001The other part is the basketball. Morning everyone. Sorry to interrupt there. It's 6:01 p.m. Trying to try to be kind of punctual here. Sorry. Oh, that's okay. No problem. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and get started 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. I feel like I'm the little kids. Okay. Good evening everyone and thank you all for being here. Those of you who are here in person and those of you who might be attending by some other means. Uh we'll go ahead and go right to the agenda. Uh any changes to the agenda, Dr. Finch? No changes. All right.
002Communications. Uh no communications. All right. Discussion items. The this today we have the data summit. So would you like to introduce that for us? Certainly. So we have the data summit. Uh we're going to look over the winter assessment data that we have. We have our I Ready reading and math assessments that are administered in grades K through 8 in the fall, winter, and spring. And so this is new data for the winter for us to look at. We will be able to see some growth data. Uh in the fall, of course, that's our baseline. And then in the winter, we'll have some growth and then in the spring, we'll see some growth. Uh in addition, the board had asked for us to look at smarter balance scores and uh some comparison to like districts.
003I was able to find that information for the board and uh there's actually quite quite a bit of information in the packet. So there's um just certain slides that we'll pull out and look at the comparisons. uh we really don't have time to look at I think the board packets over 200 pages this time around but uh I have highlighted uh certain pages that we'll look at for the comparison. So we look at overall English language arts and math and we'll look at comparison to similar uh districts with similar demographics and similar low free and reduced meal rate. And then we'll look at that uh by dis disagregation by ethnicity and by various programs such as low-income English language learners, special education students and students with 504 plans. And then after that we do have
004um information about the um survey that we gave to that's perceptual data. So we have uh survey data from our family survey, our student survey and the staff survey and that's information that was uh ad there was a survey administered in November during conference week and a little bit in December and then we this will be the first time we have a chance to look at those results. So also those are quite a bit of uh results there for each of the surveys we'll be pulling out and looking at our culture of safety and belonging for goal one of our strategic plan and that uh aligns to the supportive learning environment. So we'll look at that information for our family survey or student survey and staff survey and that will wrap up our data summit
005for here on March 25th. So, first we'll start. So, in the board packet, um, we actually pulled the information out and for the community now, we didn't we were able to merge the information for the board. We were able to have separate documents for the community. So, instead of having to print it and scan everything, it was so difficult to see the numbers sometimes and the colors and everything on the scan. So, I think we've upgraded everything and we have uh some nice electronic documents for our community to look at as well. We're very transparent. All this data is online and uh anyone can go through and look at the specifics. So, we're going to start in the board packet uh on page 206 of the board packet. That will be the quantitative data. Stacy
006Drake, our assistant superintendent, will review the I Ready data. So, we'll look at pages 206 through 238 and then I will uh follow up Stacy Drake and look at additional data that we have from OSBI, some of the updated information from the class of 2024 and then we'll move into the smarter balance comparison data. So, we'll start off with assistant superintendent Stacy Drake and look at the I Ready winter scores. Good evening everyone. So remember that our I Ready is our benchmark assessment for both reading and math for um grades K through eight at all of our buildings that serve those students. So we're looking at reading first. Actually I can go and just So we're going to go ahead we have uh in the past we made copies but they were kind of hard
007to read. So, we're going to have the board members stay here and look at their iPads or their computers. And we're on page 206 of the board packet. So, this first page we're looking at is reading. It is um reading by school. Um this is the winter. So, we we give the assessment in the fall when the students come in and then we give it in the winter and then in the spring. Um so this first page is disagregated by school and um that shows us what how the students where the students are in relation to grade level standards. So the green is on grade level and then the yellow is um below grade slightly below grade level and the red is more than two years behind. Stacy, can you help us on what page
008of the board packet? Well on this we are on page 213 on the slides. Okay 213. So we had the walk kids data in there and we'll just go straight to that. I already I don't think we have uh enough time to look at all that. Okay. So page uh 213. Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you. So I when analyzing this data, I look I was curious to look at um where we were where we are this winter compared to last winter because as you remember in K through five we have um adopted a new ELA curriculum that you um approved last spring. So what we were told was don't be alarmed if your scores dip um the first year of implementation because teachers are getting used to the new materials and there could be
009some differences in how it's taught and things like high uh frequency words and those things. And so often the first year of implementation there's a dip and then the next year the kids bump up. Um but actually um we have some schools that have um gains over last year at this time. Notably Summit View was five points ahead in the percentage of um students that are on grade level. So that 52% for Summit View. Um everybody else was just slightly ahead, one or two points ahead compared to last winter. So that was encouraging. And then at the innovation center, um we have been um doing some reading intervention with a program um that's called read 180 for the first time this school year. And um we saw a 17% jump this winter compared to last
010winter. So that makes us think that, you know, our our programs are doing well and our interventions are are um doing what they need them to do. So that was encouraging. Stacy also you mentioned the innovation center in the past uh the I ready data there were some questions about the numerator and denominator and uh we have got that corrected so that is the correct uh denominator that's the number of students in grades uh seven and eight that are at the innovation center in the past in the past it was 7 through 12 that were enrolled in the I Ready program we didn't realize that till last year when that was brought up by the board so that is the correct denominator So then the next page is math by school. It was again overall
011about the same as last winter. We do see some um of course there's improvement from the fall, but then we see some I saw some um highlights compared to last winter. Again, Summit View was up seven percentage points um overall the percentage of students in the green on grade level in math. Wide hollow was up three. the innovation center was up eight um percentage points for the students on grade level and the mid-level campus was just slightly above two percentage points and I know they've been doing some interventions um at both the IC and the um the innovation center and at the mid-level campus. So that was encouraging. The next page is reading by grade level overall in the district. Maybe use page numbers for the board package. Okay, that is page 217. Yeah, thank
012you. And um that was slightly up in all grade levels, but a bigger jump in first grade. Um oh, I'm sorry. Slightly up in all grades except first, second, and fourth grade. Um were about the same as last winter. So again, we're not seeing the dip that was predict predicted with the new reading curriculum. And I I really just want to say again, I think that credit goes to our teachers who have just really taken on this new program with all its different components um and learned it quickly even though it was hard. Um and our instructional coaches as well supporting that work. So that's when looking at K5, the fact that um we're about the same and just slight dips in first, second, and fourth grade, that's very encouraging. Um, the next page is
013page 218 and that is math by grade level. Compared to last winter, of course, we're up from the fall, but compared to last winter, we have um we're slightly up in grades 3, six, seven, and eight in the percentage of the students on grade level in the green. The next page should be the growth. We're looking at growth. So remember that I Ready based on where students test in in the fall, they're assigned a percentage of points. That is their typical annual growth goal. And that means that if the student um achieves that many points on their diagnostic assessment, they've made about one year's growth. Now, if students are behind grade level, we want them to achieve their stretch growth, but we're really just looking right now at the percentage of students who are making
014or on their path to make their annual typical growth goal. So, compared to um one year ago, winter, again, I'm still looking to see the impact of our new ELA curriculum. I was pleased to see that we had slightly more growth in winter. The percentage of students that are achieving their endofear, I'm pointing at the screen, you can't see me. Um that percentage met is what I look at. That very first one on annual typical growth. So, like we're looking at wide hollow on this screen. You can see 37%. That means that 37% of the students at Wide Hollow in winter have already achieved their endofear growth goal. So halfway through the year, they've already achieved one year's growth in one year's time. And that's what we want to see like you know by winter
015we want that percentage to be up. So that's what I was looking at. Um and and certainly shout out there to the mid-level campus. Yes, mid-level campus also that progress that median number towards like the progress students are making towards their annual growth goal. You can see that the middle number for the mid-level campus is 100%. So that means everything above that middle number when they lined up all those students in a um in a list um was above 100% at mid year at halfway through. So that's exciting. So we were I was really encouraged by that growth because we do have students who come in with gaps in their learning and what we want is high growth so that we can get kids closer to grade level. And again, um, in our ELA, um,
016we're just seeing teachers working really hard with that new curriculum. Um, Summit View was up 7% in growth compared to last year. The percentage of students that had already made their end of the year growth goal. Middle mid-level campus was up um, 5% from last year. The next page is page 224, which is math by school looking at diagnostic growth. the highlights on this page for that percent met at halfway through the year who's already met their end ofear goal. Um, some of you was up 12% of students already meeting their endofear goal by our halfway point and the innovation center math adding that math designer and having that um co-planning with the pathway teachers has really helped. the innovation center was up 12 percentage points of their students um seventh and eighth graders meeting
017that that end of year goal halfway through the year. Then we have growth by grade level on page 226 and that's reading reading. So looking at it by grade level um again comparing it to last winter of course we've all you know grade levels are doing really great compared to fall but how are we with a new reading curriculum um new materials some new strategies um this year in winter and kindergarten was up 6% of students meeting their um typical annual growth goal already in winter. Third grade was up 10% from last year. Fourth grade was up 4%. Fifth grade was up 2%. Sixth grade was up 3%, seventh grade was up 9% and eighth grade was up 5%. So then that made me think about what's happening at sixth, seventh, and eighth grade where
018we haven't adopted a new um curriculum because we saw some similar um goals. you can go to math percentage of students who have already met their end of year goal um by winter in seventh and eighth grade those were up from last year too and what I what we came back to was really just that teacher clarity which is in our strategic plan the learning targets and the success criteria teachers being really clear about what their focus and their standards are that they're focusing on in the lesson explaining that to students and studentfriendly language. We call those learning targets and students making sure that they understand um how they are going to be successful. What are the criteria which they need to be successful? Um that's the difference that we're seeing both in reading and
019math um across the district. Stacy, I've also heard from parents at the middle level that going to the mastery based or standardsbased system that students are much more engaged in their learning and they know what they need to do to get a three and they're coming back and asking to go ahead and do the retake opportunities to retake, right? So they they're at a two but they want to get the three. So there's a lot more seems to be more motivation and ownership and learning by the students at the mid-level campus. And when you look in that far column, you'll see there's the stretch growth. That's what students we want students to achieve their stretch growth goal which is obviously higher than the annual typical growth goal when they're behind grade level. But we also
020look at the percentage of students with improved pace placement. That means they've moved from like the red to the yellow because they've come up so much. So that's encouraging as well. Looking at the percentage of students that have jumped a level halfway through the school year. So overall, we're very um pleased with the impact of our um strategies and our strategic plan um but also the impacts of um a new reading curriculum K5. You also had um the board members had in their packet the colored um charts from the I Ready slides. For some reason, when I met with the I Ready folks this year and they sent me the slides that we usually share with you, they put confidential on them and did not respond to email inquiry on could we share them with
021the public. So, we didn't um we followed the rules and kept it confidential. But you do have a copy of these slides and you may notice that this year they finally I Ready has finally reormed. Um, in the past we kept talking about the 18/19 school year being the norm because it was pre-COVID. So they finally did that. The national norm is built off the 2223 school year. Um, so that's that first column. And then the second column is the national year to date. That's all of the students that use um the I Ready Diagnostic across the country. And then you see Washington um on in a column. And then you see where we are as the district. And the overall summary is that the West Valley School District is performing above the national norm
022um and the national year to date the students across the nation um and the state of Washington. So yep. So we we thought we could share the summary is that West Valley students are performing better than state and national averages. Uh but we are keeping that confidential as requested by I Ready. the actual numbers, I guess. All right. So, thank you, Stacy. Any questions? Discussion there for Stacy. Anybody? Yeah, thank you, Stacy. I just maybe I think one of the things I heard you say and I'm encouraged to hear um you talked about the the teachers were flexible to work for student success when it came came to implementing the new curriculum. And then also um one of the reasons for the growth you said was teacher clarity and focus. Is there um um I
023think we want we want the best teachers you know. Is there is there any type of incentive that we give or any way that we I guess communicate that success to other teachers in in our district to maybe encourage them towards that? Um we do communicate. Um, we also encourage and Peter, um, when this data started rolling in, I ran down to his office and said, "Look at so and so's data. Look at this. Look at this." And he got in his car and drove over and gave some high fives to teachers who had amazing growth. Yeah. Um, so yes is the answer to that. We do encourage, we do celebrate. Um, build elementary school buildings have data meetings where they meet by grade level with the principal and the instructional coach and they look
024at the data and they analyze it and they try to figure out, you know, why are why are these scores going up? Why do we have such good great growth or why wasn't the growth what we expected sometimes? um and try to pinpoint that so that any strategies that are causing um you know growth and getting kids closer to grade level or above grade level we can replicate. So that happens just organically organically and naturally at the school level. Yeah. And the teacher evaluation process is also a standard based process. So there's um three is considered proficient a four is distinguished. So you know teachers are working towards that distinguished uh evaluation and so you know the impact on student learning would definitely impact uh moving from a three to a four. Good. Thank you.
025All right. We'll move on in the same part of the board packet. Uh I'm at page 240 for the demographic information for the district. And that just shows that over time we've had an increase in our uh Hispanic students. So more diversity in West Valley. uh the board had asked that when we look at west valley information we also look at the state. So uh the next page is page 241 and so that shows that the state is also uh having increase in diversity uh across the state. Next is our teacher and student different graphics comparison. So in West Valley, our teaching staff is looks like that's about 80 82.9% white and 4% Hispanic. Student population is about 51% white and 42% Hispanic. When we compare that also to the state, we see the state
026is also um majority of teachers are white. It's 81.2% for the state. uh 6.3% Hispanic. Uh across the state of our student populations, it's about 48% white and 20 27% Hispanic. Next, looking at student attendance data, we the state has displayed this a little bit differently. And so we can look at the students who attend school that are not chronically absent. So we've had a slight trend upward. So that's good news. not where we were pre-COVID. Pre-COVID was at 83, 85, 91. Um, now we're at 73, but we're up from 65 in the 2122 school year. What page are you on? I'm sorry. Uh, that's that was page 246. What's considered chronically absent? Uh, chronically absent is more than 20 days in the school year. So, that's um out of 180 days, it's Yeah. Okay.
