001good evening and welcome to the July 9th 2024 regular board meeting uh I'll call this meeting to order please rise with me for the Pledge of Allegiance ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands Nation God indiv Li and justice for all thank you director banega has our land acknowledgement thank you Evergreen Public Schools resides on the traditional lands of the shukan peoples and the khats tribe they have lived on and cared for this land in its Waters Wass since time immemorial 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 thank you Julie the next item is to adopt the agenda for tonight I move to adopt
002tonight's agenda as presented second moved and seconded uh director B director Weatherspoon ronal gron Walt sorry all in favor I I I any opposed we have adopted the agenda for tonight so the first item on our agenda for this meeting is public comments for community members who wish to speak to the board uh each speaker has a maximum of three minutes there's no mechanism whereby a speaker can donate some or all of their time to another speaker no individual may speak more than once per regular meeting even if there's time remaining and please state your name and District affiliation if any um I'll note as well that uh we have a public hearing item uh coming up after public comments so if you have um some comments or input on the sale of the old
003image elementary school property I'd ask that you uh reserve your comments to that point in the agenda the first person on our list here is Corey Ward coming in from uh online okay I'll make sure to get back to that okay Corey Ward are you here Corey can you hear us I'm here hi Corey welcome hi sorry I'm currently driving home from my honeymoon so my apologies congratulations we ready when you are okay I don't know if you can see me okay thank you sorry um all right so uh my name is Cory Ward now Corey young I have five children in the School District my youngest will be class of 2037 I volunteer regularly my kids at school so I'm around quite a bit I have children that have IEPs and also who work
004with academic interventionalists I first want to say Welcome to our inim superintendent Christine Maloney I'm sorry I cannot meet you tonight in person and I actually would like to use her three hours to help conve my hope and concerns for the coming year and I want to state that this snapshot as she comes in there are so many experiences and interactions that have led to the statements I'm going to share relationships people don't know how much you don't care how much you know until they know how much you care unfortunately the treatment of most of the parents and students have received from the board from the board's actions is one of not caring of actions and words not aligning of claiming a desire for coperation without any action to make it happen this lack of
005communication makes it impossible to build a relationship also on relationships there's currently little if any trust with the community and its board the majority of the board has flat out ignored the community members they represent and voted accordingly once again not allowing their words and actions of representing us to match rigorous making sure we have the scaffolding for the students to succeed this is a tough one where the majority of the board approved a budget that cut Elementary Librarians in Paris and then went on to say how incredible these positions they just approved cutting are part of the plan to cover for the work of librarians is to have the academic interventionist at the elementary level do some of the now media specialist work the board seems totally fine taking my dyslexic child and vandalous
006time to cover for the loss of librarians taking their scaffold te because well it doesn't affect their children or taking my children's Paras preventing them from receiving their full IEP minutes all at the elementary level where if that scaving fails what hope do they have for middle school and high school which leads right into relevance to our children's Futures so at elementary levels we have the loss of parents IP Med mittance not being fulfilled loss of librarians and the academic effect that will have middle school and high school is where security is nowhere near adequate for the amount of students we have where there is more security for the district office than any of our middle schools or high schools make that make sense students are allowed disrespectful behaviors towards their teachers and teachers are
007not allowed to speak out they're expected to just fix it to keep putting on multiple hats but yet at the district office more and more director positions are being created rather than them being told to put on multiple hands make that make sense please how does any of this lead to positivity for our students Futures how are we setting them up for the future where unless you are a top succeeding student your needs and safeties go unmet the the Land There is not currently trust between the community and the school board or district office our teachers union has currently given the district a vote of no confidence and on average we are one of the poorer districts with the most lucrative administrative jobs and pay make it make sense please I wish superintendent Maloney luck
008and truly hope to see her words and actions align as she leads our district our district is not a private Corporation and stakeholders deserve accurate information transparency and accountability on how our money is being spent and decisions made by the administration I hope our new superintendent feels the same way and that this year we can start to turn things around by working together and demanding better from those who keep making the same decisions that do not help our kids thank you thank you Corey next person on the list is Katherine ferk Katherine welcome good evening my name is kathern ferdi I have three graduates from EPs and a current student it is crucial to collaborate with this community your community so we can Advocate more effectively for with our legislature for adequate funding for our
009schools we are heading into election season again and while there are many issues within our District's leadership needing attention we recognize that there's a huge disparity between what our state provides and what our students desperately need needs which have grown exponentially since 2020 we can be your greatest asset for positive change if you allow us to be we are eager to see this change come to fruition by working with you and our new superintendent welcome talk about hitting the ground running I want to again encourage our leadership to visit the classrooms and see the teaching and learning conditions of our schools we have so many great staff and students but the reality of the struggles they face daily needs to be seen and acknowledged as I sat in on an sip meeting of several principles
010discussing their school's year-end progress reports a board M acknowledged how much gets handed to our school staff and Leadership that they are expected to just manage despite how challenging I appreciated this cander collaboration in this aspect also I believe would be beneficial to everyone I would love to see more of a let's figure out how to manage This Together approach rather than what often appears as you're on your own good luck God speed and by the way you need to increase your numbers speaking of you're on your own we'd like to ask what progress leadership has made towards mitigating our elementary librarian loss teacher planning time is one of the many fallouts from these Cuts we need a plan that preserves academic consistency for students districtwide not just a school by school approach it is
