001i pledge allegiance to the god of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you very much go ahead and do a call to order um director jenny gronwald she's absent tonight a vote to all in favor director rob perkins here director julie bocanegra yeah director rachel rogers yeah superintendent mike merlino here oh there he is i'm here and administrative assistant laurie stroll all right great let's see here next up we have a land acknowledgement that director perkins will read to us evergreen public schools resides on the traditional lands of the chinook and peoples and the khalid's tribe they have lived on and cared for this land and its waterways since time immemorial we thank them for
002their stewardship and make this acknowledgement to open a space of recognition inclusion and respect for all indigenous students families and staff in our community um next up we need to adopt tonight's agenda do i have a motion for adoption of the agenda i move to adopt tonight's agenda as presented all in favor aye aye any opposed um we have uh the board's consent agenda do i have a motion for approval of tonight's uh con board consent agenda remove the approval of tonight's sports consent agenda has presented five seconds all in favor aye any opposed hey next up i know i just want to get to where we are on so do we have the board or the superintendent's agenda do i have approval or i don't have a motion to approve the superintendent's consent i
003move to approve the superintendent's consent agenda represented all in favor aye okay a lot of little individual items on here so next up we do have the superintendent um update for merlino yep i've got a few things i wanted to share uh the first um i've i've shared some information last week the cdc uh put out new guidance on returning to school um and i think the first thing to remember is kind of throughout the pandemic the cdc has put out guidance but it's our state washington state department of health that ends up determining what those guidelines and the guidance is going to be for all school districts in the state of washington so even though the cdc put their information out we still have to kind of wait to see how the department of
004health is going to uh handle that now last week uh superintendent reipdahl put out an email that had the following takeaways prior to the updated guidance from the state department of health the first is the department of health released updates to their k-12 guidance which allows fully vaccinated staff who remove face coverings indoors when students are not present so that's one change that's already in place the new department of health guidance also allows students and staff regardless of vaccination status to remove face coverings while they're outdoors so that's another one that is in place at this time they still encourage uh folks to maintain the physical distancing space and unvaccinated individuals are encouraged to wear masks still now where this kind of stands with the state department of health we expect in the next week
005or two for them to receive uh or not receive but put out their updated guidance what their plans are for the fall yesterday there was a you know throughout the pandemic we've had calls with clark county with dr melnick so there was a discussion yesterday around the masking requirements and i will say that the local districts are supporting an effort to provide the recommendation that masks be voluntary for students that was shared with superintendent reichdall that was shared with dr melnick so that that could be brought forward both through the department of health and also through the governor's office um so that's that's kind of the feeling of the districts uh that you know we just don't know exactly what's gonna happen until we get to the point to see the actual guidance coming out
006um so i think we're hopeful that we're gonna have more flexibility but at this point uh we're still kind of in a holding pattern um the second thing i would mention is uh we continue to work with a couple of local folks um doug green a local entrepreneur and john gerrard owner of quail homes on a skilled trade center at evergreen high school chief schools officer brian grinstead and our cte director justin birmingham met with those folks on monday starting to work on what an mou might look like in terms of that program which would be basically building constructing a building uh that would kind of work in concert with the construction and math program that we have at evergreen but allow for us to build um some tiny homes on site and then really
007promote the skilled trades for our kids we've talked about this a few times but i believe at our first work meeting in august workshop we'll have brian and justin come and outline more of the specifics of that and possibly even doug greene and john gerrard with that as well um i think we also you know with bill ohman who who'd been part of this conversation also when he was in evergreen now him going to vancouver and jeff being jeff snell the new superintendent of vancouver i think that there's some opportunity potentially for partnership with them on this project as well but i just wanted to update we continue to move forward on that but we will have more conversations in our first workshop in august so we can get more questions that you might have
008answered or just give you more information around the project and what the thinking is on that um i would also mention that we want to bring some updated uh options around the sro program um you know we we talked at a meeting i think a few board meetings ago you all shared your thoughts around that um i i think that we have not necessarily options with the sro these liaisons that that type of thing um and want to have more conversation about that bring that back to you in early august as well and then the final thing i would mention is um we started uh you know we obviously got a ton of construction projects going on we continue to work at marion continue the work at ellsworth either work on our our site um
