001Uh I called order this meeting of the Ithaca City School Board. Today is Wednesday, March 11th. Uh at this point, will everyone please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag 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. Uh we start our meetings with public comment. Public comment is an opportunity for the board to receive public statements on items not listed on the meeting agenda for possible board action. If you have a point of view for the specific agenda items, which uh tonight would be monitoring report for OE 16 and the report on capital projects, uh I'll ask you to hold your comment until the particular agenda item. Public comment time is
002not intended to raise an issue unique to a particular student, uh staff member, or an administrator. Rather, it is a time to provide your insights on issues more generally and of a wider concern. As a general rule, the board will not respond to public comment. I ask you to begin your comments by clearly stating your name and your attendance area. Please limit your comments to 2 minutes as we will be using a timer. The board neither endorses nor censors any opinions expressed during public comment, and please keep your comments civil and respectful and avoid personal attacks on others. Uh in place of applause, you can acknowledge a speaker by lifting your hands in waving in a waving motion. And we will start public comment with those in the room and then go to uh folks
003on Zoom if there are any. So, with that, uh I will call Civic Com. Oh. Uh can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you board members. Thank you for all the hard work you do. Thank you superintendent and the teachers who are here or who may not be here. I want to acknowledge everyone's hard work in uh, to making our students lived experiences better every day. Uh, I'm here to respectfully ask the district to align Issaquah School District's grading scale with neighboring school districts such as Lake Washington and Bellevue by defining 90 to 100 as an A grade and removing the A minus and retaining B plus for scores between 87 and 89.9. Uh, ISD students are at a structural disadvantage compared to students in the neighboring districts because of this uh, asymmetry in grading.
004Overall, if you take a a student with 24 courses and you can do a comparison of a distribution the grades in 90 92 range can graduate uh, students with those grades can graduate with roughly lower than 0.1 to 0.15 or 0.2 lower in ISD compared with other school districts nearby. This issue is becoming more important as administra- as admissions grow more competitive. The University of Washington, Seattle now received 71,000 applicants for roughly 7,000 freshman seats that has stayed constant. So, the just to put in perspective, in 2019 the number of applicants was 40,000. So, that's a roughly a 60% increase in the number of applicants, but the freshman seats haven't changed. It's at 7,100. The policy also affects students taking the most rigorous coursework. Many AP and IB classes in ISD require 92 or 93
005for an A while comparable courses in neighboring districts award an A at a 90. Lowering the threshold from 93 to 90 would not dilute academic rigor. If rigor were defined simply by raising cutoffs, one could argue that 96 should be the standard for A or heck, yeah, maybe 100. Yet, no educational research suggests that higher thresholds improve learning. Finally, this issue has financial consequences. When students cannot attend in-state universities, they may face out-of-state costs exceeding 200,000 or more over 4 years. Thank you. Please please make the decision for the fall 26 year as opposed to punting this down for another year. Thank you. Uh next is Gani. Hello. Uh good afternoon, everybody. I'm also here to echo with Shivakant. So, keeping the grades 90 to 100 as A, aligning with Bellevue School District and uh
006Lake Washing Lake Washington School District. I think interestingly, I think I came here I think last time also to raise this concern. I think interestingly, I think the school board members said that this concern was raised in the past as well. But like not sure why there was no decision was taken on this one. I think the kids are the ones really I think are facing the ones and they are the ones who are really working on these grades and struggling a lot like uh uh if this is a concern, then why we have probably I think we should have taken like a voice from the parents or maybe a voice survey from the you know uh the school district uh students. I think that would actually uh will give us the count like how
007many students are aligning to this approach, you know. Otherwise, I think we never know I think the school board and you know can say that yeah, it was it was it was probably it may not be a concern for them, right? But only if we see the survey results and see, then we know how many students and how many parents are really wanted to have 90 to 100 as a A because that's where I think end of the day from from my family, my kids, right? The college admission is what matters for me. I think you know, for college admission in local, I think like let's say for University of Washington, U-Dub, right? I think really I think I heard from many sources that the grading is very very important. So, yeah, I would highly