027That's considered chronically absent. And then the next page is the state data. So that's page 247 and the state is at uh 72.7% of students are not chronically absent. Peter, real quick when you and that was a great question. Chronically absent, does that include excused absences or unexcused? Yes, that's all absences. All absences. Okay, thank you. Next to the student discipline data. So that is page 249 of the board packet. Um we always look to see if there's some disproportionality of of discipline. So this is for suspensions and expulsions and there was a little concern and for Hispanic students there was a slight trend upward and now it's back down. So that's trending in the right direction now. Um so just a slight difference between white students, Hispanic students for their um suspension rates. uh
028our some of our other um ethnicities are have a a small N. So any change can sway those numbers quite a bit. Uh state data is page 250 and there is some disportion disproportionality in our state data as well. Um so doing everything possible to make sure that students are treated fairly in the discipline system that we have. Next is uh starting off page 251 is the ninth grade on track for graduation. So this is information that we're starting to track new as part of our strategic plan and really have supports for our nth grade students and we have shared all that about how we our high school administration already worked uh last summer with our mid-level campus administration identified students who could use additional support and um provided that support in a ninth grade
029class. It's a high school 101 type of class for you know learning the expectations of the high school and giving additional assistance for homework and such. So hopefully we'll see some improvements. So this is kind of lagging data of course. So we have from the 2324 school year is page 252 and we'd like to see improvements in this data. Um right now from the 2324 school year it was 68% of students passed all their classes as a nth grader and we would like to see improvements there. statewide is the next page, page 253. And that was uh 70% 71% of nth graders passing all their classes. So, this is one area where we're actually um below the state average and that's not a place we want to be there. We want to be above the
030state average when it comes to students passing all their classes as ninth graders. Is there any guess on why it went down? I mean, is that per random like from 72 to 68? Uh, really? No. But we knew that this was something we wanted to focus on and so we already put these uh supports in place this school year. So, hopefully we make an impact as we look towards the data when it comes out for for this school year. Thank you. Um, next is the information about dual credit. So, this brings all the dual credit opportunities. We're on page 255. Brings all the dual credit opportunities. So, college in the high school and um our career and technical dual credit classes through our career and technical education dual credit articulation agreements with the local community
031college and um running start is included in this as well. So, last year I was really proud and sharing with my friends across the nation that West Valley was at 90% and now we're up to 93.2% of our seniors. So from the class of 2024, this is new data and um and this is something that we track on our strategic plan on the website. So I did up update the website recently. So for class of 2024 seniors, 93.2% uh success successfully completed a college level class and got a college transcript. So that's really encouraging. Uh the next page is statewide. It's at 77.8%. So, we're quite a bit above the state average when it comes to dual credit, college in the high school running start, those type of opportunities for our students. Next is the
032high school graduation rate. And so, that's uh page 258. Uh we had just a slight decrease for the class of 2024, but still close to 90%, we're at 89.2%. So, we had passed 90% the previous year. Class of 2023 was 90.3% graduation rate uh in four years. Class of 2024 is 89.2%. So still close to that 90%. Statewide. The next page is at 82.8%. So quite a bit above the state average for West Valley High School. The final slide on this quantitative data that we have is about the FAFSA form completion. So we'll skip down to the page 261 of the board packet. So, this is uh updated information for the class of 2024. And it's kind of interesting. We really have plateaued at this 54 54% of students uh completing their FAFSA form. And
033it's different numerators and denominators, but it kind turns out to be 54% for the past what, one, two, three, four years in a row. We're currently at 38% for the class of 2025. And those numbers will change as students continue to get the FASA done. uh oftentimes they'll um decide they want to go to community college and they need to get they'll get their fast completed at that time. So those numbers continue to trend up. All right. So I think we're right on schedule. It's about 6:30 and we've completed that part of the board packet. Peter, before we move on. Sure. Yeah. Can I circle back to a couple of items? Um back on the um back on the attendance. Um Yes. whenever that was wherever that was. Sure. It's page 246 is the attendance.
034So the two things that I want to ask about are the attendance um basically the attendance before COVID was like I want to say like 90 some percent and now we're like 72 73%. There we go. Yeah. Um um seeing Miss Mogul here reminds me um and I can't remember if it was last year or maybe the year before when um I think the association uh addressed the board about initiatives that we about initiatives or what initiatives can the district take to improve this? Can you I can't remember when that was. I want to say it was probably the year before last. Um and there's a whole and there were a whole variety of reasons surrounding that. Uh um but uh can you refresh everybody's recollection including mine on the initiatives that we're taking to
035um increase attendance. Yeah. Push that into a positive direction. Yeah. I see that linked to our goal one of the strategic plan, the culture of safety and belonging and the things that teachers do to reach out to students and make them feel welcome at school, want to come to school. Uh a lot of the elementary schools are doing um it's called different things in different districts. I I think basically it's joyful learning to start off the day where it's um not a high stress thing. It's where you invite kids in and they can do um some activities and u just some play-based learning um that they don't want to miss out to get there early so that they can um they don't want to be tardy because they're going to miss out on the on
036the play-based learning. and then the starting the day with the the circle time and the class meetings and just have that sense of family as they as kids come in the door. So, those are things that we're working on culture-wise. Uh in general, we're seeing this across the nation and it is basically that during COVID, there was a message of, you know, if you're feeling a little bit ill, stay home. Um that it's okay to miss school because you can get it caught up in this type of thing. So there's almost just like this culture now where it's okay to miss school. Uh some of the things we've seen out of um the work there's some work out of Harvard that says it's important to communicate with families what the norm is and the norm
037is not to be missing more than 20 days. The norm is to attend school and that if you're missing you know those you know x number of days throughout the school you know each month then you're you're missing out on instruction and it's important to come to school. So, we'll um basically I really do have it uh focused on that goal one of the strategic plan and there's probably more that we can do to communicate what the norm is and and and making um attendance at school um you know, making for sure families know it's important the kids are there. Yeah, sounds like intentional communication. Intentional communication with our families about the importance of being at school. Yeah. Sort of in summary. Yeah. Um, second question has to do with um the ninth graders passing
038all of their all of their classes. And so this is on slide or page 252. Um so um I believe in 2019 2020 um we had a position I think it's was graduate success coordinator um uh that we had at one point in the district and I I don't believe we have that position now through budget decisions and attrition and and and so forth. Uh we decided to do some other things with regard to that. the graduate success coordinator for the for the newer members of the board was basically if you are if you were not passing all of your classes, we had a person at the high school literally they were they were communicated to by this person and uh this person was a a very talented uh individual that that was in charge
039of this. Anyway, um but uh and that's I'm not here to say that we need to bring that position back, but similar to my question with um the attendance initiatives and what we what we're doing, I think you kind of broadly indicated, but could you kind of again and and if you're repeating yourself on what we're doing, that's okay. Uh could you at least for my benefit uh comment on that, please? Right. Well, as much as we wanted, the graduation success coordinator really is more of a reactive position. We're trying to be as proactive as possible. So, that's uh we put that in the strategic plan as part of our action plan is that we would identify students who could benefit from extra support and provide that proactively. And I just really appreciate our administration
040that they jumped on that right away. So, that was in the plan. You know, the board approved the plan in May and uh at the beginning of June, they were meeting. They were identifying kids that could benefit from the additional assistance. They created a class. They wor was the high school administration, mid-level administration, and then Jed Waters is the career and technical education. he he was able to, you know, find that this there's a class available through career and technical education that's basically um helping with your goal setting and and being successful in school. And so we were able to make that uh class that was offered this year at West Valley High School. And so we're hoping to see positive results from that class. So that was being that was one big part of
041being proactive. And then the next part is really working with the adviserss. And um as you know, we have uh student focus groups at the high school. And um part of what we heard from their focus groups is that um the upper classman, sophomores, junior, seniors, they feel very connected to their adviser and they feel that that's someone they can turn to. Um we the freshman still are kind of learning the system and learning who the adviser is. And so we we heard basically that, you know, we need to do more to have those freshman students feel connected to the advisor and I feel like that's something they can go to and and make sure the adviserss are being very proactive on students that might be struggling and help them see how they can get
042more assistance. So we we have some really good structures in place at the high school and now it's just I think um doing those slight adjustments to make sure that we're really maximizing the efforts that we have for the structures in place. Great. Thank you. Just a a comment on that, Peter. Um the as far as the uh the advisors um I will say my ninth grade daughter um has an adviser. I believe her name is Mrs. Scotto, but she loves Mrs. Sako. That's good to hear. And um and uh Miss Sako knows who she is and um um so I do think you know even at 9th grade, you know, we do see the effects there. I was curious though along the lines of Mr. Thorner's question, but don't our school counselors also work
043towards those ends and and checking in on these students and making sure that they're where they need to be? Part of we do have school counselors and um we've tried as much as possible to clear their plate so they can do the school counseling part of the job. Um part of that is we've shared that um we were just working with the association about 504 plans at the high school. We have someone who's a coordinator for the 504 plans and so the counselors don't have that on their plate. They still attend the 504 meetings, but they don't have to do all the paperwork that's involved. So, we're just doing as much as possible to to clear the plate so that they can do the school counseling part of the job and and not necessarily some
044of the other um you know tasks that can be done by other staff. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, next we're going to move to the smarter balance comparison data. So, we're going to jump right to uh the ELA achievement comparison. All right. Hold on. I got to figure out where I'm at. Looks like my page number 27. Yeah, that's not person groups achievement growth. Well, they prepped for our meeting. There we go. Yeah, it's okay. I got confused. Uh, we're on page 27 of the word packet, which is page 26 of the document that we're looking at. So, that's really confusing. So, page 27 of the document, this should say ELA achievement comparison, all grades percentage. That's the percent meaning standard. And so, that's three and four combined. So, what we were able to find
045was um that there's this company, Navigator Analytics, that pulled this data together for us. We're looking at across the bottom you can see that it's West Valley School District and then other districts in Washington state that are between 50 and 60% low income and we're right around 54 55%. So that's right in our comparison group. And then we're compared also to Yakama County schools and then to schools in the ESD 105 region. ESD 105 actually covers Kittitas County, Yakama County, Clickot County and a portion of Adams County. And then the statewide data is there as well. So this is uh what the board was uh requesting and so you can see this is over time. So they don't the years there down the bottom. So really look at um last spring is the 23 24
046school school year. So the the the final bar in each group and so for if you took all the English language art scores from all the grade levels and and averaged them all together West Valley students scored at 56% meeting standard. Uh our comparison districts were last spring were 44% meeting standard. Yakimo County districts were 36% meeting standard. ESD 105 37% meeting standard and statewide is 50% meeting standard. So the 56% for West Valley was above the state average and then above all the comparison districts as well. So that's English language arts. If we move to page 31, we'll see the same information for math. So page 31 of the board packet and it says a big page 30 there. That that was getting me confused before. So 31 of the board packet. This is
047math. And so again that the final the dark bar on each of the groups that's the spring of 2024. So I took all the scores of West Valley and boiled them all down. It was 46% meeting standard. Our comparison districts 34% meeting standard. Yakama County 26%, ESC 105 27% and statewide at 40%. So again, West Valley above the state average and above the averages for all the comparison districts. And then we're going to jump to look at disagregation by ethnicity. And that's all the way to page 86 of the board packet. So I got to get myself there. So, page 86 of the board packet. There we go. And these are different colors. So, on this one, it's a little bit different. It shows just the 23 24 school year. So, this is from spring
