA Middle School. Um, my family and I lived in Sila for the last eight years, maybe nine years. Um, I have a recent graduate. I have a senior in high school and then a freshman in high school. >> Outstanding. Welcome. Did you go to Wilson Middle School? >> I did go to Wilson Middle School. >>
004I may have been your baseball coach at Wilson Middle. >> I think you were. >> I knew the name was really familiar, but now I'm put in the face. >> I think I also had you at YBC, too. >> Oh, nice. Okay. >> I got into this game kind of late, so >> Yeah. Well, welcome. Welcome. Good. Good cavalier. good uh good yak and now a good Viking. We're glad to go >> glad to have you here. Boy, that's great. Excellent news. >> Um our our next uh item of business under the highlights are some SHS Unleashed Awards uh and a little bit of action from the SHS wind ensemble. >> Yeah, I'll kind of get you up to speed on both those. Those came across to us during the summer. The uh Unleashed Awards
005are annual awards from Unleashed. unleashed is our partnership with uh our high school students involving ESD and the Yakama Herald Republic. Uh these students have an interest in journalism and uh there is programs for high school students within that partnership. Our schools our students participate in it as many school students from out the valley. We're uh fortunate to have uh some students who have excelled in that area and and some of these you've heard their names before so it may not be a surprise. First one is Cameron Pelson. Uh Cameron was is a 24-2 senior secondyear member. He received three awards in the Unleashed Awards. Uh uh photographer of the year, best photo feature collection of the year, and best personality feature for for an article he had. Uh Rosie Pandit, you all heard Rosie
006before. She's done a incredible job of of being a student at the high school. Again, a 24 25 junior secondyear member. She had the best news story of the year and the best student personality for feature for the year. And then uh Mallerie Keller, a junior also uh best scenic photograph photo of the year. So our students uh did very very very well in that. And then our wind ensemble which is part of our fine arts music program. Um each year the music educators of the state of Washington come together for their annual conference in uh Yakama and at each year they invite uh certain groups from across the state invite them to perform for the music educators. It is a in the world of music education it is one of the most prestigious awards
007to play in front of the music educators of the state of Washington. It is the first time that our wind ensemble has been invited to play in front of the music educators of the state of Washington. So, I'm going to read to you what Kevin Matson received and and he is just uh he is overjoyed with this uh this recognition. I wanted to share some exciting news. The high school wind ensemble has been selected per for to perform uh at the 26 uh Washington music educator association all state conference on February 14th in Yakama. I officially accepted the invitation today. I also want to express my gratitude appreciation for all the support that makes the opportunities like this possible. This selection is a huge honor for our students and our program. It represents not only
008their hard work and dedication, but also the investment and encouragement from our our schools, the district, and the community. This will be an incredible opportunity for our students to represent CILA on a statewide stage, and I'm so proud of the work they've done to get here. I'll be sharing more details as we get closer to the performance, but wanted everybody to know the news. So that's that's from Kevin Matson. But from my experience uh with high schools and as a superintendent, this this doesn't happen in unless you are at a pretty high level of performance. So uh congrats to our students and to our staff involved there. Third item on highlights, I just want to highlight the welcome back event. It's a yearly event. Uh it starts as a welcome back for for our staff,
009but it also recognizes our staff who worked the entire summer as well. Um it it's meant to be positive. It's a very short event uh just under an hour and I just wanted to to say that it it went off very well and I think it accomplished what my goals were to make people smile and laugh. Uh board president Peters was there. He he followed in that smiling and laughing and too, but also shared a really cool message about the events of the fire on the hill there and what you and your wife decided were the most important things to take out of your house, which was a lot of pictures of your children involved in in the schools. So, >> cool memories for sure. Yeah, that was that was what I talked a little
010bit about what matters. Uh and um when we had to evacuate uh this summer, saw you on that day as a matter of fact. Saw you on that day, Katrina. Um, we had uh 10 minutes to gather everything up and we did and cats and hard drives and laptops and passports. And then the guy knocked again and said, "You got to go now." And the police officer did. And we said, "All right, let's take one more look in our kids' rooms." And we had made these posters for their graduation kind of memory boards, I guess. And we made sure we grabbed those, too. And I that is just a message that I want everybody in the district to hear is that when you are uh you know when the knock comes uh the thing that
