001good evening everyone i'm going to go ahead and call our board meeting tonight at 5 30. if i could have everybody please rise to say the pledge of allegiance i pledge one allegiance under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay director perkins is going to go ahead and read the land acknowledgement evergreen public schools resides on the traditional lands of the chinookan peoples and the khalitz tribe they have lived on and cared for this land and its waterways 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 and superintendent boyd yes we want to start this tonight's meeting by acknowledging the horrible tragedy that occurred today at
002texas in texas at robb elementary school our thoughts are with the families and of the 18 students and three adults who were killed in a senseless act of violence families send their children to school with the expectations that they are safe it's heartbreaking when students don't return home to our students staff and community we know that these events can evoke strong emotions we encourage people to reach out to family friends staff members and other trained professionals to get the support needed and collectively we need to do better we need to find a way to make sure this does not keep happening in our schools and we can assure folks that our staff our teachers our principals our counselors will be ready to support students as they enter our schoolhouses tomorrow thank you thank you john
003next on the agenda is to adopt tonight's agenda entertain a motion i move for adoption of the agenda as presented a second all right it's been moved and adopted all those in favor any opposed all right moving forward tonight we have special special recognition our evergreen awards and i believe janae gomes is going to go ahead and present those tonight thank you janae good evening thank you for having me this evening as our evergreen awards it's our final one for the school year there are three categories we have a group this evening certificated and classified we have we're going to start with our group senior director of facility scott eppinger is going to come up and he will introduce and talk about that central receiving and distribution for those employees and we'll have them come
004in as well thank you janae good evening members of the board and superintendent boyd it's uh honored to be here not only with you but also with this team behind me here i'd like to introduce you to our team these are the receivers and the drivers from central receiving so john melvin nicholson josh campbell dwayne morgan shannon doll and kelly king and so along with them if you there's one two three four five here we have uh vern gager who's out this uh on vacation this week and we have um nathan hoyt who's couldn't be here tonight so that's seven people we have a central receiving secretary and a central receiving lead what's impressive about these folks is these are the folks that take care of 42 buildings in our district so on a day-to-day
005basis they're out in the buildings providing supplies the different things that support our not only our buildings but our staff and most importantly our students and besides uh supporting the buildings on a daily daily basis they've been instrumental in supporting the bond work that's gone on the last uh several years seems like quite a few years but last several years and very instrumental in getting things out to those buildings in a timely manner and they've been very instrumental in providing our ppe and kova supplies to our buildings to keep our students and staff safe so like i said it's an honor to be here with them and for them to receive this award there's a lot of unsung heroes in our district this is one group of them and i'm just very appreciative of the
006work that they do i'd also like to recognize subukovic goes to wave sue appreciate her her taking the time and her leadership at central receiving as our lead in taking the time to to nominate nominate this fine group of people and acknowledge their efforts so thank you and thank each of you [Applause] thank you all thank you for celebrating the group our uh next group is going to be classified um celebration and we are asking lauren bradley who's the principal of endeavor and angelina everton as the associate principal and they are going to recognize our classified recipient good evening how is everybody this evening thank you for inviting us to introduce adriana ramirez reyes to you miss adriana as we lovingly call her is our ell paraprofessional who does so much more than what her
007job description reads a big part of her job is translating for teachers admin parents and students she does it with skill precision compassion and so much more i'm going to move this a little bit she does it uh because she always translates for us we would like to honor miss adriana with presenting in spanish for which is in her native language as well as english our associate principal angelina yelverton will read in spanish the letter that arizo rabbanian wrote when she nominated miss adriana ramirez reyes for this prestigious root award when she is done i will read it in english as well thank you adriana is academics endeavor adriana [Applause] i'm going to read it now in english and translate it just like you always translate for us adriana is a great member of our
008ell team here at endeavour elementary school she constantly shows care and support for our students and their families she doesn't mind sharing her lunch time with them listening to what they want to share or staying past her scheduled time to help a family in need she is also a great role model to our students by always being positive and professional sometimes i think she is like a second mom to our little ones the way that she interacts with them shows how much she cares for them she wants them to do the right thing and really tries hard to teach them not only academics but also how they can be great human beings in the future we are so fortunate that we have an educator like adriana here at endeavor she is not afraid to advocate
009for students and help them use their voice for those reasons i think she deserves an award to show her that we see her hard work i wish every child could have a miss adriana at our school at their school on behalf of evergreen school district and home of the grizzlies we are proud to present the classified evergreen award for spring 2022 to adriana ramirez reyes congratulations [Applause] congratulations our final one this evening is certificated from union high school and griffin principal griffin payton is going to be presenting good evening board of directors superintendent boyd and our community members my name is griffin payton and i'm the principal at union high school and i am very honored and just thrilled to be here with shayla pierce who is has been nominated as receiving the evereen award
010as a certificated employee so i prepared a few words to say in regards to shayla and just how grateful we are for her so i just wanted to start by saying thank you and talk about why i have nominated you for this award so on paper shayla is is our slc teacher on my staffing sheet that's what it says it's working in our structured learning classroom and that's a role that provides students in the special education program with a focus on social and behavioral needs collaborative problem solving and positive behavioral supports and that's how shayla appears on my staffing sheet and our master schedule but she's so much more than that and it's really difficult to really capture how much we appreciate her but i'm going to try first and foremost shayla is a champion
011for her students there's nothing that will get in the way of her students being successful as long as she has anything to say or do about that she is the absolute perfect blend of just tenacity and empathy for her students and i can't think of anybody more suited to help the students that shayla has the opportunity to serve at union high school shayla is very active she is always on the move you're going to have a difficult time finding her in one specific location because she is just out and about always supporting her students and ensuring that they have what they need reminding them the skills and the abilities that they possess that they can do this and and showing the care and compassion that's really necessary for all of us to do our job
012and for her students to be successful when i think about how challenging the last couple of years have been with remote learning and everything shayla was actively just trying to figure out whatever she could do to best serve her students knowing that that change in structure would be really difficult for them and she was the first to constantly say what can i do how can i get my students in here how can i support my kids and was really relentless in that pursuit her thoughts are always centered on getting students the support that they need and the structure that they'd grown accustomed to and the thing that i really appreciate about shayla is that she doesn't see problems she sees opportunities whether that's with the students or at our school on campus you can always
