001I'll bring this meeting to order on June 10th, 2025 at 7 p.m. with a call to excuse our missing members, Mark Strong and James Keer. I move to approve Mark and James. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those same sign. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. There we go. Ready? Begin. I pledge algiance 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. Any changes to the agenda? No changes. Okay. And then communications. Yes, we do have a response to public comment. So, at the school board meeting on May 27th, 2025, teachers from the high school expressed support for the world language program and the importance of offering two language options for
002students. The district response is as follows. The district agrees with the teachers who commented at the schoolboard meeting on May 27th. The district is committed to offering two language options for students. That concludes the public response to public comment. Thank you, Dr. Finch. And it looks like we have a program presentation tonight. Yes, tonight is a review of our school year and specifically the strategic plan and the work that we've done in those areas. And so it looks like you have your um laptops so that you can follow along. I will go join the presentation. So we'll have goal one is our culture of safety and belonging. I'll present on that. Goal two is strong foundations. We'll have Michelle Siguenza, principal of Cottonwood Elementary, and Jennifer Ditter, a teacher and instructional coach at Cottonwood Elementary.
003They'll present about strong foundations. Goal three is mastery of standards. We'll have our principles at the mid-level campus, um, middle school principal Nick Clark and junior high principal Amber Styles Gil. They will present about mastery standards. And then we have goal four, career pathways. So our executive director of innovation is Jed Waters and so he'll share information about secondary career pathways and B I'll wrap up with our district foundations and I'll go join the team right now. Thank you. All right. So we worked on the strategic plan all last year. uh the board adopted the plan and then we implemented this school year. I'm going to share the different goal areas of the strategic plan and our presenters. Um I really appreciate all the administrative team working with all of our staff to implement the
004strategic plan and in our presentations to the board throughout the year. We had our school presentations and department presentations. I notice always a reference to the strategic plan and I really appreciate that by the administrators showing that followthrough for goal one culture safety and belonging. Our practices to implement this year was that teachers will actively promote and model environment that respects all students backgrounds and experiences by using routines that deepen relationships and staff will explicitly teach, retach and reinforce school and classroom expectations throughout the year. our outcome and things that we're measuring. So the outcomes, we always want to have measurable um objectives for our strategic plan. How will we know if we're being successful unless we measure it? So our outcome was to increase the percentage of students feeling a sense of safety and
005belonging. We have formative assessments, meaning uh check-in or progress monitoring. And so we had student surveys at all of our schools every two months to do that check-in. And then summitive assessment is our annual survey of student, staff and families. So we do that summitive assessment right around conference week in the fall. So November and December is when we do the center for educational effectiveness. And we do post those results of the summitive assessment. We post those on the district website under the strategic plan section of the website. And there is a a little button on the website that you can click on and that was a suggestion by one of our schoolboard members. So we're always looking for continuous improvement and if there's suggestions on how to be better communication, more transparent, we always
006try to follow up on that. Uh we also look at student attendance data throughout the year as well as our summitative assessment. And so now I'm going to share with you uh the interim or formative or progress monitoring assessment information we had at each of our schools. So, culture of safety and belonging. I feel safe at school. That was a question that was asked by all of our uh students at the all the schools. Uh you can see the work that was done there. Um I believe there was um yeah, there's basically very transparent uh on both of these as I had reviewed some of you was an area where there's work to be done in comparison to the other schools and we do have a plan already for uh work with the staff. They
007have building directed optional time. So that's uh each school has specific time designated that they can work on specific school goals and so they um they have a consultant working on that culture safety and belonging coming in and that's already scheduled. And then yeah, this is the one tier two. Most students are respectful of others at this school. And then that's the one where uh it does kind of look like some of you has uh some work to do there compared to the other schools. And um I just really again appreciate um the principal sharing this information. I remember uh Mountain View kind of jumps out there where they were at 75% in November and then up to 95% of students in April saying most students are respectful of others at this school. So this
008has been a focus across our district. All right. Next is Strong Foundations and that's going to be Michelle Suenza and her. So just a reminder that we don't have the microphones in the room like we used to have. So kind of project. Do you want us to scream? Classroom voice. Classroom voice. Classroom voice. All right. Hi, I'm Michelle Sequinsa, the principal at Cottonwood Elementary. And um goal two, strong foundations is our school improvement plan. One of the um practices. So the first one there teachers will facilitate student talk and language acquisition in a vocabulary printrich environment and the school leaders will um make that happen through modeling strategies for increasing student talk. Um school leaders will also provide accountability for instructional practices by observing, providing feedback and celebrating success. Um they will also provide support
009to teachers through peer observation and instructional coaching. And then our next one, teachers will use guaranteed and viable curricula includes intentional tiered support with data-driven inclusion interventions. And uh principles or student um school leaders will provide accountability um through the use of a guaranteed viable curriculum by observing um giving feedback and celebrating success. They will also provide support to staff by providing um time for collaboration. And lastly, they will facilitate data meetings to identify um needed interventions so that we can reach those um strong foundation goals. Turn it over. Okay. Also, sorry we didn't practice very well. Um, also under strong um foundations um the outcome is to increase the percentage of students reading at grade level. And the way that we make that happen is through I ready reading, winter growth, the winter um
010and the spring growth. And we also want to see that the percentage of kids that are moving through the grade levels. We use I Ready spring again as a one of the assessments and I Ready reading so reading and math. Um and again we want to see the growth that the kids are making at each grade level. Um and some just going to talk a little bit about implementation. So um at all the elementary schools this year we had a new curriculum adoption um that hm into reading um which provides a guaranteed and viable curriculum for um our ELA in grades K through five. Um one of the key components of that curriculum is that it does align with the science of reading. Um so students learn um in ways that are scientifically proven to