011you want to carry with you is your a big part of it is your school experience. So um uh uh Claire was there as well and gave a fantastic speech. Claire, what was your impression of the welcome back event? >> It was it was really um incredible. Um, I'd been to it before as like a student, but more on like the be being on the being on stage part was really um, it was really just exciting to be there with all of the members of the district and really just shows how much like support really goes into um, our students education and I really enjoyed it and it was a really cool opportunity. So I do I thank you Mr. McKay for um, giving me and I know that Charlie also was really grateful for
012the opportunity to speak. >> Great student speakers for sure this year again. Rosie spoke last year. You were mentioned Rosie Pandit and Claire and Charlie and two other speakers from the high school were by far the most inspirational part of the of the event for sure. And last but not least, uh this is the first time and I'm not sure why I haven't shared this uh in recent years, but I do think the the item D here, Washington State Board of Education full certification letter is important for not only you as board, but for community as well to know that uh the state board of education who who holds a huge amount of responsibility over public education in our state uh require is required by state statute to certify by public schools uh with regards
013to what they offer to their students and uh if you haven't read the letter the most important is that the state board of education gave our school district full certification. So uh it is it is something that you know it some people view it as just another hoop that public schools have to jump through. But I kind of look at it differently is that we're doing exactly what we say we're doing and we also are doing what is expected of us by the state board, OSPI, the legislature and so forth. And when we go through this process at the college, when we have something that's out of compliance, they call it a ding. Uh I and I understand that we by passing the since time immemorial curriculum last fall that was one of the areas
014that they had not checked off for us and as a final certification this allows us to get to that level. That right? >> Yeah that is correct. is in previous years we have always had that as kind of a mark against us and not receiving the certification which which doesn't stop you doing things but you have to do a lot more work in order to tell you where you tell them where you are in the progress and since time of memorial is now it's been adopted we're past that it's been implemented in the schools then that we have full certification without having to go back and do additional additional work so >> great it might be neat to hear from Hunter sure how that's being implemented that STI curriculum. That'd be kind of fun to
015hear about a year later after that large public um debate about it. All right. Uh our next item on the agenda are suggestions and comments from the audience. There are no written comments that have been submitted. Is there there's a one person who would like to speak. So I'll read this uh disclaimer here. We invite all community members to address the board on an issue or 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. Great. After being recognized by the board president, individual remarks are limited to three minutes. Patrons making comments are asked to begin by identifying themselves. If there's a group of people, please appoint a spokesperson. Um, if
016desired, you may email written documentation to 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 superintendent to respond to the issues expressed at a later date. Complaints about specific personnel will not be heard in open session and will not be part of the record of any public meeting. harassing or derogatory statements about any persons or groups of persons will not be heard. Okay. And we have one person signed up today and that's Mary Scheler. Welcome Mary. >> Thank you. My name is Mary Scheler and I just wanted to thank you very much Dan for actually talking at the coming back to school event about the fires and
017about what you could actually take out of the school or take out of your homes. So, I I appreciate you very much for doing that because for the fires and what has gone on, I never really thought about how much that affects people in the home, but pictures speak a lifetime. So, I very much appreciate for what you have done about that. And I also want to talk about the um because I do have native grandchildren um that are half native and half white. So this about the education for certification for time since time of memorial because my grandchildren are actually high biracial. So I have talked to my granddaughter's school um at John Campbell and she has actually asked me if I will be making fry bread for that and I said yes I
018would and some homemade jam and go and take that to the school. So, thank you for making both of these, but I really appreciate you for talking at this back to school event. >> Great. Thank you, Mary. >> Uh, all right. The next item on our agenda is the approval of regular meeting minutes from our July 24th, 2025 meeting. Um, I will make a motion that we approve the regular meeting minutes. Is there a second? >> I'll second it. Uh any comments or questions about the meeting minutes from last July's or this July 24th 2025 meeting? All those uh uh in favor of approving signify with an I. >> I. >> All those opposed abstain. Move on to the consent agenda. And again here's where E is going to change to a first reading um
