School Board Meeting - March 26, 2024

001you got your mic on hello and welcome to the March 26 2024 board meeting of the Evergreen Public Schools board of directors please rise with me uh for the Pledge of Allegiance allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands God indivisible andice for all I'd like to ask if uh Sullivan Taylor is ready to read the land acknowledgement please yes hello thank you Evergreen Public Schools resides on the traditional lands of the chinookan peoples in the Pet's tribe they have lived on and care for this land and its waterways since time IM Memorial we thank for 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

002Sullivan we uh the next item we need to take care of is to adopt the agenda for tonight I adopt tonight's agenda as presented second we hear a motion from director gral to adopt tonight agenda as presented all those in favor I I any opposed hearing no opposition uh the agenda is adopted the next item on the agenda is go ahead and put it up ready is a super is our superintendent report uh superintendent Boyd thank you director Perkins so I'm going to use my time for my superintendent report to share information about our revised budget recommendations that will uh be reflected on the resolution that you have later for approval and um some of this for for folks out that have been following along since we began our stakeholder engagement around the budget we'll

003see some familiar slides but I felt it was important for folks that may not have been able to attend our forums or to have been part of uh other um prior budget meetings so go ahead so the factors that got us to this point uh we've had an enrollment decline over the last uh uh several years I have a slide for that that I'll show we had the loss of our federal Esser funds and they'll expire at the end of this school year so during covid uh the federal government uh provided uh extra funds to be able to support schools and uh other public entities through covid and those are expiring we've had inadequate State funding the uh the the needs of our um our funding uh do not match what the legislature is putting

004forward so um we are uh not fully funded by the state and that is part of why we're here today inflation also is a factor uh not just in terms of the salaries we've no negotiated but our materials supplies uh and costs have uh gone up and the pace of uh of of uh getting funding for that has not kept up with that and uh we have to make reductions in order to balance our budget so this is a slide I'm going to I'm going to linger here for a while that shows our enrollment over time if you look at the Blue uh bars those are the enrollment and you'll see that on the left side where it says students and you'll see on the right side where it says staff that orange uh line

005is the staff line and the black line there represents a uh the the uh the fact that in 2001 and two next year will be at that enrollment level that we were in 2001 and two so you can see uh enrollment went up drastically over time and as the enrollment went up Staffing also uh increased and to the point where we started to our enrollment started to decline and you'll see us the decline in enrollment reflected to the right there if I can get this clicker to work and and you see it it continuously declined you had a little bump during covid when we had extra resources from the federal government and we've been correcting our enrollment Decline and um rightsizing our staffing in accordance with our enrollment you'll also notice that the Staffing levels

006in 2001 and two are still less than the STA enrollment or the staff that we'll have uh in 24 and 25 and that's due to the fact that our student factors have changed we have 4,000 students who are in our multilingual program we also have more students in our u in our programs for uh special needs so uh with those factors come more Staffing and so those Staffing levels are not the same go ahead so we want to give a legislative update since we initially put out our our initial um our initial draft for the reductions and in February uh the state has finished the legislative session so uh we've been able to uh project that now we'll get an additional $670,000 from uh for classified Staffing uh an additional 388,000 for materials supplies and

007operating costs which is a $21 per student enhancement we don't feel like that will cover even inflation and of course we have a 10 $10 million budget deficit for special ed funding and and we're getting enhanced by 237,000 so these will help us with some of the uh bringing back some of the reductions that we initially uh suggested uh and they're still woefully short of what we're needed to uh run our district and it's also important to recognize that this is the third consecutive year that we're facing a $20 million budget deficit we've reduced in 22 23 204 staff and a million in supplies and service and 23 and four another 19 million and 126 staff and 3 million in supplies and services and this year we're facing another 19 million uh and we'll we're

008looking at the reduction of 151 staff and a million6 in supplies and services so I want to just touch a little bit on the path that we've taken to engage our community around this uh budget situation and budget uh deficit so we began talking to our community at board meetings and publicly in October saying that we'll have a uh a 16 to20 million uh deficit uh to be able to balance our budget for next year in November we held a f uh our Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Jacobson held a status update and did a report to the board then we met in board Workshop to share our engagement plan had the board weigh in and give us some ideas and thoughts about that in in January we uh we had uh we engaged our community

009we had uh Community budget forums we did surveys we have't uh uh convene our uh Evergreen Community advisory team we had meetings with our school leaders in an interactive way with our school meetings we had two on twos with our board members so we had many many different ways that we interacted with multiple uh Community uh entities to be able to get to the place where we have this recommendation uh this initial recommendation and of course in February we uh provided an initial list of reductions we started to do some technical work in March we gathered some more feedback because what the community said they wanted was not was to have an opportunity to weigh in before these decisions were finalized you'll notice that we're one of the only districts in the state doing it

010this way um and we've learned from uh our past uh budget reductions and that's what our community has asked and our board had asked us to do so we put that initial recommendation and now uh we're at the point in March 24 uh that we're having uh our revised list of budget reductions I do want you to open up please the budget engagement timeline I want to share just that a little bit so we started again in November and I'm not going to go through each and every one of these but these are all of the activities that we engaged in to uh help our community one understand get some feedback and have an interactive process with folks in order to arrive at a a budget recommendation that made the most sense and so if

011you'll just keep scrolling down toward the end we'll show where we're at today and keep going keep going there we go a little bit further and so you can see that uh we are at that March 26 date where we will adopt uh the board will have up for an adoption of a resolution uh for reduction in educational programs that will be reflective of this presentation to today it will happen after public testimony so if you'll go back to the slide deck please we'll go to the next one so I'm not going to go through each and every one of these uh We've the the community seen this plenty uh but I want to show that this was our initial uh draft recommendations that we put out in February if you go to the next

012Slide the point I want to make here is that there were multiple changes in almost every category um as we listened as we interacted with our board as we interacted with our principals and District leaders and we received feedback we'll see the district off changes at the district office districtwide elementary schools uh secondary schools and our specialty schools so some of these are additional reductions and some are uh putting back uh things that we had proposed to reduce previously if you'll go to the next slide please so I'll go over all of the changes to the uh revisions to the initial draft recommendation here uh and give you a high level summary uh the um uh we're going to retain middle and high school security staff with this uh uh final proposal we're going to

013retain fifth grade band and Orchestra program we're going to retain retain an additional 1.6 academic interventionist so we'll have we had um we're going to reduce by 6.6 we're going to reduce by five that'll leave us with somewhere in the neighborhood of 34 35 academic interventionalists across our system we'll retain uh 05 instructional coaches at at high school and our specialty schools Legacy heel and hollingworth that are Grant funded we'll retain one secondary math school math coach at the district office as we did our reductions and considered them uh we decided that uh we have a lot of work to do in math and that it was really important for us to have that support for our principales and our secondary teachers so we've maintained that well we're going to retain uh two unaccompanied youth

014coordinators we lost those positions when the grants uh expired and we're putting them back because those are the students that those are the staff that support our students who are houseless or homeless and so our most vulnerable students we felt it was really important as we started to work with staff to maintain that support of those U 1,100 um youth in our community that are houseless or considered houseless by mckin vento next we're going to retain uh another we're going to retain 1.5 clerical positions at the district office 0 five of those positions is in our tbip program our multilingual program uh again that's a program that's growing there are 4,000 students in it and our team felt like that um they needed that to be able to manage all the complexities and the compliance

