001e e e good evening everyone it is 6 pm today is Tuesday February 25th I believe correct all right we'll go ahead and get started by calling the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right thank you everyone and we have no one else here so but thank you for being here those who are attending um any changes to the agenda Dr fch no changes okay and that takes us to Communications any uh no Communications all right then we'll go into discussion item School Board self eval evaluation um debrief so we have someone from Wilder today Cindy mag Mulla Mullen
002I'm sorry yeah mag Mullen thank you Cindy for being here this evening and we'll turn it over to you at this point thank you so much thank you for having me it's good to see you gentlemen again um and um we're sort of doing stage two U last time we talked about what our responsibilities are as a school board member and as a board in general and then in the meantime now you taken um the wasda um board self assessment and we have those results um and um you have three different documents that um Dr Finch has provided for you um so lots of paper um there is a a short document it only has five pages um and it is it says board self assessment survey scoring ranking we'll be using that mostly um
003but there is also this year's answer byans um report and then the comparison report for the last couple of years that previous boards have also taken um for a reference I won't be using the ones that involve previous boards really um you are a unique group of gentlemen and um what you're doing really doesn't matter as far as what somebody may have done before you um and then I handed out another packet and it is actually um this Schoolboard standards except not in a booklet because I didn't have enough for all of you and my mother told me I was never supposed to go anywhere if I didn't have enough for everybody um so I made you photocopies instead um and um I brought this because that's what you took the test on and um
004very often when we do our board self- evaluations we don't go back to what it was we were testing ourselves on so we answer all those questions and then it's like well what what was I what was I aiming for what was it that we were talking about so I thought we might start with just a very quick review of the various board standards and especially the benchmarks and because this is what those questions are getting at and then when we look at your answers to the questions we'll see the ones that you feel strong in the ones that you have a Divergence of opinion on and then the ones that um you might want to look at for the future um and one of the things to remember is there is no way to
005do all of these in the four category every year you're going to focus on one or more of them and do better in that particular category hopefully carrying along the ones you've done well in the past but so the fact that some of them you may think um you're not as strong in that's just because even collectively you're all human so the first standard that we have is providing responsible governance um and that includes things like your board meetings um are they respectful and fair um are you accountable and open to the public and um seeking Divergent perspectives as you're making your decisions are you respectful and Advocate Mutual understanding of board member and superintendent roles do you have policies based on well researched practices that emphasize the belief that every student can achieve at
006high levels and that those policies also support continuous Improvement for student achievement do you promote healthy relationships by communicating supportively inspiringly and motivating and empowering others um especially um the community that supports your students as well as your students and then are you working as an effective collaborative team and we know that when you work as a collective um as I'm Excuse me as an effective and collaborative team it makes all the difference for your District that is the rudder that guides you that guides everything that's happening in the district under standard two this is commun setting and communicating high expectations for student learning having clear goal goals and plans to meet your high expectations and of course the first thing is that you articulate that all students can learn and that you make it
007clear that you believe student learning can improve regardless of existing circumstances or resources and that's that's a pretty big belief uh quite frankly Miracles can happen in your classrooms um that you are a leadership group and you lead in the development articulation and stewardship of the district's Vision regarding learning and that that vision is shared in your schools and in your community you have adopted collaboratively developed District plan and so um uh your schools are have their sips their school Improvement plans you also have developed now a district plan that collates all of that and guides all of that focused on learning um and achievement outcomes so this is different than um your uh capital projects plan or your um uh maybe your Levy campaign plan or any of those things this is your student
008learning plan I I think one of the ones that um sometimes becomes challenging for all of us is this idea of non-negotiable goals especially in times where our resources um become stretched what are our non-negotiable goals for our student achievement and then how do we align what we're doing and what the rest of the district is doing to make sure those goals um are being followed number three is um creating the conditions for districtwide student and staff success because we know that the staff has to be successful to um U maximize what our students are learning do we talk about Safety and Security talk about employing and supporting all of our staff the best quality that we can and that includes professional development because we know that all of us need to be lifelong Learners
009um also providing for learning Essentials whether it's the curriculum technology facilities everything that's needed to support the work that your teachers and other staff are doing with your students then there's the management part um operations resources for things like making sure that lights go on in the classroom it's much easier to learn at least if you're asking kids to read um then um adopting and monitoring the budget one of our major responsibilities and the idea of allocating resources based on the district Vision goal and priorities and sometimes it's easier to say well we can pretty much do last year's budget again this year we increase it for inflation and uh maybe some extra students and we're done um that may be what we end up doing but we need to take the view of what
010is this budget supporting what are we accomplishing with the money as we're allocating it standard four is holding the school district accountable for meeting student learning objectives so again committing to continuous Improvement in student achievement evaluating the superintendent who is the leader in the learning leader in your District measuring student academic progress in all the various ways that that you can do that whether that's formative assessments summative assessments anecdotal information um I know know that tonight you're going to be celebrating your boys basketball team um and also um your drama uh program and I thank Dr Finch for sharing that ahead of time with me so that I could I could know about it too um but that's also important assessment information what kind of opportunities do your kids have and how are they doing
011in those opportunities standard five is our communication with the community and of course we represent the community to the school district and make our decisions in in um respect to that but we also represent the school district out to the community and so um collaborating with families and community members responding to the diverse needs in the community mobilizing Community Resources we know that so many of our Partnerships are so important to meet the gaps that we have whether it's in funding or it's in expertise or maybe it's just in Personnel to be able to provide programs to our to our students ensuring that everything we do is transparent and that's that's more than a buzzword it has been a and am a word that I've heard now for the last couple of years as being
012like the thing but it is important that we are as transparent as we can be because it builds the trust in the community and it helps folks understand what we're doing and why we're doing it working on getting District information and decision making communicate it out to the community not just what we did but how we went about doing it and why we did it and the days of just if you want to know come come listen in on the meeting are gone that's that that's much more our responsibility now and soliciting input from the staff and also the community on the diverse range of interests and perspectives um you all are five amazing gentlemen but you don't have all the knowledge and all the skills and all the experiences that everyone in your community
013has and so by being able to listen to them understand all of that and then leverage that to help you make the very best decisions you can that will make it better for your kids for your staff and ultimately for your whole community so that's what you were taking your test on I don't know if you knew that but that's as you were answering um those various questions that's what you were evaluating and you were evaluating the whole board as you see it together the five of you took the test um the superintendent generally does not take this test um this is to know what you as a board individually and then when we discuss it collectively feel how you're doing um I like to start with this um scoring ranking because it um collates
014quite a bit of information from the questions that you answered in the very first column it's the average of what um your scores were and you can see that on the first page you have a significant number where you all agree that you are doing the best that can be done and then an even more significant number where almost all of you feel that way and those are the ones that carries into page two those are the ones that are higher uh pardon me highlighted in green then there's a group um that are kind of in the middle and then at the end of the document there's a group starting on page four that are highlighted in kind of a pink or a a red color um starting with a ranking of three um now
015I have to tell you that um if if getting a B on this test that is a three um is is a low score for you you're in you you're doing pretty well um you have a couple that are in the twos but most of them are even like 2.8 so um we're not we're not going to need to take you um to the principal's office or to the hospital so you're doing well um but they might be things that um you want to look at and say well maybe we want to focus a little more on that in in the future um what I'm going to ask you to do is um first of all look at the ones that are in green I'm sorry I didn't go through all of the information I
016got ahead of myself so the second and third columns on there are the deviation so the minimum number and the maximum number um and of course in the fours everybody gives you a four um you have some where somebody thinks it's a one and somebody thinks it's a four and everything in between and so we'll talk about that difference of opinion a little bit later on um gives the standard deviation then it gives the question number so if you want to go back and read the exact question and also get the specific five answers that will be in um that packet for the 2025 um answers it'll also be in the other one but it's probably a lot quicker and easier to find it um and Peter did a great job of asking for that
017as as separate the next column is in words to remind us pretty much what it was that the question was about then there's the standard and then there's a statement of the standard so what I'd like you to do is look at the ones that are in green um individually first and see what it is about those um that's interesting to you it can be in any or all of those different um columns but just with an open mind look at what those are and um kind of make some observations I'll give you about five minutes to do that for for for for for for okay so you all have been very busy you're very good student um and um looked like there was a lot that caught your eye um I'm not going to
