School Board Meeting - November 14, 2023

001all right good evening thank you for joining us if you'll please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America stands Nation God indivisible thank you again for joining us this evening we have uh many things to get to and a lot of special recognition um but first we're going to go ahead and do our land acknowledgement which will be read by our student board representative Solomon Evergreen Public Schools resides on the traditional lands of the shukan peoples in the cetz tribe they have lived on and cared for this land and its waterways since time and Memorial we thank them for their stewardship and make this acknowled M to open a space of recognition inclusion and respect for all indigenous students families and staff in our community thank you solivan all right next on

002our agenda is to adopt this evening's agenda if we'll entertain a motion for that I move to adopt tonight's agenda as presented seconded yes I'm out I'm GNA fight over it all right it's been m in second and all in favor say I I opposed thank you all right next up on our agenda we have special recognition the Evergreen award I'm going to call up Jana Gomes this evening who's going to present for us good evening Jan good evening superintendent Boyd members of the board thank you for having me tonight is our first quarter Evergreen Awards uh we also have our contracted employees um for ABM and Chartwell that will be presenting as well our recipients are nominated by their colleagues in three separate categories we have one for classified certificated and the third is

003either an administrator or a team and this evening uh will be a team uh some of the criteria uh includes uh dedication and professional Poise in fulfilling their duties they are a model uh of Excellence they Inspire students and staff of all backgrounds and they promote positive and effective environment in their um position and while is impossible to recognize every deserving employee who is nominated uh the intent of this award is to celebrate individuals who model the image of a highquality employee here in Evergreen so we're going to begin this evening uh with classified recipient from Pacific Middle School um the principal was unable to make it this evening so she uh did do a video and then I'm uh going to ask the senior director of secondary to speak my name is and I

004the principal at Pacific Middle School while I'm not able to be there in person tonight I did not want to miss this opportunity to publicly celebrate our amazing transition coach Lori Brooker not a day goes by that I do not see Lori hard at work in service of our students staff and Community she works so diligently to make sure that kids and families have what they need to be successful here at school she looks for opport OPP unities to serve in every capacity and she fills so many roles here at Pacific so Lori thank you so much for all of your hard work thank you for how much of yourself you pour into this job and I know that our students staff and Community is better for knowing you thank you and congratulations on this

005award you truly deserve it good evening and I uh am very appreciative to be here to talk about Lori and what I'm going to do is actually I'm going to read the nomination for Lori I think that says a lot when our colleagues nominate people for the um really important work that they're done and Lori was nominated by Abby trer uh who was our family and community outreach coordinator at Burton elementary school and this is what Abby had to say Lori Brooker goes above and beyond for her students at Pacific Middle School the Viking Village is a place where students feel seen accepted and safe students are constantly coming in to get what they need whether it is a new pair of shoes school supplies clothes someone to listen to their feelings or food for

006their families Lori does what she can to support all students and families and on top of that Lori hosts the fresh food pantry with help from Sher Clark County Food Bank Lori is welcoming to families of all backgrounds she helps them shop assist with paperwork and creates a safe place for families to get food when it can be challenging or difficult to share that this may be a difficult time for their families Lori Brooker is a tremendous resource Advocate and friend congratulations I do oh um I am fortunate to have family and friends here today my husband Brad is here my daughter Emily um my best friend and Cousin Connie and also Abby trer is here as well so I appreciate their support and I do have several family members working in the Evergreen School

007District which is a privilege and this honor today is um humbling and um I just appreciate the opportunity by my administrators and staff and um to serve kids and to do what's best for kids and this award actually could go to any of the transition coaches any of the FCRC coordinators because that's what they do they give kids the opportunity the best chance to have a good experience here in our Evergreen schools so thank you very much thank [Applause] you our next recipient is a certificated staff member if we could have um principal Scott epinger come up good evening board of directors and superintendent Boyd great to see all of you and great to be here as a proud principal and to share in this opportunity to recognize Mr Jack diano a teacher here at

008at furest and know the the recipient of the certificated Evergreen award for this this quarter Mr Dio is taught third fourth and fifth at fur Crest he's been with us for 23 years and is a valued member of not only our staff but our fur Crest community and so we you know we each come into this this field to make an impact and we don't always realize the impact that we make and that's what makes this so special is this nomination actually came from a parent and so I wanted to share with you what this parent said about our very own Mr Dio Mr Dio was my son's teacher last year he went above and beyond to help him improve his reading skills he worked with him during recess time and one-on-one when he was

009able to I was hoping to get my son into the district's reading summer program that is sometimes offered at the end of the school year unfortunately it was not offered last year and Mr Dio volunteered to work with my son during uh the summer break to keep his literacy skills up nearly every Monday during summer Mr diano met with my son at the library and worked for an hour on a variety of literacy skills thanks to his support my son did not lose any skills he had gained during third grade and moved up in reading an entire grade level because of Mr Dio's efforts he is an excellent teacher truly he truly wants his students to succeed and lets them know he cares about them my son has frequently stated he wants to go back

010to third grade just so he can have Mr Dio again I think a lot of us would love to go back to third grade to have Mr Dio again so congrats Mr Dio and thank you for everything you do for our students staff and the community you know it's it's it's hard to stand up here when you're used to lifting kids up and uh give them praise and then you get to sit there on the other side and receive praise so it's kind of humbling um this is for my dad who in seventh grade told me maybe you want to be a teacher and I said no I hate writing so thank you very much I appreciate the recognition thank you thank you our third award this evening is a team from Heritage and Derek

011Garrison principal will be speaking good evening um here representing Heritage High School a couple of great Educators who are doing awesome things not only for our building and our students but really the districtwide um embodying some of the skills uh and attributes that we want and all of our Educators I couldn't be more proud uh to be here tonight to recognize these two amazing individuals um you know a few precepts or or values that we hold true at Heritage that that I'd love to hire this way I love to Foster This is Love of students love of learning and love of profession and these two have done an excellent job in every regard uh a couple of Math teachers but beyond that they have set an example of those ideas of loving students uh loving

012the the idea of learning um that Natural Curiosity to to be better um to take on new challenges and then love of profession of just being open-minded and willing to share their ideas uh we call it protected risk at our school um and they've just been doing a great job I'm going to read uh some words that were shared this kind of gets to the uh how it relates to the district and that idea of belonging for each and success for all this is what a fellow educator who's not a timberwolf but this is what uh they had to say about Kevin oor and Nancy Garcia Castillo Nancy and Kevin are leaders in the building thinking classroom and illustrative math integration they allow anyone to come into their classrooms and Ober observe how they have

013implemented BTC into the classroom they've been instrumental in getting doubtful teachers across the the district on board with a pedagogy they've shared their lesson plans their tests their resources their experiences they believe wholeheartedly that each student deserves quality questions as well as the opportunity to experience a quality education they walk the walk for our students in Evergreen school district and they certainly do at Heritage High School Kevin aor and Nancy Garcia um I'm Kevin oror um this is Nancy Garcia we've been like Partners I guess for last 10 11 years um I can say that I wouldn't be the same teacher I I'm today without Nancy and all the things we would been willing to take on and risks and trying and just daily effort um I'm so thankful uh I got my boys is

014here and my wife's here um with my boys um but we're very thankful um I'm so appreciative of her all the support from the schools um Dean Morris um Mr Garrison Mrs key um anything else um yeah go ahead I just want to say I started the first year that I worked here I was a staff assistant in his class and then I transitioned into teaching and now well it's really nice to see this thank you so much so thankful thank you thank you all oh yeah do you want us to come out Craig a situation just [Applause] each year uh at the first quarter we also um extend to our partners with ABM and Chartwells and they also have recognitions this evening we could start with ABM good evening good evening respected members of

015the board superintendent Boyd good evening sir first and foremost um well I'm art Selenas I'm the district manager for ABM uh today I'm joined by uh Dean fuches who is our vice president um of Education um who's also spent many years uh Serv servicing the Evergreen Public Schools um first and foremost we're honored to be able to be here and thank you for allowing us this platform to be able to recognize uh two outstanding individuals um who have put in a lot of time uh for you know with us uh in fact so to my left I have Anna Lopez uh she is the Day lead custodian over at Mountain View High School uh she just celebrated five years with us um to my right I have uh Mr Steven Wesley who just celebrated his

016six years uh last week with us um so as we were going through this process um there was a lot of names that kind of came to mind like who who's you know deserving of this and there was a lot of people but these two really stood out um and some words that I was thinking about as I can describe what they do day in day out it's not only what they do it's how they do it that really separates them um their level of hospitality um the feeling you get when you interact with them in fact Mr epinger is here um joining us this evening as well and I'll call them up here in just a second to be able to speak on Steven's behalf but um we're lucky to have them you know

017um I've been with the company for about three years and I remember my first interaction with both and it wasn't so much my first impression is not so much what they knew it's about how much they cared uh when you speak with them you'll quickly be able to understand they care about the community they care about the staff they care about the students that they serve each and every single day um when you speak with with them they talk about my school they talk about our kids um and they do it with class they do it with consistency I mean it's you know the stuff that they do day in day out is very important and let's face it I mean I can be good for a day they do it every single day and

018they deliver um and we can be any prouder of them and we're lucky to have them so um I'll pass the mic over to uh Mr fukes if you have a few words sir sure yeah yeah thanks thanks for giving this this opportunity to to present these Awards um to Stephen and Anna and you know I think this is so meaningful to us um just in that one of the most important things I think about a great custodian is somebody that that gets a good feeling about doing good things for other people and really taking care of the the students and and the staff and providing a a clean safe learning environment and Anna and Stephen I think you know very much just instill those values and are great ambassadors for those values so very

019very meaningful for us and thank you for allowing us to make this presentation and Art's got a couple Awards but I you know one of the things I want to just share too as part of an award they part so much of what they do is is uh it's not for themselves but taking care of other people so part of our award today uh Stephen I'd like to just present an extra $100 in cash for you to spend for yourself you know and I think that that that that's important and for you too you know to spend for yourself and and everything you do other people I think it's important to do for yourself and so thank you sir and Mr epinger if you're around sir are you there he is you thought you just

020had one presentation today thank you sir so I'd like to just say a couple things about Steph so Steph came into us at furest after replacing a custodian that retired that had I think 22 years in the building so the building was immaculate Steven had some big shoes to fill but he hit the ground running such a positive attitude such a hard worker and he maintained that building and and give him a lot of credit for why it's in the shape that it is today the second thing we know about relationships that they're not the only thing with they're everything and recently Stephen was on a leave and every single day I had students come up to me I had staff come up to me and ask where's Mr Steven when's he going to be

021back and so probably the most popular decision that I've made since I've been back at furest or thing that I've said is Stephen's coming back tomorrow so uh just the relationships that he has the support that he provides in our building but he's he's also just another adult that's there for our kids to support them and so thank you so much Stephen all right thank you again for allowing us this opportunity we appreciate it thank you and next we have cartwells on over you guys hey good evening everybody um so we have two nominees for tonight two of our award winners one of them couldn't be here with us tonight um and that is Robin Birdwell Robin has been in employee here for 30 years in the district and she works in the Heritage kitchen

022doing all the early morning prep um she's one of those people who's quiet and diligent continues to show up daily uh most days you wouldn't even know she's here but she's steadfast and just diligent in her operations and shy but does such a great job as we started talking about her service here this morning um we estimate that she's probably served close to 75 million meals here through the district um you know if you start looking at the daily operation she mainly Services all the elementary schools in production um in the kitchen there we went over to see her this morning because we knew she you know she starts at 5 in the morning um and we presented her with awards at that time uh so we wish she could have been here but we

