001Okay, it is 7 o'clock on April 14, 2026 and I'm going to call this regular meeting of the West Valley School Board of Directors to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. The flag is over there. >> Ready? Begin. I aliance 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. >> Okay. Any changes to the agenda? >> Also, just to let the audience know, we do have uh Haley Larson here in on the phone and that is part of our district policy procedures that we can have board members participate by phone. So, just >> thank you for that. I appreciate it. So, we do have all five board members with us. All right. And then,
002uh, question was changes to the agenda. Yes, we do have some changes to the agenda. We're going to add a travel item uh, travel request number two. And that is our golf team, high school from the high school golf team on an overnight trip to Breton leaving on April 28th and returning April 29th. and that's funded partially travel uh transportation by uh extracurricular and then the motel cost by ASB. So that's a travel request number two adds to the agenda and then also a change to the agenda is that we're going to delete number 12 the executive session that will be deleted and that's all the changes to the agenda. Okay, communications. All right, we do have a response to public comments. So at the schoolboard meeting on March 24th, a community member shared information
003about the increase in elementary reading scores in Mississippi. Uh response is that Mississippi has enacted curriculum changes that are aligned to the science of reading. The curriculum in West Valley has been aligned to the science of reading for many years. The science of reading is a balanced approach which includes time for students to read books and stories and time for direct instruction in small groups for phonics awareness and phone segmentation in West Valley. Curriculum materials for books and stories include our potent mifflin hardcourt into reading and curriculum materials for phonics phamic awareness and phone name segmentation include curriculum associates phonics for reading heard phmic awareness and Orton Gillingham foundational literacy skills. While the district is always working for continuous improvement, all six elementary schools in West Valley have received recognition for student achievement. And I
004did include in the board packet a list of uh the achievements that each of our schools and district have received over the years. And that's the that concludes the response to public comment. >> Okay. Thank you. Um it is now time for our school presentation. We're glad to be here and glad to have you both here. >> All right. So, I'm going to move the phone over here so uh Haley can hear Kristen and Chelsea with the presentation and I'll go ahead and turn it over to them. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Peter. >> Hi, welcome tonight. I'm Kristen Williams. I'm the instructional coach here at Apple Valley. >> And I'm Kelsey Harris. I teach first grade here at Apple Valley. >> And we wanted to start by saying um our principal Heidi Sutton had
005hoped to be here tonight and had a family um emergency. So, her apologies that she wasn't able to be here with us. So, with that said, um we're just going to kind of share what it looks like and feels like to be at Apple Valley as a learner. Um our building focus is really centered around our district strategic plan and our building um school improvement plan. So, we're going to focus on those two elements. The first being our instructional commitment. Our teachers and staff have been working really hard the past few years on refining our targets and success criteria. Chelsea's going to talk about that in just a few minutes. And we've been following the district's um lead, following Dr. Tammy Campbell on the focus on teacher clarity. Teachers really having that um end goal
006in mind of what is it that we want our young learners to achieve and how are we going to best get them there. And then um obviously our goal number one in our district strategic plan is student safety and belonging. So we want to share a little bit about our PBIS system and how our students have some voice and choice in what they get to participate in. >> And again the PBIS is positive behavior >> interhavior intervention system. Thank you. Acronym that I need to define. >> Yeah. So then it's we'll get into that when we get to that portion. Thank you. >> Um okay. So this is kind of um basically uh touching on all the learning target work that we have done. Um so for the past I'd say three years maybe or
007so we've really pushed towards um sharpening and enhancing our learning targets and as Heidi would say we've moved a far away from these I can simple I can read um statements to very like you can see a couple examples on there. You can't really see my board up there, but they're obviously lengthy and um but my kids yet can still read them. Every week when I change them, my kids are like, "Oh, what are we learning next week?" >> Um so they're usable. They're attainable. Even for first grade learners, they know the routine and things like that. And personally, I have just seen so much more success come out of my teaching. And I feel like I've become a better teacher having been more intentional about what I'm teaching my kids. They know what they're
008learning. They know um when we are going through the learning target. Then as the lesson goes on, I go back to my success criteria. I go, "Hey, um have we read E and EA words? Okay, we got that um part of our target done. Okay, now we're going to work on spelling them here." And and we go on and go forth. Um, and they know they know the expectations and and things like that. So, um, like you see on the slide here, they're studentfriendly, so they're written in a way that my kids can, um, read and understand and know and I talk through them so that they um, understand too. They're measurable. So, you know, like I you can write on or sometimes I'll write on there, you can write words like these three words