018call on people this is the time for you to share with each other um what was it that caught your eye in um in in this section where um all of you have determined that you're doing pretty well I would say I picked out some key words um and I can explain what they go with but I think you know because you just read it transparent responsible respect honor agree um in in several of those I picked out those key words super yeah I picked out same thing I saw a theme there with respect honor success understanding trust commitment same words I saw there I also saw a common theme with the budget in there that is I appreciated the uniformity of some of those things where we all value them equally and that we
019want respect for each other we give respect to each other we want accountability for each other we give accountability to each other we expect that all students can learn in excellence is good I thought it was interesting that of the ones where all five board members ranked at four there were almost all the standards were in those areas so standards one two three and five were all part of those unanimous um areas of of agreement there moving forward with the district the one uh that was the next down for number four that caught my eye was re require the effective use of data throughout the system to monitor student achievement and District performance so my my perception that's the strength of our district is the use of data so and that is uh standard four
020hold school district pable for meeting student learning expectations so so of all the standards one two three five at the top and then that number four there use of data so all the standards have some high rankings and that's not necessarily something that I see when I work with boards boards tend to focus on various things and um sometimes they have a board plan where they've looked at the standards and they say you know this year we'd like to focus on number one and number four um and so that's where they put their energy not unlike sometimes you ask your superintendent to focus on not all eight of the things that you can grade him on in his superintendent evaluation but maybe um three um so you might see a higher number in one of
021them the fact that you are um strong across the board in the standards is excellent um it's one of the reasons I think that your district is as good as it is um anything else anybody anybody well just a couple of quick thoughts very similar to what U some of my colleagues on the board here just said but just um the things that I kind of tend to focus on is one of our primary responsibil responsibilities is to be fiscally sound to manage the budget make sure that the resources are there and I was very pleased to see that for example question 50 question 40 question number four there they all tend to interrelate with that accountability that responsibility that you know our our budget is driven by um what our goals are basically student
022achievement and um you know it says for example adopts a adopt a fiscally responsible annual budget that is aligned with the district's visions and plans I mean that's a to me that's a very key item for us to do and I was glad to see that all four of us you know agreed in that and even where we were close but didn't quite still dos an annual budget that that supports quality staff development and resources for curriculum implementation again the same themee of aligning our fiscal responsibility with what we're doing for the school district and students and learning and then basis decisions this question number four basis decision on what is best for the Student Success again the budget plays a PE a key part in doing that allowing that to happen so I was
023really glad to see you know the the cohesiveness in those areas as a board and especially in these last five years I would say um it's always been important to be fiscally responsible and for us to know what's in the budget um certainly since 2020 it's been even more important um because of the challenges that our schools have have had to face and because um we got an A nice large infusion of funding to meet a crisis um and then the theory was that the crisis ended and in my estimation the crisis has not ended but certainly the money to address the immediate crisis has now gone away um and we know that we have residual issues that we're dealing with um as well as um every year it seems there's something um new that
024we can focus on that can help our kids and that we understand our kids a little better and maybe we can help them a little better and so with our limited resources we have to be laser focused on where we put those dollars and it's very clear that you all have been and um I applaud you in not having to go through some of the trials and tribulations that other school districts in our state are going through right now and that my school district went through a couple years ago um and that that being steady um that's that's huge the trust for your community to know that you are managing the money not just for this year or next year but with the understanding of what is sustainable is critical but it's also critical for
025your staff and when you have a nice calm School District where nobody's particularly worried about oh wait a minute are they running out of money and am I or my program not going to be here next week um kind we kind of look at the federal government maybe right now people are a little on edge because of your fiscal management and being steady and thinking to the Future those those worries are not in your community they are not in your schools and that is huge huge the one thing that I would say that you need to keep doing um is to keep telling people that that's what you're doing um I've been a school board member for a long time and I guess what I've thought was if I do my job well people will
026figure out what I'm doing and I'm doing it well um especially in today's um era um whether it's social media or what um I've come to realize we need to be very specific telling people what we're doing and why we're doing it um and not thinking that they'll understand when they see the answer and I think that's something that has evolved in especially in the last five years um so to your horn a little bit tell folks how well you're doing um but that it is not luck it is because of your strong um commitment to your students whether it's in the budget or curriculum or wherever anything else that you saw in these things that you're doing great one of the things for me is that sometimes when I work with School Districts The
027Greens go down to like 3.5 only goes to 3.8 for you all you are high Achievers um before we get into what looks like the middle ground um for you all um and I would say that to have that many of your standards where you basically all agree or someone has maybe a question about them but only one person um especially with a young board as you all are um is is commendable for sure are there any um on these ones that are green that um now that we've paded you on the back and and cheered you on that as you look at them maybe you were the person who thought you were getting a b instead of an a um or now that you look at it you think oh well maybe we're not
028A+ in that and there's something that you think could even strengthen um what you're doing in those areas I would have thought that um I would have thought that we would have had a little bit higher um in the green on uh Community engagement um which one's that one standard five um I I think we I mean obviously we we have we we do show strengths in that I would have thought that that would have been a little bit higher um uh I think that one of the things that as I think about my time on the board um um there are initia there are initiatives that the that the school board and the school district have taken to engage our community and I think that we have this has been a a a topic
029at the Forefront of of many of our discussions um and I do think that we are are being intentional in our efforts to engage the community um as far as um you know we have family engagement coordinator um and and and various things rather than but I think that that sometimes it gets lost in the well you know the school boards oh I mean let's let's take out 2020 and 2021 from the sample set largely school board meetings are not well attended and for some board members both current and past that has caused a level of disconcertion with them because well if the community was really involved what why aren't they showing up to Schoolboard meetings and um I have a resp response for that which are that Schoolboard meetings are generally pretty dry and
030very businesslike and very formal and that's not what you know that's not what what that's not what the school board meeting is about and this and and Boards uh both current and past longing for something more with the board personally being involved involved in in the engagement process um and I've struggled with that concept personally because I'm a very formal person this meeting has a certain decorum and formality to it that that the law and our policies require um so I can see that we I can see in here that we're longing for better engag M but I don't necessarily have this great answer of how do we solve that problem I can identify this issue I think but that's what I see here okay super and it bothers me that I don't have a
031better solution because I if I can identify the issue I'd like to help resolve that problem but I I I don't have um I don't have a great answer um I I will just tell you that if you develop the great answer the most important thing is to patent it in the name of the school district because then you will never have to go out for a bond who will love you again all of us are searching yeah um for this and um and part of it is that we are in a time of transition in society moving from the way life was in the last century where we did a lot of talking to each other directly or um we read newspapers and maybe there was the radio and now we have social media
032and we have all kinds of news outlets that have different viewpoints and etc etc etc and part of it we're not alone in in not having completely figured it out um but we're all searching for how to do better in that and so one of the things um in the second half of this after your regular board meeting that we're going to talk about is what do you what kinds of things do you want to talk think about as you're going forward into the next year that you might you might want to work on like you're talking about communication um I think every board is looking at that and the one thing that I would say is that um the district communicates and usually does a great job especially to its immediate patrons its students
033and its families but that's usually about the day-to-day workings of the school whatever the kids need to know whatever the parents need to know so that the so that the kids know what they need to know the broader Community is where the communication issues usually come up I don't have kids in school anymore if I were not on the school board it is unlikely that I would know a lot about what's going on in the district unless my neighbor told me or somebody got as a friend of mine says all fuzzed up about stuff um so looking at how we reach out to folks who don't have the natural connection to what we're doing um is is exceedingly challenging combined with the fact that when we do reach out to those people it always feels
034like it's because we're asking them for something like their vote on a levy or a bond and um you know and then Central Valley has a similar problem than West Valley does in that you know we're not like ca for example that has a a school district that is part of a town nches School District that's like part of a school you know it's a town that's part of the school district we're just sort of this half Incorporated half unincorporated part of yaka and so I mean again I'm not here to justify why why we're why we're deficient or and that's not probably the right way to say it's just these are Challenge and and for all of the other reasons that you talked about it's it it it's it's challenging um that and and