023wanted to let you know we did recognize her and and have that conversation with her this morning uh my name is Kirk Mustang I'm the resident district manager for for chart Wells I probably should have said that first um our second person here is Melinda our office manager Melinda Wilson uh Melinda is the heartbeat of our operation she touches everybody in our in our all of our operations she deals with all of our students our leads um the folks in CNS she manages our Point of Sales system our bookkeeping um and so many facets of what we do here um she comes in with a smile every day she's willing to go anywhere um and I think she's probably been in five or six schools today at least at least she probably visits at least

024half a dozen schools a day troubleshooting fixing helping um and we can't say enough about what she does she has such a great knowledge of the operation and works with all of our folks uh just daily and uh we couldn't do it without her we're so proud of her so thank you thank you thank you all right thank you Jana always fun to recognize our well-deserving employees all right next on our agenda very special recognition um we are here to recognize and honor director Bradford is this is her last school board meeting she's been serving the Evergreen Public Schools for 24 years and H this wall if you think about that 24 years is two cycles of students so students who started kindergarten graduated and then a whole another set of students started school again

025and then finished it's an amazing commitment most people can't commit to that type of service for you know a few years or maybe a couple of months and Victoria has been here every single Tuesday night dedicating a good portion of her life to serving the students of this District always with equity and our students at the heart of every single decision and I know that there are lots of people here that are here to recognize her and talk about her during public comments I know that the other U board members would like to say a few words but we're going to start with a short video is Craig hopefully the first image will make you smile I yeah trust me I was thinking that the whole time they miss one of the G I thought

026it was going to be a huge win or a huge loss so I'm not sure where we are did a video for [Music] theay 2 [Music] [Laughter] [Music] one [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you [Music] the [Music] thank you Craig thank you and your team for putting that together so uh Victoria I know that some of the board would like to say a few things I'm going to be very brief because now I'm left the one left to be the crier on the board another CH not going be here anymore but I've only been here for less than two years and you've been an invaluable resource to me I appreciate you and all that you've done and I'm going to leave it at that so thank you I have somewhat more

027to say of course you do of course I do because as I was thinking about it I made Notes too so I wouldn't get off track uh as I was thinking about it I think we met before the school district bought a plot of land next to my neighborhood which is now the site of el Emerald elementary school and I came to the board meeting I think that's when we met and I came to the board meeting to stand up in public comments and thank them for giving that plot of land a better Destiny than the gas station and apartment building uh that were originally slotted for that it was a mixed use kind of deal and uh I think our second long interaction was uh you remember the board coffees from all those years

028ago is that I I my daughter had just started fourth grade she had a rocky start to uh full-time Excel and I went in with questions about that and you stayed with me for I think 90 minutes or two hours afterwards just answering all the questions that I had um and you continue to do that it's like if I'm thinking of that as 2008 is that's a long time to know a person and you continue to do that from all that time to this so between then and my appointment to the board and for years after um you had perspective you've been a mentor and a friend most remarkably uh I think is uh the personal conviction uh that I have about your willingness to work so hard to establish and reestablish good human relationships

029with everyone around you um you believe in good relationships this is where I have to go to my notes because it's happening to me too and you've worked with all your energy all your energy to create and maintain them you've held every role a board member can hold uh and given half a lifetime to this work I'm older well you know I you didn't have to add anything you really didn't have to say that I don't uh speak the truth okay yes you do uh Vic service has focused on the welfare of students and the opportunities that they should have in schools in every meeting and every conversation I think it would be uh accurate to say uh that you and together caused henrix health and bioscience high school to be a thing here and

030the number of students that that's um helped since it was built I can't remember the year but it was during the Great Recession when it seemed like opportunity for students uh was fading uh and this board led by Vic uh created more during all that time F day kindergarten comes to mind before the state even paid for it and I could list things for hours about this but I thank you for your service your Devotion to me and to this board I'll never forget it and I'll always take your call I guess it's my turn uh I'll keep it quick because you're not going anywhere you can't get rid of us that easy at least me um I just want to say thank you um from the very beginning of my interest uh as a

031Schoolboard director from talking to me in the beginning and guiding me and helping me realize my potential um you've been a Guiding Light through this process you've become an incredible friend um a lot of those pictures as I was going through my photos um I did all my crying then because those were pulled from memories great memories that I have with you um and the board as a group and I am going to Forever Tre treasure those and look forward to many more now that you're not a board member we can all get together well not all but you can get together with two of us and it's no longer considered a meeting so that's you know the positives um so thank you thank you for always believing in me thank you for being there

032for for me during troubled times um you've not only just been a board member and a colleague you've been a dear friend to me and I appreciate everything you've done and your legacy at in this district will live on till it'll never die it'll never die your name is on buildings um hila is part of your legacy Henrietta LAX is you know that's your legacy Y and we will continue to carry it for you so thank you John did you want to say something would all right so um Victoria we we're not poets necessarily but we put together a little poem for you um and of course nobody had the guts to come up and sing it so I'm or to say it so that's I'm left with that uh honor but I'm very honored

033to to share a little um little bit in the spirit of uh in the in in the style of spoken word and the spirit of of the things that you um you bring to us in the heart of Evergreen where the river meets the shore Victoria Bradford a beacon student centered to her core 24 years an odyssey on the educational sea a glass ball wave her gift a symbol of her Legacy listen now to the spoken word the rhythm of her tale and the commitment to students unfurling like a sail in the classrooms e flow where dreams take flight Victoria stood steadfast a lighthouse in the night Fine Arts and Music a canvas for her dreams she painted Melodies and symphonies in many V in many vibrant streams a myestro of potential she orchestrated Grace

034in the spoken word her Legacy Finds Its Place Equity her Compass navigating through the Mist a spoken word manifesto Injustice she persists breaking down barriers with passion so intense VI tor's Legacy and anthem for making a difference communities gathered a chorus by our side in the spoken word their voices unified Victoria the bridge connecting hearts with skill a symphony of unity echoing still as she steps away from the board waves gently applaud in the spoken word of tribute heartfelt and odd Victoria Bradford a captain on this sea in the rhythm of gravit in the rhythm of gratitude we say a fond farewell to thee Victoria we thank you with all of our hearts for the Legacy you leave it is truly a work of art the the board board governance team has a little gift

035to reflect the spirit of this poem up to you it's up to you also so Victoria is opening up her her gift and um I just wanted to say something else too because we we could like Rob said and Jenny said there there's so many things that are built with Victoria's Legacy um I don't know what board service is without Victoria because she's been here the entire time that I've been here all of us and and so I do remember one thing um that years ago we were right before going to a conference I think it was the day of they had a showing of that film I think it was Paper Tigers and it was about Aces and the uh student trauma and things that our kids face and I remember having conversation with

036Victoria because I think we drove up to the conference together and we talked a lot about of schools and and what it meant for our kids and we really talked about Legacy a lot that conversation and it was so important to Victoria that we make sure that our kids have great buildings to go to school and at the time Legacy was housed behind every grain and some Portables and it was one of the important things that we really worked on and um when I think about the Equitable outcomes for students and just that drive that and the conversations that she had with all of the Schoolboard members over the years before all of us many of you there in the audience today that um just really drove some of the big decisions and really great

037outcomes for students I also have a gift for you from my family there's a photograph that's on your Facebook page thank you I really really liked and uh it's like when somebody uh leaves service here who's had a tremendous impact I've uh sort of become what I do is I call my daughter who is an accomplished um digital artist uh and I gave her this picture I gave her several other pictures and we talked about some ideas back and forth and I had I conspired with Alex about a couple of things too thank you for coming um so that uh my Rachel could produce uh where to go I have to get it right here this so that's uh a reminder of that picture and I think it captures and uh I'm no good at

038certain things framing something is something I'm no good at so you may have to redo this but you know I'm for snicky oh that looks great we do have it printed beautiful so it's right side up on the screens um I also have the digital copies so that if you uh change your mind about the frame size or anything you can have it printed again or put it on your social media or whatever you want to do maybe nothing I will tell her that I will tell her that um but it's you holding hands of a with a child guide the child uh that really just captures what I think you're all about in this work I want to know what's interesting is who those two two of the kids are Monica stoner's children when

039they were young now they're grown well I think you do thank you Rob you're welcome thank you to everybody it's just amazing I get to talk yes you do okay I don't want this to get broken I had to write something down because I was a little worried because as Jackie mentioned I'm the crier of the place so now she gets that honor and I'm happy to pass it along to her so um I just wanted to say a few things and I'm sorry I'm kind of reading from this but I want I don't want to miss anybody um I want to thank all of you for being here tonight for your beautiful words um just you guys are like family to me and um I want to thank my my home family my my

040girls and my son-in-law and my mom oh and I see another student who's also my daughter's best friend that's been been with us since kindergarten um you know my girls had to to sacrifice a lot of time that I spent you know coming to meetings and I wouldn't be there on Tuesday nights and they had when they were younger they had to have a babysitter and you know it was always you know something and I'd always be running to some meeting or activity in in the district and and um then we always had piles of paperwork work uh books Schoolboard clutter which I am now going through and will be happy to bring back to the district um I I have had just such a privilege to serve on this board over these last 24

041years I've had um I've met so many amazing extraordinary people and they most of you have become lifelong friends and you know who you are um but I want to talk tonight about our wonderful staff because I think sometimes our staff there's misconceptions about them and I want to make sure that they know how I feel about you all um we have so many wonderful people that work for the district and are so dedicated they're hardworking people um they're devoted to doing what's best for our our students and and the our families from central office where our staff give support to those in the classroom and others who work closely with our students every day I know central office is often um a mystery to many people and the easiest place to think of cutting

042when budgets are tight but I would encourage people to gain understanding of the critical roles these people play every day day-to-day they make sure this district is operated in a responsible way to ensure our students receive the education they deserve oftentimes with challenging laws and regulations limited budgets and resources they are the folks that prepare much of the data we use to guide our decisions on everything from academic performance to maintaining strong and accurate fiscal health for the district they make sure our staff receives their paychecks on time um that's always a good one and they assist where when they have any number of HR decision questions they work with our teachers and principles as coaches leading professional development and helping with technology they maintain our facilities manage our food services and maintain our the

043supplies getting those Supply truck deliveries is always very exciting in an emergency multiple departments are in charge of implementing our crisis management plans we have Specialists that manage our programs for special ed and English language Learners and Community re family and Community Resource Centers and for our homeless students our Communications Department keeps our website and social media filled with contact content and it's all fun cute contact when you have kids what better things to be taken pictures of right Craig they also are putting out information that's critical information for our families and the community our video Department makes sure we have professional broadcast to keep us up to date on many topics and lovely parting videos and and when you call or walk into central office you are greeted by Pleasant people happy to help

044you get your needs met of course our teachers are the soul of our district and we have some of the most talented teachers ERS around never before have they had to teach in such challenging circumstances obviously covid was like nothing we had experienced before but things are things were changing before that demographic changes skyrocketing drug threats and students with more mental health needs than ever before our need for additional supports in the classroom became more important than ever right at a time when it became harder than ever to hire them political rhetoric has brought out the worst in in discussions about Equity history sex ed and book Banning oftentimes creating fear in spite of that our community supports our teaching staff and we believe in you one of the most important things a board does

045is to hire the superintendent I feel confident that our district is in good hands with John Boyd at the helm he has only been with us for just over a year but in that short time I found him to be the kind of leader any District would be proud to have in charge he is a person of Honor compassionate and steady his commitment to students is endless and he understands Improvement only comes if you have a plan and you surround yourself with people who are able to implement that plan John's leadership team is an educated and dynamic group that I have no doubt will succeed in making sure every student will reach their potential in the last 24 years I've worked worked with many wonderful board members I have learned from them starting with Joan