019or uh something like that. Uh the first one is the human resources action sheet. Um Chris, is there anything on the uh HR action sheet that we should be aware of? >> Just very quickly, a final report on number of employees hired this year for the 2526 school year. We hired class 27 classified employees and eight certificated employees. So just hired our last certificated employee this afternoon. It was a late resignation. So we're excited. We're fully staffed up and ready to go. So just as a high just as a note that's about half of what we normally hire every year. So our attrition was way down for the first time in a long time. >> Um as far as the HR action I don't have anything to highlight to you Kevin. >> Okay. >> Just
020some kind of end of summer uh appointments, right? That that that uh that often happens. I know. So it's good we're all fully staffed up. >> Yes. >> All right. Under good uh payroll goods and services. Uh Chris, is there anything in this uh group of bills that we should pay close attention to? >> I don't have any particular highlights. I mean, I did my own auditing of those, but nothing really to to highlight tonight unless you have questions. >> Are there any board members that have questions about the payroll, goods, and services uh totals for this last um quarter? I quarter monthly. >> One quick question. So the the money that we give to this theanache food bank for our backpack program. >> Yes. >> Where does that funding come from? Is that specifically
021>> it comes it comes out of our overall um funding or just our basic yet or levy funding. We take it from kind of the the bank that's not allocated to anything else. And so the money actually has been a true benefit to so many students that are identified by our family support team in a confidential way. We served I think on average almost 400 >> it's actually over 400 >> is it 400 now over and yeah in two weeks. So out of 3,600 students, these other these 400 plus students identified by our family support team get a backpack to go home with meals for the weekend. And it's just been wonderful to be able to support these students and families in that way. And so the the partnership that we have, the food bank
022also is uh instrumental in getting that done. and they have their contribution towards the process, but the district has agreed to make a contribution every year to help them make ends meet. Um, so it's been it's been a great partnership. Kevin, anything you want? >> Something that we plan to continue. >> Yes. >> And if more students need support, are we in a position to >> Yes. Right now, we would we would support what the students that the family support team identifies, they know best and they do it confidentially. And yes, so we're we're definitely in it. I'm fairly certain the number initially was 60 backpacks every two weeks and then the need was discovered and so >> it's been a great program. >> Yes, definitely. >> All right. Excellent. Um our next item thanks
023for the uh that question and for the um the silanaches people working in that program. Uh the next item is D on the consent agenda, which is a first reading of a bunch of policy updates starting with uh uh 1111 oath of office down to 5260 personnel records. Um I'll let the uh uh board take a look at those. We'll let the board take a look at those. Um and we'll have a a second reading of those at our next meeting. Uh Kevin, for the student discipline, do we have uh I know they emailed WASDA emailed all of us. Is will that be considered our first reading or what I would do is um in board docs and what I emailed you as all as well, which is the policy alert. Just take a read
024through that. It'll give you a little bit more detail of what's going on and then you actually be able to see some of the updates within the policy. But with if you don't want to go through line by line of the policy, this is a very good overview for you about the process. >> Great. Okay. Thank you. >> So then that policy will be a first reading next meeting or a second reading next meeting. >> First reading is included in this group of policies. >> Part of the first reading. >> This is part of the first reading next. >> Yeah. And then you will adopt or take action to adopt at the next one. >> Yep. And in September. >> All right. Uh, I move that we approve the consent agenda. Uh, is there a
025second? >> Second. >> Are there any comments or questions about the consent agenda? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify with an I. >> I. All those opposed and abstains. Excellent. Uh, our next uh item is an item that comes up annually, which is a resolution for out of endorsement assignments. Um, these can be teachers who are not endorsed for a subject but are being asked to teach out of their uh approved subject area. Oftentimes it's for one period. Um, occasionally it's for more than that. Um, uh, Kevin, do you want to talk us through the uh the request here? >> Yeah, every year annually about this time. Now, I can't say it's exactly in this month, but we set a goal for ourel self a couple years ago to get these
