001e e e I'll call this meeting to order on February 11th 2025 at 7M I'll call to excuse Mark Strong He'll Be Tardy tonight and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation indivisible any changes to the agenda no changes okay we have some Communications uh there's just the response to public comment as a placeholder there was no public comment at the last meeting so we can move to the next agenda item and then it looks like we have a program presentation yes uh program presentation tonight is on our transitional bilingual instructional program we have our director of state and federal programs gerlyn ashon is here this evening and and our instructional coach for
002the program is here Rebecca Festa we'll go ahead and have the board join the audience so we can see the presentation and afterwards we'll have the board come back up and do some question and answer okay thanks for having us again this evening uh seems like I just presented on transitional bilingual in the fall uh when we uh presented you with the Grant and we received Grant approval uh for this program which is kind of a new uh ask from the state to get that approval but tonight we just want to share with you the implementation and some of the work that we've been doing this year to improve our program so again I'm jlyn ashot and this is Rebecca Festa um this is the only slide I'll read verbatim I feel like it's a
003very important slide and it really gives you a nice overview of what the state transitional bilingual program is all about the St State transitional bilingual education program or we refer to it as tbip and federal title three address the unique needs of eligible students who come from linguistically and culturally diverse background backgrounds both programs share the same goal to develop language proficiency that enables meaningful access to grade level content and instruction in state law tbip or transitional bilingual is a program within Washington State's basic education act supporting supplemental instruction and services for language acquisition the state transitional bilingual program places a strong emphasis on cultural values and its mission is English language Learners or uh elll students or you might hear it referred to as multilingual Learners now or MLL students meet state standards and
004develop language Proficiency in an environment where Language and Cultural assets are recognized as valuable resources for learning uh this is the state MTS model so when we talk about MTS mtss we're talking about multiple multi-tiered system of support so we look at um tier one as being the core the General Ed classroom where all students receive the support that they need in tier two some students might receive additional support um academic supports based on their student learning needs and tier three would be more intensive academic supports for students with greater needs so the state has really moved the transitional bilingual program to a multi-tiered system of court and I'll show you what that looks like in West Valley so in West Valley I I've made my our own diagram here um and what that looks
005like is all of our multilingual Learners are really served by their general education teacher um who has either has expertise with uh multilingual Learners so maybe they've got an an elll endorsement an English language endorsement or they have some um extensive training to help support the work that they do in the classroom or they work with someone like an instructional coach like Rebecca who has that expertise um so really in the core in the general classroom we are looking for intentional moments throughout the day during whole group instruction where teachers are really tuning in to what their multilingual Learners need helping them access the content and that can look a lot of different ways and we'll show you some of those ways here in a moment we're also looking for some small group instructional time
006where they're getting more English language development so really strategies to increase their productive language so whether it's their writing or their speaking but it's really intentional around their English language development and um that that can look like being in a group with other multilingual Learners and that would be during a time of no new class instruction and that can happen in the core or tier two um so again some students are going to get more services than others depending on their needs so we did a little uh when I was writing the Grant in the fall I I had to uh share some dat with the state and so I did a little digging on Washington state report card and you can see our three-year trend for n9th grade on track um so in 2122
007we had 32% of our ninth graders on track 22 23 49% and then in 23 24 we were at 45% for English language Learners thank you for that clarification yes I'm talking specifically about our multi-lingual Learners here um our four-year graduation rate our Trend here is 212 2 we started at 64% uh 22 23 76% and 23 24 73% for our multilingual Learners our three-year multilingual exit rate so this is students who are transitioning out of the program um and so yeah nice increase there of course three years ago we started a new uh assessment so we had the weda instead of the elpa both are English language proficiency assessments um and so in 2122 was the first year of that assessment so of course uh we had I think 15 students transition out of
008program that year uh and then the second year we were at um 6.87% of students transitioned out and then last year we had a nice bump of 88.8% which was great I will tell you there are a lot of variables uh involved in that one being they did change the criteria just a little bit so the state overall did see an increase so every year we just hope to see more and more students transition out of multilingual Services um and so we really that was the great that was the good data right we we liked that data but we had some data that we felt um we could work on so here's one uh we're looking at multilingual students who have not exited services in more than five years um the classification that the state
009uses is long-term English language Learners Rebecca queued me into a term the other day called experienced language Learners which I liked but of course the state calls them long-term English language Learners and we really have uh the state is at 32% of students in Washington state are long-term English language Learners the other fact she shared with me is she said Washington State's pretty high compared to the rest of the country for long-term English language Learners West Valley School District is at 38% when I first was looking at this data I was filtering the data wrong and I I told Stacy Drake we were at 46% and we were like no state of Crisis 38% is still too high for our students remaining in program for that long and then at the middle level campus and
010at the high school I would tell you that 75 to 80% of our multilingual Learners have been in program for five or more years so we really felt like the urgency around what can we do to increase the uh the awareness of the needs of our students and make sure they're really getting the support that they need so that's a big chunk of the work that we're doing this year the other piece of data that we looked at and we're like okay we need to do something here is our multilingual students who are also dually qualified for special education and ml services and the state is at 19% and we in West Valley we at 28% of our students were dually qualified so that was that's an interesting statistic and we were like we want
011to look into that a little bit and find out why why why the difference there so we set some goals we said uh we'd like to increase profession Prof development for our teachers uh we have a nice amount of teachers who have been trained in glad and scop strategies throughout the district in fact K5 you'll find very few teachers that don't have the training every year where we have trainers of trainers in our district so they actually train our new teachers and we make a space for that to happen uh during the school day for them um so we're increasing that we're really going to be looking at our larger buildings that have at the third fourth and fifth grade level helping them embed these strategies in their planning especially around our new hmh into
012reading curriculums making it intentional so again multilingual services are really about being an intentional intentional with access points for Success um we've started classroom walkthroughs with the lens of what's happening in our classrooms right in terms of meeting the needs of our English language Learners so Rebecca and I will join an instructional coach at the building and we'll go through and we'll look at what's happening and we'll have a nice conversation about it and then ways that they can support the teachers um and just looking for those implementation of best practices and then we thought and I I spoke with cesan our special ed director and I we've looked at some a book study u a process that we think might bring some clarity for us we want to re-evaluate the referral process of multilingual
013students for special education and so we did find um it's uh Steve Gil is the author I don't know if anyone's familiar with him but something called the critical data Matrix and it's really about the referral process how to um how to determine whether or not to continue with an evaluation for a multilingual student not just looking at language but really looking at the whole child and their needs so we're in the middle of that book study now so Rebecca's going to talk a little bit about the professional development I okay so in looking at professional development this year we um are offering our teachers glad and scup workshops glad is guided language acquisition design and scap is sheltered observation instructional protocol which are programs that uh give strategies to support multilinguals uh students in