046Skelton she's a legend in this District who helped me maneuver that steep learning curve when I followed her on to the board encouraging me to listen first and learn everything I can about how the district works and who the people are I have since observed over the years that those who follow that same method seem to become the best board members I will be leaving this group of board members just as a board member but like Jenny said we we're friends forever we have been through a lot together and you couldn't ask for a better team represented here are single parents parents with children who have had either an IEP or 504 plan experience in the foster care system and mental health issues in their families we understand the challenges your families face and we

047understand it P because it's happened to us personally with I'm getting emotional we have all been advocates for public education before we were on the board and I plan to continue as I Look To The Future to Mr Wilson congratulations on running a good campaign I believe you care about the students and I hope you come on to the board with a good faith intention to become part of the team you might discover you have more in common with them than not to the parents I have always admired those of you who advocate for your children it can be very daunting to understand a system is large as Evergreen but please know there are people here who want to help you and your children come to board meetings when you can or write to the

048board any member of the board is happy to meet with you outside a board meeting stay connected with the teachers and principle at your school and develop relationships with them before there's a problem remember communication is a two-way thing the district is always looking for better ways to communicate with you please participate whenever possible the most important people in the equation is the students they deserve the best from all of us our kids are facing things we would never dreamed of when we were kids with all of us working together we can have a they can have a future where they can reach their fullest potential and now I have to tell you a story that they've all heard a million times and they're going to gag but it's it's really what I believe about

049our kids my two favorite days of the year are this is the first day of school and graduations and the reason I like them so much is that when I look in their faces on either end they look almost the same there's some that are so excited they can't wait this is a new moment in their life and they're moving forward and they're very excited and energized then there's other ones that are scared out of their minds and they don't know what the heck is going to happen what they're going to do but here they are and they're hoping for the best and we've got parents that are so proud of their kids and this next phase of their life and it's going to be very very hard for me come June that I won't

050be up on that stage given those diplomas out cuz I am so proud that our district in our district our board is at every graduation and hands those diplomas out and it is a highlight and I've I never got tired of doing it it was always so fun so I'll be thinking of you guys and maybe I'll be in the stands and I can just whoop it up there so again I want to thank everybody for everything I will always care about Evergreen Public Schools and I will hold on to the amazing memories that I have made here thank [Applause] you all right that was that was great Victoria thank you sorry you know I love to chat I wouldn't have expected anything less thank you that was beautiful all right um we're going to

051move into public comments and I know that there are many of you who are signed up this evening that want to recognize director Bradford and so we're going to hear we're going to continue to hear some more fun stories and memories I'm sure um but we're going to go ahead and start with public comments so any Community member wishing to address address the board may do so during the designated time on the agenda for public comments comments are to be directed to the board of directors as a whole may not be addressed to any individual member of the board the administrative staff or the audience although the board will not engage in dialogue the board chair may ask a speaker a clarifying question or to follow up at a later time on an issue raised

052during public comment um each speaker has a maximum of three minutes the time will be on the screen so make sure you pay attention to the timer there's no mechanism where a speaker can donate some or all of their time to another speaker the individual may speak more may speak more than once per regular meeting even if there is more time remaining please state your name and District affiliation if any we're going to go ahead and go in order of how people signed up this evening uh first on the list is Camille lman Camille are you here okay we'll get to the virtual right after Camille Camille no okay we'll go ahead and go to the virtual do we know the name of the person that's virtual Rachel Rachel Campbell is joining us virtual can

053you hear me we can thank you thank you I want to talk about substitute teachers and the shortage we're experiencing there are conflicting dialogues as to why we have a sub shortage the district a the district can't afford to pay for the amount of Subs because teachers take advantage of their leave I've heard this narrative since the strike there can't possibly be any other reasons or B local areas Subs are in high demand and don't take our open jobs because it's an underpaid position for the demanding work and lack of support in the classroom makes it unsafe even for the regular classroom teacher the jury's out on why it exists but I want to talk about how we're filling the sub shortage how our methods masquerade as help and yet hurt us in the same

054move we're depriving our children their music days their PE days to fill shortages we're taking away parent Educators to fill shortages par Educators the help teachers so desperately need since the neighborhood schools model turned every classroom teacher into a potential special education teacher a dual role same pay Fair Educators where we have 88 Physicians open across the district as of last night we're taking away the help we currently have to fill sub shortages and now a suggestion can we look at the district office employees whose salaries would fund two or even three par Educators can we take those top admin and add emergency substitute to their credentials maybe some have forgotten maybe some have gotten out of touch with what it's like to lead and inspire a class full of children the children whose quality

055of education is their Duty by definition some of them have never taught and yet they feel empowered and so bold to encroach on teachers rights and classified staff's rights whenever they get the chance at every contract negotiation can we encourage or require they share the easing of this burden how else can we incentivize them to look past the nearsighted scapegoat and look at systemic reasons why this problem exists thank you thank you Rachel all right next on the list uh to speak is Ali Jones hi Alie hi thank you for having me um I am uh in my 14th year at mil Plain Elementary I'm also the mom of three Union High School graduates and I'm here it's uncomfortable but I'm here to let you know that I'm really disappointed in the direction that this

056district is going I've always loved my job it fills a huge purpose for me it's everything I've ever wanted to do and as the world has become become more complicated public education has as well and this year has been a huge game Cher mplane forever has been a really happy well-run school with um loving families and a dedicated staff and it is quite frankly chaotic in there right now I there are several things to attribute that to I do think that the neighborhood model that is I mean it felt like it feels like it was just let's take special ed students dump them in uh General Leed classrooms and cross our fingers and hope it works out and it's not working out at all I want to read to you a letter that or an

057email that I got from a parent an email I have never I've never received an email like this before I asked the the mom if she um if I had her permission to read it and she said yes and I'm obviously changing the name of the student this was uh October 26th 2023 hi Miss Jones I'm sorry to reach out this way but I am concerned for an while she thinks you are a great teacher and very nice she asked me today if she can move to a different class she said a lot of the kids in her class are mean and she doesn't feel safe she is extremely sensitive but also very very quiet about her feelings if she is feeling anything other than excited or happy when I asked her what was going

058on she said there has been a lot of cussing flipping people off Etc with several of her classmates she is very upset to see how other students disrespect you as well all of this Behavior actually scares her the fact that she even told me me all of this is pretty huge there are obviously some very difficult students in your class this year I feel like personally wise you were the perfect choice for of a teacher for an in an ideal setting where students actually behaved as they should I don't know what the best solution is I don't want her to have to move classrooms because other kids are being disruptive disrespectful and unkind I don't have any delusions of my child being perfect but I know how good and sweet she typically is she goes

059on and on and I just I I'm was proud to hear about the wonderful celebrations in our district and hearing about your wonderful memories in Evergreen Victoria is something to feel really good about but I think we need to be really honest about what's going on kids needs are not not being met IEP minutes are not being met kids are running around schools screaming hiding cussing yelling it it's it's very concerning this is a school an elementary school this is a crisis I've never seen anything like it before and I think we need to acknowledge it I think we can do some mitigations we can make this better but we need to back up and we need to put we need a plan this is not working we are not serving the needs of our

060students and I could go on and on and and I think hopefully I've been clear about what's going on and I hope that you'll help you're invited to come to my classroom anytime please spend an hour a day with me just observing if if you want to help I've got plenty for you to do but I want people to know because I want there to be a sense of urgency so that we can fix this all right thank you Ali thank you all right next speaker is Alex Bradford Alex thank you so much um for letting me speak here tonight um where is my there hold on one second well Victoria honestly is this your phone is this how we show our respect um I am the proud daughter of Victoria Bradford um and I

061wanted to be here tonight um to for my mother's final board meeting and to celebrate her 24 Year Legacy um my my mother's journey and education it began when my older sister was in kindergarten my mom was struck by a concern over boundary changes in the district um she was concerned that there was a lack of Parental involvement in the school leadership she wondered why the district was making boundary changes without talking to parents first and so she joined forces with the famous Jon Skelton and they set to work to change that um over the past few days as I've been thinking about what I wanted to say here the thing that I was struggling with the most was finding words to express how thankful I am to have a parent who was so involved

062and so involved that all of my memories of especially Elementary School my mom was there as I was going from my classroom to PE there was my mom going to a meeting my friends thought she worked at the school because she was so involved in fact she believed so much that that parents and family should be involved in in their children's education that when she heard that there was a shortage of Volunteers in the school she sent my great grandma in and then my grammy was there all the time um as a reading Helper and she continued to do that for years um my mom really believes in the power of Parental voice and this has really set the stage for the type of of contributions that um that she's put forth with this with

063this board growing up she instilled in me in the importance and well-formed opinions especially on issues facing our community this approach it wasn't just theoretical for my mom it was a practice that she has embodied through her work she has taught me the value of empathy research and passionate advocacy um one thing that I have learned from my mom is that you can't just show up when things are going wrong you can't just come into your school when there's a problem with your with your kid you can't just come to a board meeting and stay for public comments you have to show up for everything you have to be there volunteering in the schools you have to know what's going on and my mom really embodied that in fact she didn't run for the board

064or she she before she ran for the board she came to board meetings almost every board meeting for four years sometimes dragging my sister and I she stayed throughout the entire meeting and for the workshops after and in and um also went to to uh teacher training so that she knew what the teachers were teaching as well um we've already talked about or some of the board members talked about um my mom's uh commitment to the Henry atak school um as a child my mom talked about this school for years I think it took 10 years for the school to be built and she just talked about the school constantly and what she hoped to achieve achieve through the school um and this sort of decade long journey to establish this institution it was fueled

065by my mom's passion and commitment um and I just remember her being so thrilled that you guys were able to build the school without having to to pass a bond that was really important um I remember when I was going into I think it was when I was going into high school I was talking to my mom about how I wanted to take AP classes and there weren't enough AP classes and um in fact at the time there was only AP classes at one school um at one high school um and so my mom started researching other schools around the country that had thriving AP AP courses and she was intrigued by the school in this District in North Carolina where every high school student took at least one AP class um and so my

066mom and Joan skeleton and the then superintendent Rick melching they went to North Carolina and they met with a school and they found out um how to to sort of bring that over here in into this evergrain school district um and now every school in our district has AP classes um and that's a direct result of my mom's dedication and her vision um I will say that being the daughter of a board member it's not always easy um I'm always very very proud of my mom and the work that she has done um but um there have been times in sort of in the recent years where my mom has been on this board during challenging times things like the recession and Global pandemic and polarizing teacher strikes and as a daughter it's it's hard

067to see um to see negativity it wasn't what I was raised it that wasn't how I was raised um and that's not how my teachers taught me um but during these times of challenges my mom has always reminded me that the focus must always be on the students there are times when I want to say like Mom can't you just say something can't you all of these people screaming at you all the time can't you stand up and say something and she's like it's not important what's important is finding out what the actual message is what is the message here and she always reminded me that the students they have to come first and she would say being divisive that's easy it's not going to solve anything though um through all of this my mom

068has remained focus on constructive civil Solutions she's always prioritized the students future mom your journey with the Evergreen school school board has been a story of dedication vision and heartfelt commitment to every student you've not only shaped a better educational landscape for this District but you've also set an inspiring example for me and for frankly probably thousands of students I'm so proud of you and I love you so much thank you thank you Alex all right next up is uh David nurg and I'm just going to remind everybody that the timer is on the on the wall thank you Alex I did war minutes yeah the timer's on the wall Alex you're a tough act to follow on behalf of our three children and 50,000 other children who've gone through two generations of 24 years

