CSD Board Meeting

001like to open this regular board meeting of Central Schools District 13J School Board. Appreciate everybody coming and welcome. And let's begin with the flag salute. I will lead it. Superintendent Kubista, could you go through the agenda for us? >> Yes. So, this evening we have a few things on our agenda. We are going to begin once I go through the agenda. The board will take some time for the open board vacancy application because we do have an applicant uh who is here this evening. We will then shift to recognitions. I am very excited about this uh from two different buildings uh one from a couple from Ash Creek and one from Talage Middle School. We will also do some appreciation uh because it is classified appreciation week. Then we'll do communication from the floor. We

002have two standing reports. Our normal data report which will focus on attendance discipline and our winter universal screener in reading and math. We will then shift to our 2425 audit report which they will be here with us this evening. I have a two policy updates that are here for first reading then into the board report consent agenda. We do not have any business agenda items tonight. However, we will go into executive session and for two different items tonight. That is it for the agenda. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. So, at this point, uh we have one applicant from zone one for the vacant zone one position. And so, we're going to take the opportunity to conduct probably the most public interview of his life. um no pressure or nothing. And then uh at

003that point uh the board has a decision to make whether to appoint or to reconvene at a later date uh to discuss. So um Mark Synynic, did I pronounce that correctly? Okay. Why don't you come join us up at the uh the hot seat table here? And now is the opportunity for members of the board to ask Mr. Senate some questions on and get an idea of how he'd fit with with our little group here. So Mark, can you just begin by telling us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background, and maybe why you put threw your hat in the ring? >> Sure. Yeah. So we've been in the community, Monmouth and Independence for about 30ome years and uh living in independence now for 25. And uh yeah, I'm a a

004pastor of a church here in the community uh as well as a small business owner uh as well as uh just working with kids in general in our community and such that uh I find that a privilege to be able to be a part of their lives. uh working with a lot of uh underprivileged kids, kids that are needing a a positive role model and uh to be able to be there for them has been a joy of my life. And so it's something I take interest in as well as just working in mentoring youth uh uh teenagers as well as u junior highs as well as uh kids and included. So, uh working with seniors as well as well as children and adults as well as uh obviously as a pastor um uh do

005services uh a couple times a month at the Herren Point for our senior citizens there and enjoy their uh company being with them and uh working uh closely with uh the Spanish community as well. Uh our church actually has uh four churches meeting there. I'm just kind of a oversight um for them. Uh three of them being bilingual. And so that's an important thing to me uh in the community and working uh closely with them. And uh yeah, I have a small construction business that I uh have had for 35 some years. And uh so yeah, that's been good. That's my bread and butter. And uh so um I don't take a salary from the church. That's something I do uh just uh as part of my heart and enjoyment to uh work with the

006church and the community of churches that we uh are affiliated with. So uh what else? >> You have any experience working on a board of any kind >> prior to this? Obviously, um being uh the pastor of my church, we have our our board, our trustees, our leadership, and so um yeah, working closely with them for the last 25 years here, working previously at >> in youth positions and other positions prior to that. Um, yeah, it's something uh as far as financially goes, uh, it's important to me to, you know, uh, we've never ran a debt in our church. It's always something that we very important to us to try to keep our head above water and, uh, do everything that we can, uh, that way. And so, uh, as well as my personal business

007as well. you know, never been in any kind of bankruptcy or situations like that. Um, and always just uh making sure that the budgets, you know, uh is the finances are balanced and uh moving forward in a positive direction. That's something that's uh important. And I know here we're working with some bigger numbers, but then we did obviously at the church or my small business, but you know, it's just added zeros. You still got to balance it, you know, and such. So uh it's same process I believe. Yeah. >> Do you have any questions? >> So um having been a community member for over 30 years. >> Yes. >> Um you've seen that our communities have have gone through a lot of change, a lot of transition, a lot of growth. >> So what would

008you think from your perspective as a community member and being so active with your church? And um I think I read that you raised three children in our community, >> correct? >> Um so what would you think are some of our our biggest challenges right now at this point in our communities that are impacting our school system? >> Yeah. So obviously I think a big challenge for for this leadership um is uh the care of the facilities. I understand that a measure didn't pass a bond or such and that's has to be something that's weighing on you guys first trying to figure out stop gap measures and how can we keep things uh in a condition that's appropriate and uh so that has to be something that I understand would be weighing on you. So,

009I think in some regards I bring some some strengths there, you know, with my construction background and such and that I think I could be a resource that way. Um, and uh as far as strengths, there's obviously a lot of positive in our community. uh the uh you know just we've been here obviously seeing where the the town and communities were 25 years ago to see the you know the the updates the upgrades and and such have been a a positive thing obviously to walk you know through our little downtown. when we live close to downtown. So, we get to enjoy that. And >> but I understand we put ourselves kind of in some binds because of those things now that this the >> the you know, obviously the um city needs to work through

010trying to figure out their budgets and how they're going to you know, cover some of these shortfalls now. And so that's a serious issue. I think that's really pressing um for independence as well as monmouth just to stay in a healthy um posture you know moving forward we have it seemingly so much resource with new people living in the community and such uh so you know those resources how do we um appropriate those properly um so we can move forward you know further I think that's a major hurdle for both school. How are we going to do this without these finances being there that we were hoping for as well as as community? So, there's a lot of positives in our community. I mean, um, from where we were 25 years ago, you know, I

011remember the kids getting together and having their little brawls at I that they were meeting up and, you know, chasing kids down the street. And we just don't see that as much anymore. you know, there's issues that arise and they're different issues, you know, that are in our school systems and at, you know, on our playgrounds, but there it's different than it was. It's, you know, so in a lot of ways there's a lot of health, you know, to the community. Um, so yeah. Well, there's school issues and there's community issues, you know, and so yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Why do you want to serve on the board? >> Yeah. So, it was actually something on my heart um as I saw it come up on uh the opportunity to

012uh vote on um someone to be on and then I saw my area was not zone one was not, you know, it was across across the the highway. So, I was on the wrong side of the highway by a few by a block. So, um, but I was thinking about throwing my hat in at that time and, uh, and so it just something on my heart a way to serve. You know, I I ran for, um, a city position and, uh, that didn't happen. So, I thought, well, this may be a different way where I can serve and, uh, I still want to give back to the community however I can to best be a positive Yeah. positive way to serve. Sure. >> I hate to go back to money again. >> Yeah. No, >>

013but the budget this year is going to be hard, right? Yeah. It's hard for everyone. It's hard for the state. It's hard for the cities. And so I was just curious, you know, because you talked about how you have to look at that also with your business and your church, like if you have to make hard decisions in a if you were sitting where where we are, like what what would you prioritize? How would you figure out, okay, well, we want both of these things, but we can't live without this one. How would you think about that? >> Uh yeah. Yeah. So, um roof down uh kind of mentality, you know, um we don't want it ringing in the building. So, we've got to stop gap on those first and then deal with the dry

