WVSD #208 School Board Meeting 04-22-2025

001Good evening everybody. We'll go ahead and get started. Call the meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, April 22nd. It's 6 p.m. on the nose. And we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. 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. Okay. Thank you um for that. And Dr. Finch, are there any changes to the agenda? No changes. All right. Communications. No communications. All right. That brings us to item five on the agenda, discussion items, department presentations. We have tonight communications, transportation, and child nutrition. Very good. Well, each year we like to have the directors um have an annual update for the board, a chance for you to get to know our

002directors a little bit, hear face to face, and also a chance during the study session to be a little less formal than we are in a regular board meeting. Uh tonight as you said we have communications, transportation, child nutrition. For communications uh last couple years Manurva Parton and myself have been um leading that uh communications effort. And then for transportation we have Jamie Schmidt and child nutritionist Meline Benedictto. So I'm going to go ahead and join the panel over there. You have questions for him only for him. Just quickly, my son is potentially having an allergic attack. So, in case I walk out, would you like to go first? You go. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, we can we can adjust. Okay. Hold on. Let me go first. Settle myself. Um Okay. All right. Well, thank you

003for having us tonight. My name is Meline Benedictto. I've served as the child nutrition director for nearly 11 years. I'm also a registered dietician. A fun fact for our newer board members, I actually completed a dietetic internship rotation in 2012, not knowing I'd eventually return as director. It's been an amazing journey this last 11 years serving our students and the community of West Valley. Uh Kelly Kadusto, uh she stepped into the coordinator role this year. However, she's been with our program for um or since 2017 as the production manager. Um Kelly's experience and practical approaches helps balance out my big ideas and keep things reasonable. Uh Lori Munoz, our incredible secretary. Uh she's been with our department uh for nearly seven years. She does all our office correspondence, accounts payable, and um processes all the

004free and reduced meal applications. Uh a unique aspect to our meal program is our centralized kitchen model. Um which is located at the junior high. Uh so this is the central food hub for all meal preparation from hot or cold food entre, our fruits and vegetables, our homemade baked goods which are then delivered to the satellite kitchens each day. Our team consists of three skilled managers, five um reliable cooks, two drivers, and 26 incredible frontline employees that serve our students breakfast and lunch every single day. Um we participate in USDA's National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, which um provides us the opportunity to provide nutritious um lowcost or free meals to our students. Uh so every reimburseable meal that we serve in our kitchens, we receive USDA foods in return and uh federal subsidies.

005Uh so um as research shows, students who eat school lunches or school meals tend to have better um diets um than than those that don't. Um and so we're proud to be part of that. Uh this year we were able to um include Apple Valley and Cottonwood Elementary in receiving free meals. So now we have eight of our nine schools receiving reimbur reimburseable meals at no cost. Um thanks to two Washington state legislative bills. Um House Bill 1878 which is the community eligibility provision and House Bill 1238 uh free meals for all at elementary schools. Unfortunately, um West Valley High School is still the only school required to uh fill out the meal applications, and we'll continue our efforts to try to get them um in free, um receiving free meals. All right. Just want

006to make sure I don't miss anything. Uh so, this school year we've been pretty busy. Um we're always working on growing and improving our meal program. Um and which, uh continues to pay off. We have increased our participation by 200 meals per day this school year compared to last school year. Uh serving about 1,250 breakfast meals and sorry that's a typo. It should be 2,950 lunch meals. So nearly 3,000 meals uh per day. Uh we strive to introduce more scratchcooked recipes um utilizing fresh wholesome ingredients. Um, this year we've had the help of Chef Amanda who's came in to revise our current recipes and create new ones. Uh, making making them more flavorful and still staying within the nutrition guidelines. Um, the farmtoschool initiative um that is especially meaningful meaningful to me. Um, I grew

007up in Wapto's farming community. Um, my family growing fresh produce for nearly 50 years here in the US. um now honor I think fourth generation taking lead which is my brother. You know I tell everyone nothing beats um biting into a watermelon straight off the vine. You know I wish I can provide our students that experience and freshness but I'll do everything I can to bring them fresh produce local produce. Um, I know this year we did uh focus on sourcing Washington raised meats, uh, such as our beef and Washington grown wheat, um, which is our organic flour that we use for our baked goods. Um, also um, we I try to connect with at least two to three new farmers each year to add to our growing list of vendors. Uh just to name

008a few, we get all our apples from Chalan Fresh. The majority of them coming from Borton's Fruit, which is down to Tanam Road. Uh Rembrandt Farms for soft fruits, Bushet potatoes, Auburn Dairy for our yogurt. Uh Roland Hawkins Farms from uh down in Royal City for our frozen berries and cherries. Uh Raised Meat for our beef. Um Cascade Milling for our organic flour. and yakcominations for melons, um, peppers, tomatoes during the early fall season. Uh, we've increased student involvement through taste testing and leadership meetings. Uh, through our powerup program, um, we've worked with three uh, leadership groups at Cottonwood Summit Beyond White Hollow, um, where they selected four to six recipes that are culturally inclusive um, for next school year. And actually, we will be featuring those recipes at the multicultural celebration this Thursday, um,

009April 24th at the high school. Also coming up is our junior chef competition. It our second one um, which will be um, at the innovation center next Wednesday um, where four teams will get together and prepare or four teams will um, prepare their meals and present it to a panel of judges. So we look forward to your support at those two events. Uh we take dietary accommodation seriously whether it's egg free, gluten-free, dairyf free in uh food intolerances or a com combination of all. Uh we have um six menus that we prepare each month making sure that each student is supported. Uh our local wellness committee is small but mighty. Um, Alyssa, Alyssa Kder, our uh, health and wellness coordinator, Elizabeth Kaplan, our um, retired West Valley school nurse, Kelly Kadusto, and myself. We meet

010each month. Um, we've launched a number of initiatives including our uh, recent fiveweek wellness challenge which um, had f 200 participants um, ranging from students, staff, and community members. Um, a lot of positive feedback from that challenge. Um some comments were just you know they enjoy being able to participate in this challenge as a family. So we look to continue um uh these in future years. Uh just a quick financial snapshot of our program. We are financially self- sustaining. Uh the majority of our revenue coming from federal and state subsidies, some through our catering events, vending machines, and alicart sales. Um, you know, we last year we finished with a $73,000 surplus. Um, which brings our total carryover to $700,000. Um, we will use some of these funds to replace aging equipment, um, dishwashers, refrigeration

011coolers this summer, um, that are I mean they're 20 plus years old. So, um, definitely utilize some of those funds. Next slide, please. No worries. All right, so I know I just rattled a ton of information, but like the saying goes, um, pictures are worth a thousand words. So the top photo, uh, watermelon and apple, that is from our Taste Washington day in December or last October. Uh, 75% of our ingredients, um, were sourced from Washington farmers. Um, also the salad bar down below. um was taken at Innovation Center last month. If you haven't visited our school kitchens, we have salad bars at every single kitchen where students can come in and self serve their fruits and vegetables or the help of our teachers. Uh there's two photos there of uh taste testing events, one

012at Conwood Elementary and I believe the other one was here at Apple Valley Elementary uh that we did last fall. Um the top photo is one of our cooks preparing our uh kale and potato soup um in our 125galon steam kettle. Uh that equipment is used for so many applications, spaghettis, chilis um in our well-known turkey gravy. Usually that's it's up to the room of that steam kettle. So, um, and then the last photo is our chicken yakasoba that will be featured at, um, the multicultural celebration. Awesome. All right. So, what does the future look like? I mean, we um we're focused on continuing to increase student participation. Uh, when more students eat school meals, we know they are getting the nutrition they need to learn, grow, and thrive. Um, we're always continuing to improve

013the quality of our school meals, making them more nutritious, uh, more appealing, and more culturally inclusive. Um, again, we just we want to in, um, increase our nutrition or we want to go out and do more nutrition education in the classroom. Um, you know, just teach educating our students understanding of where their meals come from. Um, also we want to look into improving food waste. um just exploring creative ways to reduce and repurpose um the foods that we prepare. And the last one that I'm really excited about, which is my personal goal, is a school garden. I want to explore the um ways to you know bring in a school garden or work with the students on a hydroponic system. I know we have a hydroponic system at the innovation center. So looking for any

014principles that are interested. I am excited to start this one. Um but again together um we just want to continue and making sure that our students are fed um nutritious meals um you know just uh improving our collab collaborative partnerships with local farmers, students and staff. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Why don't we go ahead and have a little question and answer if you have from Ageline and then we'll give her a pass. Yeah. Thank you. That was great info. So, I have a question. Um, and I'm not sure if this is true or not. I heard that the OSPI LFS program is discontinued. Yes. How has that affected us or So, it does affect us because I um allocated quite a bit of money. So, each year we get it's called entitlement dollars.