069of Victoria service on this board um I want to say how grateful we are and how fortunate we feel that we met you when we moved here almost 28 years ago through the Harmony School 24 years of service beginning at a time when we were struggling to pass bonds and levies and you have led the The District in so many constructive ways opportunity for all academic Excellence combined with the preservation of our tradition of histor toric strength and vocational education roll out of educational technology the long and successful tenure of several superintendents like Rick melching and John Deer staying centered and effective through what reminds me of the Passover seder ly of the 10 plagues visited on Egypt haven't you endured all that and and yet led us through that and you did all of

070these things while raising two daughters as a single parent and while caring for sibling and for your mother who's with us tonight um and running and building your own successful business and being as we saw in the video a great dancer and jokester and friend it is amazing what can be accomplished by not sleeping Victoria so we thank you and we honor you today uh for your Decades of Service uh to the Evergreen Community touching the lives of probably 50,000 students and their families you've been a blessing to all of us thank you thank you David all right next to speak is Elise ptoa is Elise here tonight I don't see Elise coming forward all right we'll go ahead and uh move on representative Paul Harris hi Paul hey how you doing I thought I

071missed this so I'm glad I was driving back from Olympia for little Bridge thing um but Victoria I have no I have no notes Victoria so this could really be dangerous um but I do remember uh being locked in a room with Victoria to discuss whether or not we were going to put AstroTurf on McKenzie stadium and it was a really late Schoolboard night and it was a million dollars back then which was a lot of money and I remember uh we were there till 2:00 in the morning because we didn't agree but we did agree at the end and uh I think you've replaced the astr turf since then that was that shows my age um I think you've replaced it since then and it's probably better asou to be quite Frank but uh

072I want to thank you for your service my opportunity was to serve with you on the school board and uh it's good for me to be here tonight to hear some other issues to be quite Frank and it made me think I need to attend more often um I Heard uh some interesting paradigms that were talked about earlier and we don't properly fund uh some things in our state and one of them is our subs and uh so I heard that and another is we don't uh fund PA of Educators properly and it's going to be difficult to get a good pair of Educators you have 88 openings that is Not Unusual as you look around and we can do better uh you might not like how I'd approached that because I would probably give

073you dedicated funds to that just to make sure that that happens and I know it's difficult at times but I we're having that discussions in the state and I I hope I'm very confident that we will do that Victoria was a privilege to serve with you I believe for either five or six of my beautiful uh tenur on this board but I think over half of them I was with you we hired a great superintendent during that time we did some great work times are different now just different T challenges we had challenges then different challenges now just want to thank you for the time and the sacrifice You' have given to this district and to help my kids get educated so thank you so much Victoria thank you Paul all right next is Skyler

074hos uh Skyler hos former director for the Evergreen Public Schools Victoria this this is uh a very special evening I'm here to honor you as a great friend but to recognize you as a true Mentor when I first came on the board now many years ago um I remember Victoria sitting me down looking at me and saying it's about the kids remember it's about the kids and she ALS also did tell me listen before you talk and those were two great lessons that I took uh to heart in the time that I served on this board and uh it made me a a a better board member and I was just so inspired Vic by your just steadfast dedication to education doing what's right transparency and your endless expression of passion for what education could

075do for people it it really uh shaped my views on education I had some opportunity to spend a little bit of time in Olympia and I took those lessons that you gave me and uh shared them with uh some of the folks I worked with up there I was trying to think of a word Vic that you know captures you know captures you and your contribution here and the word I came up with as I was driving the car with Rona here you're legendary you are absolutely legendary there are dozens of buildings that you drive by In This District that really are the product of your vision and commitment there are tens of thousands of students as David mentioned whose lives were impacted by the decisions you made and your commitment to their future dozens

076of programs I I the time I served on the board literally dozens of innovative programs that made education better for our students you are truly legendary and your commitment and your passion made this a better district and I can't thank you enough for what you did for me to make me a better educator and to better understand what happens in these buildings and why it's so important important and and you you you really shaped this community and you have made such an impression very few people have had made the mark on this community that you have Vic and I can't thank you enough thank you Skyler all right next is Andrea kenniston Andrea Ken Community member parent so on behalf of the community the parents the students and the taxpayers I would like to thank

077the school board members past and present for your service you essentially volunteer your time to serve the community and do your very best to balance the competing needs of finite resources tough decisions must be made your due diligence benefits the students the faculty and the taxpayers it must often be a stressful and seemingly thankless job and be tough on one's mental and physical health as well as on one's families particularly in a contentious year such as this one I would like to expend a special thank you to Victoria Bradford who has served on the board just shy of 25 years thank you Victoria among her many contributions Victoria was instrumental in leading us through time times of massive growth her leadership was key in articulating to the voters how important it was to pass a

078massive Bond measure back in 2002 which needed a super majority to pass and which resulted in the building of Union High School among many other improvements had that not happened students would have likely needed to double shift and overcrowded inadequate existing facilities and the quality of education for students would have been impeded for years to come 50 ,000 students have benefited from Victoria's contributions and the taxpayers can rest assured that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent wisely thank you Victoria for essentially volunteering to take this on Victoria has done more than this so much more from the founding of Harmony Elementary's PTA back in the early 90s to currently serving on the foundation board as well as the school board and I'm sure there's lots more all of this while raising two wonderful

079daughters as a single parent running her own business to support her family in the meantime how she had time is a mystery Victoria is an amazing person and her dedication commitment and contribution particularly through these trying times is acknowledged and appreciated thank you Victoria thank you Andrea thank you very much all right next is Holly Williams hi Holly Hi how are you all um my name is Holly Williams and I had the pleasure and honor of serving with Vic on the board for nearly 10 years in the 2000s uh I've got a lot of great memories many of about our service together many of which have been alluded to earlier um I wasn't going to talk about any of them except since representative Harris is here I will have to talk about the time we

080were in The Evergreen Community parade it might have been in Paul's Mustang or something like that and Vic and I were in the back throwing out candy and you know we basically worked our tales off that that year to get that Bond passed and it was the first time the district had passed passed a bond in I don't really know I think it might have been 20 30 years I mean we desperately needed the schools and it was a it was a really great um effort and a and a great day when it passed um so that's just one I had to share but anyhow um one one of the things it's been alluded to before but Vic has always been about kids and every discussion she always wanted to know what's best for our

081kids putting students first is what Victoria is all about as a person and a School director and I think that's what we'd want from every school director but really Vic you absolutely have epitomized it um I could say so much more but I won't thank you so much for your excellent service to the students of our community we are also very fortunate don't I do have to say I'm sorry I'm breaking the rules but I do have to say Holly taught me the benefits of a good scattergram and I will always thank her for that all right thank you Holly next up is uh Rona SOS hi Rona good evening uh first of all these are new digs I hav't we used to be in the trailers so H how long have you been in

082this new no not that long two two years years so I also remember the first time I met Victoria in the very old rundown Mil Plane Elementary School which our kids went to and you're in the back of the auditorium in our very small PTO organization which Skyler was running uh and I think we had like 10 people there or something but you were in the back and that's how I first met you and then I picked up a campaign sign for joanes Skelton that's how we met yep y fast forward as a former Clark College Board uh member we also served together uh when you were um in the early 90s I think uh or maybe early 2000s I can't remember the decades but um for 10 years I was a former I I

083was I served on the Clark College Board and you were not only an advocate for the K through 12 but you're an advocate for higher education Technical and uh community colleges and so we met at that time like four times a year as board members and uh I hope you continue that and to the current board members I know you're going to do a great job but I know you're going to miss Victoria's legendary vision and her commitment to the kids but I expect I expect that you will carry on for her and do everything that you can for our students thank you Victoria thank you Rona and we have and spend more time with your grand kids now I know yeah no now Tuesdays are for happy hours I can go to finally all

084right next uh to speak this evening is Shelley Morel did I say that last name right hi I'm sorry to interrupt the celebration but I'm here for a message good evening my name is shelle moral I'm the music teacher at York Elementary and on be I'm here on behalf of all elementary instructional coaches and Specialists so we're talking PE teachers music teachers and Librarians and instructional coaches across our 22 buildings we've been told that we do not have a substitute teacher shortage in our district yet we as a cohort have stepped into the general education to cover unfilled positions on a rotating basis for the past several years resulting in students missing in their guarant aned viable library music and PE instruction in curriculum since our board meeting on October 10th this is the data

085collected from the cohort who has been treated like a sub substitute um because there have been no substitutes um there have been 15 unfilled absences requiring coverage resulting in 75 specialist sections of 30 minutes each being cancelled students missed out on the following instructional minutes in our specialized subject areas 390 minutes in library 1,170 musics of minutes in music 570 minutes in PE and instructional coaches lost 120 Minutes of student contact time that is a total of 2,250 minutes of lost instructional time from the students that has happened just since October 10th in addition it has cost the district a lot of money for a full day of coverage and certificated positions it is cost a district $1,133 for half day coverage of certificated positions $443 compensation for a loss of planning $562 the cost

086of covering unfilled teacher absences since October 10th has resulted in a $7,000 181 price the total cost of covering since September 11th is $2,629 here are some comments from teachers who have um not been able to teach I now have missed my Friday classes for three weeks and we'll only see them one month once this entire month the practice for the Veterans Day assembly next week was missed and this was the last chance for our rehearsal Fitness testing was missed teamwork activities were missed libraries only offer to students once a week this meant that two of my classes I have seen once um they have missed their digital citizenship for fourth grade and the first grade class has missed for two straight months please hear that this is a true and valid concern and take

087the steps necessary to attract and retain substitutes but mostly please find a way to cover classes that does not result in taking away the education that is supposedly guaranteed to our students thank you thank you thank you all right next up to speak is Gary Wilson oh there he is hi Gary hi thank you this will be my last public comment addressed to this board as a public citizen for the foreseeable future I've addressed this board for over two years and one glaring problem has been a lack of transparency my opponent this last election has several times denied that to this board um that is not transparent but um Rob Perkins you've been on the board for nine years publicly in a candidate form two months ago stated the first thing out of his mouth

088that evening that this board is not transparent he went on to say he brings it up to this board every month privately I don't remember saying that um I have 12 people who can testify to that and I can get you remember saying the district is transparent is it needs more transparency okay um I'm glad Rob um I'm going to be pushing this board for more transparency going going forward so I'd appreciate if you'd be a man of your word with that um we talked just this last Saturday and anyway I'll continue on forget that part um I'm going to challenge everyone here um we have to work together but the people have voted me in to be a voice for Change and as God is my judge and he is I'm going to be

089I'll be at the wasda training this week with a few of you I took the wer online training in June and at one point in that training I was told you have to be a team player and I wrote in the chat that I was not going to be going going along with a lot of what this board has been approving I can pretty much guarantee that you know the days of this board always voting unanimously in the future are probably over um not all the time of course but you know honestly um I don't remember a vote going back to years to December 16 2021 that was the last time I remember a vote um not going unanimously and when four of you voted to fire Mike Marino without cause no Jacqueline you were

090not on the board at that time paying him 269,000 for admitting you made a mistake and one Rachel Rogers voted to fire him with cause and not surprisingly Rachel resigned two weeks later I don't plan on resigning I work too hard to get here um I have the Washington School Board standards five core principles I love them um one responsible School District governance two communication of and commitment to high expectations for student learning three creating conditions districtwide for student and staff success four holding the district accountable for student learning I've asked Tock that one and five engagement of the community in education these will be my focus I'm sure I'll make some mistakes but I'll learn from them going forward let's agree to reduce admin with the 20242 budget and funnel those savings down to

