001everybody meeting the order at uh seven o'clock whenever we rise to the flakes please all right i would consider a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second seconded uh any discussion all right single hearing none all in favor please signify saying aye aye aye saying okay consider agenda as paris this month um so in april um we saw a little bit of a dip here which was not it kind of surprised me but then looking back at previous years it didn't look like it was completely unusual we've had a couple years in the past where we've had a slight dip in april so it's not too awful concerning um although one thing that's really interesting to know um because when we see a drop i i kind of go digging and i want
002to know why what what's the reason why are these kids leaving um so it was interesting um so i talked to the high school principal and just at the high school um we had nine students who were moving out of state so i think that's just kind of telling what's going on right now um what's going on so um so we'll see where the last couple months take us i still expect that it's gonna probably level out and and we'll average out okay but um okay so the next thing um you all have the financial reports in front of you i just want to point out that our fund balance is projected to be almost exactly the same as where we started the year with so being a numbers person i know that numbers tell
003a story and so i want to know okay what story are these numbers telling us um i know our revenue is about pretty much about the same um we're a little shy in local revenue and local taxes by about 114 000 but nothing nothing too crazy so um so next i go over and look at the expenditure what's going on with those so um they're a little bit different um we're seeing um we're seeing an increase in salary and benefits this year um i think it's it looks like it's due to several things not just any one thing in particular um so we're seeing an increase in both certificated and classified staff full salary benefits um as you know it's it's um it's been hard finding subs this year so we've paid a lot of
004extra in substitute pay planning period buyout so that those staff members can cover other staff members that are out um extra time those sorts of things um and then with the return of sports we're seeing an increase you know of course or a comeback i should say of sports stipends so that's not something we had entirely the last couple years so that that's increased quite a bit this year um and of course that is that does go with the salary schedule as well so that that's increased um the additional cost i think everybody's feeling right now um everybody's feeling that higher cost of living the school district is no different um we've had a 250 increase in fuel costs we've had a 260 percent increase in food costs um garbage utilities electricity rate the increases
005between 115 and 144 increase um insurance that we know goes up every year that's up 120 so there's a lot of little bits and pieces that we're seen a lot higher over the previous year in two years so as we finish the year i think it's important that all of the department heads and buildings really watch their budget closely um and so we don't end up where we don't want to be and then as we look forward to next year i think it'll be important that we really look and be strategic about where we spend our budget next year um so that's what i have for you i've got a couple things here yeah um first uh in enrollment the reason we have a dip every year at least from what i've seen in the
006past and what i want to look into for this one is that pcs season for the military the permanent change station starts at the end of march and runs through august so that's when all new orders come out everybody moves so a lot of times you'll see people leave and then before next next school year we'll see new ones come back in so that i would be interested to see especially how the state moves if that has the correlation just as we see it every year um and then the other one is fuel costs do we contract our fuel because i remember we had some discussions on that at one point that we had like a level set cost or does that actually change still there's and i'd have to look a little closer at
007the contract but we do go out to bid for that um of course there's one person in town they always come in cheaper because of their location um but there's always a there's it's always tied above a certain percent a certain mark above the set range okay so we're paying it at a spot above the market rate or after market rate so it does still adjust it's still lowercase yeah okay thank you all right any other questions okay thank you krista um we'll move on to hearings of individuals and groups you have to sign up ken answer i did leave over there [Music] looks like sandy put yourself down a couple notches i think um somebody's taking care of me lynn it looks like you're at the top okay go twice first um so my
008name is lynn ames my husband ken and i have a daughter hallie who is a junior at eatville high school and she is a member of the white river equestrian team i'm here tonight to request that the board consider reinstating an equestrian team at eatonville high school i recently spoke with director jeff lucas who informed me that some conversations have taken place and to me that is a move in the right direction i believe that there are other equestrian parents here tonight who will be glad to hear that that is happening for the last two years our students have been lucky enough to be part of the white river equestrian team to keep the students from ehs competing but it's not the same as being an eatonville cruiser and being on a team where you
