Corvallis School Board Meeting (February 3, 2022)

001the corvallis school board meeting for february 3rd 2022 is called to order if you're willing and able please join me to the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome oregon law allows public meetings to be held entirely online in the interest of public health and safety for all community members especially for immuno-compromised individuals and their families the corvallis school board will continue to hold its meetings online public comment is available at some of our meetings information about how to provide public comments is available on the corvallis school district website additionally the boards agenda and packets as well as the link to the district's youtube channel are available on

002the school board page on the district's website public meetings are live streamed on the district's youtube channel and a recording is posted to the same channel typically the day after the meeting i am grateful that this technology makes it possible for more community members to view and participate in school board meetings given the flexibility provided by oregon a roll call is taken tonight we have directors uh pro vice chair sarah finger mcdonald and chair sanja in attendance in person and directors uh vice chair of the holy white bear director teresa jones director of vince adams director shawna tammany available through video and audio due to technolo and also due to technology and connectivity limitations some virtual participants attending may have their video off some or at all times director tina baker is excused now as

003i shared in at the last meeting uh i indicated my intentions and i am stepping down as a board chair effective this evening uh pending the successful nomination of a new board chair in the interest of continuity of leadership it is customary for the vice chair of or one of the co-vice chairs to move up to a chair and this evening we will vote to move co-vice chair sarah finger mcdonald's to chair and uh i would encourage or i would suggest the nomination her nomination to the position uh co-vice chair white bear will finish out her turn and we will vote in another co-vice chair to fill the remaining kobach chair vacancy so with that let's start with the first uh uh item on the agenda election of board officers uh we do not need

004emotion just names of people you would like to nominate for a position of board chair for the remainder of 2021-2022 does anyone wish to make a nomination i would like to nominate finger mcdonald to serve as board chair for the remainder of the 21-22 year thank you director jones awesome is there any further uh calvin do you have comments i don't know if i'm allowed to nominate but i back the nomination of their finger mcdonald sure thank you with much appreciation and student voice is very important in every process including this one so with that uh is there any further nominations is there any further nominations is there any further nominations there is no further nominations the nominations now are closed um i think we need to take a vote is that correct yes so

005let's take a vote uh there is no motion necessary uh the chair will entertain a vote on uh appointing achara and uh director sarah finger mcdonald for the position of chair for the remainder of this academic school year so let's take a vote um director therese jones aye dr shawna tommeny i but can i also make a pause i don't mean to interrupt but i guess i'd just like to have confirmation that sarah finger mcdonald director sarah finger mcdonald would like to move forward with the nomination okay then i vote awesome uh director vince adams hi come by chairman white there hi and is there anyone missing six to none the motion passes unanimously and the motion to uh reconsider is laid on the table congratulations uh the directors and members of the board uh

006superintendent sir ryan nas i introduce you to the new 509 day here senator finger mcdonald's i'll be passing the gavel to a chair of san francis and he would be residing on the rest of the meeting thank you um because i have some comments but i'll switch them to the end of the meeting because let's keep going um so now we turn toward to electing a um co-vice chair again we don't need a motion we just need names of people you would like to nominate for the one open position aboard co-vice chair for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year do i have any nominations i nominate the white bear so blues are already yeah so she's remaining so we're retaining our co-visor i would nominate uh director shauna tommeny for the vacant uh by

007share position director tony do you accept the nomination thank you for asking i do but i'll also ask the question of it i know i'm really the newest member serving on the school board and so i'm curious if there are others who have perhaps served longer who are interested in serving in that role as eager as i am to to serve and learn in that position it's kind of you to ask sir i was about to nominate you so i feel very comfortable moving forward with your nomination and in anticipation of any awkwardness if i were to be nominated i would decline it so i am i very happily put my support behind director tommy thank you for sharing that teresa that's helpful to hear because i did want to make space for you if

008this was an opportunity that you were interested in did anyone else have to make a nomination hearing no objections or further nominations the nominations are closed so now we need to take a vote on the nomination so let's start with director adams hi director elaborate hi um director jones aye director white bear our co-vice chair right there hi director comedy hi and i vote i welcome to the leadership team co-vice chair tony thank you okay so now we move on to the next item on our agenda which is board member reports does anyone have anything they wish to share kovice chair white bear um i mean i would say this for the comments but i think it's because it's our meeting's going to be long i would like to just say happy black history month

009to our community and encourage the rest of the community to take an opportunity not to not just learn about black history and futures this month but every month and um also wishing a um happy lunar new year i know it was a couple days ago to community members who also um celebrate and um i did also have a couple things to report on in addition to that but i wanted to start with that and um one is i was able to attend um another affinity group for the lgbtq plus affinity group and they're really excited about some stuff planned for pride month and other things going on with that and also the um the vaccine group meeting outreach i'm really proud of the work being done by that group and seeing the positive impact in

010the community when it comes to helping provide access um and then there was one more thing i attended and now i'm like oh it was this morning because it was so early um the hands across corvallis was beautiful and i just wanted to encourage folk even if you can't contribute um to take a look at the video um that's on the corvall school foundation pages on their facebook and on their youtube video or page to take a look at the um really amazing work that's happening out in the schools and here's some from some students and staff and um just wanted to encourage that and it was a little bit early for me but it was great to be able to watch that and participate live in virtual communities so that was it thank you

011director adam i was having trouble unmuting um i too you know i was able to hand uh hands across from our ballots and just was feeling immense gratitude in that moment for you know all the work that the foundation does but for really the people and i'm really looking at the superintendent and all his staff and the close coordination that they do with the foundation to bring all those wonderful assets to our staff our teaching staff and to our children and the immense impact that they have had over the last year and of course the the long partnership that we've had with the foundation so it was just a very exciting it was and it was wonderful to be able to see inside our buildings i i don't think people realize that this school board

012has not had an opportunity to be in our education spaces for two years over two years and so it was wonderful to be able to see children learning and see teachers teaching in schools it's something that we've we haven't been able to see and so it was very invigorating a couple weeks ago i was able to join the home opportunity planning and equity advisory board it's called the hope board their focus is on on homelessness not specifically with children but in in general for the whole county they heard a data report from brad smith who is a practitioner in that field on on just homelessness that's happening in in the county uh one of the things that really stood out was that while they have added capacity to uh our emergency housing system both you

013know emergency shelters and transitional housing um that has been taken up so there is pent up demand for housing we knew this but one of the things that they reported and it was really echoed what the board heard from our own staff in their work of serving our our unhoused children is that coordination between agencies it seems to be at an all-time high that there seems to be a lot of capacity out there that agencies are really focusing on this issue and that agencies are working well together but there's still a lot of need out there so there's there the hope is getting their work for the year started and i'll be continuing to sit in with them thank you um director jones thank you direct board chair finger mcdonald [Laughter] i am i think

014that if i if the meeting wasn't going to be so long i would save this for the end but it's going to be so long that i'm not going to um because there might be people in the community actually still tuned in with us right now or joining right now and so i wanted to take a moment and report out my gratitude for um sammy's leadership over the last um almost three years i have tremendous respect for the work that you do in our community sami and i'm very excited to see um uh director finger mcdonald become board share uh it is bittersweet because i feel um i've we've had a very effective working relationship with the us chair and i particularly just have felt um just the just your leadership and so i just