011crucial to provide educational equity which already took a hit with the loss of teacher Librarians we last heard of Paris mentioned as a stop Gap also hints of interventionists and such these are all support staff we are already in dangerously short supply of a consistent and adequate number of Paras how will we potentially hire more if we're already struggling to hire enough now how are the ones we have now already spread so thin going to manage additional responsibilities not to mention the effect on the children who are struggling to have their IEP in 504 planed minutes fulfilled we certainly consider our support staff to be vital for Student Success and I'm looking forward to hearing more from Dr Maloney on this in the months to come there will also be a additional challenges with pursuing
012another leev Levy there is already a deep distrust and loss of faith and Leadership collaboration with your community transparency from start to finish accurate information about how voters money is spent and accountability for your decisions as leadership will be integral in the success of Voters placing trust back in you thank you thank you Katherine next speaker is Camille lman Camille hi my name is Camille I'm a mother of ass soon to be first grader I'm also a co-founder of a nonprofit that fiercely advocates for K12 communities in various ways but began by empowering individual voices of a community to unite together for what's in the best interest of students in the last several years there have been resignations and exits by staff and elected officials some being secret Keepers and some because they did not
013feel comfortable operating within an organization with so many Secrets anymore the people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them the people in delegating Authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know the people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments that they have created this is found several times in our W chapter 42 related to uh the open public meeting act in 42310 and also public records requests 42503 legislative findings in 2014 concluded that the rights of the citizens to observe the actions of their public officials and to have timely access to public records are the underpinnings of democracy and essential for Meaningful
014citizen participation the legislature also found that implemen ing improvements in public service will in turn enhance public trust and result in significant cost savings knowledge is power and when information is withheld or manipulated or when there is a lack of accessible information it naturally leads to assumptions being made to fill in all the gaps some being rumors and some not but it Fosters an environment where confusion skepticism fear and mistrust flourishes but like a weed to the point where even when business is conducted properly and is in accordance with all the acts laws rcws there is still looming suspicion and even when honest makes U mistakes occur due to human error there is little room for Grace or understanding which is valid due to the extensive history of secrecy and it still feels like public
015comment section of board meetings is just screaming into the void without an echo back even within three to five business days voices that insist on remaining informed are not the enemy there is significant value in admitting when you don't have all the answers and communicating expectations in order to cut off the food supply to the weed of mistrust so that something healthy rather than destructive has a chance to grow but it takes more than killing a weed for growth to occur we need soil water but we especially need sunshine the law to shine light to ensure accountability and promote transparency effectively decreasing confusion and fear and growing trust thank you for your comments Angie Bunda hey welcome hi guys I'm G to take a breath because I rushed over here uh you all know me
016uh except for Dr Maloney my name is Angie bua I have two kids in the district this is my first year in the district and I'm excited for what we have in store um I felt compelled to talk today just because there's so many different things that need to be brought up but I didn't really have a plan so please forgive me for not being very organized however um I was really impressed when I went to the principal SI s the meeting to listen to principles talk about their school year talk about what went wrong what didn't go well what did go well it was really encouraging to see the passion and dedication they have towards their schools and their children and one thing that was mentioned was the Strategic plan and how we had
017worked really hard this year on implementing the first two parts of the Strategic plan teaching and learning and school environment and we had seen benefits from that and that um we are now hoping as a community that we can start implementing the second parts of the Strategic plan family and community and employee engagement and I'm not just saying make it happen or else I'll yell at you I have ideas yeah so as far as ideas with family and Community we're still asking for the same things we're still hoping for the same things we would love to see similar things to what Dr Armstrong implemented at PPS with her PACE program that has different forums for um policies for for sped for for all sorts of different things where the board and the community can engage
018together you can you can pass ideas to each other and there's open Communications uh as well as having a suggestion that I gave you guys for maybe doing a workshop after your meetings that could include like a town hall where it's like a you're already gathered you don't have to have another meeting you don't have to pay for another thing um where you can talk to the community afterwards and I think people would really appreciate the opportunity and I think that would really surprise you um just with the option of being able to speak to someone uh as far as employee engagement I will send you all an email since I'm running out of time but I feel that it says we will encourage all of our staff to share their opinions experiences and expertise
019to inform any decision that impacts them and their students when I read this it hit me like a ton of bricks that this is literally the opposite of our staff expression policy 5254 which states and any anything that an employee says inside or outside of work that could be uh constructed as negative or have an adverse uh adverse impact on so District Operations may result in disciplinary disciplinary action including termination so you're telling people that your pillar Foundation that you believe in upmost is to allow them to speak but this policy says anything that they say that the district decides is negative they could be fired we need to talk more about that and I'm happy to do that with you thank you thank you Angie well coronabush cron Bush yeah either way we're not
020sure anyways the family doesn't know Phil cronish um stakeholder here in uh Orchard sifton and uh grandfather a couple children here in in the district um basically I have three items this evening just real simple the first is I I realized that we've spoken uh the board has talked a lot about or people have come up and talked about a cell phone policy um a no cell phone policy and I think it's a win I think it's a win-win simple situation I know you know you might take a little bit of time to implement it to but the the policy that that some teachers came up I believe it was from Evergreen and and spoke of it was a wonderful policy it sounded really well I think you could implement it do it um it'd
021be a great win before the start of school set up for what what we really need we need to help the teachers if the teacher asking for that help let's do it it's not a money issue it's just a simple policy change talk about it implement it we could do this over the summer and and let's go forward and help the kids let's take the distractions away I think everybody wants that parents and also the teachers the second item uh I wanted to talk about was the youth Truth uh you just heard a couple uh statements about it it's $68,000 we're talking two Paras or most of a librarian that that we just got done laying off this is not the time this is inappropriate this is this is this is irresponsible of the board