009go to your where you go to school the students that they are on the team with they don't have the same connections with and they don't have the same connections with the coaches driving to enumclaw for some of the practices has been a hardship but we made it work so that we could continue to be part of the team several of the eatonville students as was in the bulletin last week we'll be attending the state meet next month in moses lake sadly they will not be going as cruisers they will be going as white river hornets in uh speaking with some of the wasat officers i have found that there's really no funding needed from the school district except maybe for an advisor or a coach i'm not sure how that part works um and
010what we're really asking for is just the use of the eatonville cruiser name the team has fundraisers for some of their personal expenses that meets and wasat incurs all insurance costs we have people interested in coaching and or advising as the school year comes to a close i understand that time is running out the wasat organization needs to have our team on their roster before the end of june so my hope is that conversations will be had and a decision made before that deadline that so that we will once more have an eatonville cruiser equestrian team thank you thank you okay rick you're up next oh boy cool all right i have some notes i don't know if i'll use them or not you know i wish i was super creative i'd do like one
011of those uh you know alex stein prime time 99 like songs for you guys i don't know if you guys have seen those hilarious i'm i'm not creative so i'm just gonna be serious and boring but yeah you have to watch no just go on online and watch it it's hilarious but um you know i i went on for like 20 minutes at the last board meeting about uh communication and trying to figure out ways to get everything we're saying here tonight to you guys in in different ways besides just being here and i still think that's super important um i think opening up the survey thing i'll say it again and again would be you know one of the most helpful things that we could use to do that um it'd be nice to
012see it come from a bunch of different spots not just like by email or online like maybe make it available so someone can come and pick it up and you know maybe show their id and their address that they're actually a you know local person and fill out that survey um but i i think the feedback needs to get streamlined to you guys so that it's not just people that want to show up here and you know talk in front of you guys because it's nerve-wracking nobody wants to be up here doing this um and i just i have tons of parents that are constantly you know telling me they they can't because they're too busy they got this that and they're not all excuses i mean there's legit reasons why they can't do this
013and you guys i know you guys all want to hear what they have to say but um so i did a survey on my own text message survey sent it to 135 people local people not friends just local people that i've met you know in the community and uh by far the number one um concern that people wanted me to voice to you guys is the the curriculum that's in front of the students they nobody wants the crt dei stuff nobody wants any inappropriate um sex ed you know sexual orientation stuff in the school it needs to just be gone like it's it's just not right we need to get back to the basics with the curriculum as it is i mean we have students that aren't learning and we're lowering standards you know maybe
014not here in eatonville but as a state and as a nation we're lowering standards to make it so that people can graduate that's ridiculous we should if anything we should be putting out smarter students than we were 20 years ago because we have more tools to teach people you know and i guarantee high school students coming out right now are not smarter than when i graduated 20 years ago they're not i talk to them i hire them i have a business you know i know so anyway the second big thing is uh drug use tobacco use inappropriate stuff like that actually going on not just outside of school but literally on in the school on campus people have repeatedly messaged me about that and i have tons and tons and tons of you know witness
015reports examples of that and i also have tons and tons of stuff about you know the inappropriate um like the clubs that are going on like at the middle school even there's some really serious things that need to be talked about there um and i mean i cannot believe how many parents are messaging me about that especially at the middle school with the the club with the sex orientation flags and things that are going on there just it's fine just don't do it at school none of it please we got to get it out and i think the public really needs to see like what the rules are and how you guys are enforcing those rules on the staff and on the students because if they don't see it they're just getting frustrated and that's
016probably why we saw nine people move it probably not military unfortunately it's people running to find a environment i know my wife wants to just bail and go find an environment that's you know not where she's not worrying about that kind of stuff you know that's just not right you know we could we could do better you know i i don't i literally have no idea anything about any of the teachers i had going all the way through schooling like i don't remember thinking oh this teacher was okay with this political party or this kind of stuff i i don't i don't remember any of that i don't know where that became okay um there's a lot of other things too like people are really worried about the future coveted mandates and similar things that