015So, uh it's based on our total meals served for the whole school year and we get about 250 to $300,000 each year. And so the plan for OSPI this upcoming year was they procure these local foods and we can use that money to purchase those meals at half cost. And um usually in February I um in February I allocate those funds and I allocated almost 50 to $75,000. I mean it's raw meats, frozen fruits and vegetables. I mean, it's a great product and so unfortunately it does affect it because I mean it was contributing to our scratch meals. Yeah. That was sort of a COVID program, wasn't it? Just faded out in March or something like that. Yeah. Yes. So, but yeah, we'll find other ways. Yeah. Well, thank you for what you do. Imagine

016Imageline. Is that how you say that? Pronounce that. Okay. I just want to make sure. Um, and I love how you're you're sourcing so much of it locally. Um, that really is encouraging to see so much of it coming locally. And I know remember back during COVID it seemed like it was just hard to get food. Um, and I was curious on the junior chef competition. What age do you have a lot of students there? Uh, so the uh we opened it up to fifth grade and 12th grade. Um and then we had to select four teams because our innovation center only has room for four. There's four stations. So we received I think nine nine um recipes this this year. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think partnering the hydroponic system with

017the I think that's a great idea. I know I went through the innovation center and I saw the students that the the hydroponic systems that they made and they all look different depending on the students that made it. I think I think it's just another way to extend their own education and then to see how they can actually use that to feed. So I think it's a great idea. We use a lot of lettuce. So if we can get lettuce be great. Thank you. Meline, I just want to say thank you so much for being so creative, so resourceful on all of those things. It's really encouraging to hear. Thank you. Um, when you're thinking about spending the money this next year for replacements, do you know about how many uh replacements will be made

018or how much total? Uh, right now, so we're replacing Cottonwood dishwasher. It's our oldest um dishwasher in our district. And then um the refrigeration unit at Innovation Center. So that will be uh 60,000 for the dishwasher including installation and probably about 20,000 for the refrigeration unit. So it adds up quick. Yeah, absolutely. What are you doing? There's a lot more equipment I'd like to replace, but taking one step at a time. Thank you for all you do. Thank you. No questions. Awesome. I just have one collection. My question is I'm just curious how long it takes to prepare all those meals. I know I'm getting I guess surprising number to me. So you prepare that maybe every day and that's just curious from start to finish. How long does it take you put all that

019together? Yes, it it's a two-day depending on what the recipe is. It's usually a two-day process. So the day before they collect all our ingredients and then they come in at 5:00 a.m. Yes. 5 in the morning until gosh we are loading the trucks 9:30 10 o'clock. Wow. So four hours just depending. Turkey gravy takes three four days. Zombies take two about two three days. So love zombies. Yeah. Sure. I some um unfortunately it does go in the trash because um I know uh we one thing that we have been doing the last couple years like especially during um holidays um we've been collecting any leftover produce or milk and donating it to Camp Pope but because of federal dollars we can't just give it out or um always at least in house. Yes. Yes.

020So, you can imagine. Yeah. Well, we do we do our best to um forecast as best we can. Okay. I'm wearing different hats tonight. So, under communications, I know that in the fall we had OSPI come and visit because I posted an article, but maybe you can share a little bit about that visit from OSPI and the award that was given to West Valley. Oh boy. Okay. So um OSPI came on Taste Washington day. So it is a state kind of celebration for our local farmers. Uh they just came in and celebrated with us as we served our students like I think we had local watermelon from Yakama um nation fruits. We had our apples. Um I think we had the white bean chicken chili. We sourced the beans from Washington. So it's a really

021fun event. Really inspiring. um you know just validating to know that we are we are doing what's right for our students. Um also we received a national award. It's called the healthy meals incentive recognition award um for our innovation for preparation. Um and so I don't exactly know how we received that award but we did. So really excited about it. All right. Well thanks Meline and we'll go ahead and give you a pass and you can head out. Thank you so much. All right. And uh well, we'll go ahead and go circle back to communications. So that's back to the beginning. And uh so last, like I said, last couple years um Manurva and myself have been uh the go-to people for communications. And then we have been continuing to contract with the field group.

022So, the the really nice quality work from Field Group is great with our uh monthly electronic newsletter. And then every other month, we also send home a a flyer in the mail that goes to all of our citizens in West Valley. So, really appreciate the work that the Field Group does. The Manurva is becoming quite a wizard when it comes to Canva, I believe it's called. She's doing all sorts of nice job with the posters. So, she'll send me a poster and I'll post it to the website. Um, so I've been um updating the website with the news articles and with the um different announcements and such, but all the creative side of things comes from Manurva. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Manurva because communication is more than just

023the um the information and articles that we publish, but there's two-way communication that we're really focused on in West Valley. And a big part of that is the work that Manurva has been doing uh for two-way communication and getting input from families and uh taking that input input, sharing it with the administrative team and helping us to get better at what we do. So I'm going to turn it over to Manurva. Yeah. So you know we have been using Remind as a way to communicate. Um even though it's a great tool, I think that we were overcommunicating. We were sending too many messages. And so I'm really excited now that we have Parent Square. Parent Square just sends a digest of all the messages that we have. So I can get really happy sending all

024the messages through the day. And then I know families are just going to receive one per family with all the different pieces. Uh what he was also talking about is the KBA. And so every flyer I have fun creating the flyers. I'm getting better at it every time I have to think about something. And so I create colors and um so we try to make it fun. I've been taking a lot of trainings that Parent Square is providing so we can probably improve on having more newsletters. Um I send one newsletter just to check how it worked for the multicultural celebration and I also send a post. So I'm trying to learn more so we can take the best out of uh parent square. Parents Square will will also help us for example for the

025family connection department when we have to schedule conferences we have to make the 340 phone calls and now I think that we are going to be able to use parent square to schedule conferences. So I'm really excited about how that's going to work for family engagement week this this uh coming year. Another big piece when we talk about communication is those community cafes. So we had a community cafe at each of the of the schools. Some had great or very significant attendance, some didn't. And that's part of the business. Sometimes we have a lot of people that want to share their concerns or their celebrations. But community cafes, it's something we are looking for different ways to bring more families to the conversation. It's important to know what they have in their mind because this

026is a work that all of us have to work together on, right? And then we have the very important information from CE center of educational effectiveness and we take a look at that on the piece of communication to guide our steps. So when we think about steps we think about the future and for the future um we want to continue with the newsletters and the mailers. I think we have found those to be very uh effective and we want to expand on community cafes. What that means is we are now I I started with community cafes with migrant program. Now we have community cafes with Native American and we are going to have community cafes for multilingual. We want to have community cafes for highly capable for different programs so we can have more feedback

027on different topics and target different groups. We also try to have one for the new spicy parent group. Um so we try to have more as a way to have these two-way communication that Peter was talking about. And so on that slide we also talk about the advantages of u moving from rem to parent square. Uh of course changes cause uncertainty and everybody's worried right oh no I don't want to move from rem and I was like please yes let's move from rembody sees my name they hate me. I'm not kidding you. I went to race one day and you know how you get those your points and then they said so what's your name and I said manurva part they say oh you are manurva part yeah I'm sorry so uh we want to

028link parent square to social media an advantage of parent square is that when you post something you can also link it to social media and we are going to be using sites which is parent square website so that's another advantage everything's going to be more um integrated integrated. Yes. So we are going to be using sites for our websites and continue with parent square. Now everything you put on a calendar on parent square it's going to be automatic automatically on the website as well. So that makes our job a lot easier, a lot more practical. And another tool that we have with parents where and believe me I don't work for them so I don't get a commission but we can also send polls right and so we keep saying hey we need to survey

029our students on these or so we can do polls as well with parent square. So I'm really excited about that um about all the different tools that we will be using with parents square but baby steps we're just learning how to take advantage of it and uh at least I'm excited we're just sending one message a day and Manurva did mention that number four there about moving the website to parent square so uh we became aware that our current website was becoming outdated with the new technology that is available uh it was actually going to cost some money to request some updates to the website just functionality. So we met as a team and decided well rather than pay money to try to update this kind of at this point almost antiquated website that we

030should look at other options. So I really appreciate the IT department and Tyler Vesh led a team and had a teacher voice and administrators and uh was able to review all the different options that were out there and uh it did make sense to go with parent square since we're using that for our communication tool as well. So now it will be integrated with the website and we're looking forward to a launch um next fall with a new website. Also, um, uh, I just got the email from Tyler that they decided on the they had they had different options on what the yeah, the template would look like. And, uh, I'm I'm very pleased with what was selected because it actually has some similarity to the way our website currently looks. So, it's not going

031to be like a huge change. It just will look like it's updated. And then, of course, it'll be integrated with parent square. So, that'll be really good. All right. All right. Well, let's move on to transportation and then we can have some question and answer. Uh after Jamie's done with her part, I have to say that Parent Square, we used it for the first time and it set us up um we can email our elementary routes or our secondary routes and narrow it down to just that group of kids on a particular bus. So, it's it's been um very cool. I did it for the first time. I had to get my instructions out and go step by step, but we did it and it worked. So, we're excited about that as well. And Canva,

032it's translated. Yes, it's automatically translated and I can send it one message and it goes to the social media just like you're saying. Seamless. Really like it. Good evening everybody. My name is Jamie Schmidt, director of transportation here in our district. Um, tonight I just want to give you a brief overview of our department. Uh, some of the things that we do and are working on and looking forward to. Uh, I wanted to introduce a little bit about our staff, but I want to start with saying that our inner office staff, um, all, it's kind of a fun fact, they all hold a class BC CDL. Everybody but our secretary. So, there's four of us in there that can jump in a bus anytime we might be experiencing a driver shortage. It's not the um,

033most convenient thing to do to pull away somebody from their desk, but uh, it sure has helped out. We have again this year not had to cancel a single route all year long. So compared to some districts that are struggling with driver shortages, we've been very fortunate. So lucky in that area. Debbie Bole is our transportation coordinator. She has many responsibilities, but her main focus is to uh work with administrators and coordinate our door-to-door services for special needs children, McKenna Vento and foster children, our prek and TK programs. There are certain things that the state requires us to have as far as paperwork, um IEP plans, those kind of things. Um she makes sure that we have all of the documentation that we need that she then routes those students. She uh does the parent

