001good evening everyone and welcome tonight's special board of directors meeting tonight is uh February 25th if you would please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance NAA do you have the land acknowledgement Evergreen Public Schools resides on the traditional lands of the shinan peoples in the kalat tribe they have lived on and cared for this land in its waterways since time in Memorial we thank them for their stewardship and make this acknowledgement to open a space of recognition inclusion and respect for all indigenous students families and staff in our community you NAA at this time I would like to amend tonight's agenda prior to approval to add an infor informational item uh recognition Evergreen Public Schools Commendation for exemplary support to our district before our public comments this evening I move adoption of
002tonight's agenda as amended I'll second that adopted and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right the next item on our agenda is our performance this evening no we need to adopt tonight's agenda sorry oh we did did adopted as amended yes we did then why why are you shaking your head now before okay got it sorry adding that agenda item we needed to decide where that was going so yes our next item is our student performance uh we have tonight Our Heritage High School string group I I go ahead and call Karen orston to the stand to introduce our group this evening I got amaz hi everyone we're the Heritage camarada we're going to be performing our Mono by Vali arranged by Todd Parish [Music] a [Music] the [Music] n [Music] the
003[Music] the [Music] [Applause] thank you that was beautiful thank you for coming in thank thank you how is camarada spelled a t a thank you I just wondered somebody else want to give it a [Laughter] try yeah yeah yes it was beautifully played thank you for coming so you were all just at a competition and how did we do excellent y great [Applause] job yeah I appreciate that um I haven't heard that piece before and I hope I hear it again that was very good so y thank you thank you so much for spending your evening with us we appreciate you guys all right [Applause] all right the next item on our agenda is the announcement of the EPS next superintendent finalists just going to go ahead and read the the letter uh at tonight's
004board of directors meeting my fellow directors and I announced the two finalists for the position of superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools after six months after a six-month process we have narrowed our search down to these candidates first Dr Christine Maloney she is currently serving as eps's interim superintendent a role she has filled since July 2nd 2024 before coming to EPS Dr Maloney served as the superintendent for Shahala school district for four years she has held multiple positions in schools and districts including teacher assistant principal principal and chief academic officer in addition to Shahala she has worked in the Pua be and Franklin Pier school districts congratulations Christine the second finalist is Dr Christina kashimoto Dr kashimoto served as superintendent of the Hawaii State Department of Education leading the only Statewide Public School System in the
005nation from 2017 to 2021 Dr Kishimoto has also served as superintendent for Arizona's Gilbert Public School and Conn Connecticut's Hartford Public Schools a Vancouver resident she is the founder and CEO of voice for equity which advocates for women and leaders of color and also serves as a professor of clinical education for the University of Southern California congratulations to both of our finalists next steps we invite you to meet our two finalists during a community meet and greet on Wednesday March 12th from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the boardroom in this room in the ASC the event will be open to the public and allow you to ask questions of drors Maloney in Kishimoto and you will be able to provide feedback to the board via a survey we will have Spanish and R Russian interpreters
006available we look forward to seeing you that evening and that is all I have on that one any we guys want to add no all right the next item is the new item we have on our agenda for my paper go um for this I would actually like to go ahead and call Shane Gardner to the front to announce our uh exemplary support to our district this was actually scheduled to be included on our recognition portion of our February 11th meeting agenda but unfortunately the recipient was unable to attend so we are going to come back and we're going to recognize this individual thank you uh board superintendent uh we would like to invite uh Willie height uh who's a Metro Watch employee and um Mike Albertson who is the Metro Watch owner uh to
007come forward uh this is uh Marty Metta also who's the director of maintenance for Evergreen Public School and he and I every day uh receive a um daily activity report uh and five days of five nights a week uh Willie is the contracted employee who watches our cameras overnight and watches what's happening and to date we've caught uh burglars uh graffiti people in the act of doing graffiti and our enrollment May be down because of the number of amorous people in cars that have been broken up by uh suspicious Autos uh being investigated parked on our property that he observes on the camera and then sends a a unit out there so um it's clear to us that he um takes his job very seriously so uh I we Marty and I have the same
008supervisor and we approached our supervisor and and recommended uh we wrote This Together We would like to express our sincere appreciation for the outstanding work of Willie height a camera operator with Metro watch as you know Metro Watch diligently monitors our transportation facilities each night ensuring the Safety and Security of our district while all operators play a vital role Marty and I have noticed that Willie consistently stands out among his peers each night Willie provides a detailed account of the events that occur during the shift if we request special attention to a particular site he not only falls through but meticulously docu ments his efforts leaving no doubt that he is actively monitoring his vigilance has led to multiple apprehensions including roof climbers individuals attempting to siphon fuel at transportation and young people engaging in
009graffiti additionally Marty has lost count of the numberous of uh people caught in cars uh Beyond his surveillance Duty Willie demonstrates a remarkable sense of ownership over our districts whether patrolling on foot or taking the initiative to clean up scattered papers at Transportation or diligently ly working to prevent vandalism his commitment is unwavering he approaches his responsibilities as though EPS properties were his own displaying a level of dedication that is truly commendable we uh firmly believe that Wily's exceptional service deserves acknowledgement his hard work and integrity make a tangible difference in the Safety and Security of our district and we are incredibly grateful for his efforts we appreciate all that Metro Watch does for our community and we're fortunate to have someone like Willie on the team so it's been at least a decade now