013count on shayla carrying three things a radio which is an absolute must and necessity for her a smile as you can see right here and a tremendous heart for kids which is probably the thing that we think about the most when we think about shayla um shayla we're really lucky to have you as a staff member here at union high school and really fortunate that you're a member of the evergreen school district and on behalf of union and everyone here in evergreen i just want to say thank you for being a titan and for supporting our students and just i'm glad that your family can be here to be a part of that celebration so thank you thank you so much thank you okay next on the agenda is the board consent agenda and take
014a motion i move adoption of the board consent agendas presented second second all those in favor aye new post next is the superintendent's consent agenda entertainment i move for approval of the consent agenda as presented seconded all those in favor bye any opposed right next is a superintendent's report great i'll be brief just a couple of things for the board remember to review the 2022 graduating senior list to identify any students you want to present a diploma cover to and that's in your friday bulletin from last week we'll put it in again next week just a reminder also that our board leadership coaching is beginning and so if you've had the opportunity had the opportunity to look at the email that was sent related to sending out information so that people can do some rating
015360 rating of you so that's something to pay attention i have not done mine yet but it's on my list to do also there's been a lot of questions about budget enrollment from the board and others and including myself and so on our last board update i did provide some information for you and we're happy to do a more in-depth report on that if you choose as a future topic but you can so you can see that we'll be in um kind of a consistent declining enrollment uh for the foreseeable future based on a very simple uh way of calculating it so i'd encourage you to look at that and we'll have more conversations coming about that also strategic planning i've met with consultant dr tammy campbell to discuss her serving to support us to
016actualize and implement our plan and so i'm in the process of working with our communications team to begin putting the plan into a professional learning professional format that we can proudly bring to the board in the near future and then in addition i'm consulting with clarissa and rebecca to ensure that the plan we roll out stays true to the work of the planning committee and is responsive to the community feedback actionable and has equity red threaded throughout it in our plan as well and with that i think that's the end of my report for you today thank you okay we have a few items on the agenda for action first is the essential health 9 through 12. so this was presented at the last meeting for the first reading and approval to move forward to
017the second there have not been any comments or questions since that last meeting and unless we have any right now i like to entertain a motion to approve the curriculum um essential health 9 through 12 for adoption i move approval of the essential health 9 through 12 was presented all those in favor aye any opposed all right thank you next is the ap biology second reading again this was presented for first reading at the last board meeting and moved forward for second there haven't been any comments or questions since the last board meeting so unless there are some from the board i'd like to entertain a motion or i can entertain a motion for approval of the curriculum ap biology for adoption i moved for adoption of ap biology second all those in favor aye
018any opposed all right we have that adopted awesome wonderful moving right along go right through all these okay next on the agenda is ap physics one in two algebra based again presented first reading proof to forward for second there have been no comments or questions since the last meeting unless there are some now i entertain a motion to approve the curriculum recommendation ap physics 102 algebra based the move adoption of ap physics 1 and ap physics 2 is presented to the board second all those in favor aye any opposed okay ap physics 1 and 2 algebra is approved next is the ap physics with calculus i move for adoption of ap physics with calculus seconded all those in favor aye any opposed okay and last on the list is the inclusive comprehensive sexual health education
019second reading i'm i move for adoption of inclusive comprehensive sexual health education secondly all those in favor any opposed okay we are approved thank you next is our good news report and i believe that craig is going to present that for us i didn't miss anything right okay perfect um i have to tilt this down because of my height my uh vertically challenged uh thank you as always enjoy sharing the good news with you and we had a ton on this report and i'm going to start with some of the events that we have had at schools it's been great to see more and more events in person events with our students being able to get unique education experience both in the schools and outside the schools image elementary school held a uh a very
020cool science night but it just wasn't for the students families could come too and they had what they called a mad science group which is a good thing it's an enrichment services company that specializes in delivering educational entertaining science experiences for the children so that was a wonderful experience we had it's always great when our students get to go out in nature it's also great when they get to beautify their own campus and that's a pioneer elementary school they work with the city of vancouver urban forestry team to plant trees around pioneer elementary school so not only did they get learned learn about trees and what it takes to plant them correctly but they'll be able to come back in years from now and see these trees and how they've helped beautify their school campus
021this time of year uh when the weather is great our fun runs are awesome and when it's not so great they're still awesome but we've had a lot of fun runs they're called different things at different places riverview had some showers but as you can see it didn't stop the kids from really getting after it and uh it's great to see the first lap they're really really fast and then by the third lap it's it's no longer a run but it's still fun uh burnt bridge creek is another one of our schools did uh something uh similar um and you could see they were pretty serious at the start field trips which of course uh always want to mention that these are supported by levy dollars so uh thank everyone who supported our our levy
022silverstar elementary school went to the water resources center um this was a second graders uh with their principal on a field trip and they had they got basically it was a day to be a botanist and they explored the gardens and they learned about not just the the plants in the garden but the insects that live alongside the plant life and i know some of you up here got to experience the children's culture parade was back in person after a hiatus which is also just a wonderful event our schools along with vancouver public schools returned for this parade and superintendent boyd was there along with board member rob perkins and board member victoria bradford and and the weather did not look good the day before but then it ended up being just just okay just
023perfect for this wonderful event i wanted to go down and we had cinco de mayo this month and pioneer elementary school celebrated cinco de mayo they had a all students assembly and it included learning about mexican culture and also some really wonderful music and not just great music but learning about how that music connects to the culture in mexico and about the different instruments and what they were called and how uh they connected to mexican culture and then uh i i was i'm sharing this story that i got to do that i was very happy to be able to do and york elementary school held their first ever kiss your brain day and what this is is a celebration of the brain and everything that it does for us and the entire school from k
024to fifth grade had activities and lessons built around the brain and this was inspired by a staff member at york that was recently unfortunately diagnosed with brain cancer and one of the things that she shares on our own social media and with other staff members is to remember to kiss your brain to remember how important our brain is and to celebrate it and all that it does so i know superintendent boyd was able to go there on that day and experience it and staff members all had t-shirts made up for this and students wore gray because gray is aligned with maya's brain awareness brain cancer awareness month so and this won't be uh just a one uh year event this is going to be part of the york culture going forward so really a great