015issues with TBE uh tbip or multilingual Learners we also initially reduced um a uh four uh clerks and or support Personnel in our uh health and and uh Special Services Program and when we started to do the technical work we felt we needed to have one more in that mix to be able to get all the work done and needed to uh run the program and support the students so we are reducing one secondary count one more secondary counselor we uh that's at Union High School when we looked at their Staffing it was more than we thought so they'll still have more because they have more students and it's proportional to the reductions we're making at the other sites we'll reduce three additional certificated staff due to enrollment clein as we uh leaned in with

016our uh human resources and principles we determined that we would be able to as we rolled out Staffing reduce an additional three certificated staff we'll addition we'll reduce additional two student support teachers those are the folks that go out and cover classes when there are uh um unfilled and when there are extraordinary circumstances that are needed at the building level it'll include a superintendent salary reduction of $25,000 and a software reductions of $410,000 uh as we did some more work with our uh Tech Team we were able to identify some more reductions there so the reductions some of the uh uh additional uh funds such as the software reductions and the legislative money will allow us to uh do the following and this is our uh final um final uh Rec recommended but budget reduction

017plan here and so uh you'll see that uh it's represents a net reductions of 124 positions in the resolution you'll see a reduction of 151 positions and that's because we're adding uh 16 uh multilingual teachers at uh middle and high school that was dictated by OSI in a finding so if we we had uh basic we were funding those positions with basic Ed we had to pull that funding out uh we had we were funding it with tbip money multilingual money we had to pull those dollars out and uh fund special support for those students by by rule of OPI and we're also adding another uh 11 uh Medi techs as well so those additions uh minus the those additions uh we'll see 151 but the net result is a reduction of 124 move on

018so next steps in March that's today the resolution will be presented for the board for adoption should the board adopt the resolution we'll begin the technical work to implement and do the reductions we have deadlines with our certificated staff of May 15 for notification and in July we'll begin our budgeting process for the following year and August 27th will be the final budget adoption so just to close a couple of things we're not the only District we've said this around that in our state in our region en counting similar budget challenges uh we were ahead of the curve a little because our enrollment loss was more precipitative and so you can see our neighbors in Vancouver our neighbor in washugal and all across the state we uh we're facing these challenges the good news on

019the horizon for us is if we're able to um to uh Implement these reductions we feel like barring some um economic catastrophe or or something of that nature and if our enrollment comes in how we anticipate and we'll be conservative on those projections and if our EPO levies uh pass next year we will not be in the same position to have to reduce we'll just be able to do some right sizing so that's my uh report again uh we uh nobody wants to make these Cuts these are difficult the third year in a row um that gets uh uh more and more difficult and uh we just want to express our gratitude for the community for engaging with with us in the way they did and um express our sincere sincereness around the loss for

020folks that will be losing uh positions and I will say that um in the past two budget reductions we have been able to uh find a place for almost uh almost all of the folks that lost their positions and we'll work tirelessly to uh try to identify positions for people whose uh positions are reduced we're a big system we have 2500 full-time employees so with the the normal uh the normal attrition we should be able to fill those with people whose positions are lost and and we'll we'll keep working until uh to the extent we can to get as many people um still in our system to maintain employment so back to you director Perkins I want to open uh conversation and discussion well actually just questions at this point for the superintendent uh to

021clarify if you have anything to ask him I guess my first question uh John would be um if we think about the student experience in some of these places such as uh the elementary libraries um could you uh or or Kimberly talk about um how you envision a student's experience in the library uh given the proposals yeah we'll have Dr Armstrong come up and speak to that Dr Armstrong good evening board president superintendent Boyd members of the board and director Sullivan student director Sullivan Kimberly Armstrong Deputy superintendent um with an instructional focus and so I wanted to speak a little bit about some of our mitigation planning for um for the library and I want to First just make sure that I say clearly that um that we are not able to replace Librarians that's

022not um the goal the work that they do is important and it's valued and what we were looking to do was put together a plan that would allow our students to be able to access the library still be able to access some lessons and um find um some time to make sure that we're tending to to some of those things that we need to tend to and I'll talk a little bit about that so right now the plan is 0.5 media assistant in every school so they'll split 0.5 a.m. 0.5 PM schools what that will allow is 30 minutes before school um a two and a half or two hours and 45 minute block while they're there to be an assistant in the library while teachers bring students through to check out books then they'll

023then have an hour of travel time and lunch to get to the next location where they would start off with um the 2 hours and 45 minutes in the library and then in their day with 30 minutes of checkout time um the last 30 minutes of school and so we have so that's the Library part of it that we'll have someone doing the technical work of book checkout and making sure things are back on the shelves and ready to be checked out again and then for for the teacher planning that our librarian our teacher Librarians were able to provide to all of the schools we'll have our academic intervention covering those 30 minute um planning minutes that was typically covered by a teacher librarian and so what we see happening during that time is enrichment

024and intervention work and so it will not only be the academic interventionist but it will also be a um a parah that will also o be able to provide some enrichment activities and so that doesn't take away for the um the entire time of an academic intervention it's day what we're predicting is about 7 and a half to maybe 10 hours a week of coverage and so we also know that there's some important things that we need to keep in place like Library skills um digital citizenship and so that will be in the moment as you might imagine teachers are teaching exposit lessons they're doing research projects and so this will provide the opportunity for um teachers to build in some of those lessons on plagiarism and um online resources for for um research and

025then also for some of those other examples that happen um like media balance well-being digital privacy security those activities will take place in like morning meetings or in cell circles and so that's how we thought about that so jod Kelly is here in central office and she will be the um liaison to provide centralized support to not only our media assistant but um our academic interventionists or teachers maybe I should say more not academic interventionist but to our our teachers who are teaching those lessons in the moment and making sure that they have the materials that they need to um be successful in that work and so that's how we're thinking of our mitigation plans for the library are there any questions with that okay are there any other questions for the superintendent chance the

026resolution okay okay hearing none we'll move on to the next item and the next item is uh community members who wish to speak to the school board any Community member wishing to address the board may do so during the this designated time on the agenda for public comments comments are to be directed to the board of directors as as a whole and may may not be addressed in any part to any individual member of the board the administrative staff or the audience although the board will not engage in dialogue at this time the board chair may ask a speaker clarifying question or follow up at a later time on an issue raised during public comment each speaker has a maximum of 2 minutes this evening to ensure we hear from as many voices as possible

027after the first hour of comments uh we'll take a 10-minute break following the break we will resume public comments for an additional hour if needed and then close comments for the evening and move forward with the agenda there is uh no mechanism whereby a speaker can donate some or all of their time to another speaker now no individual may speak more than once per regular meeting even if there is time remaining and please state your name and your District affiliation if any we'll start with a comment from um a remote viewer uh who signed up virtually Anna Syler is uh Miss Syler available yes hello welcome my name is Anna styler I have two students at the Evergreen district one in the Dual language program and another one who exited the program this last year

028I've been part of the African Community for over 10 years and I'm extremely sad extremely sad at how low we have fallen Evergreen was the reason why my family moved here for the programs for the amazing programs you guys offered seeing the board listening to people speak and not even looking at them you guys sometimes are just looking down I've been to so many board meetings I've presented a board meetings before and I've never seen something like that I am just sad it's but okay moving on um every Green was the reason our family moved here for the amazing programs I have a lot of questions I I want to know why is it that our superintendent makes more money than the president $25,000 I'm sorry just a moment please refrain from Applause during the

029speakers especially the online speakers because of the latency between what she's saying and what she's saying next we won't be able to hear her um Miss Tyler please continue thank you um I used to love this District I've been part of PTA for my elementary school for over 10 years now I rally for the district I rally for the schools I do everything because I have passion for it I even got a job there but due to mental health and the fact that I was a special ed Pera in the Dual language program who had no training and who was thrown into classrooms during the change to Neighborhood schools it only made my trauma worse when I asked HR for a leave of absence so that I could take care of my mental health they