048of 24, the smarter balance scores. So, West Valley is the pink or red, whatever you want to call that, salmon colored. So the that's the far left, the pink on the far left. And then the next bar is low income that students from low-inccome districts or the similar low-inccome district from 50 to 60%. The next green bar is Yakama County. The next kind of black bar there is ESD 105 and the purple bar is statewide. So it's disagregated by Hispanic and white. Those are two major ethnic groups in West Valley. And you can see that in West Valley, our Hispanic students scored for English language arts um 45% meeting standard and that's higher than all the comparisons. And our white students were at 63% which is higher than all the comparisons. So there is this
049achievement gap or opportunity gap that we have in West Valley. And that's the same type of gap across all the comparison districts. And our students scored higher than all the comparison groups. So, our Hispanic students scored higher than the other Hispanic students in the comparison groups. Our white students scored higher than the white white students comparison groups. And that's a mouthful. All right, page 93. We'll look at the same data for math. Page 93 of the board packet. 93 of the board packet was 92. Again, this is the disagregation by ethnicity. And so again, West Valley is the pink and the comparison districts are the other colors. So our Hispanic students, uh, 34% met standard for math. And the comparison districts were all there at 22% across the board. Uh, for West Valley, our white
050students were at 54% meeting standard. And the comparison um similar low-inccome from 56% low-income schools were at 39%. Uh Yakama County was at 44% 105 42 and statewide 46. So again in math students West Valley scored above the comparison districts uh across the board. And then finally we'll look at comparison by programs and that's on page 120 of the board packet. [Music] So 120 of the board packet. So this again is the same type of comparison where West Valley is the pink. So for students that qualify for free induced meals, West Valley had 46% meeting standard in English language arts. That was higher than all comparisons. Our students that qualify for the transitional bilingual instructional program. Our students that are English language learners for ELA, they were 27% main standard and quite a bit above
051the comparison districts were around 15 to 14%. Our students that qualified for an IEP for special education services were at 23% meeting standard. Again, higher than all the comparisons. And students with a 504 plan were at 48% and that was higher than comparisons except for the state which was at 53%. And then next we'll look at math by program and that is page 127 of the board packet 127. And so for math again, students that qualified for low-inccome in West Valley were at 34% meeting standard in math and that was higher than all comparisons which were around 24 and 22%. Students who qualify as English language learners in West Valley were at 26% meeting the standard of math and that's higher than the comparison districts which were around 15 to 17% meeting standard. Students who
052qualify for special education services in West Valley were higher than the comparisons. uh West Valley students were at 19% meeting standard in math and the comparison were 14 to 15%. And then uh in 50 a student qualified for 504 plan uh West Valley students had 36% meeting standard in math and that was higher than comparisons except for the state which is at 40%. Dr. Finch. Yeah. The so um curious when we compare to the other districts and stuff I I not all districts are on mastery based and some are on standardsbased. How when information like that is gathered? How does how does standardbased translate over to mastery based and trying to well that is the nice thing about having one test across the state. So, the Smarter Balance Assessment is a a test on the
053grade level standards for that grade. And it is a similar test. It's it's the same test that's given across the state and all schools and at all grade levels uh grades three through eight and then high school. Okay. So, yeah, the actual uh good question about the different grade levels. The uh all the data it's it's over 100 pages here. So, you can actually dive in and take a look at the different grade levels. And so there's some good things happening in math at West Valley mid-level campus, especially grade eight. So that's kind of fun to see. It's it's it's kind of fun to see what jumps out. And uh our eighth grade students are doing quite a bit better in math in the state. And I remember they were it was a particular class
054level that was maybe struggling before, but to see them grow is great. Yeah. Yeah. To come Yeah. To come out of CO, we're starting to see this trend back upwards. So, there was quite a dive in the scores after CO and now we're kind of trending back upwards. That's nice. All right. And then we'll move on. I think we're right on time. We have time here to look at the perceptional data. So, we had surveys of family, student, and staff. And we'll zero in on the culture of safety and belonging supportive learning environment. So, in the board packet, we'll first look at the family survey. That's on page 141 of the board packet. And let me Are you there, Stephanie? Yes. Okay, great. So, this shows Oh, it's really nice that we when I became
055superintendent, this was information that I thought that was missing from the district. It's the perceptual data of our families, our students, and staff. And so, we were able to do the first survey uh fall. Well, yeah, it's it's labeled 23, 24, 25, but uh so the past three years we've given this survey and um you can see the two questions there that we focus on with families. Adults in this school value and respect my racial and cultural identity. So, we've had quite a high score when we first started the survey at 91% and then the last two years it's been at 93%. So, that's really encouraging to see. And then my student feels safe at school started off at 80% and now we're up to 88%. So those are the two areas that we were
056really focused on for a culture of safety and belonging. Next we'll move to the student survey which is page 157 of the board packet. This is a little more information for the parent survey. We tried to make it uh very doable for the parents to have it during conference week and have the survey done. And um with the students, we have a captive audience. So we give them a little more questions. And so you can see on page 157, this is the supportive learning environment in the school. There's at least one adult who knows and cares about me. We're up to 83%. And quite frankly, all these are trending and upwards. Every single score in our most recent survey was higher than the previous years. So 83% uh for there's at least one adult who
057knows and cares about me. The rules against bullying are enforced by all adult adults in this school. That's up to 73% now. I feel safe at this school is up to 68%. All students are held to the same behavior rules and expectations up to 68%. Student success is celebrated in the school is at 60%. I enjoy coming to the school. It's 56% which which we'd like to see higher, but it started at 47% and now up to 56%. The work I do in the school is useful and interesting to me. It's at 54%. Again, we'd like to see that higher, but it started at 42%, so now we're up to 54. And most students are respectful of others at the school. It's at 39%. Again, we'd like to see that higher, but it started at
05830% and now we're up to 39%. So, trending in the right direction. All right. Okay. And then the final survey results we'll look at is the staff survey which is page 192 of the board packet. And again for the public that's in the audience or watching online, all this board packet is available online and all the information from all the surveys and everything is there. All right, we're going to look at the final page 192. This is the staff survey. And just again, we we had pretty high scores already and and everything I believe is trending upward. So that's really great to see as well. So staff at the school value and respect all students. We're at 89%. Our staff can count on one another for help when needed, 86%. Students believe the adults in
059the school genuinely care about them is 87%. Staff enforce the bullying harassment policy of the school, 86%. We have a system for celebrating student success, 88%. We honor agreements made with each other, 88%. Students believe the school is a safe place, 83%. School has effective equity practices for all, 81%. Staff members enforce consistent behavior expectations and consequences in their classrooms, that's at 79% and that's actually seen some growth from 72 to 79%. And we celebrate progress towards improvement plan goals is uh 71%. And then answered only by the instructional staff. So we had all staff were encouraged to do the survey and then instructional staff had this um development of students social emotional learning and for enhances the learning environment in our school. That's actually the only one that went down. We're at 81% for
060that. So we [Music] are finished with my part of the presentation. Any questions or comments? Or we could have a little bit of a a break before the board meeting. All right. Well, thank you everybody who participated here. Uh, great information. Good to go through every so often and make sure that we are at least meeting our own expectations, if not exceeding them. So, very good job. Thank you. U, we'll go ahead and break uh just before the regular school board meeting. It is 6:52 p.m. We will begin the regular school board meeting promptly at 7 p.m. [Music] Testing. Testing. Just a reminder, if you'd like to speak for public comment, there is a sign-in sheet. So, please sign in on the sign-in sheet. It's at the front table where the agendas are. All right.
061Good evening, everyone. It is 6 I'm sorry, it is 7 PM Tuesday, March 25th. Welcome to the West Valley School District Board meeting. We'll go ahead and start by the 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. Uh, Dr. Finch, any changes to the agenda? No changes. All right. Communications item five. Uh, A is a placeholder. There was no public comment last meeting, so we have that as a placeholder. Number uh, letter B is high school ASB report. So, we do have Katie Champions here, our uh, student representative to the school board, and she's going to provide the high school ASB report. Hi. Um,
062recently our music department was very busy last month. Choir held a festival competition at the high school and our band was able to perform what they've been working on at their concert before their competition. Winter sports have finished. Boys and wrestling had two a boys and girls wrestling had two athletes uh each make it to state and boys basketball got fifth at state. DECA students put on the daughter date dance this year and successfully raised a large sum of $16,000. Uh they used this to attend their state and national competitions. The toll dance was last weekend and we sold almost 900 tickets. Thank you to all the adults who volunteer and shop around so that we can have dances. Uh the high school ASB is planning some easy schoolwide activities to make it a little
063bit more fun to be at school. Uh we recently had like a schoolwide rock paper scissors competition and each students won. So it was fun and it got a lot of kids talking that usually don't talk. Um so we noticed a lot more energy at school. And we have a lot more of like little fun games like that planned. So we'll let you know how those go. Uh spring sports are well underway. So make sure to catch all the games and matches this next month. High school cheer is having triyouts for next year's squad in April. Signups are now open. Rams on the red carpet have kicked off their fundraising efforts for the W or YW.CA and will continue to raise money through various takeovers throughout April. Their finale will be on April 16th at
064700 p.m. at the high school auditorium. And you don't want to miss it. For the first time, our high school will be doing spring conferences. Students will be released early on March 31st to April 4th like all other elementary schools. And all students are required to have a conference with the Ramstrong teacher and a parent guardian showcasing a portal portfolio they've been building throughout the second semester and discussing registration choices for next year. The high school ASB is hosting a talent show on Wednesday, March 26th for high school students to show what they're good at. um that is at 6:30 in the high school auditorium and it is free to attend and seniors get their graduation orders on Friday, April 18th. And that's all. Very good. Thank you, K. All right. Uh next we go
065to item six on the agenda, program presentation, family engagement. Uh Manurva. All right. Yep. So we have uh our annual presentation here to do an update on family engagement. Manurva Partardo is our director of family and community engagement in West Valley. And as I previewed her presentation, I really appreciate how she's taken the strengthening families five protective f uh five protective factor framework and our strategic plan goal one of the culture and safety belonging. This really has shown how the work of our family engagement department really aligns to that uh protective factors and to our strategic plan. So at this time I'll go ahead and have the board join the audience. And there are some uh chairs in the back there so that uh the board can see the presentation with the audience. Okay. Can
066you hear me? Perfect. Okay. So yes, my name is Minva Parardo and I'm the director for the family and community engagement department and also the director for the migrant education program which I'm going to refer as MEP. That is my team and um we have Jasmine Soul. She's a family engagement specialist and also the past contact person as well as a MEP recruiter. Aland Alandre Karubia, she's a family engagement specialist as well. she's a MEP a student advocate and recruiter and Vienna Garcia who is a family engagement specialist. Uh we have Jill Wgle who is the state and federal secretary as well as the MEP records clerk. And today we got a new addition to the team. His name is Edwin Perea. So our foundations are based as uh Dr. Finch has mentioned based on
067the strategic plan and the strategic plan says we are focusing on leading ongoing outreach to engage families with student academic success in a manner that respects the family knowledge expertise and celebrates the rich diversity of the community and we increase community engagement at all grade levels to support student learning. That's the way we align with our strategic plan. But at the same time, we as a department, we have our mission. And our mission is to empower families and communities by fostering strong connections, providing meaningful support, and ensuring access to resources that enhance student success and well-being. Through collaboration and advocacy, we create inclusive opportunities for every family to engage, thrive, and contribute to their child's educational journey. So that is our mission. That was our well uh welcome back to school celebration. We had a
068lot of books to give away. And that is a picture. when I uh come to the school board and I give my uh presentation, I always say I am sharing a family album because these are pictures of all the events we have in the district. And our why it's because through family engagement, we impact student success. Through family engagement, we create trust and open communication. We strengthen school communities, empower families, better understand students needs. Our families feel valued, and we foster collaboration. So, I have this video for you. And oh, let me see. I think it should be working. [Music] It's not working. It's not going to work. It's not showing the video, is it? I don't see the audio anyway. Yeah. Oops. Maybe if I present it. I just hope it works. It does.