014rod underneath. So, it's it's a process of prioritizing. Obviously, it's all prioritizing. And when you got several things that are very important and important to different people, that's where you get pulled in different directions and yeah, that takes a lot of healthy dialogue. Um, you know, I don't have all the answers. >> Oh, >> and and so no, I know. Oh, I totally get you. So, but my my point is I don't have all the answers and I don't have all the insight either. So, if I am brought on, I will be looking to you and talking with you and hopefully being able to sit down over some coffee and and really getting to know you. You get to know me and where I can really find out where you all are feeling on certain

015things. I think that's important. healthy dialogue within and if you're allowing me to if you allow me to to do that outside of here, you know, that's the way I grow and I have a better understanding so I can make healthy >> recommendations, you know, and suggestions to those things. But those are difficult, you know, those are difficult issues that uh this position holds. I understand that making those hard choices. the building's super important, but I was actually thinking more like the programs and stuff. Yeah, that's the stuff that's really that really hard. >> That's that's and really uh even as I was filling out this application, it's all about the children, right? Ultimately, I mean, and you got to have a good place obviously, a place to facilitate. Um, but it's about the kids,

016what's best for them, for their education, for their preparing them for the future, become the next leaders and adults and uh people in our community. So, yeah, how can we best um appropriate stuff to take care of them and their education and preparing them for college in the best way for those who going to college or for jobs or you know to prepare them in the very best way. So, yeah, that uh >> thank you. Yeah. >> Helen, any thoughts? >> I think being on this school board for me, it's been really difficult in some ways because I'm intimately involved with education, but in on the school board, you serve on a macro level. So, it sounds like, you know, as a pastor, you're very much hands-on. You're in that community- based work, but on

017the school board, you're at this macro level with new policies. And sometimes it's a difficult thing to balance, you know, um the people that you might be connected with what with what the whole like district needs and what the school is. How do you balance that? How do you come on and understand the district and knowing that we can't on a day-to-day make the decisions? We're just here to listen and guide and not be a part of the actual enactment of those. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I guess in in some regards I'm like I said, we're a community of four churches and they're all different different denominations, backgrounds, and um, ethnicity. And yet um I've had to obviously relinquish and trust that the ones that are in leadership of those different churches are going to

018carry out their responsibility appropriately and trust them to that. So there's a lot of trust in in regard to that. Um and uh and to empower them, you know, where I can, you know, that's that that's the biggest thing in my position is to empower them to give them opportunity, you know, space and opportunity to so that they can be the very best for their people, you know. So that's that's really what I look to do in my role even more so now. I'm I'm not so hands as kind of oversight and and running the schedule. So, uh, to make sure everybody can work together and it's been very harmonious in working together and being able to. So, that's been good. Um, so yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but Okay. >>

019Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Andrea, any questions? >> What about Mark? What about when you have we don't each of us doesn't always get our way. >> Oh yeah. >> Um and so how do you handle a situation where perhaps you'd be in the minority vote in a different way yet the the group decides as a whole to go in a certain direction. How do you respond to that? >> Yeah. on, you know, honest descent, but maintaining the integrity of the body itself. How do you how do you do that? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um Oh, yeah. Well, unity is key. Keeping um Yeah, that focus of you're not going to win everything, but you know, you have a voice you can share and then you have to respect other people's opinions. Not everybody

020thinks the same and not everybody processes the same. not everybody, you know, so understand that I don't have the full answer either. So maybe they're right, you know, maybe I just have to accept that that that's the voice of the majority because that's the right direction. So sometimes it's just surrendering to that fact and understanding that not everything is going to go exactly how you feel or think, but you know ultimately you want to keep >> the unity of the focus of the group. But what are we here for? We're working toward the best of the the kids and the future of, you know, and and such as I mentioned. So I think as long long as we're always keeping that and I know that's your heart and you understand that to be my heart,

021then we're going to bounce through those, you know, hard times and how we should in a mature um way to process it. Okay. >> Yeah. Any other questions? Anything else you think that we ought to know? Oh. Um, yeah. No, I think pretty much everything I laid out. Uh, let's see. Just as far as myself, I uh when I get in on something, I'm committed and uh you know, I will get in both feet and take it serious. So, you know, if that's something where you choose me to to serve, I'll I'll definitely um put my best foot forward and and uh so yeah, that's important to me, you know, just uh not to take things halfhazardly. you know, I understand that this I understand this the seriousness of this position, you know, and even

022though I don't understand the full ramifications of everything that you're doing, I'm I'm in a learning process of that, but I understand this is a very serious um position. So, I'll take that. >> And you you understand the time commitment, the meetings at least twice a month, right? And you can >> Yeah. >> make yourself available for all that. Yeah, I have a very flexible schedule. Yeah, >> terrific. >> Yeah. Right. >> Well, thank you for the information. Um >> we have a decision to make. Um >> do we need to decide first if we would like to vote today or wait till the next meeting or >> that is up to you Ollie. >> Yeah, that's that's a discussion that that we can have. We couple of options. We can we can table it

023for another discussion. Um or we can uh appoint tonight and swear in as early as tonight if we want to. Um but it is the only applicant from zone one. Um and >> and the application period was open for almost two months. >> Almost two months. and I think he's perfectly qualified to sit in that position. So, >> do we need to excuse him to have the a conversation or do you want we want to just have it like right now? >> I would say it's up to him if he wants to say or not. Again, we have you all have to do this in public. >> Yeah, >> this is requirements from that. So, >> it's really up to him if he wants to say or not. >> It's all fine. whatever makes you

024the most comfortable because I understand you know you have to have the freedom to um speak your mind your heart so I can I can excuse myself that's okay if I I sat where you were when I first joined the board and they let let me leave so >> and I never watched the the video but so if you're sitting there it's literally just like you could watch the video. Yeah. >> So I'm fine with us just talking about it if you guys are. >> Yeah. So, do we want to do we have any discussion then? >> Yeah, go. I mean, we can round robin this and whoever wants to add their thought and we can see if there's a consensus and then possibly make a motion. >> So, >> I think he has a

025good background in working with people. I think that'll be an asset. M >> um if someone walks up to you in the grocery store and starts yelling at you about something that you don't have any control over, I have faith that you would be able to respectfully listen to the person and then, you know, >> go about your your way without getting into any arguments. >> Um that doesn't happen very often, but occasionally it does. >> So, uh you know, I think that your background is uh fits the position for the school board rather nicely. Great. >> Agreed. >> I think the fact that you said more than once that the reason we're doing this is for the kids. >> Like as long as you're saying that one, two, three times, I'm I'm fine. >>

026Yeah. >> Because that's the at the end of the day. Boy, is this louder than usual? >> It is. It's just >> you're just feeling the pressure a little bit of what you're having to go through. >> But but but I would be happy to have Mark join us. >> Yeah. I'm I'm really excited about the fact of the longevity that you've had in our community >> and the fact that your exposure within your church to our Hispanic community >> and um the ability to to be able to work with just the multiculturalism in our communities and you're passionate about it. So >> that's exciting to me. >> You seem sincere and ready to serve. I know um nationally we've seen school boards places of um politics where people have come with their own agendas

027and it does not seem as though you have that and so I would be in favor >> mostly. >> Okay. My opinion is I see no reason to wait. >> I move >> he's here. You can't go. >> Do we have to move to call a vote? I move that we call a vote >> tonight for the rest of the meeting if we put him in. >> We Yeah. I asked him if he could mit and he said yes. So I can't back out now. >> No, we we would need a motion to appoint uh Markstein as the school board. Um >> zone one zone >> zone one director. >> Zone >> for zone one. I move to appoint Mark Senic for uh be to be the next um school board director for zone one.