009or I might change it to like I can write five words with the e E and the EA correctly or I can spell the seven words. So, they're measurable and kids know when they've reached that success criteria. And then, of course, they're always aligned and relevant. So, I'm not going to write a learning target for something that I'm not teaching. Um it it's relevant to what we're learning in the classroom. So, And then I think we have a couple of >> few more slides. Yeah. And like Chelsea said, it really is just about that depth of learning and having students be able to articulate what they're learning and the why behind it and just following that progression, not only within a lesson or within a unit, but vertically you can see it from grade level
010to grade level in the classrooms. So these are some examples of some um kinder first grade um studentfriendly on the student work targets. some success criteria. And so those are in the students hands. They're referring to them daily as they work on those dictation booklets and writing journals. These are some other first grade ones. I believe some of these are Chelse. >> Yeah, this one on the left is is one we're working on right now. Um and so I mean we've done this unit for two weeks. This is what stayed up there. My success criteria sometimes changes uh if I'm going to do more than a couple weeks or whatever. But even like the I can use drawings, a 100 chart, making a 10 or adding my tens and ones to solve my problem. Those
011were like individual days. So I'm like, "Hey, today we're working on this specific part of our success criteria. I want you to focus on this specific part." Um, and then I'm just obviously very articulate with that. >> And I also wanted to add another thing that Heidi would say if she was here is um, long gone are the days or when she can go in a classroom and be like, "Hey, what are you learning today?" and kids like reading or math or whatever stuff generalize, they can refer to our targets and be more explicit with what they are learning too, which is huge growth um >> even from a few years ago. So, >> and not only can they tell you what, but they could say we did that last Monday. I mean, they they
012know they're very sharp. >> Yes. >> Here are some other um more intermediate >> uh targets and success criteria. Some writing and math. Um and then the communication the uh response to the comment was a perfect segue as to what we were going to discuss today too. So um as most of you know we adopted a new meeting curriculum um it's our hol mifflin hard yeah hardcore um last year. So this is our second year using um this particular curriculum and I will say last year was hard. It was a lot. There was a lot of pieces, a lot of things that we needed to kind of sort through. But I will I told Heidi this um during my post observation after my last um observation that I think personally the structured literacy piece that
013is so aligned to the science of reading is so intelligent is so I've learned so much from it. Now I can confidently say like hey we use the TCH after a short vowel sound. like I can be very explicit with my kids with okay this is a triraph you know these three letters together make one sound just like a diagraph is two letters that make one sound and so when we see the tch or the dge which are two triraphs that we teach in first grade those always come after a short vowel sound instead of like I don't know when you use the tch or the ch at the end of a word and there are words that have the ch at the end or things like that however I have more explicit again instruction
014that I can tell my kids like this is why >> and the curriculum it was a learning curve for me and I have my masters in reading like I'm certified in reading and I have my masters in it and I have learned so much from from teaching specifically the structured literacy um and I also like you you have to just kind of take and use the pieces and we've kind of found like what works so what not doesn't like personally I found that the phmic awareness piece of our curriculum wasn't just making the mark for my kids it was too short it was not robust enough for my person or for me personally so I'm like hey we're going to pull out our heard book and we're going to do this and that has just
015added so much more depth to um my kids awareness um and so the structured literacy aspect of our curriculum month reaches K2, which is that phonics based um section of our um uh elementary teaching or reading teaching. Yes. Um and I I think it is amazing. I don't think I would have told you that necessarily last year, >> but I can tell you now that I've taught it a second time and I'm running through it a second time, I know what's coming. It is working. And like obviously there's pieces of it too where like I will say I don't love that we don't have like hardcover books for our kids to read that are um of that but we've we've again been able to kind of manipulate that. We have um our instructional time or
016our um intervention time. Uh my team has decided to keep our own kids and send our lab kids so that they can get their extra phonic awareness and phonics boost. and then I'm keeping my kids and I have leveled readers for them to then practice what we've we've done. So, we've been able to move pieces of our curriculum around to make it the best viable instruction for for our kids. And I think >> I am just excited to see what's to come. I'm very excited to see um the progression of kids who started in kinder with the structured lit literacy to see just like what that development goes. um through the rest of the year. But um I think it does a really good job and uh whoever had that public comment I hope they
017um get to listen to this because we are doing it and science of reading I think is um the way to teach reading. So >> and science of reading is just to make sure we're all on the same page is really just the study of the brain and how a brain learns to read. We aren't born learn we we born we are born knowing how to communicate we we verbally but our brain has to make those connections in order to learn to read. So really science of reading is kind of all the encompassing um research that has gone behind all of the structured literacy phonics instruction and that we are all teaching a guaranteed viable curriculum so that every student in every building in the district is getting that same same dose of science reading.