034communication with those families to give them our pickup and drop off times, that kind of thing. So, big role for her. She does many other things for us, but that's her her main main responsibility. We have Rachel Bennett, who's new to our department. She's our new secretary. Uh Rachel does uh a lot of different wears a lot of different hats, but uh in particular, accounts receivable, payable. Uh we receive a lot of invoicing from our shop. Um buying parts for the buses and repairs, that kind of thing. She does our payroll. She answers the radios when drivers are out on route to communicate with them if they have any needs. A lot of community communication with parents. She's doing a fabulous job and we couldn't be more pleased with her addition to our team. Uh

035Michelle Stapleton is still our discipline liaison. Uh she handles all of our student discipline. uh working with administrators at the schools when we need their assistance and also communicating with parents in a positive fashion when there's discipline on the bus. Um she's also a uh state certified driver trainer, so she can assist our main driver trainer from time to time. Um Glenda Berry is our district's main state certified driver trainer. She is responsible. Some of you may know her or have met her. She trains all of our motorpool drivers that take a motorpool vehicle coaches, teachers, that kind of thing. If they don't need a bus and they take a car, you have to go through a little bit of a it's called a type two driver training program. With Glenda, you watch a short

036video, take a little test, and we make sure that you know what paperwork needs to be filled out. But her biggest responsibility um is training all of our new drivers, new trainees. Uh the state has many requirements. It's not easy to get a class BCDL. Our district does all of the training for that. Provides everything that a trainee would need. Uh and then they have to go and test with a third party state tester. So that is a involves an oral test and a written test. And Glenda makes sure that those or an oral test and a driving test. And Glenda makes sure that those trainees are all prepared for for those um te tests. And she's been very successful. She has played a key role in keeping our subpool filled and I we couldn't

037do what we're doing without her help. She's just been phenomenal. She also um leads all of our safety monthly safety meetings. Um if there's training that needs to be done, if a driver got in an accident and we needed to do retraining, she would see that through. I'm not a state certified driver trainer, so she's my go-to gal with that and it does a fabulous job for our district making sure all of our drivers are following all of the wax and RCWs that the state requires. Uh Mike Macintosh is our shop foreman, uh our lead mechanic. He uh oversees all of the ordering, everything that needs to be done with a bus or car. Um he sees that through. Uh, and then his backup mechanic, we have two mechanics and his, not his backup, his

038right-hand man is Chance Dixon. He's new to our group, doing fabulous work. Uh, our shop, our fleet is growing, so our shop is busy. We had just had our winter inspections and had 100% uh got 100% on our winter inspections, which they just do a fraction of our fleet. In May, May 19th through the 22nd, we have our full fleet 100% inspection. So, every district in our vehicle, whether it's a or in our district, whether it's a bus or a a car, SUV, if it transports a student, it's going to come in and get inspected. So, it takes about three to four days that we're scheduled for four, which they've always done three, and I'm kind of like, I know we're getting bigger, but four days really. Um, so they'll be here uh starting that

039morning of the 19th and they'll inspect everything. Wow. Yeah. So fingers crossed. We're working on our list of things that the last minute things that need to be taken care of to make sure we get those 100%s. They look at um a lot of different things. And they look at they measure out of there's out of service and there's um what is it called when you get a a red chip and then you can fix it and they fix it right there on the spot. Uh, I'll get back to it, but I forget the word. Anyway, I'll continue on. We have 36 contracted uh, bus drivers right now. We have six subbus drivers that are contracted. Um, our district has 86 general education routes, 24 special education routes, six preschool transitional kinder routes, and this

040year we've added nine McKenna Vento uh, homeless routes. Our fleet includes 50 buses, seven motorpool vehicles. We received one full-size bus and one special needs prek bus this year and are preparing to order three more. We'd like to do three more 84 passenger buses and I'll be putting a memo together for you guys to approve that. Um, this year we've transported an average of 3,552 students and I'm excited to say that those are almost precoid numbers and to have enrollment I think is down just a titch in our district and to have those numbers be rising is is outstanding. Uh, our funding is and the reason that that's outstanding is that our funding is driven off of our student ridership. Uh we make about 2,000 bus stops daily. Our department's funding, like I said, is

041based off of student ridership. Ridership numbers, um we count three times a year and report to OSPI. I report the latitude and longitude of every single bus stop in our district. And then they look at how many buses does it take to complete those stops. And then they come up with an efficiency rating that looks at our expenditures and the number of buses we operate. and our that that they come up with a formula that gives us our efficiency rating and our efficiency rating again this year is at 100%. Uh that means we're doing something right. Uh this year uh transport like I said the efficiency ratings at 100%. We are still running our uh PBIS program with discipline positive behavior intervention and support. It's been a huge success again this year. The bus drivers

042are required still to complete one to two WOW calls every week to parents. Um we just want to be able to build our uh positive communication with the community. I we don't like making negative phone calls home. We want to build those kids up. We are also doing rider of the week. They get a little certificate. They get a prize. We have little um cups still or water bottles. We change them up when we reorder. They get that prize. They get recognized. We do a rider of the month. They get a picture taken with um their bus driver and that gets presented at the elementary schools, posted on a a corkboard or a bulletin board. They get presented at the assemblies. Our drivers really uh have stepped up this year and and every child we're

043trying to include everybody in this program. If we see them doing something well, they're going to get recognized. Especially kids that struggle to be able to point out something positive and recognize and give that positive reinforcement instead of always a negative that makes a parent feel good. It makes a child feel good and it makes our drivers feel good. So, building that positive relationship with the community is important to us. Um, we still do uh riders that are our bus helpers for students that are struggling on the bus. um to be able to have one of our helpers sit with a student that may be struggling and have an activity packet or a book or coloring that they can do to help the driver be able to focus on the road instead of the student

044that is continuously out of their seat and a safety hazard. Um and it's really been helping. Um one of the things that our uh drivers did this year is um to give back to the community. We did trunk or treat at almost all of our elementarymentaries this year. more so than we have any other year. And they went all out, used their time, volunteered their time and their own money, and decorated a bus for Halloween. I don't know if any of you got to see that, but it was it was pretty cool. It was pretty good this year. I kind of look at it every year like, I think you guys are taking it a little far. These are littles. Um anyway, it was outstanding. And they dress up and uh we get candy donations

045from the drivers and then we bring it and hand it out to the kids. So, it's been really fun to be able to do that. We've done it, gosh, the last few years that since I've been there, I think they've been doing this. But one new thing that we added this year that's been really fun is the lighted bus for the Christmas parades. And we did two different parades. And our bus didn't look as good as some of the other ones, but now we know what we're up against. So, we're excited to continue on those traditions. And we invited students to ride with the drivers on those in those parades. We did. It was super fun. Super fun. Uh we'd like to hire a few more drivers, a few more subs, non-contracted subs, uh over

046the summer. We'd like to do a training. So, if any of you guys are interested, um we would like to get you trained and ready to go for the beginning of this next school year. Um but it's been a successful year. We have some really good systems in place and I just feel like it's been a positive year and things are going really well. Uh we just like to continue to build that strong relationship with our students. Discipline is way way down and I think it's because our drivers are so dedicated at sharing the rules and expectations in a respectful way with the riders and being able to communicate with parents at that level before it becomes an issue and find out how we can communicate in a positive fashion with their kids and kind

047of give them a heads up. Hey, we're having this issue. how would you suggest we handle this with your child? And they appreciate that. The transparency is there and the communication's there and just being a little bit empathetic and it goes a long ways. I think that that's one of the reasons our discipline is down and our drivers are very dedicated being consistent in going over the bus rules and expectations with those kids. Um, so we would just like to I would like to see our department just continue to build on that foundation and grow from there. That's awesome. That's about what I have tonight. Well, go ahead. Go ahead, Stephen. I was going to say, no questions, but thank you so much. I love all those 100%s. That's that's really cool. I mean, to

048have that kind of It's a lot when you have that efficiency and what they go through. It's a lot of work. Our mechanics just they they do just a tremendous job. One thing I forgot to add, and I do this every year because I add lib instead of reading my my notes and I get back in the car and I'm like, gosh, I forgot to say that. Our um one of the things that changed for us at the end of this last year is the high school shuttles and IC shuttles down to the mid-level campus. school safety for us. Uh being able to get all of our buses into the high school, all of our buses into the IC and load those kids at their their home school, go down to the mid-level campus and

049not have a single student get off the bus as those mid-level campus students are being released and boarding their bus home and not having 3,000 kids in a parking lot at the same time has been a huge huge improvement in our school safety. That's awesome. It's It's been work. I was worried about it rolling it out last year and it's just it's been a hit not only with the kids but with drivers as well. Well, I uh one of the things I I think I recognized um is it seems like we have a longevity of drivers, the drivers that stick at West Valley because I know for our kids out at our route, we live pretty far out. Um, and it seems like it's the same driver. And I remember when he first started, the

050kids would come home like, "Ah, he was mean to us on the bus, but now like after he's been there for so long, like our kids know him and like he knows them, you know, and like I think one of my kids got rider of the week or month or something a while ago and she was super proud of it." That's cool. And so, um, yeah, I appreciate what you do. We Thank you. We have some drivers that have been with us 35 years. And those drivers, those kids when they're on their bus, those are their kids. Yeah. And and their safety is the utmost. It's it's a privilege to be able to transport these students. And they're our most precious cargo. So you you know, we we take that very seriously. What What time