035it's different than when we all went to school um in that the demands on on on on parent time uh particularly in our district where I I would say many of our many of our families are involved in um extracurricular activities and and evening commitments and we're busier than we've ever been I think also stretches our abilities to engage um in a meaningful basis with our community and I wish that I I wish I also had the answer for how do we get that engagement when when people aren't mad we get a lot of Engagement when people are mad about something that was in the yearbook or something that went Ary at something that happened in the but but when there isn't that crisis whatever that crisis is um we have a hard time we
036just have a hard time with engaging and I I I again this an issue I don't have a great answer right it it is one of the most challenging issues it's when you pull into the parking lot and it is not full before a board meeting and you go oh good nothing controversial on on the agenda um or you pull into the parking lot and there are no parking spaces for you anymore and you think oh wait a minute are we talking about a coach are we talking about a sports program are it's those those kinds of things absolutely and that that's historically sure been there but now there are societal things too that come to us um and uh put more stress on that and how we communicate with folks who don't agree with
037us it's becoming more and more challenging so I think um the idea of looking into that may be something you know that that you want to do very quickly I would like you go to go to the end now uh to Pages four and five and again remember that um a three um is a b it's not like you're failing the course it's just you think that you have room for improvement so if you would look through the ones that are on pages four and five starting with the red or pink um and do the same thing that you did with the green ones um see what strikes you there um and in particular think about why you may have said um you didn't feel you were doing as well in this area as the
038ones that you marked um as fors um in the green area for for for sh [Music] right where did you live this sure for okay so what what struck you in this part of the um ranking well well one it goes right back to Mr Thor just said because there's four or one two three four things to talk about Comm communication and out of those four three or communication with the community so without further discussion it goes back to what he was just talking about so I can see that can be problematic still that we need to work on um there's one two three four or five places where it talks about have policies and and to be straightforward remember how I answered some of these it's been a while back so I'm I'm not
039remembering some of this but but some of it for me is when I was going through the survey it's like I am not sure I need more info you know like on any survey and so you sort of put the first thing you think of and then you have to think it through some more but but you know if you put our policies on a stack here they're like this high oh you're very lucky we we used to have before they were online we used to have four this size um binders that held ours yeah so my point my point is some of this is just like um we probably do have those policies but being a fairly new board member I'm not familiar with all of them so when I look at some of
040these I would go well we probably do but I'm not sure I probably need to look it up so there's some things like that that um I'm sure I answered a little lower just because I'm not sure not that we don't have them okay um and if you don't know it's possible that the community doesn't know yeah I don't know if I'll finish reading all the policies before my fouryear terms out but the crucial ones of course you you right look at right Cindy just a just a a note here just to keep us on time with track so um I'd like to give us like a five minute break before the regular board meeting and then we we talked about this earlier we could resume somewhere in our regular meeting so just for the
041rest of the board's member we'll members knowledge at 6:55 we'll go right up until that point and then take a five minute break and come back and resume the regular meeting okay go ahead whoever next so this this is your part of the discussion so um what other things did you notice well I'll be brief instead of long run on sentences like I did earlier you know as Mr Walcott said and I think that it as I look at the the the ones in red some of the ones in red and and particularly um the one that caught my attention was have have policies for evaluating staff based upon Student Success so are we gonna have a board policy about evaluating staff answer no are there going to be internal policies that are are there
042are there internal policies and standards by the superintendent in and and the team to evaluate teachers you know where I think of this for example and is when we go through the data Summit and you have the elementary teachers and how they're doing by classroom as a means for targeted professional development okay I've been on the board for 12 years that probably took me six years to for the light bulb of that to come on so I I I appreciate what Mr Walcott just said which is i' as I've said to the as I've said to the um newer board members this is like drinking out of a fire hose and it's going to be for quite some time and it still is for me uh in in some respects so I think that as
043I look at the areas in red or some of the areas in red I think it's just I think this is just more of the continuation of what do we do in our school districts and why do we do these things because I think then we're as we will find over time that yes in fact we are doing these things it just it'll be illuminated more as we as we get into into some of this and I think that's where probably some of the differentiation is the second thing is is that caught my attention and then I'm GNA stop talking is communicate performance expectations for the for the superintendent to our community and can understand why that one scored the way that it does I don't think we the board has been as intentional about
044that and that's interesting um that just that statement is interesting to me not because we shouldn't be doing it's just that we haven't and and I I think um I anyway that that is that is an interesting that that question is interesting to me and I look at that communicate well I think it is I think it should be and we should do a better job of that what you say James I asked is that something we should yeah I think we I think we need to be Pro more proactive about that anyway that was another thing that there's a question that that stood out is like yeah you know what we probably need to do a better job of of of doing that obviously we are conducting our our our evaluations those aren't you
045know th th th those those reports and so forth aren't necessarily in the public record but certainly what we expect from Dr Finch um is not a secret or shouldn't be a secret and um I thought that that was that that was a very thought-provoking question to me one that also recalls I thought our last meeting we talked about maybe making some of those things more public too and so I think we are looking at how to continually communicate what we know with the community and have a better engagement similar to some of the comments that have been made one little different uh looking at some of the the questions that struck me um and I'll read them off 21 number seven and number 61 and they strig me as it appears like we don't
046have a process for things and I I'm a structured person I like process for everything we do there needs to either be a process or we come up with a new process it's similar to a policy but I don't see it exactly as a policy it's if you're going to have an election on something what is the process for that or if you're going to decide to have the superintendent take on XYZ what is the process to get us to that point where we're saying this to the superintendent that those questions there when it it when I see them in the response is that we dread we're so low I always felt like we did have a lot of those things and so it appears now that maybe it's because we have new members that
047they haven't seen it as much as we have sure but you know I would like to make sure that somewhere as we progress and get further down the road that the process is understood by everybody not just former members or older members as well we want it as well as with the new members too and I think that's a real important thing because if we establish a way to develop process for the things that we decide on I think we can tackle anything as long as there is a quote unquote process in place that we can adopt and use so anyway that's that's what I struck that's what struck me the most right I think one thing that stuck out in all those and I think Mr thorner really alluded to it really well is
048that there's a the regular evaluation is in a lot of those you know and I think a lot of it maybe has to do with they're not there are things that you know Mr Finch is doing and our other superintendents are doing our principles are doing so the policies are in place we understand that they are but they're not necessarily in our sphere and um and not necessarily in our responsibility either so it's just more of I think we're just not aware that they're happening but I do believe that they are happening so the regular evaluation was in there a lot it seemed like yeah that's that's actually the one my one comment was definitely related to that where some of these are I would say areas that we could improve in like the communication
049others are areas that we're currently doing but we could improve the board understanding of what we're currently doing um for and the one that jumped out me was the Safety and Security uh regular evaluation of that because we do have every principal is doing a monthly evaluation of Safety and Security risk for each school that's through the school safety operations and coordinating Center but we have not presented to the board regarding that so the board really probably doesn't doesn't know the type of regular evaluation that's happening for Safety and Security but I think that would be something good uh to bring to the board's attention and have a program that that shares that information about Safety and Security and then of course we'll have some time in the regular board meeting to talk about next
050steps because many of these are areas that we could improve in and and have next steps on thank you very much for your thoughtful consideration of what's in your analysis and we'll come back later and like your superintendent said there there are two things that I'd like to do later one is look at the ones where you have um the greatest deviation in your views um and see if we can um uncover why or what what it was people were looking at pardon me and then some ideas that you might have for what you want your next steps to be because it doesn't do any good to take a test if you don't put it into action for moving forward so thank you very much and I'll be back after you're done with everything else
051okay thank you thank you uh Cindy it is 657 why don't we say I'm G to give us odd time here 7:02 to come back that gives us a f minute break and we'll resume with the regular board meeting you e e e spe thank you everybody for being a little patient with us here um we'll go ahead and get the meeting called to order at 7:02 pm again Tuesday February 25th um we'll go ahead and get started by calling the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay and Dr fch I believe there are some changes some addition of travel uh