028>> Moved by Susan. >> I'll second it. Seconded by Jan. All any other discussion? All those in favor raise your hand. Five. It is unanimous. Welcome aboard, Mr. Senate. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> now we have to do the real part. >> The real part. The swearing in. I one of seven >> I >> do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution and laws of the state of Oregon >> and the Constitutions and laws us by the state of Oregon >> and that I will well and truthfully >> and I will well and truthfully >> perform the duties of board member >> perform >> of Central School District 13J >> to

029the best of my abilities >> to the best of my >> So help me God. Yeah, you get your pick of the seats. Right. >> Excellent. >> All right. Well, with that, we'll move into recognitions. >> All right. I am excited for tonight. We have multiple recognitions. um really focused on our staff this uh this evening. So, I have three different presentations uh just for some amazing staff that did some amazing things uh during some difficult times. So, uh bear with me. We're going to go one at a time and then I'm going to do all of them, get their awards, and then they're all going to come up and we're going to take a picture. Okay. All right. So, let's begin with our Ash Creek staff. So, a couple things have happened over the

030last few months um with some unique situations at the buildings with students. So, Jessica Stall showed extraordinary care and quick thinking. When a student began choking, she immediately stepped in and performed the Heimlick maneuver on a student, ensuring their the students safety. Her calm response and dedication reminds us all of what it means to protect and nurture every child. So, please join us in celebrating her bravery and compassion. We are going to hold on your hold on your clap for a second. She's going to get award focused on staff leadership and continuous improvement, which is one of our strategic goals again for showing extraordinary care and quick thinking to ensure the safety of of students in a time of crisis. So, Jessica, congratulations. >> Thank you. All right, the next group also at Ash Creek

031Elementary uh is Alma Monzo, Stephanie Thomas, and Maline Jordan. These three staff members took part in a life-saving action with a student. Nurse Maline Jordan, administrative assistant Alma Monzo, and instructional assistant Stephanie Thomas are being recognized for their quick response and immediate care given when a student came into contact with a food item causing a severe and immediate reaction, as in the most severe and immediate reaction that that student have. Stephanie recognized this emergency in the cafeteria and immediately brought the student and food item to the office, alerting personnel of the urgency of the situation. Ma Meline and Alma responded immediately. Alma calling the parent and Meline assessing the situation. And of course, we had to administer an EpiPen. And that's a big thing if when we're dealing with with these types of situations. The

032quick response from Stephanie, Meline, and Amma were crucial in the safety and ultimate recovery of the student. They also are getting uh the award for staff leadership and continuous improvement for their quick response and immediate care given when a student came into contact with a severe allergen aiding in the crucial safety and ultimate recovery of the student. So ladies, please come up here and uh let's thank them for their great great work with students as well. All right, last but not least, next is from Talmage uh Middle School. So, we would like to take a moment to recognize Jordan Clark, who is currently supporting at the middle school. Uh, Principal Reeseman shared that Jordan consistently goes above and beyond for our students and staff. He is visible throughout the building every single day, walking the

033halls during passing periods, proactively supporting students, and building positive relationships. He has been an asset to their building. Most notably, Jordan acted quickly. And I will say, I've been told very calmly when he removed a burning trash can from our building, preventing potential harm and quite literally keeping our schools safe. Jordan Clark exemplifies dedication, courage, and heart. He is a school hero and it makes us and and he makes an incredible impact every day at town middle school soul. So please again also staff leadership and continuous improvement award to Jordan Clark for going above and beyond for students and staff each day and for his quick action in preventing a fire from spreading spreading. Excuse me. Please let's uh thank Jordan and welcome him up here as well. Thank you. It's yeah it's been it's

034>> you gota be ready for anything >> there's some really good work when we are uh working with students >> gosh >> um so yes all right next I'm going one more recognition so we are this week is classified appreciation week uh and so we would like to take a few moments to recognize our amazing staff And before I read the 2026 classified appreciation resolution, here are a few examples of what our dedicated classified staff do each day in support of students. So this year so far, a total of 250 thous excuse me 250,524 meals have been served and prepared for our students from our nutrition services staff. That is an average of 24,77 meals per day that they produce and our kids eat. A total of 250 trips by our transportation employees already taking

035students to and from school has already happened. They are the first and last each day that interact with our students. I had the opportunity to visit with them a week ago and they are a dedicated group of staff who support our students. to our diligent facility staff who handle custodial, general maintenance, repairs, and the day-to-day troubleshooting to keep our buildings functioning, warm, and open each day. I'm going to first say thank you just for that. Um, they clean and maintain our buildings, which is over 650,000 square feet of usable daily space for our students and staff. Our administrative assistants keep the buildings literally they keep the buildings running smoothly and are the first faces of our welcoming environment for our students and families and our instructional assistants who support our students and licensed staff in

036learning for our students. From reading groups, playground supervision and also welcoming students in the schools each morning. Their smiling faces and dedication to our students is recognized. Now for the resolution for this week. Whereas the education of youth is essential to the future of our community, state, country, and world. And whereas classified employees are the backbone of our public education system. And whereas classified employees work directly with students, educators, parents, volunteers, business partners, and community members. And whereas classified employees support the smooth operation of offices, the safety and maintenance of building buildings and property, and the safe transportation, healthy nutrition, and direct instruction of students. And whereas our community depends on and trusts classified employees to serve students. And whereas classified employees with our diverse talents and true dedication nurture students throughout their school years.