051do you get out on snow days? I leave my house at 3:00 in the morning. Okay. Yeah. And I am glad winter's over, Peter. And I call Peter and he's like, "Good morning, Jamie." And I'm about three coffees deep. Hi, Peter. This is what I think. This is what I'm finding. He's like, "Oh, okay." One question I have. What is the Mckin What's the Mckin Vento homeless route? A McKini Vento homeless route are students that are displaced from their homes within our district and the state says they deserve the right to be in the school of their origin. So whether they live in Zilla, CILA, Grand View, wherever they may live, it's our responsibility as their home district and it's and we can ask for help of the district that they live within the boundary

052that they're in now and we can work together and share those costs of transporting those students. In the past, we haven't had enough drivers to be able to support our McKenna Vento students. ESD 105 offers a program free of charge to help transport those students. They receive funding from the state to do that. As we have gained drivers, I have pulled those students back into our routes and hired drivers to run those routes. Okay? And then we receive the our our district receives the funding for those for those riders. Okay. How many students do we have on those routes? Would you say I'm going to do my numbers here on the on May 1st and I would say probably about now probably about 40 35 to 45 right in there. Wow. It's grown. It's grown

053a lot. And um I my goal is to build enough routes and hire enough drivers to be able to pull all of that out of ESD 105. Um, I don't know if that'll work or not. You don't want to cut yourself so short that if if you have drivers that aren't available that you're not able to cover those routes. Well, thank you. You did a great job ad libing. Well, thank you. And in Manurva, I feel like you come for everything and you're the director of everything and so thank you. Uh but uh I would just say uh the uh rem the parent square is much better than the Remind app. And I appre appreciate not getting so many messages on my phone throughout the day. But I get one and then I can go

054to the Remind app and check them all out. So I think it's a great change. Yeah, I like it too. I have just one question for you and you kind of touched on it a little bit in some of your comments about at one point we were having difficulty trying to get drivers. It sounds like that problem has been pretty much resolved. Is that correct? Can I say that? This year we had uh six drivers, contracted drivers out on long-term leave for months at a time and we were able to still cover all of our routes. I feel like it's resolved, but I don't want to say that because the next day I come in and there and there's people out. So, yes, I feel like we have a tremendous subbase right now. Um, we,

055like I said, have been able to cover. I haven't I haven't had to cover I haven't had to cancel a route since co and and that is um I think I think West Valley Transportation is doing a lot of things right and it's not me, it's my team. I'm blessed to have them. They do a very thorough job. Their hearts in the right place and it shows. And I think there's a lot of districts struggling whether they have a driver trainer on staff, whether they have a director on in staff. We are lucky to have the positions and the support within our team and with our administration and our board. We don't there's a lot of districts that that's their number one complaint is they don't have that support. And Peter and Joe always make

056me feel supported. You guys have always made me feel welcomed and supported and our team feels that. And I think that is where some of the longevity comes for a good district and and a good place to to be. Thank you. Any more questions? Thank you. [Music] Thank you for having us. [Music] the lights off going on. We can go ahead and Miss Peter, you have anything else? We can go ahead and adjourn the study session. It's 6:46. So, we've got a few minutes, 14 minutes, and we'll start promptly at 7 p.m. for the regular board meeting. Thank you. Square the only board member without Should I ask an Ah, it's the last one. That's one of those jobs. There's never enough time in the day. Yep. My kids have been here. It's kind of

057my So I'm assuming pipes kind There's a bunch of wire stretches, but it didn't have the parts. Well, and the only reason I have throw it out for years and I'll throw it I know who I gave it to. [Music] No, I said I take it back. I was looking swimming. This is the one that happen. I don't know what [Music] anyway. It'll be fun. My grandsh [Music] Okay. She got My brother wasn't [Music] very Yeah. had some past. [Music] Hello [Music] She says, "Can I be on a big screen? Looking good. Press your button. [Music] How's your rental? Rentals? Are you done with rentals? No, I'm not. I didn't think so. I was there most of the day today. Oh, I see. I I've no my one I went and fertilized the lawn and

058the other one I went and fertilized the lawn. Then I have a detached garage at my duplex that I store my Mustang in and then a bunch of storage stuff for my son and my stuff. But every year it just gets like I open the garage, throw something in it, pile it on top of my car, you know, then once a year I'll bring my car home, my Mustang home and drive it for a couple weeks and then put it back in storage for a year. So, I I just went and got it yesterday and brought it home. And then today when I was fertilizing lawns, I went in the garage. Now that I have that space, I'm organizing, you know, just year my yearly organization of that little garage and storage stuff, but my

059son has a few things in there. And I go, "Look, you've had this easy chair in there for like however long." I go, "Are you going to use it or not?" No, go ahead and donate it to the mission. Nice. So, I got that out of there, but he's got a couple other things in there. It didn't take up a ton of space, but I'm happy to store it for him. But yeah, it was just it was just interesting trying to I got a start on it today. I didn't finish organizing it, but I got to start. I forgot my ladder because I want to screw a couple hooks in the rafters and hang a couple things. I don't know. I'll keep them. I'm I don't know. I'm at that point in my life where

060I'm starting to toy with selling them, right? Because you're at that stage where Yeah. I'm just at the stage where I don't want to mess with them much anymore. But I've got John Schubert trying to talk me and it's a good deal. He's trying to talk me into like if I sell the forplex, I'll probably sell the forplex first. And he said, "Man, you should hold the mortgage because I own them outright, you know." He goes, "You just go to a lawyer and do these contracts." He goes, "There's so many people that don't want to use banks and they just have all this cash and you just you just hold the title." And he goes, "They'll pay you like Okay, good evening everyone and welcome to the West Valley School District Board meeting. Today is

061Tuesday, April 22nd. It is 7 p.m. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. 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. Thank you, Dr. Finch. Any changes to the agenda? No changes. All right. communications response to public comment. All right. At the schoolboard meeting on April 8th, community members expressed concerns about the decision to change the PAL program from a single grade self-contained classrooms to multi-age classrooms for grades three and four and grades four and five for the 2526 school year. Uh the response is this. In February, all IND district students who scored at level three were offered placement in

062the PAL program. All IND district students who scored at level two were offered placement on a space available basis. In March, the decision was made to adjust staffing in the program to match the student enrollment. If a family chooses to keep their student at their neighborhood school, the student will receive highly capable services through differentiated instruction in their regular classroom. The number of IND district students on the PAL wait list has not changed since February. There are currently three in district students on the wait list for the PAL program. These students will receive highly capable services through differentiated instruction in the regular classroom if slots do not become available in the PAL program. On April 3rd, the article on the district website was updated. The number of out of district students on the wait list

063increased from four students to five students. And on April 21st, the article was updated again. The number of out of district students on the wait list increased from five students to six students. The two teachers who will teach the multi-age classes for the PAL program for the 2526 school year will will be provided release time this spring and additional work time in the summer to work closely with the program coordinator to develop a scope and sequence for project-based learning. The scope and sequence will be developed for the three years those student will be in the PAL program. The coordinator and the two teachers will ensure that the scope and sequence for project-based learning will provide students a variety of learning opportunities that will not be redundant. The district is committed to providing a quality program

064for students in the multi-age classes. That concludes the public comment. Thank you, Dr. Finch. High school ASB report. Uh we had that included in writing in the board packet. It looks like our student representatives are not here this evening. So, we'll just have to have that in writing. All right. And item C, West Valley School District validation review. Uh, we just shared that there was a validation review for our child nutrition program from OSPI and there were no there was no corrective action that was needed. So, um, wanted to make sure that the board received that as communication in the board packet. All right. And moving on to item six of the agenda school presentation at Valley Hiding. Yep. Very good. So every year we visit the schools uh once throughout the year. I went

065one time at each school throughout the year. Uh we switched. Usually it's the first meeting of the month, but that was during spring break. So we were able to make a switch here and we appreciate everyone's uh ability to make that switch. So we'd like to go ahead and have the board join the audience so we can see the presentation. Uh, principal Heidi Sutton is going to lead a presentation and I saw that there is a dog that might be part of this presentation. So, it seems very exciting tonight. Might be some love on a leash there. Looking forward to that. All right, Heidi Sutton. All right, good evening. Uh, to begin with, u Mr. Thorner, welcome to your final Apple Valley board meeting. That was something that was on my mind last week. So,

066I know he's been at Apple Valley for many, many, many, many years. Uh, welcome to our board meeting tonight. I do have some wonderful people joining me that I'll introduce in just a minute. Uh, as you could see by our presentation, uh, one of the fun things we're going to talk about is just our climate and culture, uh, along with the strategic plan. These are two of our what we call the zoo crew. Uh some inflatable characters that show up every once in a while at our assemblies or other functions uh first day of school and various events and uh we just in love having them come out and they kind of show us a little bit of our cougar pride spirit. Um I heard some people when you guys were walking in tonight talk

067about our art. So I'd love to spend some time on this. If you're aware, as a brand new school in the state of Washington, you are allocated a partnership with the Washington State Arts WA. And so after it was kind of what mid first year being here, we were um contacted via a liaison from the arts wall committee and put a committee of ourselves together. And it wasn't easy. They knew that we could have something. We had looked at art throughout the district. Um, the high school has that beautifully. If you go to Cottonwood, there's like a coyote that's a mosaic. I believe our conversation, the elk at the junior high was theirs so many, many, many moons ago. Not sure why an elk when it was, you know, the wolves and the what were