014the classroom but the strategies are great for all students um that give access to the content at the students level or of need and so we have some 4-day workshops for glad um and two-day workshops we also have a combined glad s up after school workshop for teachers to come bring curriculum and then um get some help with scaffolds and supports and we've really centered around the new uh reading curriculum hmh oh did I go too far that was correct I just added it oh okay oh so this is what you might see us working on in professional development I think this was a 4-day workshop inside a teachers's classroom there's a lot of Engagement when you use the strategies of um glad and scop the next professional development piece is um instructional coaching we
015have Jesse gobec who's at the middle level she's the instructional coach for sixth to 8th grade and she meets with teachers during plan or before or after school to support them around um instruction for multilingual Learners and then teachers can also um meet with me or and I also lead PD for high school and um our elementary schools and so uh we're just making sure that we um utilize our time um to make sure that all of our students can access the content and then um increase in their English language proficiency and we also have a professional development coming up for teachers where we're going to really dive into um the English language proficiency standards which is weda and weda does not stand for anything like normally in teaching we have an acronym for everything
016but it doesn't anymore um and we're going to dive into um how they can utilize those language standards within the classroom uh for their students and tailor them to their students proficiency levels and we're going to Center our um training this year on third to fifth grade and our larger um elementary schools that have the most multilingual students and that is coming in the next month so implementation okay so the implementation of these Services um we are we hope for teachers to take away from those trainings and Implement them immediately or pretty quickly into their classrooms and and after they've had the training they have the opportunity to um do professional or to plan independently to work with the instructional coach to work in their plc's their professional learning communities their grade level teams um
017and so they really have the opportunity in fact last week we had a 4-day glad training at Cottonwood and one of the teachers I was in her classroom yesterday so she was out Monday through Thursday last week no school on Friday she comes back and she's in the classroom yesterday and I observed her using two or three different strategies and she came up to me and she said the engagement is incredible my kids are loving this so she implemented those strategies right away which is really exciting um also again evaluating the effectiveness of that professional development as we walk through we're looking at how can we improve professional development what are we seeing teachers use and what are we not seeing and then how can we improve that we do also ask for teachers to
018report on um the strategies they're using through our progress monitoring it's an online platform so they share how the students doing and they let us know what strategies they're actually implementing so that's great for self-reporting on the work that they're doing so we're going to talk a little bit about some pictures um and some strategies that are being implemented in the classroom this strategy that this teacher is using in a third grade elementary was it third grade fourth grade excuse me Elementary classroom is a sentence patterning chart but he did a little bit of a variation where he used a whiteboard and they used vocabulary that um was current to a unit that they were learning in class and the um sentence patterning chart gives students an opportunity on the chart they um have adjectives
019nouns adverbs verbs and prepositional phrases that they build a whole sentence together and the students were so engaged in this activity there were six students around the table and I think they met for at least half hour that day and each student was using the vocabulary words and some of the word um what was the one Exquisite yes um they were using them correctly and then they were adding to their sentences and to see um the success that they had using this kind of um strategy was it was great uh the next strategy is a turn and talk so we really encourage that academic discourse or lots of opportunities to talk it might also be referred to as a 10 to so teacher talks for 10 minutes students have two minutes to share with one
020another uh wonderful strategy and you can see all students in this group are actively engaged so here you see popsicle sticks but they're used for a reason in the classroom and the um uh strategy is called numbered heads and using this strategy a teacher will give a subject to a student or content to the students to talk about or a question and they can discuss it first amongst themselves and then prepare an answer and in this class um she was using sticks to call um all different students in the class and if a student doesn't know the answer the teacher will put the um popsicle stick aside and some times tell the class or the groups to put their heads back together think about um an answer so that student then can answer later so
021this is a really great Cooperative um learning tool I think the really important thing to say about this strategy it's holding the student accountable for having a response so even if they don't know they have the opportunity to come back to their table group even uh for a student who maybe doesn't have very much English they can mimic the response of their group so it's giving them that tool for Success right I I can say it because my table has helped me with it uh the next strategy is course sentence frames or paragraph frames so giving uh students an opportunity to access the content starting with a response and kind of filling in the blank providing some structure for them so that they are able to respond to to a concept as well this um
022strategy is cooperative paragraph um The Cooperative strip paragraph is a writing strategy that helps students uh learn to write cooperatively and effectively and they end up um bringing their pieces to a sentence and uh or bringing a whole sentence and then they rearrange the paragraph order and in the end they have a piece of writing that um they can use in their lesson um and so this really helps those reluctant writers ERS or new writers to English uh really solidify what your sentence should have this is an example of a slide that was actually um enhanced from hmh into reading it's a vocabulary word the vocabulary word is Cel counil um it's used in a sentence it's got a realistic photograph and then at the bottom it actually has it's not an example of one
023that is a sentence stem it's like giving them the choice of words I believe to use but again giving the students an opportunity to orally Express the word in a sentence many of the slides had sentence stems these are examples of different input charts there are pictoral input charts narrative input charts and comparative input charts and this enables a teacher to build background on the subject that they're learning about and um use picture representations and write down what students know about uh the content that they're learning in the class what I like about this uh the input charts is oftentimes the information is chunked by color and Stu teachers are giving the information and often saying say it with me students have the opportunity to repeat it so it's really imprinting on the students brain
024there's a lot of brain research around that really imprinting that information on the students's brain brain and making it memorable so it's something they can come back to and access later uh this is an example of a narrative it looks like it's a process grid so again information um it looks like it's beginning middle and end of a story I actually didn't see this one in play I just saw it on the wall um but again helping students access information so they can use that in their writing or in their oral language um within glad um they use different strategies to group students throughout the class so they can cooperatively work together and this teacher used the current vocabulary as their table names so the teacher would call on um the table Group by the
025vocabulary word and this one happened to be laws laws okay and every time she called on the group laws they would then say the definition of the word so that repetition is really great for learning students have to keep hearing um the uh vocab as well as the definition over and over um to get the meaning uh these were chance so the first one is snow I didn't see that one in action but I did observe the second chant in a classroom this was and I don't have the title on the top there it was a text feature bugaloo so the students process the chant with the teacher they read she reads it to them they read it together um then she hands out these picture cards uh with the vocabulary that's in the bugaloo
026I believe it was Let's see we have photographs captions uh timelines all of those kind of things and when they run when they go back through the chant together students who have the picture go up and put it on top of the word so again really beneficial to not only our multilingual learners but any student who's learning new vocabulary and this is a scout who was giving team points the classes the teacher breaks them up in teams and um a scout is normally looking for the behavior standard of the class and uh typical Behavior standards are um make good or show respect make good decisions and solve problems so the Scout is looking to see um if the different groups are doing those things and then offering points to the different groups and JN observ