037Now therefore, be it resolved that Central School District 13J board of directors proclaims March 2nd through the 6, 2026 to be classified employee appreciation week. And be it further resolve that the Central School District 13J board of directors strongly encourages all members of our community to join in this observance recogning recognizing the dedication and hard work of these individuals which we will adopt today as of March 2026. So thank you. We appreciate your work. Let's give them a round of applause. >> Dedicated staff. Very dedicated staff for our students. All right. Thank you. Now we will move to communication from the floor. I understand we have one one person wanting to speak. >> Yep. >> Let me just read my little spiel and then we'll we'll get it we'll get going. >> Uh welcome to

038the central school board district board meeting. Comments from the community are entertained during the time designated under communications public comments. If you wish to speak to the board, please fill out a comment card and turn it into the board secretary or the board chair at the beginning of the meeting. Speakers comments in this forum are limited to three minutes, but the board welcomes additional information in writing. Personnel laws prohibit the board from hearing public complaints about an individual in open session. All complaints must go through the board's approved processes outlined in board policy KL. This form may be found at our website or by calling the district office. Typically, a speaker's comment is taken under advisement to allow time for the board to review an issue. However, the board chair or other board members may

039ask a speaker for additional information or may convey to the speaker some information that addresses their comment. Please note on the speaker card if you would like to receive follow-up communication and if so, what avenue is preferred. Thank you for your attendance at this meeting. Johannine, if you have others, they can come up with you too or if it's just you. >> Okay. and I am the OEA um union president for our chap for our chapter here at Central School District. And I just want to say that our classified employee appreciation week is a dedicated time to honor the essential often behindthe-scenes staff who serve as the backbone of the public education system held annually. This week long, this week-long celebration recognizes the invaluable contributions of PAR profofessionals, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, administrative assistants,

040and many others who ensure schools run smoothly and safely. These employees are in integral parts to the education environment, offering crucial support to teachers and students alike, from navigating technology to fostering a a welcoming, positive school culture. By celebrating these hidden treasures, schools and communities express deep gratitude for their hard work, dedication, and the daily impact they make on the student on this on they make on student success. And I just want to thank every every single one of our classified employees. They really are doing stepping up and doing great things. So, thank you. Great. We'll move forward to standing reports. >> Yes. So, we are going to move into our March performance metrics presentation. Um, I am going to begin with a review of our attendance and discipline and then I'm going to just

041have director Jackson come on up here. Um, and she's going to uh also give us an update on our universal screener winter results which again are focused on reading and math. Is there we'll get there. Yeah. So, so again, this is a review of our March long-term performance metrics. Um, go ahead, next slide for me. As we uh as we start every one of our presentations, we ground ourselves uh as a reminder to both the board and the community of what we continue to strive for in our uh mission statement. The next one is again something that you have all seen. This is our strategic plan uh scorecard. Uh this is focusing on our four strategic goals. Uh student growth and achievement, family engagement, community partnership, and what we got to celebrate a lot today,

042staff leadership, and continuous improvement. Again, we have also marked here our longitudinal metrics, which is what we call how we measure our progress. And this I'm going to say highle strategies. in each of those areas that we focus on. Uh and we again call this our strategic plan scorecard. Tonight we're focusing again on a couple different areas. Our fe Jan really uh September through February attendance and discipline and then as I said Dr. Jackson will uh review the winter universal screener. So we are going to start with attendance. uh that we go back one for me. Thanks. We continue to focus monthly on our strategic metric of regular attendance. As a reminder, this is our overarching metric goal. Just at a high level, as a reminder, we want our students 90% of the time in

043the in the in their seat. And of that, we want them there 85% of the time. So again, it's a little bit of that metric, but that's overall. And then we have two focal areas. Our students experiencing disabilities as well as our economically disadvantaged. So those are the the key areas that we uh focus on for this year. Next slide. So again, just a reminder to the board and the community and we're going to go left to right. On the left side of the slide, you will see our current September through February regular attendance data in blue. And this is also a three-year trend. So, we're again comparing to the last three years. Uh, first, excuse me. You can see our February data is 52% and that's two percentage points down from the previous year.

044As I've shared with the board before, a one or two% shift in that is really flat. Uh, so that's really not a statistical change. Uh, we were hoping that that would be up a little bit. I'll be honest, there there are some things that we have been working through through February, both in sickness and other things going on in the community that I think have impacted uh our attendance overall. If we go to the next slide for our students with disabilities, again, we can see they're also down two percentage points from the previous school year. And then finally for our students who are economically disadvantaged, we see actually a one point percentage point increase. Again, we consider that flat from the previous school year. So not what we were hoping. Unfortunately, I'll be honest that

045I expected we would probably be flat based off of information we were getting from principles and and conversations we were having as we were looking at both our in attendance uh throughout the district. Next slide for me, please. Again, these are our highlevel strategies that we continue to focus on as a district specific to regular attendance. I will say we have had st or excuse me, we have had community chats this past month and we have heard from families uh where uh really really good kudos to our staff uh and the welcoming environments that the parents and families are seeing within the schools. Some examples they gave us were staff greeting their students at the as they drop them off and actually knowing their names. Uh that is a big thing and we've talked about

046this before. That's a big thing for families to see. And then obviously wel wel welcoming them in with a smile. They've seen or they've shared that they see the dedication of our staff with the students each and every day. And then we continued to develop strong classroom and great engagement strategies and solid communication with families. And they also shared that families were very appreciative of the communications that they do get. They actually kept saying, "Can they have more?" And I looked at them and smiled and said, "We're working on that, but there's a lot going on." Uh, but they do appreciate the communication from our staff. So, again, I just wanted to point that out from that perspective of just the work that continues to to do. We are moving into our end of our

047we do a what's called the plan, do, study, act process with our administrators. We are in our third cycle of the school year focused on attendance and we will uh come to a close and review our data this next week with them in our leadership meeting and then try and adapt and adjust for the remainder of the school year. So that's attendance. We are going to shift now to discipline which this is a much happier >> question while absolutely. So on all three um Februaries, it's just a big drop from 23 to 24. Do you guys have any sense of what was going on in 23 24 versus now in February? Because every other month it's pretty, you know, it's not as big of a shock. >> Yeah, I can a couple things. Uh actually,

048Dr. Jackson and I had an email today from the person that helps us with attendance. A couple things to note. our sickness was identical, almost identical to what it was last year. So that is playing a big factor in that. >> I think there's a lot of community safety right now just generally. That's how I'm going to say that. Not I wouldn't say so much in the schools, just in the community as a whole. >> We're suspecting. >> Um but I I mean obviously that wasn't we didn't feel that last year. Um I do think um our lowest attendant attendance month I mean you can see it at least for the last three years tend to be January February. Uh I think there's at times coming out of break extended time with family and we

049want you know again we want people to be in school as much as possible but I think there's some things even in an email that we received today like there's some things we need to continue to talk through and some I'm going to say anomalies that we're trying to figure out of why uh the attendance I will also say this is the time of year where we see a lot of students exit out of enrollment and come in. Uh, so I'm seeing we we look at enrollment every two weeks. Uh, usually in the beginning of the year we look every week, but as we get to the middle of the year, we're looking every two weeks. And just in the last two weeks, we were up 10 kids and then down 10 kids. That is