008recommend to consider 90 to 100 as A, so that I think it will be less stressful for me financially because I don't want to send my kids like, you know, today afternoon only I had a conversation with one of my team member. I think his first kid went to U-Dub computer science and the second kid could not get into U-Dub because the first kid Okay, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Um, next, Arvin. And just a reminder to introduce yourself when you get up to the podium and also your attendance area would be great. Uh, respected members of the the board, uh, superintendent, thank you all for so much. My name is Arvin Subramanian. I represent the Skyline School District area. Uh, my student is in Skyline School School High School. Again, I'm here
009to just uh, second what the previous two speakers have spoke about, Srikanth and Johnny. Uh, and and to keep the uh, between 90 and 100 as A. Uh, and I do ex- given uh, selfishly, uh, my my student is actually right now in uh, is a freshman. So, the the sooner we can actually implement something like this, they could actually it could benefit uh, current students as well as for generations of students to come through. Thank you. Uh, let's see. Next up, uh, Kalyan. Hi. Um, my name is Kalyan. My son is also in Skyline. He's in senior, I mean, junior high right now. Uh, thanks to Srikanth and all the other people who raised this issue. I wasn't aware about this grading disparity between schools. Uh I have another kid who is going to
010come and go into high school. So, I just want to make sure they're setting you are setting up setting them up for success, right? Uh I mean, it's Well, I'd like to understand why this was raised in the past and why were I mean, apparently there was some voting done and uh I mean, they made a decision that 93 should be A. We'd like to understand what was the reasoning behind it. Nobody I mean, even in the last meeting we raised it, but no there was no clarity of what was happened, right? It would be really helpful for you to align with other school districts because most of the schools most of the kids are going to go apply to U-Dub. That will be their primary uh school choice. So, I'm not going to repeat
011what they said already. If you guys can make make a decision sooner, so it's going to help our kids be in line with parity with other schools in the in the area in the area. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next I have Anukul. Hi board. My name is Anukul. I'm part of uh Skyline High School. Uh thank you board for giving me the opportunity to speak and for all you do. Uh I would like to raise concern about the grading is inconsistencies. There are two specific concerns. The first one is the inconsistency between the districts LWSD and ISD. Uh having a 90 as a A versus 93 as a A. It may seem small, but it does put our uh students at big disadvantage. The second concern is even inside our schools, different teachers teaching
012the same class have different rubric, different grading policies. Even internally, it puts our students at a disadvantage. The difference may seem small, but it impacts GPA. And like the numbers everybody shared, it worsens their chances of getting into a good school. Uh this is not concerned about lowering uh the rigor, but this is really about standardizing and giving students equal opportunity. The grade should measure what a student learned, not which district they go to or which teacher they got. So, really uh would like board to look into this. Uh not just look and fix it, align it, but also look at current students who are going into college next few years. How can we help them who have already been in school for last 2 years? So, not about just for future, but current students.
013I think it's super important. Thank you for uh the time and really hope uh this is resolved that uh we help our students. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Um and let's see. Lastly on my sheet, I have Raghu. Hi, my name is uh Raghu Mamidipudi. I have a high schooler uh Skyline high schooler uh freshman. Um I thank you board for giving the opportunity. Um I'm echoing the same concerns that has been raised uh to make the parity between the schools so that everybody share the same platform. Thank you. Uh is there anybody else in the room that wanted to give public comment? Okay. Uh Sure, come on up. Introduce yourself and please again your attendance area. Hello, my name is uh Dayaranga Gowda. Um my son goes to Skyline. Uh I echo what
014my friend said, uh the grading inconsistencies, but I also wanted to raise uh a second important point. Uh generative AI has taken the world by storm. And uh the world is adapting pretty fast. However, schools do not support or encourage the use of generative AI generative AI wherein kids can apply the critical thinking to solve really complex problems. And I would uh urge the district to consider introducing generative AI as a way to solve really complex problems. So, yeah, I'm going to stop here. Thank you. >> Thank you. I saw another hand, I think, in the audience. Yes, please come up and introduce yourself. It's different right here. Oh, no. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Does always make a spectacle of myself. Hi. Uh I'm Samantha Vierra and I have been teaching art at