091par Educators increasing their pay to attract and keep them and hire more so in 3 years if there is another strike it will only be about the money and not about safety and more classroom Support also let's better protect our students from both dangers within their student body and from outside and definitely let's raise our academics so students teachers parents and grandparents can be proud of the Evergreen school district and voters can want to vote and approve our levies change is good thank you and Ali I once um I'm in I'd like to visit your class that's very concerning what you've said and I've heard it over and over during this campaign and appreciate it thank you thank you Gary all right next up to speak is Phil Chrome Bush hi Phil good evening um

092thank you Bard uh I'd like to start out by saying um after a interview with the Colombian uh that Victoria and Gary uh attended uh we left the offices there at the Colombian and I broke off with Victoria and had a wonderful discussion and I realized how compassion how much compassion she had and I want to share some things what I learned from her that that day because it's wonderful to see somebody else's fresh perspective basically to seek common ground with whatever you do because that's really the only thing that you can make progress forward with she also told me so much that I believed done also that the parents need to be involved and we can see Gary and I understand that the parents are not involved enough they don't come to enough to

093the board meetings and things like that we're going to try to work on that we've been we know it's a difficult problem and we understand that Victoria tried so much to do that she believed in that I also believe that compassion is the rule not an exception that transparency to the public is absolutely necessary and we need to do a better job of that I want to say uh thank you for staying involved and going forward I know you will I was going to uh read a piece I know that some people know from U the prophet uh uh khil gabal the last his ending piece where he leaves the town and I think that is is is really what going to happen here um I hope you're even possibly on our team because I

094believe involving people who are critical and have a different view is important to get the right decision and uh I think that's the favorite thing to do I want to say thank you to the board members for helping Gary transition and to feel like he belongs I know he's going to give 100% for the children of Evergreen School District or I'm going to beat him uh I knew would consider uh uh the will of the stakeholders of the Evergreen School District I know Gary will listen and carefully make decisions with compassion I remind him to that from him to follow Victoria's example thank you for your service I appreciate everything you did God bless you thank you very much very much thank you Phil all right uh Morgan Vil hello board and superintendent thank you

095for the chance of being today um I am the other daughter of Victoria um so my mom has been passionate about education for my entire life my memories of school and my mom are entwined because she was always there at my school either volunteering in a classroom or going from a PTA meeting to a shared leadership team meeting I remember many evenings staying late at school so my mom could attend a PTA meeting my sister and I would sit outside of her meetings and do our homework we quickly became known as Victoria Bradford's daughters among the staff teachers and students of Harmony Elementary it made us feel so proud that our mom was always there we knew she took our education seriously and wanted to make sure that all students were receiving the right education

096for them that individual needs were being met my mom understands what it feel like to be a parent who needs to advocate for her children she was doing this for me even before she joined the board when I was six I developed hearing loss and my mom set to work to advocate for me to make sure that the loss would never impact my education and that I would never never feel different or singled out due to my hearing loss she worked alongside my teachers and Pathologists to bring microphones into my classroom so I could always hear what the teachers were saying indeed she has such a close relationship with my teachers that I saw many of them as extensions of my own family I was excited to go to school and learn I was proud

097of my mom when she decided it was time to run for Schoolboard she spent many years building up relationships with teachers in administ ministrators dragging my sister and night to board meetings and making sure she understood the issues that face the ever School District the teachers and most importantly the students so many of the conversations around our dinner table focused on the work of the board and when our friends were over for dinner too she would listen and ask questions always eager to find out what was going on with the students what they needed and what the board could do to help she has always been an advocate for students and ensuring their needs are met there are so many things that my mom is pushed forward during her time on the board others who

098have spoken before me have outlined just some of those things I also know that many of the decisions the board has made weren't easy or always understood but I do know that the best interests of the students have always been at the center of every decision that has come from my mom and the board my family has a legacy of putting education as a priority is why I decided to go into the education field myself and why I have a master's in education I attribute this to my mom's years of service on the board the lessons that she taught me in respecting my teachers and in turn my teachers devoting their time to my education I am proud of you mom you have done amazing work and there are thousands of students who have graduated

099from the Evergreen School District who have benefited from your work and the work of the school board congratulations on an amazing 24 years on the Evergreen School Board I love you Mom than honey and now and now because Morgan is a substitute teacher and could never work in our district she needs to apply here because obviously we need you all right our last speaker that signed up this evening is Jenny verisa hi Jenny he hello school board and superintendent my name is Jenny verisa and I have two students in the district I'm here to share my frustrations regarding the highly capable cluster model I've reached out to the district twice for assistance in understanding what to expect in the new cluster model I emailed my questions in July and again in August and included multiple

100District employees in both emails I never received any response from any person on either of these emails also at the Schoolboard meeting on on August 8th a Community member asked about the highly capable budget increase and the bud excuse me the board said that she would be given additional explanation of how the money is being used I also spoke at that meeting and I asked to be given the same information I have not yet received that I'm simply trying to get information so that I can manage my expectations for this school year so I will ask the questions here will the highcap students be sitting together in the classroom will the highcap students from other classes in that grade at the same school partner up at any time will the highcap students be given the

101opportunity to pursue passion projects like they did in the former part-time Excel program will the additional core resources be just additional worksheets given to the highcap students and what do you mean by job embedded support I asked my daughters teachers these questions and was told the students Do not sit together they do not partner with other classes and there are no passion projects I am not faulting the teacher for any of this it is the district's lack of leadership and communication that has left teachers and parents with no clear Direction on how to serve the students you have identified as highly capable your website says that in the cluster grouping service model students will be clustered together in one or more classrooms enabling access to both their intellectual peers and their grade level peers for

102all of their social and learning activities my child has five high cap students in her classroom and they do not sit together they there are multiple classes of the same grade at my child's school that have other high cap students and they do not work together there is a fourth fifth grade class at my daughter's school that has high cap students whom my daughter attended part-time Excel with last year that she does not even get to see now because they follow the fifth grade schedule these high cap students are far from being clustered they are not being given access to their highcap peers for their social and learning activities this is having an impact on my child's self-esteem sorry the one thing that made her feel like she belonged was being with students who were

103like her now she is isolated from her peers is losing her spark and passion for Learning and trying to fit in through Clowning Around in class finally I have heard from many parents that received the recent email about the upcoming highly capable testing that they think it is a waste of time because there is no benefit for the students now please communicate with the public and your staff about the highly capable program and how the cluster model should be implemented so we can make sure our students do not lose their love of learning or positive self-image thank you or excuse me think about your strategic plan tagline belonging for each success for all and ask yourselves if you are including the highly cap able population in your decisions thank you thank you Jenny all right

104that concludes our public comment um we will go ahead and move on to the board consent agenda we'll entertain a motion for approval I move we approve the board's consent agenda as presented second uh moved in second and all in favor say I I opposed thank thank you all right we'll go ahead and move on to the superintendent consent agenda the same drill Mo uh motion for approval I move for approval of the superintendent consent agenda as presented second I think Rob got the second yep uh all in favor say I I I opposed okay we'll uh move on to presentation uh this is the 20122 2023 year end report I believe Jennifer Jacobson is going to come up and give us that report good evening good evening good evening to the board of directors

105and to superintendent Boyd um let's hope my technology works it was I was having trouble earlier so all right so tonight I've got two presentations for you um the first one is presenting the 2223 financial statements to you so this is something we do annually around November December um and I will keep it kind of at a high level but please feel free to ask any questions and then the second part of this is a short presentation on where we are at um as far as 23 24 kind of our status now that we're got enrollment in and and um we have some more information and how we're going to move forward so um I'll start off with 2223 um as you know we always start with enrollment uh I always talk about how this

106um uh drives about 90% of our funding is based on the number of students we serve um you can see this troubling Trend we've got we were at a high of 26482 students we served back in 1617 and we ended last year with an average of 228 864 so it's about a 3,600 student drop in the last seven years um I'll go into more detail kind of on projections uh related to enrollment in the next presentation um how did we do against our budget for last year we budgeted for 22745 and we came in a little bit higher at 22863 and that's that's a great place to be we generate a little bit more funding that helped uh hire a couple teachers to address the additional students and and uh battle some of our inflationary

107uh battles that we've had um but overall we've seen about 1500 have been the last few years of incoming kindergarten so um overall and I'll get into more detail on revenues and expenditures but here's just a three-year historical uh look at the district um we are we've maintained about a 20 $28 million ending fund balance uh if you remember we had to cut about $20 million coming into 22 23 and even with those cuts we still spent about 10 million more so inflation and salary and labor costs uh continue to increase um we did spend down about 400,000 of that fund balance but those were all from restricted funds and I'll go into that on the next so our fund balance of 28 million is made up of various components we have a number of

108areas where we receive restricted funds so CTE lap skill center and food services are all funds we pull into the district and have to spend on those particular areas and those funds that we don't spend end up in a in a designated spot so you can see we did spend down some of our restrictions for CTE um we were building up the skill the new skill Trade Center with those funds um and then the unrestricted pots of money those two together we have a board policy that we need to have 5% of the previous year's expenditures so that is our policy and you can see we ended the year with 5.03% so we were able to maintain that 5% which was our goal uh breakdown of revenues just to give you a general idea we

109have almost $410 million in revenues received last year the bulk of that comes through our state basic at apportionment so those are funds that you know we are used to pay our classroom teachers um principals and and uh a lot of our different positions in the district uh State special purpose and federal special purpose are designated specifically for certain programs like lap and bilingual and title one and then I pulled Federal Esser funds out so you could see really uh how much of the pie the federal Esser funds make up it's about 5% of our total revenue which is roughly $20 million wor from those extra Federal Esser funds that we received to help us get through the pandemic and then our local miscellaneous revenues are are Levy uh collections okay um I show you

110a three-year summary and really what I wanted to point out here is you can see those Federal Esser and stabilization funds on the far end in 2122 about 10% of our Revenue came from a combination of these Federal Esser funds which are one-time funds they expire after 23 24 and some additional stabilization funds that the state allocated to us and this was to help us get through the enrollment Decline and the pandemic and all of the things we were battling um at that time coming out of the pandemic that then dropped this last year to just 5% and so that you can kind of understand where we had to cut 20 million which is 5% of our budget um to because of those those Fallen resources as far as where the money goes uh here

111I have got a breakdown about 62.4% in certificated salary benefits and 22.4 in classified salary and benefits so when you look at those two together we pay over 85 well about 85% uh just directly to staff and then I want to also point out our total purchase services are about 11 % of the total budget but over 4 and a half% of that goes to our custodial service contract and our food service contract which is primarily staff so if you're looking at um you know a Vancouver who they employ Food Services and custodial Services all inhouse you see things you know look a little bit different um if you take that 4.6% and add it to the other Staffing cost now we're getting up to close to 90% of every dollar is spent on um

112our staffing oops uh this is another way OPI has uh this information out on their website um another way to break down that expenditure data that we spend 70 72.7% on teaching and teaching support um School administration are principal principal's offices so the all the classified that work there come to about 7.2% our C Central Administration is 5.6 and then other support activities include things like Transportation Food Services utilities and insurance that's 14 and a half% OPI does have a report where they compare us with 12 similar districts similar size districts and we are very similar in all of those uh areas to What percentages we um allocate our funds um this is my last slide for the 2223 report uh summary of our other funds so we do have four other funds aside from

113the general fund general fund takes care of most of the operations capital projects is are where our B bond funds and impact fees and some of those other types of funds are collected and uh that's where we pay for all of the new buildings and all of our building upgrades modernizations so we ended the year with about 76 million in our capital projects fund uh our debt service fund is just to service those bonds so um any bond principal and interest payments run through the debt service fund ASB fund you know as students uh it's the student fund for they raise funds for extracurricular um for athletics um they raised about 100,000 more in that fund they're doing a great job and then the transportation vehicle fund is primarily or only for purchasing bus for

