001good evening welcome this evening to our school board meeting I'm going to have you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please and justice for all thank you all right um I will go ahead and have director Weatherspoon read Our Land acknowledgment this evening Evergreen Public Schools resides on the traditional lands of the chinooken peoples and the Cowlitz tribe they have lived on and cared for this land in its Waterway since time immemorial we thank them for their stewardship and make this acknowledgment to open a space of recognition inclusion and respect for all indigenous students families and staff in our community thank you thank you all right uh next we will entertain a motion to adopt this evening's agenda move to adopt the agenda as presented second it is from Newton seconded all in favor
002say aye aye opposed perfect thank you all right next on our agenda we have special recognition this evening which is a lot of fun because there's some great things on here but first we're going to start off with Native American heritage month and with us we have Craig bernbach [Music] part of our commitment to celebrating diversity and fostering an inclusive School community that allows all students staff and families to feel welcome and supported we as a district and as a school board are participating in Heritage Month celebrations throughout the school year in November we are celebrating Native American Heritage Month Native American Heritage Month resonates powerfully here in Evergreen Public Schools our campuses reside on the traditional lands of the chinooken peoples and the college tribe we are internally indebted to them for the natural
003beauty of this land which has cared for over thousands of years by indigenous people who maintained a balance sustainable relationship with the natural world throughout the month our schools and students will honor Native American Heritage Month by reading books watching films and learning about the history that has often been in just to our indigenous people we will also celebrate the contributions in culture Education Service and countless other areas that are American Indian Alaska native and native Hawaiian families make daily in Evergreen Public Schools we show respect to our native people's remarkable perseverance by recognizing their rightful tribal sovereignty and self-determination and by always keeping their respect for the land in mind as we tackle the challenges presented by climate change please join us in celebrating Native American History Month [Music] thank you Craig any comments
004from the school board or anything the video did remind me that we should probably excuse Jenny from the meeting go ahead and move that we excuse Jenny from the meeting I understand she's not available secondly all in favor say aye aye she's online with us [Laughter] lurking in the background sorry Jenny hi glad to have you Jenny that's okay I'm here couldn't be physical all right uh next on our the agenda is the Evergreen accreditation plaque presentation by ESD 112 I'm going to turn this over to superintendent Boyd yes I'm pleased to introduce some of our partners from the ESD 112 who are incredible partners of ours and help us with so many different things and one of the things they help us with is high school accreditation so I'd like to welcome up Mike
005nerlin Vicki Hardina and Kathy Whitlock to make a special presentation to our absolutely stunning phenomenal High School principal Corps thank you superintendent Boyd and Evergreen School Board it's great to be here tonight and this beautiful facilities for some I've been here it's gorgeous my name is Mike nerland and I'm the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning at ESD 112 and I have with me our executive director of student and school Success Kathy Whitlock and our director of stem initiatives and career Readiness Vicki herdina and it's actually these two leaders that head up our accreditation process and this last year six Evergreen high schools took part in the aesd The Association of Educational Service District accreditation and we really enjoy the process in partnering with high schools throughout Southwest Washington and accreditation as a former high
006school principal I know what you go through as a former High School principal we went through accreditation um three times during my tenure and uh it was like jumping through hoops and it was painful and I really didn't have anything to do with the work that we were actually doing in the school that's the one thing about the aesd process it really is um partnering to help with the work that's already taking place and their Improvement planning within the school so it's not something additional it's something that is an enhancement to what's already taking place and so um I would like to just read a couple of comments from the accreditation reports about each high school that's okay all right first of all Evergreen high school and principal Daniel ranchia Vicki was the accreditation coach
007and here's a comment from the report each group of stakeholders consistently commented on Danny's presence in the school community and how this works to build shared Partnership of the culture shared ownership of the culture congratulations to Evergreen High School next Heritage High School principal Derek Garrison and Vicki was the accreditation coach there as well at Heritage there is a clear culture of openness and opportunities for the voices of students families and staff to be heard and acted upon students and parents commented on caring adults and the inclusion of diverse voices and perspectives so congratulations to Heritage next up is Legacy High School principal Andy schoonover Vicki was the coach there as well at Legacy the strong focus on teacher collaboration is evident the staff very much enjoy being a part of this school in its
008new leadership safe environment this came across strongly from the students who commented on feeling supported seen respected and valued Legacy should celebrate this and keep up the momentum next up Mountain View High School Charles Anthony is the principal Vicki was the coach there as well the consistent remark about Mountain View was the amazing Clarity with which Mr Anthony provides to teachers staff students and Families the values of rigor equity and meaning were mentioned across the board this is no small accomplishment in such a large High School congratulations Mountain View next up Union High School and principal Griffin Payton and Kathy was the accreditation coach for Union a union student and family focus groups point to the efforts made by all staff to support the positive climate and culture of the school a parent stated our
009kids are their main purpose and a student remarked all staff want us to be successful congratulations Union Henrietta Lacks High School and principal Amy Haynes Kathy was the accreditation coach there a gila there was a recurring theme from students teachers parents to care for and attention to each student each student is known and feel like their voices are heard congratulations Gila let's give all six a big round of applause congratulations and Amy the guys said you were nominated to say something say a few words about the process so um [Laughter] seriously would you like to say anything I just want to say you know you are all wonderful through the process Kathy got to work with quite a bit it is it felt very meaningful and purposeful and intentional and really working within all of
010the efforts that we're making within our schools to support our students and families and so we just really appreciate the support from the team and going through the process and and it was really valuable and meaningful feedback for all of us so thank you all right very good all right well thank you thank you for your time [Applause] all right thank you I'm going to call up uh Janae Gomes to the podium who will do the Evergreen Awards this evening welcome Janae is it on good evening superintendent Boyd and members of the board thank you for having me this evening we are going to have our first quarter uh Evergreen Awards we have uh classified certificated and then we also have a team that will be recognized this evening in addition to that we will
011have um ABM and Chartwells uh we'll also recognize um uh one of their members for our annual recognition with them we're going to start with classified um our first recipient this evening is from Columbia Valley and principal Leah Torres is going to introduce and share a few words thank you Janae thank you superintendent Boyd and the Evergreen board it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to Amy and um I just blanked I'm nervous yourself okay hi there I'm Amy Price I'm a para educator at Columbia Valley and I've been there gosh eight years now yes thank you Amy um and um uh so Amy has been at Columbia Valley for eight years and has this Long View uh kind of view of students and their strengths because she is with has been with them
012for a long time and she really capitalizes on their strengths whether she is running a community Circle in the classroom and having students share their questions and their thoughts or helping them with their math understanding or their reading understanding she is right there with them when I talk to her colleagues that she works with every day they said that they love that she has the flexibility and the passion to just step in wherever students need her and we are just really thrilled to have her and to honor her with this first quarter Evergreen award for a classified staff Amy thank you so much foreign [Music] [Applause] our recipient for certificated is from Ellsworth Elementary and principal Alex Shewee is going to introduce and say a few words thanks for having us we get to uh