009i'm my understanding is i'm pretty sure this is our last board meeting in the room that you are currently in uh we've started moving into the new uh asc or the new district office uh the first floor moved in the week of the 28th the second floor has started moving in this week we still have contractors on site finishing touches furniture preparations but it's really going to be a fantastic facility and uh really excited for our first board meeting uh the boardroom uh is quite nice and uh very impressive i think you're all gonna really enjoy the opportunity to participate in meetings there and and uh we're real excited about that and then of course once we get our third floor moved in which is two weeks uh we will start the demolition of the
010facilities where you're at now so that we have the opportunity to um so that we have the opportunity to start our construction uh reconstruction of burton elementary so a lot of stuff going on this summer and uh with that that's all i have to add right now thank you mike like when do you think everybody will be moved in by mid-august or the end of this month yeah the the second floor is this week and then it's two weeks so the week of uh the i guess what's the 12th and then the la the third floor starts the week of the 26th so it will be you know everybody will be up there by early august um i know you know sue knows better in terms of what needs to happen at the existing site
011but uh um my understanding is our first meeting in august our first board meeting will be in the new boardroom uh uh at the new facility and we should have everybody out definitely by the beginning of august uh mike this is vic um do you know if we can get the latest information on that on the sros ahead of time before our next before the workshop so let's have time to look at it definitely yeah definitely i mean the the basically the information the clark county sheriff's remember when we met there there was some conversation about the opportunity for us to potentially fully fund if we chose to do so i don't think we chose to do so at that time but even if we had that option um was removed from the table uh
012so in the city if we were even inclined to continue with the contract that would be pushed by the ways out so really yeah it will be more um kind of the thoughts around how do we kind of just have a conversation how do we communicate with police yeah definitely you'll have this you'll have that information ahead of the work job okay thanks all right thanks mike okay next up oh is the budget update mike are you giving the budget update yeah i'll do this will be probably one of my last ones uh i see i think i saw jennifer in the audience today uh i see the back of her head there actually there she is waving um so yeah the the budget update because we are july we're basically at this point in
013time just kind of wrapping up this year uh the 2021 school year and working on the 2122 budget um the work continues on the 2122 budget we will uh buy late this month to have those documents finalized working on them currently uh lori's working to schedule meetings with the board and myself and jennifer so we can have deeper conversations about next year's budget when we are back here in uh late uh july early august before the board meeting probably early august before the board meeting first one um but you know i mean this year 2021 i would just say it you know it was obviously just a challenging year with the enrollment impact with the reductions in staff the furloughs that we had and then kind of very late in the year learning that we
014had these certainly has helped us get through this year uh i think that our end up ending fund balances here will be about a break even with where we started the year and then uh honestly all our work at this point is just kind of being put into the budget for 21.22 and like i said we'll have that finalized and have those conversations with you get you all in early august that's really all there is going on with the budget right now mike i did want to give a reminder that um the board has requested that we receive kind of a breakdown of the things um budget items that have been attached to the covid relief money so we know what that money is being used for and and have an accounting of that please
015yeah correct we have that uh information and we'll share that when we have the meetings individually with you before the full meeting but we can also do it at the full meeting and we actually had a public records request from uh a citizen on the amounts and how we've used the money as well so definitely we will have that information we have it already okay great thanks yep uh next up is um our time for citizen comment this is a time where citizens may direct um comments to the board that are not currently on the board agenda for tonight's agenda because that's where we would talk about those items and um are not legal in nature nor are they personnel in nature we are bored times to three minutes so that we can ensure everybody
016gets a chance to speak and i will call up the first person karen mullinex barry and make sure you address the board all right nightly custodian at the ridgefield high school i also live in paid taxes right here in vancouver i've worked for avm on-site services since 2000 came to the high school in 2009 12 years ago i'm a proud member of seiu local 49 i'm here tonight to ask for your support for my co-workers and i as we start the contract bargaining process with avm work is extremely hard to provide a clean healthy and secure environment for the students and staff as well as community members during and after school especially during the covet pandemic i lead a crew of co-workers and have a custodial run i'm responsible for the 300 and part of
017the 400 wing that consists of fine classrooms restrooms halls a main gym auditorium gang restrooms team restrooms hourglass entries and a couple of small offices also help set up for special events help at the other schools if needed and do training of new employees at end of shift i'm responsible for making sure campus is locked and secured i've developed a strong relationship with the staff and would like to continue my work here for years to come i take pride in knowing that i make a difference in what i do after giving thanks from staff students however the custodians in this district earn less wages than other custodians in that comparable pay to other districts who do the same us you support us in our efforts to gain higher wages and affordable health care by asking