017are going to come down the pipeline they're still voicing that and anyway i just i really think the survey thing could really help and i'm i'm willing to help you guys try and figure out what that would take and i hope i can help and i hope you guys reach out and we can keep talking about it thank you thank you sandy jo slide junior stuff evening as you know i'm sammy joe 30 acre um i want to thank you first of all for holding this meeting and the venue where we all fit i know i know that's not better than a plan and i know it takes extra and i just want to make sure you know that we know and we appreciate all that extra effort okay so at the january school board
018meeting i mentioned adopting a resolution for eatonville school district whereby parents are recognized as the primary stakeholders in their children's education at the february school board meeting i read the resolution into the public record that tonasket passed recently i emailed each board member a copy of the resolution for consideration i did receive an email response from jeff lucas concerning some of his thoughts um i'll continue that discussion with you if you don't mind jeff because i'm not sure necessarily how they pertain to that particular resolution i think we might have got caught on another sentence however you did present in your response some things to me that i'd like to bring up at the board meeting and i quote we are seeing an unprecedented level of drug and alcohol use behavioral crisis to include suicide
019fighting vandalism and even an arson fire a couple of weeks ago unquote okay all of those things are horrible and that being said i'd like to know what is our plan what is our plan as eatonville school district to tackle those issues in our schools because they didn't used to exist in the manner or the volume or the um intensity that we're seeing now and i'm sure there's a million reasons for it but what's our plan how do we propose to fix this um have you asked parents for their input have you reached out to students themselves we've had a couple brave young people come up here and tell you what they've witnessed themselves out in their schools whether it's middle school or here at the high school and they've presented some proposed solutions on
020their behalf so um these are these are smart kids i mean maybe but anyway so they have you know they have some proposals of their own on how they think we could fix things so i want to know you know did we can we send out a survey to parents can we request parent input can we send out a survey to the students you know have we had initiated any dialogue within the community because we've got community members who've been here for years and they've been through lots of things they're wise um i don't do social media but i've not seen nor have i heard of anything i get texted a lot of stuff i get called about a lot of things since i don't do facebook but i haven't heard anything on those fronts
021no one's told me about any attempt to gather input from students or parents or community members i asked my son if anybody's talked to him and he said no you know nothing in it no nothing out through asb nothing through advisory that kind of thing i've personally been asked my opinions and i've been asked my input by several leaders in our educational community but that's been out of respect for each other a value that we hold for each other's experiences wisdoms and honest feedback so i want to ask why haven't parents or students as a whole been asked to participate in fixing these areas of great concern maybe we should start there maybe we could explore the dads group that lindsay holt recommended to you she forwarded an email to me and said that she
022had recommended a dad's group to you where i came from in a different state in a different school we had one of those and it it worked well there maybe the high school needs a security person or someone with whatever title you guys desire that walks the halls and checks the bathrooms can monitor the lunchroom can walk the campus we used to have such an individual several times since i've been here in eight years um you could discuss the issue with the students in advisory like i said we have asb leaders each one for each grade and then one overall in the school that's a great group of leadership that the kids have chosen themselves um they could help maybe we could host a town hall meeting you guys have been talking about it since
023january i'm staring at you matt you've been telling us since january maybe now's the time we're all willing to help we're all here because we care about our kids and certain things that are going on our community and so and we are the primary stakeholders in our children's education all you have to do is reach out and ask we're here we'd like to help you we want to help because we don't want these problems in our schools and with our kids either so we'd like to be part of your solution thank you sir we're going to work tomorrow but uh the next four days after that i've got almost nothing going on i'm busy tomorrow with other things so whatever works for you after that is good for me even the weekend if that works
024but i want to take you with my family okay okay next we've got james schweibert warwick how do you say that why right here hi i am in i go to ems i am in eighth grade and i'm going to graduate to high school next year i came here with my mom who is a fifth grade teacher at the eatonville elementary school and i'm here to address some stuff that's been going on and some people have some ideas about some ideas other people have thought of a few months ago ianville middle school just some two teachers decided that to take their lunch out and make how lgbtq kids and and just a safe place and just talk about how we feel and what could be better and a week ago we decided to participate in