068panthers. Thank you. Anyhow, so we started meeting with a wonderful liaison from the arts wall. And our committee was Lorie Barber, Tracy Healey, our music teacher, Megan Alderson, our former um counselor, and um Amanda Sills, one of our DLC teachers, joined. And it took us a year and a half. It wasn't just, you know, what do you guys want? Do you want um a painting? Do you want a mosaic? Do you want a sculpture? We kind of knew that we wanted something bright, you know, after being in here. You know, you see a lot of blue and crimson, but that was about it for our colors. We also knew that we wanted it here in our main hallway. Stained glass was something we really kind of looked at at first, thinking with these big, beautiful

069windows and the light. So, our first job was to go through over a hundred various artists. Most of those were Washington State or Pacific Northwest artists and we would get their name, look through an entire portfolio of their work and then just try to narrow it down and narrow it down. We got to a time frame where we had narrowed it down so far that we found this wonderful woman, not a local. She was actually from the east coast and we really debated that like, okay, should we really have a local artist do it? But after we spent some time with her, learned more and more about the work she does, we knew it was a match. It it was an absolute absolute match. So, in January, Cara and Telus, our wonderful artist, um, came

070and visited us and we got a chance to take her to dinner. We got a chance to drive her out to the Kawichi Canyon. um just drive her around the Yakama Valley because to her it wasn't just I want an art piece that I'm just gonna bring you. She wanted it to tie into us. She wanted to hear from all of us. We talked a little bit about the mascot and not having just a mascot, but when you get a chance to go in a hallway, you will notice a cougar hidden in there and hidden in her work. Her line of work is depicted via silk screening on metal. So even though you look at it, it looks like a canvas, it is a metal piece. And she has just amazing as you could see

071from that frame there. Um colors and that's what again what we were excited about. She then put all of this together and she came out and did a whole presentation with some fourth graders. This is them learning how to then screen print screen print and they were making different pieces. You see, she brought the paint, she brought the tools, she walked them all through it. Um, and spent the whole day, two days with our kids. So, again, what we loved about her was it wasn't just I'm going to make a piece, come and we're going to put it up in your building. It really became a partnership with her. Um, this is one of our students and her beautiful piece that she made. Lots of colors, lots of bright work. Then we partnered I I

072did want to give a huge shout out to the facilities department because they through numerous emails. Uh Jack and his team talked to her about how they will install. I mean, you got to imagine this was a $50,000 project that is all paid for via grants. So, you know, she knew she had such a stake in it. We knew we had to protect these pieces. And then we put together a wonderful unveiling assembly and we had them here in the gym. We had sheets over them and just introduced her and then allowed the children, this is where they're able, they were able to walk through and you know those hidden um hidden pictures like in the little magazines and that's what they did. And they started digging through and they talked about this was the

073canyon as you can see. And those flowers are all based out of the canyon. the um vegetation, the landscape, the animals, everything is very very much a depiction of the Yakama Valley. And here's our team who got together again. And then Cara is in the middle. Uh we did laugh. She was very much a B. Middler um style of person. She looked like her, she talked like her. She just had this wonderful vivaceious personality. And so it looks like they're two, but they're actually four panels. And again, when you get a chance after our meeting tonight and you step out in the hallway, we made it um very relevant to have it over the gym. And then when you're on that level deck up there, you could see straight over. Uh so there are a

074bunch of wildlife um critters in each of them. You see the wild loopin in there and the beautiful sunflowers and then the canyon that again she took a lot of time out and about uh looking at the artwork. So we're very excited to have it. There's also a dedication plaque uh right outside the door there that she wrote uh in our partnership depicting it. And so we're very excited to have her work. She left us some beautiful stickers and she's very willing to keep an open communication. Lori actually had them in her classroom and so it was just wonderful to have a celebrity artist on campus. Tab Midler. Yeah. For those who knew her. Now my younger staff was like B. I don't. Yeah, you know, but we loved her. Um, next we're going to

075move on to strategic plan. As you guys have heard and you know, as a partnership, our strategic plan and our school improvement plan is all about uh goal number one, culture of safety and belonging. And then the strategic plan, the vision of student experience. We belong, we are supported, and we are learners. And so that's what our presentation will be about this evening. increasing the percentage of students feeling a sense of safety and belonging. Uh through our survey that all the schools got to take again in November with our families, um we focused on the main ones. I feel safe at school 83%. I enjoy coming to the school 82%. Uh in the same survey, families shared that teachers have a high expectation for student learning was a 92% and my students feel safe at

076school was a 96%, supportive learning environment 96 and high standards and expectations 89 and families feel welcome at school 93. So that was outstanding data. I shared that with our ILT and our pride team and then shared it out with our staff as well. So, um, the one thing that the teachers asked me about sharing with parents and as I share with you tonight, I I have not done that and so I need to get that out to our families, but we took that at Apple Valley as you know, obviously some work we're doing. I know I shared that last year all about our morning meetings and that time with children. So, here's some data now that's sharing that what we're doing with morning meetings, soft starts, um all the work that we do with

077our counselors and or counselor, excuse me, um and the zoo crew and the assemblies and the student recognition is paying off in our data. This again is just kind of that formative assessment data that you'll see within our school improvement plan. It's that same data. I just have it in a um spreadsheet there for you. We had our most recent formative assessment just this month through our third through fifth graders and it was I feel safe at the school uh 95% and most students are respectful of others at this school 87%. I will add there's an opportunity for the children to give us feedback. It is the most um entertaining feedback you can have because along with the most students are respectful of others. I ask them what else could we be doing? What else

078would help you along that? Here are their options. Swag bags, a cookie every morning, um t-shirts, you know, very extrinsic, right? Um they do get into the intrinsic. They get into, you know, a team welcoming us, high fives at the door, people saying hello. But I will tell you, the swag bag has been on every survey. So, that person is really trying to push me into getting them some wonderful swag to help them uh feel respectful. But there's also some very honest information on there. Uh there's some where they speak specifically of a teacher and how great they are. They speak specifically, not naming kids. I really haven't seen that where they're, you know, so and so, but when they speak about a recess situation, as elementary principles, we talked about this a lot that

079I feel safe at school that in a realm of elementary children can be perceived a lot of ways. So, our teachers have really talked to them about, you know, that's not that the table pinched you, right? That's not that, oh, I was running out to recess and I tripped and fell. This really is about you as a whole person. And do you feel safe? Do you feel protected? Do you feel like you belong and are a part of the school? And so you could kind of see our data. You see from, you know, that baseline in 23 and how well that's um jumped. But we also have a lot of um observations from the children of things that we need to work on and just making sure you know that they do feel good about

080coming on a daily basis. Um our attendance so far is going well. Um, also I haven't added April because we're not done with that um, month. We will wrap that one up and then get to the end of the year. We are noticing, it was interesting to notice the dip, right? We started in October with 90% and then as the year progresses, you'll notice it's kind of gone down. You know, we are a school where families take a lot of great trips. And so, you know, we're really starting to have that, but we also have some attendance that we need to focus on. That's kind of a an objective for next year. Some very um consistent attendance that needs to be a focus. So, Mrs. Sterns, our new counselor, and I have talked about some

081focusing on that and what we could do to try to help that out. Next, what we're going to do on our uh safety and belonging is we have a great privilege and joy of having a therapy dog. Uh Megan Alderson, our past counselor, had one before. Um but now, Mrs. Barber has taken over that role with her wonderful uh twocolored eyed therapy dog, Winnie. So, I'm going to introduce Mrs. Barber to come on up. She teaches our fourth graders and she's going to introduce you to Winnie and kind of talk about how Winnie came to be and how she's utilized in our building. Hi. Um, I'll come around and um and let you meet Winnie. But um I for about 15 years I've been kind of watching different therapy dogs at schools and watching the

082research on what happens um at schools and I really feel lucky to be a part of this and and be blessed with Winnie. Um she was uh 18 months and was a farm dog um up in northeastern Washington and she um had an accident with an RV. I mean a a 4x4 and through a series of unfortunate um neglect situations she lost her leg. So she's she um came down to Yakima and Brian Kegley who is a veterinarian here and a parent um in the West Valley School District and his wife works here in our building. um he um amputated a leg and he called me and asked if um we would be interested in a three-legged border collie and my husband said huh and I said yes. So when he met her he said

083yes. So um Winnie has had extensive training um through the love on a leash program but with it also comes training for me um as her handler um to be a love on a leash dog, a therapy dog. She has um she had to pass through the leadership classes, uh the therapy classes. She had to get her um AKCK9 good citizen um evaluation completed. She had to um pass uh Love on a Leash control evaluation and then get 10 hours of supervised visits um as a therapy dog. And she could not do her um her interning work here because I work here and that's a volunteer organization. We go to nursing homes. We go to hospitals. We go to police departments. We go to the juvenile detention center. We go to the CILA u the

084Yakma Valley school out in CILA. Um we go a lot of places where um the therapy dog, it's different than a service dog, but it's just to provide comfort and um relaxation. Um there's been a lot of studies by the National Institute of Health that talk about how um it affects people um especially children and I know that the dogs really don't have much reading comprehension skills but having a dog having a child read to a dog which we uh did this in my room you see up there um the St. Bernard, that's Miss Ne, that's Naom. Um, she is one of the therapy dogs. And we were culminating an activity, I mean, a unit on poetry. The kids chose their poetry, their favorite poem. So, you've got these kids reading Robert Frost and Carl

085Sandberg and some pretty highlevel poetry, but they memorized them and they read to the dogs and um the dogs calm them. It's not easy to be speaking aloud um in front of your peers and this is something that's really calm calming. Winnie comes to school with me um three days a week and she uh is an absolute joy in the morning when she knows she's coming to school. She howls all the way here because she knows exactly what she's doing. She's a working dog and she has to know the difference between um working and relaxing. She's very on alert when she's here. Um she doesn't get that way until the first bell rings. Um before the bell rings, she's running basically from room to room upstairs greeting all the teachers. Um with me. Um but

086then when the bell rings, she's on it. Um she knows the kids are coming in. She knows we have we have a job to do. She will um Oh, she likes you. Um she she knows what she's doing all day long. And um the kids in my room are very used to her. We go out to recess um quite often and the kids will all ask me, "I pet your dog." Because they've all been trained on how you approach a dog. Um they um she will she walks down the hallway with me. She goes um she has to um stand here in the back of the cafeteria. She can't go where they're serving food. Um but she um knows the command, leave it. She had to work through um in the middle of the floor.