022to I know it's coming up on the Cent agenda to allow that that expense that we have there's a cost benefit here that is just not that cost benefit just you need to talk about that that before you need to be transparent to about the community about what youth truth is all about a lot of the youth the community and the parents do not understand that there are gender identity questions on on the survey they don't many of them don't even know their children are being asked this again here's the Pol the transparency piece that so many parents and and and teachers been talking about no transparency about what's going on um the third thing is is is uh again a budgetary thing uh the EV buses um really it's too long range I mean
023this is this is a wish I I I know it's not our job to to change the climate our job and our focus and our priority should be academics um our OSI numbers are in the tank we don't have time to be worry about that that's a long range problem we got to we have to conserve our our teachers and our resources and not worry and take not take Focus off the things that are really important and that's our kids so I just want you all to consider that especially the the uh the uh coming up here at the youth truth survey p as it comes up if it does in the Cent agenda thank you very much thank you Phil thank you for your comments okay I'll uh that's all the people who were
024on the list I'll go ahead and close the public comment section uh the next item on the agenda is a public hearing for the public to comment on the sale of the old image elementary school property are there any members of the uh audience here or online who have a statement about uh the decision to sell that property Camille first hello uh I just want to confirm and just clarify that the sale of old image uh the the the proceeds won't go to the general fund it would go to The Debt Service fund I know that there's a lot of confusion um one way or the other um and I think I think the community would benefit from um uh just an explanation a little bit more about how that goes so um the conversation
025doesn't lead to like um uh why aren't we using it to like bring back more teachers or Paras so that's a thank you Phil do you have a comment uh was there a consideration uh to what's going to happen if we need it back I mean we it's as as the city grows it's not going to be able to get this land back I know it's not needed now but going to the future I hope there's some consideration you know if you know I don't know if it's resold are we the do we are we going to have first rights to to buy it back if we need it the resource or maybe I'm confused with what could happen in the future because if the district is going to grow eventually we'll maybe need it
026back so like to know what happens okay thank you um I think both of those questions are easily answered um and uh superintendent Maloney I ask that uh your office reach out to both of those uh individuals and uh Supply them with an explanation um it's it's a public hearing if that's all right okay yeah we'll open a discussion on the matter now okay sorry um just wanted to make a just a few comments to Phil's or responses to Phil's comments um a portion of the image property actually belongs to se they were lending it to us um that building itself was one of our first that we rebuilt because it's the infrastructure is not good um they actually have to shovel snow off this the roof every year um we actually have other properties
027around the city that don't have anything on them that we own so there are other places that we could build but to be able to make that property to a point that we could actually continue to use it it would just cost us too much money and it's always kind of been the plan with SE on this property sorry that's all I wanted to say on that uh with respect to the uh um the disposition of the funds from the sale of the property my understanding is that it'll be deposited into the Capital Improvements fund I'm seeing nods from the facilities and financial experts in the audience here uh and from the superintendant uh because the law states that um those funds can only be used for buildings or other Capital Improvements um it's a
028very common question that uh that people ask because of of the misunderstanding uh sometimes that Camille raised um and we want to be clear about that too uh that if we could I think we'd be uh a little more creative about it but it's it's an unfortunate truth any other comments no further action is required as at this time so I'll close the public hearing for public to comment on the sale of old image Elementary School and we'll move on to um the next item on our agenda the board consent agenda move to approve the board's consent agenda as presented second it's been moved and seconded gronalt and Wilson uh all in favor I I any opposed motion carries unanimously just waiting for the technical pieces uh the next item on the agenda is the
029superintendent consent agenda I ask that item F and K be removed from the consent agenda and open to discussion okay we're removing items F oh it's two-sided uh the agreement between Evergreen Public Schools and Center for Effective philanthropy and K the Washington inter Scholastic Activities Association schools approved for membership items um which we'll uh dispose of after we vote on the remainder of the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve um perhaps you can make that motion Gary no I motion that we approve the um superintendent consent agenda excluding those two items at this point seconded it's been moved and seconded Wilson and um Weatherspoon uh all in favor I I any opposed motion carries okay with respect to item F the agreement between Evergreen Public Schools and the Center for Effective philanthropy
030um discussion and action will require a motion I move for approval of item F oh second okay um moved in seconded to approve item f is there any discussion yeah um item f is a three-year contract for the Youth Tru survey and in January we um had this past Year's youth Tru survey and we had parental and teacher concerns about four optional questions and one question was asked of elementary school children the three questions were asked of middle school children um I reviewed those questions at our April board workshop and I asked who decides whether these optional questions are asked and our then um superintendent John Boyd said the district decides and I didn't ask further about you know who within the district and I probably should have at that time but it appears maybe
031at is this the point in time since we're approving this and it has um like a cost for the basic survey and then there's some additional components where I believe these additional questions are added in so is is this the point in time where we discuss those options or is this I know it's 68,000 for the entire survey and I believe those additional questions are I think 4,000 and it's an annual for the next three years so um yeah my my concern about um the four questions that were detailed in April um that were as I said a parent and and teacher concern um one concern are children like my youngest daughter who is on the autism spectrum and autism children are much more impressionable and autistic children are are particularly vulnerable group when and