025way to celebrate a staff member um it was a birthday gift for her we actually did this that day happened before her birthday on may 12th and we held the story in the share until after her birthday so that they could kind of surprise her with it and uh she mentioned how much it meant to her and that she felt a lot of love so that was uh that was nice and then finally i think julie had mentioned it last time being able to see the pictures of all of our staff as we celebrated teacher appreciation week we did make sure to get out to every single one of our schools and celebrate our teachers at those schools so um well-deserved uh celebrations of what our fantastic teachers do every day so thank you very
026much thank you craig [Applause] okay next on the agenda is our equity and inclusion update and i believe jamila is going to give us this update this evening once craig gets unattached i think she's bringing up her own computer so i'm not helping you know thank you yeah of course i can't see that so i'm gonna actually it's okay i got it thank you all right is this this stays up pierce ii yeah it does okay um good evening hopefully everyone is well tonight thanks for having me here today um am i connected all right so i'm actually gonna just keep my notes up here in front of me oh you know what no i didn't realize it it's going to duplicate exactly as it's can i extend the screen so it's i keep something
027separate on mine is that possible thank you um so i'll just start off by saying good afternoon or i guess good evening i'm jameela singleton um and for the community that's listening i'm in here tonight for clarissa just presenting an update on our equity inclusion work and i will also say i'm here tonight really representing the work of our equity advancement specialists so ashley cooper charlotte latte there you go thank you um shannon shambao and carissa heresy and so yeah thank you [Applause] and so in doing so um i just want to make sure that i really honor that work comprehensively and so thanks for being patient with me as i get myself organized here and [Music] there we go thank you okay so um so first i share this mantra with you and this
028is a mantra that it's something that we created in the teaching learning and equity space it's a couple dozen specialists that have been meeting over the last couple months to really talk about what's the future of this department and our work together so this is across five teams this is federal programs special services the equity inclusion team curriculum instruction and our multilingual learners team and so we came together and we really defined this as a way for us all to stay connected and grounded and what really matters for all of us and so when i think about this i want to just name that this represents what we hope for all of our students and it's why all of us come to work every day because we're really trying to ensure that we create a
029sense of belonging and a strong inclusive environment and that each of our students experiences success i want a name that i have lost a bit of hope um in the last month or so as you can imagine i think that losing and experiencing these role reductions for these incredible leaders who have been working a crisis system has been devastating and it's taken me a bit to gather myself because my biggest job here has been to clear the path for them to do their work because they're pretty genius and so here's a little bit about what that work looks like so we have multi-tiered systems of support which i think we've talked a bit about from the teaching and learning updates and that we're working to figure out what does it look like to create multi-tiered
030systems of support so that circle has the five components so we have evidence-based practices up at the top continuum of support family student community engagement database decision making and team driven leadership and those blue items are areas that we've been working this year to trial so for example we have student affinity groups happening and heritage month celebrations charlotte latte has been leading that unfortunately yeah thank you [Applause] unfortunately the leadership around that now is ending and it's unclear how we're going to continue with that also we have a whole set of database decision making areas so this is how we leverage our equity lens we're looking at student survey data we're looking at data analysis protocols and really trying to keep students at the center of our decision making and that is currently ending in
031the way that we have been envisioning it in addition to that we've had a whole set of paraeducator pd's that we've been doing to help make sure that all of our staff classified and certificated are developing a skill to support our students around courageous the work around centering and isolating race and being able to support students ashley cooper has been driving that and again so i just want to show you a little bit of like the the impact um with some specificity and then finally all of our equity team goes across schools to work on team driven shared decision making and so we're trying to figure out how we move forward trying to fill these gaps because we still need to be able to have an equity focused multi-tiered systems of support and so i
032want to ask you for one thing tonight before we move much forward i want you to think about what it looks like to restore and rebuild i want you to really think about how we're going to address this because we do still need to have these multi-tiered systems of support to get to belonging for all and success for each so let's get grounded real quick in a little snapshot and i think it's just important moving forward if we're going to do active updates that we stay centered in some data equity is about outcomes and we want to make sure that we address the disproportionality so a couple things i'll point out you can see attendance kind of over in the right this is just general attendance we're seeing our fifth grade snapshot we see about
03382 percent of our fifth graders are at about 82 percent where they have uh two absences per month or fewer than two absences we see with our academic data so we've got uh 20 of our fifth graders meeting standards in ela and s back and seven percent meeting standard in math with i ready which is our kind of progress monitoring tool that we use to check how students are doing along the way we can see that our white students um we have got uh so i think 20 yeah 14 of them let's just look at math for example so fourteen percent are meeting or sorry fourteen percent or three grade levels or more behind double that for our black students so i'm naming this just to say let's look at a quick snapshot let's get
034grounded in a fifth grade perspective this is going to be our class of 2029 so seven years from now once we make it through this moment once we stare ourselves forward we want to think about what kind of outcomes do we want to be true for these students after this moment and how are we going to get there so a little future framing on that there's a little bit just to kind of remind us about crp so i want to name that crp really helps make sure we stay grounded in relationships and make sure that we are conscious of our bias that we're conscious of our negative stereotypes that we bring into the profession and that really work to disrupt that we also make sure that in the work around crp we're pursuing the learning
035partnership so what this looks like after we're able to get in a closer relationship with kids like how we support students to stay in class that we're not pushing them out of class with exclusionary discipline and that eventually we're able to get to a place of stronger achievement and so the whole intention here with crp is that we're able to through more conscious relationships stronger learning partnerships where there's a strong alliance that we get to a place where we can unlock the intellectual capacity of all of our kids but particularly are historically marginalized there's some text here with the research that shows evidence of that i'm happy to share this with you if you're interested there but i just want to continue to reground this and like how we're trying to take that approach in
036this work and so thinking about the class of 2029 right they are going to be facing a whole set of realities things that we've probably been dealing with in our society possibly new problems that we haven't even imagined yet and so we want to get to a place with our students and this is what the work of crp or culturally responsive teaching is pursuing is that we're getting to a place where we move from dependent learners who are unsure how to tackle tasks require lots of scaffolding to independent learners who can really get into the work have the cognitive strategies feel the sense of confidence not have the sense of stereotype threat experiencing microaggressions in class where they can really be in class learning and growing and being successful so there's three learning questions i