087One of the tasks was to um there were toys, food, tennis balls, just an array and she has she had to walk through it with the command leave it. So in here she knows she can't touch anything in the classroom. She can't touch anything that's on the floor. So she's she's been through quite a bit of training. Um and she has quite a few really close friends here at the school. Uh so she's a joy. Uh we love we love visiting different places with her. We love um coming to school and I really love the benefit of having her here and um oh the kids just adore her and and the staff and if anybody has any questions I'm willing to answer them. But I'd kind of like to take her around and and have

088everybody meet her and then you can Yeah, go ahead. So, just last week we had a student come in in the morning with mom and she was just upset, you know, just upset going to school. So, she sat in the office with me and ironically here comes Mrs. Barbara and Winnie down and within seconds the Winnie just nuzzled up to her, comforted her. They chatted for a few minutes and next thing I know, you know, I wasn't able to get her to class, but Winnie sure did. So she she does have many many benefits. Uh these are just this is now say her name again Lori Noma who's the St. Bern Bernard and they visited other classes as well as part of the love on the leash. They came this was um late fall and

089they visited the kindergarten classes and just let all those kids um talk to her. You know Lori's asked many times okay what about you know someone who's allergic or what about if someone is not confident with dogs? We actually have a staff member who told us she was not, you know, very comfortable. So, we just take that at ease. We haven't run into any issues with um allergies, but we know like when the staff member comes, Lori takes it easy, just as very cautious. She's not off a leash at any time. And like Lori described, the training is immense. You know, it's not just someone coming in with their dog from home. The training is very immense for her. So, the benefit has been fantastic. And Love on a Leash, too. They also need to

090be these gigantic dogs as well. So, our kids just love them. They just love them. Okay. And then I'm gonna close with something that we we have not done, but we are going to do. Uh I don't know if you've seen this. I was going to put the link up there and share the video, but I thought you guys could uh dig into it. I know it's on my board report. Um so, this is called Hop on the Wave. Now, wave is a great acronym for wheels to AV. And Mr. Hancock, our amazing PE teacher, and I are going to take this on for the spring. Uh, it's called a bike bus. And if you've seen it, Portland um public schools is is doing it. They're they're all over the United States, but I happen

091to see a clip from the Portland public schools. And it's a bike bus. So, basically, we are luckily a very good neighborhood school. Now, we've got kids who live, you know, up and across Summit View. So, we're going to work out a system for that. But Mr. Hancock and I, just like we did during COVID, we created these maps of where we would go with a parade to wave to our kids and say, "Hey, we're here for you." So, we're going to take those maps and we're going to head through woodwinds and then we're going to head through this neighborhood kind of winding around a couple mornings a week starting in May on our bikes. Now, my husband has recommended I get an electric bike, but I'm going to try. I did find a tandem

092bike on um marketplace the other day. So, I got to see if there's a staff member who might join me on a tandem bike. And Mr. Hancock has an electric scooter. And we're going to go with a map and just try to pick up kids and invite kids for not only just getting out in the fresh air and riding their bike to school, but just the joy and the entertainment of it. I'm also going to use it as a ploy for some of my kids I know right here for attendance and see if we're going to be out there saying we're meeting you. We're coming to school with you. We're on the bike bus. Join us and see if we can motivate them to get them to school and then we'll ride them home. But

093we're the offer we're going to make is if you don't live in that neighborhood and your parents can bring you or a neighbor can bring you, we're going to set up drop off locations and then we'll ride our bikes through there and hopefully pick up a few kids. Um this is the um Alama district in Portland. A beautiful neighborhood. They luckily got Justin Timberlake to come up and join them on the bike bus. So we may have a little hidden agenda to try to get some superstar that thinks it's really cool to come out or yourselves if you have a bike and would like to join us. We'll I'll I'll send you guys the dates. We haven't figured out what two days a week we want to do it, but we want to do the

094month of May, start June, see how it works out. I recently wrote a grant to the um Seahawks uh community schools seeking just some money that we can maybe buy some bikes and scooters for kids who maybe don't have them. We know helmets will be very important as well. So, we just are trying to break any barriers for kids who might just be like, I'd love to get on the bike bus, but you know, I don't have wheels. How can we help out with that as well? So, more to come on that next year. We'll report back on how our ride the wave turns out. It might just be Mr. Hancock and I the first day, but we'll recruit our staff or anybody else who wants to join us. Um, that's really what we wanted

095to present tonight. We wanted to share about our culture of belonging and safety. Uh, you got some data in there, the great work of Lori and Winnie that we get when they bring it. um our staff working hard, like I said, with our morning meetings and our soft starts and all the work that we do here. We've always got more work to go, but that's where we are for April. Great. So, thank you for coming. Questions, comments? Yeah, let's give Heidi a hand and the staff and Miss Barber and we'll have the board join us back up here and then Heidi maybe keep the mic here. We have some questions from the school board members. Mr. Thorner, you got a bike you can come join us. Oh, like a going M Mrs. Thorner has Mrs.

096Thorner lots of bikes that I'm sure that you know they cost more than most cars. Um, no. You know, I don't I I I feel like I got the full report Saturday night at Kawichi Canyon Kitchen when I had uh dinner with my nephew who gave me the full report on Apple Valley. So, uh, I heard I heard about it all. So, thank you. Fantastic. Okay. You're welcome. That's awesome. Good. Anybody else questions for me or for Lori in regards to the dog? Uh, Miss Sutton, I had a question for you. And um, so you those are huge number jumps from 23. Yeah. Yeah. Curious. Is there something specific you attribute that to? Yeah. One of them is just the attentiveness to it. Like when we did this in 23 with that survey, it was

097just kind of we just threw it out there, right? It was, "Hey kids, guess what? You're going to take the survey." There wasn't any conversation about it. there wasn't that which now I could see also as we don't want it to come across that we've skewed it either right it's not like we went to the children hey you need to answer this way but what our teachers have really reflected on is like I said that example we all use about the I feel safe at school they have done a lot more about really tell me what that means that is not a like yes it is a physical safety but it's again not that the swing we don't have swings but I I bang my knee on the slide so they talked about that that

098this is really your relationship with people and the whole concept about being and feeling safe. The other piece that I believe most other elementaryaries did, we also gave that survey during just a computer lab time and so we had our wonderful computer lab teacher also present it to them. We've moved it back to the classroom. So we've moved it back in those teachers during a morning meeting or a soft start time. Then they have them pull out their computers and take the test. So, I think some of those variables and just that, you know, that conscientiousness to the the fact about doing it. Um, I like I said though, a teacher made a great response this time. She a reflection. She said, "They want to talk about it. They want to tell you. They keep

099raising their hand. Hey, I just answered this, but when can I tell her what I want to say?" So, I know this is just a formative one that we're supposed to use for that, but we next year maybe want to add more of an opportunity for comments because I get all those in a Google spreadsheet and like I said, we went took them to our ILT and kind of shared it and I shared with humor tonight about the swag, but there are some very, you know, specific comments on there, too, about what would help them. Um, you know, the buddy bench, a place to go talk to, the use of our den with Mrs. sterns. So, we're hoping to get that feedback and utilize it. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. Any more questions or comments? Thanks.

100I just have one. It's Yes. It's always a wonderful experience to come here and all the years I've come here, there's always something exciting going on here that you could just walk in and feel the electricity. So, I just want to comment just what a great job you've done here with with this building and the staff, the whole four years of being here. four years. Well, thank you, Mark. I mean, I think I always laugh at that when I keep April. I don't I never get the fall assignment. I probably would do the same in fall, but I always like April because I know you guys have sat all year long listening to everybody and data, data, data. And so, I wanted to share data, but then I like kind of coming in with just

101again celebrating what our staff does every day and really honoring their work. Um, last year, you know, we did trivia and all that fun stuff with you. So, you know, we are very academic, too. But, um, but it is, but again, what our staff does every every day with those kids is powerful. So, we appreciate them. And just one last one more comment as before I wrap up here. Just uh I look back, you know, it's been a few years already since you moved into this new building. And I'm just wondering, have you used all the space yet? You feel it's great. maximized or has it, you know, the the layout now that you've been for a while, is it working the way you envisioned or the rest of the school? That is an excellent

102question. Staff bills, you know, we have grown already in the four years. So, we opened um and we have grown up to 465. We never opened that. Why trying to think 420 was about our opening. Um so, we've grown. We've also added these great programs like we now have the learning together PK upstairs in the room. So, it is being used not necessarily for, you know, one of our grade levels, but it's so exciting to have this community preschool up there. We have one of the district's um special ed preschools still in a room upstairs. So, we're able to house them. So, there's two rooms that technically could still be used for grade levels. We are adding a second grade next year because our first grade is big. So, we have a room available for