018>> Yeah. >> Um moving on. So another part of our strong foundations, you know, we want to increase the percentage of students scoring on grade level and reading. So these this is just our building data. Um the most recent we have for our I Ready is January. We actually will be testing again next month in our for our spring diagnostic. But as you can see, you can see the growth that was made from fall to winter of students that were at or above grade level within each um grade level band. And then again, the percentage of students reaching their annual typical growth goal. So, uh, annual typical growth is that we want to see no matter where a student comes in to us that they are making one full year's growth. So, if you have
019a fifth grader that came in as a third grade reader, they're going to leave at a fourth grade reader at least. So, they're making one year's school growth. So, again, that was just partway through the year. Um, like Chelsea said when we were going over the data, it's it's always like I'm happy to see that growth, but we're always very anxious to see the spring because we that's only one half a year's um >> bit of learning. >> And then kind of finally, the last piece that we've done as a staff is like I said, following the district strategic plan and the work with Dr. Tammy Campbell around teacher clarity. And um we had a really big turnout this year. We have 19 staff members that we meet. Chelsea's part of it. We meet monthly.
020Uh we read a chapter ahead of time is the agreement and then we come with prepared questions ready to discuss. And I think um what's been really nice for me as the coach is seeing the conversations that are happening across the grade levels. Uh you know Chelsea's in a wing, her end of the wing is first grade. Down the hall are kinder teachers. There's a lot of times during a day where you don't see in a big building like this the second, third, fourth, fifth grade teachers. and the conversations that are having that teachers are having about, you know, what did you think about this? What are um like what do you how do you backwards plan in this way or um where do you see your students struggling in different areas? So, really just
021diving deep into um like Chelsea shared our growth in goals and success criteria, but the teacher has to have the clarity first and then be able to transfer that on to the students to learn. >> You want to add anything? >> No, I think Um, our second component was our um, culture of safety. Well, we kind of did them in reverse order, but this is Courage, our mascot, Courage the Cougar. Um, students get very excited when Courage comes out. He hasn't made an appearance in a while, so hopefully one of these assemblies, but um, >> he, you know, just kind of symbolizes our commitment to the positive, engaging educational environment. And I brought you each your very own trading cards because these are a hot commodity at our student store. So, we'll we will um
022talk about that in our PBIS, but here's some of our data just from the students voice of how they feel about coming to school. I think that is one thing and I know Chelsea would agree. Teachers that work at Aba Valley, we love it. Like we feel so fortunate because the kids want to be here and I know that's true of all schools in our district, but um our data shows that our kids are doing well and want to be here. So um our first goal is the percentage of students feeling safe at at school and this is just a Google survey. So in 24 there were 83% up to 91 up to 93. So we started off with a pretty high lofty percentage and we just have continued to grow. Another um piece of
023data is the percentage of students indicating feeling a sense of belonging. So again, just that you have somebody that's what we always say is every student needs somebody to be their their person and can we all say that we all have a connection and a relationship with each and every one of our students. So again, that growth from 63% up to 86%. And then students understanding the expectations of school, we're going to get into PBIS, our positive behavior incentive >> system. Thank you. My goodness. Yes. couldn't get that out. Um so students do know 78% say they feel confident they know um our expectations and then the other the 20% and the 3% were just somewhat or often and somewhat. Um again feeling safe at school that percent has continued to increase over the years.