018abm on-site services to provide a fair wage increase that will keep up with the cost of living affordable health care that will keep well so that we can produce they're concerned that without direction from evergreen public schools abm janitorial may choose to offer us few or no wage increases so that we fall behind the cost of living and they may choose to make cuts to our health care evergreen public schools has received nearly 64 million dollars in coded relief from the federal government richfield public school district has received 2 million encoded relief from the federal government we understand there are many demands on the budget that you have to consider best in us because we invest so much of our hard work and pride in our schools send the letter to abm saying that you
019will cover the cost of the fair contract with us thank you thank you very much karen next up is melinda and pronounce your last name okay great thank you for being here tonight good evening my name is melinda siddiki i am one of the many voices of the custodians that work in our public schools on behalf of abm my co-workers and i are always striving for the best in our school we are here every day we work late and if we need to we work overtime in order to continue and to provide a clean safe environment i work in the evening shift at gila high school i have been at gila for five years but i have been with the abm school district for 14. the work at these schools is very challenging and very
020labor-intensive even though our work is hectic and most recently dangerous because of the cov19 we continue to show up for our schools and protect the students and staff that fill them as our union enters collective bargaining and as i sit at the table with my fellow co-workers we would like to see fair wages continued excellent healthcare a working environment without bullying or harassment and flexibility around coming to work in a safe driving condition when it snows my co-workers and i would like to be recognized for our work our requests above are a way to show to you as elected officials that you care about us being custodians i have understood that eps has received nearly 64 million dollars in covered relief from the federal government the school board has a lot on their minds of
021where the money is going to go but all i ask is that you please invest in us because we have invested and continue to invest our time and in our students staff and schools one of my concerns is that abm will try not to give us a fair wage increase and they will attempt to cut our health care altogether please let them know that you will cover the cost of the contract so that we can continue to provide for our schools please send and sign a certified letter to avm and to move them to give in give us a good contract that we deserve we want to continue to do the work in our public schools and we want to see that get recognized thank you for your time and fair consideration i look forward
022to more years in evergreen public schools thank you thank you melinda next up is terry grinner here okay thank you married grenier i've been a daily custodian and i'm a sub custodian now for over 17 years i'm a proud member of seiu and a proud partner of the of the evergreen education community i'm honored to work with the kids and see them grow and graduate i take pride in my relationship with the staff and administrators i work extremely hard to provide a clean and secure environment where teachers can excel and students can thrive as a daily i'm responsible for a lot of responsibilities i'm responsible for all areas of the school setting up for special events and now proven 19. we are about to head into the bargaining contract with abm janitorial and the former
023wage increase last time just isn't enough these days average consu custodian only makes 14.47 an hour and a 2.5 wage increase hourly is only about 750 a year i'm here tonight to ask for your support for our custodians and by demanding that abm janitorial provide a fair and living wage increase to keep up with the cost of living with good pay raises keeping our medical insurance stop bullying and harassing and provide a cool workable environment during the summer months we want our custodians to continue to serve the district we deserve we we deserve respect in our workplace and that starts with a union contract we want our custodians to stay and go with the district and not leave for better wages or better we want to be treated with respect and we ask you evergreen
024school board please send a letter to abm will support us before that you care about your custodians because we care about our schools hey terry wait wait wait terry terry i have a question for you um you mentioned something about bullying and harassing can without getting too brought to the third floor of a school building it's like 120 okay all right i just i just kind of wanted to get an idea of what you were talking about okay the bullying and harassing you could if you if you could give us an explanation send it over to the board so we have it in writing that would be great thank you okay next up we have amanda is it a back brick brick he's on she's virtual so she's hi there can you hear me okay
025yes thank you amanda i am here before you today representing the concerned parents in the evergreen school district over this past year parents and students have faced many unforeseen challenges regarding education some of these challenges include but are not limited to finding adequate child care assisting with remote learning keeping students education up to par and maintaining their mental well-being while i believe we are all in agreement of wanting to return to normalcy there are now foreseen challenges that should be addressed ahead of this upcoming school year recent statements from the governor's office ospi and washington department of health all point towards students continuing to wear masks for the 2021-2022 school year while opinions differ there are clear and concise facts that prove this to not be in the best interest of the students after speaking