032at higher risk of social manipulation and they are also autistic children are up to six times as likely to experience gender confusion so I always want to air on the side of caution when exposing children to Concepts that may not be age appropriate based on their development of the child and I don't think anyone can tell me that for all the children that are asked these questions of that development developmentally they are appropriate for all of them and I know youth truth survey has in varying forms benefits and I don't have all the answers but I do have some concerns thank you had to make sure the mic was on um do you have uh experience with superintendent Maloney do you have EXP experience with youth truth and how that's structured or is that a
033question that we could answer at a later time yeah right now um I have not had experience with youth um truth surveys um have experience with a healthy use survey and um the process to go through at the district level and uh specific administrators to go through and decide based on um you know the community and what we need that data for um was we were able to choose pick and choose which questions we wanted that was with healthy use survey um so I can't answer directly with true north or um with you truth at this point I can get you information though okay so I just want to add a couple of things so it um the additional topics are related to emotional and mental health school safety inclusion Etc which we have used
034the survey as we've built in the Strategic plan for the u sense of belonging and using it kind of as a as a base point so we know where our kids and families are we're also part of the survey is the family survey that goes out to um all 39 schools parents of all 39 schools so it's a way for us to get the feedback that we're needing that two-way communication from from our families as well and I think that the concern was around the very first question on the survey um it was the question are you boy girl or um how do you like I can't remember the exact wording but how do you identify um and then the rest of the questions I think we're pretty age appropriate and really a lot of
035it had to do with how they felt about math too and learning in academics and then we added the um student belonging questions around emotional and mental health which I think are really important for us to continue to gauge plus we've had some um work with the youth truth um folks that have actually come in and done some workshops with our kids and I thought they did an outstanding job presenting to our kids and giving us some additional tools that we can use so do we decide at this point whether those questions that were optional and um not well received by everybody um we're are we approving those questions right now or is this something that's approved it's my understanding we're just approving the contract for the next three years to do it but I
036know we can definitely look at the questions that are asked before those surveys are submitted because I know youth truth worked with our student board reps to make sure they formulated the questions the way they thought were best and our parents involved in that decision making or on the questions that are asked I don't remember I know that the student board reps were after the fact they were working with youth truth they were working with youth truth on uh a mathematics section the part where they came and did some workshops with some of our classrooms so that was their involvement I don't have a sense right now that the student reps were involved in the demographic or uh or gender questions no um but I agree that this approves the contract and um this A
037Center for Effective philanthropy have been uh pretty responsive uh to the district's concerns um and I think the conversation can continue with an approved contract yeah um I'm especially interested to see if there's um an a well understood way to if if desired for a parent to opt their students out I think there's um a few percentages of folks who uh might like to express that and so in my opinion uh so there's a need for continued conversation and I understand it's you know a sensitive topic and it does have value in its varying forms and yeah it's I don't again I don't have all the answers but um if approving this is possibly approving those four questions down the road I'd probably then choose to abstain at this point I don't know um I
038doubt uh I doubt that a vendor like this would not be responsive uh to uh the district's Direction um we know that youth truth is also it starts in like the third grade and that there are uh several schools uh whove piloted their own youth truish uh age appropriate questions for K through two uh and there certainly it certainly builds a sense for me that uh that kind of conversation can continue to happen and uh um continue to include those who have a concern yeah based on what I see here it's really about who's being surveyed how much the unit price is per those surveys and what the additional topics are which are around emotional and mental health school safety and inclusion it doesn't say anything about which questions we're going to ask and so
039I'm sure that uh Tilly Meyer and her team can probably work with the folks at youth truth um and we can always revisit later on all of the questions and take a take a peek at them any other comments hearing none we'll uh go ahead and take a vote on approving the agreement between Evergreen Public Schools and Center for Effective philanthropy youth truth re the student and family survey school year uh the upcoming school year in the uh uh and the in the subsequent two years the three years total all in favor I I are there any opposed abstain we have four in favor with one abstention and the motion carries the next item is uh item K resolution number 6949 uh WIA schools approved for membership um is there a motion I move to
040approve item number K off of the superintendent's consent agenda for the WIA resolution second it's been moved and seconded gronalt and banra is there any discussion yeah I was going to bring up um the Washington intercol actic Activities Association WIA um allows biological males to compete against biological girls um they do not require biological male high school athletes to take part in hormone treatments to play and compete in biological girl Sports and I this creates an unfair and unsafe playing field um 6 weeks ago a biological male won the Washington State WIA girls 400 meter dash uh this agreement with WIA under the current rules puts Evergreen School District's girls at a physical disadvantage and in potential physical Dam a danger excuse me I don't know the answer however the kenowick school board signed a
041resolution affirming that biological males should not participate in biological female sports um we're running biological women out of women's sports when we allow biological males to compete against them so again I don't have all the answers but I have a concern there so thank you Gary any other comments so it looks from uh it looks from the resolution form that they sent that uh the president and superintendent must sign this resolution form to indicate that the school board has approved the public school district's uh membership with WIA and as members these schools will follow the ru rules and regulations um in the absence of that what happens to sports we don't play in the league that's what happens and our kids won't get opportunities to participate that seems like uh something that we really should
042approve um my uh I guess my second question is I thought it was a matter of law uh with gender expression and so forth and as interpreted by OPI and uh and some other state agencies um that we don't have control over that part that is correct okay um and based on that we should approve this there are opportunities for Schoolboard directors to have voice in WIA so that might be something that you might want to pursue appreciate that any other comments nothing Jan no hearing none we'll take a vote all those in favor I I any opposed um I say again okay four in favor one abstention and the motion carries that was a long agenda item uh just like 20 20 things to approve uh the next item on the agenda is uh