052requests yes we'll add two travel requests for boys basketball team going to State y I suppose we'll [Laughter] deal so we currently have a number one for tral request so we'll add a number two which will be a trip to mil Creek February 2728 and then item number three will be trip to Tacoma March 4 through March 8 okay and those will go into item 11 there all right thank you Dr Finch Communications resp yes we have response to public comment uh at the school board meeting on February 11th 2025 seven community members provided comments regarding the project to remodel some of the secondary school restrooms to be single use restrooms uh response is that seven community members shared their thoughts regarding the restroom remodel project two spoke in favor four said that they saw
053the benefits but were concerned about the cost and the method for funding the use of the remaining bond funds and one said that they were recently retired and they were concerned about costs the restroom remodel project has been placed on hold indefinitely the school board will have a discussion at Future meetings regarding capital projects and defeasement of funds so just to give an update we're we're working to have a presentation on defeasement at the April uh first meeting in April and then there'll be time for uh discussion about next steps after we hear about the defeasement process that concludes the response to public comment okay um High School ASB do we have anyone here all right representative Katie chappie is here this evening and she'll provide the high school ASB report okay so recently teachers
054hosted a course PR promotion fair at the high school where our students got to learn about all of the classes the higho school has to offer and consider what classes they would like to take next year we began registration soon so this was really helpful girls and boys basketball finished up all their regular season games and have K kicked off their respective rounds of District playoffs wrestling has two boys and two girls who have qualified for State our students in this year's musical have been hard at work all winter rehearsing for the show and it opened this previous weekend you still have one more week so make sure to catch a show this weekend our Mr West Valley fundraiser came to a conclusion last Wednesday night and we proud of all they earned and donated
055this year on February 11th our seniors participated in the reality fair and learned all about the financial fund of being an adult Mrs Zeller uh organizes all of this and it is a great activity students in the community really appreciate on February 21st we held our own Grammy Awards Ramy Awards and in an assembly we recognize many groups and individuals who are doing great things this year Not Just Sports since they have the pep assemblies uh these performances included rooc choir band and arts uh the participants in Rams on the red carpet were revealed these girls fundraised for the yakma uh YWCA much like the guys fundraise for the memorial Foundation be on the lookout for opportunities to support them and learn learn more about what they do leadership students attended a workshop at prer
056high school and had some inspiring speakers to help motivate us for the rest of the year our ASB president Xavier Duran won the student leadership award it's exciting on Tuesday February 25th our National Honor Society hosted a spaghetti feed to raise money for the invested the fund that helped students in need with fees or costs that might limit their participation in school classes our activities so that's what's going on downstairs right now yeah uh hisb is currently taking signups to the audition for the high school talent show that is in late March and upcoming again it's the last weekend to see Cinderella and then Deca is hosting the daughter date night and promoting it at the West Valley elementary schools and this fundraiser helps pay the expenses of competing at State and Nationals spring Sports
057begin on March 3rd all of the spring traditions are being planned including too prom and senior graduation delivery is April 18th that's all I have thank you Katie thank you and next is item six program presentation schedule education next PCH all right well we'll ask the school board to join the audience so we can see the PowerPoint we'll have uh cesan Almon our director of special education and Stephanie Melton assistant director will provide a annual update about special education all right thank you for having us tonight um so just a little bit of an update um we are at 827 students currently who qualify for special education services um we started out the school year with 793 so that's kind of a a big jump um and then the just the breakdown by the grade
058level um and we are at 122 staff members in our department um Peter emailed me a few months ago ago about the inclusion data we still haven't gotten the data from the state so Stephanie and I put our math skills to work and uh figured out what we're what we're looking at for lr1 um so we don't have the blue bar there for 2024 because it's State hasn't released that data yet but um as you can see we are likely still above the state average um we did have a little bit of a dip in that LR one so those are students who spend 80 to 100% of their day within the general education setting um we had quite a few I think it was around 11 students who are pretty impacted with their disabilities
059move into the district this year so that affects um that l number because they are spending more of their day in especially education setting um and then just responding to the data as we're looking at data um and how students are doing in the Jed setting when we're doing co- plan and co- te and things like that and we did notice especially at the the middle level campus that we had some students that needed to be pulled back into a resource room classroom um to make progress on their IEP goals so again we're still at a a good a good percentage but just a little bit of a dip um from last year to this year all right and then really what we're going to focus on tonight is how special education is helping to
060support the Strategic plan um and really focusing more on our um more impacted students so you know the majority of our students um are you know resource room students or students who only qu uh are qualified for speech and language services and it's pretty easy to kind of conceptualize how they're included in the in this strategic plan in the goal areas um where it gets a little bit tricky is our more impacted students and how when we're looking at things about meeting grade level standards and graduation rates and things like that how we're we're supporting those students to make sure um that every student is included in in our strategic plan so just to review um sure the board members are familiar with this but for those of you watching from home home um so
061our mission for the West Valley School District um is that we are creating a space where every student is valued safe and empowered to achieve academic excellence in an Innovative culture of learning um our vision is that students feel like they belong that they are supported and that they are Learners and then our core core values are setting those high expectations um and in special ed we talk about having appropriately ambitious IEP goals so that we're setting high expectations for all of our students um inclusivity and belonging so that we're including our students who are qualified for special education services in the general education setting to the greatest extent possible um that goals are student centered that we're future focused um so really looking at those IEP goals and how we're working to build skills
062um to to make sure that our students are going to be successful in the future and then community so what kind of skills things are we giving to our students to make sure that they're going to be able to participate in the community and then how are we using feedback from the community um to make sure that that we're meeting those needs for those students and those families all right so our first goal is a culture of safety and belonging um so just a few highlights about how special ed is supporting the our first goal for culture of safety of and belonging all of our elementary special education students are assigned to a general education class roster um so this really helps when students are ready to do specialist time do morning meeting go and
063start spending more time in genda class we're not scrambling to figure out what class they they should participate with from the beginning of the year they are put on a roster and so we know who their teacher is and can can plan for them to be included in those classrooms um and then we've also increased our district Behavior support staff to help support mtss especially for behavior and seal at the build building an individual student level um so we saw quite an uptick um in Behavior especially at the elementary level this year um and so we're trying to to meet the needs of all those students by increasing our Behavior Support that's available across um all the buildings and then our second goal um for our early Learners is strong foundations um so especi um
064districtwide and for this goal we're focusing on increasing student talk especially for our um more impacted students this year we've really been focusing on how we can get our nonvocal and limited um language students to be able to participate and communicate um and I just happened as I was creating this presentation saw this cartoon um on the internet um but the the guy is clearing the steps and the guy in the wheelchair says if you cleared the ramp like we'd all still be able to get get up and so working on you know picture communication systems AAC devices that's that's something that all students could utilize to be using more language um not just our students for special with with special education services and so that's a way that you know we could be incorporating
065those things to create a richer language environment for all students when it really is something that we use for special education students so f focusing on those things um at the elementary level when we're writing IEP goals we've been looking at individualizing badge books for our students who are in special ed um so that when they are participating with the Gen ed class even if they are um functioning at a lower grade level they still have their own badge book and there's things that they can work on in the gened classroom and get those badges and feel successful and like they're belonging in doing the work in the gened classroom and then making sure that our our ie eal are aligned with those badge books and those standards um and then just making datadriven decisions
066um regarding the location and duration of their their specially designed instruction so again including the kids in the Gen Ed setting to the greatest extent possible while also making sure that they're they're making progress on their IEP goals all right and then Stephanie is going to speak to the secondary level okay okay so um my focus is more working with uh secondary students work some at elementary but I'm new to my current position but was a school psycholog is at the high school for eight years and so um the middle level is doing standard-based grading more Mastery of Standards um and so they've uh focused on priority standards for our students in the DLC classroom for their comparing to their IEP goals instead of just like where are they at where are we wanting them
067to get to and so just working on um still standards based grading Within the DLC classroom so that they're included with those priority standards and that's put in to Skyward at the beginning of the year and and they work toward those aligned with where their needs are um of course we're doing inclusive practices as season shared across the district and that looks different in each building according to the needs of that building and the students in that building but being able to expose them more to a more inclusive setting in the general education classro where they're at hearing the general education curriculum and being able to reach toward those um grade-based goals and so um you know a lot of times we look at where the student is and we want to set a goal