026to members of the community i have two questions for you today the first question i have for you is do you agree with the continuation of masks being worn by students in school as a follow-up to that question if the board does not agree with masking students five days a week will you be advocating to these associations on their behalf and my second question is will you be providing a survey to allow families input on this matter i will be following up by email with the questions to allow you a chance to show the community where the school board stands on this issue i ask that you take a public stance no later than august 10th to allow parents adequate time to pursue their options we all want what is best for the students and
027transparency will allow parents to make decisions based on the needs of their children thank you for your time thank you um just so that we'll answer we can answer that question more thoroughly so during or or during public comment we can't really get engaged in conversation because it hasn't been announced the topics but i can tell you that we are committed to following what the state laws are as it pertains to mask wearing and that's where we that's kind of where we are that we're obligated by law to do that so okay up thank you amanda um next up we have raphael perez good evening let me see can you hear me okay or yeah justice okay for being here tonight well thank you this is uh my second time here and i hopefully it
028won't be my last time participating here as well so good evening everybody i'm here to discuss uh what i thought was gonna be a topic that i thought was going to be discussed tonight which is that equity workshop that was on the agenda i guess a couple of weeks back several board members attended uh an equity workshop and i was interested to hear how many board members actually attended and i didn't see that represented or or shown in the minutes or any kind of information my concern with that is that when there are more than three board members present then it is a forum and it is an official meeting so uh i did think that with being adopted in tonight's minutes that there would be at least a little more information on that so
029i hope that comes in the future to do that my my main concern is with the equity and the inclusion training that's going to be going on in professional development what can you tell us in advance about this training that's going to be offered to the staff per the superintendent's statement on equity and diversity and inclusion i i don't typically agree with that kind of information but i would like to see it first before we start talking about its merits or what needs to be changed or how it can be adopted within the school system another question i have is will parents be able to see the curriculum before it's distributed to the students and if there are workshops for professional development can a private citizen pay the fee to sit in on these sessions
030as well because maybe there are learning opportunities for us in the community we'd really like to be involved with that also that you know with that workshop um it's really when i went in to look at it there's a lot of marketing firms there's public schools um marketing and public relations firms that are in there and one of the terms that came up by jay marie reesh which is a ideal consultant for pr schools and support said that there is a new uh environment called vuca which is volatile volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity and whatever i could find on this statement it did not really talk about what the training would be but a way to deflect questions on that training so my concern is that you're not going there to learn how to implement
031a process or a education system regarding equity or diversity but how to control parents questions on that and i have a real issue with that you know and i would really like to see vuca used by the school board we saw this last time we were here back in i believe i was back here in may talking about masks and getting kids back into school at the time vuca really should stand for vision understanding courage and adaptability and that's what we want from our school board in the fall the kids should go back without mask there's plenty of science on that we can all agree on that and there's plenty of data and then when back to my topic on on the quality and equity training there's more things that the kids need right now
032than this kind of training the teachers need right now they need to help these kids adjust and learn um and with that i can see my time is up but i will say that no one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin or his background or his religion people must be must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love for love comes more naturally to the human heart than a pup then it's opposite that was from nelson mandela i agree with you we all do thank you thank you so much for being here i'll look forward to seeing you again i will be back okay all right next up is adam moore hi adam taking my comments appreciate that my name is
033adam moore and i have a nine-year-old that's attending in the evergreen school district and i want to address the board regarding face mask mandate for this coming fall i feel my opinions are shared by the majority but can't say that for sure unless we have a survey and i think that would be something that would be very beneficial is to send out a survey and just see where your constituents are at um i i hear it echoed many times and you just had the same response to amanda breck that you're going to follow state law regardless and that's obviously what you have to do but what you do have the power to do is to um write letters to lobby to make the constituents voices that you represent known to the people that are coming
034up with these uh orders right they're really not laws to executive order okay so there's something you can do there um to that to that point i believe face masks are unnecessary given the availability of vaccines for adults and that school-aged children are not really adversely i shouldn't say adversely but critically affected by this illness so we've had almost ten thousand documented cases in clark county in the age group is between zero and twenty nine years old with zero deaths and uh certainly we've heard stories of complications and things but if you dig into those in that age group there's always an underlying condition and it's a matter of testing somebody testing a small child coming into a hospital and they happen to have cobit often the argument for face masks on children is something