026to the board as close as we could to the start of the school year. Just it look it it looks better, right? When you have done the work beforehand instead of waiting, although there's no statute or any requirements, nothing by policy. Uh it's just the board has got to take action to approve this. Uh for the most part, this is a lower number than you may have seen in the past. Um and that is I think because uh we've paid closer attention uh to the the the schedules. Most of these occur when we're trying to offer at the middle school and high school a very robust schedule for students, but we don't have the exact matches in some of the courses that we offer from our our staff certificated staff members or in these cases
027teachers. Um, this is it's an allowable practice. It's a common practice, but it is a board uh approval and notification practice. Just so you're looped into what's going on here. In each case, you have one resolution per individual staff member that we've need to request an outdorsement uh approval on. As Dan said, some of these are for one period, maybe one period of one teaching assignment over the course of the entire uh school year at the high school. Uh John McClintic is the one that brings his easy one to bring in to mind. He does not have an endorsement uh or a degree in philosophy. Very seldom people do, but we offer a philosophy course and John has background in that although he doesn't have a a degree in it or a major or minor
028in it. He does not meet the endorsement, but we offer it. He's the most qualified to teach it and so we need to come to you for that approval. You may have seen ones in the past uh special education teachers. We do have another one of those. Uh obviously special education is our most difficult uh area to hire for and sometimes we must hire um fully certified teachers. They just don't have the special education endorsement. So we have to go back and work with them on a plan to get that endorsement. U and so in in order to do that and hire them for those positions, we need to bring those to you. So what you'll see here I think are six or seven different individual people for those resolutions. So you said that you
029know it is quite a smaller number than what we're used to seeing and one thing that stuck out to me was the lack well not lack of but there are less dual teachers. So is that a good sign? Does that mean that we've hired these dual language positions? >> It is a very good sign. It's a good sign for us from the position that we are in for two reasons. is that we know what's going on within the the schools probably more so than we have in the past because bringing 15 or 16 of this to you just doesn't sit right with us. Um and so we've we've eliminated a lot of that. But a good portion of those Sarah exactly what you just said is is dual is that we've been able to secure
030dual teachers. They've stayed with us or we've been able to hire those. Um that that's been a benefit for us. So, I'm not sure that's a benefit for the other school districts who are seeking dual teachers, but it's definitely been a benefit for us. >> Sorry. Is there a consistent theme for us within our district on departments or particular certifications that we are lacking? And is that a CEA specific problem or is that something that we see regionally, statewide, nationwide? >> Uh, special education is all of those. um special education, regardless of it's a resource room or a a specialized classroom for students with higher degree of disabilities or grade level. Uh special education in the whole it it just that we're not seeing the increases in the number of of students coming out of
031universities who are having that as an endorsement. Many of them are going back after and getting that endorsement because it allows them to to secure a job. Um but for us that we are one of everybody who is searching for more special education teachers. And then uh what makes us different not from every school district but school districts with dual language programs that that again is another reason why you may see some duel on there as well. But I think we are we um whatever we're in that cycle again where there are an abundance of certificated teachers with all kinds of different endorsements. And the reason why there's just not a lot of openings for new teachers coming out of college or new to the profession. um districts are because of enrollment are not hiring
032more or they're in positions where financially they're needing to reduce their budgets and that's the biggest place where you reduce budgets. So there are a lot of people out there looking for jobs. Another offshoot of that is that there was a time when we lacked in substitute teachers. We've probably got more substitute teachers signed up this year than we have in previous years. >> Great. That helps. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh so uh we can do these as a group 2025-12 down to 2025-17. Um uh I move that we uh that we approve the resolution for out of endorsement assignments. Is there a second? >> Second it. >> Are there any other questions, additional questions or comments? All those in favor of uh adopting resolutions 2025-12 through 17 signify with an I. I >> I
033all those opposed abstensions. Great. We'll move on now to item number seven, which is Claire. Take it away. Do you have I know it's summertime, but do you have a a student board rep update? >> Well, it's last day of the first week, so we made it. >> It's not summertime. Yeah, it was summertime. >> It's all done. Um, so last time I talked to Mr. Okay, we uh which was last week, we have like one or two students signed up for four now. Okay. I've been working with the ASB and activities director at the high school to kind of get um the student board represented for uh just out there and more students aware so we can get um you know, as many people seeking out this opportunity as possible. Um yeah, it's just