027that yeah I actually saw both of these in action so the first group the teacher said uh today we're working for 300 points mind you they get nothing for their points okay she said today we're working for 300 points so the Scout that's the Scout actually right there he said well I saw the council table doing this and so he went up and gave them 300 points in the example on the right in that classroom they were working for uh seven or three points and she had them turn around and tell me why seven and three and they said they're working on on groups of 10 so you know multiple strategies embedded in this one okay okay this is our English language uh development tabletop so this came with hmh our into reading program that
028was just adopted and this is directly connected to the lesson of the day and so it's a great resource for um again multilingual learners but again I would say you could use it with other students as well um it's Reading Writing listening and speaking and if I on lesson 10.5 I can flip this book up to lesson 10.5 and it's a direct correlation to the Core lesson for the whole class so it's an excellent tool to either pre- or retach our multilingual Learners this is a variation that the teacher was using of the Frayer model of um vocabulary where pardon sorry wasid oh at the middle level um and the Frayer Model normally the student puts the vocabulary word sometimes I would have students put um the word write the word in their own language
029um the definition draw a picture sometimes you draw a non representation of the vocabulary word as well but again we know that writing and pictures um really help solidify that content for the students more examples at the middle level of language stems these were um specific to having conversations so how do we have a conversation in this class here are some language stems to help you have that academic conversation and this is a a middle level example of a comparative input chart um so I don't really have any specifics on that I just was one that I saw so nice to see it being used at the middle level though um so again uh some other high yield strategies uh when working with students and these this is really centered around the work that's happened
030at the high school level Rebecca's really worked nicely with them around access assessing or accessing or assessing I guess prior knowledge uh building and building that background knowledge using gestures visuals realia thinking partners and having clear explanations and then also providing structured support using sentence frames word Banks graphic organizing graphic organizers and modeling so a plethora of strategies that can be used to support our students and help them have um success and really develop their English language proficiency we're also engaging like I mentioned um we we have that data that shows that we have a high number of students who are dually qualified uh in special education and multilingual um years back uh when I was multilingual instructional coach at the middle level I remember testing students uh on the annual waeda and uh more
031than 50% of the students in the room were students on IEPs they were multilingual and they were on IEPs so one thing we're really careful about in education is not overidentifying our multilingual Learners as students with special needs having uh not being proficient in the English language does not mean you have a disability so it's something we always consider um that taking that into account we also don't want to not evaluate a student just based on language so this book study um we're just getting into it we have only had our first me planning meeting uh but we're working Rebecca and I um are meeting with uh season Alon the special ed director Stephanie Melton the assistant special ed director um a school psychologist um I just lost Megan Megan Megan Alderson and then uh
032manura Paro is gonna join us there's a family interview component to this evaluation process so we included family engagement on that book study and so we're really hoping uh to gain some insight about looking at all aspects of the child when when those referrals are made and then um taking that out to our school syes hopefully next fall that's our goal so um that's it any questions for us or I guess back to your seats and then we'll take questions well JN and Rebecca thank you for informative presentation and if the board has any questions good time here for a question and answer I just have a couple um their numbers questions um when I look at the enrollment report um it breaks it down and there's bilingual students is every multilingual student a bilingual
033student on our enrollment report um if they're in the trans so you can be bilingual and not be in the transitional bilingual program okay but if they're in the transitional bilingual program yes they're a multilingual student okay so that's confusing yeah it is confusing but yeah those are the students that are in program and so we do have students that exit program and then they're no longer on the count for the elll the the transitional Bilal program at that point okay um would it be possible so the the the slides that you had at the beginning about transitioning out and progress uh toward graduation Etc the percentages are are helpful kind of um it would be interesting I would be interested in knowing the the the actual numbers to go along with the percentages it's
034just I I think that would help illuminate some things at least in my own mind so if that's POS I can get that to you to the whole y yeah thank you thank you you're welcome and just for the slides Michael that you see here yeah okay yeah I mean I'm just trying to get my head wrapped I mean like I can see in the enrollment report for example that we have you know of the you know 5,000 or so FTE that we have we have 523 I'm sorry 525 uh bilingual students and so just trying to get my head wrapped around how many students were were talking about and that's just more of my for my own edification and curiosity yes I can get that to you thank you perfect and another thing we
035when the board has questions like that it's nice that uh JN you can you can provide the information to me and I'll put it in my superintendent's report for a future board meeting that way it's in the public record and it's shared with the public as well so they get the same information yes I'll get that to you thank you yes any others so just go ahead go ahead Steve just a quick comment I just appreciate um as you're talking through this just always trying to improve on where you're at and rethinking strategy all along the way just appreciate that and a question if I wanted to come and observe something going on what would be the best way to do that talk to you or um I would I'm happy to have you along
036on a walkth through would be totally fine um if I wasn't with you and we hadn't arranged it I might would just check with the building principal okay um but if you wanted the lens of the multilingual learner uh Rebecca and I would be happy to assist you with a walkthr with that lens I think that would be most helpful because you're gon to be able to point out here's a glad strategy and and you'll be able to show how we're implementing what the teachers are learning in the professional development so that'd be nice we'll actually be at Mountain View at 1:15 tomorrow if You' like to join us I'll check my SK me know thank you appreciate um I do appreciate just seeing the implementation it's just very much it looks like you're thinking
037outside the box and how do we engage the student in order to learn and um what in those implementation examples you gave are those gened classes or those specifically elll classes really good question those are general education classes one of them some of the examples uh at the middle level were from an intervention class um but it uh where might get a little more extra English language development support um but we are really it's it's changed the model has changed uh English language development used to be more of a pullout type service and now we're we're really saying to the teachers you are not just teachers of your content you're teachers of the language of your content so it's the academic language that students are working a lot of our multilingual students are uh socially
038proficient right in the English language but not necessarily academically proficient so that's really the focus is the academic language do you get a lot of buying from the teachers on on the because a lot of it right now because I know the grant was just new this fall you know and so it's implementing it now but do you it seems like a lot's going towards the professional development of teachers do you FR uh the Grant's been around for a very long time I can't even speak to how long it's been around this was the first year we had to have board approval for it okay so it's it's a um formula grant so it's not a competitive Grant so it's one as long as the state has the funds we will receive them as long
039as we do the work uh we fill out the grant we set goals we work towards them um do we get a lot of I in yeah I think you know we're all always learning we're always working to improve I I do want to give kudos to Peter because years ago and I think it was like 2011 is um he invested heavily in Glad training for most of our Elementary staff and so it's been really easy to keep up with that because we have two uh two trainers in our district so we no longer go to the ESD and pay a lot of money for the training plus pay for their sub we only pay for their sub uh and then I pay for the trainers to do some planning so uh we're in a
040really good spot at the at the elementary and middle level um Rebecca is a scop trainer and so some of the PD she provides especially at the secondary level where scop seems to be more of those um easier to Implement strategies for the secondary schools uh she's provided that to the high school so uh just continuing to talk about it it's kind of our motto instructional coaches we say be the blanket right how many sometimes we have to hear things multiple times uh but that's the beauty of the walkthroughs and the instructional coaching it's that job embedded professional development um where we're constantly talking about it so right for the guided language acquisition design we're at the point where all of our veteran teachers have receiv received training and so now just if there's someone