010that Metro Watch has been our partner responding to alarm calls uh so we've um been fortunate to have them as a partner but Willie truly stands out with the attention he gives to our sites and um the familiarity with which he has with our cameras and we sincerely appreciate the work that you do for us thank you Mike you want to yeah Will's been with us a little over 10 years and when Shane came came to us with a request for having a camera monitor overnight uh he it was our first choice um Integrity loyalty we know he's going to be there we know he's going to do the job right every time so he was um without a doubt our number one choice for that and he's come through in spades [Applause] thank you
011thank you Shane thank you congratulations right the next item on our agenda is public comments any Community member wishing to address the board may do so during the designated time on our agenda for public comments comments are to be directed to the board of directors as a whole and may not be addressed to any individual member of the board the administrative staff or the audience although the board will not engage in dialogue the board chair may ask a speaker a clarifying question or followup at a later time on an issue raised during public comment each speaker has a mix ma excuse me maximum of three minutes this evening to ensure we hear as many voices as possible with that we will begin with our first person signed up uh stevenh Houston welcome hi hi uh
012my name is Steve Houston I act as a volunteer at two of Evergreens uh schools the majority of my time is in the four eighth grade math classes grown anyway it's is fun I had a brief conversation with one teacher who's had a district directive with a bit of bile in their voice that they were supposed to save money by drastically reducing the amount of printing they did for their classes the exact working I did not have in front of them and when I used to work I heard similar hopes expressed when we were working we're going to save a lot of money by not printing all this paper um not much was saved in there however that encounter did Spark a thought I had regarding funding of Evergreen in fact all Washington schools and
013how I might want to try to influence this complex process uh Rob Perkins and I wanted to thank you him again uh for the school bird had graciously shared with myself and several other parents several online resources that enable one to go and take a look at some of these uh bills are in front of the legislature right now one in particular from the league of Education voters and I put the link in my written testimony would seemed very well organized and it was really easy to use and it allowed the user to go and there was a bevy of bills there identified by Senate Bill 1234 House Bill 8976 or whatever um to allow the user access which bills were there and affect education you could comment on them to the legislators you your
014current website does have a legislative information link but it doesn't have the details in there as to uh What uh that would allow anyone access to these bills and their legislators I I find it be e if you've ever been in it I don't know if anybody's been into it but you can click on a bill it'll take you there you can read the darn thing you can see who's uh sponsoring it you can get links really quick to your own legislators and say yes I think this is a good idea or no not anyway I think that um a link to the league league of Education voters should be added prominently to The Upfront to the Evergreen website at least while the legislatur in session it might encourage people to uh uh L be
015individual lobbyists for the for the uh not for the district officially but you know to get their own voices heard on that um it'd be more of a Grassroots lobbying session and it would and it's very easy to use and hopefully it might get some bills pass increased funding for schools and by the way I firmly believe that math is learned with pencils and paper not necessarily on your computer screens so uh oh people agree with me and that's all I have to say unless you have questions or anything which I know you don't ask so okay thank you thank you Stephen next is Angie Bund welcome hello my name is Angie Bunda I have two children in the school district while I'm incredibly thankful that the Evergreen lovees passed they did so by a
016very small amount many people are still frustrated by the District's lack of accountability and the refusal to acknowledge past decisions as well as the toxic culture being created by certain individuals at the ASC Carl Wilkins said we repeat what we don't repair one of the biggest on ongoing sources of distrust is with the four District negotiators secretly taking $31,000 of the taxpayers money for the period of August 1st 2023 to September 5th 2023 in emergency supplemental contracts that were only possible to use in the EV of a strike the superintendent at the time John Boyd signed these on behalf of the board and no one was aware of them until they were leaked and requested in a public record by a group of moms who exposed them the contracts were even keep kept secret from
017our school board who are supposed to provide our districts checks and balances and represent the stakeholders when questioned by the news the district proceeded to Simply say these are normal and they have not addressed them since despite many demands for exploration and accountability by parents stakeholders and most recently board member this situation has made one thing clear the district's refusal to explore the supplemental contracts or address the immense distrust it caused creates even more reason for our community to be to be aware of what is happening during bargaining while I don't think our current superintendent would choose to do these contracts again it has to be recognized that the same negotiators will be bargaining against the psse union starting in March our employees have the right to negotiations done in good faith and our stakeholders
018have the right to act accurately understand how our money is being used we do not want to see our money taken for contracts that are kept secret even from the school board we need to ensure that our investment goes toward our student and staff needs instead of inflated admin salaries every time job titles are rearranged for the benefit of all we need to demand open public bargaining for the district and the psse union we need the community members to silently observe all negotiations or to stream meetings for the public to see we need a community oversight committee to ensure that both negotiation teams are treated with respect and dignity and our stakeholders deserve transparency in how their investment into our schools is is used if Evergreen truly Bargains in good faith they will have no