050a pattern we tend to see this time of year. So the ins and outs I think affect that also uh because that's a that's a big part of I mean again if they're here great or or if that changes. So, I think that's also a factor that we have to look at a little bit more deeply this time of year with enrollments overall. >> Yeah, those are some of the next pretty deep dives we're going to start to look at. >> February is a very hard one month. Yeah. >> Okay. So, let's go forward to discipline. Perfect. Thank you. Uh so again as a reminder this is our overall metric specific to discipline. Uh and again we are comparing discipline from when we were coming out of COVID in the 2122 again as a reminder

051to the board that was a socialization shift coming out and so we saw a pretty big uptick um and have continued. We're trying to move in that direction of not having as much suspension. So just as a reminder to the board in 21-22 we had a total of 620 suspensions across the district. So this slide again shows our discipline K12 for all students the last two years and again reading from the left this is from September to February our current discipline data in blue and for February which we are very excited about. We are 25 suspensions less than last year that is a 27 percentage point drop from the previous year. So, I'm just going to hold that there for a second. >> Our goal is we want to drop this by, you know, again,

052below that uh 620. We're going to be close if we can continue in the work that's that's being done in the buildings. And it's a lot of hard work uh that is being done in the buildings and with our students and our families. So, that is a really good uh data point for us in February. >> And the attendance was almost the same. This is >> this is a >> very real number. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So then um obviously we are looking at our male students because as we've shared before and this is not only in central but in Oregon and nationally there is higher suspension of our male students. So again this is our current data last two last year last two years September through February. And then you can see that we've

053decreased by 20 compared to last year. So again for our males 20 less than last year and that is also about a 27 percentage point drop from the previous year. Our strategic goal is that we drop our male student suspensions by 25 percentage point. So we are making progress in this area and doing some really great work in all of the buildings. Um, again, here are some of our uh really strategic plans that we're focusing on. We continue to teach and retach where necessary. Uh, again, that's expectations throughout the school. That could look anything like a a staff member or principal or teacher having conversations with students as a first step. I I am also going to say I think our student code of conduct that we and again as a reminder that came from

054our caregiver experience survey uh we took that this uh summer and really worked with our administrative team to revamp that and um I think we have been putting that really it was a sort of a soft start and then we've had it in full implementation since January. I think it gives better definitions and approaches uh overall from a disciplinary perspective. So, I think that is helping. And then obviously, we're continuing to focus on social emotional learning. Um we have counselors, behavior support staff, and then our uh school-based mental health associates that work with us within the building. So, those are just a couple of our different strategies that we use for that. So, again, hard to discipline's hard because I want that continuously going up up up. uh but this is great news to see

055our uh suspensions uh decreasing especially in this last month. Okay, we are now going to uh switch to our universal screeners. And with that, I am going to hand it over to our I would I want to say new, but you've been here for a while now. So, our >> probably new >> our uh director of curriculum and instruction, Dr. Amy Jackson. So, thanks for coming with coming with me on this one today. >> Yeah, no problem. Uh good evening, members of the board. um third grade universal screening data. We have goals for this. By third grade, 70% or more students will have uh achieved reading at grade level um as assessed by the universal screener and 60% in math will have achieved at the universal screening um proficient rate. First slide here is the

056um what this is looking at is third graders as second graders last spring. 51% came in this fall at 50% minimal and again this is like that flat range statistically. Um almost no summer reading loss. We see a little bit of a step back for the winter which is pretty common and pretty typical. we expect um that gain to be re uh recovered in the spring. If we look at the math, we see a um real big increase between second grade spring and uh third grade fall. And then we see again a little bit of a step back here at winter, which um have all the confidence in the world that that's going to get recovered. We have some really neat things happening in math. Think about the sixth grade universal screener. Similar goals. 60%

057or more of all students will have achieved reading um at grade level and 60% or more of all students and those experiencing disabilities. Again, we're looking at a subgroup here um achieving the math um skills in sixth grade. So if we look at the reading grade six cohort, fifth graders left at 49% and entered sixth grade at 52%. Again, really positive in light of summer. Um and then flat, I'm going to call that flatness between fall and winter. And we are looking for a nice step up here at the um uh for spring hopefully. Now looking at the math sixth grade cohort really similar shape very similar shape without reading the numbers the the shapes um are what's striking in this data I think to me when we break it out and we look at

058all students and students with disabilities we again we're seeing the similar shape in the data but students with disabilities we like we've got continued efforts um focused on those students to help them make gains and catch up as we go. Are we keeping up? Am I not? No. There we go. Okay. Eighth grade. >> Let's move on to eighth grade. Another uh kind of benchmarky time. 8th grade we're looking at 60% or more of all students at reading and 60% of all students at math including or in addition students with disabilities. Uh taking a an extra look at them. So if I look at 8th grade cohort again the shape is very very similar. We've got a nice step up from spring to fall. Um, and then flatness between fall and winter. Math, we're looking

059at a little bit up. I mean, this is flat. The numbers here are pretty darn similar all the way across. And as we um look at our students experiencing disabilities, we've got a little bit of a step down here in the winter time, but not drastic. Again, the numbers are so darn close that we're calling that flat. When I look at that data and I think about its flatness and um its distance from that 60% um I know the question on the table is so are you like what's happening? What are you planning to do? Um and we continue to implement our researchbased materials, reading and math both um at the elementary and at the secondary level in uh year uh in K5. Our elementary schools are in year three of the implementation of the

060benchmark um curriculum, the ELA curriculum. Takes three to five years for an implementation to really take root. The fact that it's flat isn't a huge surprise, but absolutely gives us a really nice ramp to uh step it up. And then in math, we're in year one of this brand new math curriculum, which is why that third grade data is so interesting to me because I think we're starting to see a little bit of a of a bump like right off the right off the mark. So, I think there's a lot of positive um movement that we're just right on the cusp of using professional learning communities. Um K12 is definitely increasing in its um use and focus and that's going to take us really far as far as um teachers looking at that data, making

061datadriven decisions and adjusting instruction. And now that we're comfortable with the materials that we've got and we're have a little bit of practice under our belt, making those instructional adjustments gets to be a little bit more exciting um and permissive as we are looking at the data and the students with the knowledge of the curricular materials behind us. Um so we're just going to continue talking about how our students are doing and focusing on helping them do better and more as nimly as we can. Language development is also a component of this. We know we've got an awful lot of uh language learners. Awful is not the right word, but we have a lot. We have a whole lot. Um which is very exciting. But it also gives us opportunities to um focus on the

062ways that we're instructing and bringing in um and and scaling up our use of sheltered instructional strategies. So, we have some PD things in the pipeline and some continuing things in the pipeline and we'll see good things. The other thing I would add is just reminder of our curriculum and both of them as that we adopted them they spiral. So we talk about standards. So there could be introduction of sta standards and again you do a lot of introductions of standards this time of year uh for students new learning new standards and then those will spiral throughout the rest of the time in the curriculum. That's intentional. Uh so that is why a little bit at times you might see a little bit of a dip because there's learning that's taking place, new learning that's