068that was is Within Reach and reasonable for them but stepping back and looking at the big picture of what skills we need to build to get them as close to those grade level standards as possible because that's our ultimate goal is to catch you know help them catch up and and grow their skills as much as possible um so that's that's done at all levels and just within their IEP goals keeping that that mind on the goal there and then career Pathways so um we're doing a lot of things across the board in like the resource setting general education setting but focusing tonight on the our students in the DLC setting so this is our graduation data for students um with Services who graduate within four years saw a little bit of a dip I
069want us to also keep in mind that our covid waivers have went away so that's impacting some of that um and then but as you see we're still hitting above we started before the pandemic hit and so still making growth there with the graduation um numbers there keeping in mind they also extended our um age that students aged out of special education so that moved to 22 this year and it was 21 in the past and so we did have six students who would have graduated were um set to go in that change happened right at the end of daysad so in in June the first week of June we were holding a lot of iup meetings determining where the students were um as far as being ready for Life After High School if they
070had met their transition plan goals or not um and if not they stayed with us this year and was able until they turned 22 to build up those skills a little more um and so we did have six students who did that so um might not get them you know all through in four years but we' want them prepared and ready and some students need a little extra time to do that so that's that's what we're doing and part of that of the being um with us a little longer after those four years is to be able to participate in our um transition program at the high school for ages 18 to 22 so once a student has completed their 12th grade year the next year if they're staying with us um and need continued
071supports and to grow those skills um they go into the transition program so two and a half hours a day five days a week students are out working at raise Market um Ace Hardware Summit View thrift and then this year they got a little experience with the Pegasus project and taking care of horses and learning about horses and so we have um as you see they do sorting and a lot of different things um building um different things at Ace Hardware for display and we have one student who has done really well working out in the community that recently graduated who was in the process of being heard at race market so seeing some good continued growth there building their confidence building their skills their work skills and so um for our students who are
072in the DLC program um not yet in the transition program that are in our other two classes we're piloting with es 105 to come in and do vocational training with our students that is directed at their sko level and they come in with us two days a week and work directly with our students to kind of build up those skills so that's it so that's what's going on so we'll have the board come back up here question well thank you season and Stephanie and also really appreciate the presentation and showing the alignment with the Strategic plan it's really great to see that uh alignment from our boardroom to the classroom so that's great any questions or comments from the board just a quick two-part question you said that there was 700 uh sorry yeah 793
073three students at the beginning 827 students after we started is that typical to have that big of switch and where does it come from um I we add we've been adding students pretty consistently over the last many years um not quite that big of a jump we did have quite a few kids that transferred into the district um a lot more than normal I think at the beginning of the year our secretaries were working at getting almost 40 students um enrolled and and into services at the beginning of the year so yeah we had we had a big a big group of transfers um this year you ladies are doing an amazing job thank you um I appreciate is it was neat to see the transition program you know and you I my question was
074going to be you know what did they do in that transition program but you answered it and just to see like I love to see Ray to be able to jump in and support the kids and the school and stuff um and uh you talked about the more impacted students and I'm just curious but what does what does a day look like for one of the more impacted students that doesn't get to spend as much time in the classroom um that's really more variable than probably any of our other students who are in special education just depending on their needs and how much support they need so we have some students who spend all day in the special education classroom because that's the level of support and the intensity of instruction that they need to
075make progress on their other on their IEP goals and we have other students who are you know they come and check in with this the self-contained teacher the DLC teacher in the morning and they're spending most of their day in Jed or resource room and so um it's it's really just just a a wide range um we work really hard to make sure that we are looking at data and that we are sending kids out to participate in what whatever and not just like be physically in the classroom but participate meaning fully with their peers in the gened classroom so whether that's going to recess going to lunch going to Specialists places where they can be successful and then also get that meaningful participation and social interaction with with their their peers y thank you
076do you have anything to add all right okay thank you very much enjoyed your presentation and uh congratulations on doing such a great job okay next we come to public comment on non- discussion agenda items again uh those of you do we have anybody yeah there's one we have one yeah okay I'm reminded to read this statement here so members of the public who would like to provide public comment will sign in speakers will be called in the order uh that they signed in to speak speakers will be given three minutes for their comments public comment is not the proper form 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 all right thank you
077so with that we have the first person Carol bevens hello hello hello uh I wanted to speak tonight I'm I'm sure that we've kind of all heard about this but um president Trump on February 5th he signed a executive order uh that um to keep men out of women's sports and that the schools that would would lose Federal funding who did not comply with that and then on February 6th I saw that Chris Rell the superintendent of Washington state Public Instruction issued a statement that he was working closely with the attorney general to see what the next step for our school districts would be because he he stated that this was an unlawful order so I wanted to ask tonight um what West Valley you know how West Valley district is planning to respond to
078this uh my opinion is that this is this executive order is a good thing for our girls uh the girls need to be protected physically and emotionally in in sports activities and their private spaces like restrooms and locker rooms and I would say for the boys too I raise boys they they don't want girls in their room their bathroom or in their locker room either so um and then something that while I was doing this was something that came up that's interesting I think is since November 2024 the policy of the United States capital is all single sex facilities in the capital and House Office Buildings such as restrooms and locker rooms are reserved for individuals of the biological sex and then they said it's important to note that each member of Congress has its
079own private restroom and unisex breast rooms are available throughout the capital now that really sounds like what we already have at school here and uh I think it'd be you know we already have it and maybe that's going to save us thousands of dollars of remodeling our bathrooms yeah you know and just one more example that kind of helped this bring this home for me was when I watched a video of a man uh at a Schoolboard meeting and he was expressing his outrage uh that his 10-year-old daughter was forced to share a restroom with boys and then he asked the school board members a question how they would feel if their wives were forced to undress and use the toilet in front of a man so that kind of you know makes you kind
080of think about bit so that's just my confence for tonight comments thank you thank you all right thank you for your comment all right do we have anyone else if there's no one else on the list but if anyone would like to speak that's in attendance in the public uh this is now your opportunity okay hearing none uh seeing no one that would like to speak uh again I want to thank you for your comment uh we value every input so um keep keep providing those inputs and thoughts all right so moving on um item number eight on the agenda approval of a consent agenda there are a number of items there uh again we can take these all as one item as a consent agenda or if somebody has a particular issue that they
081would like to discuss further this would be the time that we could pull something out and talk about it if you so please otherwise motion that we approve the consent agenda in all right thank you we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented um with that we'll go ahead and take a vote all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign approval consent agenda is passed [Music] that takes us to number number nine discussion items so again School Board self- evaluation next steps and so are we continuing here with h Cindy yes so uh we have Cindy McMullen uh she's a representative of the Washington State School Directors Association also a longtime board member from Central Valley of Spokan area and so at our study session we were
082able to review the board self assessment and then we also wanted some time during the regular meeting to talk about next steps so Cindy take it away thank you very much excuse me and I'm going to rely on your wonderful technology folks to get us back to um the um board self- evaluation if you could yeah um do I very beginning just you are wonderful that's what I need right thank you thank you so much for your help um first and foremost I just want to commend your special education folks and the presentation that they gave to you um the information was so amazing the fact that it was tied to your strategic plan that it talked about um inclusion and all the other wonderful things they're doing and that it was so succinct um
083one of the things that you talked about before was communication and with your community and I'm wondering what happens to that presentation now that it's been given to you does it go anywhere else is it perhaps something that that um a service club might be interested in knowing about and you as a board member together with a staff member might that might be a possibility of sharing those things um I guess what I'm thinking of is you already have some wonderful information and communication products like what what your special education folks gave you you don't have to invent anything new and right now I'm sure I can see I can see your superintendent nodding please don't ask my staff to invite invent anything more new um but um those are tools that you might be
084able to use for your communication of the work that you have directed through the Strategic plan that you have supported through the budg and through um the folks who are being hired and that you are holding the district accountable for providing education to all your students at the highest level um just a thought what we talked about the things that you pretty much agreed on um that you were doing well and then the things that um you gave yourself a b or a C+ in um what we didn't talk about yet are the ones where you have differing opinions um and so um I there are about six of them that I'd like um to review with you and um the first one is um on page four not of this document but the document