019reason to decline and nothing to hide thank you thank you thank you Angie uh next is Katherine fdick welcome good evening my name is Katherine fdick I'm a parent of three graduates of VPS and a senior passing the levies was not an easy slide and faced a loud and vocal opposition publicly now more than ever your community needs you to show transparency and accountability with the money they chose to invest in our schools the district has the opportunity to set things right after a prolonged strike and hushed supplemental bargaining contracts in 2023 by repairing harm and changing the trajectory of trust at the November 12th board meeting during board comments it was requested to have those supplemental contracts placed on an agenda for a future Workshop we haven't heard anything about it since for a
020workshop discussion your community is waiting and expecting this to be addressed I would like to share some insight into why we can't and won't let this topic go those contracts reflect on the district and its leadership and are contradictory to the standards that that the district strives towards in character and integrity the ugliness of the bargaining during the strike was compounded by the EA being told there was no extra money for supports for teachers and students but somehow extra unprecedented money for the district bargaining team was found amidst the climate of massive cuts and loss of resources and supports for students of the district you serve can you see how unjust and unethical this might feel to many stakeholders the EA spoke to it with a no confidence vote in leadership a dark day indeed
021your community has questioned it repeatedly why is there such reluctance to acknowledge it and assure those voters who passed the levies that their trust is well placed and regain the trust of those who voted against them because of this recent history many Community me community members believe that establishing open and bargaining for the upcoming PC Union would also be beneficial towards creating transparency and accountability for all involved allowing for good faith bargaining you stand to repair harm and gain confidence and Trust from your community and employees by doing so with the Levy's past it's time to show True transparency by looking into the supplemental bargaining contracts and welcoming open bargaining to give your community the Assurance they need to place their trust back in you thank you [Applause] thank you all for your comments this
022evening that is the last one we have on our agenda or on that has signed up go ahead and move to our next agenda item uh board consent agenda entertain a motion I move adoption of the board's consent agenda as presented second motion by director Perkins second by director Wilson all in favor I any opposed motion carries next is the superintendent's consent agenda entertain a motion I move to approve the superintendent's agenda as presented second moved by director bocanegra second by director Perkins all in favor I I any opposed great motion carries next is the superintendence report Dr Maloney thank you first of all I'd like to say a huge thank you heartfelt thank you uh for me to the board for um selecting me as one of the finalists I am absolutely thrilled to
023accept that and I am looking forward to the rest of the process so thank you all right so for the superintendent report um it it's really important for me to make connections to have clear Communications and to follow up on concerns as much as possible to address those um I've been listenting I've been learning and I've been making some decisions in leading uh the last number of months that I've been here a coffee and conversations with christines are going strong chats with Christine coffees with parents the chats with christines are with staff connect with Christine I have a meeting with administrators coming up this Thursday evening and um lots of visits to schools and classrooms each week and conversations are ongoing with students and community members as a result right now I'd like to report
024on a couple of things specific uh that are happening in our district and I've structured my superintendent report around our operational expectations policy so I'll start with the policy and then share how um that action or those um that information is related so first of all I'd like to start with um oe9 which is communicating with the public our community report was published and provided to our Evergreen Community at the beginning of this month and within this report we shared where to access our student data and information about their District's Financial condition from the 23 24 school year the community report comes out um about six months or so after the prior school year tonight you will get to hear from our chief academic officer Dr Brian Fox a specific review of our state testing
025data as reported to OSI and This falls directly underneath oe9 our levies as you are well aware are 13.5% of our overall budget we have seen decreas in enrollment and increasing costs over the past years and this is a continuing trend for next school year as well as you know the two replacement levies we had on the ballot both passed so we're super super thankful for that I'd like to say a huge thank you to to all of our community members and staff who supported our two replacement levies the passage of these two replacement levies are significant we are still facing the necessity of decreasing our budget for this upcoming year but anticipate being able to rebuild our fund balance back to 5% within the next two years more information around our specific Financial condition
026and our budget for next year will be provided to the board by our CFO towards the end of March so look forward to that under operational expectation policy 11 instructional program today we had a meeting with our thirdparty review team regarding special education services to re receive an overview of the work that they've completed the question is the final or excuse me the question that they operated underneath for this review is the special education department using and managing operating systems in a manner that serves all stakeholders efficiently and effectively they have a comprehensive report that we will be reviewing as District leaders ership and then sharing later with the board and within the next few weeks so you can look forward to that under operational expectation zero which is um titled equity and operation expectation
027three Community stakeholder relationships I continue to meet and connect with parent groups who are concerned about immigration enforcement and have worked in partnership with Vancouver Public Schools in the city of Vancouver ongoing there are some events that are taking place coming up in the next week and we provide resources and supports for families and students who may be affected my goal as superintendent is to make sure that we have processes and procedures in place and continue to focus on making sure our classrooms and schools are welcoming spaces for our students to feel safe and valued and where they can engage in learning Dr Singleton director of student equity and family engagement has been working hard to create professional development modules for all administrators to share with staff around anti-hate speech harassment discrimin ation some of