069[Music] The social challenges that face modern societies, whether it's the ability to work productively, to be a good citizen, stay healthy, have their roots in early health and development. A strong foundation in early childhood results in much better and more effective development later. A weak foundation really puts us behind. The most important thing children need to thrive is to live in an environment of relationships that begins in their family but also extends out to include adults who are family members in childcare centers and other programs. What children need is for that entire environment of relationships to be invested in their healthy development. We've shown from decades of testing interventions that we can improve outcomes, but the magnitude of those impacts is not good enough. Science is now available to help us think about what we
070might do that would have a bigger impact than the best of what we've done before. So, we began to ask, what could we be doing differently? What could we do to be smarter? Children who are at the greatest risk for the poorest outcomes in learning and health and behavior are children who experience a pileup accumulative burden of one after another after another of risk factors. And then the burden is more than any child could be expected to overcome. So we began to focus on the development of the adults. What could we be doing to strengthen the capacity of everyone who interacts with children? This led us to think about the kinds of skills you need to deal with adversity. These skills of focusing attention, planning, monitoring, delaying gratification, being able to solve problems, being able
071to work in teams, executive function, and self-regulation. They're also the kind of skills you need to create a well- reggulated home and school environment in which healthy development and learning could take [Music] place. And then brain science started to tell us that differences in those skills start to develop in infancy based on the environment kids live in. So how do those skills get built? Well, if you don't develop them early, how do you develop them later? actually you can build them later because the period of flexibility and plasticity for this part of the brain doesn't fully mature until age 25 to 30 and then the light bulb went on. The reason we're not getting a bigger impact is not because we don't know about how to influence development, but because we're giving information and advice
072to people who we need to do active skill building with skill building by coaching, by training, by practice, but we're not doing that. So, we now have developed this theory of change that says we need to focus on the development of the adults who are important in kids' lives. So, try this. How does that work? That's a new idea. We need to focus on their skills, their needs in order for them to be better, more effective parents in order for them to be better prepared to be employable, which would enhance the economic stability of the family, which is also good for children. Second of all, we looked at many people in preschool programs and childcare centers and we said, what are we doing to build those skills in the providers? They need skill building as
073well and also the community can help to build and reinforce the capacities that parents need and the community also includes programs in which the people who work in the programs have sufficient skills. Third of all, what are the major sources of toxic stress in this community and how can we reduce them? Moving it up to a policy level. How are our policies strengthening communities abilities to reduce source of toxic stress and caregivers abilities to provide what kids need? The development of our human capital is our future. The development of a productive workforce is our future. The development of a healthy population is our future. This kind of future orientation is critical for healthy society. It's critical for a thriving business. is critical for successful environment and relationships to raise children. It's all about being able
074to plan for the future, to have a future, and that's why this is so important. So as a national trainer for the strengthening families protective factors framework, we use this uh video to show the importance of investing um on the work we do with adults. And that's the reason why our department works on alignment with the protective factors framework. And those five protective factors are parental resilience, social connections, knowledge of parenting and child development, concrete support in times of need, and social emotional competence of children. So I am going to be talking a little bit about each of the five protective factors and how the work that we do in my department aligns with this protect with this framework. So I mentioned parental resilience as a protective factor. Well, what is parental resilience? That is
075the ability to recover from difficult life experiences and often be strengthened by or transformed by those experiences. What are we doing in our department? We are offering mental health workshops. We have been offering sessions on anxiety, depression, autism, etc. And the reason why we do these is because parents have been asking for these presentations. Uh we have also created um um presentations where families learn coping strategies such as self-regulation. We are also creating a group. We created a group called Neurospicy parent group and offering support to space uh supportive space for parents of neurody divergent children to share experiences and to find encouragement. And we also have the family connection support when we help families navigate systems providing them with guidance and resources. I can give you an example. When we have families coming from
076other countries and they do not know how to navigate a school system or even the resources that we have in the community, it is our responsibility to make sure that those families have the support they need and the connections. The next protective factor is social connections. the ability and opportunity to develop positive relationships that lessen stress and isolation and help to build a positive network. We believe that individuals who are in isolation have high chances of developing illnesses as adults. Isolation is a terrible risk factor. So, we have to make sure that our families find connections in the community. What do we do at the beginning of the school year? We had community cafes. That's also a great opportunity to listen to communities um listen to their needs, listen to their concerns, and then work
077collectively for uh strategies and ways to fi uh face these issues. We have events like the Hispanic Heritage Celebration that is in September. Rock your mocks. It's an event where we integrate um all the different practices and culture of our Native American community. and we are having the multicultural celebration end of April uh where we bring families together and we strengthen cultural identity and social ties. Another important group that we have where we build social connections is uh both for the migrant uh education program and for the Native American uh population. We have parent advisory committees and they develop strategies together that to implement with the different pro in the different programs concrete support in times of need. What is that protective factor? That means access to supports and services that reduce stress and help
078to make families stronger. Look at that picture. That is my students. They are are having adults learning how to read and write and pursuing a GED. The one on the left, it's another parent and he volunteers to teach. So those are ways that we can provide support to our families. We have partnerships with organizations like NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. We have partnership with Yakima Valley Partners for Education or OIC and we connect families with essential services. We offer financial aid uh nights, FAPSA, WAPSA. Uh we have three workshops this school year helping families navigate that complex financial uh system, right? And giving them opportunities for higher education for the migrant education program and all the Spanish-sp speakaking families. We have a program called Placas Communitaras. We are the only district that offers um
079education for adults in Spanish and certification from uh the department of education in Mexico. Once they get the necessary skills, we connect them with um um two different centers here in town where they can pursue their GED. Why is it important to provide education to par to parents? When parents can help their kids, when parents can find better jobs, better uh opportunities in life, while we're benefiting the family and our community. The next protective factor is knowledge of parenting and child development. What is that? It's the ability to ex exercise effective parenting strategies to guide and know what to expect as children develop in multiple domains such as physical, cognitive, language, and social emotional. What do we do for early learning? We have play and learn groups. Those play and learn groups, we have seven
080groups. One is at the innovation center on Thursdays at 4:00 for those parents who work and they can go with their children. And we have one group at each of our elementary schools and uh adults can go with their children. And one of the beauty about play and learn is that when they're actually playing with the strategy, let's say they're using Play-Doh, we have a card right there that is telling the adult why are we playing with Play-Doh? What's what is that doing for that child? So, everybody's learning and and interacting with each other. That's a very fun fun time. We also have a home visiting program. It's called um Great Kids. And great kids provide support to parents uh prenatal to five. And we also have the workshops on literacy, early learning and bilingual
081education empowering parents to actively support their child their child's education. And the last oops the last protective factor social emotional competence of children. We always say that for this uh for this protective factor we're working with children but I always say we're also working with the adult and the reason being because probably none of us grew up in an environment where our social emotional um growth was uh matter at least it didn't it didn't happen to me. So I believe that it's important to adults for adults to learn how to understand our emotions what to do with our emotions that's a very important piece. So what is social emotional competence of children? Family and child interactions that help children develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions and establish and maintain relationships.
082That is a picture of one of our play and learn sessions at the innovation center. One of the things we do to promote uh this protective factor is that family engagement week we have at the beginning of the school year where families get to meet their teachers and they build that first connection for the school year. Uh we also have cultural cultural events as I have mentioned before to provide students with a sense of identity and belonging and we have those uh mental health awareness initiatives where that we equip families with tools to support their children emotional well-being. We have a lot of afterschool programs as a department. We lead our ballet fulclorico and uh I am always proud that we can go to an event in the community and we always say and this
083is the ballet fllororico the west valley and I always celebrate that's the group of girls that we have right now and they have learned four dances and they can represent kaliscoco and michokan. It's important that everybody learns their um background, but I cannot tell you that I only have Hispanic girls in this group. Okay, so that is the beauty about it. We also have English classes for adults every day, Monday through Thursday. We have classes in the afternoon. We also have citizenship study sessions for adults and as I mentioned before, literacy education for adults from literacy to GED. Um the work that I'm going to just u summarize for early learning is the great kids right now we're serving only four families but in my team only one of my um only one of my
084home visitors is doing work with the program so far and she is serving a pregnant woman an eight eight-month old baby a three-year-old and a four-year-old what they do with great kids is they are giving parents the tools to uh support their kids before they start school. For the play and learn, we have um a number of duplicated count of 85 and unduplicated count of 35. And the kindergarten readiness program, which is a program for um students that speak another language, but English and uh we have right now nine children. I think we're having 10. And those are again pictures. So our department offers different services. one at the innovation center we have a group of students that uh we call stronger together student group and that's them so they're are building what we're doing
085with this group is we're elevating students voice and strengthening leadership skills uh we have 30 students enroll in the literacy class 15 students of them are pretty active we have 15 students in the ESL class we also have computer classes for adults that is happening Tuesdays and Thursdays we have a student teaching the class and you can see this is happening at the innovation center and this lady right here, she's a teacher. She's a 10th grader and this is a class we have for adults. Right now we are working on a on a tool that hopefully we'll finish, no we will finish for next school year. It's called meet and greet. And what we want to do is that every time we have a new family, that parent can receive some information about who we
086are in it will include information uh such as an organization chart, the schedules, skyward, parent square, transportation information, and many more things. And um so uh our MEP uh supports the high school with credit rec credit recurral and the pass program is the program that we use to support our migrant students. It's called portable assistance student. Our past contact person works closely with our uh school counselors and school counselors uh make the suggestion of the classes that students can enroll to get the credits they need for graduation. Um next week we have conferences. My team happens to be bilingual and they are assisting 340 conferences next week uh for this the families that need support. And well that's just a picture. We had the the loss muerto celebration and Yakima Morelia Sister City uh they
087send their Aztec dancers. It was a pretty cool night because we all had to dance with them. It was pretty exhausting but fun and aligned with our strategic plan this year. We our goal number one is culture of safety and belonging. So all of these initiatives that I just described align with our goal number one because we have intentional family engagement strategies such as I mentioned before family engagement week, community cafes, new spicy parent group and play and learn. We have linguistic and resource accessibility monthly meetings with the superintendent, bilingual family engagement team and literacy programs. We have the FAPSA, WAPSA support for high high school students, high school seniors, cultural inclusive celebrations and event migrant education program and parent advisory groups, annual districtwide events such as a welcome back celebration. It was here at
088the high school. We had the winter wonderland. We have the steam showcase and we're having spring celebration next Thursday. Everybody, you are welcome to come here at the high school. And uh well, we have community and school partnerships, partnerships with community organizations. And that's all I have. Thank you. Right now, we ask the board to come back up here and we'll have some question answer with Manurva. I do know that we have uh some community members here concerned about the budget and just want to share that all the programs that Manurva just shared about those are all categorically funded. There's no basic ed funding that goes into the support for our family engagement department. Each of the categorical programs such as the transitional blingual instructional program, migrant education program, they all have a parent education
089component. And so we basically do what's called braided funding. So we'll take uh title one funding the all these different categorical funding, braid them together and then provide the staff and then Manurva makes things happen with the staff that she has. So just want to share that there's no basic ed funding going into that program. Any questions from the board? I don't particularly have a question. Just more of a comment and thank you for the work you do. It's very important. It's like education itself. It's ongoing. it never ends and family engagement is a big part of that. Um, you need the families to support the students in good times and in bad. So, uh, just thank you for all your work in in in this area. It's very important. Yeah. And I also add
090to it, I think I think you have one of the hardest jobs, you know, I we were talking about the uh school student adviserss for the high school, you know, and they stay connected to the student, but staying connected to the parent is one of the hardest jobs. M um you know and so I appreciate you doing that. I remember last year you when you presented it was just evident how much you love what you do. So I appreciate that. Um I my question would be though what is what would you say is probably the hardest part of what you do and and what is your favorite part in addition to present to the board? Yeah. Um I don't know. I kind of love everything I do. And um probably I'm gonna say something. The
091hardest part is going home late and say my husband goes again at six o'clock, again at 7 o'clock. I love doing everything I do. Um my days should finish at 4 and I finish at six. Yeah. Because I love having parents learning English. I love having parents learning um how to read and write. One of the kindergarten readiness class that we had, that's the reason why I'm doing that. We were preparing all these activities for the adult and the adult said this is wonderful if I only knew how to read and write. So how can we support our children if we don't support the adults and when they are learning I am super happy. Right now we're having a parent doing the first out of four uh GED tests and um yeah so I'm really
092excited that's our first parent and we have had a lot of uh adults also becoming citizens. That's important. That is important. I think it's beautiful civic engagement and when we have families coming from other countries I love it because we start with the pledge of allegiance and I have the parents standing up and I talk about that piece which is uh understanding our system here in the country and also the adult education has zero dollars it's free Mexico offers that free share also about one of Munoz's helping as a student to teach she's teaching the class and how did she learn about these classes that was why I think she was a student she came with her parents to the first um computer class and that class was uh still with Deina and she was
093a student and she was sitting right next to her parents and then she said this is really important teaching adults how to use the computer it's really important right now she's teaching she finishes in 30 minutes. Yeah. Student. Thank you. Any other comments from board members? How long have you worked for the district? I'm in my 11th year. And remember that first year? I do remember that first year. Yes. It was wonderful because uh Peter Finch said um I told Peter, "We don't need to have interpreters. We need to teach English." And he said, "Oh, who's going to be doing that?" And I said, "I will." And then um I was teaching at we were using the library in Wine Hollow and um I brought my students to the board presentation of the school year
094and I had one parent whose first language was Mishteco that is a language in Wuhaka. Uh her second language was Spanish and she was learning English at that time. I didn't have a a whiteboard if you remember. So I was taking white one whiteboard from one classroom taking it to the library and then at the end taking the whiteboard back to the classroom. So when I came here, they said, "What do you need?" And I said, "A whiteboard and I got a whiteboard and I still keep it. It's falling into pieces, but it's never gonna going to go away." Well, I love it. I I just I I just wanted to say a couple things. First of all, uh I remember the early years. Uh second of all, uh your your your presentations in front
095of the board uh continue to be uh great. you uh you underell yourself very much in terms of your your speaking and and and lastly um you know and it's not just you. We we in in our district, it's we have a lot of wonderful programs, but it's it's not about the programs, it's about the people that are running those programs. And um uh I think I can say pretty confidently on on behalf of the board, thank you so much for all that you and your team uh do for the families in our in our community. Thank you. And I also have to say thank you to the parents that volunteer to be the tutors for other parents. That's that's kind of like a complete cycle right there. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thank you.