035like better safe than sorry um or even if it's a small inconvenience it's worth it if it stops one illness but what's often overlooked is something educators especially early childhood educators know well and that's how important face-to-face contact is with the developing child especially smaller children so important in fact that we have psychological problems disorders that are diagnosed based on a lack of facial recognition or producing particular facial recognition are the expressions that are appropriate for a particular emotion so it's not without risk um set aside the fact that they're super uncomfortable there is potentially some very critical learning that's going to be lost if we continue to do the uh require the face mask and to add insult to injury the students that are most likely to be affected by this loss of facial
036um scene uh a face are gonna be the demographic that's the last uh to be vaccinated right so we've only approved down to 12 years old um so i just asked that the board please send out a survey find out where your constituents are at and do what you can to lobby the state and hopefully get that removed by the start of fall thank you thank you next up we have henry harvard okay uh then next we have rick peterson please rick peterson thanks for letting me speak tonight i want to share a response that i sent it was on june 26 2020 of an email sent by the evergreen public schools says evergreen public schools adds new focus on equity so my concern is equity how it's defined and i'm just going to read
037the email that i sent um that would be but i guess over a year ago still appropriate today and i'll address a little bit of who i am as well says dear board of directors i would like to respond to the email below regarding equity being introduced to evergreen public schools education strategy i have two daughters who are students at union high school so this email is of great interest to me on the surface equity is a term that seems quite innocuous but the meaning as it relates to implementation is my concern undoubtedly the email from superintendent mike molino has been sent as a result of the current unrest in our nation remember this was about a year ago a lot of activity happening these events have resulted in a re-evaluation and introspection by most
038of us regarding how we view one another i think all of us have probably done some real soul searching along those lines with what has taken place as a result of um floyd and the corresponding events i'll read that again these events have resulted in a re-evaluation reevaluation and introspection by most of us regarding how we view one another equal treatment for all races needs to be a priority in our school system in reality it needs to be a priority in each of us individually as we seek to interact with one another with respect and ruthlessly stamp prejudice from our own hearts of course to use terminology similar to the current narrative all black lives matter i fear however that this policy change is motivated in response to the political movement known as black lives
039matter policies being put into place as a result of pressure applied to our society by an admittedly marxist organization is of great concern to me behind the blm agenda is a revisionist history that teaches our children america is not worth saving that is patently false 1619 is a common theme of the protests riots and riots referring to a curriculum hostile to america as traditionally taught the united states is unique not in our checkered past of slavery which we have in common with most every nation on the planet but that we have forcefully rejected it thankfully we are progressing as a nation rejecting institutions and shameful treatment of others as we have grown over the two and a half centuries of our existence this is there's still much to accomplish now while i support peaceful protests
040to move us further in that pursuit i am very much opposed to the hatred and vitriol directed toward law enforcement it's stunning to watch white men and women spew obscenities toward black officers that is not acceptable hatred directed at fellow citizens has no chance to solve racism that tact will get us nowhere in addition bowing to the blm political agenda will regard with regard to law enforcement will in my opinion have catastrophic fallout i trust that equity as proposed by the evergreen school district does not include less law enforcement in our schools as a parent my goal is to raise my children to be good citizens i believe the evergreen school district has the same goal every parent knows we are in a process of training our children to do the right thing that is
041deposited into them through consistent effort it does not come naturally for any of us we learn to be good we learn to do the right thing enforcement is a part of that long-term solution just the presence of those who represent enforcement motivates us toward good behavior our students need police officers in our schools i touched on a few of my concerns about what equity means in our education system i'll leave it there i look forward to your response and would appreciate the opportunity to be a part of your plans moving forward respectfully rick peterson thank you rick okay that is the last of the folks that were signed up to speak tonight our next order of business is board comments do i have any comments by the board that we'd like to oh i just
042have to look at my calendar i guess i would just say a few things um because over the last several weeks um you know we've been hearing a lot and i don't really want to address like the things that we've heard but um just from my own comments you know we've been hearing a lot about things that are changing and guidance and we're well aware of you know what we've heard in the community and i think victoria said several i don't know if it was a couple meetings ago but she said for every time we get an email it says in the community several others that are uh maybe complete opposite so we have to weigh all of that but we also um you know we do listen and we do have our own opinions