028these trainings have already occurred and others are scheduled within the upcoming months I've also met with several student groups across the district in small safe spaces where they' be most comfortable in sharing their concerns and stories and thoughts our students should not have to worry about the potential impacts of immigration enforcement but instead should be concentrating on learning in their classrooms and having fun in their extracurricular activities their voices affirmed what we stand for as a district I want to publicly thank the students who shared regardless of our students immigration status citizenship race ethnicity gender socio economic status religion culture ability skills challenges and backgrounds we are all committed to creating belonging for each and success for all for operational expectations 10 safe supportive learning environment I've mentioned this in Pirate superintendent reports that we
029have partnered with local law enforcement a agencies actually I have a ride along with the Clark County Sheriff this coming Friday um we've also partnered with other school districts and organizations around Safety and Security it was identified early on in the school year that there was some confusion around the different safety protocols that are in use within our district one of the tasks our Communications Department under the guidance of executive director Craig bernbach initiated was to create short videos about the standard response protocol to help address this confusion this task has now been completed and includes six short videos one a general overview explaining all five protocols and then each video has a and then following that there each video concentrating on a specific protocol so we have shelter secure lock down hold and evacuate
030special thanks to our Communications Department and our director of Safety and Security Shane Gardner he'll be signing autograph autographing photographs later he's been the host of these videos and did a wonderful job and I also like to say a special thank you to our schools principals students and staff members who are willing to be actors in the videos as well so you absolutely have to check these out we'll be sharing all of these videos with our staff our community and our surrounding districts so that they can utilize them as well with their training with their staff and share with their community so we're all speaking the same language when it comes to the pro right protocols so I just like to say thank you again and that concludes my superintendent report great thank you next
031is our teaching and learning and Equity update uh if we could have Chief academic officer Dr Brian Fox to the podium thank you you're quick I didn't even have your whole name out you're already there it's a short name too good evening members of the board it's great to be here with you this evening I have two items for the teaching learning and Equity update we will celebrate student musicians and learn more about the EPS Orchestra program and then we'll focus on assessment data first we'll talk about sumita of Assessments and how they're different from formative assessments and then I'll share a highlevel look at the State Testing results for Evergreen students first I'd like to thank Orchestra students from Heritage High School for their and including their director Glenn wilcott for sharing their music
032this this evening we should always share our start our Schoolboard meetings with a little Vivaldi I think uh Heritage camarata is an ensemble made up of one of two orchestras at the school where 80 students participate in Orchestra classes there are over 450 students enrolled in music at Heritage which is 28% of the student population in EPS we have 451 students enrolled in Orchestra across five high schools 835 five middle schoolers across six schools and in the elementary there are over 400 Orchestra students in fifth grade Orchestra which means there are over 1,700 students participating in the Strings program in Evergreen and as a transition to our next topic uh including an overview of student achievement data for smarter balanced assessments I'll quote from some current research on music and its effect on student achievement
033researchers Alam and mohanti in 2023 concluded that music is not only fun but also improves brain development and enhances capabilities such as reading and solving mathematical problems I've included the link to their AB to the abstract for their research in case you're interested in reading more so at Evergreen Public Schools improving student learning isn't just part of our strategic plan it's the heart of of what professional Educators do we leverage assessment data to measure student growth and monitor our progress in classrooms at each school and at the district level this data not only informs teachers about each student's progress but also helps principles evaluate student achievement and guides District leadership in providing targeted support and resources this evening I would like to provide a review of one type of assessment data summative assessment data specifically
034I'd like to share current and historical data for the smarter balanced assessment and the Washington comprehensive assessment for science these are two State tests Washington students take and their results are reported on the OPI website these tests are given later in the school year they're standardized tests align to Washington State learning standards and provide critical data for us to use to evaluate the effectiveness of curriculum and instruction these summative assessments are formal and standardized and given once a year this spring Evergreen students in grades 3 through eight and also in grade 10 will take the SBA and students in grades 5 8 and 11 will take the wcas while Summit of assess assessments like SBA have value across the system most Educators find greater value inative assessments which are informal tools used to monitor student
035learning and provide immediate feedback unlike Summit of Assessments which measure learning at the end of a unit or the end of the year formative assessments happen during the learning process with the goal of adjusting instruction in real time to meet student needs formative assessments take many forms and range from quizzes and exit tickets to just reading students body language and adjusting instruction in real time over the course of a semester or a school year teachers gather data to measure student learning so formative assessments are growth or value added forms of assessment teachers study the data and adjust the learning experiences based on student needs so summative assessments are different from formative assessments and results are often used differently they serve different purposes it's often the summit of test results which are used to compare districts