015wanted to say that while there are still people listening out there so they could hear um that it's been a pleasure to be a board member under your leadership and so thank you for that and um also wanted to just make sure that the community realizes that we have a female board chair and a female co-vice chair and a female co-vice chair and we continue to have communities of color represented on our board and so um i just hope the community looks at the board and sees uh the efforts that we have made to um make sure that we as best as we can that we are reflecting the community that we live in the diverse community that we live in and so i'm very excited for this season of leadership and i just wanted

016to to say that um i don't think we could have um a better team of leaders to bring us into finishing out this year and preparing for what will come um as as things continue to shift so anyway so welcome um director tommy and um and chair i was going to take a minute to get used to that but board here mcdonald's um and and dr whitebear for continuing your leadership and um sarah i think sammy will tell you that um i text him a lot so um because i have a lot of questions so anyway um but thank you all and thank you sami thank you um director ella thank you chair uh finger mcdonald's and uh i wanna uh share my gratitude to dr john's uh words kind words and uh it's been

017and continues to be the honor of my lifetime to work with this board and uh lean on the council and advice of my colleagues and i'll continue to support this work and i'm really grateful uh now one of the things i'm very grateful for is the model of leadership that we have uh where we have the code by shares it's a model that's uh uh the largest two school boards uh or the largest two districts uh in oregon now are considering this model that we have started so it's something to really be proud of and i'm grateful for this uh stability and continuity of leadership that we have another thing i want to report is a presentation to the women's fellowship at that congregational church and i was very grateful to share some words around

018the advancing racial equity and social justice in education and government and how community members can be engaged in that work and shared some of the transformational policies that the school board has passed in the past few years uh including also understanding of the role of gov school boards governmental boards and elected officials as delegates and trustees it was really engaging a conversation and i had the opportunity also to uh talk about and and listen to comments around uh contemporary issues like uh age-appropriate curriculum and math education and all these issues so grateful for that opportunity thank you thank you um so i had the opportunity this last week to attend the board liaison to the seahack meeting which is the special education advisory committee and that committee has you know like a lot of things

019use the pandemic and some changes that have happened to kind of rework how they've done some things and so they're it was it was great their their um mains are now happening in the evening and they have simultaneous interpretation happening in spanish to make the information accessible to more families um this past meeting sean bernard who just joined our district um to work with special education talked and basically gave a tutorial on the alphabet soup of special education um so it's really useful helpful information i know that it's often intimidating to go into a meeting where you're trying to um you get what your child needs in school don't have all these letters going on you don't need neat you don't understand so it was really it was a good meeting um that said i

020really i'm really excited about some of the directions they're going in um and i'm happy to remain the sac um liaison if anybody else would like to take on that role um i would be happy to um pass the baton as i take on the board chair position um this weekend i will be attending the osba legislative policy committee meeting um on zoom so that work continues and i also want to remind board members that on fridays at noon there's a legislative update from osba um so if you're interested in that information i can help you figure out how to get you know get connected to that um i also went to hands across corvallis today um since everybody gave their comment they were going to make at the end of the meeting i'm going

021to make mine right now i was thinking about that theme of um gratitude and renewal and so a year ago almost exactly a year ago i missed the foundation fundraiser because i was in the hospital facing a cancer diagnosis and so i'm really grateful to be on the other side of cancer treatment successful cancer treatment and i am extremely grateful to this board and to the district staff for supporting me so that i could continue this work that just feels so critical and important right now i'm grateful to sami for remaining chair for extra six months when i was not able to take over and i'm really grateful to the contributions you made for this community and the work that you do in this community both in the district and the school district and in

022the other um work that you do i think we are we are better for having you in our community and and i'm really grateful for the work you do um so looking forward um i'm grateful of the opportunity to cheer this board and the trust you've given me and through you that the community has given me to um to steer the ship for a while um so today we are halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox so our days are going to be getting brighter and knocked on wood we've turned the corner on omicron and so i'm hope that i'm you know i'm hope i'm feeling hopeful that we will move forward and with you know a feeling of renewal as we continue to do this work that's so critical for all of

023our kids so thank you um any other comments now let's move on then to our superintendent's report that was a great way to book in the comments and with so many positives so thank you for doing that so a lot to be said for that yeah it's great to have you happy so i have a couple of updates i wanted to share with you um for my superintendent's report um you know you know i go back and forth sometimes i add pictures sometimes i have graphics sometimes i just share there's a couple things i wanted to be able to share with you um for you to be able to take a look at in my suits report today so there'll be a couple of slides for you to look at as well the first thing

024i wanted to highlight as dr whitener initially did was to highlight black history month and so as we enter the month of february the crevalle school district invites you to join in observing and honoring black history february is a time for for collective education and reflection as the corvallis school district continues to deepen our commitment to social justice and becoming an anti-racist organization we believe that deepening our collective understanding of black history should be a year-round commitment last year the school board adopted resolution 21-0201 proclaiming february 21st as well as each february annually as black history month in the district the resolution strongly encourage families staff and community members to join in existing local celebrations black history month provides us with many opportunities to honor the countless examples of courage resilience generosity empathy and resolve

025during black history month we have an opportunity to deepen our understanding of our history this month matters and in the words of martin luther king jr the time is always right to do the what is right so during this month of february we encourage you to seize this time to learn and do more to engage encourage conversations with others and celebrate this black history month with empathy and openness and so the next slide has some activities that are happening in our area this list are activities that are going on at osu related to black history month we'll also be sending this out to staff so they will also have this list that they can reference throughout the month i believe there's another slide that also shares other events that are going on at lbcc and

026then we also have some from the city of monmouth on the next slide so again there's a number of ways to celebrate to be engaged in my education report report later on i'll give an example of some student work related to black history month that's exciting to share but again um while february is black history month the work we do around racial justice goes on throughout the year and it's important for us to continue that focus and emphasis in our work here in csd so the the next area i wanted to talk about before we get to the promise of oregon and some of our students that have been recognized lately which is super cool to be able to share with you um one of the things i wanted to let you know as a

027board is that we've had several applicants for the budget committee um strong applicants and so my recommendation to you would be that i would work with chair finger mcdonald to develop some questions and invite the candidates to meet with you at our next board meeting so with support of that move i'd like to i'd like to do that i'm recognizing that there are community members who would like to find ways and avenues of participating i think that's a budget committee is the way some of you first joined us and then moved into board position set is a great example of that and so where we have opportunities to bring folks on i'd like us to consider them and with two strong candidates we'd like to meet with both of them does that sound okay great

028yeah great um community engagement i've had a couple of opportunities as you all know and have talked about was this morning was always a great opportunity with hands across corvallis to um to meet with well over 300 members of the community and share what's going on in our school district if you hear student voice and the perspective of our teachers so again that was a great celebration also last night i had the opportunity to um also meet with amel trusa to meet with another group of community volunteers and to share what's going on in our school district and for them to be thinking about ways that they can support our work they've done incredible things over time the library at college hill is an example of their their work the volunteerism there and so again

029looking at a community that has great volunteers people who want to be engaged how do we continue to create pathways for that to happen so again it's enjoyable to be able to spend the evening talking about all the successes in our school district so um there's other groups and service organizations that are wanting us to come and share we're always i'm happy to have you to share what's going on in csd another thing i wanted to share is an update or new information so we have put into the qatar foundation for a grant to bring arabic language into csd we were notified that we have received those grant dollars which will allow us to have our arabic club that we've had in the past we've had one at bar field so we'll have an elementary