037want to name here um and this is something that i've been trying to think about like how we move forward um and how we build capacity to deal with this reality of we saw the student snapshot of our fifth graders as one snapshot in the system and how we build the capacity to deal with that and so i'm put these questions in front of us as a way to think about this you might see some familiar language hopefully you recognize it so we've got operational expectation around equity so the first question is what tools and plans can school buildings generate that support school improvement plans that foster create and support learning environments where teachers staff and administrators are consciously working to counter and eliminate the impacts of racism discrimination trauma bias and unconscious bias in
038their interactions with students and their decisions which directly impact students so we see elements of that database decision making in there we see elements of how we do this in a more conscious way and all of this is connected to the school improvement process and you can probably see that in that category and the structure is in equity teams so that's one possibility the second is that we are better leveraging our equity lens so this goes to the operational expectations equity point 3 and 0.5 so how do we identify opportunities and resources and supports for our students while considering factors such as race ethnicity culture ability gender identity or expression sexual orientation religion national origin native language housing status or level of affluence so what are we doing to identify the actual supports at the
039student level so if you think about that circle it's like all those evidence-based practices and the continuum of supports and how do we use the equity lens to do that and then the second question in that category is how do we remove the barriers that we're identifying in the student experience so the third section here is our protocol so that's the courageous conversations about race protocol so how do we or sorry how do the effective use of this courageous conversations about race tools such as the agreements the compass and the conditions permit and support robust conversations around controversies among and between staff members and categories and students so there are really three prongs to this right where if we're going to move forward we have to think about how we're going to build equity teams
040we need to think about how we're going to use the equity lens in the way that we're producing our supports and resources for for our students and how we're identifying the barriers that are getting in the way of their success with our curriculum with our instruction with all of our programs across our system and then finally how we make sure that there's more capacity in our system to use the ccr tools so that we're having more in-depth conversations and so in order for us to move this forward we have to have a really intensive leadership development model in this district so there's three phases of this the first phase is that we're building an equity team plc so we need to have a monthly plc where a leader is identified in each school and in
041each school they're able to go through something called the equity transformation cycle and through that cycle we're able to use that data to help disrupt the bias that's present and some of the decision making in that building the second phase is that we're having a summer intensive so we would like to host a five-day half-day summer intensive experience where admin and teachers and this includes both people in building as well as folks in asc who can opt in for a daily intensive to really learn how to put the equity lens into application through case studies examples tools and really practice based learning and then the third is a cohort series we've identified i want to say like 10 role groups everything from athletic directors to assistant principals and all of those role specific cohorts will
042engage in varied levels of comprehension or application or analysis development so they'll have like a beginning or an intermediate experience but those are role specific cohorts where they'll meet so that they can develop that capacity it feels pretty essential that we have capacity builders across our system so this is a decentralized approach where we can really make sure that we're living towards this aspiration of getting to belonging for all and success for each so i'll leave us with this i love this quote it's out of ready for rigor or sorry out of culturally responsive teaching um this is rita pearson she also has a ted talk if you're interested in seeing her talk about what it looks like but every child deserves a champion an adult who will never give up on them who understands
043the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be i think that the work that we're doing here in this district obviously is tough work we all signed up to be educators and it's not an easy task and at the same time there's a way to educate students where we're a champion for them and i really hope that we can create a system where we have the capacity to really insist that students from all backgrounds racial backgrounds gender identity backgrounds sexuality homeless or in transition or not but we insist excellence from all of our students and that we really support them to get there and so in order to do that we need to do some more work to build a capacity to get there and so um i just want
044to bring us back to this that this is really something that teaching learning equity feels committed to um and i also want to bring us back to this reality that we've got to make some tough choices today and ongoing from here about what we're going to do to make sure that we don't just leave these gaps because if we leave these gaps kids will be in the gap so any questions thank you i am interested in the research please go ahead and email it to me whenever you can i will i would i would like to have a copy of of this yeah please thank you yeah appreciate your work on this i know it wasn't easy so thank you sure all right thank you okay next on the agenda is comments by the school
045board however this evening we will be skipping through comments by the school board and moving on to provide more time for citizen comments so the next item on the agenda is our future agenda items does anybody have anything nope okay i don't have anything to add but did want to make a quick note that we are going to put a hold on our instructional applications at the moment and we'll be recontacting the applicants we're going to actually revamp that application a little bit more and just need to have another question answered so we will be in touch on those that's the imc yes the imc the other group yeah applications yes okay so next is our citizens comments so any citizen wishing to address the board may do so during this designated time as long
046as the comments are not personnel related or about an individual employee or student and are not legal in nature each speaker will be allowed 33 minutes to address the board comments are to be directed to the board of directors as a whole and may not be addressed to any individual member of the board the administrative staff or the audience a reminder bell will ring when you are 30 sec when you have 30 seconds left on your time we have a lot of people signed up tonight so we just want to make sure that everybody is respectful of that three minutes and so we will be just ringing a bell to let you know when your time is almost up because we realize not everybody's looking at the time so with that we will begin first
047on the list and i will apologize to everybody in advance if i mess up your name it is not on purpose so please forgive me first is tiffany rendau and i believe she's online okay hold on one second all right am i am i good to go you're on tiffany thank you great thank you uh good evening board members my name is tiffany riendo and i'm the instructional coach at mountview high school and a member of the equity advisory committee and i'm co-leader of the white affinity group which i'd like to extend each of you who identify as white and invitation to attend our june 7th meeting the last board meeting i came before you to plead for you to reinstate our equity advancement specialists because our data so clearly shows a need for them
048during that first three minutes i made assumptions that you and everyone who heard this speech would know some things about my core beliefs upon reflection i'm not sure that was clear and today i'd like to continue to ask for the reinstatement of equity advancement specialists and communicate clearly the values i hold when i spoke about particular predictable outcomes at mbhs in areas like discipline achievement ap enrollment and belonging i neglected to elevate the work of our teachers at mountain view who are already doing so much to ensure all kids are successful i'm honored to support my colleagues in work that started before me and will continue after me i believe every adult at mountain view cares deeply for children all kids the ones who look like them and sound like them and share their interests