036to each other or to the state or national average two weeks ago the newspaper headline was Clark County students math and reading skills are below grade level according to National scorecard the Colombian staff reporter referenced a study cond conducted out of two universities Harvard and Stanford the educational opportunity project at Stanford University gathers and studies data in an effort to increase Educational Opportunity due to racial socioeconomic and gender disparities and the center for Education policy research out of Harvard studies data to produce an education recovery scorecard comparing the learning loss from District to District during and after the covid-19 pandemic the data gathered by Harvard and Stanford researchers was limited to summative data they studied the state test data for 43 States used a National Standard average for the year 2019 and then compared student
037performance from the spring of 2024 to identify disparities and evaluate learning loss as I noted earlier sumita of assessment data is valuable it helps us evaluate student proficiency with Washington State learning standards and in tle we are examining current and historical data for the smarter balanced assessment measuring achievement in English language arts and math and we also study data from the Washington comprehensive assessment for science that's a long introduction to what I wanted to share with you this evening which is a review of that summative data in this first slide you'll see the summit of assessment I've talked about smarter balanced for ELA and math and wcas for Science and this graph represents the three most recent tests in 2022 23 and 24 I'm talking slower so you can look at the graph and I
038don't go too quickly you can see that the student performance is declining a bit in ela down and then up increasing for Math and Science with their percent of students meeting standard for each test noting the growth or lack thereof there with the numerical value this next slide shows our Summit of assessment data in comparison to the state average presented in this way our students are shown to be performing significantly below the average student in Washington state the data reported in the newspaper article showed student performance relative to the national average this data that I'm sharing with you comes from the district report card published on the OPI website representing data representing the percentage of students meeting standard on a given test and the purpose of this data is for internal consideration of what is
039working well and what we might want to improve comparing Evergreen data with the state averages can also serve a purpose we can examine our practices and research the work being done in other school districts where there is greater Student Success and consider changes me want to make in our systems to better impact student achievement here's another look at our data side by side and over the past 10 years the light blue line at the top represents English language arts the dark blue line represents Math and Science scores are shown in Orange once again let's compare our data with the State average over the past 10 years you can see that an achievement Gap began growing for ELA performance in about 2017 gradually becoming a larger Gap in 2022 I'd like to draw your attention to
040the data for just the last two years our aim is to improve student achievement and also to reduce the gap between us and the state average looking at test results we can see that the Gap has been reduced by 7/10 of a point not much but at least the Gap isn't getting bigger this next slide shows a comparison of math performance when compared to the state average with an achievement Gap widening in 2018 and becoming larger in 2022 and when we compare the data in 2023 and 2024 we can see that the Gap has been reduced by 1.6 and finally this slide shows student performance in science compared to the state average here's the data for 2023 and 24 and you can see a gap reduction of 2.1 points I'd like to take us back
041to this slide showing progress on the State Testing over the past 10 years and emphasize this section here while our students are performing at lower levels than we would hope and while over the past 10 years we're seeing a general decline in student achievement as measured by these tests there is something happening in the past two years which appears positive math scores are increasing science scores are increasing and Ela scores are no longer diving downward we've begun closing the Gap in both Math and Science and we've stopped the widening of the Gap in ela indicating that we'll now see this Gap also begin to close there are many thoughts and opinions about summative data like this sometimes I think it's easier to ignore it or pretend it doesn't matter it's difficult to read that our
042students are the lowest performing students in the county below the State national average however we must use all forms of data summative as well as formative to inform our decision making this data serves a purpose and will motivate us to continue the hard work we are doing in Evergreen we need to celebrate growth however small and make plans for continuous Improvement in teaching learning and equity and in each of our 38 schools we're working to Foster and sustain a culture of innovation teamwork and continuous academic Improvement researchers at Stanford and Harvard were eager to study the impact of the pandemic on student achievement pointing out disparities and evaluate learning loss the Associated Press and local newspapers reported on this study and pointed out that in Evergreen students are performing below the national average and their
043headline was not news to us the real headline is that Evergreen students show Improvement in math reading and science after Nation wide pandemic decline at your next meeting I will share a followup to this presentation I look forward to reporting on current efforts in tle to improve student learning I'll share about the development of a comprehensive system of assessment a responsive system and instructional guide for schools and classrooms and the implementation of an equity-based multi-tiered support system or mtss designed to meet the academic behavioral social and emotional needs of all PS EPS students thank you for listening data is not always that exciting to listen to but I appreciate your attention tonight what questions do you have hi thank you Dr Fox um yeah would it be a time in the next week or two