030and a middle school and also at the high school starting next school year students can forecast into arabic um as a world language to take for credit um folks who are speaking language other than arabic as well as native speakers could sign up for that class and continue to develop arabic as a as a language so we feel really fortunate to be able to do that we'll wear one other high school in oregon lincoln high school has arabic and i'm not sure of other other high schools that have that opportunity so again it's just a really unique um special opportunity for us to be able to expand and as you know over the years we've had a lot of advocacy in this area and so again it's nice to be able to take that and

031move that forward several members of the community have walked alongside us in the application process bashir and kais are two examples and folks that have been strong advocates over time and i know they are excited to see what comes from this this new opportunity for students so i wanted to share that with you as a highlight tonight and then i did also want to share with you um we've talked about this a couple of times osba has been doing the promise of oregon and so every week or so they're i'm recognizing and highlighting one of the students from the corvallis school district and these are the kids that the students that have been highlighted so far so the first one is ruby lopez garcia i'm the promise of working because i want the community to

032help and support more people with special needs like me so that that was ruby in her own words um mia ray here i'm the promise of oregon because i want to be a vet to help animals that are hurt when i grow up i also want to be a soccer player you'll you'll see that thing here for soccer players but again katherine jones harrison was one of the schools linus pauling as well so the next one is from my linus pauling student i'm isaac fleming i promise of worrying because i'm self-driven and determined to achieve my goal of being the richest man alive so look out jeff bezos uh next one is bennett williams who's also my neighbor so i've got a special affinity for bennett i'm the promise of oregon because i want to

033be a police officer to help keep people safe uh screen blocking it i'm the promise of oregon because i'm passionate about soccer and want to become a professional soccer player and michelle is a student at linus pauling and that's it but we will have another promise of oregon student tomorrow so friday we'll have another student from the school district represented and again it's just fun to be able to see them um and hear about what their hopes and aspirations are and um i've seen this over the years and it's just awesome to have it be our students right now so also watch out i know sammy did an interview at one point in time so i'm sure they will highlight um the previous chair at some point and with that those are my that's my

034superintendent's report i have some ex additional information that i'll be sharing in the education report in just a little while questions for me it's not so much a question or a comment and um that's i really appreciate hearing all the the things in your report and especially um showing the community that we're not just saying we want people to celebrate black history month events but you all took the time to actually find things for community to go to and i just wanted to um express appreciation for that because it's one thing to encourage and another thing to actually provide some options for folk that they may not have known about so just want to thank the staff for doing that thank you um calvin yeah i'd like to not only echo what um lou said

035but i'd also want to express appreciation for ryan and anyone else who's involved in game arabic to become a part of the school district because well i don't personally have any ties to the arabic language i know many people that do and as someone who is passionate about languages is always great to have another option the students who want to learn more and expand their culture and then i um if there are another question that have two other um leadership announcements that i wanted to make too sure so the first one is as you um learned on friday um nancy davila williams who has been serving and as the interim principal at garfield has been will be the permanent principal at garfield um having had conversation with staff and the support that nancy's been able

036to provide there is a strong support from the staff and a goodness of bit one of the things we know is when we get to principal finalists we're looking for that goodness of fit nancy's someone who went through corvallis schools she's tied in a deal on dli school at garfield served as dean a student and now serving as principal and so she's a tremendous fit there and so i was excited to be able to share that with the community the other thing i wanted to also be able to um actually do as an introduction and that's to tanya everest who is the lynn bent lincoln esd superintendent she has joined us tonight um and i'm going to give her a couple of minutes to talk about the local service plan which is on the agenda

037not for action but for information but before i do so um a little bit about tanya so tanya is serving as the esd superintendent but prior to that role she has been a member of school staff in four districts in our region so she was a principal in scio also in lebanon a director in albany and then um she was also the principal at um jesse coleman um not too long ago so has a really great depth a strong depth of knowledge with our region and has done a great job um one of the things i would highlight is that she has really moved us more into the area of teaching and learning it was i would say a gap at the esd for a number of years and that's been something that she's been

038supportive and passionate about and for next year the superintendents are going to be doing some work together around um doing some walk throughs and what coaching each other on feedback to principals we're really going to be looking more and more of instruction and what good teaching looks like and i'm excited to be able to do that so with that i'm going to turn it over to tanya just to give a little bit of information about the local service plan how it comes to be developed and the process that um goes under goes into the approval process both in our school districts as well as the esd thank you ryan um appreciate that and i am grateful for being here this evening and i just want to add that i feel so connected to the corvallis

039school district so i really am feeling grateful tonight and i would like to add that i was invited to and really enjoyed attending the hands across corvallis this morning and a little factoid is is that hannah keim was a first grader in my student when i was student teaching at harding elementary school and harding principal irene golden was my kindergarten teacher in legrand oregon so i just anyway just a fun fact and um so anyway so now i get to serve you in a different capacity through our educational service district and um because if um esds are a unique part of the system in oregon i'm going to share just a little bit of background of what esd's do and how this all works that we come to serve you and then please um provide

040ask any questions and and so um in the statute uh esds um are carved out specifically in oregon statute where we um receive 4.5 percent of the state school fund and we are charged with helping school districts with economy of scale in special education services administration services technology services and why can't i think of the other one student improvement and um and um that when that money comes in to us from your adm w um of the money that comes into us from the state school fund gets returned to school districts in a way that's directed by the um superintendents of the school districts telling us what their needs are um so how we go about doing that there's a multi-layer process where i my team my leadership team meets with the leadership teams of

041each of our 12 component school districts twice a year making sure that we're in touch with the services that you need and that the services that we are providing you are giving you what are our quality and giving you what you need so we um from those conversations and then from the conversation superintendents have in a pro we go into an in-depth process twice a year uh which we did last year where we uh completely redid our local service plan um the services didn't make too much much of a change but in um wanting to bring our whole agency in alignment with the meritorious budget award where we're trying to communicate ways that are more accessible to all of our community we redid our local service plan so i hope you find that it's accessible

042and understandable what the services are because that's what our intent is is to help our community understand those things and um so then after our superintendents every fall we take a look at our services and we determine what's going to be tier one tier one services are the services that all 12 superintendents say they need collect as a collective and so we provide them at an economy of scale and and we take that and that the money that comes in for that 90 and we pay for those tier one services with that 90 of the funds usually or historically always there have been additional funds that aren't spent on tier one and those become tier two services and tier two services are designed so that each school district because every school district is very unique

043in terms of what their needs are they get to select amongst a menu of options to take those additional dollars and buy things that specifically meet their needs as a school district after that's all determined i bring it to my board they approve it and then um each component school district board then is um asked to approve a resolution um once a year reaffirming that um there are an agreement that this is this local service plan meets uh the needs of your school district and our our region and um that's just a quick overview not sure if you have any questions any questions returning sammy uh it's less of a question and more of an appreciation tanya for your leadership and uh lbl region and uh my awareness of how uh diligent and responsive you

044are for the needs of uh your individual districts and i can mention a couple of examples but for the time i want to summarize them by uh when uh our school district needed the support and needed the ability to respond for the needs of our students especially the most vulnerable the esd was there for us and i'm very appreciative for that leadership and for that partnership so thank you yeah thank you so i'd also like to express appreciation um you know when i first came onto this board um the board discussed services they we discussed this resolution that we renew every year because uh they were not satisfied with the services and that is not a discussion that we're having today and i think it's because of the outstanding work that that the esd does