114tun and from transportation for schools so we've got about 8 million in there um so do you have any questions about 22 23 before I move on to kind of our current status and one of our Revenue sources is the tech Levy yes uh which fund is that deposited into so it is deposited into the capital projects fund and then it's transferred out to reimburse in the general fund because we use it for uh Hardware techs and leases and all kinds of of technology related expenses so when you see that $ 11 million transfer out about 10 of that is going into the general fund to reimburse for those expenses thank you all right move on to the next one um of course I had to use two different I used a PowerPoint then a

115Google Sheets for my for my uh let's see is this not this isn't showing up though yeah all right so I've prepared a 2324 financial status update um so it's it's early in the year there's only been a couple months gone by but I think it's it's time we start talking about what the current year looks like and what the future year looks like so um I want to start off with saying that uh the financial issues we're facing as a district is are not specific to Evergreen we're seeing them across the state and across the country um we are seeing declining enrollment in public education all over the country uh but specifically um the larger Urban and Suburban districts are seeing a real hit to uh enrollment so that's a huge Revenue Source um

116we're faced with uh the covid-19 rescue funds are expiring after 23 24 so that is part of that Esser Cliff that they talk about um we also of course have the all the inflation and everyone feels that uh that's been um very challenging and then last is we really haven't had adequate State funding keeping up with our costs so this these are a couple articles this one the second one why schools across Washington State are slashing their budgets they explain these in much more detail tell and it's it's a very great article to read um as far as the state funding I would like to point out that as a percentage of K2 funding in state in the state operating budget in the previous two bienniums about 51% of our total operating budget came to

117K12 schools now in the last two bienniums it has dropped down to 43 and 44% so our costs have continue to raise and raise and we have not received funding to to match those raising costs special ed um they did get a little bit of extra funding last year but our teacher salaries are you know um M Sox there are a lot of areas that uh are sortly underfunded so I'm going to go on to the next slide which is the EPS legislative priorities these are still kind of draft uh this is something you all know the board gets together they speak with superintendent um myself we talk to other districts in the region we you know use our resources like wasbo and wasda to elevate these priorities to the legislature um here are a

118number of priorities I'm going to point out just a couple one is special education so when we got the books closed last month uh found that we had a $14 million shortfall in special education so that uh you know we receive about 40 42 million in Levy funds and 14 million right there is automatically goes into to the special education um another one I want to point out is MX which are Material supplies and operating costs we're given a small uh sum of money to fund non-employee related costs as well and um those were only increased by 3.1% this year which resulted in only about a $300,000 increase for us to cover all of our increases across materials and supplies and uh we got our insurance bill in the fall and it increased by over

119700,000 so just that one bill alone was twice as much as the increase we're receiving from the state it was a 21% increase so that that's that insurance is for property and vehicle insurance um typically it was around two and a half to three million for several years now it's up over 4 million for the current year um I think we've heard about substitute costs and Par educator funding and shortage are huge issues for the district um substitute costs especially we haven't seen an increase in the rate or or amount in over 10 years and so that's one more elevating as well um there are also unfunded mandates related to that so let's get down to Evergreen and what we're seeing so far for the 23 24 school year so this was the enrollment uh

120we put out a pretty conservative budget assuming we would drop a couple hundred more students so our total we came up with was 22570 and our October 1 count was 22 to 426 so that's an overall deficit of 143 students um I think you you can see here our kindergarten came in particularly low and that is very troubling um when we are getting into these very low class sizes it's going to follow through the grades and the progression of our district for years um we used to see 16700 come in in kindergarten and it uh has dropped sign iFly um I have actually my next slide is this is a a pretty good slide to represent um what's been happening over the last few years with regards to enrollment the blue represents our K5 Elementary

121the green are middle school and the gray are high school and from 1617 we had 11,639 students in our elementary and now in 23 24 we only have 917 that's a 2500 student drop in seven years um it's it's very significant and as those class sizes of 1400 keep rolling through it's going to keep impacting out into the future um grade bands so when you look at our overall enrollment of 26482 at the high in 1617 compared to this current 2324 that's a loss of 4,055 FTE and we receive a little over $10,000 in basic Ed funding for each of those FTE I have up in the top Corner that equates to about $41 million in Revenue this year that we aren't receiving if we had been able to maintain those those numbers so I

122we are just partway through November so I have to make a lot of assumptions when I'm rolling out and projecting for the current year um but from when we put the budget back together in the spring a lot of changes happened um we have increased labor costs over and above our budget of $1.8 million for this current year our enrollment decline ends up being about a $1.5 million hit as well and then that unanticipated insurance increase we only budgeted for a $200,000 increase and not a $700,000 so this is over and above what we budgeted uh we were fortunate that we have some additional Sr funds available from last year uh that we had budgeted to spend out last year and we did not for instance summer school we had put a pretty big a

123surf fund budget aside we didn't use I think we used about half of what we set aside so we were fortunate we're able to carry those funds over this year and that will help offset some of those increased costs but what that means is we still have about a $2.5 million um impact on our ending fund balance for the current year just to see what that looks like our original 2324 budget we projected to end with 28 million which would keep us at that 5% uh that's in the board policy um if things continue as they are and we do have that deficit then we will end with a 4.4% unrestricted fund balance at the end of the year so we have made some changes this year we've frozen out ofate travel we've had a

124positions we haven't filled um we're trying to tighten our belts the best we can because we don't want to see this deficit so here's a reminder of the reductions we've been through for the last two years in 2012 23 was about 20 million in reductions uh we were able in 2122 you saw all those Esser funds to keep a lot of our staff in place but in 22 23 we knew the SR funds would go away and we need to make some reductions uh we right sized a lot of our classrooms at that time and then in 23 24 we had to make another 19 million in reductions um this we uh tried to spread across classified certificated and administrators and we also looked at under every rock as far as our M Sox went

125custodial Services building budgets travel all of it and we found another $3 million in reductions to make so as far as uh then trying to project out what next year's reductions are going to look like um I had to take a lot of assumptions into account there are things in the 23 24 school year we still don't know things like transportation funding doesn't uh they're still collecting the writers ship data so we won't even find out those funds until February similar with our loow our Levy Equalization funding um until assess values have been determined uh we can't really count on exactly what those those will look like so um I had to make some assumptions in this projection but we know Sr funds will be going away after 23 24 um we know there will

126be a salary Gap because of uh our cbas um we know of this enrollment decline when we have a senior class of 2100 leaving and an incoming class of 1350 we're going to we're going to see a large enrollment decline each year um we do have an increase our property tax collection and um some additional sell funding coming through the the state and then we need to build that fund balance back to 5% and so our estimated reductions right now in November are between 16 and 20 million for next year my last slide uh budget reduction engagement plans so we are starting to talk about what this is going to look like what our next steps are going to to be we're going to have a workshop after this where we can have more discussions

127about what stakeholder engagement looks like we have identified our collaboration Partners we've put together the Evergreen Community advisory team which is we had one meeting and it was great um we have our student advisory Council and other leadership and Union Partners we can work with and we've been thinking about how we're going to get information distributed out and collected from community and other staff so there any questions well I know that you mentioned we're going to talk about it in Workshop but is there any questions on presentation at this point okay thank you thank you Jennifer thank you oh don't go too far because I I think you're up next right yeah so this next resolution uh is when Mark pressing had T spoke with us a couple board meetings ago and it's it's just

128a recertification of what our debt service collections will be like for next year uh we usually certify that through the budget but since we're in the middle of a bond issue those numbers changed a little bit so we have to go through a recertification it didn't change much I think it was less than 2% but um it's it's just a resolution to certify the mount Bond Levy collections for next year um you have any questions no any questions then we will entertain a motion I move to approve the resolution number 6852 the recertification of the 2024 Debt Service fund excess property taxes as presented second from Victoria all right it's been moved in second in yeah moved in second in all in favor say I I opposed thank you all right uh thank you Jennifer

129next up is the superintendent report superintendent Boyd nothing to add in the spirit of time thank you all right uh Department update uh we're going to get a teaching and learning and Equity update I think we're going to call up doc Dr Armstrong good evening board chair directors student advisors and superintendent Boyd I am excited to be before you with the first teaching learning and Equity report since I've taken position as um Deputy superintendent I um am excited to build upon the work that has been happening across the teaching learning and Equity department and so you'll have the opportunity to hear from um director Singleton and as she speaks about her Department um diversity and inclusion that rests within uh the tle and so for the sake of time I will bring her forward and

130um will be available for any questions that you have thank you oh yeah I'm gonna I'm actually gonna have Shane go first um hi everyone Hi good evening um we're going to actually tag team this today and talk about safety and belonging and so Jane's going to start us off by talking about safety with an incident um update and then I'll come over and talk about some of our other work well good evening board superintendent um students um so uh I have about 10 minutes to cover something that we could talk about all day so we're going to do it from very high level and try not to activate our green button sorry about that um so just for sign posting uh we're going to uh just do a quick debrief of the incident that

131occurred on October 19th at Evergreen High School uh talk about the after action review we did and then cover some of the lessons learned and then it'll segue uh into jamila's part um where we talk about our Safety and Security so um the things that we do uh in our department Safety and Security and working uh together with uh jamila's Department all part of our operational expectations 10 our safe supportive learning environment which you're all familiar with and put in there so uh we're going to start this is an overview of uh where Evergreen high school is for orientation purposes uh to the north is 28th Street and to the West is 138th Avenue and 18th Street of course to the South uh in in this area this is our largest property and uh you

132can see in within a mile we have Evergreen High School Cascade we have our warehouse McKenzie Stadium our transportation our Sports Annex and Burton and Home Choice uh if we uh looked equal distance from homechoice Academy to the South we would have hearthwood and the building that we're in as well as transitions um Hollingsworth Academy and Legacy so uh it's very Central to what we're doing but spec specifically we're going to talk about this area and uh the star is uh where the um the weapon was just charged and um we'll see that but you can see how Central to all of these places that we have students staff uh and uh should mention that these buildings right out here are in use also by eocf so all right so focusing in on that area

133uh uh just after 1:00 on October 19th a fight broke out in the uh Courtyard of Evergreen high school and watching the cameras it it lasted 42 seconds before an adult intervened and started to break up the fight when the fight began being broke up uh two of the people that were involved in the fight took off and a third followed them and they uh took this path we had at least two of our campus security officers that were right behind them uh the entire way following them uh trying to engage them and this isn't uncommon uh students involved in physical altercation they blow up uh and then our campus security are trying to re-engage them to get them to deescalate to calm down to come back to talk to them so uh this scenario

134has played out countless times over many of our properties however uh once the students reach the area with the crosswalk right up here uh the two either being tired of being followed by the one uh or I don't know what uh and I should mention as you're aware that this is a law enforcement investigation and a criminal matter so we're not going into a ton of details just the high level overview uh the two students um appeared to turn to face the one and then the one uh pulled a a gun out and then the two began to run back uh the way they had came uh which is is the direction of our campus security officers and then the uh student appeared to discharge his weapon in that direction four times so the timeline

135uh the first shot was fired at 10:7 p.m. in 42 seconds and then uh because we have uh a lockdown button in Evergreen high school and we have software we can see what time that button was pushed it was pushed less than a minute later uh and then it being pushed automatically puts uh the neighboring School Cascade into a secure when that lockdowns button pushed uh voices heard overhead that it says we're in a lockdown situation and then uh simultaneously at Cascade they were being put in a secure just because Evergreens uh triggered uh at 1:10 the uh secretary at Evergreen called 911 and we have a system where when 911 is called from any phone in our district um in my office where our um uh coordinator of Safety and Security operates like an