025the day of silences which where wheat it's not a protest against like oh i'm not going to do school work it's just uh i'm after all the times we've been shut down and to be silenced just one day it's not like we invented it it's been going on in the lgbtq community for a while and it's just where we'd be silent it doesn't have to be the whole day just just be silent it's like and we're not saying don't call we're not saying we're not going to answer anything just we told our teachers that maybe if you could call on us a little less or not at all that would be very very thankful and some people came out when some people found out because a lot of people knew at first and they thought
026of it very negatively and now they don't want us and i'm not saying that you have to like what we're doing or accept it at all but we i really appreciate the safe place and the teachers taking out their time just for us to be able to talk about our problems and do fun stuff together like making bracelets my friends did that it was very fun and i'm not and i would like to propose instead of the teachers having to take out their lunch maybe make art at our own gsa club like in like an after school club every wednesday we already do it we don't every we do it every wednesday and i don't think it's very fair for our teachers to be taking out their lunch and their free time and their time
027to plan just for us to have our own space and i know you know some people i know some people might think it's wrong for us to do it at school but some people don't have a home to go to where they feel safe like i have i know some people who are afraid to come out because they've been like in this atmosphere where it's not okay but they know who they are and they can't just take that a part of you like if you like art you can't just stop drawing you like it or if you like to dance you can't just take that away or something you believe in you can't just take that away that easily it's something it's a part of us and we i speak we're not saying just to
028completely i'm not saying hi hi please just i'm not saying get rid of all your thoughts because that's not how it works i'm just saying it really hurts when you indifferent and make us feel different and in a bad way because i know i can't go a single period without being picked off and picked on i know people talk behind my back but during lunch i feel safe and i had to appreciate if you let's keep it i have some amazing family who supports me i know not everyone is as lucky thank you for your time i'm sorry i don't know what to say uh we were not prepared to speak tonight but we were told that um some people were here to speak against the gay straight alliance and james wanted to come as
029a representative and i felt as apparent that i needed to be here for him hard to watch your child get picked up and they provide a safe place for him it's a hard community to be a gay a young gay male in middle school middle school isn't easy it's not easy for anyone give him a place to go and be him and not everybody has that support and when i heard that adults wanted to sneak out against a child it hurts we are children that just need a support system like everybody else and he just needs adults to stand behind him and that's what the middle school is trying to provide for them it takes a lot of courage to come out at 13 years old and i'm so proud of him he does not
030need nobody needs to be told but they can't have a support system these are scared children that need our love and our guidance and they are taking time out of their day to do that and it's important that people stand behind them because these are the kids that are bullied he gets food thrown at him at school and it breaks my heart the first thing i thought of when he came out to me and my husband was kids are going to be so cruel and then i find out that adults are too it's a sweet boy that found a place and it means a lot i'm sorry i am mama you're a mom and i normally i should have something prepared we both should but he heard about it and wanted to be here but
031i think it's important that you hear the other side but these are just really sweet kind children that have found have found their group and they need the support they need the cruiser love that we give to all the other teams and sports and groups and they're not out there to like change someone or do harm they just want to feed them do what they do and have friends and they found that place and they found a safe place and it's hard i just wanted to keep a face and i think it's pretty cute i think i'll keep them but you know that is what some people want to fight please let them have their place to be them and feel safe and supported i'm sorry it was not planned but thank you thank you
032jody brooks i don't like speaking in front of people i'm actually was going to speak um on the national day of silence app and as well and i first want to say that i respect you for um and speaking i think it's very important to allow our students to have free speech and have clubs after school to be able to express themselves in different ways i did not know about um the i was told that um i emailed the principal um of the school um because my husband and i had found out um about what happened but we had heard different stories so um we um i am all over the place i apologize um so my daughter basically came home with a slip of paper that was handed to her by a student and
033um because of what was written on it my husband and i didn't have a full understanding of what um had gone on at school or anything like that and our main concerns are that we feel like if something like this is going to be done at school by any club of any kind then parents should be notified so that we can appropriately talk to our children about what will be happening if they have questions my daughter didn't understand what all the acronyms stood for but she actually participated because she was excited to support others um who as far as she was being told and concerned was being silenced and bullied and harassed and all that kind of stuff um so she was more than happy to participate but part of our issue was that she