044I could meet with you I know we've talked briefly at a board meeting but just would like to share some ideas and bounce them off you absolutely okay appreciate it thanks I'll give you a call we can set something up are you sure date is not exciting it's exciting to some people I think it's exciting when we see that and that teachers should be celebrating growth and I look forward to drilling down and finding out more evidence for why that's happening well I think we've seen it in the last couple of years in the school Improvement plans and some of the work that we know that the schools are putting in place and the hard work that the um staff and administrators are you know for behind their students and so it's promising it may
045not be exactly where we want to see it but growth is growth and um as long as we continue that upward Trend well I know from the last uh presentation you gave uh you talked about students at or near standard um based on the formative assessments right uh and that to me seems more interesting as a measuring tool to see how the system is uh I guess teaching students and responding to how they respond to the teaching and so forth um I would hope for some data that shows uh sort of this is where I get wonky uh the rate of the rate of change uh I was in a classroom a few uh weeks ago uh a reading classroom in one of the middle schools where uh they talked about students going from way
046behind in Reading like years behind to grade level uh and that gave me a little hope that uh that that kind of thing that kind of teaching could be applied more generally um and I'm glad you're focusing on all that so that first bullet the comprehensive system of assessment includes both the summative and the formative assessments you're speaking of the formative assessments which we Educators do all the time inally and formally and it informs us on a regular basis and that's that's what you're talking about um the summit of data is important but it's it's it serves a different purpose and um sometimes is more public than the format of Assessments but maybe at our next at your next board meeting we can talk more about that comprehensive system of Assessments yeah it would be
047nice to make all of this data more comprehensible uh to the public uh so that they have an accurate picture of what's going on and basically how great the people that work for us are well may I Dr Fowler has been working with others in in tle to ensure that we have a data dashboard so that it is more public and and we'll be I look forward to coming uh to you with that in the near future thank you and I'll just also mention um the 450 students in fifth grade band um really glad we were able last year to add that back to our budget to keep those students and as a former Elementary principal and teacher fifth grade band doesn't sound quite like the Vivaldi but they have to start somewhere right in
048order to get to what we heard tonight and so I I also am an advocate for yeah U music in our elementary schools and like you mentioned that kind of just helps the academics as well so you know what I was wondering when I saw that slide because it was like 450 in elementary and then 800 and some in middle and 450 in high school school and I thought I wonder how many of the 450 are still playing in high school more data we should but it's great it's great that we have that many kids in the program and I think you said 28% at Heritage High School and whatever whatever it is that is keeping the kids engaged and keeping them learning it's amazing belonging yes and thank you we definitely need to um
049celebrate the the gains and not constantly looking at where we're falling behind and we've had a long road since Co and to be able to see that we are improving is amazing so thank you for bringing that to us thank you all right next is our student board report NAA good evening board of directors tonight I'll be sharing about the last sack meeting that took place on Thursday we got to focus on the search for the new superintendent and hear from the multilanguage Learners Department we got the opportunity to meet with Kathleen Nord about a Q&A session that will take place on March 13th nine students volunteered and will be there asking questions to the final candidates of the superintendent search next we got to speak with Miss pranali the MLL program coordinator and discuss
050some changes and questions about our multilanguage department and our Learners we wanted to thank her so much for coming and let her know how much we appreciate her she explained how students are monitored if Federal funding will be a threat to this department and the students and lastly if this department expands outside of just Spanish some students Express concerns with newcomer students needing translation in the classroom and that sometimes students are being asked to translate so we got to talk about other Technologies such as translating earbuds and Ila devices we look forward to continuing the conversation hopefully at our next meeting that's all I have for tonight are there any questions that's interesting I I'm excited to hear more about that especially the translation devices yes me too any other questions for n no all
051right next is our good news report executive director of communications Mr Craig burbach bringing us our good news maybe eventually it's dark there go board director superintendent Maloney uh NAA thank you very much for having me I always enjoy this part uh we're going to start with uh good news uh from uh a thank you and we're going to thank Zoom info and their CEO uh who has continually year after year uh this company has provided funds for fcc's and uh this year um Henry Shook and other members of the zoom info team uh donated $30,000 uh and collected basic need items for the FCRC so want to make sure we thank them they do that every year for our district also February of course is Black History Month so we have schools celebrating black
052history uh that includes uh henria LAX um they their group of students from the black student union and the associate student body the ASB along with the heila families of African descent have uh created a series of celebrations throughout the month of February to celebrate Black History months um you could see they made some beautiful posters and also some informational posters they also hosted trivia games during lunch that actually I was told has prizes it was candy uh which is oh everyone loves candy and uh they also provided special informative morning announcements they also helped plan and they'll help lead the Black History Month assembly that'll take place on February 28th we have uh mult many schools having assemblies this week Archway Academy had a community volunteer day and here there's pictures of some students
053making dog bis biscuits that they donated to the Humane Society for Southwest Washington uh students at Archway continually make dog biscuits they kind of bring them around here they actually have them for sale we get to buy them here at ASC uh but for this day they made them specifically for the Humane Society other students did things like a a campus cleanup so we actually saw them walking around and um cleaning up the campus so a really great idea from the archway uh students I did want to say we did have someone come out from the Big Smiles dental program um and speak at the board meeting um I caught them with one of their uh uh they were hosting people at Maran Elementary School um and the students and the staff there were really