011work. Um it's used across all district um district K5 so all all students are guaranteed um access to that same researchbased curriculum. Um the district has also been very intentional to get our teachers GLAD certified. Um GLAD stands for guided language acquisition and design and these are strategies that help students develop academic language while they're learning the content that they work for all students to really increase the um engagement and rigor of the content. Um Jesse Gbec and I are tier three trainers and the district um has supported us in providing uh trainings to get all teachers certified. Um each each year we target um the new teachers and teachers who have not yet been able to get certified. So we provide a research and theory training which is a one-day training and a couple
012of demos each year. One targeted for the primary grades and another targeted for the intermediate grades. So teachers have an opportunity to come see the strategies and practice and get certified in them. Um we also had provided some off your school offerings focusing on supporting the new HMH curriculum and integrating those strategies into the curriculum as well as um some release time for stu for teachers to come and um work on integrating those strategies into other curriculum areas as well. Um at Cottonwood all of our teachers K5 are glad trained and they implement the strategies at very varying degrees. Um and looking at the data recently, I can clearly see how they work um especially at targeting the vocabulary piece which is you know after phonics vocabulary is the next step in reading um learning
013and so once you can kind of um get better at that then it impacts your comprehension as well. So also um district is continuing our work with the badge book in grades K through two st students earn badges as they master each grade level skill and through our mastery based learning grant we've been developing proficiency scales which we have plans on um well proficiency skills first of all they're a tool to provide students and teachers and parents with a clear pathway for meeting the grade level standards um with plans to begin using them in the upcoming year. um they're a work in progress, but we're excited to see them um as they develop and continue. [Music] All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Nick Clark. I'm the principal of the middle school and uh we've really
014been focusing at the middle level campus not only on goal one uh which is a districtwide goal, but goal three, which is our mastery of standards. So um so just know that our identified practices that are aligned with our mastery based work that we've been developing for the last couple years with our mastery base consortum that we've been working with throughout the state and so we're identified we've been part of that program as well. So the practices that we've identified um through our strategic plan has been that teachers provide target instruction strategies and multiple opportunities using evidence to inform teaching with ongoing feedback and teachers will know and use common assessments the power or essential standards that we've identified and proficiency levels and scales that probably been developing and we've been working on for multiple
015years now. So, um, we've got a few years under our belt with this and, uh, and so Amber's going to kind of touch up on our identified outcomes from these practices and where we're going to go from there. So, all right. So, we are working on increasing the percentage of students that are meeting grade level standards in all classes and we have asked our teachers to identify what formative assessments they're using and share that information with us. So they've developed some things like in their classrooms and departments um so that we can track that data and see how kids are doing over time and not wait until fall, winter, spring data. But we do use I ready reading and math assessments just like elementary and in some of our content areas have standard assessments that
016they use every four to six weeks. It just varies on the content. Um but everybody's working to track how their kids are doing so we can see what we need to retach. um things that we just need to get back to and work to get all kids where they need to be. And then of course we have our summit of assessments. So we've been wrapping up our state assessment, smarter balance and ELA and math, also the science, 8ighth grade science assessment. Um our I Ready data and just again looking at the percentage of students that are meeting those grade level standards. All right. So as we finish up kind of talk about where we started and this year we took that big plunge into standardsbased grading and mastery based learning and so we are starting
017to kind of feel our way through that and really make our adjustments. We got great ideas moving forward from that. We've had great parent um uh feedback as well and so as we find kind of find these pitfalls that maybe weren't identified before we started this process um we're starting to clean those up right now. So some of the things that we've started with our is implementing that into Skyward using our LMS which is learning management system and and developing how we're going to be able to manipulate that and make sure that our parents are and our students are able to see that feedback through that system. Um we're fine-tuning our proficiency scales. I Mr. D talked about developing them. They're never finished developing. I don't think they're constantly moving and shaking. So, and uh
018and moving through our practices, what it looks like for retakes, what it takes for student deadlines. We we're working through those as well and onboarding our elective teachers. We focused on the core four for the first couple years. And now we're really bringing on our elective and our exploratory classes as well. And Amber's going to talk about a little bit about where we're going. So, our next steps are on the right hand side. So, we're super excited that we um get to implement new reading curriculum. So, thank you for that adoption. Uh we're excited because that will mean that our 68 teachers will have a guaranteed and viable curriculum, which they they do, but they've been piecing things together. So, I just have a lot of hope that we're going to be on the same
019page. We're going to be doing some really good things for our kids. So, that's exciting. Um but along with that, they're going to need to develop continue to develop common assessments. You know, some of the things they have right now might work, but with the new curriculum, they'll need to adapt and of course use that. And so, there'll be some changes. they'll make adjustments. Um they'll make adjustments to their proficiency scales. Our teachers have worked hard to identify their essential standards and so that piece is really solid. Um it'll just be a matter of bringing that all together over the next few years as they get used to their curriculum. And then as a district, we'll be working on teacher clarity next year. And so for us, what that looks like is really drawing a
020line from the standards to the tasks and making sure that the tasks students are doing are actually aligned with the standards. And if they're not, then we need to ask ourselves like, why are we doing that? Why are those the things we're spending time on? And that's hard for teachers, right? Because we have a lot of things that we like to teach and do and that we've possibly done for a long time. But um we're we're diving into those hard conversations and going to do some more work with that. And then our math team is uh really working hard to do some vertical teaming. They've asked a couple times this year to get together and do work 68, but they also we really like working with our high school teachers and making sure they're aligned