096If no one else has anything for her, I'd like to say let's give her a round of applause. All right. Thank you. We'll move on to item seven on the agenda. This is the section of the agenda where public comment of non-discussion agenda items will be covered. I'm going to read a reminder here. Members of the public who would like to provide public comment will sign in. Speakers will be called in order that they signed in to speak. Speakers will be given three minutes for their public comments. Public comment is not the proper forum to address concerns about a specific staff member. If a person has concerns about a specific staff member, they should make an appointment with the superintendent to address their concerns. So, thank you for remembering that. Also, I want to bring
097up we have quite a few people who have requested to speak. So, I'm going to ask you to please be considerate of the next person for your three minutes because three minutes with 20 people, that's a full hour right there. So, that doesn't count the time in between. So, please be cautious of that. So, again, a reminder um that the board will not respond to your comments. We will take the information down and respond to it if necessary at a later point when we are prepared and we can research and give a complete and thorough response. All right, with that being said, I will go ahead and call the first person person uh Miss Mo. And when your name is called, please step up to the microphone to speak so that everyone can hear your
098comments. Stephanie, sorry. We're [Music] good. All right. So, my name is uh Heidi Mo. I'm here in the capacity as WVA elected president. Um I'm here for a different reason than people um usually are here. So, I'd like to publicly thank um Stacy Drake, Susan Almanson, Joe Connley, and Dr. Finch for the time they put into district budget, staffing, and data analysis like birth rates for our district. Every year at this time, one of my duties is to meet with various central office staff to start hearing about enrollment, staffing, displacements, non-renewals, position cuts, um and additions, and budget cuts. Um, in my elected position as president, I've been involved in this process for 15 years, and it doesn't get any easier. Uh, this is a very stressful time for many of our newest employees who
099are provisional, staff and grant-f funded positions, programs in which enrollment fluctuates, teachers in a building who are in grade level with unusually large numbers. Uh, change is never easy and the thought of moving buildings, grade levels or departments is very unnerving. Um, I myself was displaced. my first year in the district and moved from Apple Valley to Cottonwood. In my elected position, I am in meetings with union leaders throughout the valley and throughout the state many times a month. Um, even at jury duty last week, I listened to stories about districts that are facing cuts 10, 20, 30 positions, eliminating entire departments, non-renewing all their provisional staff, cutting mid-level sports programs, overloading classrooms, and riffing teachers. Because of the work Stacy, season, Joe, and Peter um have done, we are fortunate that we do not
100face the severe cuts and movements that are other districts are facing right now. Over the last few years, under the leadership of these four, we have had far fewer displacements and cuts than in my earlier years as president. So, uh Peter and Joe, um thank you. And please take back my thanks also to Susan and Stacy um for being committed to retaining staff and programs uh by keeping our district financially uh responsible. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Thank you. Uh, next person, um, Katie Thorner. Hi, my name is Katie Thorner and I am a West Valley resident, a mom of two students, one graduated in 22. Uh, sports are very important in our household. My partner's re uh, referees D1 B basketball. My daughter currently works in athletics with hopes to work in women's sports, and
101I'm an athlete. For me, sports has been paramount in my mental health journey as well as um as I've raised a special needs child. My mama's heart hurts because of what you're trying to do tonight. I know it really doesn't matter what I say, but I would be complicit if I say nothing. If you pass this WIAA resolution, I believe you are acting like the bully we tell our kids not to be. This resolution is against West Valley policy and is just plain bad for girls. This resolution is directly in contradiction to the new school district strategic plan that you voted on less than a year ago. Just in case you forgot that first goal is to create a culture of safety and belonging because you stated inclusivity and belonging are fundamental for every student
102to reach their full potential. You also said that the West Valley strategic plan is is committed to nurturing a culture of safety and belonging, making it a goal of every school. How are you creating a culture of belonging if you won't allow students to participate in sports with their peer group? Sports are where students find their community and sports give reason to show up to school. This resolution is bad for girls. I know social media would like you to believe this resolution would save women's sports by keeping girls safe from transgender athlete, but this is unfounded. The truth is is that 10% of students nationwide, that's one in 10, will experience educator sexual misconduct by the time they graduate. In a 2022 multi-state survey survey with more than a thousand participants, it showed rates closer
103than 12 closer to 12% with the majority of participants facing sexual comments from their teachers. With resolutions like this, um like what you'll be discussing later in the meeting, you're asking girls to be feminine enough to participate and if not, receive questioning by school officials and their peers. This creates additional barriers for participation as well as um puts them at further risk for sexual misconduct when they have to show their genitals to an adult. Even if this is a doctor, it will most likely be a male doctor. And this is something that doesn't happen at a regular checkup. There is no room for hate in sports. Sports are a place where we get to learn how to work as a team, push our bodies to the limit, and learn how to win and lose. Thank
104you. [Applause] Elliot Gu, if I said that correctly. Hi, my name is Elliot and I'm a seventh grader. Today I would like to talk about how it would not be in a young girl's best interest to make a rule that has you excluding girls that have different backgrounds from playing sports. How are you going to make sure that they are biologically girls? As a young girl who plays volleyball, I think it is fairly insulting to think that that would be protecting us. Protecting us from what? Our own peers. For people who talk a lot about how school should be a safe place, a place of inclusion and kindness, this resolution would be making it a place of hate and judgement. You are not protecting us from anything. You are dividing us further. If you truly
105wanted to protect us, you would look at what we have been telling you all along. You would listen when an entire fifth grade class was crying because a sub had just groped someone and he continued to come back to the district. You would listen when a teacher made sexual remarks to a young girl. You would look at all the studies of how unsafe is for girls. An estimated one in every 10 students nationally will experience some form of educational sexual misconduct by the time they graduate. And a study they did in 2006 in California alone. 450,000 students were affected. If you really cared about our safety, you wouldn't would actually help you and not just look the other way. But I know you don't care because there is a girl playing boy sports and you
106haven't even said anything about her safety. You think it is a good idea to have young girls stripped and get inspected between our legs and in closed place with the teacher. I know you don't see how traumatizing that would be seeing as most of you are men and not women. However, it would be really traumatizing seeing as me just bringing it up in my friends friend group. They said that they would all stop playing sports for the school. And all reality, girls of of any background playing in girls sports or for all I care, boys does not matter. It doesn't even it isn't even one of the top 100 things you should change. Thank you for your comment. Next, I have Rachel Jensen. Hello. Thank you for your attention tonight. I appreciate it and I
107do appreciate all the uh comments that we heard earlier about community and what an effect it really can have on our kids' lives. Um I'm here to discuss the changes with the PAL program. Um the PAL program provides a great service to our community. It teaches highly capable students in a way that motivates them to thrive. Some families have moved into our school district just to be a part of it. The kids involved are able to experience academic challenge and develop resilience along with providing important opportunities to build true friendship with their peers. Last year, it was decided that the three PAL classrooms would be combined into two multi-age classrooms. After a school board meeting like this one, it was decided to keep the three grade levels. Participants were very grateful that kids would continue
108to receive a fulfilling educational experience. However, the uncertainty around the program leading up to that decision did cause multiple kids not to enroll in the third grade PAL this year. Last year's decision decisions affect this year's numbers. 19 students so far have requested program services for fourth grade PAL next year. We've been told this number is too low to support a teacher. But our district is not set up to support multi-age classrooms. So a student like my daughter in the current plan will not get to attend fourth grade. She will be denied educational and friendship opportunities with her own age group as her grade will be distributed into majority third or fifth grade classrooms. This leaves her either repeating third grade or skipping to fifth grade and then repeating that. She sees this and has
109shared her frustration without any prompting from me about these repercussions. I know these teachers are amazing. I don't believe that it's right to ask them to try and teach two grade levels in one classroom. Our district does not have the support in place for them to successfully do so. And nowhere else in this district are we requiring teachers to do that. We are told that we are matching instructors to enrollment. If that is the case, the same standard should be applied across all the districts. There is no additional cost for a PAL classroom or a PAL teacher compared to other classes or teachers in the district and their pay is drawn from the same funding as all other district teachers. So if there are any classrooms in the district with 19 or fewer students that
110are allowed not to combine with another grade, these PAL classrooms should also receive that benefit. Unfortunately, this decision was made before those numbers or needs even were evaluated. In our dis if our district can offer more stability and continuity in the PAL program, these numbers could easily become the higher ones the district would like to see. If if this if we go back to the three classroom plan, my plan moving forward would be to work with parents and the high advisory committ committee to now to work toward next year meeting those goals, whatever they may be, so that we'd be able to have full classrooms and full support so we don't need to continue having this conversation every year and having that inst stability. So, please continue this valuable service to our children and our
111community in the form of three classrooms for three grades. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you for your comments. Next, we have Ben Jensen. Thank you, Dr. Finch and school board. Um, I'm Ben Jensen. Uh, I live in the district. Uh, I've lived in Yakama for a long time. Uh, I've got five kids that are currently in the district from freshman down to kindergarten. Um, I current I've had four of my kids uh participate in the PAL program. It's been amazing. Um, I want to talk about the PAL program also. Um the district emailed announcing that that PAL would be combining three grades to two classrooms cited benefits of multi-age classroom. The only benefits listed were benefits of looping having a teacher in one grade and then the same teacher in the next grade. Multi-age classrooms is
112having multi-year students instructed by one teacher. Looping is not the same as multi-age classrooms. The district is recommending uh for a small demographic only to go to multi-age classrooms uh 34 and 45. Multi-age classrooms according to the center of evaluation and and education policy will only be successful if there's three things. One, teachers that are well trained ahead of time in multi-age teaching. two, programs uh have a system of support at the school and three, parents are on board and willing to support at home. Currently, we have none of those with the proposed policies or the proposed change. These kids whose whose thirst for learning and friendship drove them to seek out the PAL program have a son that was the case are being denied both in this situation. In this uh this is the
113addition this is is in addition to eight students who would have been uh able to benefit but were denied acceptance so that classroom size could be maxed out to two classrooms instead of averaging 20 students across three classrooms. West Valley did uh did not set up to accommodate uh multi-age classroom and should not move to that model for any students without first preparing to be successful at it. Not only is the decision likely to provide uh provide a diminished experience for all PAL kids, but parents feel it made uh the it was made prematurely. According to Dr. Finch in his email after the district was notified of this change. Administrators are still in a process of gathering information and uh uh and determining the number of teachers at each school. The students were denied entrance
114into the program before evident any evidence of a need to change uh is actually proven. Um decisions of this importance deserve thoughtful consideration of all students involved affecting change upon them. I really have enjoyed the PAL program. As you can see, there's lots of support here for the PAL program. We we sincerely ask you to reconsider what is changing. Um so, thank you. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Next, we have Khan TR. Good evening everyone. My name is Khan. I am a mom of three children. One went to PAL program. He's currently enrolled in 10th grade and I currently have two daughters who are in PAL programs. I am here this evening to ask you to reconsider about the decision that has been implemented to power programs which could significantly impact on students future. Now
115every student should have equal opportunity to receive an education that meets their needs and power students are not an exception. The program has been giving great learning opportunities for students and attracting many people to move to West Valley. According to statistic, 50% of highcap students have ADHD. They often struggle in social and emotional aspects. Some have difficult time name recognize their own feelings and express it. Some they don't understand social cue or interpreting social interaction and that make it difficult for them to control and regulate their emotions. Those aspects are often overlooked in highly capable students but it is essential to acquire to be successful. Over many years POW teachers have been attentive and tailored to those unique needs for students including my children. I am afraid that multi-grade classroom will not give enough teacher
116and student time and their learning environment could be compromised. It will certainly divide teachers attention and time in that setting simply because one teacher has to manage to different age group of students who have different needs in one classroom. It would not only add more pressure and work on teacher but also due to unexpected changes it could disrupt students academic learning which is important at this age to concrete their basic knowledge and many research concluded that teaching is often more difficult in multi-grade classroom and let me share with you some quotes from some researchers that I encounter. It says it is commonly stated in the literature that multi-grade teaching is more difficult than single grade teaching. Quote, multi-grade classes hold instructional potential for some, but they are potentially honorous for most. We argue that multi-grade
117classes led to a negative instructional effect and that they increase teacher stress and may jeopardize teachers motivation and commitment to teaching. Well, as you can see, it takes a lot of time, effort, preparation to make this multi-grade classroom works. I also like other parents in Siri um hope that you would consider about this changes and hopefully you know we can maintain three classrooms for PAL students. Thank you so much for your time. [Applause] Next we have is it B Lee? Hi, I'm um I'm not good at public speaking. So um I'm Dr. Lei. I'm a GI doctor in town. I've been serving this community since 2012. And I pledged before I even came here that I'm going to serve in underserved community until I retire. And uh I just want to walk you guys through
118a story and tell you why the pile program is is important and why it's important to keep three classes instead of two. I don't want my kids to share um a teacher, you know, with a grade behind or in front of them and they have to repeat that the year after. And I think that's a mistake that a lot of us um a lot of parents when they see that I bet you they won't send the kids to the PAL program and evidence and eventually you will close the PAL program. Uh this is an article that I wish to share with the board that just uh came out a few days ago uh in Seattle when they tried to get rid of um advanced uh learning and they had uh since they dropped the program
119they had more than 10 city and now they asking where the best student were. Um, so I just want to bring a story to you guys as um to advocate for this program and to keep this like this. Uh, two of my kids already graduating from the PAL program this year. And so, but I I hope that you will keep it for many kids in the future. I grew up really poor. My dad was fighting the communist in Vietnam and he was put in prison for six years. After the war, he lost everything. So, we became the poorest in Vietnam. So America allow us to come to America uh to Seattle in 1993. I was 15. I weigh 70 pounds. Six of us live in a one-bedroom apartment for three years. Uh and that was
120heaven for us. And me and my dad and my two brothers pick up job mowing people's lawn uh until I went to medical school. One of the lady that I mow lawn with. When I was already a doctor, I still mow her lawn. And she asked me, "Hey doctor, how do I pay you now?" and uh you know so when I graduated my dad by the way uh I forced him to quit mowing until last year when he turned 80. So when I graduated, I wanted to give back to America, but I didn't know how. And I wanted an easy way. And honestly, one of my teacher when I was in Oklahoma City, I work in a very underserved community and he said, "Boo, you could do that. That's an easy way to do it."