041new to the district then we can jump in and make sure that they get up to speed and remembering that some of our schools aanam Valley this year had no new classroom teachers so there was not a need to train at aanam uh last year Apple Valley had no new classroom teachers so you know we're at a nice place where we have built that capacity in in District for project glad and then for uh the sheltered instruction observation protocol at the secondary level I think it really does appeal to our secondary teachers because they can see right I'm a social studies teacher I got my social studies content and then Rebecca comes in and says okay with scup you need to think about the Reading Writing listening speaking so not only the social studies content
042but how are you gon to have the students engage with language reading writing listening speaking and so really there's that English language development Target for your lesson as well as the content of the lesson and that is across all content areas and so it's really nice to have our instructional coach be able to help teachers think about it it and I think when you frame it that way for our secondary teachers it makes sense so they're like oh yeah that that's right I'm gonna have my students do something engage with this content either through Reading Writing listening or speaking or maybe multiple in the lesson and so just having that thought partner of Rebecca being able to think through your lesson how do I bring in the English language development skills it's been uh very
043well received by our secondary teachers and I think I would just reiterate that it's about being intentional and knowing who you're multilink Learners are and and being intentional on your planning so yeah thank you great job thank you yes any other questions no awesome thank you thank you all right thank you very much all right next we have a the public comment of non- discussion agenda items so um we may have people in the audience that are interested in the discussion item uh just to preview that's going to be item 10 on the agenda which is capital projects there'll be a discussion of the school board regarding the um single use bathroom project that was previously approved by the board and uh has been placed on indefinite hold uh while the board is has opportunity
044for discussion and so there may be some interest in some public comment there and that would be item 11 on the agenda public comment of discussion items so at this time if there is a public comment of a non- discussion item that we could have a public comment knowing that you will have time for public comment of the discussion item as item 11 okay um I apologize for being a little late here today I just wanted to be a parent and see my daughter play basketball downstairs I hope you could gather by the loud roar at the end that we we won the game update all right uh thank you Dr Finch that's moving on to item eight on the agenda the consent approval of the consent agenda again anyone that has any item in
045particular they want to talk about we can or if someone would like to make a motion to approve we have the minutes um from the January 28th the minutes and study session approval of resignations retirements and separations um there's one item there as well so I'll make a motion all right so we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries 5 Z on approval of consent agenda we also have item um agenda item number nine action items approval of travel request and I'll make the same um comments um we can take those all As one item or we can break those apart if there are individual comments that individual or questions you would have
046on any of those items I'll make a motion to approve the travel requests including the three that came to us today thank you for that U I was going to mention that but thank you for including that just just just a question then uh just to make sure so in the it's there's six right yes that's correct correct item 9A and it's one through six perfect yes thank you and that included those additional items um there was a later addition that came out okay do we have a motion yes okay we have a motion to approve item nine on the agenda approval of travel requests we'll go ahead and take a vote all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries to approve the travel request on the agenda items
047one through six moving on to item 10 sorry 9 9B sorry um approval of the 2425 highly capable program or high cap program um looks like there are four items listed there annual plan one through four um we can again um have discussion on those or answer any questions or we can take a vote to approve the items as presented I'll make a motion to approve the items as presented all right thank you Mr Kart so we'll go ahead ahead and vote on item 9B approval of the 2425 highly capable program plan go ahead and vote all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries 5- Z Item 10 all right discussion items Capital project so there were four items as Dr Finch um alluded to um I guess we
048are going to hold off on the the restroom ISS is until we've had a chance to do a little bit more discussion and research on it um but again there are three other items there and do we have um well uh just wanted to make sure that we're kind of we're on the same page in that the process on how we got to where we're at today so and I did have Tera Kobe of Tera you could come to the microphone because um we had uh I I put together article that um I posted to the website and included in the uh board packet we had that on uh Friday and that kind of gave the background uh Tara Kobe was uh helped to lead uh Community uh initiated effort here to educate the board
049on uh the benefits of single use restroom and Tara presented to the school board I included her presentation from the past in the board packet and there was also frequently Asked question that Tara had found um from her research really from across the country we include that in the board packet as well there are the uh rendering drawings that we include in the board packet I also include that one of those on the website so people could see what the uh rendering drawings looks like and then I included that article in the board packet as well just wanted to maybe start off the discussion give Tara a chance to talk again through that process of where you had looked across the country you had gathered signatures I believe over 700 signatures brought that to the
050board and just get wanted to have you a chance to share with the board again the the information that you had shared it's been quite a while since you had a chance to to address the board so I wanted to start off with uh giving Tara a chance to just kind of get the board up to speed thank you so um this actually has been going on for a really long time the first time I brought this to the board's attention was in the fall of 2021 when um my second son was a senior at the high school and he came home one day and said that he had been in the locker room after his weights class and Chang or prior to his weight's class and he was changing and um noticed that there
051was um a an individual who was transitioning from female to male and she was changing they were changing in the locker room and that um made him very uncomfortable to the point that for the rest like this became an a regular occurrence for him that this was happening and so he started just changing in the bathroom stalls because it felt for him very uncomfortable and he was not alone in this there were multiple of his friends that were also in this class that were experiencing the same discomfort um at this and I thought that seemed not an appropriate thing that should be going on so um I talked with him I started talking with other parents finding out if there were other situations happening at school and um there was a young woman who was
052in the restroom taking care of things and um as she was in there she heard a male voice in there as she is taking care of things and um was you know shocked feeling very um vulnerable at that moment and so anyways she brought the concern to her mom who talked to um Mr McMurray about it and said and Mr McMurray expressed that um as a an admin team they kind of their hands were tied that the state allows that there can be no um there cannot be any what is the word I'm drawing a blank sorry um segregation or you know they can't you can't you can't force somebody to use a certain place a certain restroom or a certain whatever and so um there was really nothing that they could do besides offering
053for any student who did not feel comfortable to be able to use the staff restroom that was near the office and so anyways I started doing some research and so over the course of the next two years I guess I anyways I brought it to the board's attention and then I started doing some research myself s and realized that we this was not a new thing that it was happening in other places in the country the entire um several school districts in Minneapolis and St Paul were experiencing this and having tremendous success it's been going on for a number of years so they're on like I think this was this first for them started in back in like 2012 so it had been going on for nine or t years and they were doing it
054um we have so I reached out to them I got information from them saw kind of what they were doing and the results of their surveys and then I decided I wanted to go and see this in person so I actually took my four kids who were home my my senior graduated and uh my four kids that were left at home we actually drove down and went to Grant High School and um there were a variety I got in touch with a firm down that has an office in Portland and also in Seattle on the west side and they she walked me through and I got to talk to the administrators to the custodians to see all of the restroom options how they had revamped this High School to be able to allow these all-inclusive