021there. And our high school teachers, they are going to pilot at least some of them I know are piloting some materials, some Desmos math materials because they haven't adopted in a long time. And so as a part of that, we asked if at least one of our algebra teachers could be a part of that so we can have conversations. We want our kids if they're taking algebra at the junior high, we want to make sure that they're getting what they need, you know, whether they're at the junior high or the high school. So we're excited just for our teachers to be able to continue to work together and um do good things and make sure all kids are getting where they need to be. Yeah. And Amber and I always like to our staff's commitment
022and dedication to this paradigm shift and how they're out. They're they're really doing well and they they're really taking a head on. It's a it's a big change and they're doing a great job. We should give a shout out to our coaches too. Our instructional coaches have been a huge help in the process for master like all of our mastery based learning standards based grading. I don't think we would be where we are right now if it wasn't for them. So agreed. All right. Jorge is going to step up for golf. Right. Jers, executive director innovation work at the high school innovation center and mid-level campus. With the innovation center, I kind of want part of goal three and goal four. Uh with goal four really some we have a number of slides I'll go
023through. I won't read everything because they gave me twice as much slides as everybody else. But that's all I'm going to be taking. Really a lot of it comes down to building upon everything they've done or that we've done up to or the high school level. Um is helping students understand the why. You know, as we get to elementary, even mid-level students are I just show up because that's what I do. I like school. I enjoy it. I'm learning all these things. As we start to get to older levels and we start to push in the rigor, the master standards. Now it's why am I learning the standard? Why is this important? How does this connect back to my life? really goal for is building those connections, trying to connect it to their future after
024graduation, after high school, a you know, outside of the school today. So that's a lot of us. So as we get through some of the data, sometimes it's hard in a school to measure what that future is because we might be looking five, 10, 15 years down the road. So you see smart data, we're looking at measuring grades, graduation rates. Our goal is if you're engaged in your learning, you have a reason why, well then your grade should do what better. You should be mastering your standards a little more and you should be graduating because you see a purpose to staying with the school for four years versus well if I can get a job I might as well tap out things of that nature. So as we go through some of the data slides,
025a lot of it is becomes what's the relevance and I think that's a goal nowadays that's a little bit harder because there is a lot of options. There's a lot of things thrown at students in their life at school and really outside of their life at school. So that's kind of our main purpose and some of the things we'll talk about now is connecting those wise. So first part is looking at every student using a high school beyond plan. So the goal with that plan is actually starting down really at the sixth grade level is building a plan. So you can start to see this is where I'm going. This is how my classes connect. These are things I'm interested in. So as I start to look at classes whatever might be band choir CT
026class some other electives college and the high school I start to build a pathway. If I want to be an engineer, I start to look at, oh, I'm going to need some kelp. I'm going to need some of this. I also should maybe take the construction class here because if I'm going to be helping design buildings or smaller, I should know how that works out. So, a lot of that then fits into this part there. I won't read every slide of this. You guys have the presentation be a lot of works. But, that's some of the things we've done. So, I'll look at um some of our assessments and it's really how many students are passing classes, what's our rate that way? But again, that's if I'm engaged, I'm doing well in class, it's irrelevant
027to doing the work. If I'm not engaged, there just isn't much relevance. So, our goal is to keep every kid engaged, building relevance, passing classes as well. We started looking at some things we've done this year, just a sample of the high school did a lot of work with career pathway flyers. So, promoting individual courses, creating sequence of courses, pathways, and then as well as creating all the CT courses along with some our special education programs. So as students starting to register, they could see that in a graphic and see how those courses flow. The innovation center, we have it as well. The pathways here, it's a little harder because the students can pick a little bit differently each year. Some things it's not as easy to lead on. Actually was led by staff with
028some of the things that staff said, "Hey, how do I help my students connect?" So those are some staff feedback on that. Again, teachers really helped make connections. Last year we took some students out on field trip or some teachers out to different businesses. They got to see that was one of the things we did at the start of the year. That was great because then they could come back and for the rest of the year they were building those connections. We'd look to do more of that in the future. Oh, yep. So, here we go. One more thing is there. And then we're implementing schooling. So, the state is adopting a new high school and beyond platform. Their goal is to get everybody in the state on the same platform. It has run into
029a few hiccups with the state budget and some other things that way. West Valley School District is looking to adopt that anyway. We're previously using Zello, so we're going to make the transition. The nice part about moving to schoolings is if all the schools are using and the states providing some additional training, it helps as we start to have colleges come and visit. Right now we have Jesse Allen, our career and college pathway specialist. She's in trying to make spreadsheets on scholarships, what colleges are visiting, all this different information. But with school links, a lot of those employers or colleges can actually feed their data right into it. So it's going to save a lot of time that way. So we should be able to streamline how we see scholarships, how students sign up for
030tours. We've had multiple tours. We had um HLA engineering. We had a group of students go there a few different times. We had some engineering people in here. Innovation center, same thing. A lot of tours. So using schooling should help to unify that. And again, we could start that a sixth grade level as students are exploring. We start to look into ninth grade students on track. Again, a lot of that is how do they build the relevance to what they're doing. So our students that are coming in maybe a little bit behind track or aren't quite engaged or don't have a purpose as they're stepping into high school. There's conversations between the high school, the innovation center and mid-level campus, identifying those students, then providing some supports. One thing that start the high school started