030said no so I had to leave that's okay I'll do better I went to I went to school I'm starting school I'm going to get my teachers degree I'm going to do do better because I'm going to make changes from the inside but I want people to know that this is not the Evergreen District that used to be and I would like the board to vote know on this proposal to go back to the drawing board and to not give any wage living races to anyone who makes more than $150,000 why do you continue to do that I don't understand save the programs that's the most important thing bring back Excel prepare as better they deserve better don't start a new program called neighborhood schools and not have and not secure the amount of people

031that you need in each classroom I got tired of being hit at and bitten and spit at I mean it was horrible and I was going through a really hard time through trauma so it only enhanced it treat Paras better do better board please make Administration do better thank you for your comments Miss Syler next on our list is Patrick Connelly are you here Patrick good welcomeing everyone uh my name is Patrick Connelly I have two children that attend Maran Elementary School a first grader and a fourth grader uh I attended Ellsworth y East and a member of the class of 1991 from Mountain View High School um we throw the word leader around a bunch um John you mentioned in your opening today that you had mentioned District leaders and principal were involved in

032some of the budget decisions but I really want to talk about that word leader What It Is What It Isn't um being a leader is something that you earn it's not something that's given it's not based on your title it's not based on your place on an organizational chart uh it's not based on whether you can make a decision or not those things make you a boss they don't make you a leader leaders do the right thing when no one's watching leaders are wings for their people they lift them up they make them see the best in themselves they're not anchors leaders run to and own challenges don't make excuses don't point the fingers don't say that it's someone else's fault leaders deflect praise they put their credit uh for everybody else around them leaders

033speak from their heart with respectful cander they don't rely on polished statements to get their message across leaders turn the mirror on themselves every day and look within for self-evaluation the ultimate litness test for leaders is when you ask someone to do something are they doing it for you or are they doing it for your title our district is fractured it's a deep divide right now between the district office in the schools I think there's an idea that once we get past these budget cuts that everything's going to be okay that we're just going to move on and come together I'd ask all of us in this room to take a look in the mirror to really evaluate yourselves and really see if you have what it takes to be a leader if you are

034a leader if you're not own it if you are be about it thanks for your time thank you for comments Bund Ang Bunda I thought hello welcome hi I did not time this we'll see what happens uh hi I'm Angie Bunda I have two kids in the school district um we rely on the board as the check and balance to make sure the district administrators make the appropriate decisions that solely benefit our kids since the supplemental contracts have come to light contracts that have improperly incentivized and enriched the same administrators what motions has the board made to determine if other unethical spending has occurred I know for about eight years we've been going downhill and we have become one of the most underfunded school districts with the most lucratively funded administrative salaries there's no confusion

035or mistake you have heard a resounding vote no from the community to the district's amended yet still bad proposal if you vote Yes today you'll be showing the people who voted you in to speak on their behalf and to look out for the best interest of their children where your loyalties lie knowing that unethical spending has been happening how can you in good faith approve a budget that you have not thoroughly examined and vetted please vote no and restore our checks and balances as well as accountability for those who continue to undermine and weaken our school district thank you Katherine ferk welcome good evening um my name is kathern fdick I have two current uh high schoolers um I'm sharing what my daughter an Evergreen Senior wrote upon receiving Friday's email she credits her Elementary

036Librarians with fostering her love of reading and writing reverse Robin Hood give to the rich what you take from the poor call what you give those who ask robust pretend to listen when they ask for more cut down the time people have to talk from 3 minutes to two say it so more people can speak say it so you can hear more points of view but the people have a lot to say their children are directly affected you can't make poor decisions and expect to be reelected The Librarians are important they need to stay you can't cut them out then Look Away these decisions affect the generations of the future the children you say you care for you have to listen to our voices they're too important to ignore we speak for the children those

037impacted by these poor decisions you can say it's for the best but these plans need more revisions we will speak for those kids who need music safety education and more we will speak until we are heard and not casually ignored I'm pretty proud of her um just got to say that um how has there not been a hiring and wage freeze at the district office during the last two years of the $20 million in Cuts why have there still not been any at the district office where decisions are made crippling our children's Futures especially the ones hardest hit by losing Librarians as a title one District giving raises to salary heavy admins while taking from our students reeks of a reverse Robin Hood Mentality what criteria is dire enough students first always you have selectively

038Justified Keeping Up Appearances over the basic needs of students that should be protected showing a true disconnect from those you are committed to serve your actions speak so loudly we cannot hear what you are saying I'm sorry your time is exped thank you for your comments fory Ward welcome my name is Corey Ward I have five children in the Evergreen School District Two of whom have IEPs one a pretty extensive one we've been told that admin cannot be cut to keep it competitive and attractive despite these positions not being student facing so I ask the board why are the student facing positions I.E the Paras The Librarians on The Chopping blot why are we not making them competitive and attractive why are there so many AA available positions if all you're planning on doing is

039cutting them we are struggling with the budget and yet the district is giving out bonuses and raises that makes no spent sense coming from a business perspective especially when these bonuses and raises are given to non- student facing positions you know the students the reason we are all here in this room tonight you tell us there is no fat to cut when in reality it's you don't want to cut your own fat your words and actions continue to not line up in the two weeks since our last meeting I've been in my younger children's elementary school numerous times and witnessed several times when there are students in distress and there are no staff no available paas or Librarians to answer with every radio call being answered assisting another students the student facing positions cannot be

040cut if you claim to be for the students we know budgets are difficult however cutting the positions that were promised to remain during previous levies continue continues to show the board's willingness to operate in bad faith to say one thing to do another as a community we are trying to work with you proposing ideas and we are met with well the budget is complicated we all operate a budget in our households and I would guarantee every person here would agree that their children's needs come first so for a school district that is there for the students put the students needs first align your words and your actions also since the last board meeting as a community we've heard that the board and specifically our superintendent refused to volunteer spend time in our schools as they

041would be considered a distraction this is ego beyond uncoming your position you're willingly refusing to spend time in your schools you run with the students you claim to advocate for and represent not only is this immature but it's irresponsible and showing willful ignorance over what your schools and students actually need we are told we all need to work together to find Solutions but we have no reassurance as we are being heard and once again the words of the board and the superintendent are not lining up work with us and show us by your actions not your words propose the vote does propos to postpone the vote and work with us thank you Megan Taylor please welcome hey my name is Megan Taylor I a mother to a fourth grader here in the district first I'll

042begin where I left off the last time superintendent Boyd continues to remind us that our schools are underfunded but the salaries of the individuals in this building do not reflect that for example the 25,000 that superintendent Boyd is graciously forgoing is not even half of his raise for the upcoming year his raise is not a reduction in Pay but instead a reduction in his travel budget and unused vacation cash out his raise next year could easily cover half of a teacher or pera's yearly salary why hasn't the administration put a hiring freeze into effect for non-represented employees during the budget cuts that the school district is experiencing supplemental contracts and Hefty raises to pay already bloated administrative salaries do not help the budget we as a community are frustrated that you are not listening to

043what we have to say and what we feel is best for our students and schools why are you all constantly looking at student face facing positions to cut why are the positions in the schools the first to go and not those in this building making six figures why are the salaries in this building not reflective of the drop in enrollment I have been volunteering in the library at my son's school recently and just today I watched the students were selecting books to take home over break they were asking their librarian to guide them in picking out the right books they needed his assistance Librarians are so much more than a person who checks out books in and out you've heard it multiple times this month and Librarians and libraries are the heart of our schools