034didn't quite understand what exactly it was all about and that's part of the issue if something is going to be happen happening at school something like this granted i know the intentions were um a matter of sports good thank you then there can sometimes come out of situations like this bad outcomes um you know a student that doesn't quite understand the club and what it's all about may get into conversations with other students and be labeled a certain way when or you know it could be that they're um it's assumed that they're representing things in a different way that they are not and that's why i think parents should be involved in these kinds of situations um in my response from the principal um i also got other information that i didn't know about that
035there is talk during warrior time apparently there's something called the second step lessons and then this goes along with um she called it regular content area lessons and i was kind of bothered by this because i feel like this is again something that i had no idea was happening at school and apparently i guess it's conversations about um how kids treat each other i not even really sure it wasn't explained but again i feel like if um new systems are going to be set up at school then parents should be notified we should be told that you know during warrior time where i thought it was a time where students you know catch up on homework and you know i don't know if they need help with certain projects or whatever they get that help
036from teachers and now i'm finding out that that time is where you know teachers are having discussions with students about different subject matter and that worries me because how do i know that at some point in time uh crt is not going to be instituted or you know um i don't know all kinds of things should start coming up so um unfortunately this slip of paper brought up other concerns in regards to other areas of how uh the school is going to be handling things and what could possibly happen 30 seconds okay um i can be done i just did not go by my notes whatsoever but anyway i i um all four groups clubs um as long as it's outside of school and that when we're in school we're getting our general education in
037and um parents are notified when things like that come up that's my concern and my request thank you hey guys uh thank you everybody for being here and community this is awesome always go see everybody um so i just just wanted to appreciate everybody and acknowledge our time that we're taking today and start out with saying thanks james amazing um so um i just kind of also want to remind everybody that when we talk about numbers of community members and we mention 135 people we really need to acknowledge that that's less than one percent of our eatonville population so when people come forward and say i've spoken to x number of folks 135 or so um we need to give that power what it is that's less than one percent and so we don't need
038to blanket statement that and act as as though that is the major the majority of the groups of folks that are here um i feel like i've heard that quite a bit um and we can go through and get petitions and get everybody involved in this process and maybe we need to do that but that just needs to be something put forward at the table and just give us some perspective we have really smart students in our community we really do i've been super fortunate of being able to communicate with a lot of kiddos um in the district and volunteer pre-covered with time and i'm really proud of our teachers in our community we've got a lot of strong teachers and a lot of teachers who care so much about our community and our kiddos
039and that's something that bigger school districts really don't have which is part of the reason that i love eatville it's it's that personal experience that you get um in a small group where you can develop real relationships and long-term mentor type situations so it's a great community but we have we have smart kiddos here um and to speak more about what james was talking about um and his mom we we need safe spaces for all kids at all times and we are hearing situations of bullying um and i think that we need to take a moment and acknowledge that and that needs to be a priority um i think we all want to feel a sense of belonging every one of us that's a human being trait we want to belong we will i that
040it's so huge um and james found a few people to belong with and that's really special when you just keep supporting that and not tolerate bullying it's it's not tolerable not from students not from adults not from community members earlier i heard one of the parents recommend or talk about children not necessarily knowing about um terminology right so i didn't see that slip of papers i don't know what it says but there was maybe some questions on the terminology of the verbiage on there and so that kind of speaks back to um what was brought up earlier is we can't talk about this in schools we really need to be educating our kids about lgbtq ai topics we do because if we're not talking about it then we have a lot of confusion and then
041we have kids coming home to parents who are not willing to have that conversation with them or they don't maybe have the skills to have that conversation those are hard like right talking to my kid about sex oh my gosh that's not a fun thing to do and i maybe don't have all the skills um so to talk about lgbtqai conversations that is that's tough um and so to have uh a counselor or a trained professional bring out those that verbiage that language express it in a way that um is age-appropriate right um i think that's really important also that the second step lessons i think that's referred to the social emotional learning right and and so for warrior time that's how we build these relationships right this this ability to be able to sit