049and the ones that don't i believe many teachers in mountain view have invested hours of time outside their contract to learn and implement curriculum that's culture responsive i believe teachers in the last few years have adopted equitable grading practices in their rooms i believe teachers are engaging wholeheartedly in best practices like co-teaching and inclusion and sheltered instruction and restorative practices and that staff at mountain view have been out of their way to create welcoming spaces for for students and i have the honor of working with those amazing people from the admin certificated staff to the classified staff our teachers wrote belief letters last august and every single one talks about caring for kids and believing in all students ability to learn and be successful we're working our tails off to close achievement in opportunity gaps
050we're listening to kids and we're adapting instruction and yet predictable outcomes still exist at mountain view even when my teachers are working at full capacity and with full hearts doing everything they know how to do our data shows disparities students of color are still not given enough to overcome the educational barriers in front of them and the data is clear it isn't enough for our school board to ask teachers to end the predictability of outcome outcomes by demographic group we need systems change and system support to do this work systemic inequality which is the cause of the data i shared last time isn't solved by teachers in their rooms by themselves and they can't do it alone they already care and they already work and they're all and it and if they already work hard
051and we still haven't fixed it the disparity and outcomes i shared last time are systemic issues that can't be fixed without systemic support and that support is coming from our equity advancement specialists we need them because teacher burnout is at an all-time high and we're asking teachers to do all the work without any supports we need a systemic fix for a systemic problem and we need the resources the coaching and the student voice collection the data examination and the solution expertise that these employees bring us we need them to use equity lens to inspect systems level work like master schedules course catalogs forecasting discipline and ntss systems meet them in school supporting teachers and the work they're already engaged in giving teachers and coaches tools curriculum resources and coaching opportunities to remove barriers that still
052exist in classrooms we're in this work together but we need some experts we need folks who have the job of searching for and finding the barriers in our big school systems and in our smaller working spaces like classrooms and iss rooms just to speak personally because i am white like most of ups staff i've missed a lot of barriers in my time both as a teacher and coach i haven't served students of color because i didn't have the resources and experts helping me see new perspectives i need carissa and other specialists asking the right questions bring the right data and help me see what i'm blind to it's vital to my work and it's titled all our work thank you tiffany [Applause] okay next on the list is sierra gerber no sierra gerber nope okay
053reese forbes laurie you need okay thank you um good evening my name is rhys forbes and i'm a non-binary and autistic student in the evergreen in evergreen public schools i'm here because it has come to my and other students attention that the equity and inclusion department has recently had its employment cut down to a shockingly low number of people our concern is that making cuts in this department the well-being and safety of marginalized students and staff in the district such as myself will be endangered as well as the intentions and interests of the people in charge of this decision in our opinion the employment cuts in the equity and inclusion department were at best an unintended consequence of school policy that shows the district's disregard for the safety of marginalized students and at worst an
054intentional decision by people who don't want to face the consequences for the discriminatory actions under the guise of budget cuts but even so why do we need the equity department discrimination in the district can't be that bad and people won't be shielded from discrimination their whole lives school is supposed to prepare for the real world and people are discriminatory well recently a friend of mine was a victim of an anti-lgbtq bigotry and harassment by another student the most punishment that the student got was a two-week suspension from school their suspension has passed and they are now back in school the student showed no sign of remorse for their actions and will likely continue to discriminate against and harass queer students in their school as for me i had to fight my way through through the
055year to get permission to use the visitor bathrooms at my school as opposed to the bathroom in the nurse's office which is the only student accessible gender-neutral bathroom in the school while this is better than using the bathroom and nurse's office i still have to walk up and down up to three flights of stairs just to use the restroom comfortably while my sister and her classmates have gendered bathrooms on every floor and yes discrimination is a real thing in the real world but telling marginalized people to get used to it because it's that's just the way things are isn't going to help people especially students who are preparing to live in the world on their own need to know that you need to advocate for yourself against discrimination school should be a place to learn
056not to feel unsafe i've collected over six page full pages of signatures from students across the district who think the defending of the equity department puts marginalized students and staff in danger this decision won't go unnoticed by the students of evergreen public schools for all the talk of we care about student voices that i've heard from the district i had no idea that i could do what i'm doing now before my mom told me thank you the fact that students aren't told that they can speak up or how makes me think that the district doesn't actually care about the concerns of students i think i speak for all of the students in the district when i say that the district seems to have a serious disregard for the well-being safety and concerns of students whether
057intentional or not this is an attack on the diversity of students and staff in our schools we ask for the equity department to be reinstated and to be protected from budget cuts in future because and if only for selfish reasons because when the well-being of students goes up so do their grades and so does your funding thank you for your time thank you [Applause] john i thought i heard the student say um rhys right yeah i thought i heard her say that she had signatures from students do we have that document from i'm sorry i i apologize i i am so sorry they um then i'll try to do better if you could get that document to us that would be nice thank you for the correction thank you rob all right next is adam
058aguilera good evening evergreen school board and superintendent i first want to acknowledge today the families that are grieving in texas right now of an 18 year old high school student who went to a neighboring elementary and shot and killed over a dozen elementary students and teachers as well right after we just experienced a mass shooting again in buffalo new york where an 18 year old who had threatened their high school the year before when they were a senior in high school intentionally shot and killed 10 black americans at a grocery store more than ever we have a need for equity in our schools and what has been particularly disturbing about this pattern of events of youth in our high schools that are engaging in this mass violence is that i too have experienced our school
059where i teach as a middle school language arts teacher that my school was threatened this year that i've had two two students removed from my classroom this year for horrific slurs that they had perpetuated against myself as an educator and in our classroom communities in our school building right here in evergreen we have students um art and staff who do not feel safe on campuses and i think the student who just spoke eloquently spoke to the reality of what is happening right now in our schools as we have come back to be in in-person instruction during the pandemic we cannot cut our equity advancement specialists we can't it is a liability to the school district what is happening right now all over this country our students and our staff are at risk a variety of