055restrooms and all of the questions that anybody has could throw at me in my research I I could almost I can I can give you an answer for for what what is the I guess what's the the answer so to speak is it a perfect solution absolutely not there's not one there there will still be I'm sure problems somewhere along the lines somebody will probably find something but what I've learned in my in my research is that we're we're providing a situation where every student regardless of the the their gender identity their whatever whatever they it's there this is a safe space for every kid and if you look at what you are doing like in your homes you have a bathroom boys and girls use the same bathroom and I know there's there I've
056talked to a lot of people a lot of people within my family like my immediate family my children my um like I've heard all of the complaints what about this what about this um and I can talk to you about all of those I don't know if we need to go into that or if you just want to ask questions but um recognizing at the point that I was doing this research that there was going to that we had excess funds and we were trying to figure out what to do with it um a group of community members decided to take around petitions create a petition and go around to several public places where there were a lot of community members from West Valley and to see what they what kind of support we had
057and so I printed off all of those anyways we had we got uh between 250 to 300 votes in per or signatures in person so I had copies of um I have I have the copies of them then people I wasn't the only one collecting signatures so I've got some of them that I just printed off and then I created an online petition and we got 350 signatures there so we when we brought this to the board initially back I presented in July I think it was July of 23 or 22 anyways and they we we had a lot of support and I was grateful that the board listened then and said okay what are the questions what do we have um how how do we solve questions like you know okay what's public what's
058private are there cameras um what are we seeing how is this being used how is this anyways there's a lot of questions and um what about bullying can somebody shoved in be shoved in the stall um anyways there's a lot of a lot of questions and I so there's a lot of those answers are in the presentation I'm happy to answer any of those questions that you have but um anyways I have all the the all of these here as well as I was printing off some of the stuff from the frequently asked questions from the Cunningham Group which is the group out in the midwest that um has done multiple um of these remodels in their schools back there and then I pulled up an email from The Firm that I work that I
059was in touch with down in Portland that also has the office in Seattle it's called maem and I worked with um Alissa oh I'm not going to pronounce her last name right anyways she gave me a list of the schools around the state um and the Northwest that they that just their firm has been responsible for in the last five years of making the you know the change to the all-inclusive I will say there's a right and a wrong way to do it and so as I have I've been able to sit in meetings with the Architects and help with um Joe Connelly as we've gone over and drafts and things that they can be done wrong so it's really important that they're done right um we were in the Seattle Airport Seattle CAC just
060made some recent Renovations they did a terrible job I'm gonna just tell you right now they did not do it well um you walk in and it you feel like you're in a closed room um you can come at it from two ways the wall is floor to ceiling and we I was just there a few weeks ago and I was walking past and you go through the sea terminal and you come up and there's a there's doorway and it shows restrooms and I saw two gentlemen walk in that way and as they kept going it's a really huge bathroom so the wall went on for probably almost like the length of this room and I got to the other end and I saw two ladies walking in the other doorway and they walked in
061and then I heard a oh and they turned around and came back out and they were like oh my gosh we're in the men's restroom and there was a CAC person sitting outside and they were like no no no this is for everyone anybody can use this restroom it's okay and they and I they kind of like tentatively you know walked back in and and I I had used that bathroom uh a month or two before with my daughter my 16-year-old and we walked in and I was like okay I really want to see what this bathroom is like because I've been doing all this stuff and I've seen the changes and we walked in and nobody else happened to be in there so we went in and we used the restroom and when we
062walked back out um a gentleman came out of this stall right next to us and I could just my my daughter just I could just see her like she just goes like her shoulders went up and she kind of just you know like okay like the gentleman had there was nothing scary or anything about he did nothing inappropriate but I could just tell she was like oh you know it just kind of put her a little bit on edge and so we walked out and she goes mom that did not feel safe like that was not like and not and again nothing against this this gentleman that was in there but it felt like you were in a box and one of the key elements to having these bathrooms be successful is having the space
063where the bathrooms are is very private you everyone has their own stall it's very private but because the rest of the space is public you can have cameras that allow you to there's monitoring um we have Phoenix the Phoenix um sis services that at all the schools and they have access to they will have access to those cameras where they would be able to see it and they would be able to monitor it at any time um so I that you have to have the syns like if you envision going to like lenworth at Christmas time and you see like the lineup of porta potties right they're all individual there anybody can use them but then the sinks are out in public where everybody can see it's very it's a very public space and that
064is where you find the success in these is you keep it it's on a corner of like you know there's a it's on a corner of a hallway is the ideal where everything is open and so you can see what's going on these these bathrooms allow for Less vaping less bullying less tagging less you know Gathering when they should be in class or whatever else like it solves a a plethora of problems and they only lock from the inside um they have their own ventilation system their you know so they can in the school that I went through they were actually individually each stall was recognized as an individual room in the school so that it was accounted for there are advantages like if one bathroom in with one stall in a restroom currently gets
065like broken down and a male custodian has to go in there and take care of it generally the entire restroom is shut down but when you have these one individual stall can be shut down and the other nine or 10 or however many are now can still be utilized by male or female there are a certain number of like requirements where you have to have an a specific number of bathrooms available for males and females in a school and when you have a these all-inclusive ones where anybody can use them it actually allows for you to have more because you like you've got more options for the men there's always a lineup of women in the bathroom almost no matter what there's always more female restrooms but this way you have enough for everybody the
066men can use them the men you know so if you and if you have um a special needs or somebody like we are like we've got a basketball game down there so you have a ton of community members you have people who maybe need assistance in the bathroom and when you have these setups there's there's a possibility that's much easier for somebody to be able to have help to be able to help and it's you know you're not waiting in line um so anyways there's a lot of there's a lot of benefits to these again I'm sure it's not a perfect it's not a perfect solution there's still the the high school said that you know we still have problems there's still people that tag him he said it's usually the Freshman boys they have
067the video cameras they they can see who it is and they talk to them there was a concern about well what if the guys are peeing on the seat and the girl comes in there what if the girl um is taking care of her monthly duties and she and it's not clean and the custodians that I spoke with said this is this issue is resolved within a matter of like one to two weeks he's like every year it only takes a week or two before those boys know that there there's a girl waiting outside and she's going to tell them get back in there and clean up your mess or the you know and you and you have a before these would open up you would have a an assembly or a time where you're
068meeting with the students beforehand and saying listen be respectful you're in a space that is now public it's both you know both people are using it so make it available it's just a safer space and it gives us an opportunity to have a place where anybody can use it at any time and it's it's a safer space for our kids all of our kids so all right thank you um for your comments and information very useful I just wanted to remind everyone again this is a public comment uh discussion no actually I actually I asked Tara to be uh kind of kick off the board discussion okay so that uh had presented previously to the board right and I just wanted to give her a chance to kind of recap her previous presentation right so