042down and have this conversation and i have to say like the timing of of our talks today couldn't have been better right so like have you spoken before james i think it would have been a different conversation and because james spoke first like we heard that and then understood a little bit more and so it's it's this dialogue it's hard to have a dialogue in this setting um but i appreciate that we're all willing to and come to the table that again is what's amazing about eatonville is work every one of us loves this community we're committed that's why we're here and we just want to belong we just want to have a spot to feel safe so thank you 30 seconds back 10 seconds crt is not taught in schools it is not allowed
043to be taught in schools it's not taught in schools let's stop talking about it let's stop talking about it it's not taught in school curriculum i'm tired of hearing about it i really really am thank you all right hi as you said my name is emily but my students call me miss mclennan i teach eighth grade math and according to some i'm the funniest math teacher in the building well i think jokes are a great way to please a crowd especially seemingly an unhappy one today's topic is too personal and too emotional so i would like to share a story instead i was born to parents who met while my dad was working construction and my mom was supplying his company my dad is actually from a town down the street you might have heard
044of roy um he grew up religious going to church and we continued to go after i was born he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and so it was hard for him when my brother came out as gay in sixth grade two years later my brother came out as genderqueer or trans while my dad still has lots of questions he loves and protects my brother i am telling you this because i started my journey with this school it was something that i was scared might be found out by the community truthfully i'm still nervous to share i was terrified that even though i am straight that just being because of my affiliation with the lgbtq plus community i might have students who wouldn't want to learn from me this stopped mattering
045as much when i volunteered to give my lunch break in order to make sure students like my brother have a safe environment and someone to advocate for them this origin story if you will is why i'm so passionate about the issue and why i didn't care when i was told that i was risking more criticism by being here and making my voice heard my brother and students like him deserve to be seen they deserve to be advocated for and they deserve to have a safe space i've been listening to the board meetings in recent months and in march you can find them on youtube you you heard from a high school student in march who was brave enough to ask about actionable steps towards reduced school bullying i've heard people mention bullying and substance abuse
046today as well i have seen day to day how students in the lgbtq plus community have been targets of the very bullying that she was talking about i know more happens where i'm not able to stop it however keeping and supporting the gsa is one of those actionable steps that you might take and as a math teacher it's my duty to share some relevant fashion statistics students who identify as a part of the lgbtq plus community who attend schools with gsas are half as likely to report experiencing being threatened or injured in school or missing school because they are afraid because they are afraid to go to school additionally students with gay straight alliances also have lower odds of suicide attempts regardless of whether they were gay or straight i'm going to repeat that one
047for you students with gay straight alliances also had lower odds of suicide attempts regardless of whether they were gay or straight but instances of suicidal thoughts were lowered by almost half for lgbtq plus students i may be one person a teacher whose political opinion you don't want to hear but i am begging you to continue allowing student participation in the gsa it is imperative to the health of my students and the lgbtq plus eat community in eatonville because it exists and it's also imperative to the growth of our community thank you thank you comments we will move on to a new business at this time we'll consider uh approval of uh purchase refrigerator for the culinary arts program speaker sure do you want to um so you should have rationale um and you can review
048it i have if you have any questions but um the refrigerators and freezers in my program are original to the remodel in 2009. and so i'm looking to update those and make them kind of industry standard and for all of you in the audience if you haven't there are treats provided by my program so help yourselves at the end um but yeah i'm looking to update and um make it a little bit less like comec and more family consumer science so does anybody have any questions about that or questions seem pretty straightforward okay so i would uh accept a motion to approve uh purchase of the refrigerator freezer for the culinary arts program that's presented freezer okay i would like to continue by going through kind of a state of the district report with all