063taking place. Um and then again we have seen in the past where we jump up into the spring and hopefully that's the case. I think um there's still a lot of moving parts. We're uh doing a lot of work. There's PD this next week or this week even uh tied to standards and social studies and science and some of the things that we're doing K5 that we're continuing to work work through through this process >> and all of the data you guys are like outside what actually happens in research right with the summer slump they're all coming back fall even higher than when they left. Can we attribute that to some of our summer programs or those like strong data pieces that we can use to continue to argue to fund summer tutoring and other

064things because this is the opposite of what we generally see in research. >> You want to go or me go? >> Well, here's where I'd like to play my new person card because I've not been here for the for summer school. Although I am helping plan um plan this summers and on one hand I would see I don't know how to say no. Um, on one hand I would say absolutely summer school's rock and we've got great programs. The way that it's lined up is just right. Um, but my question, the reason that I'm a little bit shy about it is because I don't know the proportion, the number of students that are in summer school and if it's a large enough hole >> to have that kind of an impact. >> And when we

065presented to the legislature, was that September? I think it was September when we went to talk about summer school. So we have even in the universal screener if we just look at the universal screener they're they're increasing 10 percentage points higher than the students that are not in summer school. Okay. So and again I'm going to say when the populations we serve it tends to be our especially summer school and expanded learning opportunities we really focus on kids that need need a little bit of extra help. uh and so they're probably the ones that are farther behind and so we're trying to continue to push them uh forward in that positive direction. So yes, I the summer school I believe truly does help not us not having summer slide. I will also say uh we're

066in the midst of uh right now uh putting together our uh high dosage tutoring. I shared that we have that uh supplemental grant that we received that will go into our expanded learning time after school. Uh Dr. Jackson is leading that uh really intentional like one to two one adult two students 20 minutes of very intentional uh intervention or extension for that student. And so we're going to be running that six weeks, 10 weeks, >> eight uh 10 weeks, 10 week 10 consecutive weeks starting March 30. >> So we'll do one group of that this year and then we'll come back and do three more >> Three rounds this next year as well in our programming. So I think some of these things will help us. Um and then again continuing to get used to

067the curriculum and and the work that Dr. Jackson and the and the really the curriculum committees and the groups are doing I think is going to continue to move us forward other questions for us and you know the accountability is coming in so like I said we're ahead and trying to move the needle so we can keep that that going forward. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Next is our audit report >> and I'm going to ask our director of finances Kun to come forward and then we will be adding in our auditing team. Yes. Hello, >> evening. >> Can you all hear me? Right. >> Yes. >> You want to start and then >> Good evening and um thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about our financial reporting for the

0682425 fiscal year which ended June 30th. Um, we did complete our audit um and submit it to the Oregon Department of Education and again that is a requirement in order to start receiving our state school fund payments in the beginning of the year. You don't have the full audit um document in front of you, but you do have a letter to the governing body uh which our lead auditor David Bledsoe will present to you. But >> and that's the piece that CE handed out separately or to >> just to let you know um things were although we although we were able to get our audit to the Oregon Department of Education, other parts of our audit were delayed a little this year. the uh the government federal government shutdown in October meant that our auditors

069did not get their guidance on what they were supposed to be reviewing in our federal programs um until late. So, the Oregon Department of Education delayed the ability of districts to submit audits into um early February this year so that we could have a complete federal audit as well as a regular audit of our financial statements. So, that's why you don't have a nice copy of it quite yet, cuz we're still putting all of it together for you with all of the um information, but you will be able to get a copy of the complete audit here shortly >> and we'll we'll we'll send that to you and that that will be attached in one of the Friday reports. >> Yeah. Yeah. It'll be post it's quite a lengthy document. we posted on our website.

070So, we'll give you the link to that. If you do want a paper copy for your own records, and of course, we will make one of those available to you. With that, I'm going to turn it over to David to talk to you a little bit about what they do for us. uh what they see in our financial um records and how we did as far as meeting all of the legal requirements that we have for the state of Oregon. Particularly the Secretary of State's office does um review have auditors review public accounting to make sure that we are in compliance with Oregon budget and reporting law. And so he'll talk to you about that as well. Cool. Thank you for the introduction. Uh please pipe up if you can't hear me suddenly and apologies

071if I do have a min of a cough in fit. I uh managed to catch the flu recently. I still a little bit of a lingering dry cough from that. But uh thank you for the board for having me this evening. Uh my name is David Bledo. I'm one of the audit managers here with Paulie Rogers and Company. Uh we're based on entired. I've had the pleasure of working on the central school district audit with CES for a couple years now and uh always a great audit. Uh to to kind of cut it short, uh the board letter that CE handed out, if the board could turn to numbered page two of nine, there was a results of audit section I'd like to walk folks through. Uh as a reminder, CE kind of hinted at

072this, but we're discussing the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. As a reminder to the board, the information that you uh just actually now reviewed is substantially more current than the information that we're going to be talking about. I would also like to start by mentioning that you receive a financial audit on an annual basis, not because you did anything wrong, but as a matter of state law. Every municipal entity in Oregon goes through an audit and your audit is uh complicated by a few items that we'll get into including the federal uh guidance that C's aptly pointed out. In the results of the audit section, we have numbers 1, two, and three. That's a synthesis of really the three thematic areas of our audit. The first one is over accounting rules. We refer to

073them often as gazsby rules or numbered rules from the governmental accounting standards board. that is did you follow the rule book? Uh our conclusion that was yes the rule book was followed uh except that you report on the cash basis right you report on the cash basis for silver years but that means you did not report things like accounts receivable so we're just highlighting that fact for you not necessarily a negative at all it's not uncommon for districts to report on the cash basis and it does not preclude you from any um uh any granting or funding available from different entities. Uh the second one is our work over the Oregon minimum standards. That covers things like adherence to budget law. Did you spend within your appropriative levels that the board authorized? Did you uh

074do bid quote compliance that is talk to three vendors if you want to spend over certain threshold into a couple other items. We did note one item that we'll kind of get into later regarding teacher experience reporting. Uh that's a requirement to uh literally report how long teachers have served your district to the department of education. It can be a bit complicated for a variety of factors. So on an annual basis, we do review those records and um highlight to the business office any inconsistencies we find. A lot of it has to do with folks that started in non-qualifying roles over a period of time or they took a sbatical or maternity leave or patern leave things like that over a period of time. The third item on our numbered list though is for federal