060different factors and what i was so impressed in tonight's equity update presentation was the work that had been done over this past year and then to see it say ending ending ending ending because the school district has decided that they are not going to fund this priority when the funds are there because there is hp 1590 that was passed by the legislature this year that provides 50 percent of student enrollment lost to enrollment decline there is unspent esser funds in this school district that can be applied towards um restoring these positions there's retirement and leaves that continue to happen throughout the days ahead that will allow the district to save money to keep the provisional educators and staffing that we have and there is also still reserve funds that can be applied in this manner
061as well for the very small balance that is left to make sure that our students and staff are being served by highly qualified highly trained educators who serve in these equity advancement specialists please reconsider your decision in this matter [Applause] okay next on the list is keisha brown my name is kasia brown thank you i am the parent of two evergreen students ages eight and ten once at soccer i am an employee of 14 years and i have taught first fourth third and now seventh grades i've spoken to you several times before most recently just a couple of weeks ago that was a frustrating meeting after which i had to try to explain to my daughter what we had just watched charlotte called it racism in the car on the way home i told my
062daughter this is what white supremacy in an organization looks like it looks like the tears of a woman who has sat on this board for much longer than i have been teaching it looks like the cool calm faces of a school board that has come to think that they know best only to find themselves embroiled in one catastrophe after another it sounds like the white leaders using polity to further their own agendas making deals behind closed doors and then claiming that this is just the way it is and there's nothing that we can do i asked at the last meeting how many jobs could be saved if the district offered job sharing if we are leaving no stones unturned if we're doing everything we can then surely someone ran the numbers i did a little
063homework myself and i found in our cba that job sharing is specifically identified as an option for evergreen employees page 47 job sharing for the purpose of this agreement job sharing shall mean the occupation of a single staff position by two individuals with each assignment being half time the district may grant requests to job share the district shall establish the daily job schedule for the job sharing team the district may terminate job sharing arrangements at any time after completion of each year what an amazing opportunity that would have been for me after some of the hardest years of my career and i would venture i am not alone in that sentiment i love teaching and i am a better teacher when i take care of myself and i need time and space to do that
064i have two young children at home who need me to have some patience and empathy left at the end of the day and i know enough about mental health self-care and working with trauma to know that i have limits that need to be respected unfortunately i have no more faith in this board i am not here to ask for your support in convincing our district leaders to make the right or even better decisions instead i am here to challenge you as i believe a good challenge can be both inspiring and motivational so here's my challenge to each of you who have been here for more than a year resign step down and let our community find its new leaders it is time please resign [Applause] next on the list is charlotte letray i think i
065said that wrong latte and i know i said your last name wrong i apologize okay stylon are in there charlotte latte she her hers my dad is from ghana in in ghana lattes like smith or johnson um i know we spoke a few weeks ago and there are some questions that haven't been answered and i feel like i don't know that there's anything that i really could say like i'm not sure whose mind needs to be swayed one way or another you know like it i feel like we're all on the same page about how essential our work has been um there's a question i think that our department has asked since we started even before the school year started and that's how are the children we've asked that question all year because we prioritize
066the wellness of our children and we recognize the wellness of our children is the wellness of our community and we can tell you the children are not well [Music] i think you've heard it from students you've heard it from staff you've heard it from parents it's been an extremely trying year we've seen bullying from students that have never had problems getting along with other students we've seen an increase in discipline so many signs from our students that they're not well and i think our team has particularly been very responsive because we are the liaison between the schools and the district we are the tosas the teachers that are going to the schools to make sure the staff are well to make sure that the students needs are met to inquire about what the needs are
067we could tell you you know what what the students need but it's insulting that we haven't been asked that we it was decided that our jobs aren't essential without even bothering to try to understand what our jobs are and like how student-centered student-driven our jobs are our why is so clear i think it's clearer naturally than any other department because it's diversity equity and inclusion i read in the colombian that district leaders will be meeting with evergreen association to talk about how to ensure future retainment of educators of color and i think that's great but i also think there's a choice that needs to be made that you can make and it doesn't have to be this there's three of us that are being cut i'm pretty sure we paid more from the superintendent out
068of his contract than the three of us teachers salaries so that's a choice we're asking you to make it thank you [Applause] next is joanne shepard hello good evening hi to everybody in the back hello hello um i am an educator who lives on this side of the river but i work in portland public schools actually i'm a first grade teacher i've been an employee of pps for about seven years now i am also the luckiest lady in the world because i am charlotte latte's fiance um and [Applause] um and when she got hired in evergreen i was so jealous because i've had my eye on evergreen public schools y'all got nice buildings y'all got new buildings the salary is so good if i worked here today i would be making ten thousand dollars more
069than i do right now i have i have been like mentally preparing i'm like all right charlotte's here we live here it's my time it's my time to come over to evergreen right like i want to be here i want to be invested in this community but as i have gotten more involved and more invested and learned more i'm worried that my values don't line up with evergreen's values i care strongly and deeply about racial justice and this year i became a racial justice institute fellow which is a program through the oregon department of education and you know it every month i go to these meetings we learn about racial justice we have plans we implement them in our schools and it's an amazing program and i i would be giving that up if i
070came here and i would also be knowingly walking into a district that says they believe in equity but the actions don't line up with that and i just i for myself i just can't do that i just can't willingly sign up to be here even though i'd make more money even though the schools are nicer even though you have more supports for your students than pps does in a lot of ways so i'm going to still make the commute across the river and i hope to someday be here i really do um but right now i cannot give up my values to be here and i would just like to say also in closing i know we're not supposed to speak to the individuals but ma'am god bless you i hope you are well and
071i hope you have community thank you [Applause] next is christy peake hi i'm christy peek teacher librarian at mill plain elementary we at schools are always told we make all of our decisions in the best interest of kids until we don't after bus routes lunchroom availability standardized testing more testing budget constraints myriad other considerations that define the boundaries of where when and what we can do for kids finally we ask what would be in the best interest of students we know the best thing for students is and always has been the guidance connection and caring demands of highly qualified teachers now after the pandemic has disrupted their lives brought grief and trauma and separated students from in-person learning for some students that has been the most constant environment they know it is more important than
072it has ever been before and we realize that despite our best intentions and our best hope for our students these constraints are very real and many are out of your control but what is in your control is carefully discerning which budget line items are medicine and which are and making intentional decisions for what is truly in the best interest of students you must do and having educators in front of students is medicine and so again i'm here tonight to ask you to make decisions in the best interest of students thank you [Applause] excuse me next is jennifer bradley lori do we have a dinner for bradley online possibly okay hi this is jenny bradley can you hear me we can go ahead jenny oh great thank you um my name is jenny bradley i live