136operation Center every day we have an emergency number in the district that people will call anytime uh the police or an ambulance or they're going to do a drill or whatever uh anyways it rings in our office and she listened to it in real time so at the same time that the 911 operators were learning about this we were learning about this and uh we have a system to notify our uh superintendent leadership team that we use Google Chat she opened a Google Chat and started that uh meanwhile the pushing of the lockdown button also as a duplication and to make sure notifies our alarm company who then called the 911 Center uh and notified them that the Panic Button had been pushed at Evergreen uh so at 1119 according to the video the suspect

137who after uh discharging the weapon uh ended up um throwing uh the weapon into the bushes and the benefit of it happening in an area that had so many Yellow Boxes up there is that we have cameras on a lot of those places and we're able to stitch a lot of the activities together by looking at the cameras from different buildings which uh helped law enfor for ment figure a lot of that out but uh by 1119 the suspect was taken into custody uh and all these situations are super Dynamic so like at 141 911 did a reverse call and then we see at 350 the students were released uh by law enforcement at Evergreen and then at 351 the lockdown was lifted at 4:10 Cascade released its students and then at 5:30 we were

138done here doing our reunification but there's a lot of other stuff that was happening uh during that time uh this is a a list of all the sites again that were affected by this and uh the organizations the outside organizations so I talked to cesa there were more than 46 different police units that responded to this those units come from VPD uh Clark County Sheriff's Office Washington State Patrol C Police Department washugal police department Battleground police department and additionally I was notified that Vancouver fire and AMR both had stayed in the area because we weren't sure initially when the call came out exactly what had happened uh the more agencies and locations and organizations that are involved it compounds the complexity of the response um it's impossible to synchronize messaging and everybody's trying to notify

139their Community uh Cascade was uh sent out a message to its Community uh and then we at district office were trying to send messaging out to our Comm Community evergreen's trying to send it out VPD is doing press releases everybody the media is trying to get a story uh social media is putting out and I created this little graph that just basically shows that there's very little information right when it first begins but the longer the time goes on the more information is gathered and known but uh people are trying to get information out first and we also were trying to get as accurate of information out as we could as as as time went on uh we did an after action review in in this space uh a week or so after we invited

140all those people uh and we had a great showing we invited a facilitator from cesa the emergency manager of Clark County came and facilitated the event so we could all participate as equals uh VPD sent two lieutenants a sergeant and an assistant chief cres has sent their manager from their 911 Center and from the other side of the house the emergency manager eocf sent their CEO and three managers we had principles from all the schools involved superintendent Deputy superintendent senior leadership team we had two of you board members that were there and then um we also invited um because I'd been called and asked by my counterpart at Vancouver Public Schools hey what what what did you learn from that what happened and I said why don't you come to the after action review and

141find out and uh likewise with es12 with our um school safety Public Health coordinator that we do work with there invited her to participate as well uh what did we learn we learned a lot um and as conversations continue more things like as we get deeper into the weeds but from the high level lessons that we learned uh for communication the sustain the winds were that the lockdown button automatically put Cascade into a protective posture without having to to call them on the phone or try to give them anything it was just an automatic uh that uh when e uh Evergreen high school called 911 it rang our phone so that we could listen into the call and learn simultaneously uh and that we have this program that we use with the superintendent leadership team

142called Google Chat that then pushes a notification out to all the members of the superintendent leadership team we're all able to coordinate and set up our Emergency Operations Center what can we improve with our communication well we have other partners that I mentioned like eocf for example that um didn't receive some of the initial notifications so we did notify them uh I think our first phone call to them was at 131 uh when we got a hold at 117 I notified my supervisor who tried to call uh one of the people but there wasn't an answer on the other end of the phone so we weren't able to share the information with them but we did try to make that call but with eocf here at the uh after action review we've actually added their

143people to our easy alert system so anytime we have a at any of our sites where we have easy alert incident they will be notified now so um our EOC came together organically uh and it was all Hands-On deck but uh we learned that we need to formalize it a little bit more uh assign roles and make sure everybody knows who doing what role uh because we had uh a lot of problem solvers and some of our problem solvers were solving problems that other problem solvers were already solving so just to make us more efficient we're going to really formalize the beginning of our uh emergency Operation Center and and have a whiteboard prepared with who's filling What role and then we have sheets for here your this role these are your responsibilities and then

144uh we were not Co located with law enforcement we actually didn't know where the law enforcement incident command was uh we had an idea that where it was but we sent another resource to the school so that we had uh somebody at the school to support them but we we didn't have live eventually law enforcement came to be with us but it wasn't the decision maker so next time we will seek out and be collocated with law enforcement uh sharing of information is another high level um by vacation planning um we had one of our directors that was on vacation and his assistant director didn't miss a beat through this whole thing like he was calling me what can I do and it turned out that was uh our maintenance uh that they played a

145huge role with VPD in um cutting down all these bushes for their evidence search uh so and they did that without Miss missing a beat he also worked to coordinate with eocf that's Teddy dankey our assistant director of Maintenance um because Marty was off on vacation but that's just a hat tip to leaders training up their subordinates because you never know what's going to happen when you're away easy alert worked well regular PA announcements efforts to get the message out to parents as quickly as possible is a again a sustain and we had uploaded our floor plans and contact information into a system called Rave facilities that cesa has uh however we had not uploaded our reunification plans which is on the improved side number three over there also proficiency with easy alert not every

146single staff member had been able to log in or work that out uh and regular PA announcements didn't happen at both sites so that's part of our uh improve we have somebody at the EOC that'll be there job to make sure to remind the schools to put out and the benefit of putting a regular PA announcement is that people outside the building hear that message as well and even though we don't want parents showing up at a crie scene like this uh if they are at least then they're getting that information uh and then our sites didn't have law enforcement Liaisons specifically at them uh working with the leadership and we're going to Advocate better for that next time they were at our sites but they were doing the criminal investigation and finally uh coordination

147I'm going to start with the improved because I want to end on a positive note that uh we didn't have a solid recovery plan to include the um psychological effects of something like this and what we were going to do to take care of our folks so even today we had a meeting with our folks and we beg putting that together so if something like this happens again we'll be able to come in and sign post and say here's what we can expect over the next couple of days so that everybody has an idea who will be there to help and what the plan looks like and we've even taken into account that it might be two weeks before somebody is ready to do that day one bit of processing and then at the year

148anniversary Mark that may be a trigger too so our plan is going to take all those things into account but our sustain is that our staff did an amazing job our campus security was where they were supposed to be people used their radio they communicated uh and here at as we were able to pull off AR unification even though we hadn't discussed that before and then uh through that we have great conversations with our First Responders and continue to work with them so with that we're going to turn it over to jam can you explain the easy alert system to me just what it is and how it's supposed to work so the easy alert system system used to be provided by the Washington State Legislature but a couple years two years ago they quit

149paying for it they used to pay for it Statewide uh we continue now we pay for it but basically what it is is it's an app based system where uh everybody in the school can join uh over their email or there is an app available if they choose to use their phone where uh they get notified then the the benefit of using the phone is the information goes with you where you go where in most of these situations if it's just on a computer and then they leave their computer we can't give an update that the suspect was last seen going a certain direction and it even has a feature where they can log their location like this is where I'm at right now and it'll triangulate where they're at and show it on a

150map so and we can share documents through that you can assign tasks through it but it's a way to push out and at the end of the event then you can print out a PDF of the entire conversation and who was there so but it allows us to add Partners from Chartwells or ABM also so they're part of the conversation in the event the internet is not available is there a fallback for communication well uh yes uh we had a meeting about that today too um it was a busy day for meetings but uh we have our red phones are PL old telephone system pots phones uh so if the internet was down we could still communicate with those phones we have District emergency radios and then this easy alert system is uh cellular as

151well it operates over the phones uh so we we can jump in their conversation uh and and update them on information they can take pictures and upload those too like if a tornado came through they could upload pictures of the damage they have and we'd be able to direct resources based on who needed it the most but uh so the district emergency radios the pots telephone system and easy alert if the power's out or the internet's down and just to be sure that was 12 minutes from the 911 call to the apprehension of the [Music] suspect well that is hard to follow so um so I'm going to start with just we'll do a palet cleanse here for a moment so um one of the things that we talk about is the curb cut effect

152and I don't know if that's something that you all are familiar with but there's an article out um and the concept right is that if you know the sidewalks and the streets that we drive on the curb is cut out and that's because somebody decided that it would be helpful for people to get access to um you know people in wheelchairs but that's ended up helping um all of us right people who walk I have a bad knee it helps me sometimes because I don't have to make the drop off the curb and I just want to acknow knowledge Victoria because when I heard your daughter talking about um her hearing I've walked around our schools and I'm noticing in a lot of our schools that we have microphones and I'm imagining that there was

153some advocacy done and in that same way something that is good for one ends up being good for all and now in all of our classrooms all of our students are having access because of decisions that were made to help students who might have um hearing impairments and so I introduced that curb cut effect because when I think of equity that is what we're doing we're always trying to think about how do we Center our students and how do we Center their needs and really think about ways to support them um and then find um ways to increase access for all um and so in my presentation today um I'm one of five departments in tle and so I'm here to do one of the first updates on our strategic plan um and I just

154want to talk about how we're executing on the district strategy and then um also just talk about how we might want to measure progress or things that you might be interested in talking about further so um first I will say um we're in an exciting time in our change process so our current reality um this is a how we think about change in our department and um our previous executive director Clarissa High to and I um came up with this as we looked at some examples from catus conversations as they're thinking about um transforming districts and just the phases that it takes to get us to the place where we actually have a school system um that is ensuring Equitable outcomes it's not an overnight process right and we're right about at year three year

155four um and things that we're doing in our organization are making sure people are growing in their self-awareness of their racial identity and that we're also really implementing culturally responsive practices and what we're hoping to do over the next 3 years is really build a culture so moving away from the individual acts to a culture where we're counteracting inequities and also having some really clear programs and initiatives that are making sure we're providing cultural responsiveness um that are actually measurably increasing outcomes and access and so I also just want to name that in all the work we do we're thinking about our students who are right now experiencing disproportionality and I put this chart up here because I think it's important to name that we are in a district now that is majority students of

156color and so we have um quite a bit of work to do to think about how we support um our students who come from um diverse backgrounds we like to say diversity is a fact and then inclusion is the act so that's the work that we have to do to actually make sure that we we don't have that disproportionality and I don't have the data here because this is a short overview but we've looked at our academic data our attendance data um and our Behavior data all shows disproportionality with our students of color particularly our Pacific Islander and Hispanic Latino students um having negative outcomes in all of those areas and as compared to other students and so as we talk about our strategy um I just will revisit the policy and just kind of

157restate that we are working towards this policy but we're doing it in a particular way um and so just regrounding in these six areas of of having an inclusive curriculum making sure that we are um building CEST conversations and having robust conversations about um what our outcomes are looking like and practices that we need to put in place um ensuring access equal environments addressing the predictability of disproportionalities big words there right but just addressing the gaps and then removing the barriers to do that and so goal area one is where our department is really leaning in um and that's around safety and belonging and we do that in three ways um we're really working to make sure we build capacity that we grow family engagement and that we increase and improve the way that we're

158um leveraging student voice so obviously right we have a strategic plan that has a a vision and Mission um our vision for equity and Excellence is that as a district we create an environment and community that um is welcomed included or sorry each person in Evergreen um is welcomed included and empowered member of our school School District as we work together toward success so this was our vision that was adopted in the last strategic plan um and then our mission and then our core values around Equity inclusion and belonging and so um I want to share with you a couple things that we are currently doing but I will say this just in terms of who we are as a department and I will say one of those roles that's unfilled is our executive director