075awards that refers to your federal grants as CE mentioned. Unfortunately, the normal timing of the fiscal year 25 audits was substantially derailed. We commonly get the guidance that we need from the federal government in May or June on an annual basis. Uh we were unfortunately uh delayed in that and received it the Tuesday before Thanksgiving this year which uh introduced significant timeline delays in our ability to both plan and perform an auto uh consistent quality. So we uh as CE mentioned the department of education Oregon was kind enough to essentially give us a month additional time to get through that work before uh any revenue impacts were uh seen on any of the districts. Uh with that in mind, I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has at the moment. If not, I'll kind of

076keep reading through the board letter. Um hearing no questions hopefully. Okay, wonderful. >> Go ahead if you have a question. I always have a question. Are you kidding me? Um I I just looked at the audit we got last year to see if this section uh best practices not not significant >> deficiencies ever came up and I didn't see it last year. So I'm and there were a few items here that I didn't remember seeing before and I was wondering if they were part of the updated guidance or like the >> Yeah, sure. I'm happy to walk you through that. That is where that uh is where I was heading. uh shortly so I can answer I can kind of jump ahead to that. Um so the uh as as you aptly pointed out we

077do have a section at the back of the board letter that gives some recommendations made to the board as a result of our f of our audit work covering a few areas. It's important to note what those are and those are not. So in the realm of auditing we uh synthesize comments um under kind of a common language. The most severe of those being material weaknesses that are things that in our opinion would have shifted numbers so much that a reader of the financial statements that we audit would have changed their interpretation of them. A significant deficiency is a bit less severe. It usually refers to something that could have caused that. These are not that. But these are just recommendations we try to provide our clients that are both actionable and uh value oriented

078to make sure that you can endeavor upon kind of cleaning a couple things up that are not nearly severe enough for us to have to communicate those kind of findings. Uh before I I kind of walk you through what those are, I will highlight a couple other areas of the board letter. It is rather lengthy, a lot of paragraphs to legal ace. Um it does however cover a couple things I do want to highlight. Those being upcoming accounting rules changes that we're going to be looking at for fiscal year 26. That begins on page five of nine. As I mentioned earlier, the governmental accounting standards board is the standard setter for the accounting rules. They have numbered pronouncements uh that we contend with. If you can believe it, we're going to be up to 103

079and 104 this next year. So even more rules that uh we as long as well as CES have to endeavor upon being uh consistent with on annual basis. Good news for y'all because you do report on the cash basis of accounting. You don't have to deal with statement 104 nearly at all. That covers changes to how capital assets would be reported. The district doesn't report those at all. So that won't be a big burden upon CE and the rest of the business office. Statement 103 however does do a couple things. One of them does change a section of the financial statements that CE writes that kind of take um includes some highle takeaways and kind of the so what of the numbers the financial statements can uh can often grow to be nearly 100 pages

080including all kinds of disclosures about pension obligations among other items. So the management's discussion and analysis is an opportunity for the business office to go in and kind of say here's two or three two to five pages of big takeaways. They're adding a few additional requirements for that that I will highlight that C has more or less been disclosing for several years now. So, she was a bit enterprising in that. Uh, one other change we'll do next year is a slight shift to the formatting that we show original and final and actual budget numbers. That is uh the incumbrance levels that the board passes on your annual budget process. Both the inflows resources and the outflows. the formatting that's changing a bit, but um it's ostensively just pretty simple addition. Uh with that in mind,

081happy to get into the best practice recommendations that we did have this year. I believe last year I may not have just drawn significant attention to them, but we did have a couple of these last year that are common and reoccurring across the industry. So, uh to kind of walk folks through them, the very first list is something I tell nearly every municipality in Oregon. Uh for those who are trying to follow along, I'll number page eight of nine in the section titled best practices, non-significant deficiencies. Again, these are recommendations to the board. Uh there is no formal action required as a result of these. It's just something that we want to draw attention to. The first one is fidelity insurance coverage. What this means is very simply at any point in time throughout the

082year we audited, the district had more than your insurance balance for cash. Uh what we're not talking about here is like FDIC or the federal government's backing of deposits and bank accounts. It's referring to uh your insurance company. Uh the state insurer that everyone uses maxes out at $1 million of coverage for instances of cash misappropriation. That being said, everyone, we told this to everyone you can't get more than a million. Not necessarily anything that the board needs to do, but just kind of highlighting a possibility that if something were to happen, the insurance company would only make you whole for a smaller portion of the cash that you have on hand. After that, the rest of these I'll kind of briefly touch on. Uh the first one is uh comment about stale dated checks.

083This is something that's very very common. Unfortunately, no matter how hard CE tries, she cannot make people cash checks out of the district rights. So if people choose to leave envelopes uncashed, unopened, um there's only so much they can do. Uh interestingly enough, uh the state process for this requires remittance at the end of November, but our financial statements are expressed as of the end of June. So even if you are following the rules about turning those unclaimed property funds to the state, there is a couple months where you do have um them floating on your books in a way that uh the business office doesn't want them floating under books. Uh the third one is just a note saying that you do not currently maintain a capital asset register. Consider doing that in future.

084That's been there for the past I think maybe five years likely to remain there for um for some time. Uh items four or five are new this year. Those relate to some items that came up during our uh testing related to it making sure you had those i9s on file as well as uh when part of what we do is we look at PERS entrant data that is um your employees they're per uh participating in PERS. We look at their profiles to make sure that everything is aligned. Sometimes we do find inconsistencies usually related to date of hire. Uh historically what the state process has been has evolved over a period of time. It used to be uh several years ago that the state would only allow you to enter new employees twice a year.

085So it introduced some timing issues if folks started outside of those times. I believe uh CES corrected both of those when we brought them up to her like gosh maybe back in like October, November time. Uh the last comment we have for you relates to um something a bit convoluted. Uh much like every other school district in the state. Uh the district contracts out to one of a variety of ESDs to host their accounting system. Uh in doing that um there is some exposure risk of if an entity were if the ESD were to be hacked essentially there is some data downstream risk for the district. Again, this is something we tell everyone in the state, not necessarily a specific comment about anything that your business office is doing, just rather that there are the

086possibility that um an external party if they were to be hacked, your data might be um compromised in that. Again, happy to answer any questions anyone may have about the comments. >> I let me add the teacher experience, the concern that we had, we have corrected that. >> Yeah. uh we have we once we got word of that we um went back through and just have updated that and then put some process in place to make sure that that um that issue does not happen again. So I just wanted to comment on that >> and I will say we have gotten this list in the past um and typically I will come back to you and let you know what we're doing um to correct these and I looked back and saw I did not

087present that to you last year. So that's why it didn't stick. Um and did that in 24 but did not present it to you last year in 25. So I do have our um our responses to this that will be presented to you in the future. Even though we're not legally required to have you approve our our management actions, I want you to know we we are taking these things seriously. We love our audits because we love knowing how we can improve and do better. Um, so, uh, these kinds of things are are really a good check for us and I'll be responding back to you. And again, to highlight what the communications are, um, they're not formal findings that require a corrective action plan to be approved by the board and sent to the