044they are essential to our students development and learning they are needed much more than redundant director positions within this building as Eleanor crumble whom once said cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague please postpone the vote on the budget tonight please rework the numbers and please save our Librarians thank you for your comments courney bizic Courtney bizic hello um my name is Courtney bissig um I'd like to start off by apologizing um that I did not email you guys my questions from my last speech um the district actually got blocked by the district um for for sending emails asking questions um thus I did not receive an email confirming that I was speaking tonight so I didn't prepare anything please vote no and listen to the parents and Community behind

045[Applause] you uh Valerie Williams please good evening welcome hi good evening my name is Valerie Williams and I'm a parent in the Evergreen school district and I have three kiddos two in the DI program and one in English I stand before you tonight to Advocate the importance tonight of the Dena students in our school the Dena students play a crucial role in shaping the minds and hearts of our students and their presence and vital to maintaining a safe and nurturing learning environment I believe the Dina students and security should be a packaged deal it should go hand inand the Dena students in our schools are the backbone of schools and they are the True Heart of it all the role of the dean students is to be advocate for students and to create a safe

046supportive exclusive engaging atmosphere that Pro promotes academic success personal growth and and overall well-being without the dean we risk losing a crucial pillar of support for all of our students we risk losing compassion advocates for those who may be struggling we risk losing the sense of community the unity of the dean Fosters within the middle schools the dean the district should know that with the resources like our Deans you'll be left with someone unable to problem solve with every involved who is this going to fall on who's this role will it be what duties will this person be taken away from their job I ask what is your game plan on feeling this role of Dena students all this stuff is not going to go away the Dena students is also in charge of so

047many Behavioral Management not only are you dealing with students behaviors but you're also having to deal with parents Guardians to explain to them what their students either just did or what just happened students could be dealing with fights vaping unsafe behavioral skipping class cussing out of a teacher staffy member hurting themselves physically hurting teachers in class I don't have enough time so I'm gonna have my daughter finish the rest thank you for your comments Lydia Williams please to get rid of the Deans in middle school would be such a dead with the behaviors of skyrocketing and not going away this is where we need to put our money and focus think about it Administration is gone when pulled away for meetings and doing other work than they they can't focus on behaviors this is where

048the dean security and support te come in so I urge you do not underestimate the impact of the dean of the students in our Middle School their presence is irreplaceable and their influence is immeasurable let us recognize the importance of keeping the dean for the sake of our students our schools and the future I would like to end that our dean of students at Yu Middle School received an award a pin that superintendent Boyd gave him it was the most valuable person last year in quote if I was a valuable if I was that valuable then why am I being cut thank you Lydia our next speaker is uh Camille lman Camille are you here welcome my name is Camille and I'm just a kindergarten mom which means I have over 12 years left in

049this District nearly every day this school year I have thought about the 20 million a year that has been cut what's it going to be like by the time my kid graduates we need to be dismantling inequitable systems and processes but instead why are we cutting vital education programs how is it that public education has become a place where causing corruption is a catalyst for getting promoted the number of community members who have spoken during public comment in the last year sharing that they requested medical leave and were either denied or asked if they were even sick is alarming and the number of both current and recent lawsuits against the district is even more alarming speaking of lawsuits well lawyers the $361,000 paid to Stevens clay Law Firm between October of 2023 and February of

0502024 where exactly are our tax tax dollars paying for is there isn't there insurance for this that we pay for already or is that why our insurance went up significantly more than anticipated superintendent Boyd's salary increase for the 2023 2024 school year cost taxpayers over $54,000 which is more than half of what families in our district have to survive on for an entire year just their family alone and using the word superintendent salary savings was insulting and shows that you think that we we don't we don't know anything I don't know like it's not a reduction at a board meeting last month I heard this quote and I have not been able to stop thinking about it we use our Collective effort to make it very uncomfortable for decision makers to be privately and publicly

051unjust we will do it with dignity and we will do it for our students thank you for your comments Adam bollock hi there welcome thank you my name is Adam bulock I have three children who go to Columbia Valley Elementary and our school's librarian is Beth Petri I felt compelled to comment when I saw the latest revision that included the same line item of getting rid of 22 elementary teacher Librarians and instead of dollars I want to talk reading proficiency there are countless studies out there that school libraries helped children become better readers it's irrefutable so getting rid of elementary school librarians is less of an issue if our students are reading at an acceptable level right however the OPI website according to the OPI website our district has only 38% of students meeting Ela

052standards right now the state of Washington is at 51% now if I look at my kids's own Elementary School less than half of those students are actually meeting Ela standards already in elementary school they'll fall further and further behind if we get rid of teacher Librarians additionally a common theme I've heard from higher ups is that the budget reduction is hard and I get it but we don't want to hear it's hard the reason the CFO Deputy superintendent superintendent make accumulative $830,000 is I would assume based upon the competency and knowledge to find Creative Solutions to these problems removing every single student uh School Librarian Is Not creative it's a poor solution if we wanted to talk about Creative Solutions we can talk about a $25,000 reduction I'll leave that as we may to our

053board our board's job is to hold the district accountable you voted the board you voted you were voted into to be the voice of the people listen to us and send the proposal back it's not ready to be accepted because even though there's a vote tonight it doesn't mean you need to vote Yes of yes vote show you're not here for the community a yes vote shows here that students are not at the center of this discussion a yes vote is easy and ultimately it's a copout please a no vote is hard and makes the district to do the hard work thank you for your time player Curtis welcome thank you sorry I'm just taking a deep breath all right my name is Claire Curtis I'm a mother of three in the district I'm also

054a special education par professional at Maran Elementary are you listening we have told you what we want we have given suggestions of budget ideas we've held signs sent emails requested public information left Mo SMS and yet you still continue to make decisions that will be detrimental to the education and future of our children as we understand you will only discussed the budget two different times this is not sufficient when considering actions that would negatively impact multiple people's lives and livelihoods Mr Perkins said I ask you to address the full board please one of your board said that uh claim to be on step end of the process you claim to have tried commun to get community engagement but how many people were involved in the community one public survey is not enough Insight from the

055parents parents want a line by line budget to prove that this is the only way to make it work show us every other budget you tried and explain to us why district office positions are worth saving more than the student sa saving facing teacher positions that you are currently cutting during covid teachers and Librarians were considered essential District positions were not not how soon we forget it doesn't make sense to sacrifice essential Educators in order to maintain non-essential positions and exorbitant salaries at the district yes you have restored security and fifth grade Bandon Orchestra but it is not enough another member of the board went on record saying that they that they would vote no to any budget that that reduced security you were able to find the the funds elsewhere do the same for

056our Librarians I encourage you to vote no start over if necessary it is important enough to make sure you get it right involve and communicate with parents we are here we want to help if you vote Yes you are either not listening or you are out of touch either way you do not belong belong here vote no thank you for your comments Shelly prro good evening my name is Shelley Pro and I'm the mother of two Maran elementary students as well as an RBT at Hollingsworth Academy these roles along with a top tier education and international business experience gives me a unique perspective When approaching these budget cuts and frankly I'm quite concerned I'm concerned as an RBT because and because eliminating insurance instructional coaches in jened middle and high schools eliminates the people who

057write many of the individual lesson plans for our sped students who are required to be in these neighborhood schools this is not Equitable how am I supposed to have confidence in transitioning my students to special ed school to gened schools when I know the support they need will be severely limited or completely unavailable I am concerned as a mother because my boy's librarian Mr clear truly saved my oldest by creating space where he could find himself in books science stem and art projects and by being a caring presence and and sounding board for a brilliantly unique mind Mr clear made my child feel safe and valued what you all toed as the heart of the school just a few years back when designing the new buildings and getting that Levy money is now being gutted