054excited to have them there uh set up right in the FCRC building students could come down get their dental care right there at school uh I want to go to Sunset uh Sunset fourth graders uh did a little bit of a uh of a New Year's resolution they have what they're calling the drive in 2025 and they had they all had these paper uh pickup trucks and on them they wrote their goals for 20125 I wrote down uh some of them that I saw uh being a better helper read more books and to be rich York Elementary School at a board meetings before we got to celebrate their amazing increase in attendance by 133% from a year-to-year basis uh so some uh people from here from the district and admins at the school they wanted
055the students to be able to celebrate so they celebrated with a future earnings award this was really uh this was really interesting so they brought this big check that says future earnings $1 million and uh the I'm told the kids went nuts when they saw the check they didn't go as nuts once they found out it wasn't a real check but uh they were told that this was their trophy uh that they earned this so they understood the understood it at least enough they didn't boo but they certainly they they certainly wish the the check was real and finally uh we talked about we had the Heritage band here and we talked about our music uh programs the Clark College jazz festival uh invites 60 middle and high school jazz bands from all over uh
056the west coast and I'm not going to read all of them but you can see here how many awards our students in our bands won I do have a couple highlights uh y made the finals and finished second and I'm uh told by Karin that is uh a heck of an honor for our middle schools that that that is not something that happens often um Mountain View High School band won two first place trophies and that included the prestigious sweep Stakes award which is the trophy for the most outstanding band at the festival and you could see that picture of them celebrating their two trophies right there so um but if you have time to look at that list you'll see it's an extensive list of not just the bands but individuals that were awarded
057at that uh at that festival and that is my presentation if there's no any questions thank you so much thank you Craig the next item on our agenda is for informational purposes it's the financial statement for January 2025 hi good evening um I think a couple questions came up about the financials so I'm happy to address those here now let me is there questions about the informational um yeah I thought Jennifer on occasion would come up and speak and she hasn't had that opportunity for a few months and I noticed just in looking at the financials where 42% of the year in and expenditures were showing uh 48% and Revenue at 38 so I just thought it'd be good for her to maybe just share you know the I know there's reasons for it but
058it'd be good for yeah I'm happy to explain it's uh this budget status report is kind of the required Statewide budget status report so every school district has to you know issue this every month but it's not the most user friendly as far as reading it so uh this is a good opportunity for me to explain a little bit about this um one thing is you know through the end of January we should technically be about 41 1.7% through the year so why aren't we seeing Revenue at 41.7 and expenses at 41.7 and it's basically our revenues and expenses don't aren't even month-to month so um one thing to explain that's very helpful I think is this report is very misleading um the expenditures there show 48.6 six but is it including the actual for
059the year plus the incumbrances for the rest of the year so the incumbrances are are open POS purchase orders out in our system they incorporate all of our future payments related to contracts so that 31 million is are for future payments therefore things like our custodial contract our running start contract utilities are all on P purchase orders excuse me um so that 31 million has those are future expenditures so that percentage includes those in it so it's inflated so if you take 1 79.5 and divide that by the 40 432.32 is what what where we should be so that that kind of helps explain why that's always a little inflated um I also just want to take this opportunity to also explain about revenue and why that is looks a little bit low um our
060apportionment payments you would think the state would just pay our apportionment you know uh equally divided across 12 months so 8% you know 88.3% per month but uh they do not you can see here on the right our a portion that's paid out at these very different rates throughout the year so in November they only give us 5% of our total apportionment so cash flow is going to be going up and down uh quite a bit you see they saved 12 and a half% and 10% for the last two months of the year so that causes a lot of cash flow issues for a lot of districts because they've pushed our state apportionment they're paying out a big bulk of it at the end of the year so you're going to see a lot of
061fluctuations in our in our Revenue side because of this um payment schedule so as of January if you add those up you get 39.5% of our apportionments paid out where it's really 41.7% of the year is gone by so it's it's not tracking with actual year and then the last part I'm going to show is just this shows our fun balance over the last few years and shows how uh you know we have UPS in October when property taxes come in then it dips way down as our abortions not keeping up and then in April you see it go way back up again because the bulk of our property tax comes in April so this fund balance it's it's not steady month to month it is quite erratic and this is why we we encounter
062cash flow problems and we it's very important we have a fund balance so that we can survive these low months with the cash on hand why doesn't the state pay an equal appr perment well this it was more equal this happened I want to say this happened about 10 years ago that they pushed a lot down to July and August because the state budget starts July 1 and they were having a cash flow crunch one year and so they changed the schedule and said we'll push it down the road a little bit and pay more out in July and August because that's their new fiscal year and then it just stayed this way so they also assume because you know we get property taxes at different times I was told that this was kind of