121And I have many places to choose from. And you know when I interview at different underserved community I chose this place because one of my friend Gilbert Dong uh he's a doctor and he came for that reason and he recruited me here. So I came here um for that reason. Uh, I grew up, you know, uh, poor, so I was different, you know, I was weird and I thought my kids might be weird, too, you know. So, I was hoping that and I knew I'm small and I like sport, but I knew that my kids not going to be a basketball player. So, I'm going to push them in something else that got me out of poverty and hopefully they stay out of poverty themselves. But since I've been here, I can tell you if
122any of my patients here, they can vow for me that, you know, I'm a really good doctor. I take good care of my communities. And I think the PAL program so important because ever since I've been here, I've recruited five more doctors to be here. an on an oncologist, general surgeon, family practice, two GI doctors and you know so if you cut this P program I bet you not only it impacts you know 50 student 100 parents but many community members that may not have a GI doctor that take care of them you know there's only two of us that take care of student from here from um Sunnyside all the way to Clealum I just want to let you know how important it is that you know to have this program to support the
123community. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. In the interest of time, I think I'll need a little signal here to tip people off and you're kind of getting close to your time. So, if you hear me do this, that tells you you got about 10 seconds to try to wrap up. Okay? Please be considered because we've got a lot of people who would like to speak. Thank you. All right. Next, we have uh just Helen is all I have here. Is there a Helen? Yes. Hi, my name is Helen and I've been in the POW program for almost 3 years. Um, I've had a really great time here. And when I was back in my older schools or school, I I felt like I didn't have a lot of friends and I I didn't really understand
124the people or like they didn't understand me. And so when I came to the PAL pro program, I had a lot of fun and um I learned a lot too. So I feel that if um they were to be two classes then I think it would like delay our learning and learning something again for another year. I don't think it would be fun. So I had a lot of fun in PAL and I hope you can make it so that children in the future have a lot of fun too. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Helen. I always admire youngsters speaking up. It takes a lot of courage. So, congratulations. Thank you. Uh, next we have Hannah. Hannah, am I saying that correctly? Uh, hi. My name is Hannah and I've been in the POW program
125for almost 2 years. Um, I feel like if you were to make us like share a teacher with third and fourth grade, half of the time it wouldn't be very productive if I would be learning the same thing, even though I learned it last year already. Um, and I hope you don't take that chance for um, many years to come. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next we have JP Shrader or Schroeder. Thank you doc. Thank you Dr. Finch. Thank you board members. Um I come to echo uh some of the concerns regarding the PAL program expressed by the parents and um students and also to to share my specific story and uh my perspective. Um uh so I'll I'll start by acknowledging uh that I am coming from out of district. Uh I have
126a a daughter, my eldest who is currently in third grade. Her name is Elanor. And um her her t high test scores have demonstrated a need uh for her to learn at her own pace and have the support of uh peers and teachers who understand her. Um I I think that absent the kind of education provided by the the PAL program at W Hollow that um she would really be unable to receive what would be for her a basic education. Uh on February 19th uh my wife and I attended a PAL informational meeting. Um we we attended largely because as people coming in from out of district we were concerned about having a spot in the PAL program. Um and and up until that point, we had not even mentioned the program to Eleanor uh
127for fear that it might be something that we didn't want to get our hopes up for something that might not pan out. But at that February meeting, I was assured that the u the PAL program at at White Hollow had ample spots available, that this was not something I needed to be concerned about. Then uh so so then the very next day we told Eleanor about it and she would be immediately u became excited um especially because thus far she has consistently struggled to make friends at school. She liked the idea of uh finding a place where she wouldn't be considered nerdy or weird. Um, and then her enthusias enthusiasm only increased when she was welcomed to tour the wide hollow facilities and got to see the classrooms in action. Then shortly thereafter, the announcement
128came out and we to had to tell her that she wouldn't she probably wouldn't be able to attend because she had been weight listed. Despite her 98th percentile score, because she was coming from out of district, she would likely not be able to attend. And since then, nearly every day, she's expressed confusion, frustration, and disappointment. But I don't want you to think that my concerns go merely to my specific situation because I worry for all of the children affected by these proposed changes and and the future of the PAL program overall. The the mid-m March announcement noted a problem with de declining PAL enrollment. Yet perplexingly, the response was to then reduce the number of classrooms and spots available for children, thereby turning away many children who were otherwise eligible and wanting to enroll. So
129clearly this has the immediate effect of reducing the the enrollment to PAL. But this kind of uncertainty and instability in the PAL program will naturally deter many who otherwise would like to to participate. I I know that many have shared reservations about enrolling people who even have uh a spot guaranteed this year because they are concerned about the future of the PAL program. Thank you. Next we have Kimberly Tree. I just want to say thank you to the board for um listening and um thank you to everyone here to support the kids and the PAL program. I appreciate everybody. This is my daughter Presley. She's in the PAL program currently and she made this beautiful poster. Okay. The PAL program serves as a critical tool for fostering intellectual growth and promoting academic excellence. These high-cap
130students who may otherwise feel disengaged in traditional classrooms are given the chance to explore subjects in greater depth, work at their own pace, challenge themselves with rigorous coursework. A majority of these kids are on the neurode divergent spectrum and the PAL program is a place where they feel accepted, understood, challenged by their teachers, their peers. Whereas in a general education, this is a much more difficult thing to overcome. This program is a general education for these kids. Being immersed in a program that is specifically designed to meet their needs is necessary for them to thrive. Additionally, maintaining the PAL program ensures that our district remains competitive, inclusive in providing a special needs education for all students. By keeping the PAL program intact, the district would be sending a clear message that it values academic diversity
131and strives to meet the needs of students at all stages of their intellectual journey. We as parents and part of the community deserve transparency for your reasoning of slowly dissolving the program strategically. What parent is going to want to switch schools for their child when the program itself is so fragile? It's obvious to me and everyone attending this meeting that you have a large support system that can help you provide creative ways to keep the PAL PAL program alive. Whether it's advertising to enroll more children the in the program or assisting in innovative ways around the budgeting issues. Whatever it is, we're willing to help you. However, we cannot help you if we are told these decisions last minute and are scrambling for answers without knowledge. However, we are upset and with good reason. I
132fully understand that resource allocation is always a concern and that tough decisions often have to be made. However, I urge the district to consider the long-term benefits of PAL. It is an investment not only for the future of these children who process and learn differently, but in the overall quality of our educational system. These students will one day contribute to our community and society in meaningful ways. Dang, I lost my spot. That's embarrassing. Um, okay. I fully understand. Let's see. I see a lot of advertisement and push for the in innovation center. Yet, this fabulous PAL program where children are thriving is slowly being dismantled. I know this is where the highcap committee and PAL parents can help. If in fact this decision is about budget cuts and enrollment issu issues, give us another year.
133Keep the program as it is so we can have time to find creative solutions to keep the program. This group of parents and community members is tenacious and driven. The willingness is here. We just need you to give us the opportunity to find help you find the way. The argument that we are short on enrollment, but at the same time, turning away multiple children who qualify for the program is both unfair to the children goes against the laws that say all kids who qualify shall be admitted and that we must seek to expand the program. Thank you for your time and consideration. [Applause] All right. Again, thank you for your comment. They're all welcome. Uh, next is Kim Sil. Good evening. Thank you for making time to listen to comments from the uh community. I
134love that this public session began with Miss Manurva Parardo talking about the family engagement programs. Um, like Mr. for Thorner, I saw from a very different perspective, but the beginnings of Miss Manurva's service and and just absolute dedication um to the school district and um to have her stand here today and report there is no quitting in that woman. It doesn't matter if it's one adult who is receiving a GED or five students who are enrolled in a program. Um, Minurva doesn't quit on those kids. She's she is here for the community and the district has given so much support and encouragement to her program and it's amazing to see what district support does to create a thriving program. Uh I also I currently sit on the um highly capable advisory committee and in the
135past have sat on uh an advisory committee for um exploring the establishment of the innovation center. Um and during that time the innovation center was just a dream and it has become something that grows from year to year and there is so much district support enthusiasm and so that it is becoming a growing thriving campus. Um, I've spent the past two years uh as a English language arts teacher in an American sponsored school in Tusala, Honduras. And they spend their money to invite professional development um instructors to teach their educators how to follow American models and in particular project-based learning. That was for the two academic years. All of our professional development was focused around project-based learning. And uh I see that is a huge push in all of the highly capable programs in the
136school district and even in gened. There's benefits to high or to the project-based learning models. Um anything that our school district has been excited about gets community support. It gets parents excited. Um, routinely there is very little support or evidence of withdrawn support from the PAL program uh from the district. And um I invite the the school ad the district administrators to reconsider the way that they promote that program. Tomorrow, high school choirs will visit the elementary schools in order to garner support for the music program. Bands do the same thing. They visit the different campuses. There are field trips from the elementary school that come up to the innovation center again to animate families and get them excited about participating in these programs. There's all kinds of promotion for the CTE programs, for AP
137classes. Uh again, if I saw that kind of enthusiasm from the school district toward the PAL program, enrollment to staff numbers would not be a problem. And I've been told by um Dr. Finch and his assistants that the entire reason for remodeling the PAL program is because enrollment to staff numbers do not support maintaining a threeclassroom modality. Uh again, I think that if I as a parent, when you look at a program that consistently receives diminished support, uh it is difficult to want to support that program as a parent. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Owen. Is it Rio Rio? Is there a Owen here? You're okay. Hello, my name is Owen Real. I'm in fourth grade pals. Mrs. Whidham. Dr. Finch has decided that I can't be in PALS next year, which is
138not good. I used to get bored at school a lot. Sometimes I distract other people often because the work was way too easy. Pals is a challenging and I try to pay attention to it. No longer will I find this no long I no longer find the school boring. We have a special math program called Beast Academy. And Beast Academy is like it's a math program and it's made specially for PAL and next year if Dr. Finch cuts it, I can't use it. I do interactive projects such as ecology. I did an ecology thing where I got selected a biome and then I had to do a lot of research on it like the climate, the location that I choose a special one that I want to research on a a lot and we we
139do current event projects which is like like a news article that we get off a site after We well my one that I did the latest was about a biodegradable plastic and after I give the presentation they give me the students give me feedback like a comment question critique and then they grade me on my eye contact volume preparedness and engagingness. I received the written papers from the students and a grading from my teacher. I hope you reconsider the decision so I can do pals next year. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Next we have Jason Wheel. I'm saying that correctly. Hey, I'm uh Owen's dad and uh usually don't never thought I'd come to a school board meeting, but uh you know uh decision like this that hurts my son. That's why I'm here. Um
140so I look at you guys and you don't look like the kind of people that want to hurt children. So um I really hope you reconsider your decision. Um and if it is really about fiscal, you know, responsibility and things, uh we are out of district. There are state state and federal funds that come with us and you know to be told that um you'll find out in August if your son can be at White Hollow or wherever in the school district it's kind of you know kind of hard to make plans to be in your school district next year with that messaging. U you know myself other families we might go somewhere else. That is money for next year and years to come that the district could be losing out on. So, um I
141don't know it' be helpful for me just to know a little bit more about the fiscal part uh where the budget shortfall are um so I can explain to my son why you're hurting and based on some fiscal reason. Uh thank you for your time. Thank you. Next we have is Pam Bowden. Bowden Bowden. All right. or Pat I'm sorry bouting like you are bowing a ton of times this is my son lock um so I given that you guys are pretty good at the budget I feel like this part will not be and I mean that in earnest I understand what's happening in other districts you guys are good with the budgeting stuff um one of the challenges you face is in coming years we've had um birth rates declining which means population begins
142declining which means enrollment begins declining which means funding begins declining this is a challenge school districts are facing across the board and I can't help but imagine that a way for a district to insulate themselves against this phenomena that all face is to attract and entice more into the district to say we are doing things others aren't come to us. Your success with the budget, again I mean that is a way of saying we are doing things the others can't. When I watched Manurva's presentation, I saw things in that presentation that showed the West Valley School District is offering things other school districts are not. I am evidence as I brought my son here from out of district that the West Valley School District is doing things others are not. It's the PALS program. You
143provided our son an educational opportunity that he could not get anywhere else. And so I stand before you not to say keep it at three. I say make it four, five. expand the PALS program and then champion it and shout it from mountain high to valley low and tell the world say look at what we're doing that others are not come to us if you build it they will come we already did and I could find you a dozen families tomorrow that would be ecstatic to bring their children into this district for this very type of thing between the pals and between the innovation center the future I see for my son in this district is astonishing Because again, you're able to do a thing the others are not. So keep it going and make
144it bigger. Offer it and continue to offer it because there's a number here that came from out of district. There has to be more. You guys are doing good things and I' like to see you continue to do those good things. Thank you for your time. [Applause] All right. Thank you. Next is Lind Trron. Sure. I'm going to try to keep this under three minutes. I didn't time myself, so I'm sorry. Uh, my name is Lynn Tran and I'm a parent of Caitlyn and my FM, I think they're back there, who have gone through the POW program and are now a a senior and a sophomore at the high school. I'm also a sitting member of the highly capable advisory committee uh since the creation of that back in December of 2017. Um, I'm also
145a very active community member. Some members of the current board right now, you weren't here in 2017 when they wanted to dismantle this program. Um so I have brought along with me a slide from a a slide deck from a committee pre presentation just one I I can share the entire slide deck with you after the meeting but I wanted to share with you because it was a reminder of the intent and the purpose of this board that has established for the highly capable committee. Um the advisory committee was and still is commissioned to advise this board. Yet all of us were blindsided by this PAL restructuring decision at our quarterly meeting a few weeks ago. You can see and sense the anger and frustration just by looking at this room right here and seeing