015Maywood for the last 12 years. March is Youth Art Month and I would like to use my time to continue to advocate for the arts in Issaquah School District. In 2023, the state legislature passed RCW 28A.230.305, which expanded the definition of basic education in our state to include instruction in the visual and performing arts commensurate with instruction in all other core subjects. Issaquah hasn't made any moves to fulfill this law, particularly at the elementary level. Occasional, maybe monthly, art docent projects don't fulfill this law. The law also says that a certificated teacher with an endorsement in the relevant arts discipline teach these now required courses. And though amazing, our art docent volunteers do not meet this criteria. Bi-weekly music classes also don't fulfill this law because the arts need to be taught for the same
016amount of time as core subjects. My own children are being denied their basic education in the arts because they attend Briarwood. For middle school students who opt out of music electives, they may be receive 12 weeks of exploratory art as sixth graders, then nothing else. Students are pulled from art electives to be placed in support electives instead of being in the required classes. I understand that unfunded mandates from the state can be difficult. I do not envy your role in that, but it is my role to continue to advocate for our students that are impacted by this. And I hope that as spring brings around master scheduling and the allocation of FTE that the Aquinnah School District will make substantive moves to allow all of our students to have access to their lawful basic education,
017which has included the arts for the last 3 years. Thank you. Anybody else in the room that wants to give public comment? Okay, not seeing any. Stephen, anybody on Zoom? Okay, that is the close of public comment. Thank you. Next up on our agenda is the approval of the consent agenda. Uh we will move uh the consent agenda is a meeting management tool whereby the board is able to pass multiple items with one motion. The consent agenda items have been reviewed by the board prior to this meeting. Any board member may remove an item from the consent agenda and place it on the regular agenda for discussion. Do I have a motion? I move the consent agenda be approved as presented. I second. Great, thank you. It has been moved and seconded to approve the
018consent agenda as presented amended. Uh all in favor say I. I. I. I. >> any opposed say nay. The consent agenda passes. Moving right along. Uh now the establishment of the regular agenda. Um are there any changes to the regular agenda? Uh there no changes to the regular agenda. I do you to note that uh Director Mullins is joining remotely by Zoom, so you'll see her video spotlight as part of the uh recording, and she is uh present and active. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh we will now have a report out on the joint engagement meeting that the the board had uh this evening with the Issaquah Schools Foundation. Um we had the opportunity with the administration to hold that joint meeting uh prior to tonight's board meeting, so I will just turn it to
019my colleagues if they had comments. Director Koin. All right. I will I will go. Uh always a a fun opportunity to have an engagement um opportunity with the Issaquah Schools Foundation, and I had written down some comments tonight that I wanted to share with the group, and I I think for me in particular, the opportunity connect with the School Foundation is very important to me because my path to the school board ran through the Issaquah Schools Foundation um since I was on the Issaquah Schools Foundation board for many years. And in the conversation that we had tonight, I was putting myself back in the seat of the Issaquah Schools Foundation board member, and thinking, "Gosh, what would I want from the school board?" And so, what I would want from the school board is to
020talk about engagement in the community. Um and engagement and getting people actively engaged is the best way for us to promote and uh this Issaquah Schools Foundation. So, I'm going to just share some reflections here a bit tonight um that I had jotted down kind of that I've wrapped around three primary themes. And one is um my my first uh concept when I think about just being engaged is finding a seat at the table. So, I know I've I've shared this story with many folks before, but when my oldest child started um kindergarten in the Issaquah School District 14 years ago, it was overwhelming as a parent, and I think many parents would probably relate um when your first child, you're dropping them off for school in a uh for to start their educational journey
021in a large school system like this, it can be intimidating. And I felt I you know, I found the best way to calm those nerves was to get engaged. And and really make sure that my voice was being heard. And it was interesting at our WASDA conference this past fall, there was a speaker who there was a quote that I took from her that I love and it's if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And um I look back at that as that kindergarten parent and I I wanted a seat at the table. And I'm really glad I got a seat at the table. I didn't intend to have it be this table necessarily, you know, 14 years ago, but I'm really glad that I that I was able to step up.