049the different buildings and some of the things we'll start with the high school students are registering this week for next year's classes and so ehs counselors also visited columbia crest on monday and then middle school on tuesday for that transition and you got to hear some of that with the principal reports earlier prior to this meeting and there's also an important uh eighth grade parent meeting tomorrow so you made a great parent you probably get that one at the high school high school's also excited about community day coming up next week and we're busy preparing for that something the first time in a couple years we've had the community day lots of fun going on about that prom will be on saturday may 14th and it's also the season for college signings and we're so
050proud of our seniors we have nine students so far moving on to college level athletics and fast fish football basketball swim and track so congratulations to those student athletes middle school they just had the schoolhouse rock flight junior it was a huge success performances last friday and saturday at the high school mrs wierich along with theater of arts discipliner toad produce the musical and begin practices only just last the last weeks of march so in a very short period of time the students put on a very fabulous production and again a strong supporter of the the fine and performing arts it's very important that we continue those things throughout our buildings um in sports world girls volleyball and co-ed track and field have begun and they have their first meets and games this week sam's
051the weather uh and they also pointed out that the high school counselors came and visited all the uh eighth grade students and got them ready for freshman registration on tuesday uh april 26th and even though i kind of read this it's important to remember as a parent when your child was if you had a child that was an eighth grader going into ninth grade that's a huge that's a milestone that's a big leap that's a big deal as a former high school principal we used to put a lot of energy just like we do here at eatonville in getting these kids not only prepared but feeling like this is the place where we want to go and i know our teachers have done a wonderful job our eighth grade teachers working with our ninth grade
052teachers handing these kids off as they move forward because it's a big deal for them and so we we always want to make this a big event so as a parent of older children now sometimes as a parent you feel like as your child gets older you don't have to be as involved as you were maybe in grade school and middle school it's the opposite even though they may say oh mom oh dad i don't want to hear about you inside they're saying tell me what to do i want to hear from you so i want to encourage parents to stay connected with your kids as they get into the high school level because it's extremely important they they really need you more than you think or more than they want to let on that's
053my personal note there uh eatonville elementary school they've continued to grow and expand their care approach to supporting students academically and socially we've also expanded care of services to students that struggle with behavior issues by adding ellie gladstone to our staff as a mental health specialist they are also happy to report that they have resumed their stem field trip involving in stem science technology engineering and math involving stalking fish and the fish tots toss which we engaged with last thursday for the first time since the pandemic started in 2020 and i'm sold them for not personally inviting me because i would have loved banana fish sauce uh weyerhaeuser practices are in high gear for a community day the third graders will be performing the may poll desk while the fourth and fifth grade bucket drummers
054will perform the american sign language club kitten kindergarten enrollment for 22-23 school year is underway and as of this report what i got a couple days ago was over 30 students already enrolled and now it's up to 38 from what i understand that's correct this means um columbia crest the middle school students had a march madness event last month the whole month the students learned basketball skills from coach heman the unit ended with a week-long tournament and a final championship game after an epic battle between the dudes and the flyers the dudes won 31-22 the bleachers were full of students from other classes enjoying the game and unfortunately we weren't able to get pictures up live stream here today the second grade students have been learning about animals and their habitats students created dioramas to
055show a variety of animals in their natural habitat other classes visited to learn from each animal expert in conjunction with the highly highly capable program or high cap being housed at columbia crest we have reestablished our partnership with mount rainier students from the high cap program as well as students from the hands-on health class at columbia crest are able to take advantage of the administrative facility of mount rainier national park right in our backyard and to join in the adjoining to homo woods while there they will be working with their metal restoration team to study various native plants that concludes my report all right thank you [Music] that i know exactly how it feels to have a personal philosophy or opinion that is in contrast to the public opinion and i know how hard it
056is to stand up in front of people and say what is what is true to you and and and speak your convictions and i respect that and everybody should be able to do that um we've heard a lot here uh about what the board the board allowing this to continue um i've been spending most of time while people were talking researching our own policies here on this board and from what i'm seeing is we don't have the authority to restrict this in the first place we have quite a few policies on this um board policy i'll start with 2153 it regards non-curriculum related student groups it specifically says pursuant to the equal access act which is a law that the principal shall approve the non-curriculum related student meetings or activities provided that the meeting is