045for us today and so thank you very much for that actually i do have a kind of a nuts and bolts question and i know that there are services that move between tier one and tier two and i'm just a little curious how do those decisions get made in in a little more detail okay yes well um we go through each of the services and when a new a service is being considered like for a change or pretend potentially adding a new service um our superintendents actually vote and every student every actual student matters because the student that each superintendent brings with them a vote for every one of their students so to pass something and to bring something into tier 2 services that are purchased first on the on behalf for all the whole

046entire region two thirds of all students in our three county region need to be represented in that vote of affirmative and um two-thirds of our districts sorry 50 of our students and two-thirds of our districts must be in their affirmative to in order to get those tier one services um with those for the first tier dollars that makes sense it does make sense yeah and that's really interesting and so and then do services move between tier one and tier two or has that happened history yes um the most um recent one that that that's occurred well there's a few i can give a couple um one of the major ones is several years ago just right before i came on as superintendent the superintendents recognized that occupational therapy and physical therapy services are particularly difficult

047to secure um getting those professionals and it's particularly difficult for our small districts we're mostly made up of smaller school districts and so it's nearly impossible to to buy a one day a week occupational therapist for your for your district and so occupational therapy and physical therapy after some study and looking at some data it was determined to add them rather than a tier two service trying to buy portions we would provide it in a tier one we provided in tier one and so that's an example an example of a service that is no longer in tier one that now is in tier two is um uh internet service provider not all districts buy their isp through us any longer some go out and secure that on their own in their own contract and so

048it really fluctuates based on what the needs are of the school districts i have and the other thing is i'm i am trying really hard to um i think my experience having been in the lots of different aspects of education helps me in this role and um constantly thinking what are you just having the conversations but also using my experience of knowing what do what do we need and ryan pointed out that we are expanding our our services to students in terms of school school improvement the area of school improvement that it was an area of weakness that um i'm excited about it's um it's actually grown quickly more it's been four years since i've been on and i've been trying to vote every year and this fourth year i'm finally seeing some real momentum

049in terms of supporting new teachers supporting new principals um ryan mentioned one of the things that we're going to do next year is superintendents with walkthroughs of instruction but i also think i'm we're also touching on needs that we see the school districts need for example low voltage services putting in wireless access points projectors those those sorts of things but a lot of districts just don't have a low voltage electricity electrician and securing a low voltage electrician right now is very difficult and it's cost prohibitive and so but it's something that we can provide um at a really amazing rate we're doing we recognize the need that school districts have for cyber security right now and we have just this year hired a cyber security engineer who actually has and he just a few months

050ago received his fbi clearance and he sits on really homeland security boards and so i'm really well prepared to um actually probably next week we'll sell services to our first district to help the districts stand up secure practices to um reduce cyber crime and fishing and those sorts of things [Music] anyway those are that that's a little bit what we're up to thank you so much for going down the rabbit hole i i really appreciate that detail it helps me understand and i didn't know those things that's wonderful thank you so much and thanks for being here taking the time to be here with us and give us this information i really appreciate it ah i appreciate it to be in here thank you okay how do you are you done that's it great thank

051you tanya also i it's good to see you and i have the um owner sitting on the esb budget committee so i get to get through this information every year um but it's good to hear about the details like vince asked about so thank you yeah thank you we'll see you in a few months we'll see you soon um so next on the agenda is our student representative reports and it looks like we have two of our student representatives here today so um why don't we start with calvin from crescent valley high school yeah and before i do that um i would like to extend my appreciations to sammy for like being a good chair like when i came in at the school rep oh beginning of last year everything was different didn't really know

052what was going on because i was new to the role and no one really knew what was going on because everyone for all had changed so dramatically and so i'd like to just extend my appreciation to sammy for being like able to just lead us through that time and not only make me but i'm sure all the other school board representatives feel welcome and like our voices were being heard and i'm confident that there will be able to do the same for any income means for all incoming school board representatives over the next years and that she'll be the perfect leader to lead us out of this period and back into a more period more established period of normalcy that being said from my report now this past month at crescent valley we have been

053busy with our finals and end the semester and that's kind of been central to all student activity and what everything has been planned around and we met with superintendent noss on the 18th cv's court council did to discuss some of our concerns and we thought we got a lot in the answers but there were some questions that we didn't necessarily get the answers we want and so i don't know if you already got this email from charlotte ryan but we're looking at inviting you back to a future meeting to discuss maybe some of those questions in more detail and um some of some other questions and i'd extend the invitation to any of the school board members that if they want to come in and sit in on one of our meetings or if they

054want to like schedule a time when they can talk with our court counsel about questions that we might have or that you might have for us that we are open to that um our winter sports have been going pretty well uh in particular our boys basketball team is doing very well um we also have a couple of competitive clubs such as our speech and debate team which are doing well um on the front of student engagement for the whole student body we had a trivia night that was well attended last friday and also this past week we've been running daily events in our quad area that have started in like lunchtime games that we call the cv olympics unfortunately however due to the increase in coronavirus cases in the past month we did have to

055postpone our talent show and it looks like that will be happening now early april another unfortunate uh casualty of chronovirus is this year's raider royalty event won't be happening and so um as of this past tuesday our core council has started to brainstorm fundraising ideas for how we can get the money that normally would come from rare relatively to the charities that we normally donate to and i would strongly encourage any members of the community to donate to charities in particular the one that raider royalty normally goes to is jackson street so yeah uh that's kind of it for the pass on the tv thank you kevin does anyone have questions for calvin thank you calvin thanks so much for your update you mentioned that the that superintendent nas had met with the core council

056there and that there were some concerns and challenges coming up from students i was wondering if you could just tell us just a little bit or maybe just name a couple of those challenges that you're hearing coming up for students so that we as a board can hear that too [Music] yeah and i think um i think i mentioned this one at the last four meeting we had the concern about the covet alert and whether those were going to students individually there was also some concerns over like safety like what was being canceled and what wasn't being cancelled and reasons behind that and how some of that was working um we had questions about uh the district complaint forms and whether those could be anonymous and if so how could we pursue that and if

057not what avenues could be taken and if i'm missing anything ryan feel free to correct me um and i think that was a general gist of the meeting uh there was something i feel that we ran out of time to talk about that i can't remember off the top of my head but that that was a general gist yeah i think that's a good summary those were the three that stood out to me too thanks calvin i really appreciate you sharing that with us any other questions for calvin kevin thank you for your vote of confidence and in my leadership going forward and um thank you for the information so our second student representative who's here tonight is kylie sullivan from corvallis high school yeah um currently uh corvallis we just finished our finals and

058we're going to start next semester we have a couple events coming up such as winter formal the polar punch and we're going to have a dodgeball tournament in this month of february going to sell candy grams for valentine's day kyle can you be lost down here can you um it might work better if you turn off your camera actually sometimes when your audio and camera are both competing for space it's hard that face person okay [Music] but we finished our finals and we're going to start next semester and then february we have winter formal coming up and we have the polar plunge which is first [Music] special oh now we've lost her all together kylie if you um are can still hear us if you want you've got the youtube on or something um you

059could send us your report by email and then it would be shared with the whole board um and i will send you an email to asking you for that so that if you're missing this comment that i'm making right now because you're not logged in um we'll make sure that you get the information about what's going on at corvallis high school to us so thank you for trying i look like you were actually at corvallis high school based on the tiles in the background so um taking it right from something you were doing calvin do you have another comment or question yeah i was just sort of like from what i was hearing it sound like she was talking about how um they were playing a winter formal and they were going to have a