159role and so I've been taking the leadership of the department forward and this is something that um I've created with my team and really to make sure we hone in on our purpose as a department and so we're definitely capacity Builders and all that we do um our team supports professional growth and all the audiences that we work with um we work with certificated classified we work with admin students and families and we want to make sure that in the the work that we do we're always trying to and making efforts to be collaborative um even internally with other departments so you saw me standing up here with Shane um because we actively are collaborating on figuring out how do we create some Pacific Islander um culturally responsive supports for some of our students in

160um the high schools and middle schools and um we also believe that family engagement is critical that our families our students are tied to their families right and it's important that we honor them that we honor their culture that we honor their background and so I'm going to share with you a couple things we're doing um around that but we have our multilingual family Liaisons who work in our department um who are constantly um striving to pull families in and make sure to leverage them and then student voice um we are striving to make sure our bipo students or students with disabilities or students who identify as lgbtqia have a voice in this district and even even though they might bip students might be the majority that doesn't mean that they are the majority voice

161right now and so trying to figure out spaces um and one example I'll share with you in a little bit is a a group that we've started to make that happen so um my goals with our team over the next two years are as follows like we know that we're going to be um ensuring these outcomes for kids that's what we're working towards that each student feels safe in their school that each student is empowered and then each student feels culturally accepted and so in our work um this is how we're going to be um working towards that and so I'm running out of time so I'm have to move but here's a couple examples of some projects that are happening in those goal kind of focus areas so one as we're working to elevate

162student voice um we just provided about 60k out to our counselors um as they're working to increase their small group supports for their students um and that's from a grant that we had a Federal grant um around drug and alcohol prevention and so we push that out to them so that they could provide the supplies that they needed for those groups um we also like I said are working on building some community- based Partnerships um with our Pacific Islander students in mind our chis students um and I'm partnering with VPS and some of the Advocates over there to start thinking about how we increase those Partnerships there's a picture there in the center which I'm excited about that's a high school Community Circle and um I think the work that we do is to try

163and create this Innovation where our students have a space in place to have a voice and so that's one example of a classroom where that's happening and then in addition to that um I am trying to continue to be out in schools I'm visiting with principles trying to learn about their needs and then working internally in our in our departments um to do some support so one of those examples is we're working with our transition coaches you got to meet Lori today from Pacific who was just acknowledged um and we have amazing coaches across our system and we're just trying to figure out how do we continue to leverage them um so that we can increase some of the ways that our students are engaged and then the the last kind of examples of some

164projects this year um we did host uh uh our centralized summer registration where we um down here in the first floor you might have seen it says EPS welcome center and we provided that as a way for families to come in and get registered in person Skyward is still English only so we have to find a way to make sure we can get them um that translation support so our bilingual Liaisons were available over the summer to do that and then we also hired in some registar to help um and then we are also working working with VPS and ESD to provide Affinity groups for our staff so that we can help our staff get more comfortable around having um empathy and confidence um in ways to Center identity so those are just a few

165examples um of some projects that I've been working on and then here's some more things happening on our team and I'll just give you a second to look through that I'm really excited to see safe get going again which is students advocating for equity and Paul Porter who's one of our transition coaches over at um Cascade is going to be co-leading that for us and that's groups of students who come from our middle and high schools coming together to think about Equity projects to lead in our district we're also working on absenteeism and trying to reduce withdraws and maybe have a impact on less students that we're losing in our system so our team is also has some uh work around that with some departments in the district and then finally last but not least

166uh we actually have some folks here from our Equity advisory committee um and those are it's a committee of very important community members certificated staff students and classified staff and um you met and heard about the district Equity PD that we did in August so that came out of this committee that was our student group who led um that fall PD and then um we have another project that's exciting um which is how do we continue to grow our parent stakeholder group and the diversity in that so how do we get more parents involved um from different backgrounds and so there's a small cohort of uh schools that are going to be partnering with the family committee to start to work on how to diversify the pto's so um just in a to bring this

167back um We are continuing to work around capacity Building Family engagement and growing student voice um so that we can uh further our strategic plan around safety and belonging so any questions I know that we're short on time but uh you mentioned absenteeism yes and I think that maybe that's something we should revisit in sort of a broader way to talk about trying to retain students and as a metric to you know track some data that we should be tracking yeah and I was so part of this next part and I don't know you can you want to speak to it sure the report card yeah um so the work that started a couple of years ago we're excited to pick that back up and so there is a little Peak at uh a proposal

168for Matrix and we'll be diving in this as a as a team and so as you all hear reports from departments on the work that they're elevating as it relates to the Strategic plan um you'll see growth in these areas especially around leading and and lagging indicators right knowing that we want to be um utilizing indicators that's going to help lead to change and not necessarily resting on the indicators that we get annually and often times too late to make any informed decisions um and so an example of um that metrics for belonging this would be an example of a lagging indicator we get the results um in February important information important data to inform the work um but this is an example of what that looks like and then just another slide there so

169hopefully we can continue to have the conversation because I think we would love to be able to keep coming back and sharing progress on how it's having an impact and it would be remiss of me not to mention the leadership of jam Singleton now I've had the opportunity and I know you all will get to know me over time but I've had the opportunity to um lead equity in three different states over I would say the last seven eight years and I will tell you I had a chance to sit in on some of the meetings that Jama lead has led with her team and the thoughtful approach that she's taking around goal one and belonging and I will say that it's top tier probably some of the best work that I've seen in the

170last decade actually and so I'm really excited to enter in a space where that work is so well thought out and planned and so I just wanted to publicly acknowledge her and the work that she's been doing and just look forward to Bringing more departments in front of you as we anchor in um those strategic goal areas thank you thank you so any further questions or oh I think you're for the pto's I will I'll I thank you of course you're handing thing yes and your F yes hand it hand any information that will help so um well I appreciate you I appreciate your support um often in a community where obviously this is an educational space and goal area 1 is so critical everything that I just described in terms of the way we

171build capacity the way we build um cultural responsive practice it goes alongside goal area 2 three and four and so I'm excited actually to hear the updates with our um guaranteed en viable curriculum and instructional practices and the high leverage practices because all of this work is very connected so thank you thank you all right next up is the good news report hello again board board directors superintendent Boyd uh student Representatives um I'm going to skip right kind of to the middle uh we've talked a lot about our strategic plan and and going forward we're going to be showcasing a lot of that work and kind of connecting um the good things that are going on in our schools and how it connects to our strategic plan and I'll start with Burton elementary school they

172had a curriculum night uh for third and fifth grade uh students and families where they invited uh families uh to come in and kind of not just see what their students are doing but do the things that their students are doing so families and students and staff work together uh to look at the curriculum and and do these uh education uh uh work and um they also got dinner donated from Jimmy John so that was great but this is of course uh one of our strategic plan core values is uh community and family engagement so I think that's a great example um another strategic plan of course post diploma work Readiness uh Mountain View had a wonderful career fair you could see from the pictures that uh there was uh many careers representative represented and

173the uh students got to connect with uh a lot of um uh employers and check out some careers of course uh Veterans Day was Saturday so we had tons of Veterans Day Celebrations at our schools last week and even some to uh yesterday Endeavor Elementary School uh superintendent Boyd attended this one yesterday um I'll go down to Covington Middle School had a wonderful Veterans Day assembly uh Dr Armstrong Deputy superintendent Dr Armstrong was in attendance for for this one so much music uh speeches uh a lot of different activities Sullivan Taylor I was at sifton and the J Heritage jazz band was there so Sullivan also took part ilahia Elementary School had this really cool event it was a kindergarten alphabet parade uh very simple uh they got paper bags they made vests and they

174represented a letter uh extra shout out who to whatever kid got X cuz I know as playing The Alphabet game with my kid X is not easy so well done uh I hope everyone will take some time to watch this Cascade Middle School um video story about their Outdoor School experience um they got a grant uh almost $100,000 and uh sixth graders went to the cispus Learning Center and we had 110 Cascade sixth graders attend 21 Evergreen high school students went as counselors and uh this video uh we basically did a unique thing we don't often just give cameras to staff members but we gave uh C to their associate principal and kind of talked to him about capturing some of this and he did an amazing job and uh this experience from this video

175you can see just how valuable it was to them uh so it's a little under four minutes but I think it's well worth everyone's time uh to watch that wonderful experience and then uh finally uh some staff and volunteer recognition from Land live and learn every year they honor one of our uh staff members and one of our volunteers uh you heard Shane men mention our safety and security coordinator and that's uh Bridget Boden and uh Bridget's the one who does man the uh uh I don't know if man's the right word but she works the the phone for emergency and answers it uh so many of us are connected to to Bridget I am my job am very connected I so appreciate having Bridget here um her commitment to the work and to the

176students and keeping our kids safe is just huge so very well deserved Karen Harris was given the volunteer award uh she works uh a lot with our fcc's all across the district not just at one school so she was honored by them uh welld deserved awards for both of them uh thank you for your time thank you Craig all right uh next is information item we all received the financial statements just for um review we'll go ahead and move to our student board representative report soan Covenant what do you have for us this evening okay uh I have a quick update on our student advisory Council we have selected our Junior and senior from each school and we welcom them to the council uh we're in the process of collecting information about like times and

177locations that work best to meet so that we can make um a regular meeting happen we hope to schedule our first meeting in early December and we will work together to find some key areas of improvement and we look forward to Leading this group and elevating student voice that really good news really good news wonderful hello everybody um so this Wednesday suivent and I will be joining the board at the Washington State at the Washington State School Board director association annual conference in B we will attend section um with other student representative around the state and bring back information to the new student board representative who will be starting next month thank you that'll be fun for both of you to attend and be able to be around other student board reps from across the

178state and I know that we're all looking forward to it as well nice yeah all right um board comments is there any comments by the school board again I will be brief um I wanted to say thank you um being voted in for my first election is an honor and I'm really happy to be here for the next four years um I'm going to miss you Victoria um and you know it's just it's just really cool so I'm looking forward to it and I'm glad to be here well congratulations Jackie in the interest of time I congratulations Rob thank you I I do have just something really quick but in the interest of time and I need a break um I was unfortunately not able to be here at last month's Schoolboard meeting uh which

179was the first board meeting after the incident at Evergreen High School um I did go back and watch the meeting and a lot of the citizens comments and a lot of comments that were made um I felt a little bit um that some of those were inaccurate and me not being here I wasn't able to put my voice into the room so I just want my voice to be heard really quickly I am a parent of a student that was in the building that day um so the there are people that don't think we can identify with what's going on out there um but I want to let you know that we do and we were uh personally involved um as my 18-year-old was sitting in the library while in lockdown for all those hours

180so as a parent I can relate and understand and please understand that we are also parents and we are also going through these challenging times with you and that's all I have to say thank you Jenny all right Victoria anything any final remarks I'm drained I just love everybody here and and I know you have um your work cut out for you but I know that you're the team that can do it and and um I want to give a special shout out to our Lori over here who Heards cats on a daily basis she I know she gets our calls she keeps us organized it's not easy keeping track of this group um and she's just a stellar person that I've loved working with so thank you for everything you've done for me to

181keep me on track all right Victoria we know that you'll be keeping a close eye on us and so we will I'm going to be dancing on Tuesday nights I'm sure you will be but we will do our best to make you proud and continue the work that you've set forth so with that we'll go ahead and move to Future agenda items sorry nothing all right good um let's move on to uh recess at this time we will sign documents and then we're going to reconvene in a board Workshop where we're going to do budget engagement thank you for [Music] attending