058I am concerned as a businesswoman because I understand the consequences when customers are not satisfied parents are openly talking about the distrust and disdain they have for this District how to replace board members and high paid District employees and if they can't how they will take their money elsewhere they are talking about collectively filing complaints against the district with OPI and they are Furious and mobilizing if these budget cuts don't even out soon I'm terrified what this means as a parent and employee $6 million in Cuts in three years has hurt our most vulnerable population the most I listen in meetings as parents speak about IEPs in 504s not being met leading to escalations because previous budget cuts took away access to tools afforded to them in their IEPs now they're losing even more support

059again not Equitable I know difficult decisions are being made regarding these Cuts but everyone is watching you the lack of trust is not surprising when eight people in district office collectively make well over $2 million but you're cutting Librarians deans of students instructional coaches and around and gutting our sped Department you can do better your time is aspired thank thank you ram proo good evening good evening you welcome to move the mic down towards your mouth if you want to good evening my name is r prro and I at fifth grader at Maran Elementary and I want to talk to you about why getting rid of a Librarians is a bad idea there are many reasons we need Librarians Mr Clary My Librarian helps k k kids in kindergarten learn to love new books and

060reading he organizes F activities for us that teach us engineering and coding he teaches and organizes the communication team Tech Team and Lego Club Club along with many other things to support us students besides all the amazing stuff he does for us he also makes me feel safe and is someone I can talk to when I'm having a hard time I want my brother to have the same support and safe space as I have please don't cut our laborin without them it's just a room with books not the heart of our school I thank you for your time thank [Music] you Angela Gates please welcome hi hi my name is Angela Gates and I have two elementary students in the school district I'm going to keep my comments brief tonight because I get emotional and

061the ticker is very intimidating um I know by now you all know how much we as a community feel our elementary school librarians teachers and parent educators are essential to our students and our schools so please stop ignoring all the research and data that has been brought to you and emailed to you and we and all that we have sent to you to back this up I know I have sent you some on my own uh so why aren't you listening to all this research that we as a community are presenting to you about our elementary school and our Librarians I know um I listened to the presentation um about how the mediation of our Librarians will go and I just want to say that I um am in my student or my children's Library

062once a week and I'm there for several hours and just that amount of time isn't enough to even um go through the books check the books in and restock them so I don't know if a librarian was spoke to when that plan was made but that plan isn't sufficient um but it's time to stop create an actual itemized budget proposal take more time than just the two or three times you've met to go over this budget and really think about these Cuts go into our schools visit them see what is happening see how much our Librarians are actually the heart and soul of our elementary schools and how essential our par educators teachers and Librarians are our schools without our Librarians the growth of our district will really plummet no one will want to enroll

063their kindergarteners in an elementary school without an library a library or a librarian make these Cuts where it makes sense within the office and cut positions that have no contact with our students our teachers and staff in our schools have already been spread so thin and forced to do more than just their own job so why can't some of the people in this office be cut and those left do the same thank you thank you for your comments Hesley stab St stab please correct me if I got it wrong good evening I'm Castle stra I have two children in the elementary school or in an elementary school York um I want to talk to you about our librarian because he really is one of a kind all of the students love him at our school

064he's so much more than a librarian he implemented a program this year every Friday during recess called maker space and art discovery volunteers work in conjunction with him to teach these students everything from how to code a drone on the computer and fly it how to code on paper robots how to create a marble run and what watch their marbles go down their creation how to make slime artwork like string art which shows them the art of quilting wet on wet um watercolor paintings color wh abstracts masks to um sorry I'm getting emotional masks to celebrate Native American Heritage in the Northwest which is this month's art rotation what you're proposing is cutting so much more than a librarian because he is not just a librarian he is a teacher he is the most valuable

065type of teacher for kids in the elementary school age and it seems to me that administrators who are making well above 300,000 a year could cut your salaries right in half and make up a lot of the budget problem thank you thank you for your comments trist EDM edmon good evening my name is Kristen Emon she her tonight I'm speaking on behalf of a colleague as a high school counselor in the district I'm voicing my concern over the proposed budget cut of school counselors I'm shocked that such a cut would even be proposed during a nationally recognized Mental Health crisis which is very much felt by students of our district and is in direct conflict with the EPS budget reduction survey themes although we are not mental health therapists we are often the only mental

066health trained staff in any school building and we are the first line of safety and support for students experiencing suicidal ideation anxiety depression and more school counselors are the critical resource to make mental health and mckenny vento referrals to coordinate services with outside mental health agencies and intensive intervention service teams each school counselor represents working with over 3,000 Partners working towards Student Success as school counselors we are the Specialists who work with students on their scheduling graduation and post-secondary opportunities these services are just part of our role especially since more work has been added to School counselor's roles we are also responsible for implementing State mandated programs case managing 504 plans ballooning administrative tasks and more each of these already reduces our time to work directly with students with these proposed Cuts I'll have a

067case load of nearly 350 students the American School counseling association's recommendation is one school counselor to every 250 students but even that doesn't speak to the quality and Equity of services we are the front-line Professionals of social emotional learning and college career development during a most critical time in students lives these Cuts will have a direct impact on students physical and emotional safety and academic success all members of the school Community will greatly feel the loss of access to direct Direct Services that school counselors provide I urge you to reconsider every student deserves a school counselor thank you for your comments Christy Peak welcome good evening chrisy Peak um president Evergreen Education Association I'm here with a resolution that was passed at rep council meeting last night whereas since 2016 nearly all Evergreen Public School

068Bargains have been contentious Bargains across multiple bargaining units that have required mediation and near strike or resulted in a strike whereas in the summer of 2021 Evergreen Public Schools offered the former superintendent a three-year contract to be the superintendent even though they already had a finding of wrongdoing by an independent investigation costing Evergreen children hundreds of thousands of dollars upon an easily predictable buyout whereas the Evergreen Public Schools failed to do an exhaustive search to find a highquality superintendent whereas the public lost faith in the Le leadership of Evergreen Public Schools demonstrated by their choice to vote against the levy in February of 2022 resulting in poor governance decisions of rerunning the levy at a lower rate for passage costing the children of Evergreen 28.9 million whereas the leadership of Evergreen Public Schools have created

069inequitable unsafe working conditions while cultivating a climate of fear and retaliation towards staff at all levels which has stifled District employees from advocating for their own needs and the needs of their students whereas Evergreen Educators directed their bargaining team to negotiate in good faith with the district's bargaining team to address needs in special education school safety and honoring cost of living adjustments in the new contract whereas the district bargaining team denied addressing these concerns and proposed regressive language taking away student supports removing job protections and demanding more work in exchange for cut and real wages and whereas during the 2023 EA contract bargaining session the district bargaining team received taxpayer funded supplemental contracts of over 31,000 to conduct work generally considered part of their regular duties and in the midst of over $40 million in

070your time has expired okay I will give this to you yeah if you could bring this to us in writing I'd really appreciate it thank you Rose [Music] fumbled good evening my name is R wbl good evening and I'm a Community member I have no children in the school district at all but I am concerned um about the bill 5462 that was passed and signed by the house and Governor Insley on the 29th of February uh it becomes effective October 1st 2025 and it rewrites the state of Washington School curriculum to accommodate the adoption of inclusive C uh curricula the legislature states that this these inclusive curricula have been shown to often improve the mental health Academia performance academic performance attendance graduation rate and marginalized and under representative communities I just don't see the proof