069are you allowing the public there'll be public comment after the discussion but I was uh wondering did the board have any questions for Tara and and after that then the board could have their discussion um yeah goad I'll go ahead Tera I do appreciate the countless hours you've put into this I know you I can't I imagine you can't even count how many hours you probably put into this um I appreciate it and just shows your concern you know and I think I think our state law um the majority of us don't agree with it you know and that's the reason you have something like this I've looked over the the plans and I do think that these are safe bathrooms um and I I think they create that safety uh and maybe this isn't
070a question for for you ter but more for the board here the one of the struggles that I have with this is um so I've asked three administrators now what what are the issues that we're able to actually track that are happening within the bathrooms where you have um uh different genders going in and it becomes an issue or becomes unsafe and and and there's really no way that we're able to track that at this point of and and I think I think in order to spend the $1.4 million uh of this uh Bond money that really didn't go towards it to begin with um I would think that we would need to have um the the demand or the need because um from from one administrator not not here tonight but um I I
071the comment was um it's become a non-issue and I don't know if that's uh valid or not but I'm you know I my my issue is we're we're going to spend $1.4 million from leftover money that was to go to the schools to go towards these bathrooms um and is the demand is the need for it there um I do think these BS are safe bathrooms but we're four years into this now you know and and where we were four years ago um is maybe not where we're at today and so um I yeah I'd really love to have the discussion around that and the funds um well maybe any other questions for Tara and then Tara you could maybe have a seat then you don't have to stand there whole time during the discussion
072yeah any questions I I don't the presentation's done well looked through it several times and I've talked to you a year ago I think and so I don't have any questions I have several comments all right well thank you Tera for being here this evening I know you actually have you had to re reschedule yourself to be here so I really appreciate that thank you that's great problem I just have to cut out in 15 minutes to go pick up my daughter I'll for a little bit worri thank you okay there we go um if we're gonna have a discussion on this I've I've thought a lot about this and uh over the last year and I've I've done a lot of research and I've put together some comments that I'm just going to read
073basically because I just want to make it succinct um and I still have a lot of questions so my position so far is as a Schoolboard candidate I was against spending the remaining bond funds following the completion of the two new elementary schools since I firmly believe that the community voted on building two schools and not spending millions of dollars on additional projects that weren't voted on having said that I have supported the majority of the projects that were voted on by the previous board uh however I would have gone about funding them differently the the HVAC systems roof repairs Well Repair and so forth have been completed and they were needed um I appreciate Joe connley and the work he has done to keep the cost of the capital projects low and uh I
074feel that he may possibly even be able to legally defease more tax money back to the taxpayer than was originally thought as to the project itself I am weighing everything I'm hearing very carefully I've had people call me I've had people email me talk to me um still weighing things one of the issues as I said I ran on was the return of the excess bond funds to the taxpayer so one uh major decision point for me is doing what I can do to be faithful to the 4,178 people who voted for me uh I have concerns that the whole idea sprung out of necessity after the state legislature voted to essentially allow bi biological men in women's spaces uh I would also like to see how the legal challenges play out with the current
075differences in Federal Executive Orders versus Washington state law The Tide is changing having heard the safety is one of the main reasons for the restroom model I have asked uh as as James has said I've asked for data on behavior problems in our current restrooms I hear the concerns of some parents but I don't have the data on actual instances of behavior problems having data for me is a is a big deal for me in decisionmaking uh I would like to hear from schools on the east side of the mountain um who have done this and their findings on effectiveness of this I would like to know in the meantime how the seven or eight single stall staff restrooms could be made available to students who for whatever reason prefer a single install option finally
076it seems prudent to allow the facilities committee to complete their work and hear their recommendations on the big picture uh so in summary just to repeat uh one gather Behavior data regarding our school restrooms monitor the legal challenges of federal versus State hear from the Eastside schools on Effectiveness and hear the recommendations from the facility committee thanks that's good as I've l through this issue and it has been a wrestle for me I've came at it from very different points the conclusion as Steve said I think it is a safe bathroom which was not something that I originally thought it was um it is a safe bathroom and it can work the struggle that I have is how to pay for it which there's a lot of frustration in the community about the money and
077that frustration really gives me pause for the next Levy and bond um as we're moving forward it's hard to garnish trust and I think that this is going to be a trust issue coming forward I think that the bathrooms could be designed that way in the future but I don't necessarily see the need to remodel them yet and so I think as we do rebuild and as we do make um schools again I think we probably will do that type of model uh because it does make sense but I don't know if we need to remodel now with the money that we have I'd love to hear I have no further comments to make on this my comments are well documented throughout the entire process that we went relative to the modification of the bond
078resolution I have no further comment and you can all watch everything that I had to say about this to your heart's content on YouTube well I I was hoping we can have a discussion about it um you know because because we Joel brought up the the levy so we have a levy that's going to expire in 2026 you know and we've gotten a lot of emails from the community um you know just with this going out and it really was even on the it was just on through bid documents that contractors um found and then they bid and then they told somebody about it you know and so and and just through that a lot of comments have come and so um and those comments that I've received in my email have been towards the
0792026 Levy and that um you know how you use this money at this point is going to affect how I vote in 2026 or 2027 whenever that next Levy comes out and we are doing a um long-term uh facility project and we're looking at um Mountain View and at tanum as uh the first two primary needs and um so it for me it um yeah I um yeah I was I wasn't here you know the two two last two three years I I I do remember coming to board meeting when terara presented and um I do think she's done a great job but I strling to uh approve spending the money on that not just that but um i' look at even the land acquisition you know and what would it look like for us
080to take the remaining funds and actually um send them back to the taxpayer what is what is the message that that sends to our community for the future Le levies uh because I think we have taken care of a lot of the um the the needs that were very um very evident um with our our HVAC our roofs uh the well uh parking lot space like those were very evident needs um you know and I think we've gone forward with those but um I don't know that this demands um the uh further uh spending all right well thank you um and like my colleagues here there I want to thank terara for the fine presentation and the sharing information um much of a lot of which I have seen before it's it's not totally new
081but there's you know a lot of good information in there if any of the community members haven't seen it before I strongly suggest taking a look at it um I'm coming at this from a little bit of a different angle um I will say again I'm glad we're delaying the action on this so that we have more time to really think it through consider all the ramifications of pros and cons um and I agree with the couple of comments one in particular where we were just four years ago isn't necessarily where we are today things evolve things change all the time um that all being said and I do understand the frustration that it could present for us for future bonds um but there's a part of me too that at one point we made
082a commitment to try and do some about this this is not going to be a problem that goes away um it may evolve it may turn we may be back here in just a few years and talking about it again I don't know for sure I think it's something that is pervasive throughout not just our school district but other school districts throughout the country and we're going to have to deal with it at some point whether we do it now or later we talk about cost and that's an important consideration um if we don't do something soon if we decide later that we need to do something it could cost us even more so that's that's always been a big consideration of mine uh I think the other thing too is um we could look
083at something that's even a little bit smaller scale or something to provide just a few more restrooms to kind of be in the middle of the road here and try to find some partial solution to this uh I do think that one other important consideration is there are some kids that will be negatively affected by this and if we don't do something about it we need to consider alternatives if there are better Alternatives than what we're looking at or what was looked at a few years ago so I'm not really sure I've made up my mind on this um I wanted to hear from the three new members first to see where they stood I kind of suspected that's where you were going to be um but I do think there there was a reason