085that we were using before it's question six okay and this is provide information to the public that supports the board's discussions and decisions and you can see that three of you think you do that pretty often and um one of you thinks most of the time and one of you doesn't seem to think that that you're doing that very well and I'm wondering what it is for the folks who saidou know we're doing that pretty well um what did you base your answer on where are you communicating how are you communicating I I you know I'm trying to remember what I answered but I think that I answered that we do that pretty well and I think um I think one of the things that Peter has done well is putting the information out there
086so you can go to our website and um I mean there's always the more information you put on a website the harder it is to find any information right so there is a lot of information on there but um you can find those things on the website um you know and I think um usually information is put out in public ahead of time if it's uh on uh G to be on our agenda or something you know so I I do think that that is one thing that um I don't know in my opinion I think that's what I answered yeah I remember answering the same that was actually a perception from the wasda conference that we went to uh I'd heard time and time again about how many different districts it's very difficult to
087get any information and they were telling stories about how uh sometimes they would have to go to the office to hear a transcript just to get the information and then I began to think about how Dr Finch has just consistently posted everything everywhere uh there's always information there's always routes to talk there's always ways to get community and so it's one of those ones where I think that if we were to compare our district to other districts I think there is a lot of transparency and there's a lot of ability to get information out um so do you have specific information that that is tied to your agenda that's um published to the public yeah well one thing that I think we do is don't we make a public copy of the agenda and the
088and the package that goes out before the board meetings and that's a valuable source of information for the public to use um I don't know how often it's used but you know I I think it's a good tool that's out there and we do get some regulars that show up to some of our meetings and I really appreciate that I just wish we had more of them but it's good to see that you know there are people that are genuinely interested and I don't want to take any way anything away from the people that I have talked to that say I do attend but I'm I'm online where I go and look at our our stuff that's another vehicle that you know gets information out there um I think that one of the most important
089aspects of all of this is that even for those who don't come when they become aware of an issue you know they tend to get involved I mean I'd rather have something than nothing if you know what I mean there in terms of involvement so um there's something to be said both ways about that but still um involvement is involvement and we need more of it the hope there is that it becomes contagious but the information the key that I was really going with where I'm going with all of this is that the information that's in that package is really quite good um you know if you read through it I know I go through it and I know that my colleagues here on the board I could tell they go through that information it
090really has a lot of punch in it and and if we get our community to start looking more and more into those things um that's going to just help facilitate all the discussions we have well plus the public has the minutes of every meeting videotape of every meeting so I mean it's all there to be had if they want to yeah I agree and maybe it's just thinking about all of those things and then when the public said well why did you do that being able to explain it qu then but say and I would encourage you to go and look at the recording and and hear what we talked about or we had a number of uh documents or information and that would be in the February 25th board meeting and you can go
091and you can see exactly what it was we looked at when we made our decision um most of the time I think it's just a matter of of reminding people that you have it first of all that you're not the five of you are not rolling dice and coming up with an answer um but um that you have really good information and then helping them find it um so that it can be shared and as you point out I just want to add one last thing is that um we have used that exact approach in the past I know that a number of board members and some that are no longer here but have referred to when a member of the community comes to us and said well how did you get to this point
092and the discussion is there and we would point back to the fact you can it's available online you can go look at it and you can hear the entire discussion rather than us trying to recall little pieces of it um so it is a very valuable tool and it's it is used is the point I'm trying to make I think that's wonderful um there are times when you have a major issue it's not the normal business that you do um do you have processes that you use to communicate with the the public on something yes we have used Community forums um pretty well in the past and it's always a tool that's available to us as a board if something is has high high interest and expectations from the community we we want to do
093those things and I think we do and it's really great um information is disseminated early to those individuals and usually when we have those there's handouts there at the forums that people can pick up as they come into the meeting so uh those have worked well for us in the past and those have been uh hosted like at the Harmon Community Center so not necessarily having people have to come to the board meeting here but taking the board meeting to the people so it's a it's a unique event right yes around that excellent so um I don't want I don't want to call anyone out but I'm wondering if the person who um didn't feel that this was going very well feels more assured as the discussion is going along or if there are some
094specific ideas to make this better um that any of you might have um that that you want to talk about and again the question was provide information to the public that supports board disc discussions and decisions and Cindy I will say it's very possible I know I I voted I voted with the four but it's very possible that whoever put that may not remember who what they put down because many questions so I I understand that and it also may be that um and again you're a new board and so not necessarily knowing all of the ways that that gets communicated out um one thing that you might consider um some boards have been um doing this um in the last several years is um having a common set of questions that your staff answers
095when they do reports to you um we saw at our board meeting that we were asking the same questions like over and over again and we thought you know what if we if we warned the staff ahead of time that we were going to ask those questions well then we got to the point where we said to the staff your time is valuable we're not going to ask you those questions please answer those questions for us in the cover sheet for um the agenda item and so what we have is what's the budget impact how's the community been involved in this what's the history of this um the first question we ask is why why are we even talking about this um and then who who does this impact where does it impact the staff
096where does it impact the students um and we post that so that the community has those answers like going into the topic and we have found that um that General background information has been really helpful to our public and that they feel that they understand they have more background information as we start discussing it so it's an idea that you you might want um to think about and everybody's questions are always different usually the budget issue is every body comes up with that one um but it's your strategic plan it's your community so the questions you might have that are standard questions um would be unique um to your District um just for clarification so are you those common set of questions would that be so like um we had um special education come and
097present tonight so those would be questions that you give to the one presenting at the school board in that evening ahead of time is that is that what you're saying well we use um a a platform called board dos um and so we have our agendas are posted online and they have an electronic cover sheet pardon me so when you click on that particular agenda item what you get is the title what the board is being asked to do approve a policy or whatever and then below it are the questions and then the answers pres that are um the staff member is provided so um it's it's a common expectation and um so we don't we don't have to do it with each individual person everybody knows if you're going to make a presentation part
098of the presentation is that first sheet um how about if we look at um on page four um question number 45 um let me get to that here don't anybody look at the screen I don't want you to okay so this is communicate an expectation that all classrooms will Implement effective instructional practices and again most most of you feel that you do this but one of you doesn't seem to feel maybe didn't know um so much about what that is um maybe if I could ask a couple questions of your superintendent do you have a guaranteed um viable curriculum uh yes we do okay and you have training then for your staff on how how to present that not not the um finesse that teachers have and the way they bring joy to things but
099what it is that this lesson is aimed at and what we want the kids to learn right we have a periodic uh curriculum adoption and so when we adopt a new instruction materials for the curriculum then we have training for the uh the staff that are going to implement that curriculum and then I would presume in your staff meetings that um sometimes there's like a little refresher course or we're oh we're we're putting a new Twist on this so going to remember or whatever right in addition to the training that's tied to the curriculum we also have uh effective instructional practices uh especially when we look at um language acquisition so the project guided um the guided language Act was uh designed the project glad and then at the secondary level the scop the sheltered
100instruction OB observation protocol we actually had a presentation to the board last month about uh those type of effective strategies and I kept hearing over and over you know these are great strategies for English language Learners and they're great strategies for all Learners so when you're incorporating these strategies is really helping all kids in the classroom okay um after that presentation um did the board feel like um you were reassured that um there's a common approach there's um a common emphasis actually holding our our um teachers accountable to a common standard is there still any concern in that regard and if so I'm not going to ask you to talk about it now but share it with your superintendent um it may be that you saw something that um others haven't seen that will be
101an improvement to that process it may be that in all the things they shared with you that wasn't one of the things they shared with you that they're doing um and then that that would reassure you as well yeah Cindy I think that that's a good point that you make that if you feel like on some of these where maybe majority of the board was one area but maybe you were thinking something different it'd be great conversation starter with myself to get more information and and maybe again because we have some newer board members maybe there's things that are happening that they're not aware of and so it's just a chance for me to help educate again like where we're at I I also think about when Mr thorner says about joining the board is