031this year was a high school one-on-one class to do a little bit of academic support, but really trying to help the students find a place in high school, get them into clubs, start talking about summer jobs, different things that way, talk about sports, talk about different pathways and opportunities of classes they can do here. So, that's been a great class uh to really connect students into what their future. So then as they're going through the rest of their grades, they're building those. They already have some of those connections already made. Look at some of the outcomes there. Percentage and nth grade students on track. Yet our goal is if there's a reason why you're doing it, then you're more engaged to do it. Talked about high school 101. I'm on the next slide. Then family
032engagement conferences. That was something now the high school the innovation center and the high school also do those throughout the year. In the past, sometimes they've only been done the fall and then afterwards it was like, well, a conference is an elementary thing. We won't do it anymore. Really, we brought those in because that helps build the connection. Teachers, students, and families get to work together to find some of those connections and start to identify, you know, any questions they might have about why they're in certain classes, what classes they should take in the future, and building get those connections. High school's done a lot uh with peer tutoring. So, that's area grown. Erica Daly is one of the teachers that's done a lot with that. get a number of teachers have they've really done
033a lot with peer tutoring this past year in the high school next year we'll have a careers and education class that's going to tie in so we got some good things coming up at the high school innovation center we got a number of peer tutoring too I just highlighted some things the high school there just for sake of time start looking at dual credit uh the district's really grown a lot in our dual credit pathways in the past there's a lot of options for students to really get all the gen eds they're going to need in postsecary and our goals push are trying kind of promote a lot of that too is you can do a lot of great things here in house at the high school innovation center. There's a lot of great options
034for students without having to go to Running Start or go elsewhere or try to graduate early to get those credits. There's a lot of great things that we're doing in house. The nice things of dual credit, whether it be get college and high school or CT dual credit is you get the support of the teachers here, the counselors, everything that way. It's things you're familiar with. uh my son went to college right now. He was talking about took calculus here and really would have prepared him for calc 3, you know, going into college. Just one of those things, but it was the connection with the teacher and having a teacher that knew calculus but also knew how to teach. So that's a shout out to Jamie Nordstrom if he's listening there is he said, you
035know, some like professors in college having compared again was that college opportunity for credit but getting it kind of in the safe confines of the school and having teachers that have a teaching background along with subject area background. So again, we're continuing to grow dual credit in ways they can. Next year, the innovation center is going to partner with the high school uh first and second period which allow innovation center students to take college and high school courses here so they can get some of that dual credit. Our goal is that they start to expand. A student says, "Hey, I really like some of the great program at the innovation center, but I still have some things Spanish band or really college and high school want to hear." They could hear two periods over their
036four periods for local masterbased learning. So we have some great combination stuff coming up to really highlight the strengths of both buildings. Now let's see we got there. Again our goal of going back is if students are taking college and high school courses they have a relevance to why they're learning what they're learning. They start to then graduate with a lot of postsecary credits. They're graduating and they're moving on to different opportunities whether that be tech whether that be YBC Central anywhere else. Lots of apprentichip programs. So, I think that's one of the neat things as we've really done with our college and career pathway specialists is to promote all opportunities because there's lots of opportunities for success whether you're going around employment or not. But our goal is to connect students to those before
037they leave here, not just hope they find them on their own because then what happens is we get a year to eight year gap where they're kind of wandering around trying to find those. The more things we can do with our staff here to help the staff know all the options because if you've been in teaching for 30 years, the world is completely quite a bit different. So the more things we can do to connect staff to those options, get them out in employment places, get them to tour central, other places like that, the more things they can do to push in their classrooms. So when we provide those opportunities to high school students or innovation center students, then the teachers are able to promote that because they've gone on it and they see the
038relevance versus, well, just go do this, but I don't know why you're doing it. A lot of different things we're doing to build the why. We'll continue to do that. Here's some data from last year on the next slide that just talks about this is our 23 24 data. We had about almost 1,200 students enrolled in college and high school courses at the high school and then we had about 65% of us actually took the course for college credit earn college credit. This summer work with central and UDub actually can give us all that data in July. We're hoping that Eastern can do the same. So last we had all of our teachers report after they did grading. It's kind of hard after all the teachers have left to get back their data. Um but
039we'll be doing some partnership with the universities to keep us that data right away so we get real- time data from them and that if we can get in time it'll be data summit otherwise it'll be over the fall to be able to get some of that data there going to hit a lot of us again our goal is teachers assisting students with setting goals constructing learning environments that empower students so we have a lot of opportunities our construction class next year here has I think four sections we're going to have um Keegan Powers is going to teach a class we'll help get him trained on some stuff with construction construction because we're overload there. We have Bob Balderson and Stephen Matzac, our geometry and construction teacher in two weeks are going to construction geometry
040training. So again, that's how how do we start building those connections between math and technical trades? We do a lot at the innovation center, but bringing more of that to the high school as well, how to create that block. Oh, it goes back increasing graduation rate and really I think impacting our community. So again, as a school, we might measure graduation rate, but I think really as a community we want to impact what are our graduates doing? How are they impacting our community after they leave here? How successful are they? How are they contributing back? And how are they just as citizens? So that's in the end that's our overall goal as a district is going to create great citizens that have a reason for what they're good. Last thing I'll say before I hand