043a superintendent report Dr money all right well thank you I am uh thrilled to be here and it's a short report because I've only been here a very short time but I've managed to pack in a lot of things in the few days I've been here so far uh yesterday I went with Veronica uh I'm G to I hope I pronounce the name correctly magalen maganus pardon magayanes veryan maganis Magan I'm we're gon to practice we will practice I will get that correct director of multilingual Learners and so um she and I connected in the morning and I was able to go over and visit summer school for our multilanguage Learners and walk in the classrooms visit with staff see students talk with them I was um thrilled um to see all the the happy
044faces and the learning that was taking uh place over there and I did hit it during I think that's the one I hit during lunchtime I managed to hit a couple of the schools during lunch and breakfast time it was a great timeing for me um and then I was walking down the hallway and uh I ran into Matt Bennett and I talked to him for a little bit and invited myself to come see esy and so this morning I visited um I think we hit every single classroom teachers Harris and said hello talked with students met Greg the sloth and that was a little stuffed animal that one of our students had over there and um had a great time so I really enjoyed getting to know people and learning people's names and chatting
045with them for a little while so that was exciting to see tomorrow I'm going to go see Archway got some other things lined up as well so uh Lori has been great helping me schedule meeting times with lots of different people from around the district and we're starting to schedule different things I am looking forward to meeting and learning um about everyone and the district and so that we can move forward together so it's been busy and it will continue to be busy but it's great work so thank you thank you Dr Maloney the next item on the agenda is a presentation by our uh Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Jacobson about the 2025 Levy welcome hi good evening to the board and a special Welcome to our new interim superintendent Dr Maloney we're super excited
046to have you here so uh welcome um I am just going to present some L information today I know uh this is a ways down the road but I thought it's a good idea to just go over some information and facts and and um and share that at this point to start us thinking about it um both our educational programs and operations Levy and our Tech Levy are both set to expire in 2025 so that means we need to go out in 2025 in order to set up collections for 20126 um I in my timeline here I um assumed we would go out in February uh but that of course is a board decision you can go out in February April August and November are the four options um most districts go out in February
047because it is the least costliest time to go out because we're uh sharing the ballot with a lot of other government agencies and candidates and so it lowers our cost of the distribution of the ballots and that so um and another fact is that we can only run the levy twice so we need to keep that in mind as well so uh so starting off just with some basic Levy facts because again we don't look at this for you know every three years um so that it's helpful to just kind of remember these basic facts so levies are approved for a duration of 1 to six years um in the past we've passed our educational programs and operations levies for threeyear time period but recently um both cus and Vancouver passed fouryear levies so because
048it is so costly to run the levy that is something to take into account the length and duration of the levies um the levies require simple majority 50% to pass unlike running bonds that take the Super majority of 60% uh the educational programs and operations Levy that's our our main Levy it's also called an enrichment Levy it's supposed to supplement kind of what the basic Ed funding is for our district um and that's just deposited into our general fund to support operations uh in the old days it was called maintenance and operations Levy M and um it's also called a replacement Levy so lots of names uh capital projects fund Levy uh we have run a tech Levy in the past and just primarily focused that Levy around uh getting devices oneto ones for all
049of our students uh for our staff um it helps fund our our Hardware Specialists and and all kinds of Technology um you also have the option to expand that Levy to also support our security systems you want to install at the district and also Capital renewal projects so that's something cus has done recently they expanded their Tech Levy to also include some other items um and it it gives you a little more flexibility so the board has to determine the duration of these levies and the total amount to be collected per year so the tax rate is just an estimate it's based on what we think projected assessed value is going to be um what you're really approving is the total amount to be collected for each year so just some historical Levy information in
0502019 uh was before I was here but um we ran two levies one was a three-year EPO Levy and we also ran a six-year Tech Levy at that time and we passed them both with about 51.6% approval um so that Tech Levy was over six years we didn't have to rerun it um it's just coming up expiring next year uh in 2022 we needed to replace our three-year EPO Levy that had expired uh we ran that in February and that was uh failed at a 42.8% rate we have decided to lower the amounts we were asking for and we came back in April that year and passed with a 54.4% rate um just to give you an example uh the cost of running the February EPO Levy that year was $18,000 when we came back
051in April we were the only ones on the ballot we had to cover $172,000 to run that Levy so it was quite a bit more expensive to run that second Levy um so I just have listed here the amounts we've collected or are collecting for these three years uh keep in mind there is a levey lid just on the EPN o Levy part uh a maximum collection amount set by the state so both uh there's a maximum per pupil amount uh for 2024 it's 3150 per pupil and evergreen's at 2031 currently this year uh we also can't collect more than a $2.50 per thousand assess value so we're at $159 in the current year so there's we're quite far below the maximum level that we can collect um I've included this OSI report I like
052including OPI reports because anyone can go out if you want to see the full report and see all the districts in the state you can go out on the website and find this this report um it shows I I sorted by just the regional districts to show what our Levy per student collection amount is compared to these other districts in our region so we are the second lowest uh Levy per student amount um I should point out that uh OPI used the greater of 1920 or 2122 ft students because during covid we saw such fluctuations in enrollment and so OPI started using that instead of just a flat uh student number when I did do the calculation with our current student enrollment it it bumped it up a little bit because our enrollment has continued
053to drop um but it's still we were about $1900 and so we're still in that second second place for uh the lowest oh I should also mention um so we do have a tech Levy in addition to our EPO Levy uh so do Vancouver c washugal um and then Battleground just pass to Tech Levy as well so the other school districts only have the EPO Levy and do not have a supplemental Tech Levy to help with those Tech expenses um I wanted to pull out cus and VPS these are our two neighbors we're often used with comparisons with cus and VPS and show both the EPO Levy per student and then that Capital Levy and where we fall and you can see over these three years Evergreen is significantly lower than both canas and VPS