024Of course we want all of our students to feel safe every day. And celebrations we're going to talk a little bit about our celebrations. So, our PBIS system is our Cougar Pride um standards. So, you'll see up there, these are our standards. You'll see them around the room, and you can go in and ask a first grader, a kindergarten, what are our three standards? Are you showing them? And it's make good decisions, solve problems, and show respect. And we continually retach those standards. But what does that look like? What does that mean? We have an MTSS, which is a multi-tiered system of support in our school. So tier one is what you would see every student in the school um getting on a daily basis. So we have these standards in place for our entire
025school. Um our our standards are implemented and modeled within the classroom and our counselor is out doing social emotional learning and social skills lessons in the classrooms. Our tier 2 are for those students that smaller group that need a little bit of extra support. So we have a care team that meets and we basically brainstorm. a teacher can come to the table and say, "Hey, I have a student that needs some extra support in um it could be anything. It might be attendance. It might be something academic. It might be something social emotional, but the care team meets and brainstorms together. And then our counselor again works with just some targeted small groups on top of meeting with every classroom in the building. And then our tier three are those students that need some extra
026support and attention. Um sometimes that could be in a small group, but it can also be one-on-one. So we have a staffing team that is like I would say a step above um the care team in the amount of um services and ideas that we are coming up with and really data driven that we need to meet students needs and again our counselors involved in that and we are really happy to have a BCBA which which is the behavior specialist in our building that's new to our building this year and it's just an invaluable staff member. um she is there to support students sometimes in crisis and be an extra hand for the teacher so that the teacher can continue to teach but we're also meeting that student's needs in the moment. Um here are
027some of our the reason why we're here. The kids um they are recognized monthly at achiever assemblies getting cougar standards and academ and for their academic growth. And we celebrate we love to celebrate our students so they can use their cougar um tickets which is what they earn for showing their standards at a student store. We have an upcoming Cougar Pride reward day next Friday. We have assembly experiences where students can enter their tickets to get to be called up and um you know do the relay race or um I don't know we've had all kinds of just >> dressing >> dress up. Yeah. Getting to get up in front of your peers in front of the whole schools for those kids who like to >> be on the stage. And then um we do
028have Friday trivia and announcements. So again that was an item that students could purchase um to get to come down and be a guest trivia reader and we love that too. And that's it. That's kind of our school in a nutshell. What we what you know, we're just here to um meet our students needs to watch them grow, not just academically, but um just socially and send them off to the middle school. >> Any questions? >> I'll just say I don't have a question really, but um I can just tell by both of your enthusiastic presentation, it's it's really fun and awesome to teach here. So, Thanks. Thanks for Thanks for this. >> I mean, my kids were upset with me when I told them it was spring break. >> We want to stay here.
029>> I I a couple things I really appreciated, Miss Harris, was um I think you made a statement a couple times where you said, "I feel like I've become a better teacher." >> And I think what makes a good teacher is one that is always wanting to become a better teacher. And so I just see that in you and I say good job and and I love the success criteria that is put up there like to give the kids a goal like this is what I'm going to reach and it's right in front of them and I think um it's such a a great thing to do. I did have a question the staffing team on tier three who like what what teachers make up that >> good question. So that is quite a large
030team. We meet Thursday mornings. It involves Mrs. is set in the principal, the counselor, myself as the instructional coach, our school psychologist, um our whole special ed team, so the resource room teacher, our um DLC teacher, uh sometimes our TK teacher is involved, um I guess two resource teachers, sorry, two resource teachers, and then now our BCBA has also joined the team. if a teacher like if Chelsea had a student that went through the care team and we didn't see the growth um that we had wanted to see or there were still further concerns >> staffing is like the next step. So Chelsea would come as the teacher and present you know kind of what has been documented. We usually do a six week data trial. So whatever it is we're trying to help that
031student achieve the teacher will bring the data to show what has been successful or maybe not. And then the team can decide whether to move further. Sometimes it's moving forward with a um uh an evaluation. Yeah. >> For learning beats. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Big team. >> Anything else? Haley, do you have any questions? >> No, no question. >> Okay. Almost forgot about you down there. >> All right. Well, let's give him a hand. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Um, I'm going to open the public comment uh session. Are there any signups? No signups. Is there anybody here that would like to have a public comment? Okay, I am closing the public comment agenda item. And we're going to move into number eight on the agenda, which is action items. And the first
032item is approval of minutes for March 24 study session, March 24 board meeting, and April 7th special board meeting. Uh, are there any questions or corrections from the board? >> I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. All one, two, and three. >> Okay. There's a motion to approve all three um minutes. All in favor signify by saying I >> I >> opposed by the same sign. >> Okay. That motion's carried five to zero. >> Uh B, approval of travel requests. Um, the one is to the FFA state uh convention in Pullman, Washington, May 13 through 17. And the second one that was added is a Joshua Borland boys golf Beaverton, April 28th through 29. And I'm going to make a motion to approve both of those. >> Breton. What did I say? >> Oh, said
033it's spelled Bon. I'm going to make a motion to pass both those travel requests. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. I >> opposed by the same sign. Uh that motion is carried five to zero. Any items arising. >> Okay. Dr. Finch, superintendent report. >> Uh just superintendent report um shared lots of uh end of the school year type of activities and just want to highlight uh Thursday, April 23rd, we have a all district multicultural celebration at the high school gym and that's always a a fun event. So, lots of activities coming up and there'll be more in May and June as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any board reports or development? Okay. It is now 7:25 and I am adjourning this meeting before 7:30.