041back over to Dr. Finch is uh through all this a lot of again understanding the why getting hands-on learning opportunities and then one thing we'll as administrators we'll be focusing on is teacher clarity. So, as I'm instructing my class, our students clear on what they're learning and the why of it. So, that kind of goes back to as we go through our learning blocks, we go in other things, our evaluation process over the next year, really focusing on how clear is it for the students that what they're doing is relevant to a connection and what they need to be doing after they leave here or applicable in their daily lives as a team. All right. Thank you, J. Yes. And then finally, we have the district foundations. That's systems to ensure high quality student learning,
042authentic engagement and partnerships with student families and community facilities and operations to support an outstanding student experience and then overall culture of excellence, accountability and continuous improvement. So we have each department here in the spring has given their reports on the areas that they're um have accomplished this past year and areas of focus for the future. So really what I want to highlight here was the work of the longrange facilities planning committee. So that's been a big focus. Uh the board had asked to have a recommendation that would come to them in the fall. Uh as we work together on the committee, the committee uh really was saying that we'd like to make that recommendation sooner. So as administrator, it's important to listen listen and listen to the committee members. And so we were able
043to work with the consultant Phil Crocker that is providing the guidance and facilitation skills. And we moved the timeline up. And uh that's part of my uh board report. Joel was at the meeting last night. So we will be able to come to the school board on the July 8th uh Tuesday night July 8th with a recommendation from the long range uh facilities planning committee. So really happy with the process that's happened there and uh glad that the committee was pushing to move it up. Uh it's going to be great for the board to hear the initial presentation in July rather than waiting to October. And so just again part of district foundations that's part of our long range facilities planning is is a big part of that of the foundation. We want to have
044facilities operations support outstanding student experience and the plan that's uh going to be presented will address every area that was identified as an area of need by the committee. So looking forward to that presentation. All right. So at this time any questions for the board for any of the presenters? I just want to say thank you. First of all, that was like a whirlwind, but it was a really good whirlwind. And I just appreciate um all the work you guys are doing because I mean just the I can just feel the the cooperation with with different people and and coming together and and just making it work and um all all for the students. So, I didn't really at this time have any questions. Most my questions come when it all comes down to the
045data summit like what's what's it looking like? But um I just appreciate you guys being here tonight presenting and um thank you. Yeah, very similar. I'm just blown away by the cohesive unity that you all share. Um all of you are shining stars in your own respects and yet you all come together to make the whole and it's just really admirable and remarkable to see how well you guys function together and how our students are blessed because of you. Thank you. Um, I I echo uh what my fellow board members said. I do have a few questions. Um, I just want to start off by a comment though on the dual credits at the high school. Um, so I have a I I have a daughter that graduated from West Valley three years ago and
046did some college and the high school uh classes, but I'm I'm seeing the benefit of the dual credits in all of the things that that you mentioned, Jed, but also through some tremendous financial savings to our families because I have some contemporaries of my daughter who are graduating after three years of of being in college. They they graduate literally with their BA from, you know, wherever they went to school and they're graduating this year. And uh and I just and that's there's a lot of great things about that, but but that is uh a huge financial savings because if you can do those classes here at West Valley High School and they translate over uh and transfer over to the college that they're using, that's a that's a that's a great benefit to our our
047families. So, um, that that's that I just wanted to start off with a a comment there. I could back on that, Michael. So, uh, Jed in his presentation, I think he glossed over it with just almost a phrase, not even full sentence, but Jed has done so much work to ensure that we're offering the classes on this high school campus that align to the requirements at the college level, the the not just the entrance requirements for college, but the entrance into a major. So, we're at the point now where as a high school student at West Valley, you can take all the requirements needed as prerequisite for a major. And so, you can do your whole basically your freshman year of college on this campus and go directly into a major at Central. And so,
048that's we branded that Ramon Wildcat and that's more information about that is on the district website under Ramon Wildcat. But that is a great advantage for coming to West Valley. you can do your entire freshman year of college on this campus and then go straight into your major and and and along with the dual credit, not everybody was cut out to go to college or university and that that's okay. But along with that and as it was highlighted a little bit and certainly highlighted when we were at the innovation center uh recently about you know it basically it comes back to the value that a west valley high school degree affords you whether you're collegebound technical school bound trade whatever that is I I I like I I really have enjoyed the um additional value
049that we're providing to our families and our students um most importantly our students at you know the value that a degree from a high school degree from West Valley provides. So that was just kind of a long-winded comment but just a few questions and maybe just some confirmations. uh first relative to so so we got a a few snippets of some data about like how we're doing and and and when we look at when we look at this at we look at this this uh pamphlet um it talks about performance targets by 2030 being some objective measurables and I I can also understand that that not all of the data is available yet. So my question is um are you thinking Dr. bench that in our upcoming regular data summits that we have that we're
050going to have. Okay, here's pre um here's a pre strategic plan. Here's one year into the strategic plan. How do we how do we match up on the performance? Do you kind of see is that kind of how you see it once the data is available? Yes, especially here in the spring, a lot of the data is still not ready to report. Not all the testing is completed. not all the testing has been reported back to us. So our data summit we have scheduled for July, we'll have a lot more data to share with you and then on the district website under the strategic plan there's key performance indicators. So those are very public and as that data comes in I always update that data as well. So that data there's not like a set
051deadline when that data comes in but as the data comes in then I just update it and so that's in real time. That's the most up-to-date data that we have and those are the key performance indicators for the strategic plan and those are on the website. Great. But I mean in terms of a report to the board, yes, were that's kind of how you envision it being okay. Part of the data summit. Part of the data summit. Okay. Thank you. Um then um you you back to goal one, Dr. Finch and you mentioned this a little bit uh ago relative to the numbers that came back about um uh respect and safety at school and and one particular school um uh having a plan to address that. Could you speak a little bit more specifically