054in our collections per student um our Capital Levy was a little bit higher than Vancouver's but our EPO Levy continues to be significantly lower than what they're currently collecting am I going too fast or okay you're fine uh so here is historical ly information um you can see how our assessed value has really gone through the roof in the last few years we were at 19 billion in our region in 2020 and uh we currently are at 20 and a 28 half billion dollars in this region so you can see the percent increase in our assess value here uh we had 175% 6.7% some huge numbers and uh so we kind of have to forecast where that's going to be in the future um right now financial advisors are using 4% uh I did get
055some preliminary information for 2025 and I think it it's likely going to be even lower than that so that is something as we're working through the process we can kind of keep in mind um so you can see the total amount of bond Collections and then the tech Levy and EPO Levy amounts we've collected over the last few years and those are the amounts we will set um our bond rate is is going down and so part of our strategy is whether we want to keep consistent rates keep our total tax rate at a certain amount um how we want to structure this so back in 2022 we were at 379 we promised the voters it would stay under 379 and we have kept it at 357 for the last three years in a row
056so so some considerations as we're moving forward um whether we want to maintain running two separate levies uh the EPO Levy and the tech uh capital projects fund Levy or whether we want to combine it into just one Levy if we think we have a better shot at passing one Levy versus two um there's all of those considerations to take into account uh one thing to to think about though is if we were to combine those two um we would start seeing that levey lid we would start climbing up to it and that might be a limiting factor in our total collections um we also have more flexibility with that capital projects fund Levy as our bond projects are finishing up it would be helpful to have some Capital renewal um you know supported by
057having this additional capital projects fund Levy um and then there's always some risk of running the two levies versus one and so I have uh some information I can share at a later date when we're in a board work session that da Davidson put together about what the percentages are if you're running you know one Levy versus two if it helps to run them together or which it does I think if you ran a capital projects levy on its own right now it's has an 82% chance of passing but if you run it with an epnl Levy it's I think 89% chance of passing so um it does appear to be helpful to run the two together uh another consideration is determining the duration of the levy if you want to continue with the three-year
058Levy um if we want to do the tech Levy at six years like we have in the past that's another consideration and then of course the amounts of the levy so lastly uh the timeline so now I'm just sharing information so that you can start thinking about this um in August or September we'll have a workshop so we can kind of discuss more options and and different amounts and types of Le um and then in October or November we'll need to pass a levy resolution to uh approve the amount uh we wouldd like to collect and in November I will submit a pre- ballot approval form to Opi and then our filing deadline with the county is December 13th um and that is all for the February 11th election day so that's kind of working
059backwards from that day um and that's uh really all I had to sh share so do you have any questions or it's a lot of information well I know um February of 2022 that Levy failed by a little over 3600 votes and then April of 2022 it passed by over 2700 votes so there's a 6400 vote almost swing there and realizing you know with the bitter teacher strike and you know the recent vote of no confidence from the teachers union it it's going to make it challenging this time around uh for those reasons and added on to that I didn't think of this back last in March when we were going through the budget but um you know eliminating all the elementary Librarians that's going to be another um hard hurdle I think for getting
060uh and I know we were back then you said we're at Step n in March on the budget process and at this point I'm sure we're probably step X probably because the SEC first readings next probably our next board meeting yep the board is due to the esd112 tomorrow and then we'll go through that with them sometimes we have revisions to make um it'll be publicly available the next week um and then at the next board meeting I'll present yeah the first reading and then second reading the last board meeting in August so y um I don't know if there's any way to adjust anything with the budget there for elementary Librarians but I know I'm afraid it could be a stumbling point so just in reality uh it's five weeks away the first reading
061is the August 13th meeting so there's there's a lot of time Julie did you have a comment yeah I just wanted to say a couple things about the levy and um to Gary's point about the February failure to the April I don't think we did a lot of um work and communication around that first one where where we should have been out telling our story um talking to our community about the importance of the levy and I think that we have learned um from that experience that we need to have the information early that's why Jennifer is presenting to us tonight so we can start thinking about our what we need to do um I also think that you know as we consider our Levy proposals and the timelines and do we combine them we
062have to think about and I think this board has always made a priority to try to keep the tax levy rate down and um I think that's important to us that's I think we knew that coming into the year where the bond rate went lower that we would be in a good place and so we could show our citizens that we're being responsible and not trying to raise taxes um so we have a lot of Education to do and a lot of communicate a lot of communicating and I think it's really important that we're starting now and that we're getting the information so we can start thinking about how we want to um put this on the ballot when we decide to do it and then um how we move forward in our efforts from
063there thank you um a uh a lot of questions and this goes back to years and years before I was on the board uh have to do with uh people would ask me what do you do with the money uh and the answer uh it's deposited into the general fund is not always uh terribly satisfactory but I did want to make sure and confirm with you that epno Levy dollars are deposited into the local subf fund uh and that the reporting uh can show the spending out of the local subf fund as disaggregated from the spending out of the rest of the general fund that's correct they they changed that accounting about four years ago yeah it came with the specifically came with the McClary fixer the legislation before that right um I think it'll
064be important to talk about now that we have four years of of data about how the money was spent uh they'll be important to talk about that in those terms and and uh I'm certainly willing to help with the data stuff and we have a plan put in place that identifies exactly how the levy funds are are spent out so that's a requirement by OSI now so yeah that's audited every year and they make sure we follow it excellent I would um definitely get that communicated to the public because I know on the budget survey there were a number of comments stating about um you know you we worked to pass the levy and the dollars that were supposed to go to things are being cut from those Levy dollars so um and I think