146the turnouts and emails that I'm pretty sure you guys have received. on your district website under strategic plan. As I was trying to find emails for all of you, it cites one of the four foundation pillars for the plan is to have an authentic engagement and partnerships with students, families, and community. This PAL decision lacks authenticity. It also lacks transparency. And it also lacks the engagement that we have come to know and expect and also respect from this great school district. I'm very disappointed in it. West Valley again is leaps and bounds ahead of other districts in Washington state. A program that is well known in this valley and attracts families as you have just heard who moved here as such myself and draws out a school district should be preserved and not diluted. By
147diluting this program, I can assure you sadly, I believe that it will take our school backwards and cause unforeseen consequences like what happened over in the Seattle school district. It alienates parents like myself and will only further decline in the district enrollment figures because parents will seek other options and pull their kids out of the district entirely. Our district needs to continue moving forward by providing the best learning opportunities for our highly capable students. As a community member who has voted in support of every levy and bond that has come across my ballot, I expect the term the term that is being used as fiscal responsibility to mean a methodical and thoral approach with a complete list of recommendations across all programs rather than a singular decision targeting one program without seeing all the recommendations
148on your budget or what has been given to you. How can we be ensured that this board can be trusted that this PAL decision was the right one? We are told that this restructuring of the PAL program will continue to provide excellent experience. Well, I think this claim is misguided. The current POW program structure works. It works, guys. You can hear this at the parents testimonials tonight. Although my girls are no longer in the program, they've aged out. I will continue to be an advocate because I see the huge difference in their educational experience here in this district. They tell me that their best years were at PAL. I really en encourage this board to take a fair and systematic consideration to view all the information and data that has been presented to you in
149its entire context. If the enrollment figure is declining, then let's get input from parents. engage the advisory committee and teachers and work out an option that works for everybody. What highcap students need right now is this board's full support and let's try to reverse this decision. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Uh Cliff Bishop. Hello, my name is Cliff Bishop. I uh have to admit I thought I was signing in as an attendance not to speak, so I don't have anything prepared. That being said, I'll be brief. I have uh I'm in in district. I have a daughter that is currently grade five in the PAL program. Uh one of Helen's friends, I might add. Um and has been in since grade three. Uh I have a second daughter who's eligible and is uh in the process
150of uh enrolling for grade four in the PAL program this upcoming year. Um I could go on eusively about my love for the program. Some of you here have heard me do that. Um but I'll just stick to my concerns. my concerns with what appears to be shrinking support, a lack of support. There's a vacasillation last year. Are we going to go down to two? Are we going to now we're back up to three this year? Now we're maybe down to two again. Is it going to We were actively dissuaded by administration for our oldest daughter to not have her transfer schools. If we don't receive support, parents are left to make decisions with a lot of fear and changing the program, showing uh a a a lack of support, showing a a diminished uh
151numbers, even though I'm hearing that there's a wait list. I I don't understand that. I that I I I'd really like to see uh why that's the case. How are we going to get larger numbers if we don't appear to have support for the program? That's my concern. Both of my daughters are in it. I don't have any more after this, but I want this program to be strong going forward for the for the students that are up and coming and for the parents that have students that are up and coming. So, thank you. [Applause] Okay. And last person on the list, Mr. Marinachi. Good evening. Nice to see you all. I'm here to talk about two issues. Uh the first one is the PAL program. I distinctly remember back in 2017 uh those discussions
152Mr. Thorner you were there that was interesting there some similar themes um hey I don't have a kid in pal so I don't have a bone pick but I do Dr. VU makes an excellent point. It's reputation. This school district has built up a reputation around the PAL program. People clearly have made an effort that they want to come to our school district. And so that's that's a point of pride. That's excellent. I don't all know all the little particulars, but boy, there's sure a lot of people out here who have spoken about their concerns about the change in the program. So, I say go pal. Um, the second thing I want to speak about is the resolution tonight. And I know that this is a tough tough one for some folks. I just want
153to say this really shouldn't be a discussion about one person's view and another person's view about hate. Um, I don't think we should talk at people. I think we should have a conversation with people when we disagree. And it's really interesting. People use words about inclusion. What I have to say is all we need to see is what has happened over the last several years. And clearly there's a problem, Houston. Something's going wrong. People don't like what's going on. So for those who feel that this is a wrong move, I would say just look at what's going on there. And not everybody out there is about hate. If we want to talk about fairness, if you have a young lady who is demoralized because they don't want to compete, it's over. All you need to
154do is look across the nation and see the various stories. And if we want to talk about litigation to a school district, that could happen to us. So, let's be careful about what we decide. So, let's let's talk about this resolution. So, it's talking about these two amendments. Nobody's read these amendments. So you can go out to the WIAA site, two of them, and let me read them. They're very, very simple. Number seven says, "Participation in girls sports, we be limited to biological females." Full stop. That's that's all it is. That's all it says. And then because the people who've been working on this have recognized it's an issue and we want to talk about inclusion, they said, "Well, we don't want any kid not to have an opportunity to participate." And even though I
155or you might have a different opinion about this, I think we all agree that all kids should be respected and have an opportunity to participate. So look what these guys came up with. Number eight, athletic programs will be offered separately for boys, girls, and an open division. So there is an opportunity for inclusion for all people to participate. And at the same time, you can't have a situation where you're high on your horse and saying that, "Oh, well, you know, they should be able to identify a certain way." You're putting upon yourself upon that girl's values in saying they don't have a choice. So, how is that fair? And I understand that in some respects this could be inreconcable. I get that. Again though, look at what happened over the last several years. State of
156Washington allowed this law to go on a few years ago and look what's happened. It's not really working well. Uh, another thing I wanted to point out and I recommend that you go out to the WIA site even though the resolution talks about two school districts. This is submitted by the Lynen School District, the Blaine School District, the Brewster School District, the Casper School District, the Kovville School District, the Gran Kouli School District, the Lake Shawine School District, Lynen Christian School, Mansville School District, Ne School District, Okanagan School District, School District, Orville School District, and Tanas. So, this isn't just, you know, a couple of people who've come up with an idea. These guys are responsible by the RCW about sports in all the school districts. They know this is a tough thing that they're
157dealing with and that's why they're spending time and they're trying to come up with a compromise. So, please don't tell me I'm spouting hate. Okay. Thank you very much. [Applause] Okay, sure. Go ahead. Um, I'm Hyram Jensen. I was a student of PAL of the PAL program. And one of the biggest draws that um led me to make this decision was to change schools was to have friends who were also uh doing the PAL pro program. And if you split the grade levels, I can guarantee that it will devastate some of the young kids in these classes and their friendships. I personally didn't have very many friends who shared the same interests or aspiration for learning um at my old school and the PAL program really helped with this. Um many of my peers from
158PAL I still share honors classes with today and they're like family to me uh seven years later. Please don't split these classes. I still have yet to hear a strong reason why we're splitting them, and I don't see the need to do so after hearing all of the cons. As a board for an education system, please don't limit students who want to learn. Thank you for your time. Okay, one last call. Go ahead. I'm not as tall as everyone else. Okay. Um, hi, my name is Mickey Boutton. Uh, I am a parent for one of the children in the PALS program. I do come out of district. Um, and like we've heard already, this is a program that drew us to the West Valley School District because of the because of what's available for our
159child who when they were not in the program, um, I had to fight every single day to get him to go to school. He hated being the teacher's helper because that's what he could do as the kid that was highly capable. He uh he was weird. He was nerdy. He was, as he said, not a jock. And the PAL's program gave him a place where he could find kids that were like him and allowed him to thrive. Literally today, he said, "The PAL's program gave me an opportunity to not walk alone." And as a mom, that that gets me. As a teacher, that gets me because taking a kid out of the PAL program, putting them into a general ed class like that, as a teacher, I know you can't differentiate the distance of your
160kids like you want to. And to put my kid in there and say, "No, no, the teacher may differentiate." That's literally what the website says, "May differentiate." That means he's going to be the teacher's helper. That means he's not going to learn. That means he is held back even though the Washington state says that he deserves to have the education he deserves. And the PAL program does it. And as a mom, as a teacher, I wish as a teacher, I wish I could scream to the high heavens that every single highly capable kid gets this opportunity because they deserve it. and they don't deserve to be the teacher's helper. They don't deserve to be held back. They deserve to be pushed. They deserve to not walk alone. So on the website it says the West
161Valley highly capable gifted learners are not test scores even though they bring high ones. They are not perfect. They are not easier to teach. They are kids with different learning needs who will give up if they are not challenged. Just so we're clear, I have been trained in high and dropout rates are high and gifted. Detention rates are high and gifted. We have kids that if are not served and pushed definitely have the opportunity to have a worse life. And that's a thing to think about. who rarely get a place in educational law. The fact that we have it is good. Who sometimes give up and drop out of school, who are waiting for change, who now sit hoping, starving to learn, to grow, to think, to be creative, to climb out of the box,
162to change the world, to get something different. The PAL program is that not because they are privileged, elite, or want better. This is what they deserve. It isn't better. It isn't elite. The fact that I just heard that a principal discouraged a family to give their kid what they deserve is wrenching to me. Not because they are privileged. The one thing that every kid deserves in every school is to learn and grow. My kid was able to have that in the PAL program and I appreciate it more than you can ever know. Don't take that away from other kids. And just so we're clear, there is a wait list. And if those kids go into a general ed classroom, what is what's the equity of one kid getting PALS and one kid not? All of
163our kids deserve better. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you everybody not only for being here but thanking you for your willingness to speak and share your perspective. Um no matter what the outcome is, your voice is always going to be heard. So thank you. All right, with that I'm going to move on to the next item of board business which is approval of the consent agenda. There are a number of items on here A through quite a few but and nothing that I think needs to be pulled out unless someone would like to. Those items A through F, we can pull something out if you have an individual board members. If you have something you want to discuss or somebody could uh make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll make
164a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. All right, we have a motion to approve the consent agenda. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 5 Z. Next. Our action items. Approval of travel requests. Amen. Yep. Yeah, that's correct. That's right. Yeah, it's item nine. Yeah. So, approval of travel requests. There are a number of them. Um, you can read them here. Um, I'm not going to go through each one, but if somebody would like to pull something out of there or has a particular question about it, now is the time to say something before we take action on it. Any board members? And just for clarification, uh, travel out of state or overnight with students needs to be approved by
165the board and that's all these uh, one through 10. Thank you, Dr. Finch. If there is no request for an individual review of any of these items, I'll entertain a motion to approve the travel request. I move to approve the travel request one through 10. Thank you, Mr. Thorner. We will go ahead and take a vote now that we have a motion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Vote carries. 5. Um, next we have the approval of 202526 category 2E rate network refresh bid award. Dr. Fitch, you have anything on that? Uh, there was a cover memo for both items B and C which uh deal with our IT department. Uh, Jeremy Cox is the director of IT. He's here this evening if you have any questions, but everything
166was covered in the cover memo. And so we just need approval to move forward with the e- rate. And then the next items C would be approval of purchases. And some of those purchases are uh help helped through the rate. All right. Any particular questions? All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve the resolution. I'll make a motion to approve. Just the word. Which one? I'm sorry. B and C. Oh, item B. And are we doing B and C or just B? Uh probably should do them separately. So do item B. I'll make a motion to approve item B. Thank you. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 5-0. All right. Now we have item C on the agenda. IT CPU purchase. Anyone care to make a motion?
167I'll make a motion to approve IT CPU purchase. All right. Thank you. We have a motion. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying I I oppos same sign. Again motion carries 5. Approval of resolution. This is one of the things that the board members uh one of the board members proposed that came up u I think a few meetings ago or a couple meetings ago. So I know there are some disagreements among us on this. So what I would like to do for this particular one is two things. One, I want to call for a roll call vote, which means every member of the board has to identify specifically where they are. It's not like 50-0. You state your point and where you are. And two, I would like to
168give each board member one last chance to give their perspective on why they want to choose to vote the way they do. So, if that's okay with everyone, I'll go ahead and start with Mr. Walcott. Um, I'm You want to know if I'm a yes or a no at this point? Um, is that what you're asking? Vote right now. I'm just giving you the opportunity to make any last comment you would make like to make before the rest of the board members vote on this. Sure. Because we didn't get a lot of discussion on this. No, we didn't. We didn't. No, I'll make a comment. Um, I'm going to read some of my thoughts. Uh the proposed resolution before you encourage the voting members encourages the voting members of WIAA to vote in support of
1692025 um WIAA proposed amendment 7 and 8 which will be voted on in April. Um Mr. Marinachi already said a couple things I was going to say but um quoting from amendment seven which was submitted by 14 school districts. This policy encourages a culture in which all student athletes can compete in a safe and supportive environment free of discrimination. There are two categories of sports in this amendment. Boys/Open and girls. All student athletes regardless of sex, gender identity, or gender expression who meet eligibility criteria are allowed to participate in the boys/open category. However, to maintain fair and equitable competition, participation in the girls category is limited to students whose biological sex is female. Quoting from amendment 8, which was submitted by seven school districts, athletic programs will be offered separately for boys, girls, and an
170open division for all students interested. uh my reason for supporting the resolution. More and more um we are hearing about girls who have practiced and participated in their sport for years being beat by by biological boys uh creating devastation and heartbreak and sometimes injury. Uh to my knowledge, our school district has not experienced this kind of hurt, but I believe that most Americans we should show support to other districts who have experienced this. Does it pass Washington state's legal muster? My understanding is that if the amendments are voted in, the WIAA would not be able to enforce these new rules unless the state changes the RCWS and/or the federal government passes laws that would allow these amendments to go forward. In conclusion, I'm I am currently not in support of disregarding the law, but I
171am adamant in the need to support and protect our female athletes across our community, state, and country who have worked hard in perfecting their sport. That's good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. I'm also in favor of making the amendments seven and eight. I have four specific reasons. I believe it is because of safety and belonging. We need to protect women. We need to protect women's sports and we need to give them a place where they belong. I believe it's honest that there are two genders, male and female. And I would hold to my honesty in all the things that I do. I believe it is loving. It is the most loving thing to tell people the truth and to speak truth into their life. And so I will do it because I love people.