071of this they say that it's it has been shown and and it's often been approved but where is the proof um it's tough enough for school staff to teach the essentials of Education Ono with ongoing budget cuts but now to add another dose of untested and unknown curricula to students and staff on top of everything else is only un is not only unreasonable but unhealthy let's go back and fix what is broken now and and build back the fundamentals we have had in place in our classrooms these methods have been proven to be successful and they work in favor of our school children budget cuts elim what I've been hearing at the school board meetings are budget cuts eliminating teaching positions eliminating essential learning AC activities truly I wonder how much of the school budget

072was sacrificed to support this bill 5462 in Luke 17 Jesus says to the followers things will surely happen that will make people to sin but it will be very bad for anyone who makes this happen it will be very bad for anyone who makes one of these little children sin it would be very bad for them to have for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and be drowned into the Seas so be very careful with your decisions please respectfully superintendent board members how will you handle this new curricula it will be your you will be held accountable either now or later respectfully thank thank you so much I appreciate it I just want also to mention that this will affect Early Learning Early Learning and kindergarten through 12th grade thank you I'm

073afraid the time has expired thank you thank you for your [Applause] comments Christian Edgar good evening Chris uh Mr my name is Christian Egger I have two children in the Fishers Landing Elementary School school board send the budget recommendation back the email that went out this week claims that the current state funding model does not fully fund basic education wrong with the current funding does not support as the neighborhood schools model which you refuse to accept as a failure again you want an additional 10 million for special education well it's not coming consolidate your programs pull your resources otherwise you will continue to Hemorrhage funding and provide substandard instruction to T children who desperately need it what the funding model does not support is an overpaid and overinflated administration this District decides how it's How

074what its fate is and how funing is utilized and distributed yet points fingers everywhere else what the funding model doesn't support is the numerous numerous unnecessary positions things like Deputy positions multiple senior director positions within a department multiple admin multiple assistant directors multiple executive secretaries multiple project managers and lastly a district Dei team that stood at this post and asked for admin things that asked the admin for things I couldn't believe like making retention decisions based on skin color and asking for segregated instruction in classrooms how could security have ever been put as a cut there was a shooting this year there have been multiple children and parents who have come to this Podium and told you that their kids do not feel safe and some are afraid to use the bathrooms in schools I

075question how the superintendent could have ever considered this this community has come here and told you they do not want the Librarians to be cut admin is not listening school board look at the numbers these most recent recommendations reflect the district isn't listening and the priorities are misaligned your decision tonight will directly infect your enrollment by two send the budget back Adam agilera [Applause] please Adam are you here there you welcome uh Adam agilera Middle School language arts teacher dear Evergreen School Board last night the Evergreen Education Association representative council took a vote of no confidence of Evergreen Public Schools district leadership before the final motion language could even be introduced debated or voted on the district received a leaked early copy and proceeded to threaten my union with retaliation if the most Mo were

076to pass in that moment District leadership truly lived the language of the motion that they have cultivated a climate of fear and retaliation against staff advocating for the needs of their students in profession to stand up against poor leadership who has financially mismanaged this budget crisis while retaining all top District administrator positions and paying bonuses of $31,000 to four District bargaining team members in the middle of $40 million in Cuts well that motion of no confidence in District leaders leadership passed and since our EA president was rudely silenced on a motion of no confidence you should be hearing about I will finish it now therefore be it resolved that the Evergreen Education Association representative council recommends to the membership to affirm our vote of no confidence in the leadership of Evergreen Public Schools and directs

077a building by building vote on the question of whether the general membership has confidence in the leadership of Evergreen Public Schools be it further resolved that the Evergreen Education Association calls on the district's bargaining team to voluntarily return to the children of Evergreen Public Schools the over $31,000 collected for bargaining a contract be it further resolved that the president informs the school board through public comment at the Tuesday March 26 Schoolboard meeting of the rep council's vote of no confidence and be it further resolved that the EA continue to work with the Evergreen parent Community District classified labor groups and the Evergreen administrators assoc Association to express our mutual lack of confidence in the leadership of Evergreen Public [Applause] Schools Maro [Applause] Logan all right I couldn't understand you or hear you I'm glad you

078noticed my hand uh my name is Margo Logan and I think what I could do best here is to give you my experience of having a be been a DSHS uh employee here in Vancouver for 16 years and the administration issue is the issue and I saw on DSHS and all what happens this is what happens you get a bloated administration because the original managers were unable to manage so when kids are hurt when kids are maimed when kids die and there's too much um uh news media attention there's too many lawsuits what DSHS did might be happening here is they create a new agency they create a new program they give more admin uh administrators management it just gets more and more bloated because they're trying to cover up for the original failure of

079the original managers I was I was seen it over and over again when I was in DSHS I became a whistleblower pretty quick after I started working there and and and what is going to happen and and Librarians you're you're cutting Librarians 22 Librarians I it it's an omen it's a foreshadowing that these public school systems are going down that the parents have stood up they they're protecting their children they want their children protected and they're getting out they're taking the kids out they're finding the other avenues of where people will actually take care of the children and reading is the most important thing in the beginning of our country no kid went to school before they could read we were literate in the beginning of our country the librarian Ian are like the major

080Heroes of America so I would postpone saying yes to the budget thank you uh final comment is uh Amy prentis good evening good evening I frankly didn't want to come back up here again and beg you to save teacher Librarians I mean I've written I've provided every bit of research and evidence I can find I've provided testimonials from my kids and others and it feels pointless to continue standing up here and asking you to save this really critically valuable position would you mind turning the mic a little closer to your mouth sure absolutely um however we had new information tonight it quite honestly with all due respect felt like a dog and pony show trying to introduce your mitigation plan for eliminating teacher Librarians I'm going to say at our elementary school our PTA raises

081literally thousands of dollars a year and gives it to our librarian and he curates the books that are most appropriate for our specific schools population your mitigation plan didn't speak to how one person at the district level is going to know the books that are needed by our particular population of dual language kids Spanish speakers Ukrainian and Russian speakers and then I was honestly absolutely horrified to hear that you plan to take academic interventionist which I understand our Deputy superintendent was not here this time last year but last March you all voted on a plan that reduced 20.8 academic interventionist positions from elementary school and you've got another five on the chopping block now so that's almost 26 academic interventionist positions and now you're going to have the few that are left spend half of

082their time teaching lessons to all grades from kindergarten through fifth grade and trying to deliver some sort of curriculum but then you said you're going to have Paras doing enrichment activities I'm sorry like we don't have enough Paris to prevent kids from eloping being unsafe threatening other kids stabbing hurting children you don't you have 70 something open PA of positions right now how are you going to staff the ones that are open and then add Paris to provide enrichment time rather than Library your mitigation plan is absolutely acceptable to me as a parent and I just beg you to vote no or if you cannot vote no abstain from voting on this plan until it's adequate for our CH children thank you for your comments M panders uh this concludes the uh open public uh

083comment part of what's your name I apologize your name is on there and I never called you please come up hold on that's all right with everyone she can come up hello my name is Megan Douglas I have a kindergartener and I am hearthwoods PTA president next year um the last weeks I have been really trying to figure out what's uh going on here at the district and I must say I am actually quite livid um 15 leadership positions at the end of last year got raises equaling $754,000 during budget cuts those are not raises to cover cost of inflation they were close to $50,000 each this Evergreen school district superintendent coo and C fo all make well over $300,000 where our household incomes are only around $100,000 we are extremely topheavy it is only