103them. Uh so, we are filling them. I will still have, you know, about two rooms empty. And when I say empty, they're used through Christian Williams intervention program. We use one just as a gathering place. The third graders are using it for math intervention. Now the fifth graders are using it. So they're utilized, but there's about two more that are available. Um so we are growing in that capacity. You know, as we've learned this building, I will say here's a little plug. When money comes around, the one thing on the safety that we've noticed, this is a very interesting space. So, you're all in this wonderful space. Notice where the exits are. There are only two single doors. So, like when we have, you know, 250 kids in here for lunch, we do notice that's

104kind of it's quite congested. We would love um nice uh garage doors right there like the IC has. So, I think Jed was here. Maybe Jed has a a system he wants to do. But other than that, you know, the thing that again, you know, Lori might speak to this and Kristen, you we were very concerned about having two floors just we came from that little school, right? Some of you came from that tiny little school. And so we were very concerned about being disconnected. And I think the first year you guys may have still been a little bit, it was very intentional to get upstairs. It's very intentional. Go. I got to go upstairs. Got to go upstairs. Our older kids are up there. But I'm hoping, you know, we always invite our little

105kids to go up. Go see it. And some of them walk up there, they've I've never been up here before. Right. We had a wonderful family join us just in the last two weeks from Mountain View. And I took those boys on the tour and their eyes were just like this. And it wasn't anything different than Mountain View besides the size. They were just like the size. How do I get upstairs? Do I get to ride the elevator? You know, all those things. But our kids are used to it. Um we don't lose anybody. Our playground is large and the grass out there is is really wellmaintained. So, we're enjoying it. But yeah, we're filling. Yeah, I think 420 to Yeah, we're about 465 now and looking higher next year. So, I don't think we'll

106top off at 500, but we're getting close. So, thank you. That's Thank you. No, it's an excellent question. I appreciate that. And the cafeteria, right? That was the biggest thing. So, I remember the other space. Yeah, I know. Don't you all? I'm glad to see it. Don't you all? All right. Well, thank you gentlemen for tonight. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Next on the agenda, we'll go to public comment of non-discussion agenda items. Uh let me see here. There's a statement, I think. I get that back up. All right. Do we have a list of any First, I should ask that. No, no one has signed up for public comment. No one. Okay, then. All right, then. We'll just go right on by that one. Mhm. Um, approval of consent agenda. There's several items there.

107Items A through quite a few of them, I believe. If there's anything in there that anyone wants to pull out and discuss individually. Otherwise, if not, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. All right. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 5 Z. Moving on to item nine. Discussion items. Public hearing. Title title six. Title six. Yes. Did I skip something? No. No. You're You're right there. Public hearing title six Native American education 2526 activities. Anything you want to share, Dr. Finch? Yes. So, this is an opportunity here for Gerlyn Ashbar, our director of state and federal programs, to update the board on title

108six, which is education for Native American and Alaska Native students. And uh she's been working closely with the parent group. She'll share what the activities were for this past year and what the proposed activities are for the upcoming school year. And then after some time for discussion with the board, then we do need to open for public comment and have a public hearing. That's a part of the application process for title six funds. Title six again are federal funds that support uh our students that are Native American and Alaskan Native. So Jerine's here and she's going to give a just a brief overview. Yes. Um I'm used to doing a formal presentation, so I'm hope I do this right. Um, so yeah, Geraldine Ashba, director of state and federal programs, uh, here on behalf of

109our Title Six native ed program. I'm really excited about it. I was talking with Dr. Finch the other day and I was like, well, it's very exciting because, you know, last year was the first year we ever did this. He goes, actually, I think we did it years ago, but it's the first year that I ever remember that we had Title Six programming. So, but it is something that he and I had talked about for a couple years prior to me actually doing the application. So, I was very excited about this work and just improving the uh awareness around and the enrichment for our Native American and Alaskan uh native students. So, the application process does require um you to work very closely with a parent advisory committee. So, we call it the NAPAC, Native

110American parent um advisory committee. And these goals are their goals. Um we do not choose the goals. we have good conversation around uh actually we facilitated a community cafe manurva helped us with that and really like what's going well for their students and what uh what's not going well and if you had a magic wand what would you change and so we have had really good conversation with our Native American families um in kind of like a general assembly setting so everyone is welcome to be part of that conversation and from that in the first year for the 24-25 school year we came up with the four goals increase cultural awareness, increase relationship building, increase community representation, and provide uh cultural enrichment for our Native American and Alaskan Native students. Uh this year, again being

111our first year and just trying to make those things happen. Um we've created a Remind group with all of our Title Six qualifying families. And so we do share out with them things like uh the Chapenish Pow-Wow, um things that they may be interested in attending. Um we have a couple other opportunities to put on the calendar um different cultural um occasions that might benefit everyone. You know, really increasing that awareness around celebrations and awareness uh within the native culture. Um let me think what else. So the big thing for us this year was family nights. Uh, one of their main goals was to increase um or an activity was to increase parental engagement. And of course, you see that enrichment of our native um native cultures. And so we decided this first year we're

112going to start with family nights. We scheduled five family nights. Um we had our fourth one last night. We were weaving baskets last night. Um so cultural awareness included uh native language instruction and um cultural arts. And so we contracted out with tribal members and they did the leading of and facilitation of those activities. Um so it's been really really great uh bringing some families together and actually uh I think the biggest uh what's going really well is we had native families who um said you know what I feel like I belong here and I don't look native and I'm here and it's okay that I don't look native. I loved that, right? Because you don't know, right? So, really an opportunity for a sense of belonging for our families. We've made um arrowhead necklaces.

113Uh we've done some pottery. We did what else do we do? Oh, we Yes, we made some drums. Um so, lots of cool things. Um we've done that work. Uh Casmir Clark, who was a Wapto student, he has some sisters that attend here. So, uh, we have Carl Clark who serves as our, uh, chairperson. Casmir, his son, is the co-chair. He's led some of the native, uh, language instruction. Dora Apedaka, who works at the tribal school, has come out and participated with us. And then, um, I said Janna Clark or I'm sorry, Lana Clark in your memo, however, it's Cleveland. Clark was her main name. um and then um has led some of the art as well as Jan and Lisa Whitefoot from Whitefoot uh studios in Toppenish. Um so it's been great moving forward.

114Again, we had another community cafe as part of a needs assessment for the grant. Um and we just we have the same goals, but we did add that we would really like to see some opportunities for secondary students to provide some mentorship and um receive some leadership opportunities. So, we're hoping to start uh with the help of someone. I have someone in mind, but someone will hopefully lead a native ed uh club at the middle level. All all students will be welcome. We'll braid that funding with title 4. Um and um provide some of the some similar things, cultural enrichment, um maybe some native um a book studies with native authors. We have some ideas. So really getting our middle level students involved but re uh connecting with uh high school students to to kind

115of come down as mentors with with those middle schools. So building it up um through the system for secondary students. So that's our goal for next year. Increasing leadership a bigger goal for next year is increasing leadership and mentorship opportunities. Mount Sky Camp um at Sispus is uh Native American education focused. So, our native education focus. So, we'll work on how we can send some students there as well. Um, so basically, I just want to thank the parent advisory committee and Rebecca Festa who is actually serving as our Native American liaison. So, um for the work that that she's done around uh those the work with those families and those students and continue to build on that. Great. So, this opportunity for some questions or discussion by the board. Gerine, just thank you so much

116for your leadership on this. I was reading through this this morning and I thought, man, this is just great learning opportunities and leadership opportunities. So, thank you. Thank you. It's It's my pleasure. I'm I'm really excited about the work to continue to grow for that population. Yeah. How many families came out last night? One family last night, but we have had an average of 20 individuals. Um, last night I sent out the reminder really late. Um I uh so my bad but um but typically we've had 20 individuals so that's been good and you know we have approximately 170 Native American students in our district. We have 60 students this grant this last grant year um our grant was funded for approximately 40 title six students because it does require that they qualify. So, they

117have to fill out what's called a 506 form and um and include some information and then I can qualify them and that's the num that's those numbers are what I get funded for. Um so, it's a process, right? You can make phone calls and you know, you can't force anyone to fill out a piece of paper, right? Even though we'd like them to be part of all of the things we're doing. Um, we've since, yes, we've since added it to the enrollment packet and that helped us acquire another 20 forms for this next grant year. So, increasing our funding by $6,000. So, yeah. Any other questions? Thank you very much. All right. Um, then we'll move on to item 10 on the agenda. Public comments on discussion items. Public hearing. Anyone? All right. Hearing no

118public comment request, we'll go on to item number 11. Action items. Approval of travel requests uh and approval of policy addition editions first reading. And see uh item 460 distribution of information. So, um, again, we can take these apart if anyone has particular questions or Dr. Fch, do you have anything you would like to add on any of these items? No, I would just say to take the travel request and then I believe there'll be some questions about the first reading of the policy. I just have one comment, no questions. Um, that leader instructional leadership institute that you'll be attending, I was reading over that. That looks fantastic. Yeah. and I'm really looking forward to hearing a report when you get back. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we've used it. Looks really good. Principal Cavelli as