052about what does that what does that plan look like and a little bit more specifics on the professional development that you kind of alluded to? Yeah. So, we have Angela Brooks as a consultant who's a specialist when it comes to um really the social emotional learning. So, having that foundation of support for kids and that's really what we're talking about here when we're talking about an environment where students are being respectful of of each other. So, understanding the um expectations and then the follow through um both positive and holding students accountable for their behaviors. And um part of the work that some of you uh was looking uh was piloting um the PBIS tool and then all the elementary that the mid-level campus used. I we heard the presentation earlier in the year about how
053effective that was. And so, um, that's going to be useful at all elementary schools. And I think that'll be particularly useful at some of you because it's a tool where the teachers can input in real time uh, information about a kid that maybe they're needing more uh, time for a check-in with that student and more intervention basically with that student. And so that'll be a way to communicate with the counseling office, with the principal, and really have a team approach to addressing any of the behaviors that need to be addressed. And then um thank you. And then um kind of a as a segue to the innovation center where where if I read the numbers correctly, we score relatively high when it comes to I feel safe at school, but um our challen I'll use
054the word challenged on the I I I I feel respected at school um questions. So, I don't necessarily expect an answer to the why do you think that is, but more of is or did I miss that uh or are we going to be um diving into the why uh on that issue? And if so, can you comment about um you know what what sorts of initiatives are we going to take to um not only address the why but but to um increase the number of the students feeling respected at school. Exactly. Yeah. I think u yeah I'll jump you here in a second but just overall my work with the principles um we in the very beginning we talked about the strategies for that goal one and part of that was having teachers have
055routines and checking in with students and and having these routines to start the class period or having routines on a weekly basis or even maybe a monthly class meeting these type of things. And so in our uh student um focus groups that we have both at the high school and the innovation center, we have heard that there's varying degrees of implementation of those practices. So I'm not going to stand here and say that we're perfect in doing it 100% across every classroom. So we do have work to do on uh sort of that idea of fidelity of implementation of these best practices and that's what we work on as an admin team working with the teachers to ensure that these best practices that students report are making a more um you know environment where kids
056are being respectful of each other that those are happening across the board. And so I remember um Jed and I had the focus group at the innovation center and we heard that uh yes when we had these class meetings that's a really good time to address like any behaviors they're having because especially at the innovation center they're with each other all day long and so you got to take time to kind of check in how are things going what do we need to address and the students are saying when they when the teachers take that time it is effective and it helps to make the environment better. And so, uh, Jet worked to follow up to, make sure that all the teachers really taking that time and doing it periodically to have the class meetings,
057I think they were calling them. And, uh, so that's kind of that's kind of our work as administrators is to make sure we work with teachers to identify best practice and then make sure that's happening across the board. Chad, go ahead. I was going to say I think too is part of now we've hired assistant director of innovation. You saw last slide the things that I'm doing throughout the district in the building. So that is one area that of growth we have as a building just because it's hard to get into the the dayto-day taking care of some of those things a lot of the other bigger things but I think the good or bad of the innovation I'd say the great part of it is the students become like family but sometimes in like
058a long car ride with your family little things that then know you that in a traditional setting in 45 50 minutes you're like oh I'm not seeing that student again now you're with them so you're in really right now we're ending like 100 we're on day 178 of a car ride that usually involve yourself in vacations coming up after about day seven you're like okay we maybe need vacations so some great things coming I think that it's a lot of things we can learn and continue because I think there's a lot of great strengths in those so we'll be building great um and then my last question is for uh Nick and Amber uh I know that I know that probably this has been explained to us uh before, but could you just uh maybe
059re-educate us on the difference between standardsbased grading and maybe what I'll call more traditional grading uh that I might be used to. Um okay, so standardsbased grading, we're looking at like the standards, right? Like every grade level has their standards and in a partic in a particular subject. Yeah. So each content area, each grade level, we have standards for each of those. So we want all kids to get to that standard. And so when you look at like the one, two, three, four, just like we have in our elementary schools, a three would be you're at standard. A two means like you've got some foundational pieces or maybe you need a little bit of help with that. And a one you're you're pretty far from the mark, but you give some effort. have a couple
060foundational learning skills and of course four is like the above and beyond. You're able to go beyond that standard and show more complex thinking or um something along those lines. So really it's just what we're doing at the mid level is a continuation of what's been happening at our elementaryaries for the last over 20ome years. Um does that compare compare it to ABC? So we can't compare it. No. Yeah. It's not completion and compliance. That's what I was going to bring up. Completion and compliance, right? The daily work. If I got it, turned in my daily work, whether I learned it or not. If I completed it, I was going to get some sort of grade out of that, but I may have not picked it up. What standard space does is that it requires
061you to gain that knowledge, to gain that concept before you can reach that threshold of that three or that four. So, so when we change it from a completion and compliance model to a growth model because that's what it is because you're growing throughout. That's what I think one of my biggest benefits this year is going to that is now we're not labeling students as failures. They're never labeled because they're always in opportunity of growth. And so when you're a one, you still got some skills and you still got some effort and we're just going to keep building on you. But when we give somebody an F now, it it labels them and now we see a change in effort and we see a change in attitude sometimes as well. So what we're seeing is