013this is an honor for me to get to stand up here and talk about Aaron for a couple reasons Aaron loves being in the spotlight you can tell um no but I get to talk about someone that I have a great deal of respect for and um Aaron's been in the district for 28 years and uh 13 of those years have been served at Ellsworth and then I've gotten the pleasure of knowing Aaron for the last four and I want to I'm going to start with something that was written by one of our teachers about Aaron and Aaron is a treasure to the entire staff at Ellsworth as a rehire to the Evergreen District Aaron has been vital in helping me learn and Implement new curriculum her previous experience as a classroom teacher helps her
014to understand the balance of teaching along with the importance of high expectations and modifications within the classroom Aaron is patient she's always optimistic and imparting a positivity among staff her door is always open and she provides us with meaningful pde and is simultaneously aware of everything else on our plates I would not have survived the first year here at Ellsworth without her and it would be easy I could stand up here and take up all of your time talking about Aaron as an instructional coach she you know leads and facilitates our professional development constantly improving our instruction by giving those nudges to our classroom teachers through coaching Cycles or working with our plcs sitting through and analyzing our data making sure that we're making those moves and like I said I could focus on that
015and I want to focus on the things that you don't see her do on The Daily that's her job Aaron is the first one to as we dig through that data and we're trying to figure out how are we going to serve these students because we don't have the bodies Aaron's like oh I'll figure it out I'll figure I'll put it in my schedule Alex I can do that intervention group I'll make sure I pull those kids or I've got time after school to tutor that's what Aaron does um home visits Aaron doesn't say no or she's maybe said no to me twice but it's about serving kids period and that's what we do and we figure out how to get it done and she is that go-to person for me when we need to
016figure out how to get it done so like I said it's an honor to stand up here and I have uh said this before and Aaron's heard me say this before but you you work in a good place when the people around you make you want to be better at your job you work in a great place when the people around you want to make you turn you in and want you to be a better person and that's what Aaron does so congratulations to Aaron [Applause] thank you thank you thank you very much thank you thanks you're always welcome he was my kids uh first grade teacher all three of my kids oh yeah that's special I know it makes me cry foreign award this evening is a group and it is uh Scott eppinger
017and Sue Steinbrenner are going to come up and introduce them and uh speak on behalf for our maintenance department thank you good evening board members superintendent Boyd it is a pleasure for Sue and I to have this honor to have our maintenance and grounds team here in front of us as the recipient of the team Evergreen award and to start out like to just have them introduce themselves and their position you started with me thanks Uh Kevin Olinger HVAC and electrical lead uh Lori Watson the secretary to the director of maintenance Jim Sullivan structural lead Ted denke assistant director Brian longry grounds Foreman Marty madrietta director of maintenance [Applause] it's important to note that this group of we have six we have one other secretary that's on vacation this week is one of 33 of
018members in our maintenance department and maintenance and grounds department and you've heard some of the the others that are part of the team there that says a lot about their team that they showed up tonight so if you want fewer maintenance you want to in grounds you want to wave thank you for being here so this leadership team is the is the first one to to tell you that they can't do the job without the rest of the their team the other 26 people that do this job with them they also recognize that they can't do this job without the help of the rest of our district departments too so it truly is a team effort and they are always about crediting the team when it comes to recognition so together our maintenance and grounds
019team they support Believe It or Not 3.5 Square 3.5 million square feet 42 buildings in our district so if you break that out if you think of a 2 000 foot square square foot home that is one thousand seven hundred and fifty homes that this team and the other 26 take care of in our district pretty amazing amazing numbers I don't know about you but sometimes I have a hard time just maintaining my own home so I think that's pretty impressive while I do a lot of preventative maintenance and they're really good at it the place I think they they really shine is the emergency maintenance and that can be anything from and we've seen pretty much all of it so far is smoke haven't seen snow and ice yet but probably coming uh pounding
020rain high winds Heating and Cooling downed trees damaged fences power outages plugged lines they they work daily and urgently to make sure that our district is up and running Marty and the team have already been looking at the weather forecast for this week and thinking ahead what we would need if we should run into snow or ice and hopefully we won't that they're they will be ready for that and each day they do this with with little or no expectation for recognition that's not who they are they're they're here to to do a a great job and they're not worried about the recognition that that they really deserve so with that I'm also I'm going to invite Sue up to share a few comments as well just three things that these guys do really well
021really really well one have a sense of urgency Lori and Beth probably get 15 20 HVAC calls when the weather turns and they treat everyone with a sense of urgency it would be really easy to go now you're my 10th call I can't take it right now but they don't the other thing they do really well is they do things right the first time we always are good at doing things right the second or third time we learn from our lessons we improve they do a great job at trying to get it done the first time right the third thing that they do is no excuses because we don't have time for that frankly you got to get that work done they don't take time given 10 reasons why they couldn't get it done they
022just go out and get it done I think the other thing I would say you won't find a more compassionate group than this for each other for the buildings for the crew pretty pretty compassion I looked it up it means to suffer together so I guess we all do that really well and with that I just appreciate you guys you guys make me and Scott look good and Jeff and Scott thank you for being here tonight we appreciate that and I think Marty you want to say it Marty loves puppy yeah this is my favorite thing so I was fortunate enough to be nominated to do this even though it's my most dreaded thing to do um first of all we as a group would like to thank the school board and superintendent Boyd for
023this award um we are we are very happy to accept this award on behalf of our maintenance and grounds team we feel fortunate to manage a highly productive talented and professional team that strives to support staff and students we would also like to thank Sue and Scott and everyone in the facilities Department as well as Derek and Elizabeth and I.T Shane and Kyle Bridget and Safety and Security as well as Tracy and Janae and their team in HR they provide us with the needed support to move our department forward without their support and the relationships that we have within the buildings and with staff and other departments we would not be successful in where we are at today so I want to thank everyone [Applause] compressor all cleaned up get a picture up there thank
024you thank you okay we are going to move on to um Chartwells who's here from Chartwells to yep Dean did you guys want to come in we have great partnership with uh Chartwells and so they are going to recognize this evening thank you Mr superintendent and board this evening we'd like to recognize a couple of our employees that have worked tirelessly for the district first of all who of course I decided to log out first of all we'd like to recognize Michelle Gifford now Michelle has been with uh serving your students since 1994. I ran a few of the numbers on a rough estimation but that means that she served over a million breakfasts and 1.5 million lunches yes in that time Michelle in the 28 years [Applause] so in the 28 years that Michelle's