102that it's like you're joining a conversation that's been going on a long time ahead before you and you're kind of jumping in the middle of the conversation trying to get up to speed and so just the more you know this might be an indicator different questions where maybe that you just like to have more information as a board member so certainly give me a call we can and just come into my office and sit down and talk and get more information so is there a way we can get a hold of what our answers were I do not I do not know but that's a lot of us have said this a lot a few of us have said this already like I don't remember what I put on that particular question and I know
103for a fact on a couple of them I don't even remember some of them on a couple of them I know I'm going where's the I don't know right know right and uh right you know from my perspective there's nothing here that I said I don't think we're doing that um okay for me it was more I don't know not sure don't know go ask but I don't have a copy of the survey because I had to hit enter and it was gone so um so it it would be very helpful in processing this if if you could have a copy and then sort of look through it and and just lifelong learner type stuff right I will take that back to wasda um you fill this all out and wasda does its magic with
104it and then your superintendent and I at the same time get an email with the results and if nothing else I can certainly look at these questions and like you just suggested go back over them and say you know I don't know this I better come and ask you so in absence of that yeah one of the reasons that I like to go over the ones where there is this great um diversion in how you're thinking about it is sometimes it's exactly the discussion we're having here sometimes though it is a real difference of opinion and it's important for all of us to know what our other board members are thinking or how they're viewing a particular topic and um more than once I have thought when we've done our um evaluation I think we're
105doing pretty well on this and then a board member and I will say it is usually a new board member who has a a different perspective an outside view of what we've been doing will say well I don't think I I thought that meant we did this and this and this and we've never done any of that it's like oh hadn't thought about it that way hadn't seen that perception um and particularly um with a new board member they often bring the community's perception of what we're doing and that's a tremendous thing to be able to learn as as I guess a polite term as a veteran member of the board um to see it in a little different light so that um we do we do better when we can um the other policies
106we've talked about a little bit that you um you had a Divergence on um had to do with communicating regarding issues and um the performance expectation of the superintendent and you've really kind of already talked about those before um I think it's just a matter of focus um and I I think you talked about that yourselves and I would also say um we have a tendency to let's say it's the superintendent expectations we talk about those right around either hiring a new superintendent go after the community what do we want all of that or when we evaluate the superintendent but we don't do it on sort of an ongoing basis and yet we are doing that we are we have our expectations of the superintendent we're thinking about how well he's doing and how proud
107We Are to have this superintendent and maybe it's something that could be commented on every so often um rather than just leaving it for once a year um and there might be for example if you I I would think the inclusion um model um would be something that um not only to congratulate your your special education department on but that takes leadership from your superintendent that's um a new not new but it is it's it's a um Cutting Edge process and not every district is doing it and it takes the superintendent saying this is what we're going to be doing whether special ed came to him and said this is what we want to do or whether he he helped get that at the formation stage I think you can take that good news and
108you can communicate it to your public that you had a high expectation of your superintendent that every student regardless of their ability would have a maximum opportunity to learn and this is one of the things that we're doing in our district because of that as opposed to okay we have 10 things that we want the superintendent to check off during the coming year yes those are your expectations but but that's not necessarily meaningful to your community um so looking looking at what you agree with your superintendent are his goals for the coming year and how you're going to evaluate that and then look for opportunity ities to share those goals because they're the expectations and the things that the superintendent is doing to meet those goals as you're presented information as you're out in the
109community maybe you have a newsletter maybe you get a grant um as a result of that those those can be ways that you communicate to your community what your expectations for your superintendent are we talked a little bit about the policies to evaluate staff based on Student Success and I think um you were spoton that is something that our that the superintendent and the leadership folks that's their responsibility um one of the things that you do have I'm sure is that because it's required by state law um is that your staff will be evaluated with um the teacher and principal evaluation process T um and um I know you have a busy schedule but maybe a presentation on how that goes um just in general especially since you have new board members um that might
110be something that could also be helpful um to the public um I do think there are times when the public thinks that if um a teacher is not bringing every student to an A+ level in the classroom or a the highest level on on ASC um that maybe they're they're not a good teacher we know that kids come in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of challenges but also all kinds of talents and that they learn it different rates and that they learn different things at different rates um so for me the most important thing that I ask for is what's the growth in that classroom how are we meeting the the needs of the kids in that classroom um and I I have found that with very few exceptions over the 30 plus
111years I've been doing this every teacher in their own way is an excellent teacher there are some that blow you out of the water but our most of our teachers are um tremendously talented and gifted and dedicated and we just have to see um the the work they're doing that doesn't mean that they don't need professional development or coaching or any of the other things because every day every one of us can get better at the job we do are there any any other ones on the list that you want to talk about I guess the one I wanted to ask you about is do you have do you set goals as a board or as a board superintendent team for yourselves um for each year we that the law requires that the schools have
112a plan the district has a plan um do you do that um collaboratively maybe at a retreat or something that this is what you're going to focus on and these are the goals that that you all have can you do that without it being a public meeting you can do it in public okay it but it'd be a public meeting if you did that usually F usually we do it at a retreat um we don't go anywhere we hold it in the same place um but it's a workshop kind of a thing and it's you know much more informal um your president would not need to come in a full suit and tiie he' still do it um and and you what we do is we start with a strategic plan and we say where
113does the board fit in the Strategic plan yeah we approved it but we would there are other things we could do to support the Strategic plan and then we look at those and then we say all right so so what do we want to accomplish over the next year and for us it's communication um and um uh some specific um initiatives uh cell phones in school um couple of oh a change to our calendar um a couple of other things like that that we oh good that wasn't me I hope it might have been um but um what what are the initiatives we're going to focus on and what is our role in that and how are we going to go forward um M McMullan can I ask what what is the what's the format
114of that look like um we have a one pager that I will send to um your superintendent and it has columns uh what what is the um strategic plan uh item and then um what is it that the board is going to do what is it that the superintendent is going to do and um so that and what we're trying to do is make sure that what we're focused on is aligned with what everybody else is doing I mean we're supposed to be leading but sometimes you sort of lead by encouragement rather than by uh being the band lead leer um but making sure that the things we're looking at and we're considering um are the things that the district is focused on and also Cindy wouldn't you also bring it back to the standards
115for the school board yes and then those are you could pick out just like we take the standards for the superintendent evaluation and then we've identified all right here's a strand that we want to have the superintendent focus on here's a strand here's a strand and you could do the same thing with the school board especially I mean I've heard quite a few of these were about communication which is and and engagement of the community the standard five engage local community and represent the values and expectations they hold in all the different parts of collaboration that could be an area we could dive into AB absolutely um and some of it um one of the things that we considered was what kind of professional development should we be getting um and um are is it
116General um and that's very important like the um conferences that wasda has or um the national school boards Association has but some of it also might be something specific a specific initiative that your district is undertaking um it might be around one of the things that we're getting um uh professional development in is um professional learning communities um and how those really work and what it is how does the board support those what should be our expectations and how do those how what's going on in our district and what are we trying trying to accomplish um and um and sometimes that professional development is provided by your superintendent that's what we just had that in our last meeting sometimes it is sort of a new initiative that's coming and um there are experts in the
117field who are going to give a one day or a two-day conference and you might decide that all or some of you will go to that um as a a learning tool then to bring back and and build on but those are things that you put in that in your goals um and it's a way of planning your year then what do you want to accomplish and what things do you need to um support your ability to to accomplish those things what reports will superintendent need to make sure you get to to do what are your goals um those kinds of things and I think around you know your as you said um your you what you're looking at is your communication and your sharing I agree with you that you're doing all of these
118things I'm just not sure you're you're crowing about it as well as maybe you should and telling people um that th this is what we did in this board meeting we did and why we did it we we talked about special education so that we were assured that we were meeting our strategic goal and that we were supporting all of our students and here are some of the ways we're doing that um and and just to be able now for you when you go to Rotary or Co us or lions I don't want to leave anybody out I don't want to get into trouble I don't want any club coming back and saying but she didn't sa me um but when you go and you're you're eating breakfast or lunch and you're just sitting there
119then you can say you know we had this amazing presentation from our from our special ed folks and this it it just warms my heart that we're able to do this or this or this for our students um just that little bit of communication is is huge and it will go out across the community so fast and it's your way of getting the good news out you already know that the fires get set and they go through the community quickly but if the community knows the good things that you're doing then when there's a glitch they'll usually they give you some Grace and then the next thing is they say say hm I wonder why that happened and they'll come back and give you the opportunity to um to work with them to explain it