062a big change in in in the growth model. Those kids aren't giving up. We're not losing kids in October, right? They're still sticking with it. So we're focused on standards. We're shooting for standards. We're giving them a scale to reach to show that they have proficiency in that ski in that standard and we're not labeling them as failure services. So that's kind of and so when you're measuring that level of proficiency like let's say that they are a three which basically to me says meets the standard there's there's criterion associated with what does that actually mean for that's like the proficiency scale. So if you think of the a proficiency scale looks similar to like what we would say like a rubric right. So, like if I'm teaching, I don't know, fifth or sixth grade
063ELA, and I expect my kids to be able to site text evidence when answering the question, you know, whatever content area. Uh, the three is that they're going to do that, right? But I've got those parameters what that looks like. I'm expecting me to restate the question, use evidence from the text, cite that, um, be able to highlight that in the text if that's an option. like I would have my expectations for what that looks like so that I know that you really understand what I'm asking you to do and that would be the right so that's what our teachers have worked on is you know taking those standards and then really diving into what does that look like what do you have to be able to do what are the foundational pieces that come
064before that which might mean looking at the grade level below and what did you have to do before which we did a long time ago like it was even mid-level ELA teachers looked at like the vertical alignment of the standards. So I I think for our teachers like just a little side note, it's one piece that I think is improved the culture of our buildings um because they're not labeled as failures because they have opportunities to grow. Uh there's less frustration with some of our kids that do typically or would give up in October. Would you say another benefit is that I I heard students at the campus talking about the standards So they're they know what the target is rather than just getting your work turned in. They actually know what they need to
065do to accomplish the standard. Well, they increase the clarity of what's being taught. So yeah, so Michael, just a three usually they can apply the standard and four means that they can create using the standard, right? So there's there's that's kind of just a nutshell. Thank Thank you. That that that helps. It's kind of what I assumed, but I don't want to assume. and and uh I'm I'm pleased that you've got some good parent feedback because if I'm a parent um you know I yeah it's great to see what that letter grade is but um as a parent it's it's nice to know kind of the why and what what what can I do to help my kid and what are the areas that they need to so that's that's real tangible feedback so that's
066you know it's not just well you got a B minus you better bump that up to an A without you know that that that doesn't really there's no plan if you will to of what that what that may be and it seems like um it seems like in a prior uh school presentation it was students wanting to go back and recomplete the assignment to get to the stand to get to the uh to get to the higher standard or the mastery based standard Yeah, I had a parent tell me that it was like nine today because last, you know, the previous year the kid was getting a bad grade. She was afraid that she was the kid was starting to lose interest in school and she was starting to lose the kids and what you
067know if they don't have interest in school, what what am I going to do? Yeah. She said this year by having the standard base program, the student knew exactly what they needed to do to hit their uh score from a two to a three and they were wanting to retake the assessment and get the three and they were very motivated by this great system. Uh Steve, so I really like this idea and you know move just the kids will learn something instead of just get a grade and still don't know it. But just hypothetically, what do you what do you do? I'm trying to figure this out. What do you do with a student that ends the year with a one? It's a great question because it's something you got to tackle is you gota
068you got to be able to adjust and you have to differentiate and you got to pick them up where they're at or the other side of your question is what do you do with a student who shows a board very early and then ready pop out the top side. Right. So because I mean we're not holding kids back like the old we just don't do that anymore, right? Those are the students. So, we have, you know, tiered systems of support. And so, when we start seeing that there are kids, I mean, there's always a story behind that, right? If you're getting a a you don't have a score, you're getting a one, it there's something going on because our teachers are going to intervene and they're going to give kids every opportunity to learn what
069they need to learn. And so, that's an opportunity for one of our teams like our care team or our um community and school student advocates to connect with families. or maybe they're not coming to school consistently. That's a big barrier. That's typically what we see. If they're getting ones, a lot of times it's because they're not at school. And so the teacher doesn't even have enough evidence to show whether or not, you know, they haven't had enough opportunities to meet the standard. So I think that's where we just we have people keeping track of those like our student advocates look at attendance, look at, you know, who's struggling and we just we have to do something because we we technically we do not pull the kids back. I mean, it doesn't matter what system you're
070in, right? Pull a bunch of kids back from the traditional system either. Thank you. I have a question. Um, Dr. Finch, how do how do you and I don't think I've asked this before. So, college in the high school. Well, one, I'll back up. I I'm like Michael. I love I love this idea. I mean, my son graduated back in was it 08 or something like that. He did Running Start, got a head start of UDub and did UDub and a lot shorter. So, that whole concept is is awesome. Um, so I like the idea of it happening on campus. How do you determine or judge or do you work with the colleges on if how do you determine if the classes we teach are rigorous enough? That's a great question. So every teacher on
071this campus who teaches a college class has a person at the college campus, a professor that they meet with. So they meet every summer and they review the expectations for the class, they review the class vinyl, they review the instructional materials and and that's why sometimes we have instructional materials that come to the instructional materials committee because the professor has said we've upgraded our materials and so that's where we consider upgrading our materials. So there's uh definitely collaboration for every class that we teach. there is a a colleague at the college level that works together and um and then there are certain criteria that our teachers have to fulfill. Is that right? I mean Jen's actually the point person for all this. So no. Yeah, there is certain and it depends on the department of
072the university. So that's sometimes a hard part but yes there's certain requirements. Some might be a masters in the subject area. Um it can vary. Sometimes it's just a masters in education along with you know endorsement in that area. Some Yeah. So there's a number of different things, but I think it's really a partnership. Central does great trainings every summer where the teachers that do that. They teach courses through there up there and they do a really good job. There's a lot of communication back and forth with the instructors there. We have success specialists that can come from the colleges down and talk to students about the per. There's a lot of good communication. So the colleges have done a great job at working with high school instructors to make them feel like they're in