084getting worse to me this does not seem like belong to each success for all to me this seems like success for the top in leading our students at the bottom I recommend our board members look into the padded figures on the budget cuts because I have done the math and it does not add up um there is fraud corruption and ridiculous bonus pays that need to be reviewed and I tell you board members please look line by line I we need you to as parents for our students I have read every sip midyear review and I must say I am appalled by how many school behavior and learning issues that we have and you are cutting more issues on top of that I realize I Bard I want you to realize that you do not

085work for the superintendent the COO or the CFO you were you hire them you were elected by your community to hear your community to keep your school district honest and serve the children in your care I invite the board members to our school to see what actually happens help in the classroom for a whole day see that we need the resources thank you for your comments and also thank you for raising your hand um the mistake was mine have I missed anybody else hearing nothing Well hearing none uh we'll close that and um I'd like your consent to uh call for about a 10-minute uh recess is that all right please all right we'll call for a recess and come back in 10 minutes that will be 7:04 okay we'll come back from Recess please

086bang it harder ready yeah I'm ready let's do this okay the next item on our agenda I no I want to hear me tell me the next item on our agenda is the board consent agenda action requires a motion I move to approve the board's consent agenda as presented second it's been moved by director groundwell to approve the board's consent agenda as presented all in favor I I any opposed hearing uh no opposition uh the agenda is adopted the next item is the superintendent consent agenda I move for approval of the superintendent's consent agenda second director banra moves uh director gralt seconds the approval of the superintendent consent agenda all in favor I I I any opposed the superintendent's consent is adopted the next item is a matter reserved for board action resolution number 6905

087the Evergreen resolution for a reduced educational program superintendent Boyd yeah as I described earlier this is the resolution that allows us to implement the reductions in order to balance the budget and it is before you are there uh Rob do we need a motion before discussion we do is your presentation during the superintendent update was um the material that goes with this right okay yeah uh the action requires a motion I move to approve resolution number 6905 Evergreen resolution for reduced educational program second director bocanegra has uh moved and director gralt seconded to approve resolution number 6905 Evergreen resolution for reduced educational program I'd like to open this up for discussion by the board um who would like to begin one of the things I heard um being asked was about sorry um leasing out

088part of the AC in terms of um getting generating extra Revenue by leasing out spaces I know that that's not something that would add additional Revenue this year because nothing has started what's is there any talk of that or is there anything to that one of the things you know that we've talked about uh director Witherspoon is that we're going to need to restructure a little bit and so um as we have fewer and fewer people working at the district office that will create space and there is the potential to perhaps leas uh some space to some Partners uh that work with us um on projects so we have had that discussion but uh it's only been a discussion with our team right now um is this something we've done in the past do you

089know I believe that on a limited basis for for example when we've had uh partners with the bond and people that have worked side by side in facilities that there's been some agreements like that um we also lease space to our foundation and uh but on a on a limited basis right now thank you Jackie for that question I had that down so any questions any further questions I'm trying to find what I wrote down further questions of yeah further questions uh or just a discussion with us well I I did want to thank um the community for your input um we've had 2700 comments to the budget survey and hundreds of emails so it gave me a lot of information I I'm new I need to learn and a lot people have out there

090have a lot of uh background and information that I don't have and I appreciated that and it gave me some uh things to present to you know maybe look at other um options on the budget it and and I do appreciate the work the administrative team did to help alleviate fully two of the three biggest concerns U fifth grade band in security however I am disappointed for the community's sake we couldn't come up with at least a compromise on Librarians I don't know if anyone we have a few options had a few options out there I don't know if anyone on the board wanted to add to that or just you know well I I uh read through all of the emails and suggestions I received phone calls from uh more people uh than I

091thought I would uh about especially about the music program it seemed uh important to a lot of people to call in and talk about that um I uh also took uh director director I also took superintendent Boyd aside several times with questions about uh what is possible and whether or not we could save money in uh different ways um but I also uh know the people in senior leadership I know their sincerity um I know their this is my turn I know their uh focus is as much as possible as ever possible possible is on students and uh I we have created I think the the most open process in any budget cycle that I participated in since 2008 uh this was like four years be four six years before I was on the board

092I was on citizen committees and things and uh there was an open process but this this one seemed more open to me it it seemed to um involve the community uh more than ever before and I think it was important that we uh went through that and what I noticed and saw was that uh almost each week uh that there were adjustments as they went through that list of meetings and dates almost by the Numbers uh we directed them to do that um and I'm pleased largely that we were able to get the community feedback that we did um I also recognize that $ million is a lot of money and uh I you know the only real feeling uh that I think I have left about it is that it's not how do I

093put this it's not a it's not a positive change it's uh the the funding models uh the advocacy um results uh are the primary drivers are the things that placed Us in this position uh and we have been tireless Advocates with our uh State and our federal delegations um asking for and asking for support at a certain level and receiving less than that at every turn my hope is that we can build an advocacy program for next year that will highlight and uh surface uh these sources of pain what we had to do in order to keep uh meeting the mandates uh that are issued by the federal government and the state government around education uh but also trying to find a way to make our classrooms and our schools the safe and inclusive uh

094environment that I know our kids need so it's kind of a conclusive thought about it um but I did also want to comment about how we're just we're at about the midpoint of the budget cycle right and that these uh this resolution uh enables our staff to meet the deadlines required ired by the uh various contracts right uh so that people have enough advanced notice if they're losing a position to um acquire a new one before uh before they're actually uh out of a job and I appreciate um John that you said you're going to direct uh the people working for you to work tirelessly to place those who have been displaced by all of this cutting 22 Librarians is not a good decision but in my estimation it's the least bad of the decisions

095that we could have made given the needs that we have in our organization uh and the Strategic plan that we've developed together that's what I have to say so uh thank you rob for bringing up the part about the attrition and the work that we've done in the past to really try to place um the people back in positions that are open through attrition um because we have really good people that work for for Evergreen and I like to think about um maybe kind of think about the positive things that are happening and have happened because it it has been an extremely rough ride for probably I don't know the last probably since beginning of Co and I think about when John came on board with us as superintendent and um took a look at

096our academics and he was like we have to do better we have to do better as an organization and as a system and really made it the overall mission that um we provide the best education for our students across the district and we've made some strides and it gives me great hope that we will continue to make strides in those areas um when I hear from our building leaders when they come and tell us about the improvements that we're making in mathematics and academics I feel a lot of Hope and I feel a lot of confidence that we will continue that I know that um cuts are hard in people's livelihoods and that's why I I know that it's very difficult but I also have faith that we will continue to provide the best education

097moving forward for our kids we're going to do it together and I know that no matter what happens here tonight with this vote we will continue to do what's right for kids that's why we're here for the work and that's why we need all of us to pull together I just I mean I guess real quick um we as everyone has said we've gotten a lot of emails text messages stopped on the street stopped in the grocery store um but we've had a lot of voice not just the people in this room so whether we're voting the way that you think we should is not we have to listen to a lot of different people and that's what we're doing we're not making this decision in a box um there's a lot more factions that

098are involved a lot more areas and that is we took all of that into consideration and then we have to decide which to give more weight and that is the decision that we've made here tonight or possibly making here tonight if the resolution goes through and that is why I voted for it because I feel that I am supporting what has been asked of us in a much bigger sense than just the comments here tonight and we are hearing you I've got three kids in the district also I've got a senior graduating this year I've got a dyslexic student in this District we are making strides in a lot of programs not everybody's going to be happy but we have to make the hard decisions [Music] and it's not easy it doesn't make our hearts