065there were a few comments like that actually on the superintendent search um survey um so I think the community needs to be better communicated with as far as you know where these Levy dollars are going and here's where these Levy dollars in the past where they were going to go and here's where they went and because there maybe is some miscommunication there maybe I don't know um just going from what people answer in the surveys so it's uh around 13 and a. half% the total budget uh at least the 2025 projections contradict me if I'm wrong about that but it's a big deal if you combine Tech Levy and oh it's 4478 over 400 million is it's it's a big deal and the loss of that source of fund funding is uh going to make
066the last three years of budget cuts look easy MH so there's a lot of talking to do and a a lot of persuading a lot of information sharing thank you for your uh presentation thanks the next three items are information items for the board the first one is the financial statement uh for May 2024 are there any comments or questions from the board about uh this item I had asked uh questions and Jennifer answered them okay uh um hearing no comments uh the second item is the uh oh no action is required on information item a um the second item is the clean building performance standard qualified assistant and investment grade audit phase one um is there any discussion hearing none no no further action is required the third one is the school bus fleet
067electrification plan um is there any discussion yeah I've got to wrote down jotted down a few things um you know it says in there that it's in line with the state's decarbonization goals um this is this has already been approved is that my understanding because I I didn't know if we were approving this it's a $134 or $134,000 feasibility study for um I think it was Senate bill 5431 that's under consideration that effective if it passes which we don't know if it will or not but it would starting in 2035 so over 10 years from now we would every bus that we purchase would have to be electronic uh EV and I'll I'll let you go from here ni so and if you have any welcome Nicole uh no I just I just wanted to
068say that my information was is that the board approved the spending last August uh on the August 18th meeting is that correct yeah maybe you could talk a little bit more about um as we had a discussion you and I yes and uh and talked about it but there was a law that did pass regarding electrification of the fleet um it can you talk about that a little bit yeah for sure so the second substitute House Bill 1368 did pass um that went into effect June 6 2024 uh the school district did make comment during legislative session about that particular bill um there were portions of it that were not well defined um and the school district is absolutely interested in being an environmental Steward but it has to make sense one of the biggest
069portions of that particular bill was that it did not consider the total cost of ownership so while it may be simple to to change out an existing School Bus for an electric school bus at its regular depreciation schedule what's not being considered as the total cost of the infrastructure we have to pay for those stations well when you dive into that you're looking at what's the electrical load existing at Transportation do we have enough we have almost 300 school buses in our Fleet that's just our school buses we also have a White Fleet to consider and then eventually I mean this will expand potentially right in the state to our maintenance vehicles our mowers I mean it it can go well beyond that so we really needed to get an idea of what is that
070total cost of ownership how do we train our maintenance me our mechanics to op to actually maintain these school buses so that house bill was revised to basically pair it down and investigate that total cost of ownership they put that task on ospi in coordination with the Department of ecology and so I believe per that house bill I believe starting or by November um they should be surveying school districts around the state to get an idea of um the impact the total cost of ownership the current so current emission Zer emission vehicles that school districts have um if they're going to be see seeking grant funding how much are they looking at are they looking at it just for infrastructure infrastructure and the buses Etc um and then looking at the depreciation schedules and if
071they have anything in existence in their fleets that was manufactured prior to 2007 why do they still have it um and then they're supposed to then take that wrap that up pretty a little boat and send that back to the legislature so they understand then the funding piece in the meantime though because so there was that bill and then there was the Senate bill 5431 which is kind of just sitting right now yes yeah so because once again we need to understand how much is this going to actually be for school districts um there are currently Grant funds through the state and federal Grant funds as well for school districts um obviously the federal stuff is every school district in the United States of America um and of course you can utilize I believe you
072can utilize some of the state funds as matching for that and there's ways to make it happen but realistically at this time our school district doesn't even understand what it would take to even get to the point to outfit 300 school buses as zero emission Vehicles so all of that to say this particular study is just that starting point in addition to that working very closely with the V and lindle and transportation there was a lot of discomfort with even taking a step forward to try it out we have neighboring school districts that have small small portions like six school buses Etc folks are starting out small a because it's very expensive and be the technology as we know it's changing rapidly now I feel there have been um the EPA is doing a lot
073of webinars and stuff and I mean they are feeling a lot more confident about pushing stuff out to school districts and helping them understand how this will work this particular study will look at implementing EV buses two small buses and two large buses for us so we can get an idea of what's that like is it sustainable for us um given our routes given Athletics given all kinds of other things we need to consider the cold weather that needs to be considered as well and then it will then create a whole plan a basically a long-term plan that will tell us by this point we could do within 10 years we could outfit another 100 given the existing electrical load we have but if we want to go beyond that we need to invest in
074a larger Transformer at transportation we then take that information too share that with Clark PUD and they will then get an understanding not just our district but they really need to know about all the districts in Clark County how much is it going to actually take on the grid to make this happen are there larger term investments that they need to do to make sure that there's enough electrical load to make this occur so this plan this study will help support that but it's not a deep dive into it because we're we want to be confident before we step forward and kind of joining in on this journey with other school districts yeah because it's a big step yeah and you know even Logistics you know right now you takes maybe 10 minutes to fill
075the school bus up and it's going to take hours possibly and you'd have to have all those you know if you get a fleet of 300 for sure and that's the beauty of kind of entering in now so I'll go to my previous School dist because I was there when we did when we did the electric buses there and we didn't put in the right charging stations um we would be looking at level twos and those bad boys will charge up in like 10 minutes so I mean so that's what and that and that's a consideration right I mean how many and and that's what this study will help with how many school buses need to be charged up in the 10 minutes versus you know what we can still these buses we use them