073on 30th in vancouver i'm an elementary school teacher and i'm speaking tonight to employ the board the superintendent the cfo and the financial decision makers to please closely and carefully re-examine our budget and propose budget cuts to prioritize funding that is more aligned with our stated values as a district and the community there's a saying don't tell me your values show me your budget and i will tell you your values the budget cuts particularly to the diversity equity and inclusion department do not reflect the values of the superintendent the the values that the superintendent evergreen public schools members of this board publicly profess in these meetings and interviews on our website and district documents and much more as others have noted although cuts must be made we understand that the money is there we need
074you our financial decision makers to prioritize it i ask that the financial decision makers many of whom are in the room and you are the ultimate decision makers on this matter you do have the power regarding these outcomes i ask that you seriously and sincerely re-examine the entire budget but particularly the proposed cuts to the diversity equity and inclusion department and i ask that you do that through eps's own equity lens which reads in part i won't read the whole thing to you but you can find it online uh but which reads in part uh describe proposed action desired outcomes results and connection to the eps equity vision which is to be a diverse and inclusive community of schools that provide each member with the opportunities access resources and supports they need to be successful
075what beliefs values and assumptions guide the topic that's being considered what information and data are you basing your decisions and actions on articulate how you have intentionally involved stakeholders who are also members of the communities affected by this policy program practice or decision is there stakeholder support or opposition to the proposal why explain how the proposed action expands opportunity for equity and social justice for marginalized communities who are the demographic groups affected how will each group be impacted and affected by the decision or action explain how proposed action addresses barriers to equitable outcomes how will you track the progress towards reducing disparities are there any potential unintended consequences for specific groups or populations and are there strategies in place to mitigate negative impacts if we examine these decisions and cuts through eps's own equity lens
076it's very clear that we need to do better and put the money where our mouths are and walk the walk and not just talk the talk and show our commitment to diversity and equity and inclusion in our budget and financial decisions not just empty words that are not supported by actions and substance please make budget cuts and decisions that reflect our values and prioritize safe equitable schools thank you [Applause] next is charity smith hi my name is charity this is my son adonis do you actually mind going up to the mic just so that our community online can hear you thank you adonis um he completed preschool today he's gonna start kindergarten at evergreen and we've wanted to propose a district a wine boundary redistribution to include our neighborhood i emailed you a powerpoint but
077i also got a visual so let me see if i can just show you you want help with it it's okay basically our neighborhood is here we're a small subdivision we have about 107 houses um i've got signatures from several of our neighbors this is our house and this is image and right now all of our kids from our neighborhood go to orchards which is down i'm sorry i'm really nervous um down past lowe's behind it's over two miles away um or 1.3 miles away so we just wanted to propose that the district line has changed sorry i'm so nervous um so he can go to image elementary with his friends from the neighborhood and ride the bus and yeah that's basically what we are suggesting image also just it's a new school we watched
078it be built we play there we've talked about him going getting ready for kindergarten and so yeah we can hear the kids playing when we're on our front porch and we would just love to go there thank you [Applause] next is stephen houston no i didn't plan that um this this might be easier hi my name's steve houston um thank you for letting me uh uh comment on here uh last year in august i retired and i was trying to find out uh what i was gonna do the rest of my life and i knew it was not going to go play golf but i had heard that the schools need help uh somehow whatever that is so i thought well maybe i'll go ahead and volunteer so i signed up to be a volunteer
079got vetted real excited and uh got a got a letter from um someone saying that you are now uh vetted for and i had to pick evergreen excuse me uh riverview uh mountain view and why east are all close to me so i said okay i'll pick those and i waited eagerly to hear from them saying how i could help didn't hear anything uh so then uh covet unfortunately the delta variant came in no volunteers okay fine we'll wait a little bit um then around november so i got a little frustrated and saying well maybe i ought to be a little bit more proactive so i went and knocked down riverview's doors and said yes here i am i'm vetted i'm i'm legitimate and uh anyway eventually january or so i hooked up with a
080second grade teacher and i go weekly i read them a story but more importantly they read to me and we've had a very good a wonderful relationship with that that's been fun i knocked on the door again i had a knock on the door for uh y east uh they asked me to be a emergency substitute teacher right away uh i'm no not exactly interested quite in that but anyway eventually i got hooked up with a sixth grade teacher and i go into two of her math classes my existence there is basically to help the students when they are doing fractions or you know adding decimals or whatever they're doing um she she runs a show it's been that's been very good very eye-opening too i also knocked on the door of the high school
081mountain view and they didn't know what to do with me um i am kind of an odd duck that way they eventually i got they have a they had an after-school program that i helped out with briefly but that ended because of poor student participation so i guess my point in really relaying my experiences with is that there doesn't seem to be any way that someone who doesn't have any children anymore in the school district and i can can assist in in helping in this i got a master's degree in statistics and i got a bachelor's in civil engineering i've been using stats and numbers all my adult life and so gee whiz folks i can help with this but again uh i don't want to bring up budgets and personnel i naively thought that
082you know there would be somebody the volunteer coordinator who would have you know here's the schools here's what we need to have and then they would hey can you come here and volunteer so um i don't know how you would solve this but something like this i may be a sample of size one okay i may be the only person like this but i would like to think there may be other folks out there who would want to do something to help and continue uh continuing at least keeping their brain going for as long as they can uh i've i've got this on a i don't know if i should send this to you on an email or something i don't know where so i uh i just give it to you okay fine anyway
083um i don't know if you have any questions or anything or thank you i'm done thank you for volunteering [Applause] okay next on the list is amy mitchett that one i'm afraid i messed up but i'm really sorry okay hi i'm kind of nervous sorry i've never done this before but um i got maggie the art teacher i got diana the social studies teacher and i got liz the counselor my name is amy macham the dean of students at covington middle school i wanna just say the reason why this guy didn't get any phone calls back i think because i work in a school everybody is so busy and doing all of the things in the world and so keep this in mind as i go on with this so the diversity equity and inclusion
084department reducing their their staff is a step in the wrong direction here's why we've gained so much momentum with combating it's obvious we have inequitable policies and practices and even more obvious our outcomes i can say this fully because i'm the dean of students and i'm i'm part of this and so some of the meaningful um and crucial action items that charlotte and the rest of the crew have helped us with at our particular school partnering regularly with admin to widen our lens of equity facilitating and administering covington's first ever black student union an affinity group for students who are black collaborating to create a sense of belonging through lessons that were taught to all of our students tier one fancy teacher lingo six week cycle providing professional development for teachers collecting feedback from staff