099happy it doesn't make us go home and be joyous about the choices that we're making here tonight because we one we know that we're cutting people we're cutting programs and our kids are affected I can't I'm done any other items of discussion on this matter I admit it's um a lot easier on the other side of the room than it is sitting up here to make decisions like these so and for me security was key um but if I felt if it was up to me I'd vote differently than I expect I'm going to but after much soul searching in prayer I I believe my vote needs to reflect the Evergreen Community as a whole and not my own view okay any other items for discussion hearing none um I will call for a vote

100to adopt resolutions 6905 an evergreen resolution for reduced educ for a reduced educational program those in favor please say I I I any opposed nay there is a vote of four to one in favor and the resolution passes the next item on the agenda Shane are you here okay the next item on the agenda is an informational item containing the financial statement uh from February 2024 just a moment please okay uh the monthly financial statement is before for you are there any questions for the superintendent hearing none no action is required for this the next item on our agenda are comments by the school board are there any comments uh we talked about the resolution uh are there any other comments to uh present or to I don't have any additional comments tonight I don't

101either um I want to talk about the uh resolution that was brought forward before us tonight um it's made me very thoughtful about a number of things given what our school's gone what our our district has gone through over the past five years this year this week tonight um and there's a lot of things on here that we're going to have to sit down and talk about as a group um I just want to make sure that um when I when I hear things like we have people coming forward needing things from our systems and they're not getting it and I think I'm seeing this reflected in here is something that we're going to have to address any other comments okay yeah I know um I believe it was back in January uh during a

102board meeting um I had brought up the neighborhood schools and it wasn't really maybe the right time to bring up that topic or an inclusionary practice model and John you mentioned that we could bring it up in a future U board meeting and now that the budget you know I was waiting till after that but uh i' make a would ask that in the near future if we could bring that discussion up if I'm hearing you right you'd like like to add something to a future agenda yes uh to discuss uh the inclusion model uh currently in force en force in effect at each of our schools yes I'm seeing superintendent Boyd nodding and I agree board leadership and we'll decide where to put it on the agenda right right thank you for the suggestion

103I've been giving a a lot of thought about equity remember back in 2021 when we adopted our uh our uh Equity results policy and our Equity oper operations expectation policy um and I thought it'd be a good idea to just read out those words um on the results policy it reads students will recognize value and celebrate cultural ethnic and other diversities they will be considerate and compassionate towards others they will discuss and engage in controversies and uncomfortable issues with empathy civility compassion and dignity they will demonstrate cultural awareness and competency in their interactions with others they will apply principles of equality and equity in their roles as students and student leaders they will have Equitable access to educational resources and experience a supportive and barrier-free learning environment they will celebrate and share a perspective stemming

104from their unique identities including their own racial cultural ethnic and family identities we uh I was the uh draft author of the first version of this which we reviewed in Workshop we consulted uh with our equity and diversity leaders um and uh answered a prompt from our Equity advisers uh that we had conv the year before uh to establish an equity policy other Equity Community Committee advice is found in the district's Equity lens it's in the recommendations surfaced by the equity audit uh and uh the equity advisory committee uh continues to advise this and had a role in uh the development uh of the budget to this state um that policy and those recommendations have been on my mind throughout the last six months during the execution of as I said before the most receptive

105and open budgeting process this board has ever directed I want to say for the record that I believe that uh Clarissa High Tower's advocacy stated a TR thing our uh contracts with our bargaining groups remain a barrier to equity because of the reasons that she brought up um I also want to recognize that those contracts are negotiated in good faith and that uh the terms of those contracts contracts are hard one by those bargaining groups the history goes back all the way 50 years um and they are binding on the board and the district they had a significant um influence on the shape of the decisions that we could make they prevent the retention of Staff recently hired and we know that the folks who are recently hired uh tend to look more like the

106students that we have let me see and it's that that I'd like us to uh work on or reenter as a a focus as we go forward this summer and into the next year is um how are we going to um come out of all this loss with a better system uh how are we going to create and Foster uh more collaborative relationship with stakeholders who were at this moment clearly very enraged I don't know I think we'll need the community's help I think we'll need uh I think we'll need Clarissa and uh the people that she's brought together to advise us and um I'd like us to I'd like us to be thinking about how to include them in Greater measure as we go through the next uh several months we should be listening

107to them and I note that they were not here to speak for themselves tonight if we don't address and lift these barriers it's a component of our Equity operational expectation is to lift barriers to students um then uh we aren't conforming to our own policies and I hope that uh we can improve on that I think uh an end round could have been um during the budget Workshop Jackie had mentioned about incentive for retirement and I kind of elaborated on it as well so I mean you can't change the Union contract but there could be another way to go around it maybe if if not this year next year we could look at it so perhaps yeah uh it depends on the realities of uh our financial situation and uh and our the advice that

108we can take from experts We Trust and that concludes my comment tonight um if there are no more comments from the board then I'll just also you know say last board meeting my board comment I should have just stopped it at some point and not continued I could have worded things better so for that I admit so thank you admit I appreciate um I appreciate that a lot um hearing no other uh comments the next item on our agenda is uh the good news report uh executive director of communication and Community engagement Mr Craig burbach welcome pop up here in a second do want to recognize today's a a difficult board meeting a lot of um difficult discussions but we do have a lot of great things in our school districts to to talk about

109and share and that's uh this is what we do uh um on these monthly board meetings so uh I want to start with um uh the read Across America program and a special shout out to our uh Beaches restaurant for over 25 years uh beaches and their owners have partnered with EPs and the other local school districts um to uh promote uh reading and a read Across America program and this week I mean not this week uh in in March uh they again partnered with all of our first graders in the district that's 22 elementary schools and Home Choice Academy who uh Burton hosted um all first graders get a a fun uh meal from beaches and thanks to our Evergreen School District Foundation um and uh a book sponsor each first grader gets um

110a book that they can take home uh you can see from the pictures it's just uh a really good time as families are um invited in uh to the schools uh to take part in this event uh the Beach's um owners people in our uh here probably know they they have announced that they're retiring uh so we want to thank them and uh for all that they've done in our district for all these years and for all the districts around uh Cascade Middle School um celebrated women's History Month uh they had a special um assembly where students uh made presentations on a variety of History Mak making women from around the world uh a very good uh assembly at Cascade uh these pictures from Legacy I encourage people to check them out uh Legacy High

111School they had a food drive for their students and the food would benefit their um their own school's families and they set uh a goal to get a certain amount of food and uh they were told that if they reach their goal uh they could throw pies at their principal and their associate principal and then a few teachers also jumped in uh no surprise uh they crushed that goal once they had that I went uh way over that and uh there was some uh there was some pie throwing so uh some action pictures there uh BBC this is I think their second year doing their wax museum uh event uh it's really cool the kids uh pick out um special uh people in history and when people walk through this event they're Frozen um well

112as best as a elementary school kid can stay frozen until somebody hits a red button and when they hit the red button uh then the student uh starts uh moving and presenting about um that history making person so a very uh cool event there and then finally I want to uh uh recognize that uh um the we had uh co- educators of the Year this is an award that's given out every year um our foundation sponsors this um it goes with $1,000 scholarship for their classes and this year there were two Middle School teachers Tina trong of Pacific and Kay ham of Frontier Middle School so not one but two winners um the foundation's Gayla or Gala I never know how to say that word um was um La was it last Saturday or two

113Saturdays ago now I can't remember it's been a lot but uh uh they were honored at that at that event so um I think this is the first time in a long time that they ended up uh picking two winners thank you thank you Craig okay uh I'll call for um adjournment of the meeting hearing no objection uh the meeting is adjourned please stick around to sign [Music] papers [Music]