034been it's been a great first week back. Going to the back to school event was super inspiring. even as a student. Um we had our first like assembly today at the high school and one thing I will say I have noticed though is that there's,200 kids at the high school and that is way too many for our building. Um just to keep that on your radar. I know that that's something uh like one of my classes has 48 students and this is this is not a elective class. This is a college level calculus class where one teacher is trying to teach 48 students and another one of my classes has close to 35. another college um level course. So, we're definitely we're outgrowing the high school um especially with this huge freshman class. So, um
035yeah, I think um I'm really excited to kind of um help the the incoming um student board representatives as we get into this year. And you guys have any questions for me? >> You kind of brought it up, but Chris would probably be the one to answer it. Is this the biggest bubble we'll have at the high school with this freshman class? So do the three classes ahead of this freshman class bigger than the three classes for it. >> This is the the bubble is now getting to the end of the the road here. So they'll be exiting all the smaller classes are coming up system now. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you very much, Claire. Excellent. Uh we will move on now to the uh associate superintendent for district operations and uh
036the financial status. >> Yes, I'll I'll jump right into that just to give you kind of a little bit of a highlight on the enrollment. We don't have an official enrollment count for September yet. That happens on September 5th. But what we do is we ask the buildings to populate their FTE um for this current week. We ask them to do it. Um and then next week leading up to the fifth. So we are looking at pretty much uh over projection in all grades but maybe just a couple at this point. The high school is still up in the air a little bit because we're looking at headcount and not FTE. So um our projection look is looking pretty solid right now, but we'll have a a better number for you when we get to
037uh the official count on the 5th. Right now we're still withdrawing kids that have transferred. We're enrolling new students. We We got a lot of movement right now, which typically happens the first week of school. >> And I'll add to that, too. We also have some some families kind of in limbo right now. Many of those families don't reside in the district and they've applied for out of district uh enrollment. and uh if they happen to be at the high school, as Claire just said, there there's a lot of students, but some of those students that are on our books right now uh have or unofficially withdrawn or going to someplace else. So, the high school has to balance who is actually there and they should be able to weed all that out. Then if
038there's room, which I'm not going to say there's going to be or there isn't, um there's a possibility of some of those students gaining enrollment or entrance into our into our schools. Uh probably the high school has the highest of those um maybe a little bit at the middle school. Most of the time, obviously, at the uh early grades, if if parents are applying from out of district, and we have room, and the student has shown to have uh good attendance, good academic progress, and has not created behavioral issues for the district, then we're going to accept them in. It's a one-year agreement, and then we'll see what happens after that. >> We're still open at all grade levels >> except for calculus. >> You know, Robert's in the basement. All right. Um, I'll jump
039into the financial status update. This is a report as of July. As a reminder, the August um, year-end report is not presented to the board until the December board meeting. We actually have a process that we go through September and October. We're required to have our year-end closing done by October 25th. So, there's always a lag time before you get another financial update until we present the year-end numbers in December. It's with only one board meeting in November, it it cuts it really close to get the presentation off in November. So, we've always done it in the December time frame, but this is as of July. That's 91.7% through the school year. We've received 87.8% of our budgeted revenues and expended 88.5% of our uh budgeted appropriations. We um have a process that we go
040through um like I said, September, October. So there'll be a lot of approvals that get posted back on the revenue side and the expenditure side that'll bring us closer to our percentage mark, but we're pretty much really right on target to where we're projecting our year-end fund balance to be and where we'll land at the end of the year. We've been meeting on that regularly. So um we right now at the end of July, well as of the end of July, we had just over $10 million in the fund balance cash reserve. So right on target, we'll end probably 10.5 to 10.8 8 million at the end of the year. So, um, that's where we projected to be when we talked about our our budget and you adopted the budget in in July. So, that's