084for this at the point that it was brought up and a decision was made to try and move forward with it um the law obviously Washington state law had a big part in this and I recognize that and don't want to take anything away from that or add to the fact that others are disagreement with it um personally there's some parts of it I disagree with to be honest I I kind of look back to one of the former board members saying it it may be the law but sometimes it's not right um I don't know if you remember that comment but I do however that all being said I I think we need to weigh this more in totality I just want to fight the feeling that the politics are getting in the way
085of what we're trying to do for these students um to me what's most important is all students not just a certain segment every student matters and I think we need to weigh that in in any decision we make now again I go back to is there a compromise something in the middle of spending more $1.4 million or spending something a little less to accomplish a little bit of this now I like the idea and I've said this one before too that moving forward we should consider because it's the way of the wi in a lot of public places that single single use restrooms are becoming the Way of the World um and I think it's a great idea there's a lot of good in it the security the Privacy um all people need privacy sometimes
086in the restroom so I think that we should weigh all those factors out and not you know just quickly say okay well the C circumstances that were before don't exist today that may be true to some extent but I don't say it's 100% to that extent so that's my think on it right now I you know this was kind of a little bit of a surprise to come up so quickly I was expecting it I just didn't know that it was coming uh here in the next few weeks I think we need to look at it overall and just you know be a little bit careful and very structured on how we move forward with any decision on this and not you know look at one one way of solving this problem there probably other
087ways that we can address this issue because it is an issue for some parents so anyway that's my two cents and I I want to encourage public comment on this issue okay it's it's a very important one it's a lot of money whether we spend it or we don't spend it but I think the community has to play a part and weigh in on this because it's after all they're their families their kids that are are going to be attending school here and they're be the ones who experience what this represents so I'll leave it at that for my comments good all right um with that that will bring us to the public comment portion oh I'm sorry okay members of the public I didn't see any on the list who would like to make
088public comments will sign in so no one signed in on this that I there might there might be some people all right is there anybody here who would like to speak all right okay is that what you're getting yeah go ahead go ahead BR that though because it's okay members of the public who would who would like to provide public Comics will sign in speakers will be called in the order that they signed in to speak speakers will be given three minutes for their comments public 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 okay so if you want to raise your hand again who wants
089to speak one two three three four how about that so we'll start just one and was there a fifth person did I give everybody a number one two three four raise those again let me make sure I got everybody two four five who who didn't I get yeah you be number five sir okay all right would you like to start just gonna just going to add for my two cents when it comes with the cost and I know that's been a concern just a reminder that the petitions that we did send out and the petitions that we got were very very clear like I was very adamant for the group of us that went around and we're asking people about the use of the funds we were very very specific do not sign this unless
090you are okay with the excess funds being spent on this project so we have a list of 500 plus 600 people community members who have already said we we have our signature to say that we are okay with these monies being spent on this project so that's my number one thing and then number two is that when this was decided a year ago or so that the funds how they would be the allocation of them and how that was going to happen the bathrooms was on the list and it was approved so it feels a little bit and I know I've got obviously a vested interest but it does feel a little bit frustrating to feel like it was approved we have had Community Support which was why it got put on there in the
091first place and we've gone to the effort of a lot of research and it's not just me I know that Dr Finch has looked into things and had conversations Joe Connelly has had conversations there have been a lot of people involved in this so I know that some of your questions maybe to me I'm like well there there has been some stuff done and there is research out there so I totally recognize the need for a budget we've gone through a house remodel recently I know what it looks like I know what fun I I can appreciate that and I'm not saying that we should spend it unnecessarily but there is a large backing of people who have already given their support for this with these funds and it was already approved so thank you
092thank you thank you person number two good evening gentlemen I'm Matt Lindner and I tend to show up when there's capital projects I think the last time I was around was when we were talking about the desire to defease the uh the school budgets I spoke at the Harmon Center and I was one of the folks who was 100% defeasement I did not want to spend any because I felt it would have been rewarding past mismanagement uh to use the money the way it ended up being used that said this in my mind this project was one of the lowest priority I understood Mountain views uh well I understood some of the other urgent needs but this one here did not fall into that kind of urgent need in my mind um I tend to
093agree with what Mr heed said designing these into future schools is a good idea is that it's a reasonable Direction remodeling at this price in a existing building probably not so much I would like to hear what Mr Kart and Mr Walcott find out in answer to their question how unsafe how bad are our current bathrooms because if there is that kind of ongoing continual problem the type of control that's being offered the physical controls here are better solved by cultural controls better solved by monitoring student Behavior disciplining student behavior and solving the problem at the person um anyway the one design flaw that I do see is that in a floor to ceiling bathroom situation because there is an ongoing opiate crisis in the United States to some extent I hear about it in
094West Valley although I've not seen it personally myself myself if somebody goes down in a bathroom stall that has an open bottom there's the availability of observance by the next person walking through whereas in a closed door situation there is no availability for that kind of observance so there's going to be a delay in any kind of First Response second if the person goes down against the door now they have a difficulty opening it up whereas in a conventional open stall bathroom style a first responder can grab that person's legs grab their arms and yank them out and then treat them sort of in the open area so that's kind of my broad take on a few different bullet points um I think it would be unwise to spend the money at this time thanks
095thank you for your comment and concern can we have speaker number three uh my name is Shane Moore I have three students in The District Two Elementary one middle level and I did uh send a letter to the school board last week on my opinion on this I spoke in when we were discussing defeasance at two of the public meetings on that and I spoke to spending the money because I saw it as uh Joe Conley and the board doing a great job spending the money we had and so I was excited to see this list of projects being done on this specific project I know a lot of times there's the discussions around our transgendered students and siblings within our community but I've also spoke to staff here at the high school and students
096who do not identify as part of the lgbtq community and they have told me stories of bullying in the bathrooms they have told me stories of uh someone's a student told me a story of someone they don't know who slipping a note under the the bathroom of when they were going to the bathroom that use derogatory terms towards them so I have heard these stories from our students um I do believe that this is an important process to show that we do are want to protect and serve all students with in our district I do agree with uh Mr heid's comment that we should build this into all public schools as we go forward but we are not planning to build a new High School in the near future and so the only way to
097get them in the high school is with a remodel thank you thank you again for your comments and concerns speaker number four hello my name is Casey Jones and um I don't really have a lot prepared I just kind of uh I was wondering a question have you have we taken a poll with the students because I'm guessing majority of them would be against this uh be interesting to see their take on this um I know I appreciate you guys wanting the data um and I appreciate all the work um she might have left oh there she is that she's done and I I do see the benefit of a full length bathroom however there's still stuff that goes on outside the bathroom I'm not sure maybe doing hair and stuff and you know the