043and we have our own concerns and um we're always trying to navigate this and figure it out so um you know don't think that we're just sitting back idle and not trying to to do best for our students as they absolutely are there is i actually had some meetings between graduation and so forth that i thought would be uh prudent to share with you um is that on the legislative committee side um i wrote an email to mike and uvic that as i'm telling the others here the legislative committee decided to continue work on the comprehensive student safety positions that the association has in order to consolidate them into something that acknowledges the advances in later session as well as makes it possible for somebody to prioritize student safety higher without having to choose between
044two similarly worded positions with recently that work is ongoing and it would have been one of the things that i wanted to workshop with us tonight but the meeting to finalize that isn't happening for two weeks so i have to delay it till august um i had the uh opportunity to attend the community action advisory board meeting where um council for the homeless presented the point in time report and we had a good discussion about uh the circumstance of homelessness and how it compares to how we in the district measure in evento and i think there are some opportunities actually to kind of synchronize how they're measuring things with how we have to measure things and a better picture of the community on my mind in any case to try and continue cultivating that so
045that get the most accurate picture for us melanie green of the district is also and uh yeah the rest of it is for uh the short workshop we have scheduled later on and tonight which and uh looking forward to august's work um i just did you have anything rachel okay um the only thing i have like well there's a couple things i guess um first we are going to have myself and julie board reps on our strategic planning committee however how the whole board will be as we roll this out we have our public meetings and public-facing things um we'll involve the whole board we will be discussing what this also look like at the board workshop but just so you know and then um rachel and jenny will be the ones place project and
046obviously our legislative guru so that's kind of where things are shaking out right now as we move into on that and then um i think i i just feel a burning need to just i know we have people when we talk about equity i've agreed with just about everything anybody has said about it you know it can fight it um kids are not born to hate get taught to hate unfortunately sometimes in our schools our our kids represe they're just a microcosm of what's happening out in the community so we do feel like it's important for us our children to become together to learn about each other and respect the differences not to ignore the differences i think that's one thing i i'd like to share just personally and i've had some questions from people
047um wanting to know if we're teaching critical race theory we don't it's a theory that's done at college level that's not what we're teaching that particular oh just in case there's any inquiry minds i just wanted to let you know and as we roll out more of our equity work we will be inviting parents to participate in those conversations because it's going to all of us to do the right thing so um that's something that everybody can be on the lookout and we'll be pretty obvious about when that's happening and what's going to happen um so that's all i had unless somebody else has anything another thing um when we talk about our equity work too and uh it didn't just happen a year ago when events in the in the you know in the
048united states and the turmoil that was happening we've been doing this work and victoria's been on the board a long time and i've been on the board a while and since my start this equity initiative has started you know what a decade ago maybe even longer than that but it was really about you know making sure that our kids across the district no matter where they lived had the same supports and services and it's evolved over the years and um we just really want what's best for every kid no matter where they're at in the district and who they are and like victoria said kindness we just want our kids to be kind to each other and that's it heartfelt agreement with what you can just said i i could probably go on for hours
049but let's let's not okay so next step on the agendas are future agenda items um is there anything in addition to what we already have that anybody would like to have us consider for agenda items at this i always bring it up during that we want to get up and go up and on work at that policy so that all righty now the board will go into recess where we'll sign all of our legal documents um we will reconvene um when that's finished to a board workshop where we will be discussing some legislative updates that rob will bring forward and then we will go into in german as soon as that's finished so tonight's a short one um but we really appreciate everybody who's attended tonight and i will go ahead and call this meeting
050in recess okay we're back in session and i'm going to turn things over to director perkins so we can talk about some legislative on i'm looking for um if you remember if you like julie and i were at the last uh in-person legislative assembly i think that was the last legislative assembly before they went general assembly um that there were safety positions for comprehensive school safety and safety positions for uh gun violence and safety positions for uh student safety it was actually led by uh lakeisha phillips if you met lakeisha um and i worked on a student-centered safety which we were able to actually base on our off of our results policy language and their informed language for that um and it had a big bullet list on it each of these had this great