025been here um that is the number that she has served she is a very quiet soul and she's very thoughtful and puts a lot of um her principal told us that she puts a lot of thought in the process of how to serve our students with each of the changes that have been coming over the last three years she'll think about it and consult with the principal and do it very thoughtfully um Michelle is such a quiet soul that she refused to be here this evening to be publicly recognized for her efforts but this is one of the reasons we felt that she needed to be recognized she's always the unsung hero never complains and actually goes above and beyond when given a task to do so with that and when she refused to come
026we rounded up the principal and the vice principal and we went in during lunch and we surprised her today so I think she's fighting back tears but this is Michelle Gifford and she's at Harmony Elementary thank you so our second person that we would like to recognize this evening is Grace Leong from Union High School Grace has been serving the students here at Evergreen since 2004. during her 18 years she served over a half a million breakfasts high schoolers don't want to eat breakfast and uh so 1.7 million lunches now that seems like a lot but over the past three years when we've had free meals so the two years of the pandemic and this last year with free meals she has seen a 71 percent increase just in her lunch numbers of loan so
027from going from an average of serving 500 a day her and her staff serve 700 a day now this goes to rival amount um Mountain View now Mountain View has closed their campus this year has a brand new kitchen and they're putting out as many numbers as what union does so with Grace and her team she's risen to this challenge to ensure that each meal is served and prepared with love so Grace is with us this evening with the support of her husband and one of her astounding employees that's absolutely you know if there was a team award that we could give out it would be these two that run our Union High School and that's Tatiana so Grace thank you and Dean has a little present for Grace [Applause] our final recognition this evening
028will be ABM and I believe is Dan Britt coming up for that and Dan will share with you the name and say a few words good evening board members and superintendent Boyd thank you for this opportunity we really appreciate that we've got a couple of team members here that are being recognized as team members of the year and one for elementary one for high school and starting off with Michelle from York Elementary some things that are outstanding about Michelle she has extremely high level of cleanliness that she maintains at her school she is passionate about providing great service to staff and students every day and she's highly valued by her school and so it's a real pleasure walking through York and just just has a great feel about it for how well it's been maintained
029so thank you Michelle for your outstanding performance Sarah thank you and then so Paul hit uh with us for quite a few years and working at Heritage he's a long-term team member with it but he's been high performing that whole time and he's taken on additional assignments and projects and everything he does he does in an excellent fashion and um it's been a great role model to his his team members as well so thank you so Paul for all you've done for us [Applause] and we've got a couple we've got some gifts for you guys and uh a card for each of you so congratulations congratulations right there okay I forgot we got a uh he has my gift thank you Jenny it's always fun to recognize our great employees all right next on the
030agenda is our board consent agenda we will entertain a motion for approval I move for approval of the board consent agenda as presented seconded uh movement second at all in favor say aye aye Jenny sorry couldn't find the button aye there we go all right motion pass thank you all right next up is a superintendent consent agenda move adoption of the superintendent consent agenda as presented seconded I mean second it all in favor say aye aye aye thank you Jenny all right next up is our public hearing uh this is for the instructional materials committee decision appeal and I have a just a little background on it before we get started uh on Thursday September 15th to 2022 the instructional materials committee conducted a challenge hearing the Reese resource challenge was the novel 47 by
031Walter Mosley the challenge was to remove the book from the classroom Library only at the conclusion of the hearing the instructional materials committee voted to remove the book from the classroom Library an appeal of the decision was made to the school board the board has reviewed the challenge information from the complaintants and respondent minutes from The Challenge hearing and read the book this evening the complaintant will provide her testimony on why the decision should be reversed the board may ask clarifying questions to the complaintant during this process the board will then render a decision at our December 13th meeting so at this time I'm going to invite Jennifer Cunningham the complaintant to come up to the podium to provide her testimony Jennifer you want to come on up good evening I'll do okay how's that
032that's perfect thank you good evening thanks for joining us tonight I'm here to talk to you about the recent Banning of the book 47 by Walter Mosley in the 7th grade classrooms my name is Jennifer Rodriguez Cunningham I'm an English teacher at y East Middle School I've been teaching English for four years and prior to that I was a special education teacher I had my Master's in literacy curriculum with a concentration focusing on struggling readers but this isn't about me this is about our seventh graders as a Mom myself I'm very aware of the wide spectrum of seventh graders that come through our classroom doors seventh grade is a weird and difficult time you will have students who still believe in Santa Claus all the way to students who have seen more and done more
033than any seventh grader should have ever experienced it's a wide spectrum of behaviors beliefs and maturity levels this is why choosing books for seventh graders is a difficult but important task as Educators it's important that the work of 47 is considered as a whole but in addition to that we as Educators need to consider the spectrum of middle schoolers as a whole what is considered inappropriate for one seventh grader cannot be automatically assumed to be inappropriate for another that is a personal and family decision but let's talk about this decision this decision should never have happened if we are following the legal processes for challenging a book this book challenge should have never moved forward beyond the first step our district made a huge mistake in allowing this decision to even go to committee as
034the person who filled out the form did not read the book at the that point the process should have immediately been stopped furthermore this process needs to be cleaned up what happens when this occurs again can anybody just say they read a book give reasons from the internet and it'd be banned from the classroom what will our district do to prevent these missteps in the future in addition what has been done to solve the problem that led to this book challenge to occur there was a huge instructional misstep that occurred with a substitute teacher that did not allow a student to pick another book when the student voice they didn't feel comfortable reading this book in my classroom this has occurred many different for many different times for many different books I always allow them
035to choose another book if our process goes immediately to challenging a book just because one student one family has issues with the book where will this end the book challenge also discussed issues with the content being inappropriate for seventh graders well then I say what are we teaching our students in Social Studies classes if they get to seventh grade and do not understand how horrible slaves were treated they don't understand the gravity if that is the belief then I welcome anyone into my classroom to have a discussion with my seventh graders to see if they do not understand the horrible complexities that come with discussing slavery moving forward I would like our board to consider reinstating the book 47 but more than that I would like our board to consider recommending that our district looks
036at our process for challenging a book making the process more clear and also the process for appealing distinct in addition to that when a book challenge is brought up by a high-level District official what is preventing the book challenge process from being biased or District members from feeling like they can't be completely honest in their opinion as they would be speaking out against someone in more power than they have nowhere in the book challenge process does it in dress address this inequity lastly I would like to leave with a few thoughts I have read the book 47 by Walter Mosley it isn't my favorite book on slavery in fact I'm partial to the book copper Sun but my opinion on this book isn't what matters what matters is that we are not censoring viewpoints from
037our students which limits their first amendment rights what matters is that our process to look at books is clear and without personal opinion and bias what matters is that we as Educators and members of the school board speak for all students and their right to choose what they read thank you I don't know what to do next okay so I think we're might have some clarifying questions to ask so okay if you want to we do and if if you're able to submit that in writing I would like to have a copy of what you just read out yeah for sure uh who I don't know who I do I do to all of you to just send it to Laura okay I have your email okay I can do that all right thank you