060doghole tournament next month but they were also preparing for the polar plunge which from my understanding is generally you run into the willamette and you like pay money when it's freezing and it goes to charity so that's why you pay money to get really cold i actually have done a polar plant trip for charity before so crazy people do it um thank you calvin and i will follow up with kylie to make sure we get all the information from chs um but let's um oh it was kylie i see your phone now are you there so i'm here okay so we got to the polar plunge okay yes we have the polar plunge and then and we have a student dodgeball tournament and winter formal great thank you if there's anything else you think we

061missed feel free to you email it to the board we would like to know what's down thank you so the next item on our agenda is public comment um is there a script that needs to be read before public comment i don't have it i just have the un understand you've been provided the guidelines that's definitely okay so that we don't read the the things that the time and we do have both of them here so i'm going to let the first one okay so we do have two public comments tonight the first um is from massimo biones i'm not sure if i'm pronouncing that right please correct me if i'm wrong um is it's my understanding are you are you there massimo might be muted hello massimo is there a trick to unmedian offenses

062[Laughter] you um so much try star six that may unmute you so that we can hear you can you hear me now yeah but can you hear me now yeah okay thanks so much can i start my two minutes one second it's my understanding that you were provided the guidelines regarding public comment is that correct yeah it's correct yes red guidelines and following them okay and so as a reminder you have three minutes to make your comments i will alert you you have 30 seconds left and your time is up with a tone and oh following your comments the board will have three minutes to ask clarifying questions um before you start okay before you start your comments please state your name for the record and state whether you reside within the school district founder

063yes okay you've got the floor okay thank you uh i'm massimo bianas i'm an associate professor at oregon state university and father of four kids three of my kids are enrolled in the franklin school here in corvallis i would like to comment on math tracking and on adoption of the elementary curriculum of a controversial book about the tracking when i heard that mad tracking was removed from the school i was astonished i read the equitable mathematical report from the school district and i read scientific literature about trucking it is true that trucking affect russia disparity however contrary to what it is indicating your report or some of the news article i have read the most comprehensive meta-analysis study found on math tracking published in 2016 clearly found that kids in accelerated math have improved academic

064achievements the desire to remove or minimize the gap between students is a good desire and i support it but as also stating your report it is expected that teachers step up to make sure that all the kids receive a high level math all research paper i read emphasized that a common effort between school district teachers and parents is essential to achieve high-level math for all kids one reason i was astonished by the tracking is that came by surprise no parents i met were aware of the fact that the school district was removing a certain math not just parents also teachers were unaware or were not involved in it to finish i think the school district made a big mistake of four cities down parents and school teachers thus i do not see how you would

065achieve any success in this program without having parents and teacher working with you on this i already see a declining math proficiency in my kids in the elementary school i'm very worried that this choice will end up in a disaster the problem is that the one to pay the price will be our kids i urge the school district board to consider what i have said and act now my second point i discovered other day from my kids that he is reading aloud in class the book stamp for kids by jason reynolds and ibrahim x candy i found the book to be very controversial not a book to be writing class to kids at least no without parental consent the book has ideas that are very extreme and ideas that can really negatively influence the kids

066it is non-historical book it is a political and with very strong claims the purpose of the book is not informed but to indoctrinate the kids become activists in our house we educate our kids to recognize racism and call it what it is a grave sin however we also teach our kids that each person has a dignity that is independent of the core of the skin the book does the opposite i urge the school district to reconsider the idea of having this book in the curriculum or at least the school district should be involved in the parents in such decision and with this i finish thanks for considering my comments thank you does getting our student representatives have questions kelvin on your first point is that my understanding that you were uh wanting the math tracking

067to be reinstated and for there to be the option to have higher level math for kids who are above grade level yes yes i would like that the tracking to be reinstated yes but uh the my desire is that the school district should involve to be involved in the parents uh in in the decision of detracting or not because again i'm not i understand the limitation of the attracting but i don't see how the solution you are you are imposing is actually a good solution i think it will be a disaster so i i at the moment i will i would like to to tracking to be reinstated yes okay thank you yeah thank you uh uh if you were willing to email the board about not the titles of the books necessarily but i

068would like you if you could look into the board uh school school board guiding values and if you could uh tell us which ones of the guiding values you feel the curriculum or the books violate um it can be appreciated if you can share the titles and any review uh and your understanding if you if you feel any of the guiding values are not met through that uh it would be really good and informing for us to understand your point and you can find your our email on the website sure i will do that thank you for the opportunity thank you any other questions no well thank you very much for your comments we always appreciate involved thank you thank you so our next comment is from troy brant are you here troy i am

069thank you great so it's my understanding that we're provided with the guidelines regarding public comment is that correct that is correct as a reminder you will have three minutes to make your comments i will alert you when you have three seconds or 30 seconds left and when you're and when your time is up with the tone following your comments the board will have three minutes to ask clarifying questions before you start your comment please state your name for the record and state whether you reside within the school district boundary my name is troy brant and i do reside within the school district boundaries okay thank you very much dear board chair al-adriba and corvallis hoover members on behalf of the court excuse me on behalf of the franklin school pta i would like to thank

070you for the opportunity to provide you with an update on the franklin pta's recent meeting with the district representatives regarding bond program funding for franklin franklin pta and franklin design advisory committee members met with the district to discuss concerns regarding the franklin design plans superintendent knoss led the discussion and we followed the topics listed in the pta's january 6 written testimony to the board primary topics included improvements to the existing combined gym and cafeteria the approximate twenty percent loss of floor area in the library due to the to to the proposed ada ramp long-term and daily storage as well as specialist office space the outdoor patio landscaping covered place shed and playground improvements elementary school and middle school bathroom improvements and conversion of the existing antiquated locker rooms to middle school science lab more broadly

071we also discussed the overall bond planning and franklin dac experience franklin dac members noted that the design review process would have benefited from better communication and transparency during the meeting we also reviewed funding disparity and equitability concerns regarding the combined gym and cafeteria space which constrains program scheduling food distribution and student eating locations and timing in response to these concerns the district provided several commitments first superintendent nasa noted that the district does not intend to mock ball franklin school and is instead investing in the school building the gym flooring will be replaced existing basketball backboards will be refurbished and a retractable basketball hoop will be added to provide a near regulation middle school basketball court library improvements are constrained by past bond priorities or excuse me board priorities and how bond funds have been allocated

072as well as by the building's architecture improvements include new paint carpeting shelving systems and expanding capacity by removing outdated inventory storage limitations will be addressed during remaining design and construction an essential storage facility will be made available to all schools specialist office space will be created through room reconfiguration and lockable cupboards in the staff lounge the district intends to provide the all-user model bathroom and the middle school wing and a more standard bathroom upgrade that includes new flooring paint and fixtures in the elementary school wing we did not have an opportunity to fully explore alternatives to the combined gym and cafeteria or develop solutions for the middle school science classroom improvements we have a second call scheduled with the district tomorrow february 4th and we anticipate we will again discuss creative solutions to the concerns

073the franklin community has raised we appreciate the district's collaborative effort to improve the franklin school bond projects and we appreciate the board's continued interest in the matter thank you thank you does anyone have any questions no well thank you very much for for the update okay thank you thank you no more hearing no more further comments the public hearing is now closed so the next item on our agenda is to reaffirm the year two of the 2021-2023 benton lincoln educational service district local service plan um i have conflicting information on this every place where it says first reading in one place where it says action item are we is this our first this is our first reading yeah okay so this is the first reading of this information we will not be taking a vote