051big bullet list of things um that went on to you know the kinds of things that mean safeties like parents will be notified students will experience well they passed the sro reform bills which require training of all security staff elf was an idea that came out of legislative committee notions and uh other places uh that if sros need to be trained in trauma-informed responses and and so well we got that law passed and it actually knocked most of the bullet points out of the way um so that we don't need to continue to advocate for that as much as we need to continue to advocate for enough state funding to bring the people in the training and to provide um trauma-informed um restorative kinds of placements for discipline that we need in order to keep
052kids engaged right and what happens in my email what happens if we're there you're in a situation like we are here where the police department deputies don't have the funds to fund that or the manpower well that's not a whole nother ball game that was that's 45 minutes of one of the conversations that i had when we were developing this opening um and what came out of that after that conversation were the uh please wait sign in type in your email address but the problem is they don't have the manpower so they're already having a challenge filling positions and so we'd still have we'd be able to call the police obviously if an incident it's happening at the school and they will come as far as having somebody designated to be there all the time
053and the county state patrol has a different role and they i guess they stick to state highways and and protecting governor and other government officials in the deck so this is the this is the proposed language for comprehensive safety this says wazer shall initiate and support legislation to increase and ensure student experience of physical social and emotional safety centering student voice in policy development providing appropriate parent notification enforcing student safety requirements and creating accountability measures for all staff and volunteers as determined by district leadership in consultation with community legislation should include funding for districts to hire and train safety and security staff as defined under rcw 28a32124 if the revised sro in support of locally relevant and culturally responsible all hazards approaches for planning and managing student crises our goal there was to align it
054with was the permanent position that the board approved around safety i think that was just last year but also to take those bullets and you know always have that argument for underneath so to celebrate the accomplishments of our advocacy in turn uh make something aspirational that will let uh the wised advocates go in and sign in yes but other for more bills because people are more interested in whether we support something what i what i wonder if we could do once this makes its way past the legislative edition process and the assembly in spokane in a september is but could we take that position oh look my computer just switched could we take that position in any of the other high highly prioritized positions and adopt them as positions of the board for legislative work
055i think that would clarify um what melissa gomboski has from the board and also maybe even a line events that people have from the business of blazbo waza uh evergreen should be saying the same thing no matter which employee in evergreen contractor never been representing us and we should probably on the same page that i think that still leaves her the latitude to spend political coin the way that is wise uh don't you know how many years we had marcia and she knew evergreen cold a lot of our our values are becoming part of the wozda positions now i want us to think about because we'll prioritize the positions and then a prioritization list will come out from was this saying this is how the association look at the top 20 and decide whether or
056not those are also our positions say so then marissa and melissa can march together so you want us to have our own prioritization sheet not just not necessarily take what our top 20 is and then send us off to the general assembly and then we still do but we want it once we come up with our top then we want to have our own well i'm hoping we can consider whether or not wazda's uh was consensus positions their top 20 are the same as ours adopt them vote in a meeting board has adopted these priorities and they have aim if possible we have to consider that because there might be one or two positions that we don't right and because personally i feel like i don't take my marching orders from once right so and
057sometimes because district's so different [Music] um that sometimes there's things that are put might be good for us and our cons as long as we're looking at it through the lens of what we need as a district right and we don't have to do it anyway i agree with you you have to be informed by the community there's fluency that's that is that that'll add weight to the things the other thing that i think would add weight to the legislative process is something that i just but i thought it'd be ready for this cycle but it isn't but it's worth starting talk about because we have mike and because mike is is uh so good with the finances right jennifer whenever a bill gets a fiscal note for the costing spi is the agency who
058talks about that so often you see ospi has no mechanism for determining local district costs they could have fast so wouldn't it be nice mazda and other letter groups were to advocate for a mechanism to supply that information it's there ofm has a database that people have access to in those departments well if you took the top 20 biggest school districts you're not adding that many users and you're getting sharp fiscal officers who can enter the data and include the costs uh through a mechanism but i'm not necessarily sure that the way that i think of it is necessarily the wisest way to go about it so it's going to take some time i think to get some legislators on board and and guess something doable sometimes i think that automatically either because they're envisioning