038thank you yeah um I think you answered my one question which was uh when I was reading through the materials um about the book challenge um the the thing that stood out to me is something that you said it was and I'm just confirming here it was a substitute teacher and not the student's regular teacher that's my understanding okay uh because I was just saying it is a concern if if uh you've got a book list and the teacher won't let you switch when they come up on an emotional trigger like that um and I hope we will examine the process I think yeah a bit can you talk more about the legal process of the person who filled it out didn't read it and explain more yeah I consulted with the American Library Association
039about and their freedom to read um Foundation that they have and I kind of went over the book process and immediately when I said that the person did not read the book they're like whoa whoa whoa don't tell me anymore it should have stopped right there it's hard to challenge a book if you've never read it and if you're only basing what the book you what you see on the internet or what you hear from other people then we're we're agreeing to a challenge based off hearsay so right there it should have stopped I have a clarifying question because so from my understanding the book was taken out of the seventh grade classrooms but it's still in the school library so was the book to be used for was it just like a choice book
040like you go over the shelf or it was like every seventh grader in the classroom going to read it and then discuss it as a group good question um the book is included in our historical fiction book club for seventh grade so I have a large bookshelf of books that range from like 1800s to about the 70s that children can pick from and so they go they pick a book and they talk in book clubs they learn about the historical context with each of the books that they're reading and have discussions about those historical contests through fiction so not every student picks the book and it's their choice okay and if a parent didn't want their student to read a particular book it's okay for them to be opt out of choosing that book yeah
041a thousand percent they can choose a completely different book they can be presented with a book that's on a similar historical context or just something completely different so it sounds like that's always been an option where you could choose something else if that yeah it's pretty standard for our Middle School curriculum we do a lot of book club style units and so there is a lot of choice and there's always option to opt out even if a kid just comes to me it happened just last week they're like I just don't even like this book okay cool let's find you another one and is the historical you said it's that the book club format is in your scope and sequence so that's in in the classroom activity or is it after school in the classroom
042and usually it's at least at my school it's towards like the springtime of seventh grade maybe I can ask this question to John or someone but is just seventh grade that we were moving down to classrooms is could an 8th grade classroom have it or or is it out of all the classroom that I see Tilly not in her head yes so that is correct it's out of all the classroom like or or only seventh grade just seventh grade yeah not exactly what I was told because I teach seventh and eighth grade and most Middle School teachers do teach multiple grade levels because I teach seventh grade I was not allowed to have it in my classroom at all which also limits the access to my eighth graders who may want to read that as
043a choice book any other questions from the board that's good thank you for engaging thank you we appreciate you being here thank you thank you all right so just a reminder our meeting in December we will render a decision on that um okay next up is the superintendent oh no excuse me matters reserved for board action we have some other instructional materials committee business to take care of it's our student representative selection so we have had the information for this we workshopped it the students were interviewed and now we are going to vote on our selection who did the interviewing was it some of the board I wasn't involved in the interview process I don't think okay so Jenny and Jack no no this is for this this was some instructional materials no this was
044workshopped and we looked at the applications and then the board was able to um look at those and make a decision there was no interview okay because the there's a column on the little scoring sheet says invited to interview and so well I think they were interviewed by the instructional materials Review Committee no no one no no okay a review of the application a review of the application process yeah and uh there are some notes uh top one top two circled with two names next to them does that come from the total scoring that's my data okay okay yes we're voting for two correct okay are we to put our names on the top of these ballots yes you can hand them down while tally foreign yeah Lori are we getting Jenny's okay oh we're
045gonna ask her for it all right Jenny can we can we get your two selections yes my uh two selections are applicant number five and applicant number ten okay thank you all right so uh did everybody turn theirs in okay so John's gonna go ahead and tally the votes it's on election day two I know is Lori doing it yeah a lot faster than I would be ahead with the superintendent oh yeah while those are being tallied can we go ahead and move on to the superintendent report the things along all right perfect we'll come back to that take the pressure off a little bit here so um thank you director Boca Negra just on a somber note we had another school shooting in the state of Washington at Ingram High School um this one
046hit me a little personally because I worked in the system of Seattle Public Schools from 2004 to 2011. as a high school principal the principal there now is a friend of mine and a couple of teachers our close personal friends so just our hearts go out to the students at Ingram high school and to our colleagues there and families we're thinking about them uh I'm not going to steal too much of Dr W's Dr Williams Thunder but we had a great session today with our elementary school principals they're super excited to come and share their school Improvement plans with you at our next board meeting our special board meeting and I think you're going to be really impressed with the way that they're not only just thinking about school Improvement but really leaning in and
047and and and acting on a regular basis to improve Equitable outcomes for math instructions so I'm excited they're excited I think that's going to be a good a good session for the board and for our our principles Dr Williams and I started a new kind of tradition um and we are uh we're awarding a most valuable person Awards as we go in and do school visits so we're going in uh asking our principals to select somebody that's gone above and beyond taking a photo and developing a website just on one more way we can uh just honor the phenomenal work that's happening out in our schools so um I've got one to share with the board so you can see the award that we're giving there and I'd love to at some point get the
048board members to go out with me and do some of that as well I think it would be really fun I will take some pictures and and I think they would appreciate having you all side by side on that we are as we know we've um uh we've said that we're in a uh looking at a budget shortfall for the following year our current estimate of that is about 15 million dollars and just to put that in perspective it's about 3.75 percent of the school budget I'm looking over at um Jennifer to make sure it's just a little less than four she's giving me the thumbs up a little less than four percent of our budget so it's it's a big deal we did 20 million dollars worth of cuts last year and we'll have
049to do 15 but it won't be catastrophic we'll get through it um and so we've sat down with the superintendent leadership team we've drafted up a process and uh we sort of looked at that process through a our Equity lens and we'll be meeting with board members and and doing a work session in December to share and get feedback on the process of our budget reductions moving forward really excited about the work of our strategic plan that's happening we have finalized a draft a vision of equity and Excellence centered on our student voice that's related to our mission and vision that we did last year and so our next steps on the 10th is to share that draft Vision with our core planning team have them kick that around on the 28th we're going to
050have two separate sessions we'll be working on some core values that are related to that on the 28th we're going to be developing our theory of action with principles and District staff and a theory of action just kind of helps us determine everybody's role in implementing strategic plans so if we want our students to be able to do X we want our teachers to engage in a certain way we want our principals our district leadership so it defines everybody's role up and down the system and then we'll be working on developing metrics we'll be working on strategies to align things all the way up and down the system and we've got a couple of three board members involved in that process directors Bradford and Weatherspoon and then also Rob Perkins so we're excited to have