172And then finally, I am doing it because of my conscience. I can't pretend that something is not and I have to do what I'm compelled to do. All right. Thank you. Um I'll switch to the other side. Mr. Governor, I cannot support the the resolution mainly because I cannot set aside what current Washington law says and current board policy also says that um this resolution violates um the common school provisions of the revised code of Washington at chapter 28A. Um, I can appreciate that people may not like the law, but um, the form for discussion of changing the law is not with the school board, but rather the state legislature. That's where this discussion belongs. I would love for that conversation to happen. I'm disappointed that um, uh, uh, a house bill um that has
173been proposed uh, can't even get to a committee. Um I'm I'm disappointed that um the legislature will not have that conversation that at least you know the number of of of uh representatives brought forward. But um I cannot set aside the law. I cannot as a lawyer. It's a violation of the rules of professional conduct that I, as a member of the Washington State Bar Association, cannot uh permit uh or knowingly uh advise my clients to violate the law, and I will not do that as a school board member either. Thank you, Mr. Keeper. All right. Thank you. Um uh yeah, I will say just for clarity, um by putting this resolution forward, we are not breaking the law. Um the a resolution is a formal expression of an opinion and so it doesn't break
174Washington state law to put a resolution forward but it's making an opinion of a school board in this case public and the reason I think it needs to be made public is because we have like Mr. Thorner referred to our legislature does not hear uh the the public. I think there's initiatives that were put forward and and voted upon and basically those initiatives in our legislature has been thrown out and torn apart in recent weeks as the legislature has uh disregarded uh parent choice um and parent information and I don't remember what that bill is but uh there is one particular bill that um and so because of that I do think that we need to make our voice louder in our state in order to be heard and to make changes. And so again,
175this is not this is not uh breaking the law by putting this resolution forward. And just for clarity, what the WIAA is voting on on these is this is an advisory vote that they will be voting on April 9th through the 18th. And so an advisory v vote essentially means that they still have to follow state law. And so they're still going to continue to follow state law, but it is again their place where they're saying we want some change to take place in our state. And so, uh, when I think of the WIAA, there's it's a 53 member assembly. And I do know that back in January, uh it it's made up of mostly athletic directors around our state, but some school administrators, but back in January, they had a uh a vote where
176someone suggested that they remove these two amendments from the proposed voting and they chose uh not to and it was by a large majority of our WIAA to keep those amendments on there. So again, it is an advisory vote. And when I think about why, I think it goes to a lot of uh what maybe what Steve shared. I'm I'm also the father of three daughters that are all involved in athletics and I want my daughters along with all the girl girls in our school district. I want them to have fair competition. The the level of competition that exists in athletics today is higher than it's ever been. And our current policy, because of what the state requires us, makes the level of competition for female athletes even more difficult when a biological male is
177allowed to compete with biological females. Biological men generally have higher cardiovascular capacity, greater greater bone density, and more muscle mass than females. And when you allow a biological male to compete in female sports, those males have an unfair advantage that in general a female cannot overcome with training and skill. And not only is this an unfair advantage, but it also takes away from the integrity of the sport. It takes away from the drive in female sports to work harder and to get better at your sport. And there have been a number of school districts in our state like Lynden and like Cashmere that have proposed these amendments that have had to watch as their female athletes took second and third place on a podium to a biological male athlete competing in a female competition. And
178I don't want to wait until it happens. I didn't want I don't want to wait till it happens to one of our West Valley students. And so in proposing this as a formal and public opinion of West Valley School District, we are being proactive in protecting our female athletes in our schools. And it is not uh uh it is not discriminating towards anyone else. It is creating fair competition based on biology and science which is something that we teach in our schools. And so I am for the proposed resolution. All right. Thank you, Mr. Kappire. All right. Well, thank you. So, it just comes down to me. So, I wrote some notes and much of what I have to say will probably be reiterate some of the things that are said here. Um, I have
179a different perspective. Um, and again, I respect the opinions of my colleagues here on the board. However, I am somebody who is not going to vote for this resolution. I want to to explain my rationale why and why it's so important for us to understand the the nuances of a resolution. I think we're not getting to that particular point. First of all, the resolution by the, you know, to publicly support the WIA proposal is it's not really warranted. And I think just given the way we're doing it, it's unnecessary to do it this way. Okay? We can accomplish the same thing, the same voice, the same tenacity with the vote that we have with the WIAA, the proposal as it's presented to all school districts. We don't need a separate resolution to do this. And
180I'm going to go further into why I feel this way. It's so important to understand the move to process this kind of action is a legislative action. It needs the legislature to do it at the state level if we want to effectuate change. That's where we need to take this this action to them because that's who put it in place in the first place. Um, I don't think that, you know, making this kind of a political statement is what is going to move the needle. What's going to move the needle is our community out there voting to make the change at the highest level where this started, not at a school board, not for us to be one of the minority. There are so many school districts around the state. We're just going to be
181part of a minority that take this stand this particular way. This again I want to emphasize can be accomplished in other means and be just as effective and it's going to carry more weight because it's a actual vote somewhere that will count. Also I want to bring up the fact that we potentially open oursel up to legal liabilities. There are those things that are there that we need to consider and state. Somebody talked earlier about our financial position being so good, our district being so strong, the things that we have done being successful. There's a reason for that. Not because we go against the state legislature, not that we put something on our backs that said, "Oh, we're defiant because of the law." No, we're successful because we pay attention to those details. That's why
182we are all up here. And I applaud my colleagues for that. But I think this is the wrong thing. And I'm going to tell you some more things about it. we place ourselves in legal jeopardy, not just as a school district, but as private citizens on the board. I want to read our legal counsel. I sent I asked Dr. Finch to send our legal counsel's recommendation. This is somebody who has paid to represent our school district to give us the best possible advice on all these issues, not just one, all the issues. And I want to read his comment. He had the same proposal that the resolution that was presented to him. He looked it over and we asked his professional opinion and Dr. Finch said something to him says please reply to and confirm
183our conversation where you recommend the district should not adopt this resolution. He replies correct given that this let me get this back up here. Given that this resolution supports amendments which are not compliant with state law and given that this resolution could be used against the board in future litigation regarding a potential discrimination complaint as evidenced uh by as as evidence the board has animous toward those in the gender identity protected class. I cannot recommend this be adopted. Now this is somebody who's trained to give us added perspective. I'm not saying what's necessarily right or wrong. I have three daughters myself like Mr. Kappard does. I have three daughters. All of them have participated in sports. They continue to participate in sports. I agree with some of the things that were said here that there
184needs to be some separation in some of those things. But there is a process. There is a way to do it. And this is not what we're following. Also, the district aligns us with a small minority of extreme school districts willing to violate state law or state uh procedures. I don't think such an action is in the best interest of the West Valley School District. I'm voting my conscience here as a parent, as a school board member, as someone who has kids in the school district, has graduated kids from the school district. I understand these things and I think it's important that we all whatever decision we come up with. I'm going to support it because I'm a board member. Okay? If we have to pass this, our signatures go on the line. Don't make
185no mistake about it. Whatever the decision is, I stand by it because we're we're a unified board. I'm going to make my perception and my feelings about this known because they're important. We get one chance at this. We're going to make our vote count or at least my vote count. And there's some other things I want to say, too. It is the school board's responsibility to represent all students. I said this before the prior meeting, all students. Whether we agree with the perspect with the perspective or not, we have to take care of everybody. If that had been any one of our kids that was in that small group, how would you feel? You know, how would you feel if the board got up here and voted say we're not going to do something for
186your kids? I like part of that amendment that off that offers the two uh types of uh sports leagues. I think that's a great altern alternative. But that being said, again, the process for doing this should be done at the state level. We have a vote. We have a person that would vote representing our school district. This does not belong in this environment right here at the school board. And lastly, I just want to say that, you know, there's no one who believes in the sanctity of women's sports like I do. Like I said, I have three daughters. I'm I'm the single male in my household, so I understand what it's like. I hear my kids. They talk to me about these things as well. And I just hope that what we're doing here tonight
187everybody because this could very easily been any one of us. So, I just want to be fair. I think that's important for us as a school district to be fair to everyone. And there is a certain argument on both sides and that's why we're here to discuss this and vote for it. So that's all I'm going to say about it because I don't think we need to belabor it anymore. I just think it's an important issue. It touches everybody. Everybody has feelings about it. There's no doubt about that. But in the end, I think what counts the most is trying to do the right thing by our students. That's it. All right. And reasonable minds can disagree on that. That's true. Like I said, I respect all our board members and and respect their opinions
188and whatever we decide to do, I'll respect that as well. So, I have no problem with that. All right. Any more comments? One last call from everybody. All right. So, I think does somebody want to make a motion to approve the resolution as presented? I'll make a motion to approve. All right. We have a motion to approve the resolution 25-3-733. We'll go ahead and vote. All those no we're going to take a roll call. So let's go by one at a time. I I nay. I nay. All right. Motion resol to have a resolution passes three to two. All right. Items arising. Uh item 10. Uh Dr. Fer. Anybody else? Any items arising that's new? None hearing none. We'll go ahead and move on. I think we're getting close to the end here. Yes, we
189are. Item number 11, reports, administrative reports, enrollment report, safety report, travel log report, they're all listed here. Yeah, I just like to point out uh the administrative reports, they share such a great wealth of information about what's happening in our schools and u if the public didn't see those, I encourage you check them out. There's a photo from South Sudan thanking Apple Valley students for fundraising for clean water. There's a shout out to some of you for teachers that helped to present at the Steam Showcase at the innovation center. The mid-level campus, there's all these wonderful photos of academic competitions, all many different academic competitions our students participated in. I asked the principles to send me a good version of the photo so I can turn that into an article. Um also wanted to share
190the enrollment reports. So every spring we do look at enrollment projections. Uh you can see in the enrollment report that the high school and uh summit view our enrollment is down. We we will be making enrollment u staffing adjustments at those two schools. The enrollment at the innovation center met our projection. So there's not a need to change staffing at the innovation center and just wanted to share that um you know we are working on that here during the spring. So that's the administrative reports I wanted to highlight and the enrollment report. All right. Thank you, Dr. Finch. All right. We'll go ahead and move on to the superintendent report which is also So superintendent report just shared again with the board that every spring the district office administration works with our school administrators to
191review enrollment projections for the upcoming school year and to adjust staffing to meet the student enrollment. And this work is done every spring at every school. Uh, next we just wanted to share that there was a nice article on KIMA TV and just appreciate uh Brad Liebrich, our teacher at the high school who nominated West Valley High School senior Seth Kangas and Seth was uh selected as the one student from Washington State that is awarded the Billy Michael Student Leadership Award by the National World War II Museum. And that means that he'll be able to have all expenses paid trip to New Orleans to visit the museum. And then there is an opportunity to be the one student in the nation that's recognized. So appreciate um Mr. Liebrich who nominated Seth and congratulations to Seth
192Kangas for uh winning that award. The one student from Washington State to rec to be recognized. Thank you, Dr. Fitch. All right. Um getting down to the wire here. Board reports, board development. Anyone? I'd like to say two things. Um one, um actually three. Uh, one, uh, I know I say this, uh, quite often, the, uh, school reports are very much appreciated, Dr. Finch. Um, so I would just like to say a special thanks to all of the, uh, building administrators and staff that, uh, take time to do that. Um, uh, they're they're really they're really terrific. Um secondly, um I know uh during the ASB uh uh report um uh sports were mentioned and we just finished winter sports and we're starting with spring sports. Um, I'd like to make a special recognition that
193was in the um in special notice, something that was uh in the high school report, and that is that our boys high school basketball team um had a terrific season on the floor um doing very well at the at the recent state tournament. But what I what I'm especially proud of is that they are the academic state champions in 4A boys. And that is that is a tremendous accomplishment and one that deserves uh a round of applause. I I that's not the first time that uh that's not the first time that we've won an academic state championship for one of our athletic teams. Um but that that just makes me really really proud um as a community member and as a board member. And then finally, I to the people that are are are leaving,
194I just uh I just wanted to say a special thank you for coming out tonight. Uh um whether you spoke at the meeting or you just participated and listened. Um I everybody's time is very valuable and um and uh it's not easy to get up in front of a room full of people and and and talk about what you're passionate about. Um but uh I just thank you for your time more than anything else. Uh that means a lot to all of us and um uh I just wanted to acknowledge that uh to each and every one of you and I didn't quite get that out quick enough for everybody to hear before they left, but uh I just wanted to say thank you very much. Thank you. I echo those sentiments exactly. So thank
195you. U uh actually to follow up on what Mr. Mr. Thorner said about the academic state champs for our boys basketball team. I was working today on when when we could schedule them to be here at the board meeting and give them some recognition and they many of them are busy in spring sports. So it looks like uh our schoolboard meeting on May 13th is an open date. So we'll have the boys basketball team here at the board meeting and thank them for their hard work in the classroom as well as on the court. Look forward to it. All right. Anybody else? It's good. All right. Thank you everybody for being here. appreciate your participation and attendance tonight. Have a good week and weekend. Right. Ajourn at 9:06. Thank you. 9:06 Tuesday, March 25th. I
196forgot my water.