120and if it's a glitch you know I I think we say yeah we weren't perfect on that one we something happened there and and we're learning from it and we're fixing it and we're moving forward um I hope I've given you some ideas for going forward I am happy to continue to talk with you about any ideas you have but you have given me extra time tonight I know and um I thank you for that um if you're comfortable with what we've done so far um and you're ready to call it a night that's great for me can I uh I don't really have a question for you it's more H for Dr bench um and I guess my question is um what direction um does this give you in terms of of um you
121know as you as you read maybe where we're Divergent and you know I I like the fact that we're not calling out board members and probably can't remember all of the answers but but um does this provide you does this provide you with some good feedback of some areas that that that you know you can help lead um and us in a two-way street um uh I think like I said I think there's some things here that are Illuminating that that that you know as I've said you know you come into the middle of a conversation and and yeah we're doing but maybe we need to be a little bit more intentional do you have some feedback uh some sufficient feedback do you need what direction do you need from us or would you like
122to see from us relative to this exercise well I think uh we had intentionally waited to do the self assessment while the new board members were getting up to speed and getting onboarded um and I remember their first board meeting we had Scott doist came and presented about the standards it's like welcome to the board here's all these standards I was like oh my goodness so uh it's nice to Circle back around and then do the assessment uh take a look at the standards again and so I do think um that we will continue this discussion in the future um the setting goals for improvement is uh I think we're at the point where the board is has come together as a team and is able to take a look at the standards and and
123set some goals for the future on that whereas before I think you're still getting their bearings so I think that'll be really good and also um the communication I think there's some some opportunities we have to increase communication and and take um just basically some of the things that we're doing already and make sure that we're communicating about that so we can do that that um but I would see us continuing the discussion in the future especially looking at um setting goals for the board well we we we well yes agreed we over the last two years two school years last school year we we had this goal of of of of coming up and and engaging the community and our staff in a Str a Strate IC plan and that was a goal of
124last school year this school year the overarching goal is is okay now we have the Strategic plan you know how are we going to go about implementing it and and um so I mean to may maybe that's Le maybe that's more clear to me than it might be the other school board members but that's but that's I would say that's a that's a huge undertaking and then from there we can have more specific goals after that but that's just my two cents right I see the goal the Strategic plan is the goals for the entire district and and we have been seeing some really nice alignment when we hear the um the buildings have been presenting and even this evening with special education so that's to me the overarching goals for the district but I
125think for the board itself we could also have the board set some goals on areas that the board wanted to see some improvement and um and and I think that would be a good process to do I agree I think it'd be a good process I think um I would say yes that's a that's a goal of ours implementing the Strategic plan but at the same time I I don't think we've actually had the opportunity to have the discussion and say what have our goals our goals are this you know I think it's just kind of naturally come through conversation so if we had the I do think you know I'm I was trying to wrestle through this idea of the retreat you know um and you know maybe it's just an off night board
126meeting or whatever where it is just more informal but um just for ourselves yeah historically we actually have had Retreats I think we've done it well we've done it here we've done it at Apple Tree we've done it in the summertime usually I mean um at least historically again we don't have to do it that way but historically we've done it in the summertime um prior to um so around the time that we're passing the budget and when that gets done and that part is almost done and that's when you know like early Late July early August is when we've we've done that as as Dr Finch is welcoming back the administrators and setting the table that's what we've at least done in some prior years summer seems like the right time or and or
127um the goals can be developed um out of um the uh yearend superintendent evaluation great as a springboard off that okay great all right um and then again thank you to cendy MC for making the trip from Spokan so really appreciate thank you Cindy assisting any more discussion on any of that so not we'll go ahead and move on to item number 10 on the agenda public comments of discussion items so again this is a place where um we can talk about or the public can comment on any of our discussion items if there are any comments out there anyone all right hearing none we'll move on to to item number 11 on the agenda approval of travel request a reminder that there's one listed but three more items that Dr F do you want
128to delineate those real quick for us sure so we have on the agenda 11 A1 is a trip for the State uh tennis tournament which would be in May and then we're adding item two the boys basketball trip to mil Creek on February 2728 for the first round of the state tournament and then item number three is the boys basketball trip to Tacoma for the state tournament at the Tacoma Dome it's March 4 to March 8 and you can take those all as one item approval so there's four or three there's three three yes I had the same question thank you for the clarification so three total I'll move to approve the travel requests one through three as presented okay we have a motions to um approve the three travel requests so we'll go ahead
129and vote all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion for travel request carries 5 Z next we have approval of policy addition revision second readings again there's the infectious disease anexis prevention and response opioid related overdose reversal uh employment of volunteer disclosures certification requests insurances and approval and 6600 The Last One Transportation I should say I think that's the last one on there so uh again any more questions or any more information you care to share Dr Finch on any of those no this will be second reading okay um can we take these all together or do we need to break these apart you can take them together all right we'll take them together if somebody again would like to make a motion I'll make a motion to take them
130together all approve them together okay thank you all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries for the approval of policy additions and revisions second reading 5 z um last on there is the approval of the 2526 instructional calendar hopefully everybody had a chance to see that already um if there are no questions on that then we'll go ahead and I'll entertain a motion for that I'll make a motion to approve thank you we have a motion to approve the 2526 instructional calendar we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign motion carries 5 Z approval of 2526 instructional calendar item 12 on the agenda items arising anybody have anything um yeah I do I'll just uh share so since I
131became the wi a representative for the uh board um been trying to pay attention and learn some more the last couple months with that but um do want to make everyone aware I think we are aware uh the wi is going to be voting on 21 amendments um which is a normal thing that they do every year but that's going to be April 9th through the 18th and two of those amendments uh number seven and number eight um will designate uh girl sport number seven would designate girl sports for biological females and then leave an open division for boys and then number eight is another option which would designate uh girls sports for biological females uh boy sports for biological males and then an open Division and so essentially what's going to happen is when
132this if the if they were to vote and approve this the and it's done by the athletic directors that represent the six no the eight districts no the six districts it is the six districts in our state um so they'll they'll vote for this and those do go against our state law but what will happen is they'll essentially they'll go up on a shelf because there is anticipation uh that that law will be will change uh in our state and so when that Law changes uh the WIA will be able to uh implement it and they'll be ready for it and so um there's a resolution that I put forward and I would like us to consider the resolution uh March 25th but it is uh to make a statement that we are in support
133of uh amendment number seven and amendment number 8 um and uh so uh that's all I'll say about it tonight but that's um I would like to have that added to the agenda for then okay did everybody get a copy of that resolution proce it all right I guess we'll put it on the calendar for the 25th 20 what was at the next meeting in April right the second meeting in April March March I'm sorry March 2th um and I guess at some point we should have I guess a discussion about even the resolution itself so I guess that's what we'll do on the at that point all right any other items arising okay um we'll go on to reports um there are three items listed there the enrollment report safety report travel log report
134uh anything to add there Dr Finch really nothing to add okay any anything else from any of the board members on any of those all right we'll go to the superintendent report Dr Finch our last board meeting we had a presentation regarding our transitional bilingual instructional program uh there was a request to provide some more information about the actual numbers and not just percentages and so I pres provided that additional information in the superintendent report that's all good all right item 15 board reports board development I just wanted to say I went with my wife and I went to Cinderella the other night and it was uh the students they just did a great job it was a very good very good drama and uh Casey had a lot to do with tech stuff or
135everything to do with it so it it went really well it's fun to watch great anybody else anything else my wife reported similar sentiments about Cinder I also got yelled at with because apparently this I I got I got yelled at literally by her because apparently the stage is not in the front where the pit is isn't secure or stable oh okay and so like some of the stage wasn't used and I'm like well but I'm not in charge of the stage um anyway uh apparently there the in the auditorium uh some of it might not be because it's unstable okay so something maybe to look at but she but that aside it was uh um uh she loved it and my son loved it as well well tickets are sold out for Thursday night
136but there are still tickets available for Friday Saturday mat day and Saturday night um Dr Finch can I go back to um item 11 see the resolution can and we make sure a fresh copy of that resolution is in the next agenda package for the at least for that date right for the the resolution would be for the March 25th that's correct for that meeting I just want to make sure there's a fresh copy in the agenda package yes for the board package at least okay all right hearing nothing else we will adjourn tonight's meeting 818 again February 20 25th 2025 thank all of you for attending those who Brave the elements to get to our meeting uh we appreciate you and being here tonight thank you