051you continue on that you know I started with a somber note about a security incident where it left a student dead in Seattle and just along those notes we had Vancouver Public Schools Vancouver Police Department and Evergreen Public Schools we met with the Chiefs from Vancouver and Clark County we're engaging in a series of meetings to you know identify single points of contact to start talking about safety and safety um uh practicing safety out there doing some tabletop exercises together getting our law enforcement into our schools to be able to get familiar with those and in our procedures and we are revisiting the SRO conversation across uh with our law enforcement officers and we'll be sure to engage the board on that conversation moving forward so I just wanted to share those pieces and um
052we did a what we called a pulse check with our principals today and not like your pulse but a quick check in on them and how things are going out in the buildings and you know they're working hard I will tell you they're working extremely hard our teachers are working extremely hard we're facing a lot of challenges and yet I'm just really proud of all of our staff leaning in under such difficult circumstances and still focusing on their school Improvement planning process and continuous Improvement so a lot of real heroic people out there in the field working hard on behalf of our children thank you John all right so now back to our instructional committee student selection we have a tie that's why we send it back I knew that was going to happen so
053that's why we handed back the ballots now I can tell you though that applicant was one of the ones selected but we have a tie between candidates one and three so we need to make a selection maybe just put the number on your form and then we'll turn them back in so we're voting between one and three yes Jenny one or three three foreign unanimous looks like three all right so uh candidates three and ten are going to move forward and we have a process then to go ahead and contact all of the students correct all right thank you we're excited to get them on board all right next up is our teaching and learning Equity update Dr William this is going to come up to the podium foreign thank you so much good evening
054directors and superintendent Boyd Mr Boyd alluded to this earlier we are in week two of our monthly cycle of working with our schools and so week two is when we bring all of our principles together and we provide professional learning in our cni team and Ruth and Company provided professional learning focused on our goals around math and our school Improvement plan and so the focus today was based on principal feedback so if you'll remember we talked about the plan do study act cycle so after we deliver a professional learning session we ask principals for feedback based on what they need as well as using the times we actually spend in schools with principals I either talking about their plans or visiting classrooms Etc we use that information to come back and design the learning just
055to make sure we are delivering what they need in order to move forward in this process and so Ruth is going to walk you through a little bit about what's going to be happening on the 29th when the schools come back to you to actually present where they are here in the fall with their school Improvement plan you'll um she's going to give you a little bit of an update and earlier when Mr Boyd was speaking he talked about our MVP awards that we are starting to to launch and I I just you know I would be remiss if I didn't recognize again the work that Ruth bags and our team are doing with really keeping us laser focused on instruction I mean she is our school Improvement coordinator for the school district and she
056helps us do a deep dive into the Improvement science and what it's really going to take to meet these goals that we have to um to ensure that every learner can can meet that ambitious ambitious goals around instruction that we have for them okay with that I'm going to turn it over to Ruth thank you thank you so much okay so we have been setting the stage this first couple of months and leaders like everyone's been talking about have been working really hard so we're super excited um for November 29th I want to let you know that um we're going to take just a few minutes tonight see if I can do this um to make sure that you know how we are aligning that area of Promise in terms of teaching and learning so
057at the district level like Dr Williams said we are really the Sip supporters that I talked to you about last time I was here are really taking a deep dive into Improvement science we know that we need to be user centered which means we need to hear our kids voices in order to understand this system from their perspectives and we are trying to use Improvement science as a tool to eliminate the predictability of outcomes that we are seeing and we want to make sure that we have positive income outcomes of course for every single student so I want to show you what you're going to see so on the 29th this is the plant the first part of the plan summary that you will see so the first few months of school like I said
058we've been laying the foundation by developing a solid School Improvement plan that aligns with the district wide focus on math so on the 29th principles we will be presenting this summary of their plan to you of course it'll be filled out this is the template so as you can see every school leader has defined a problem of practice so the outcomes that students experience are determined by the practices of the adults in the system so it is the adults that we must look to if we're going to improve outcomes for kids so a problem of practice what it does is it identifies specific and pressing concerns related to equality and excellence in student outcomes the problem of practice should be anchored in data and the problem should be informed by an understanding of evidence-based practices
059now the theory of action which everyone also has provides an opportunity to test what we think will work against what the evidence actually says so it enables us to put a cycle of inquiry like Dr Williams is talking about the plan do study act into place and reflect on the results we get and then change make changes to our practice so um as you know each school has named a math goal that math goal should align to the district goal which means it should be a minimum of 13 increase for all kids and there also should be a named small group Focus so you'll see that according to the data each school has chosen a small group to focus on okay um and in addition of course you'll see the evidence-based practices that they've chosen
060that should be supporting the math goal and their theory of action but guess what this is the key part so in the past we've written School Improvement plans but we have not necessarily monitored progress toward the goal this is what we must do in order to make Improvement and so there are three things that you should hear when people are coming to talk to you about their plans so you'll be listening have they mentioned process measures because process measures are basically are we doing what we said we would do are we implementing the things that we said we would Implement um and how how are we what's the evidence of that what's the evidence that the professional development that we are giving to our teachers is actually impacting the classroom so you'll hear about that
061and the next of course you that practice that we're putting into place should impact kids and their outcomes so we're going to be talking about two different types of outcomes we've always talked about long-term measures so if you think about the goal for the district it is that we will make one year's at least 13 progress in one year in math um as measured by iready or SBA so that's the long-term measure for everyone but the short-term measure you know those long-term measures only come a couple of times a year so in order to make progress we have to think about well what are we measuring in between those big huge marks and so that's where the schools are choosing what to use as a measure some schools will choose to use um the new
062curriculum uh um I am unit assessments some will use SBA interim assessments you'll hear different things but the main thing that you want to listen for is is there a short-term measure that they have named okay and of course at the school and board meeting I'm so excited about this different structure there's a different structure so as you know principals are going to be assigned to a breakout room with one of you um and they where they will present their one-page plan and they have to do it in five to seven minutes so um someone will someone will need to keep track because otherwise it could go all night so um you will have electronic access to their school Improvement plans and then you'll have a printed copy of this what I just showed you