098girls talking uh I know for a fact my daughter said she wouldn't even use the bathroom if that was the case they get the like you said the cringe feeling maybe they'd get used to it but this is a a touchy subject and what you said uh Mr keer um I really agree with if we spend these funds on something like this you're going to lose a lot of support of West Valley um for future uh levies thank you thank you next speaker let's all right uh hello I'm uh don Jameson and uh I don't obviously have any children in the schools but I do have a grandson and I did send a letter to Dr Finch which I think got extended on um my sentiments probably line up with Mr Jones here and I
099don't even know you sir but uh at any rate um actually when I raised my hand it it was a question I know I know this is not a forum where you answer questions directly but um one of my questions really is the data how many students um feel they need a this type of bathroom is it five in the high school is it five in the junior high is it one how many and U I've had a young man that's worked for me in high school and he has encountered the difficulty or a little bit of H shagrin of going in thinking he was in the boy restroom and there was something else going on so his his uh his discomfort level uh I guess was because it was he just thought the status
100quo was still working well anyway I I do think this is an unnecessary expenditure I'm not here to debate the future schools um the the idea that this is a trend of the future that we need to adopt uh I don't really agree with that and um I guess the other thing I really appreciate the research that was done I thought that was very interesting and I think that's um really very very commendable for citizen to go out and do that um but but if if you think that all the citizens in this District over 4,000 must be voting um are going to come to that understanding that'd be a tremendous re-education of the district population and I think that'll have a huge bearing on the fact that uh there was a lot of debate
101I attended some of the meetings on what to do with that extra money and it seemed like the speakers were half and half yet uh um probably a lot of people are willing to understand okay need a whale need a parking lot so forth but this is something that's uh hard cell and uh and I think we're seeing a disposition in the nation that's not necessarily uh moving strongly in that direction either so anyway the data how many students and uh is it of interest to me and my my position that it's an unnecessary expenditure at this time thank you again thank you for your comments and your concern and for being here is there anyone else that we did not capture yes hi there I'm Dan FL strand I've uh been in the West
102Valley School District majority of my life in Washington state um I think my feelings on how I would look at this is accommodation and expense so you don't want accommodation for a small percentage of individuals to come at somebody else's expense as well so it would be how do we accommodate everybody's needs without it coming at somebody else's expense rather it would be uh dollar amount or feelings or awkwardness in a bathroom so if there's 10% people that are in trans or whatever you know should that come at the other of the majorities uncomfortable you know being uncomfortable going into the bathroom I would think that it would be simpler to leave things the way they've been and accommodate the 10% in an individual manner without discomforting the majority of the people so rather it's
103these single stall bathrooms like when you go into Walmart or anywhere you've got your men's your women's and you've got your family bathroom which gives you privacy so it seems like it would come at a less expense financially to just put a few of these family bathrooms in which could accommodate anybody without coming at everybody else's discomfort you know doing a big b bathroom I don't want my grandkids going into a bathroom my granddaughter where there's going to be biological men in there rather they're trans or not so I think it's pretty simple and common sense I don't think we need to go to that extreme we can still accommodate the small percentage that are discomforted with the way the bathrooms are now all right again thank you as well for your comments um and
104again for being here anyone else uh would like to speak on this subject before we move on help yourself my name is Charlie Ralph um you word she go she had so many signatures 500ish seven how many seven okay how many people are in the school district we have uh there somewhere around 5,000 voting vote around 5,000,000 students that's 10,000 parents 10% of the people feel they would support it a little bit more 15 12 have I just I'd like you guys to think about the future to me I'm just retiring my funds are limited just got my taxes and that all going to come into play um for the next Levy I I have to look at that because I don't just have this income continuing to come in presuming probably retired also um
105it's something to think about spending money if it doesn't have to be spent seems foolish and I think our government right now is going through some change looking at different things and I would hope you guys would take that into consideration thank you I told my wife I wouldn't speak we won't you're safe we won't she's watching all right well thank you very much for your comments All everybody who's attended and been here to speak on this is there one last call anyone else that would like to to offer any more comments here okay we'll move off of this discussion item and again thank you everybody for being here to speak and present and share your thoughts and ideas it is Vally important that everyone share what they're thinking it helps us make a final
106decision as well when the time comes all right moving on to item number 12 items Rising anyone all right hearing none is superintendent's report um my report uh You' like to read more but real Qui quickly was just about our trip to Olympia uh Steve wilcott our board representative here is the legislative rep we took uh four students from the high school two students from our Innovation Center and and uh I'll just say briefly that I just appreciate our representatives and uh legislators from our district here uh Senator Nikki Torres representative Jeremy Duo and representative Chris Corey all took time out of their busy schedule to meet with us meet with the students uh our Representatives even took us down on the house floor and the kids got to get a picture on the house
107floor with representative Duo representative Corey that's pretty unusual to get to be on the floor and just really appreciate them taking the time for our kids and the other thing is that our students represented West Valley so well and just really proud of our students the legislators were very interested in their experience both at the high school with our college and the high school classes and at The Innovation Center with our career Pathways there and so our students really represented West Valley well and I'll quit talking there because we have board reports and I bet Steve will want to add something all right item 14 and uh going on to board reports Mr wot do you have something I guess I have to now I was gonna say it was a real enjoyable experience this
108the second year I've done this with the students and it's always fun because on the way there everybody's sleeping because we leave at six o'clock and nobody's saying a word and on the way back everybody's talking and they slept a little bit but um but I really appreciated all the students that went they were U very well articulated as they talked to the legislators they were um very they presented themselves very well and that was really exciting to see and I don't think you just mentioned this but Maya actually testified one of our high school students testified on a bill along with Dr Finch and that was exciting and the kids I was sitting with in the testifying room they all going well can we clap when she's done it's so Serene in there you
109know and I go sure at least give her a thumbs up you know but it was it was a good day and there was I won't say what they were protesting but they even got to see a lot of protests and picketing and signs and we were turning left to leave and they all said Dr fch turn right we went to go see what they're doing so we drove right down the middle of the protesters it's pretty pretty fun what was the Bild number that she testified on I believe was 1557 and it was for the guaranteed admission program so West Valley has been a part the guaranteed admission program as a pilot from the very beginning uh I believe this is the fourth year Maya had interviewed a classmate and talked about how it
110really made a difference for her classmate opening her eyes to the possibilities um it's the guaranteed mission is if the student does the guarantee the required classes for admission and has a 3.0 or better they receive an email in October that says they are guaranteed admission to our state colleges and universities all except for the University of Washington there is the univers watching Tacoma campus that they are guaranteed admission to but Maya did a wonderful job of U representing the voice of her classmate uh Maya got to be the last person presenting on the on the bill and then afterwards all the lobbyists ran up and said Maya it's so great to have a student presenting they hear from us all the time but you know she was the only student there that testified so
111she did a really nice job representing West Valley okay that's it really will thank you everybody for being here we are going to go into executive session now performance of a Public Employee um it's 8:32 why don't we set it for let's say 915 and we'll see where we are at that point we need to have more time we can uh no action will be taken thank you e e e okay we have finished our uh executive session and we will adjourn the meeting it is again what is this Tuesday the 11th and meeting is adjourned 9177 thank you e