041that. On the other funds, ASB, uh, pretty typical where we're at. We're sitting uh 450,000 um in ending fund balance as of July. We typically roll over three to $400,000 a year in the ASB fund. Um the debt service fund again just to service our outstanding bonds. We're at just 1.5 million just under 1.5 million on ending fund balance. We've paid all of our debt payments for the year. So principal and interest payments get paid twice a year once December 1st and once June 1st those have been paid. Revenue has been rolling in from tax collections to pay the debt. And we're right on target with where we need to be for year end on debt service. Transportation vehicle fund. We're still waiting on one bus that's not here yet that we purchased. So we
042may be in a situation where well we will be because the 31st is upon us and if we don't receive the bus by the 31st then the expenditures get reported into next year but we have budget capacity there and there's no problem with that. We just haven't received the bus yet. Um and then cap projects fund we are sitting right at 7 just under $7.6 $6 million in fund balance. And again, the big two big projects we have going on, which there'll be an update in October to the board on these, is one is the field turf and one's the CTE edition. So, we have those lined out within those funds to be completed uh for field turf by August of 26 and the CTE edition by August of 27. So, that's it. Any questions
043on that? >> Well, thank you very much, Chris. Appreciate that. Uh we'll move on now to the uh superintendent report starting with the board calendar and uh it's draft board calendar so things are might have some moving pieces. Kevin, do you want to talk us through any uh of the uh colorcoded? >> Yeah. So you've seen this document before and this is not not the board meetings calendar. It's really the calendar of what goes on throughout the year and what we what we know needs to go into each of the times that you meet, whether it's a study session or a board meeting. So, take a look at this. It it is a draft. Uh you know that study sessions at times get moved around depending on what's going on within the district, but this
044gives us at least something to shoot shoot for. On the very bottom, it does identify the buildings. I know we've put that out there and I know you have maybe decided to try to get yourselves into the building. So, it gives you a building by a two-month window there. So, for for Mr. Peters, Robert Lince is his building for September, October. Please know that doesn't limit you. If you want to go to all of them, terrific. Go for it. Um, other than that, uh, it does identify some community forum dates there that may be of interest to you. Those are tentative. That's why it's still kind of in draft. I've identified more than likely the 23rd of September will be the first community forum, but you see some other ones listed there as well. Um
045Chris mentioned uh with regards to facilities, we just uh uh made sure that our architect is going to be able to join us in that October study session for a full update on where we are within both projects and uh what's going to be happening in the months ahead. So complete with uh some drawings and so forth so you start to get a really good idea of what it's going to look like there. If you have suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know. >> Can I jump in one thing? If you're going out to the buildings, I would encourage you if you have time to go out during the bus drop off time or pickup times at any of the schools if you want some smiles. Um we've had a lot of I fun
046going out. A lot of us at the district office have been out and about at the schools this week and um greeting kids and helping them find their classes and just uh just ensuring that they're they're safe and that they're comfortable coming back to school and it's it's been a ball. I've really enjoyed it. >> Thank you. I I know that Kevin uh you and I spoke yesterday about maybe trying to find a way to uh get more parent involvement at on at least at board um uh get more parent voice, more parent input uh and maybe having that be part of a community forum or part of a study session. Sort of like we've had student panels in the past. Maybe that would be a way to um uh include parents and and get
047families involved. um and hopefully more student voice involvement uh this this year as well. I think that I I think of the when we've had the migrant um program parent advisory committee people come and speak and when we've heard students speak those oftent times feel like um well it's a new stream of information obviously for us on the board uh but it's also very inspiring and um I hope we can do events like that uh as part of this calendar. All right, are there other questions or comments about the calendar? I think we're now moving to the superintendent update. >> Yeah. So, just a quick update. I think you realize my updates. They haven't changed. They're not going to change. It's just some some information for you. Uh if you if you've been following uh