063their template that's all filled out and then during each presentation we want to encourage you to take notes on that template make sure that you know you're hearing those pieces that we just talked about if you could keep a narrow focus on Improvement that's going to help to hold us accountable and feel free to ask principals to clarify parts of their plan if if you didn't quite understand something that they said and we hope that after the presentation that you will have an opportunity to share the highlights of what you heard with your um with other directors we hope that that will happen okay once again we have those iterative Cycles you can see from this timeline that they're not going to just do it once they have the planned summary on the 29th and
064then they're coming back with something on the 31st and the 28th and then again on June 20th don't worry though not all of us are coming back on the 31st and the 28th all of us are going to be here on the 29th but on the 31st and 28th that will just they'll all have to turn their their updates in um but they won't all need to come however on the 20th we would like all principals to come back to report out on how they did on their progress monitoring and how they ended up did they meet their goal did they exceed their goal why or why not and what happened and then hopefully they'll talk to you about next steps um these once again this is your sip supporters um we've been working really
065hard um each of these supporters that you see are supporting um the schools that are listed there and we've been once again working with um with this um monthly and more do you have questions first of all I'd like to say thank you thank you so much for the opportunity I'm superintendent Boyd and board members for for me to be able to be here tonight we'll go ahead Victoria question will we have a chance to see those reports prior to the meeting so that we can at least have a cursory review of it before okay great thank you so the principals have to have their um their stuff in the week prior to the board meeting so I've seen teachers effectively use the i-Ready Deltas to to scaffold their own scope and sequence and I'm
066I'm pretty confident based on that that that's a good measurement tool for the long term so long term is one year well we are um so the two long-term um measures for that District goal and for school goals are i-Ready and SBA SBA of course is just yearly and so that's a difficult one to do but with iready it's fall winter and spring so you can get a little bit you know you can you can get a lot of information from it but you know you don't want to wait until winter to figure out how kids are doing you have to be measuring along the way the I guess the metric uh District wide on that will be a measurement of the beginning of I already to the end of I ready actually yes people
067would be keeping track of that but the actual metric that we're using is spring to Spring okay yeah okay that makes it a little easier to get ass back results into the into the mix to uh I need to ask you John and Lori do we have um these slides from this week and our last meetings on the Google drive somewhere okay thank you said she'd be happy to send those to you so much and I just want to thank Ruth uh we she was the recipient of one of our MVP awards and got an out of the longest Standing Ovation um that I've ever felt I mean she's just been a real support to Schools she's been laser-like and in her support of principals and us at the district level to get this done
068so thank you Ruth thank you thank you yeah and I just have to say that it is not me I mean it is um this this leadership that has really opened up the opportunity for this to happen so I'm super excited about it foreign thank you all right the good news report hello again hello board of directors and superintendent Boyd I'm gonna let that blink on and uh I'm gonna start uh at the end we're going to get into the epsmvp so we'll actually get to show the picture and you can get an idea of what it looks like uh we're going to start with a a story with um two weather spoons in it uh board member uh Jacqueline Witherspoon and her daughter are a part of the students advocating um for Equity Group
069safe I hope you guys take a little time to watch this video story this is a group of students from our district who are getting together and then sharing their ideas and advocating for themselves and other students to make this at a more Equitable District I was able to attend one of their planning meetings and seeing these students working together and one of the big things they're doing right now is actively recruiting new members they're very senior heavy and they don't want this organization to be left behind so they're out there recruiting new members and hopefully some younger members they say they accept all members even from elementary school if it fits but secondary is their focus so I got to meet with them and talk with them and they got to share the reason
070why this organization state if it's important why they want more members to join I have always wonderful moments at our schools that uh that sometimes I learn about days that are out there I try to keep on track of this in our Communications Department the special days but there are a lot of them at Burton they celebrated Unity day on October 19th this comes out of the national bullying prevention month and what they did was all wear orange in creative ways and and then discuss the importance of preventing bullying in schools ZIP down to uh I think you remember not too long ago we shared a story about Columbia Valley Elementary School had starting a reading buddy program and we did a video story on that and it's really great to see that other schools
071are doing something very similar they might have been doing it before but they're sharing with us over at Sunset they have third graders helping out first graders in their programs so this is pictures of the third graders and first graders just finding a place to sit down and read with uh with students and I always love students teaching student stories um board member Weatherspoon spoke about this event that she attended we did have pictures and this is the Discovery cook-offs this is for Elementary School fifth graders and everyone in the districts all fifth graders will have a chance to participate this one um that Dr Williams and board member Weatherspoon were judges for occurred here at a legacy not too long ago and we really have some future top chefs in our district doing wonderful
072things in fifth grade I'm still trying to make peanut butter and jelly and then uh um superintendent and Boyd mentioned that he'd been getting out a lot of school visits he'd been a lot of them are concentrating on looking at how the new math curriculum is uh being included in our classrooms this is a visit at Columbia Valley Elementary School mathematicians at work and superintendent Boyd got to share some math lessons from some younger teachers the students teaching superintendent Boyd so I know he's getting out to a lot of our schools and just getting right into the classrooms um and then finally I did uh want to share the uh the staff record the new EPS MVP and so that's where everyone can see this was the first one ever given out uh Betsy Hemphill
073will forever be known as the first ever EPS MVP uh and this was at fur Crest and uh she was honored by principal Stuart Anderson and superintendent Boyd and you can see there the the pin um that I do want to give a shout out to Aaron winter song our graphic designer who uh designed that pin I think it looks really cool and people will see right away that it's from our district so excited to see that just starting off this week and we do have a web page just for EPS MVP so we'll be uh we might not put all of them on social media depending on how you know how many we put out but we'll have everyone on the web page so people can check on who's being honored there's no questions
074that's all I got thank you thank you thank you all right next is an information that's received for review all right and then we'll move on to board comments did you have a question Rob oh no um report comments do you want to go on board comments looks like you're ready I had a really exciting week in the schools already and it's only Tuesday uh the the choral concerts uh are underway and yesterday uh I was at oh help me where was I I was at Union High School uh listening to uh Mr Carn uh the teacher over the choir there and every grade level down to the fourth grade fourth fifth middle school high school just singing their hearts out and it's it's so nice to have those back in November right when it's
075starting to get dark it's a really good event to attend um I was given an opportunity to speak and you all know that I did music all through school and got to talk about how that pays dividends into uh all the Decades of your life it was beautiful performance I got to sit directly across from oh fifth grader that I know from church who's really excited to be part of the choir today and and I'm looking forward to the one at Evergreen tomorrow thank you for reminding me I was at Union um there was that and uh I also I know you uh I had an in-person meeting at the Vancouver schools about our legislative positions and I'll go in to that in more detail but it really looks like the impression of alignment that