074tonight uh but does anyone have any questions we've heard some from tanya about the esd um she's i don't see her still here do you want me to just think that give you my perspective sure that would be great okay so i think that esds play a vital role in providing services to smaller school districts and so what i have tended to do when i've been able to have votes which is typically the way these service funds are developed by votes and superintendents and being one of the larger districts in the region and it's based on student count those votes do have an impact and so my philosophy has been that um they've again provided important services to smaller school districts and communities that can't live on full positions and so um i feel like

075it's uh um a responsibility to make sure that we're accounting for all districts in our region and so i've tended to vote in um in those ways rather than ways that are only beneficial to a small shooter's school district so um that being said that's really what this local service plan looks like and i feel good about the services that are incorporated in the way that esd is meeting the needs of districts throughout the region thank you for that perspective does anyone have any questions since historically uh we have heard that there have been problems with the network service that we received from the esd however i would say over the last past couple years i really haven't been heard things like i've had in years previous um i'm just curious what level of services

076uh with network access are we getting from the esd and what are the quality of those services today i would say that um where we i i think that you know coming through a year of distance learning there were there were definitely situations that would come up where there was some frustration um and oftentimes that was felt at home as much as in the past as i've been felt in the school district so those per those processes aren't perfect but i would say that there's been efforts made um over the last several years and so while again there are things that come up and challenges overall we're not in a situation like we were early in my career here in corvallis where we um where we tended to struggle mightily so i think progress has

077been made thanks that was my impression but i i wanted to confirm well uh i have a content question the comment is really appreciating ryan uh uh walking the walk on equity and uh students are in need uh we should not look into this or boundaries and we should help those who need most so i really appreciate you taking guests and uh especially for rural and smaller districts that uh need to help most uh the question i have is if there is anything we could do in this plan or maybe the next two years plan to make a dent in the crisis around special education identification and diagnosis and the waiting times that students are experiencing a special ed maybe if you can highlight what kind of help we're receiving and other districts are receiving

078from the esd and is there an opportunity for growth or uh for more support than how would that look like so um what i the the theme that i see is that in the past more of those evaluations were happening at bsd and albany and there's been more of a transition back to have those evaluations completed um in home districts addressing things like transportation and some of those barriers and so that's the area that i have seen progress in over the last couple of years that i feel good about we also talked to staff about that referral process of recognizing that near the end of the year um those tend to fall into the beginning of the next year and making some decisions about how to understand the ebb and flow and make sure that

079service evaluations were completed so those are just a couple of examples of things that i've seen over time um so that's that's what i could share thank you yeah thank you so um this will come back to us for approval this is the first reading um so if there are more questions we will move on to our bond update and dale and kim good evening so do you have a presentation tonight are we just open for questions we do not we have the written report and we have an action item tonight okay does anyone have any questions on the report okay does um anyone want to make a motion to the action item is for the contract toward solar installations for atlantis pauline middle school and sheldon middle school does anyone want to make a

080motion to approve this item no matter here i have a motion sami i moved to authorized staff to execute a contract with energy-wise services for the linus pauling and sheldon middle school solar projects in the amount of two hundred forty one thousand and twelve dollars give a second second we have a motion to approve the solar installations at life's calling middle school and launch can't find the um the motion written down but um to restate the motion yeah please restate permission thank you because i've lost it i'm keeping track of too many things tonight i've got to get my system down uh it's been moved to authorized staff to execute a contract with energy-wise services for the linus pauling and sheldon middle school solar projects in the amount of 241 000 and 12 thank you

081i will now entertain a final discussion any final discussion no final discussion will now um vote on this item so let's start with um director adams how do you vote i uh director jones aye co-chair uh co-vice chair director white bear hi pro vice chair company hi and i vote i the motion passes unanimously thank you folks have a good evening so the next item on our agenda is the education update all right so um i'm going to provide the educational update tonight um melissa is traveling and so um i'll we've sort of been a a team on this over the last several months but tonight i'll be uh doing the honors so um one of the things that we talked about um in preparing this was that we have spent a lot of time

082talking about covet um until the protocols and changes over time so there'll be a little bit of that tonight but what i what but i also um i'm anticipating that we'll be spending less time talking about changes related to the building um in the upcoming meetings this has been education updates is something that started really at the beginning of the pandemic and something that we've done along the way um so we'll start to modify how these presentations look as we move into the future i only have a few slides but i just wanted to provide a few updates some code related some not covalent related so the first moving to the first slide um one of the things that has changed last week was that the original health authority made the masking requirement and permanent

083rule um i just want to express to the community that it's not a permanent rule meaning going on into perpetuity it's a rule that needed to be put into place on a more permanent basis based on timelines and legislation so we will continue to watch and monitor um changes that take place but as of now we're going to continue to wear these for for a while longer so again i just wanted to make sure that people as they read that they didn't get them get a misunderstanding there um but that is so for now we're going to continue to wear them based on this role uh again a couple of additional vaccine clinics uh february 4th at sheldonwood middle school again that's the second clinic we had one a couple weeks ago uh three weeks

084ago in fact and so this is the follow-up so first second doses and producers again we have the clinic there specifically because of the adair area and some of our outlying areas and just looking at that vaccination rates so um wanted to highlight that and then again um as sarah shared at the end of the meeting last time was about the bent county fairgrounds and the ability to get boosters there between 11 and 6 and uh through a drive-through and a walk-up option so again making sure that the community appears and understands that these options are continued to be made available um some changes for us um and again important just reminders contract tracing so with the the rule that changed for us was that when people are securely wearing masks um that's doesn't become

085a close contact and so those those aren't considered close contacts any longer and so we're not in this a situation where we would be calling on those situations that we would have been contacting families on in the past and also one other thing that i think is important is that if a family does do a test even if it's a pcr test to let us to let our nurses know because the sooner we know the sooner we can move towards having kids return to school and that's been something that has come up recently and so again something we want to highlight with the community and something that we'll be providing some information around but we also want to know that this is an outward meeting and we wanted people to be made aware of that

086i have some updates about our school renaming um in the way that that process is going so i had a couple things that i wanted to share you that are exciting at bessie coleman they are now the aviators so they are no longer the huskies so bestie coleman aviators which is exciting and they are working with the evergreen aviation center to look at ways to bring experiences to students related to flight um so there'll be some exciting things that are happening at kesley coleman elementary at um latisha carson we have had an opportunity to have conversations with two artists joey and jim um labrador who are the great great great great grandchildren of letitia carson they are artists and they live in eastern oregon jim was on the umatilla reservation and is a member of

087the walla tribe and he is a painter and you can see his work online he's a he's actually a famous artist and his brother joey is uh does weaving and baskets and so they are going to provide art to the school um an art installation in a way to honor their great great great great grandmother so it's an exciting time um our partners at dlr dlr architects um have been um talking with them about the way to make sure that their art is shared within the school um i sat in on a meeting with them today so that's an exciting um opportunity to again make those connections between the new these new names and families and then the same thing can be said for kevin jones harrison as you can see um beth the principal

088and i had a chance to meet with catherine we have been in conversations with the grand run about an event happening at the school in honor of catherine and so we had hoped to do that at the end of january but because of the case counts we've moved it but at the same time it will be primarily between a recognition with the tribe as well as the school rather than a larger community event again based on all the factors that are in place but again things that we've talked about are a traditional salmon fake so students have the opportunity to take some salmon a drum circle some other ways to again blink learning related to the names of these incredible women to the students and the schools so it's been a it's been a lot