063part of that as well um but it's it's certainly causing a lot of cash flow problems for districts across the state you're seeing more and more proportionate advances and and loans and that to to make up that difference so so does that help with explaining the budget s report a little bit I figured maybe they were keeping the money to get some extra interest on it but yeah that that could be it so are we good any other questions thank you anybody else nope all right thank you Jennifer next is board comments a couple things for me um I spent this last weekend at Wasa board meeting and um two things that you might find interesting uh the general assembly will be virtual this year and maybe years forward so not the hybrid event it
064was just getting too expensive to try to do both both ways and so it's going to be a virtual event for everyone hopefully that will continue with participation from school districts across the state where people can still feel like they can attend if it's not in person only um but just the hybrid format was just two um complicated and too expensive and then we had a really good discussion um that afternoon about you know different bills that are in legislation that how they will affect different districts differently and then how does when w to has a position how do they Advocate when they know that deciding that could negatively impact one district one way and another District another way so it was really interesting because you know W is there to support all of the
065districts and um help funding for all public education across the state but there are different needs in different districts so it was it was interesting yeah I know um we didn't mention it last board meeting but Rob and I had visited Cascade Middle for a um breakfast with the board and enjoyed seeing about there was about nine or 10 students there and um we were really asking them some interesting questions and they really started opening up and mainly about bullying I think that took up almost half the time we were there talking and um I was surprised that they mentioned and all of them mentioned this that that responded that bullying really occurs in the classroom most of all at least for them and I would think it would occur outside of the classroom where
066you know there's not an adult right there but for them it really seemed to be the majority of it in the classroom so that was eye openening for me anyway way um what do you think Rob I remembered uh as they were talking about and and uh just remembered that my experience was kind of similar uh when I was in Middle School we talk about Middle School is the tough ages uh and a lot of um there's a lot of uncertainty uh in kids that age about who they are and how they're going to grow and develop and what their place is uh or the place that they want to take uh in the school community and in The Wider community and um we could tell you we're talking about the pain they've experienced uh
067and that really resonated with me uh and I may have more more to say about that in terms of the uh the resolution that we'll be discussing in the workshop but yeah um those those moments with students continue to be some of the most informative and most valuable uh parts of board work yeah so I think anything we can do to empower teachers to you know have you know be able to you know deal with that situation in the classroom I think would be helpful to the students so um also want to thank everybody that spoke tonight and I know Stephen Houston mentioned about the um the link on our website it doesn't get to quite the information that it maybe could so I don't know if there's a possibility of um having having that
068maybe go a we can talk about it later maybe but just be able to get access for people to know the bills that are dealing with funding for the state I think especially I think that was his uh major emphasis so that could be something we could look at um also um it was mentioned about the um supplemental contracts and again I'd like to um suggest that we just take a look at that in a board workshop and you I know two people mentioned it but then you could see the response from you know the community here that that seemed like it's it' be good to just have transparency there and just discuss it openly so thank you all right so I actually had the privilege of attending uh the discovery kitchen Cookoff last week
069uh last week the week before Oh gosh the month's going by so fast um there was eight students from around the district elementary students that competed at y middle school they had I cannot remember how many mystery items in their basket was like five Dr Maloney was with there with me I think it was like five like yeah it was like chicken and apples and the array of things was amazing smoothies and chocolate covered apples and I mean it was there was so much creativity in their meals and it was such an experience to watch them prep and cook and plate and just you know it was an amazing experience and I'm looking forward to I actually get to go to the finals so I get to watch the finals so I'm looking forward to
070that so hopefully we'll have some pictures of that uh on our website soon or on Facebook soon so that was a great partnership that we have with Chartwells and we appreciate those experiences and then I I want to talk about the uh the time first of all Dr Maloney I appreciate the time that you're taking with students um who are worried about their families um and listening to uh their concerns and how we could structure um a perception of safety uh for them as well as the actual safety uh so that they can continue to learn at school um I'm appreciative of the uh work that uh Claris high tower a landra uh oh beos I can't remember her last name she's uh the adviser to the Mountain View High School uh Latino Club who
071uh welcomed us uh myself uh president Weatherspoon and superintendent Maloney into their space to talk to us about how it feels to be uh part of that community in this moment and the things that they'd like us to say and do in support for them um and I'll have more to say about that uh in our discussion about the resol solution which we tabled in order to bring their voice into um our conversations a little more firmly but they uh they were very specific about what it is they wanted and um I appreciate the leaders who uh got them organized uh in order to have what was a very fruitful meeting for me um I think I haven't yet talked about I've done done a couple of school visits now uh with Dr Maloney and
072uh the reading class was at Pacific Middle School was good to go back into that school and see the things that they've been doing there uh for kids I I recommend that everyone give it a try Pacific's a great place um I'll have a legislative report during Workshop as well I promised uh Jenny that I'd keep it to three minutes but if there are questions we might have to go longer that's all I have any other comments all right with that that ends our regular scheduled board meeting the time is 6:40 at this time we will take a quick recess where we will then rejoin our board Workshop where we will go over affirming the rights of undocumented students and protocols for ins and Ice access to schools sorry that was a mouth pole legislative
073update and board protocols and calendaring with that we're dismissed thank you guys [Music]