076I've had for so long is maintaining and I think that's all thanks Rob Jimmy oh Jenny do you have board comments um yes I do have an update on our student board reps but I think that it might be more impactful if director Weatherspoon shares that just because she's visible okay if she doesn't mind if she's not at all not at all okay so we did our interviews with uh I think we had five students for our student board representatives and we narrowed it down to two um Sullivan Taylor who is a student at heritage and Covenant I'm going to mess his name up I'm going to just say Covenant for now um I do not want to mess name up he is a student at um Gila and they will be our two student
077board Representatives they're going to be onboarded and sworn in in December and we had five excellent students come through and we were able to um offer them sort of leadership positions in other District groups that we have but I'm really excited about these students they're going to be great I um did have the opportunity to um to speak with or to leave a message for Sullivan so I am actually offering them the opportunity to come into our November 29th meeting to sit with us during the Sip presentations just as informal to come meet us um kind of see the process and to be with us from the start before their informal swearing in on December 13th yeah five incredible young people very difficult decision I appreciate the fact that you found other leadership opportunities for
078these young folks because they are absolutely stunning phenomenal would like to just quickly add that we actually got 10 applicants um and the committee brought it down to five we interviewed five brought it down to three we brought three of them in um one withdrew so we interviewed the final two and they ended up being our choice excellent thank you for leading us through that process we're excited to have them on on board literally on board all right anything else Victoria um I just wanted to um let people know that we all met with Dr Campbell regarding the feedback on that input that we were getting from the community from all of the community and all of the people and so that was very interesting I know we'll be able to report on that but
079I appreciated people's Candor in those those meetings um and then of course we've all I think had a chance to meet with Melissa gombowski and talk about her legislative agenda and it was nice doing that with the Vancouver Board member there as well so that we're all kind of talking the same talk um I had a really fun time yesterday at Burton elementary school I have become a member of their School counseling advisory Council um and yesterday was the first meeting they talked about their vision and I'm going to send you the the PowerPoint that they used with us um what was interesting is just talking about the things that as school counselors that they have concerns about none of it was a shock um in light of everything that's gone on but what was
080interesting is they have a pretty good size group of native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students and they're really oh sorry thank you for that so they're very um interested in helping those students be more proficient and one of the things that came up that I just hadn't even thought about is that there's a certain group of students that they're laying their native language does not have a written form which I had heard that before but it just didn't click with me of how that's impacting the academic success of those students and also the social emotional aspects of things um and so they were brains brainstorming some ideas but one of the things that struck me is if you can't you can't turn you can't take the spoken language and turn it into their native
081in written form how do they get information from the school and all of that so we talked and of course I offered up the fact that we might want to talk about doing some videos that the translator can translate for the school into their native language and they have a translator that they work with so that when they want to bring the parents into the schools to have beatings and different things that they know why it's important to come in and and so you know we have the technology and we have the the the facility now to really do it in a good way that um it just seemed to me like if spoken word is how they communicate then we need to communicate in a spoken word and not try to have them read
082things that they're never going to be able to read and of course you're talking about our true students who speak true keys from Micronesia and yes the language has not traditionally been a written language and we are reaching out and looking for people to serve as interpreters it's been difficult we've had a bit of a wave of those students come in they add a lot to our a lot to our district so we're excited to serve them yeah yeah and I felt like I what was encouraging to me was the conversation wasn't it was a very hopeful and a very upbeat belief in being able to reach across and bring them into our community and help them um have achievement in school and feel good at school and that their families feel like they're part
083of our community and our school community so I I'm I'm excited about being on that committee with them they don't meet that often so um but it's um it was nice to be invited so anyway that's all I have it's good thanks Victoria uh just a couple of things from me as Victoria mentioned Dr Tammy Campbell who conducted our stakeholder feedback process originally she was going to be here this evening but she couldn't make it so we are putting that on our 29th agenda before we get into the Sip Improvement plan so she'll be here to present to us some of the information that she got um the next thing I wanted to mention is we did have the Heritage grand opening celebration which was a lot of fun they had a lot of student
084performances um they they piggybacked it on community event where the leadership kids were doing some stuff for the kids in the community and it was I thought it was a fantastic fantastic day and beautiful addition to the school and the last thing I wanted to mention was the learn here Awards oh yes Lori you're not getting not getting by but we did right we did receive an email from Sean Philbrook with identity Clark County and they're recognizing this year from Evergreen two Awards Monica stonier do we all know and of our very own Lori stroll is being recognized foreign well-deserved honor I'm telling you this lady has been the glue around here and she keeps all of us in line and she's amazing and she does so much for public education in our system and
085I couldn't be more proud of her for running this award congratulations congratulations Lori all right next up is future agenda items do we have anything I'd have one but I was going to ask about the math curriculum and up walks Ruth Beggs and tells us all about the math curriculum and the and the scaffolding that they're putting it wrong that I just wanted to mention how appreciative I am of uh having the idea before I could even mention it I'm glad to see this so we're going to learn next week what the plans are or next meeting 29th 29th yes next week's a different thing okay just wanted to say something positive about that anything else all right next up is future agenda items or excuse me we just did that public comments um at
086this time we're going to call up any Community member who wishes to address the board they may do so during the designated time on the agenda for public comments as long as the comments are not Personnel related or about an individual employee or student that are not legal in nature each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board comments need to be directed to the board of directors as a whole it may not be addressed to any individual member of the board administrative staff or the audience please state your name and District affiliation if any first on our list is do we want to do the person that's online first okay oh Jennifer Bradley's online okay is she ready hi my name's Jennifer Bradley I'm a first grade teacher at Crestline and I'm
087speaking to the board tonight in support of our um PSC and para educators um our PSD classified staff are undeniables some of our most important vital essential School staff if you don't know this to be true I would like you to please take a moment and imagine a single school day without her I'm using pses you would have to imagine a day without bus drivers so most students would not have transportation to and from their schools no para Educators would greet students in the morning and help them safely cross the street in busy school zones no para Educators would be providing academic and Behavior Support to special education students or providing Services those services that they have outlined in their IEPs there will be no para Educators to provide language support to our multilingual students
088no para Educators to supervise students at recess and lunch no para Educators to help students get home safely each day no resource center staff to assist our families with access to food housing Transportation Medical Care and much more no I.T staff to help troubleshoot the Myriad Tech and internet issues that pop up every day can you imagine a day without para educators school can be a tough Place sometimes already um without para Educators it would be an undeniable or an unendurable totally dysfunctional nightmare not to mention a huge liability our psus are invaluable to our students staff and our schools and it's past time that we show them the respect that they not only deserve but they earn every day with their dedicated hard work in Evergreen Public Schools there's a saying show me your