089of fun and it's just been powerful to be able to say yeah we have made these changes and um your family is represented in our divisions in our schools so again more to come on that there'll be opportunities for board to particip members to participate um lew's had a chance to do that initially in some of the planning so um again just some great opportunities and then the last um i've got two more things one is again i'm going to the next slide just talking about our graduation rate so those were announced at the middle of january since our last board meeting and so our graduation rate for all students four-year graduation rate was 88.2 um last year was 90 which was an all-time high for the district so still a strong number um a

090couple things that are really powerful and talked about the program our dli program our dual language schools is that our hispanic latino students graduation rate was 92 and our former english language learners was 94.3 so really strong results for those groups of students on the next slide you can also see that we have work to do um supporting students with disabilities and that graduate their graduation in four years the same thing with our students navigating poverty and students experiencing healthlessness those are again student groups that we have um work to do to increase those graduation rates and greater opportunities for those students and we and we definitely recognize that finally um going back to this um earlier what we talked about black history month and this these are the safe suits that minus following middle

091school and they created a periodic table of black history um the inspiration for the design is the periodic table of elements and the desire to encourage conversations about the contributions of african americans in our nation so each one of those on the table as you can see in the top key it talks about um areas that those folks are known for as well as who they are on that periodic table and if you recognize the space that's right under the last polling and so it's a a space that there is a lot of coming and going and students going back and forth and so the safe students worked um to put that together to share it with the whole school so i thought that was a another great way to that they have taken black

092history month and personalized it to who they are as students but also in a way that others can can be engaged so that was my education report and i'd be happy to ask answer any questions that anyone has anyone have any questions for ryan you know i just want to say that i chaired the meeting when we voted to change the school names and it felt like we were really doing something good then and i just feel like it's even better now this work that you know hooking up with the evergreen is fabulous for the school that doesn't have the close local tie and then having really honoring the families and the communities that that we aimed to honor with those name chains but really actually following through with it feels like um you know

093we're sort of walking with the talk yeah and i think that it is the part of the process that is so relational in terms of building relationships with these family members or descendants and to be able to make sure that we are recognizing and honoring them in the way that we display their loved one's name on our school and what it means for students at the end of those spaces yeah um i was just going to say something similar it's just absolutely amazing to see the learning that's happening and so the impact for generations of students is just wow and even just seeing the periodic table honoring um was it black inventors and folk mostly um yeah is that that was right that's also amazing it's just like seeing how something that may seem small

094can have like a huge positive impact on learning and it just is really moving to me so i'm getting all like emotional about it actually so i just wanted to say um thanks for sharing that great work that's happening and i know um some of the other data points you provided are also points of pride and also like points that we have work to do and recognize that as well but those two pieces are really standing out right now yeah when we had a chance to meet with them um jim labrador today one of the things he talked about is his um just how those um paintings came out um in sort of a quick fashion for him and it was just sort of this uh you know i think it's you know he just

095felt like i guess i can't speak for him but it seems to me that he was talking about um how they came to life and so in a different way for him um and i think that has a lot to do with it being a loved one and a descendant so it was just really fun to listen to him share his experience and his uh and his um his techniques so i'd like to is there any way that we can get a picture of the periodic table i mean i love the kids are there but i actually want to read the content that they created so i i'd really love to get a just a snapshot of that that i can you know zoom in and take a look at that and you know you

096know what did they come up with and i'm i'm just you know my curiosity is peaked sarah i really appreciated your comments about um where the school renaming has gone because i remember when when we were first conceptualizing that resolution it was about mitigating harm and it's gone so much farther than that um it really has been transformational it's gone it's done so much more good than i ever imagined that that it could and so i'm just really um i want to hand it to the superintendent for his leadership and just really um going the extra mile and really you know turning it in you know something that could have been a one and done to something that has really really done so much good for our community so thank you so much um so

097the next item on our agenda is the information with the local option levy renewal we're actually a little bit ahead of schedule do people need a break ah let's see and uh okay so why don't we do we want to take five minutes or do we need ten minutes do you say five minutes okay five minutes so um the meeting is adjourned the meeting is in recess for five minutes we will return at 8 11. session um the next item on our agenda is the local option levee renewal there is not a presentation for this item but if anyone has any questions we do have olivia with us i don't think you know i don't think there's sam's on it [Music] can you can you all hear me yeah i can hear you chloe oh

098okay sorry that's my bad let's just see the green light so there isn't a presentation on this item but we do have olivia here with us to answer any questions anyone has and and kelly as well okay i'm kelly helped with the survey uh development and olivia helped more with the background on the local watching levy so it's a joint report so i would like to ask brian mckelly about the responses uh it's there in their parts but to share to the community what did change or what did we learn from the 809 responses if you could summarize it and add anything to the report as well sure i can answer that thank you simon for that question um so i think one thing that we learned is that we got a significant increase in

099responses over the last survey five years ago so um that was one improvement we had i think 198 responses the last time and this time we had over 800 so that's a really good return what i would summarize in terms of some of the feedback that we got folks seemed very specific to being really invested in kind of the areas of um let me scroll to that part in the report so recruiting and retaining highly qualified staff got a lot of support alternative pathways and education options for students also received quite a bit of support and then certainly in our areas where we had some kind of open-ended responses the categories that we received a lot of them input on were academic supports mental health staff and class sizes and so we heard a lot

100about kind of the effects of you know distance learning and how that's impacted students and an interest in better supporting students around mental health better supporting and retaining our really highly gifted and amazing staff um those i think were kind of the high points for me ryan i don't know if you had anything to add no i would i would just reiterate what kelly shared so the the component of class size and retaining our class sizes was first in terms of highest priority in this the survey results also the elementary pe music and arts was another area to have lots of support and i would say that the area that we hadn't seen as much feedback on last time five years ago was around that staff retention and recruitment piece and i think that is

101evidence of sort of what we hear regionally and nationally um as we come out of the pandemic so again this is not a this is a renewal um that we would be moving forward with and so understanding what those priorities are and also recognizing that it's not necessarily additional funds but how do we allocate those hearing what the advocacy is in the community thank you any other questions oh and i'm i'm just really was struck by the results um how closely they aligned with where our allocations have been historically but that's just an observation my question is uh really for olivia and i'm thinking back um has this option levy represented uh about 200 of our operating revenue you know historically i know it has been in recent iterations but going all the way back

102what proportion has it represented um it's definitely been in the 10 zone for the last couple of years um but the levy has um changed about started changing significantly about four years ago when real market values started increasing our gap got larger and when the gap gets larger now there's less compression and so i want to say i could pull up the when we did the renewal in 2016 and we gave the board a similar report let me see what that percent was back then [Music] uh six and a half percent of the general fund operating revenues so it has become a larger uh percent of the general fund that's also kind of hard too because a lot of the additional state funding we've been receiving in the last couple of years has been outside

103the general fund as well so that that might kind of skew that a little bit as well but it does sound like we're we're becoming increasingly more dependent on this this funding source at least over time yeah i think if we look at the student investment account and the high school success grant and and combine that with the general fund i bet it's not that not that far off okay thank you anyone else no yes a discussion or a comment is appreciation for this and intention to move forward with it if the board is agreeable to it because it's important to maintain the level of service that we provide for our children community it's something that's unique about corvallis there are some districts that are under achieving in their results and they don't have a