119a um a book study for our administrative team and we've actually used it for one of our book studies we do with our staff during the school year. So, looking forward to being able to interact with him. He he was a keynote speaker at the AWSP WASA summer conference a couple years ago. So, I'm looking forward to that. Also, there's no cost to the district for that. Um through my work with ASA as a co-leader for the uh ASA early learning cohort, um they're providing uh some transportation costs for me there. Okay, if there are no further comments or questions, I guess we should go ahead and take a vote. Well, hold on. We need to make a motion to approve the travel requests. I'll make a motion to approve all three travel requests. Thank

120you. Pardon me. I was coming to that, but you beat me to the punch. It's all right. Okay. We have a motion to approve the travel request. So, we'll go ahead and take a vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos. Same sign. Motion carries. 5. All right. Now, we have the approval of policy edition revisions first reading. Again, Dr. Finch, any information you wish to share with us on this? Well, I'll just share that um it came to my attention that we actually do have some partnerships with commercial businesses such as uh photography or uh at the high school just as a commercial uh business and so uh and even we were talking about um like the Scholastic Book Fair that's a commercial business as well. So we really do need

121to take a look at our policy here about distribution of information and make a provision there that uh there could be some exceptions to this. Um right now it does not our policy doesn't allow for uh distribution of information about a with a commercial policy uh commercial business. So uh wanted to craft some language that would provide direction that the board would allow the superintendent on a case- by case basis to allow for distribution of information from a commercial business uh for a business that partners with the school district. Um prior to the board meeting uh Michael Thorner actually had some questions about that. So go ahead and have Michael share. Yeah. So um uh as I was sharing with Dr. Finch, clearly we need to update the policy to allow because there are some

122legitimate commercial businesses that that um that that we have relationships with. You know, Scholastic Bookf Fair, Justins, the the company that does uh the the school pictures. Um, so those are obviously not non those are obviously not nonprofit organizations or commercial entities. And so the policy needs to be updated. My only my concerns are as follows. one and I don't have great language uh back but just the statement exceptions may be granted by the superintendent on a case-byase basis for commercial businesses that partner with the school district on its face is probably okay but I would like to see something that um and it really wouldn't be tied to the to the uh mission of the school district because that you know providing school pictures doesn't necessarily enhance the the mission of the school district.

123So, I don't have a really great Maybe doesn't oppose the Well, yeah, maybe I I don't think that's it either. I I don't have great language, but I I I think this is a bit of a free-for-all the way that it's currently. It's not going to stop me from voting in the first reads, but I'd like to see that language tailored. Secondly, I'd like to see an update to the superintendent's procedures because the procedures to 4060, which are not part of the packet, um are are really going to need to be overhauled in light of the fact of this. And then my final concern is um distribution of information. And I'm not quite sure that it falls in line with this policy, but um obviously we live in the electronic age. Um, you know, it

124wouldn't be, I don't think, inappropriate for the school district to provide, um, email addresses of our parents to say, "Hey, we're going to take pictures at school. Here's the flyer on that." But it comes out electronically as opposed to like when we were going to school and it was sent home. What I do have a problem with, however, is putting some restrictions on the company that we provide that information that they certify to us in writing that they will not sell nor distribute the email addresses that we provide for that limited purpose and that limited purpose only. Um, beyond that, now that isn't quite this policy. I think there's another policy that addresses this, but um I think it all ties together. I think that we need to be practical about this. I think that

125that there's a right way to do this, but um I I'm also very sensitive about once information about our students and families leaves our custody and control. um we need some contractual asurances that the materials are being utilized in a proper manner. And I don't think that's an unreasonable um I don't think that's an unreasonable thing for the uh for the um for these businesses and frankly anybody that we're providing that information to. Thank you. I I was reading through 460P that you referred to and I was agreeing that you know D where it says you sh will not promote commercial enterprises would have to be overhauled. I'm wondering because I hadn't heard that comment before. Could it could it be in procedures where that would fall more than policy as far as contractual? Would

126that be more of a procedure than a policy? Yeah, I think I mean you mean on the on the dissemination of information? Yeah, I think so. I I think that where I look at the policy um where I look at the policy as being on a case-by case basis, well, somebody that could challenge that could say, "Well, on the one hand, I like that it's on a case-byase basis because we have the sole and exclusive discretion, but on the other hand, um I don't want to put Dr. Finch in it or whoever the superintendent is in the in in sort of this I want there to be some standard of applicability of when we would do this and I don't know what that is. I I can't I I'm sorry that I can't come up

127with I can identify the problem but I can't suggest a solution. So my apologies for that. So but I think um Mr. Walcott you're right. I think some of this can be a little bit developed in the in the procedures. Um, but I do think there's a little bit of enhancement, not much, but a little bit of enhancement that needs to be on a case- by case purposes as to the purpose behind why we would grant an exception. And maybe and I and I struggle because it's, you know, it's poor writing to say, for example, school pictures or for example, our vendor that's just not um I'm just not coming up with it. I'll probably it'll hit me tonight at 3 in the morning. So, but um but anyway, I'd like to see that just

128that last line enhanced, but I think the procedures do as well. Yeah. And just process-wise, we could vote, the board could vote for a first reading, approve that, and uh we would still have some time to work on the Yeah. ways to kind of make it a little more um some more guard rails to the actual and come back second reading with uh some revised language there. Yeah, I guess that makes me think of one other comment as well or provision I guess of this and that is um our parents they have some obligation not obligation isn't the right word but um um leverage or decision- making of whether or not they want their names on those list in the first place. Right. There should That's correct. Yeah, that's a different policy and procedure, but

129that is regarding um the student privacy and the use of directory information. And so parents can request that the district do not release directory information to anyone. You can just put a policy reference in the procedure. That is a good point. We could put the policy reference in there. That's where I was thinking. I I figured we must have had something in place somewhere, but I just didn't know where. So that would be an ideal thing to just include I think. All right. Any more comments, discussion on this? So are we all wanting to vote? If somebody will make a motion that we will approve at least the first reading with the idea of the second reading, we'll make some uh I'll make a motion that we move forward on the first reading of policy

130revision 4060. All right. Thank you. We have a motion. Um all those we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose same sign. A motion carries. 5. Now we get to item 12 on the agenda. Items arising. Anyone? Did Katie want to share ASB report? I've done the exact same thing. I think you'd be right for this. That's right. Katie, if you can go to the microphone then and Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Um, spring sports are well underway, so make sure to catch all games and matches this next month. Rams on the red carpet have finished off their fundraising efforts for the YW.CA for this year and their big uh finale on April se oh with their big finale on April 17th through their fundraising efforts and the awareness

131they brought to this program this year. We are hopeful to start seeing similar results in surrounding schools with representatives from SILA and Davis attending the final event. a goal to raise $10,000 this year. Uh for the first time, our high school held spring conferences. This was a success with every student creating a portfolio showcasing their best work from this semester. The high school ASB hosted a talent show on Wednesday, March 26th at 6:30 in the high school auditorium. Thank you to all of our amazing participants and judges from the audience. Seniors got their graduation orders on Friday, April 18th. Make sure to mark your calendars for June 6th because graduation is right around the corner. JOTC came back from nationals with trophies. A leadership class continues to organize sendoffs for state and nationals. We also

132have the pep band usually available to add the fight song to the celebration. This is a fun tradition that we all do. Get out a little bit early. Uh, mark your calendars for April 24th, 6 PM. We will be hosting a multicultural celebration in the Commons. I think they have good food there, too, if I remember last year. So, uh, seniors are getting information regarding tickets for prom, graduation, and their grad party. The end of the year is right around the corner. Prom is coming up on May 3rd. Uh, the bachelorette will be June 5th, 700 p.m. and graduation will be June 6th, 700 p.m. May 14th, our National Honor Society will be hosting a blood drive for the Red Cross. So, make sure to sign up to save some lives. Our Mecca students have

133been hard at work preparing for the high school's annual Cinco de Mayo assembly. We can't wait to see what they have in store. That's a really fun assembly to go to. Um, stamp testing is coming up, so please be sure to finish your registration for those. I don't know if that's supposed to be ASB is uh planning more fun, silly schoolwide activities to get us through these long weeks and testing. They are simple like hiding rubber ducks around the school and you get a reward if you find them. Touch of class is May 14th and senior breakfast is May 7th. ASB is planning Ramba Palooa a festival outdoor with outdoor games and music. And that is all I have. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Anything else for items arising? Anyone? All right.

134Uh reports. Yep. Enrollment report, safety report, and travel log were in the board packet. Okay. Superintendent report. Yes, in the board packet include information about some adjustments to the instructional program at the innovation center. Then also included information about the PAL program. You know, this is something that um we have a lot of interest from our parents that are have students in the program. So just wanted to share that the district has begun the process to identify and post open teaching positions for the 2526 school year. Open positions occur when a teacher retires, resigns, separates from the district, when a teacher leaves to take a leave of absent or when a teacher moves to an open position within their school or within the district. So once the process has been completed, the two teachers for

135the multi-age classes for the 2526 school year for the PAL program will be identified and they will be supported with professional development, release time, and work time in the summer to plan for the multi-age classes. I'm grateful for the commitment of our highly capable coordinator, Wendy Clark, to ensure that the PAL program will be a high quality experience for our students in the upcoming school year. Wendy has communicated to me that she is committed to providing ongoing support for the teachers throughout the upcoming school year by providing ongoing professional development and co-planning with the teachers with a focus on project-based learning. That concludes the superintendent report. All right. Thank you, Dr. Finch. Next item 15, board reports, board development. Anyone? All right. That brings us to the end of our meeting and we will officially

136adjourn at 8:00 PM again Tuesday, April 22nd. Thank all of you for attending tonight's meeting. Perfect timing.