059it to be or they'll say yes but they pass on the expense to down the road to districts that without any thought to how that impacts our budgets that was driven by the lead and water arguments from two sessions ago yeah um that was a really passionate debate and wazda couldn't support what was proposed without work on the physicians without people knowing what the costs were so it took an extra year to get a lead and water legislation passed yeah help us i just think of it as one great big hole in the information and i need data about this or that thing in individual districts and all the data crunching that i'm i've done about it using the reports that we can use it's kind of answers to the specific hard to get their
060lens focused on the finances has some operational ideas can i can i also add that rob's talk yeah i'm here i'm listening hi mom hi the the you know you talk about melissa i i think about in rob also mentioned marsha um you know you have the was the positions they have you see how they match up with evergreen's positions but i think it would be it would be helpful if we had melissa come you know either come to a board meeting or call into a board meeting and kind of provide kind of her perspective also and hear directly from you what those priorities are so that when she's in olympia um having the opportunity to to lobby and share that information she knows you know what are the things i mean there's always certain
061things that that that the districts kind of get behind on the funding side but these policy things um i i think i think it would be helpful if melissa heard directly from you on the areas that you are the most interested in and if they align and how we can work together and whether we need to go it alone um and i feel like we we did more of that when marsha was around i was going to say i remember when marsha used to come and come to our board workshops on that and they'll ask for lots of in-depth questions about potential legislation that was coming up and it was really helpful because i don't even think that all of us well i've met her but i feel like the only time you've maybe met
062her is if if she met you in olympia if you were in olympia testifying or there was a meeting in olympia i mean i think she would be willing to come down if we picked a meeting in the fall and just kind of be in person and have a conversation directly and it's always nice to hear from her or or you maybe have seen her like at the esd forum that they do in the fall but i think it'd be good for her to come and have an opportunity to hear directly from all of you uh and then she can share kind of this is what she's hearing in from of her contacts within the legislature and other lobbyists i think that would be helpful personally i like that idea yep i think that's good
063that's yeah i mean if we if we did that she would have a document or a vote or something to priorities and our priorities can't be all that much different from vancouver they are usually but i think it'd be a good idea for you for her to hear directly from the board in terms of those you know because a lot of times when the superintendents well particularly the last several years because of the last few years because they've been so much about funding they haven't been as much uh from her from her level uh or they're so focused on one thing or two things well we really can't do it but it's always helpful for her to be aware even if it's not this session she's setting up for the next session and gail and
064sue i'm happy i woke you up they've been here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the whole time i i know that they have i just got a message thing i might have woke one of them up i been talking to them i didn't even notice you hadn't left should we do something like crash a guitar over a table or something you know just oh okay okay because mostly green things going to the new place oh no no yeah okay you can avoid that i get a different picture um that was that and then uh community action advisory stuff that's not really a legislative idea real synergies counsel for the homeless had school data as well with that much as you can share given for well as the data that they gather there's there's a there's potential there
065for a picture nobody really has it so that's on my mind and it's sort of been developed we'll see how it shakes out that committee doesn't need that often that is that is it everything else is how to dig into the technical details after the alleged commitment can i really quickly update you that we did have one meeting uh i we've you know rob and i think julie kind of went through wazda on this effort to change the transportation funding formula and we've been working vancouver evergreen esd 112 with a consultant on coming up with a formula that might be a replacement for the stars formula that we have um we met with him sean lewis is his name and he's worked in the state for years and had various jobs and he brought forward
066like three different proposals for potential new funding formulas that would make things more simple and understandable and predictable in terms of transportation probably not completely fully fund but come closer to fully funding transportation from that uh there is going to be a survey sent out i think to maybe 75 districts to try to gather some input that then ultimately is formulated into a final proposal that would be brought forward uh through monica and other legislators i believe um in january so we continue to move forward in that process he received information from the the data from ospi so he could kind of work on the updated formula and uh and honestly it's it's basically a formula that looks at um how many kids do you transport uh and how many miles do you drive and
067you get so much per kid and so much per mile very simple but gets us closer to fully funding and understandable so uh that's positive just wanted to share that real quick we'll continue to update you throughout the fall on that i appreciate that because i'd forgotten to say that the was the legislative committee passed the position proposal out with due pass and it was completely uncontroversial venomous due past i think everybody wants to be great yeah so i don't anticipate any controversy about it in the general assembly and so monica's going to have wazda behind her work on that bill okay oh good we'll actually be going leaving while it's still light outside i might i mean all right i think target's open is when target's still open internet okay i'll go ahead and
068uh we are hi mike hi mike have fun thank you appreciate it see ya