076for maybe shorter term trips we don't use them that often maybe it's for field trips whatever the case may be they can go on a charger where it does take a longer period of time to charge so so this bill 1368 it's passed and the back up in the that attachment talked about the 5431 and it hadn't passed it was under consideration right but there is I don't think it mentioned 1368 but 1368 did pass it did pass um and it that passed the house March 5th passed the Senate March 1st approved March 28th um signed March or filed and signed by the governor March 29th and went into effect June 6th um the reason so because the Senate bill is more of the Crux of after this happens with OPI this is how it's
077going to go once they know that total cost of ownership and they develop basically the funding for that cuz that's really what needs to happen because we're not the only school district vying for the money hope it's not another unfunded State mandate on precisely why we testified because we have between this and the clean building performance standard you're talking about compliance things that are once again we want to be good stewards of the environment what is the cost of that because if we get like you said if we have unfunded mandates it's very difficult ult on school districts and I mean we're a larger School District I mean the rural the rural school districts they struggle with this um and so it's and trust me I talk with my facility counterparts all around the state
078and we're all like how do we make this happen how do we we want to do this but where's that money coming from and then the life of the batteries and then what to do with these giant batteries when they're 100% yeah the EV or the you know ecological you know how to dispose of them is a question too so yeah absolutely it's a full life cycle not just for that particular industry but I mean when you think about it for school districts too that's like I said that total cost of ownership that whole study that getting that information is going to be vital for us as we proceed 1368 is that similar requiring us to as of 2035 to all purchase no it doesn't have anything not yet once they once they do their
079study then I think they will take the Crux of that Senate bill and really expand and create those new deadlines for school districts and it will follow I mean logically it's going to follow the regular depreciation of the school buses that's already in existence but it's just a matter of developing that schedule and seeing what will actually work and be sustainable for school districts long term yeah and for electrical grids absolutely thanks you're so welcome any other questions fabulous thank you thank you Nicole no action is required on this item and that's the third of the three information items the next item on the agenda is board comments comments by uh the school board who would like to start I don't have anything okay once again uh superintendent Maloney welcome uh it's good to have
080you here uh and uh and I'm glad to have someone in the seat essentially it's uh not possible to effectively lead without our superintendent and I'm hoping that you're having a good onboarding experience and and just want you to know that if you need anything from me uh please just reach out thank you very much I really appreciate it any other comments um yeah welcome Christine and um yeah the back in May um I had mentioned it in actually Jackie was the first one to bring it up about uh looking at a possible cell phone policy um after we got that book from Carrie McGary and the anxious generation and um I brought brought it up in June so is there any possibility of having that Beyond maybe the next board meeting have a discussion
081on well we have some uh Retreat dates coming up uh you should uh get your availability on uh the days and weekends or evenings uh so that we can schedule those workshops in August um and uh I agree um we should have begin having conversation about that I agree I would agree as well about having the conversations I would maybe um because I'm having a conversation about the fact that we want it is we all kind of know we need it um but maybe when we do discuss it maybe having some content to that checking with other school districts to see what maybe they're doing so that we have some depth to the conversation yeah I know Evergreen presented last month everen High School yeah that they had done a over 90% vote and had
082submitted it earlier that day to admin so I don't know where that's at or my understanding when we had the Sip um with Evergreen because evergreen's in my student School Improvement plan presentations is that they did not have full buyin and they were worried that if not all of the teachers do it that the kids will get to that point where they're like oh we don't really care what some of them are doing so it's definitely something we need to discuss and look because I don't want to to be just another rule that's handed down that is just ignored and frustrates people I'd like to be more intentional with it yeah I think it's a much larger topic too I I I'm interested in having the conversation as well but I think that there's a
083lot of things that go into it um I think that you need to there was a comment earlier about families want it well I'm not sure all families want it I I I don't know that that's necessarily true I think families like having their student having access to their phone during the day as well so I think there's a lot of questions that we need to answer um I also think that there's you know we see and hear about all these classrooms that have storage cases and you walk in and you put your phone and then I'm thinking well we have a lot of classrooms so I don't know what the expense would be like on that so there's a lot of things to consider so I don't know it's something that I definitely think
084we need to have the conversation about it and and start that dialogue but I don't know if it's something that we can decide this summer I don't know if that's even possible um definitely one for the workshop and um I just wanted to mention too initiative 2081 um the parents rights or the parents Bill of Rights um it received 455,000 signatures I know I submitted over 200 myself and it was signed into law in March and it um received bipartisan support passing in the House of Representatives by a vote of 82 to 15 and passing in the State Senate unanimously 49 to nothing and on June 5th uh Chris reall our superintendent of Public Instruction instructed school districts not to change policies affected by the new law um he doesn't seem to be at this
085time supporting it um so if you're a parent and you care about parental rights you can email him thank you did do you happen to hear why or just it I know there was a injunction but it had been denied there was an injunction at the time from OPI no um some groups okay yeah well my sense of that was that uh that the most of the legislature most of the house and all of the sen were satisfied that it wouldn't uh create a conflict with other law many of the things listed in the parents Bill of Rights initiative were already rights um but I think a lot of school districts in the state itself had problems uh with the enumeration uh and explanation of those things because each of those rights were defined and
086Scattered uh throughout case law and so forth um I never anticipate that it would change uh how we should interact with parents when they have concerns but um and so I don't anticipate you know a big that that it'll become a big deal um if it does we'll talk about it are there any other comments hearing none we'll call this meeting to recess and then reconvene uh for a board Workshop after the board signs some papers with that we're in recess [Music]