048Heidi and her work with regards to putting information out on social media, Instagram and Facebook, you've seen recently that she's done a lot of recognition of of those departments who have put a lot of effort in getting ready for school. And I'd like to do a public shout out within the board meeting and thank all those with some extra attention to our facilities team, our grounds team, maintenance and custodial. Uh, a lot of good work happened this summer uh to make sure our schools are ready for our students and that sometimes we just think about, you know, annual cleaning. Well, it was a lot more than that. There was a lot of fixit of things, replacement of things, significant amount of work uh on landscape. I think you really if you the high school see
049high school parking lot uh a lot of uh work at CIS with the overgrowth of a lot of shrubs in the front. So uh a lot of effort by each of these individuals who did that work and then obviously uh Frank and Chris for their leadership in that of of getting ourselves using using the summer months to the best of our advantage uh to getting the schools looking really good. I in general Chris mentioned it but it it our with our students return uh I I can say that there was a sense of a lot of uh excitement, happiness, smiles and laughter on behalf of our students. Claire, it's nice to hear from the student perspective that you share that especially at the high school. I mean I you can feel it. You can't put
050your finger on it. me could take pictures of kids and happiness and parents and uh their excitement for the school year. But it it it has for the first week has been very positive and and has run rather smoothly. Our uh Chris and I like I was at JCP this afternoon and she was at CIS and we text each other back and forth with the buses. When are they going to get there? When are they leaving? And actually today we were the best. We were at 3:27. 3:27 all buses out of the CIS parking lot, which is a good thing. So, we need to get them out of the JCP parking lot by We were at 3:15, I think, today. So, yeah, I mean, we have it down to the minute and the it's it's
051important that it is a minute and that is with kinder with our first and second graders only being really together for those first two days. So, we'll see what happens. >> It's got to be kind of dicey, though. you you have to hurry but don't rush. I mean, these are >> big buses and little kids and hey, let's go let's go home. >> Well, and a lot of it is helping kids get, you know, right now first second graders have it down, but the first graders, you know, they don't they don't always know which direct. I mean, they have they're they've they're getting them schooled up on it, but there's always a few stragglers that go the wrong way and then they've got to go all the way around. So I'm going almost running with
052these two girls yesterday getting them all the way to the end bus and but we got there and we're like yes. So it was good. >> Yeah. Here today here's an example of what some of the challenge are. We had I think it was a second grader and parent pickup. If you know about JCP you go out to the playground for parents to pick you up if you're a parent pickup and you go out to the right to the bus loop. Well, this one girl decided that she didn't want to go to the parent pickup because she didn't need to see her parent that early and she'd never been out to the bus loop and she wanted to see what it was like. So, as you can imagine, the parent waiting for her child there
053in the parent pickup, but her child decided, "No, I think I'm going to go the other way." So um it was the parent was happy but that that's the kind of thing that goes on quite often in the schools especially with the elementary schools is the students are very curious or they have their own mindset of where they think they need to be. Uh back to report uh CLA already mentioned it. We are up to four applicants as of uh today. Uh I've reviewed their what they've answered in their questions. They all look like they're quality applicants. We'll see what happens over the weekend. Heidi was going to make another announcement over the weekend through Parent Square. Uh we'll close those applications down um sometime probably the morning of the second and see where we
054are. We'll get uh start doing our backgrounds with uh checks to make sure they're in good academic standing and and answer the questions as they did. uh I'll involve uh some input from the high school administration and then uh more than likely if we're at four and they all all look good, we'll bring them all to you then for our study session in September to go through some short interviews and then make some decisions. Okay? And if you don't know already, this is a holiday weekend, but in our school district, we uh decide to make it an extra day holiday weekend. So there is no school tomorrow for our students and for the majority of our employees. Uh and then we've celebrate the Labor Day holiday on Monday. That is my report. >> Thank you.
055Uh with speaking of the high school parking lot uh the the high school started the senior class. You get to be the first year to be part of this tradition uh of uh painting parking spaces. Uh and that's uh brought a lot of joy I think at the start of the year. What's your Have you done your parking space, Claire? >> No, I decided not to do it because it was it was quite expensive. Like, uh, students were spending like upwards of like $300. >> Turned into that already. >> Yeah. So, but a lot of students really enjoyed it. So, um, yeah, it's been a great start to our senior year. >> They look terrific. Yeah, I think that's a nice tradition. Uh, all right. Um, are there uh any comments or questions for Kevin?