085to determine what's working what is not something that to go back to the guy that just went before me there's no way we would ever have the capability to do that as look at we're here we're here tonight we're we're mean well but we're really busy so we have not even scratched the surface this this is so new this this group this this department and and there's no way there's no way in the world that we can keep this level of support going without the staffing that currently exists this year and i i would say why not we need more you've heard from students you've heard from the family members you've heard from the community members it sounds like we need a lot of help and i'm sure you're all have your backs up against
086the wall with like decisions on budget i totally well i don't get it but i i can imagine i so i know you're not making these decisions so lightly but i'm i'm asking you guys all to reconsider figure out how to keep these positions available for our 25 000 students that attend evergreen public schools we need to get creative with our resources i don't i i can't imagine keeping going at the current pace that we're at this year with the work that we are doing with this department compared to what it'll be like next year it's just like it makes me want to cry so um [Music] yeah i hope that you can reconsider the decision that was made thank you [Applause] okay next on the list and i apologize in advance because i'm really
087afraid of this one camera hamblin i'm so sorry i think you said it right yeah uh good evening um my name is kimmer hamlin and i am an educator of the evergreen school district i have here gina she's a para educator for our school and i have jana here um to support um this is kind of i'm a little nervous um because i think when you speak up sometimes okay sometimes it doesn't feel good but um i must just go ahead and stand on it and just kind of am i messing it up okay so anyways i'm going to go ahead and read off what i have wrote down um i come here today as a black educator of the evergreen school district that supported the equity team movement as an educator it felt as
088if i was accepted and at that school with the school district i felt like you cared enough when there was this equity movement started what i've learned in my years of teaching here or at the school district the students when they saw me that seen students that looked like me they felt accepted um my classroom i wanted to change the narrative of what they thought of people of color that they don't have to have fear they're going to have to feel safe and i will say and i'm not trying to boast myself up but my classroom is one of the tight knitted classrooms and they all feel safe i can now change the color i cannot change the color of my skin and neither can those students that are in your school district so why
089eliminate an entire department that has the ability to support those that cannot protect themselves what i will say is clarissa showed up at a time of that was needed in my school that a student was denied a scholarship due to the fact of a certain teacher did not like them i fought to the i fought and when i tell you that student today is actually successful hairdresser just because she was old that okay so with the this department is needed everybody needs it it is needed i felt accepted um i do want to say one thing i was looking at quotes that kind of moved me um it was from martin luther king and it says our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter so i'm not being silent
090no more mm-hmm [Applause] that was the last person that was signed up i just want to say thank you to everyone who shared comments this evening and addressed the board and spoke up for your fellow co-workers and community members i know it's not always easy to stand in front of us and speak but thank you okay so it is 701 and we are going to go into a recess to sign documents and return for a workshop to discuss comprehensive school counseling programs transition plan have a legislative update followed by a closed session and an executive session to review the performance of a public employee employee expected to last approximately one hour that concludes this portion of tonight's meeting thank you for coming okay we're going to go ahead and bring the meeting back to order
091and begin our workshop and our first item is our comprehensive school counseling program transition plan thank you for joining us thank you thank you board my name is casey lyons i'm the coordinator of social emotional learning for our district um and i have here this document that i believe was shared with you on friday i did i added a little definition of what a comprehensive school counseling program is for our time together this evening basically there was sb 5030 requires that all school districts have a comprehensive school counseling program transition plan for next school year and ready to roll out the whole thing the following year so this document here it starts with the components of the transition plan and our desired goals for the end of next school year um and then it is
092followed by really a timeline of the activities that our counselors and social workers would be completing in order to have comprehensive school counseling programs in place and fully functioning moving forward with the 23-24 school year so i guess i'll ask for questions i can scroll through if you want um we do have supports we are working with asca which is basically the model the the company that or the organization the american school counselor association that has created this national model of comprehensive school counseling programs so we are getting their support we've had two full day trainings with them this year and we'll have four next year and then in between those four trainings i will be supporting our counselors and social workers creating all of these components as well these plans are connected to the
093school sips they use data to really identify groups of students who need more support and then they determine they create lesson plans whole group whole class small group and individual lesson plans to help them meet their goals and those goals are then still connected to the sip any questions from the board this is this is the report required by the statute yes okay well i remember supporting the bill yeah it's a very exciting bill i think it's really going to positively benefit our students and really align our work so that a student they could go to any school that has any counselor and they're going to receive services that really support them and help them be successful in our schools wonderful thank you all have a good night thank you you too thank you casey
094okay next is a legislative update is it all me the work on the legislative committee continued um last weekend and most of the positions have been voted either do pass do not pass or without recommendation um i didn't see a lot of a lot of positions being proposed that were uh against the interests of evergreen but i think as we get into the um as we get into the fall advocacy part of the advocacy cycle with the general assembly and so forth what is important is that when we have general assembly i don't have to be the only one voting we can it's a it's a one day whole day thing so if you've got an hour or two that you can spot me so that i can walk out in the sun a bit
095then let me know so that we can share the share the load a little bit i'll have the list of proposed positions in that big book they publish in a couple of weeks um it won't be paper it will be pdfs and i'd like to have a conversation in august if possible about uh what it is that we'd like to definitely vote for definitely opposed and what the priorities ought to be last year i did that with uh superintendent i think it'd be a great conversation for the whole board especially given the work that we're facing i really like tim's idea about going through it as a group and then being able to yeah split it up and being able to vote based off what we had all agreed upon it'll make the day much
096easier and it's still going to be a remote meeting so everybody can tune in oh it asked me that part it's in september [Music] sometime i think it's that the i think it's the it's 22 minus seven it's on the 15th i think or the 16th of september yeah i'll ask gloria to get it on our calendar and get the invitations out and that's pretty much it we won't be able to have the conversation until we have the book all right so at this time that is the last item for our board workshop so we're going to go ahead and recess and go into our closed session and then into our executive session to review the performance of a public employee which is expected to last about an hour [Music] you