057voluntary and initiated by students the meeting uh the school its or its staff shall not be the sponsor of the group students shall be responsible for the direction control and conduct of the meeting any guests that come in must be a non-regular participant or must be registered and must not be a regular participant and then public funds cannot be used um staff members cannot be compelled to go it's against their constitutions contrary to their beliefs and the constitutional rights of all persons shall be respected so that's the first one saying that all groups regardless of your opinion of them shall be allowed to happen in our schools this policy here this is again 2153 uh was adopted in 1994 it's not new um the next one i'm gonna go to is freedom of assembly this
058is policy three two two three this one was adopted um says that individual students and student organizations may meet in school rooms or auditoriums or outdoor locations on school grounds to discuss uh past resolutions and take lawful action respect in any matter which directly or indirectly concerns or affects them whether or not it relates to school peaceful demonstrations are permissible though they are to be held in a designated place where they shall present no hazard to persons or property and at designated times that shall not disrupt the classes or other school activities and then we have board policy three two two zero p papa that talks about what is considered a disruption and that is at the discretion of the school principal so i understand that we've had i've seen a lot of emails starting
059last night and then through today also we've had time since then to research what's happened and it sounds like we have a student club that is not something that is necessarily supported by the entire community but i'm yet to see a true violation of any school policy so i understand that it's not what the whole community wants to hear especially not for me but looking at our policies um i'm hoping to discuss with anybody one-on-one but i believe in freedom of speech and expression and uh it doesn't have to be my personal belief for me to support it okay anybody else rhonda you have anything any comments yet yes i do um thank you matt for sharing that message i appreciate it um also i wanted to touch on a few other things i would
060like to propose to the board that if the wasat group has been able to overcome some of the compliance issues that we had with risk management in the past that we revisit that and i'm certain that those are issues that are being looked at closely but i know we all would like to support that if we can come into compliance with our risk management so i hope we can move that forward um i wanted to kind of invite everyone who hasn't had the chance to go back and to watch the youtube video of our previous meeting that we just had our work study um there they will be able to see reports from the principals from the buildings sharing their goals and their action plans around some of the unique challenges that we have this
061postcovid education year and academic year and i think that you will as parents um and students see that our principals care very deeply and that they are really being thoughtful and working hard to meet the needs of children and i wanted to also recognize the high school for really bringing in some substance abuse and interventions so that we can help support the mental and physical health of our kids and i really appreciate that important work that's being done by all of our staff um i appreciate all all of the parents who are here and the words that i've shared and students that have been able to stand up and share their experience as well and just appreciate the great work you're all doing awesome thank you rhonda um yeah i would echo what everybody else
062has said i would uh send a shout out to james there i've been sitting at this table for years and i still hate talking in front of a bunch of people you know and to be kid to step up in front of a room of adults and speak what's on their mind is takes a lot of guts so good for you that's that's impressive um yeah and equestrian wise we've been talking with wakset we've been working with uh amy and gary and we had some legal stuff tying us in knots for a long time uh i believe we're gonna have those knots untied in the near future and again i hate promising things i can't deliver but i i believe we can get this done in time for the june deadline yeah i'm confident we
063will so not promising but i i believe so myself yeah brandon garrison the president of wasat we've been talking continually for two years now to uh unfortunately every time he's called in the last year and a half it's been sorry i got bigger fish fry right now but uh yeah we're we're going to make lots at work yeah yeah so i know it's important a lot of people we haven't forgotten about it we're going to get there so thank you all right well that being said the board is going to recess to uh executive session uh pursuant to rcw four two point three zero point one one zero g i have to write that down so don't get it wrong uh to discuss uh personnel so that's gonna last about 20 minutes uh after which
064we will be taking action so we'll have to come back into open pedal cleaning to do that um if you want to stay and wait you're more than welcome to uh if you want to go you're welcome to i hate to see any of these cookies left from the culinary program as a result of executive session no action is going to be taken after all so i'm sorry we're staying just for that and meetings turned at 8 19. no actually we'll actually you