089budget and I'll show you your values Evergreen Educators and families highly value our pses and it's high time the EPS leadership shows how much we respect and value our pses with far better compensation uh paid collaboration time and training they do right by our students and staff every day it's past time that we do right by them thank you thank you Jennifer all right next stop is Brandon Chase Brandon if you want to come on up Brandon hi there good neat good evening members of the board superintendent Boyd my name is Brandon Chase and I work over at Crestline Elementary as well I wanted to come in today and be very diplomatic to craft a well-written story sell a narrative in a way that makes a point but avoids being a narrative but I simply
090can't the district is failing and we're out of time to keep pretending that it isn't yeah we've heard the coveted narrative about the educational deficiencies of so many students we've heard the countless hours of all the work that we're going to do to bring up math scores and increase this or that metric but to say we're putting the cart before the horse and addressing these issues would be an understatement our schools are simply not a safe learning environment let me repeat that our schools are not a safe learning environment our students simply can't be expected to learn in these settings if you truly want to get back to educating our kids this has to be your number one priority no question you have parents telling you these stories about their kids experiences you have teachers
091telling you these stories from their own classrooms you have classified staff telling you these stories from every single environment that they're in and the response so far is that we're holding a job fair or the response is that we're going to draft our least senior para Educators and we're going to send them over to Hollingsworth or Cascade and pull them from the buildings that already need their support and are already understaffed I can't even begin to wrap my head around how short-sighted and dismissive that response is you'd need more qualified employees and you needed them months ago Evergreen Public Schools used to be the school district locally not a school district but the school district parents were proud to send their kids here staff was proud to work here and we used to pay wages
092that exceeded of their local districts to get them here your staff used to recruit their friends and colleagues to leave their districts and come to ours because of that now you could consider yourself lucky if they don't tell them to run the other direction it doesn't take an expert to see that as wages have fallen behind more positions have opened and remained unfilled as employee pride has fallen so has employee recruitment and retention you have the ability to change this if it's important enough but it doesn't seem to be as of today you have a 160 different classified job postings on our website 160. if you're not going to do something to get competitive in the workforce this number is only going to increase let me give you an example Vancouver Public Schools sign-on bonus
093for a pair educator is currently 500. Portland Public Schools three thousand Evergreen come get beat up for two weeks go to Hollingsworth at Cascade then we'll think about sending you over to the school that you applied for and got a job thank you [Applause] all right next up is is it Carl legon waiter oh hi thank you for joining us hi I'm Carl lincolnwalter I'm a seventh year special education teacher um I used to love coming to work um I would teach students Reading Writing math they made progress I really took pride in the fact that I would exit students from my services every year um things are different now at image Elementary this year all of our special education Staffing is going to support students that need one-on-one and two on one um assistance
094just for their safety even with our full special education staff supporting these students we still have students injuring peers on a daily basis engineering staff multiple times a day all other students in special education are getting very little if any support um making the district vulnerable vulnerable to legal action from parents these students are across the board falling further and further behind many of them escalating their behaviors because of it math and reading are not even being considered at this point behaviors in and outside of special education are taking everything for our building staff to handle I want to be clear this is not due to any shortcomings due to our staff our building Administration certificated and classified staff are working as hard as they can our custodian is meeting with students on a daily
095basis we badly need more staff to be able to serve our students it is clear to me that this is not a problem at image but a district-wide problem at elementary schools my friends at Orchards Hollingsworth Crestline emerald and more are all saying the same things see for yourself I invite each one of you to take a tour at our school spend some time talking with the other special education staff in my building and any other special Elementary buildings I know that without major changes in support for special education in the next contract I will not be turning returning next year and frankly I'm not sure that I can be able to finish this year we need to replace structures that we lost with neighborhood schools roll out we need more support for our parent
096Educators we need to create a job that para Educators want to do and we're not getting beat up every day thank you thank you Carl next up is Kathy Emrick Oh Katie sorry about that happens all the time hi I also am a special education uh para at image I've worked for Evergreen Public Schools as a Paris since 2012. I took some time out from the district when my kids were small but last year I was so eager to return to eps I love being a para educator to be able to form relationships with students and see their progress is food for my soul it's what gets me out of bed in the morning um nobody who works in education is here for the money so there is a certain level of understanding that you're
097going to put in some time unpaid if you want to do the job well as a former SLC para I know that the hard things are the most rewarding so I was prepared for a difficult job when I started my special education para position at image this year what I wasn't prepared for was the impossibility of finding fulfillment in my job my team is technically fully staffed uh but the intensity of the needs of a handful of our students means that all my time is spent with one or two students keeping them physically safe there's very little learning that can happen uh because of how much time is spent managing behavior when a student's in crisis it's not safe to transition them elsewhere or to transition staff this means that schedules get interrupted because crisis
098happens dozens of times a day breaks are missed or taken late out of a caseload of 54 special education students only about six of them at our school have extreme behaviors or bathrooming needs and the rest have academic needs I have met with one of my academic students once this school year because if there are too few staff with our highest needs kids it's a safety issue if the academic kids aren't seen by staff it's not a safety issue the Staffing limitations have put us in a position where it's necessary to triage special education services this means that the overwhelming majority of students to which we are obligated to serve are not having their needs met and honestly neither are the highest needs kids how much learning can happen when staff haven't been provided with
099the basic training necessary to quickly and effectively de-escalate a student in crisis and therefore spend most of our time bodily blocking one student from harming himself or others as a parent I am deeply concerned about the well-being of our kids if my child had an IEP which she probably will at the end of this year and I found out his support staff had been unable to meet with him even once this school year I would be livid until the district makes the job desirable for applicants the Staffing crisis will continue and we will fail our kids the starting wage for a para is the same as a Target employee why on Earth would anyone seek out a job where they feel constantly demoralized and ineffective due to the lack of support and training over a
100retail position allow me to be crystal clear I do not blame the teachers I do not blame my co-workers or the building Administration the responsibility for change lies with the district sorry um if we're having trouble failing positions it's not because nobody wants to work anymore it's because the positions are not appealing the pay is in no way commensurate to the responsibilities or hazards of the job please fix it thank you all right that concludes our public comments for this evening at this time the uh we were going to call go into a recess where the board will sign papers uh we will reconvene for a board Workshop or we'll do a legislative update and then we will have an executive session where we review the performance of a Public Employee thank you [Music] foreign
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