088federal government, state government. They're just supposed to be um, somewhat actionoriented items for the board to consider um, attending to in future periods. Uh happy to report that the district did go through not one but two single audits this year. Again, that was a bit of the delay from this year since not only did we have to plan and execute one single audit, but we had to do two. There were no findings associated with either one of those. Um yeah, outside of that, uh fairly clean audit. Uh no significant findings and always a pleasure to work with C and her team. And I would just add I if we didn't see a list I would be nervous. I I mean that I mean as much as we want to make sure that everything is perfect

089and we cross our tees and dot our eyes with everything. I think this is just a reminder as CE and I we all work together on you know how and where we can clean things up so we have less of these or make our processes better. Uh from that perspective I know I'm preaching >> 100%. But, you know, I just wanted to make sure because I didn't I remembered stale checks. I didn't remember. That's a chronic thing for everyone, >> but I didn't remember all of these. And I was wondering though it because I for sure didn't remember seeing the Iines and the PERS demographic info on there before. So, I was wondering if that was from some change. >> No, that that is something, you know, Murphy's law, right? They catch the one that

090you didn't do. So they've they have found some findings of teacher experience over the years. Like David said, a teacher takes a leave of absence and comes back and how you report that and how you keep your records updated. Some of that is very manual unfortunately for us. So there are a couple that are repeat findings um mostly related to those kinds of things. the PERS dates of hire one that they catch every so often that it was something it one of the I9s that's missing is the employee who has been with us the longest before I were required. >> Yes. >> Um and and you know 1986 HR didn't go back and get one apparent she she didn't work for a while and she came back so never caught that back up. So now

091we are going to create one for her. >> I it gives me a good feeling of confidence actually that we get these things coming from a background where I look at audits all the time. If there's nothing in there but no findings then you know that doesn't give you a warm fuzzy feeling. >> It doesn't. >> So I'm thank I'm really grateful for the work you guys put in on the audit. Thank you. >> Yeah absolutely. We definitely try to make sure we have a in-depth audit that's also not too burdensome upon your business office staff. they do have a variety of job roles including trying to both balance budgets and just kind of keep paychecks going out. So we try to make sure that uh we can do quality work um for the district

092and the board but without kind of derailing too much the operative activities. Uh and as he's mentioned we kind of do have unfortunate luck in looking at you know if you have 470 odd employees you somehow find the one usually that has some minor paperwork inconsistency. So, we did end up uh uh finding something somewhat inconsequential that we do try to remind to continue to update. But again, if we looked at all 470, I would be surprised if we found more than two that were um uh out of alignment, but we unfortunately managed to find those. uh that kind of I'm happy to answer any of the questions about kind of what we did not find to cross a guided as well as maybe touch on some uh some some of the work that we

093do. >> Another question. >> Thank you. >> No more question. >> We appreciate your time. >> All right. Thanks, David. >> Thank you. He freeze. >> Oh, did we lose him up? Oh, there you are. >> Oh, okay. Like I'm back now. >> Yeah. I don't think we have any more questions from the board, but thank you, David, for your uh time tonight. Very helpful. >> Yeah, absolutely. Thank you again for having me. And if you do have any other questions, happy to pop in at a future time. >> Thank you. >> All right. Superintendent report. >> Yeah. just have two policies for first reading. Uh hopefully you had a chance to look at them. The first policy I'm just going to touch on is policy ACB, which is our every student belongs. This is

094actually the first policy we are bringing to you from the policy superintendent policy committee. Uh so they've done some really good work. Uh again, just reminder, they helped us with the lovely cell phone policy with our staff also. Uh but this is really the first one that we've uh dove into. So this policy again is focused on the district's commitment for the success of every student in our district. And this committee was uh vital in just up up developing and up um cleaning up excuse me our language specifically to our protected classes. And then it does reference our new code of conduct uh specific to investigations andor incidents and responses to that. So again, this is just first reading. There's no uh we're not going to take any motions or anything today on that policy,

095but because we have made changes, it is coming back to you. Questions about that one. Really, really good committee that we're working with. I I can't thank them enough for the work that they're doing. The second one is policy GCAB, personal electronic devices and social media for staff. Again, this is focused on staff possession of and use of personal electronic devices on district property. Uh we felt it was appropriate to update this because we just did it for the students. So, we thought let's take a look at it. Uh we've asked uh there's specific language in there uh tied to really personal electronic devices being silenced during instructional time. Again, that's been conversations with both union leadership about as we do this work, especially as our students aren't using their cell phones, how do we

096do the same as best as possible. Uh we remind students also, but our staff are still responsible for safety and security. So, if we do need to use it, we will. We do have phones in most places in schools, but sometimes you're in a spot where you may not have that. So, they would would use that. Um, so we we continue to work with both unions on this. There's also referencing to text messages uh with students. Again, that's part of the reason we've moved a lot of our communication to parent square. It allows us to have those types of communications with teams, etc. Uh and then also keeps a record of it. So, that's a protection for staff. And then, uh like I said, we continue to train on parent square and make that a

097little bit stronger. There are a couple things that we're still working through. So, this may go through all three readings. There was a question asked by union leadership that we're following up with the Oregon School Board Association to get clarity so we can communicate back to them on some of the language that is in the policy. So, we're still working through that. So, again, may go through all three readings uh this year, but if we can work through that one section, then we will bring it back to you and hopefully maybe even have it in the consent agenda next time. So, that's it for me or questions. I did want to say I read an article about how students all across the country have figured out how to open those little pocket things. And I

098when I read the article I was so grateful that we didn't spend the money on that. >> I mean self-control is way better than >> they advocated very strongly they wanted to be treated like adults and so we are trying to do that. I will say we're doing very well at the middle school and we're still working through some bumps at the high school, but we're getting there. >> Right. Board report. Next PLC will be March 16th at 5:00 PM here at the district office. The next regular board meeting will be April 6th here at 6:30 p.m. Moving on to the consent agenda. And I'm accepting motions to adopt the consent agenda as presently constituted. >> I move that we accept the consent agenda as presently constituted. >> Moved by Melanie. >> Seconded by Jan.

099Any discussion? If not, all those in favor raise your hand. Any opposed? It is unanimous. Consent agenda is adopted. With nothing on the business agenda on the business agenda, are we having both items in the executive session? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, I need to read >> both items. >> Both, please. >> Sections. Okay. So we will recess into executive session uh which is closed to the public under the provisions of OS 192.660 open meeting law. The board of directors will enter executive session for the following purposes. To conduct deliberations with person designated to carry on the labor negotiations or 1961 192.66 660 sub2 subd specific information discussed in executive session shall not be made public and shall remain disclosed as well as to review and evaluate the performance of the superintendent or any other

100public officer, employer, staff member unless that person requests an opening hearing an open hearing or S192.660 sub 2 subi. So we will take