073the know and the levels are the same. And then they evaluate too is the students that are coming that already are going to the next level of courses are they meeting the standards that the university wants to see. So there's a number of checks and balances but I think the state's done a good job of really trying to wrap themselves around and provide a lot of supports for the instructors and the universities. We had really great instructors here. I mean that's hats off to our hiring uh you know the admin here everywhere else is we hire some instructors have good quality um and good qualifications to help us out as we go to teach those courses. Thank you. Correct. Very good. Well, thank you again to our presenters. Thank you. All right. Moving on to
074public comment of a non-discussion agenda items. Any signatures? Anybody coming in? No. No one signed in. Okay. You can still speak if you'd like to if you haven't signed in. Seeing no one, we'll move on to the action items. We have for approval the approval of minutes and travel requests. I'd be willing to receive both previous board minutes and travel requests as a single motion unless you have any questions or discussions on them. I'll move to approve the minutes and the travel request as presented as one item. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those same sign. Motion carries. 30 items arising. No items arising. Okay. And superintendent report. All right. Superintendent report was a review uh last week. So we had graduation ceremonies for the innovation center, virtual academy, and
075the high school. So innovation center, there were 28 students who participated in the graduation ceremony, virtual academy, 24 students. High school 358 students. That's a total of 410 students celebrating graduation last week. In addition, we do have GED completion programs in West Valley. We have what's called Ram Flex uh which is here at the high school and that's taught by Ruth Bulka. We've had a lot of success for GED completion this year in Ram Flex. We also have a partnership with OIC of Washington where students are doing hands-on learning on their campus and it's uh basically a partnership where we run that open doors and that's uh also called a dropout re-engagement program. So overall through RAM flex and open doors we had 13 students who completed their GED this year and we actually have
076quite a few in the queue that may finish by the end of June. When you add that 410 and 13 that's 423 students that had success and were able to celebrate that last week. So very very happy about the success that our students are having. And then finally on the long range facilities plan I I basically uh shared that previously but the priorities identified by the committee uh were Autanum Valley Mountain View and the mid-level campus. Um and then of course there's the outstanding items uh for capital projects as well. The board had asked for a recommendation on that as well. So, uh, we do have a schedule coming that on Tuesday, July 8th at our next our board meeting on Tuesday, July 8th, we'll have a presentation and, uh, looking forward to members of
077the committee being there. And we have also invited of course the consultants that helped to facilitate uh Phil Crocker and and um David Bodin or Boddine and um but in addition in addition to that uh Corey Plagger who did a previous presentation for us about the um the feasant the feasants of funds. He also will be available to look at what uh bond rates could be if you look at bond and levy with the high school bonds coming off and how um basically the work that is um part of the the long range facilities plan uh could be accommodated through um basically replacement of the of the tax rate and not necessarily increase or so we'll just look at what uh Corey's going to be able to present on July 8th as well. So we'll
078have both the committee and we'll have Corey player. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Finch. And thank you. Board of Reports, board development. Well, I just uh a couple of things. Uh first of all, uh we were all at graduation uh last week. It was another uh another uh great uh a great time, great student performances, great student speeches. Uh perhaps we could uh in future have some sort of a uh a speaker that that for the people that are on the stage. I don't know what it sounds I'd be I'd be curious to know what it sounds like to everybody else, but uh it's it's a little Charlie Brownish a little bit, but it forces it forces all of us to listen very closely. But uh um but it but uh it's really neat
079to see. Um I've been going to a lot of graduations and you know as a student and then and now as a school board member uh later on and you know when when I graduated from West Valley a long time ago now uh we did not fill up the Sundome and you know Friday night was back to the rafters that was great. That was cool. Um secondly I I I wanted to highlight um something uh to the board. I shared this with Dr. bench already. Um but uh our our assistant principal and athletic director Jeff Jameson and baseball coach Blake uh Archer um hosted uh the teams that were coming in to practice ahead of the 3A4A state baseball tournament a few weeks ago. And one of those teams uh is Mount Vernon High School.
080uh and one of their assistant coaches is one of my best friends from uh high school and he is a teacher at Mount Vernon and he sent me a specific thank you note uh uh thanking both Jeff and Blake for their hospitality um and the use of our fields and and um just what a great experience they had here at West Valley. you know, this past school year. Um, and so I I highlight that to the board and I shared that both with Dr. Finch and and Jeff directly, but I wanted to share that with the board. But this year, I want to I want to say that this particular school year, I I I've rece that that email that that thanks. Um, that's a very common thing that I get as an individual schoolboard
081member. A lot of times as schoolboard members, we get a lot of of concerns. Um, and and that comes with the territory of being a school board member, but it feels like this year we I I received a lot of thanks and good job and we really appreciate what a particular staff member or a teacher administrator is or has done for their student or their particular situation. And a lot of that stuff goes unnoticed. And and I I just I mean I could I could go on, you know, every board report it feels like with an email or something that I I I received in that respect. So I just wanted to say um as we close another school year, um I've said this before, it takes a lot to make school work um to
082make the school experience work. And it starts with our uh administration and our um and our and our wonderful teachers and and our and our staff as well. Um we have, you know, we're in a constant growth mindset here in this district of which I'm very proud of. Um but we do a lot of things right and a lot of things that don't get publicized that people don't want uh publicity for and they do it anyway and because it's the right thing to do. And so I just I just I just wanted to say thank you to um our staff and all of our employees for a great school year. I also wanted to add I was also able to attend the innovation center and WVA graduation at the innovation center and uh a lot
083fuller last year which was awesome. And uh just I I've already told Jed this personally, but I just love the students that spoke. They were just articulate and sharp and um job well done. And uh and I love the way you sectioned it off into the different disciplines each spoke. And I was just uh that was really I'm glad I went. I'm glad I was able to go. That was last year was smaller and it was still good, but this year I walked in I go a lot of people in here. That's awesome. That's good. All right. With no further business, the meeting is adjourned at 8:01 p.m.