104levy and so it's truly important for us to maintain this work and in our political capacity as a board i understand dr white bear will introduce our resolution and support us levy uh after we asked the voters for uh for the lebanon to place on the ballot and i would encourage community members who are interested in and helping our school system is to step up and uh help us out in advocating uh voting yes so uh the board will have two capacities asking the voters whether they should vote on it or not uh that's our governance for all and our political role uh is to encourage people to vote yes and i think both are going to be very important to maintain the good work that the district does thank you yeah echoing what sami

105said and i would just say that this this levy represents the commitment of our community to support education and how much it means for this community and i have to tell you that that there are many districts many school boards and districts all over the state that are envious of the few that are lucky enough to have communities that make this type of investment in in their education it just really uh allows us to do more and it makes the district more resilient when there are economic downturns i know that this this revenue was immensely helpful in in restoring reserves as the district came out of the great recession and so it's vitally important and and it's just an immense gift from our community anyone else well i i want to thank kelly and olivia

106for this report um it's before i was on the board i had no idea how the money that was in the local options whenever you got calculated what all that meant what compression was and i've appreciated the clarity in which that's presented um and the work that went in here into this survey um to really see what do i i am encouraged by the high number of people who participated in the survey and um you know in in their interest in what's happening in our schools and their interest in their children's classrooms so um thank you all for the support and for the community members who participated um and let's um put in the work so that we can make sure that this renewal happens so that we can continue having this fund to add

107to our budgets to continue the good work of the district um [Music] so that let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is consolidated action as a reminder the items under this portion of the agenda are for action does anyone have any questions of anything in the consolidated action okay anyone else need want to pull something no um yeah i'm trying to find the number i thought i wrote it down but i did not it is uh wait which one did sammy pull well i have a question and a comment uh yeah comment is related that this is a policy of huge importance and i want to thank you sarah for your championship of this topic to make sure our students are safe and riveting firearms uh in a way that's under

108oregon law and under constitutional law is important to keep students safe the students are speaking out and are telling us that we need to act and this is the least we can do and i'm grateful for the opportunity for me to vote yes on it confidently and assertively to make sure that students lives and staff lives comes before anything else so i'm going to vote yes on it my question would be uh as we vote on it the effect is immediate correct yeah all right that's all i have thank you lou um i don't know if i missed it somewhere but i know i had a question about this one and i didn't see any was it in the cover letter and i told him the last paragraph okay we have so many that we're

109going over right now i keep like losing in on the board book it says um the concern raised by the school board was allowing law enforcement officers to carry a weapon on campus osba advised that a firearm possessed by a law enforcement officer acting in their official capacity is a specific exemption to the gun's free school zone thank you i just wanted to make sure that that was clear to the community like where that was being informed from and um that it's part of a separate um exception from the act itself or the acts themselves and so that way people knew why that was in there so i just wanted to be super clear just because of understanding some other feedback that has been raised um in our district so thank you for that moment

110yeah yeah and i'm also excited to pass this is one of those crazy things that before i started paying attention to gun laws and policies i thought it was already there and it turns out it's not um so this is an example of local control in the local school board being able to adopt a policy that um prohibits weapons from being carried on our on our campuses even if you um possess a gun license so it's an important piece of legislation for us um so do is there any more discussion about maybe options the items in consolidated action no so does anybody um want to make a motion i just wanted to reiterate my excitement about the graduation exercises with the inclusion to be able to vote on it tonight it means a great deal

111to many students and i'm excited that that's happening to our cultural materials thank you for pointing out him how important that is um does anyone vince i move to approve consolidated action so it's been [Music] moved by events and seconded by sammy that we approve the items in consolidated action i will now entertain a vote start with um director adams hi director hi dr jones hi co-vice chair dominique aye provides your weight there all right and i vote i quality action next item on the agenda is um validated information as a reminder the items and this portion of the agenda are for discussion um only we are not taking action on them tonight would anyone like to discuss an item in consolidated action right so um is with us she i can't remember if she

112was introduced last month but kristin works closely with melissa and so kristen will be here tonight to take down any questions board members may have before we bring policy back for action all right thank you for being here kristen blue i just want i just wanted to thank you all for um being proactive with the policies and making sure that they're consistent because a lot of the revisions had to do with um the gender identity and gender expression and i think that that's showing the amount of care that's been put into the policy work to make sure that it's across the board reading the same and so i just wanted to say thank you for that anyone else have any questions about the items and consolidated information now moving along the next item on our

113agenda is board member comments we don't have 8 30 and we're supposed to be at 9 20. i want to salute the chair for expediently and efficiently running the meeting and uh that's a testament if anything that uh for her ability to run the meeting efficiently and get work done uh sarah thank you for for doing that and uh it feels good to sit back and uh and participate as a board member uh vince told me you'll need to find another job after you step down and i'm really grateful for the responsibility that you're taking and congratulations uh shawna as well i'm very grateful for this work and grateful for the words that have been said uh earlier today there's lots of important work ahead of us and uh better days to come and it

114might be hard it might be a little bit tougher um i'm really optimistic by the word of god words of thoughts and sarah that you mentioned around the daylight i really look forward for the daylights figuratively speaking and literally and that's uh yeah i'm grateful for this work thank you just to build on sammy's comment as well just a lot of gratitude sammy for your past role serving as chair and congratulations chair finger mcdonald for assuming this new leadership role and also just sharing gratitude for my fellow board members for all the the shared learning that we've had so far i've i have learned a tremendous amount in a short time on the board and i really appreciate your vote of confidence in nominating and and voting for me as the as a co-vice chair

115along with director co-voy vice chair white bear so i'm really looking forward to continuing to learn and serve the community in this role so thank you all hello i just wanted to again thank sami for being chair and for leading us through some um some tough times it's uh we're still in it a little bit but um the last couple years i'm always it's always gonna stick with me when i was like is it how much work is it sammy do i have time for it and you're like oh it's not too bad it's how much you put into it and i'm like what's the worst that can happen if i say yeah and then we entered a global pandemic so the worst that can come from one of the worst that can happen so

116um so that'll always stand out as like a um a moment of um of like humor and working with you as well um and so thank you for um leading us and sarah for stepping up and shauna for stepping up as well and i'm really excited um for us as a board and that sammy could like make motions now too so i think you make your first motion i've seen that as um as you transition back to a director and so um and i'm just feeling a lot of gratitude tonight is all for the work that's been done that's been highlighted in your reports ryan and um in the bond update and also the levy um packets to seeing how much community feedback and just hope the community continues to be engaged in whatever way

117they can whether it's a small way or a big way and um because it's helpful to have your input on things too so thank you anyone else well i um want to say that director jones has totally failed in her job because um at the beginning of our term together on the school board we were driving to roseburg for our retreat and we said to each other if i ever say i'm going to be bored chair don't let me do it yeah i remember that [Laughter] yeah whoops um i vaguely remember some other conversation where i was like well you know if you end up board chair i would be your vice chair and then kidding nope so yeah i guess i kind of did um well thanks thanks sarah well thank you all for

118putting your trust in me i look forward to this so that we really look forward to working with lou and shawna um and our all women team for this board leadership um yeah i expect i will learn a lot and please let me know when i need to be doing something that i'm not doing um but yeah thank you i think that unless everybody else has anything else we are adjourned