056I think we can move on now to the last item, board of directors communication. Uh, I have a quick note. Does anybody else have a note uh for board of directors communication? >> This probably goes good off of Kevin's uh shout out to the facilities team with the high school when we had the strangest event that I can ever remember in insurance. Um, and Chris Scott, I think, wants to be on the maintenance team because she was walking in her flip-flops up a ladder about 14 feet high. Don't tell Chad that. Okay. >> In an emergency situation, but it was all hands on deck and all those guys know how to react. And it was one of those situations that wor strange. The the membrane roof disconnected in the middle. It really looked like a
057giant bounce house. And then a little bit of rain allowed some rain to come in through an HVAC unit. Unlucky enough that it was on the gym floor that had just been refinished and it hadn't solidified yet. So the water got into the floor and then sealed under it and started spreading. Uh but the staff knew exactly what to do led by, you know, Chris and Chris and Frank and stuff. And it was just a a disastrous process that was really fun to see play out and then have insurance take care of at the end of the day. So it was it was good on a lot of people's part. >> End of September, which has led which has led if you don't know, maybe I'll be saying something I shouldn't say publicly, but uh
058not it's not bad or anything. It's actually kind of cool is that the the damage to the floor has led to uh a certain section of the wood to be replaced and then to be re the whole floor to be resanded and refinished. That takes some times and then it needs to cure and all that stuff. So, it has a day-to-day impact. Like for example, you had an assembly in the the bleachers today outside, right? That doesn't normally happen. So the it's the day-to-day operations of the school, but it also awfully impacts our extracurricular activities and and specifically in the fall volleyball. So what it led to is that uh athletic director and volleyball coach decided to think about could we play a game outside. And so on the 16th they are have worked with
059uh the Yakama Sports Authority group uh to secure one of the floors that they use in the Sundoo for the big tournaments and for the state tournament. Those floors can be used outside as well. And so we've secured one of those floors. that floor will be set up um prior to I think it's the 15th and then the game against Eastmont uh will be on the 16th outside and then potentially under the lights. So that's one thing that probably would have never ever thought about without uh the damage to the floor. So, we're also going to probably bring back some of the old memories for us who were in the 80s where the high school was not the high school that it is and and play in um the famous Pat Clark gymnasium uh for
060uh some volleyball, varsity volleyball matches uh as well at the middle school. So, pretty neat. >> All right. Thank you. Uh I I have a quick comment. Um, we are uh heading into the election season for two school board positions that are open. And I just for the school board members that are here and I'll I'll send this to Derek since he's not here. Be uh it'd be good for everyone to hear this and I want to make sure he does as well. Um there are some legal guidelines from the board perspective that we have to kind of be aware of and also just some common sense ones. Um the first is that we are uh able free to support candidates as private individuals but we should be clear that we're speaking as private individuals
061rather than as board members or as speaking for the board. Uh we can't use district resources like email lists, meeting agendas, logos, facilities to support or oppose any candidates. Uh during board meetings we are um uh prohibited from advocating uh for any particular um candidate or against any particular candidate or ballot measures for that uh for that matter. And on social media if there this one gets tricky and we are going to have an OPM training I think coming up so this is good to know but if we are commenting on social media and there's three of us commenting all of a sudden we've got a board meeting. Um, so we have to be very careful with um how we how we present if if I know most of you aren't even tempted to present
062your opinions on on social media, but if you are tempted to present your opinions on social media, just be careful that you're not creating a quorum um that you're not speaking on behalf of the whole school board or the district and that you're not using um any part of your official role. Some common sense advice would just be to make sure to keep conversations uh respectful. Um to model what we teach our students. Uh I have a friend who says you better be nice to people because you never know who you're going to end up with at the same table in the old folks home. You know Yakama is a small place, right? If you're mean to somebody and now you're sitting at the table and that's where you are. So that's true in the
063election as well is um uh uh if we maintain respect for each other uh prioritize what what we're here to do which is to be uh um uh the best representatives for our kids and our schools. Um I think that's the right direction for us to go. So just some kind of some common sense things and also some legal things that I wanted to make the board aware of. And as I said I'll I'll send this information to Derek so he hears it as well. That's all I had. Anything else? Good. All right.