022Um the other area that I want to highlight when I think about engagement and volunteerism is inviting people in and this is a key component of this. It's not always easy to find a point of engagement when it comes to volunteerism. Um if you're you know, if you're listening to the board meeting, if you're in the room with us tonight, clearly you're engaged in some form or fashion. Um and so for all of you, this message is for you. Um I'd ask that you know, you look for opportunities to invite people in in our community. You know, by chance, you know, shortly after my son started kindergarten 14 years ago, I happened to go to an Issaquah Chamber event was sitting next to the the executive director of the Issaquah Schools Foundation and she invited
023me in. She said I really think you would you know, you'd benefit from learning more about the Issaquah Schools Foundation and I'm sure glad she invited me in. And um I guess I would say for all of us listening in tonight that there are great people in our community looking to get engaged and to support our schools. And I would just say if you see those people, invite them in. They're they're waiting on the sidelines and they're ready to go. Um the last area that I want to highlight to you when I think about engagement and volunteerism and again this connection back to the Issaquah Schools Foundation also to PTSA too and other volunteer opportunities in the district, but um you know, I I um I spent many years fundraising on behalf of the district
024in my role on this schools foundation board and it was you know prior to the pandemic it was it was different in terms of the conversations that we had raising money on behalf of the school foundation and the you know post pandemic it's different you know the default setting is obviously different in terms of how people view the district and you volunteer engagement and support from the schools foundation is really needed more than ever of that because of that perception post pandemic and I would just say I know for all of us we feel this but for everyone who's listening in and who's engaged around the district there are so many good things that are happening in our district I know there's challenges and and we discuss those obviously at our board meetings maybe more
025than we would like to but I think there's opportunity for us to highlight the really good things and that helps to engage people it helps to pull people in and we just encourage people to think about really elevating the really good things and then just lastly I would say register to attend the nourish every mind luncheon on April 30th this will be my 15th nourish every mind luncheon that I've attended and I'm looking forward to it every time I always look forward to nourish every mind the event is amazing and I hope to see you all there so that's those are my comments great I think I would just add that very thankful that we've um gotten back into a habit of meeting with the folks at ISF more often and director coin really quite
026eloquently set out all of the great benefits of this organization but they truly they raise millions of dollars for our district over the years lots of folks have heard me talk about the funding issues and um the gaps that we have in our district and to have an organization like ISF that is out there trying to raise money to provide programming that it benefits all of our kids is really fantastic and um it's an organization that I think has lots of ways for folks in the community to get involved both large and small. So I would encourage anyone who's interested to learn more to go on to the website, see the kind of programming and the various um uh activities and things that they are funding and see if there's maybe an opportunity for you
027to get involved and and do some work with those folks. And I too will throw in my uh endorsement of the Nourish Every Mind event at the end of April. Really also another wonderful opportunity for people to come and learn about the great work that uh ISF does cuz it's it's really a very um uplifting event. Yes. No. Okay, not seeing anything else. The superintendent, yes. I'll just take the opportunity to thank the Squaxin School Foundation board and their leadership for their incredible partnership with our team members in looking for identifying shared interests and opportunities that both are of high interest to donors but also have a meaningful impact in support of our staff, our students and our families. So that's great and I appreciate the school board for having that conversation. I think the
028the more we can have those connected conversations the more we can all do play our part to enhance the impact for our young people. So that's been great and I appreciated the comments around that were shared sentiment both from board members of the Squaxin School Foundation as well as the school board around making sure that we are continually sharing the incredible work that we know is happening in classrooms every single day and being amplifiers of those good good things. So I appreciated that. Great. Okay, next on our agenda is works in progress. This is a standing opportunity for the superintendent to provide a brief status report on various projects and activities in the district. So, I'll turn it over to you, superintendent. Great, thank you. What we have up first and foremost is the upcoming
029events that are district community-wide, education focused, and heritage and culturally focused. And so, this is our way of acknowledging the plethora of ways that we look at celebrations as well as acknowledge the diverse identities of our students and their families that we serve across this across school district. I do want to make a special note and announcement right now, which is that we are not having school on March 13th. That is this Friday. that we have been reserving that day as a weather makeup day. So, just confirming that and I think we will need to make sure that it's confirmed. I do know that we have inclement weather but we would we do have another opportunity to do a weather makeup day should we need to for later in March. So, I just want to
030make sure that's very clear for people and appreciate the positive response in the audience to that. Um I feel I feel joyful about that as well. I'm sure our student representatives do, too. So, that is important. Speaking of sharing the good news that's happening in the district, I do want to make sure that I draw everyone's attention to the fact that our school district was awarded as a top 25 school district in the state of Washington by the Office of Superintendent and State Public Instruction as part of a recognition of our academic excellence and achievement. That is a first time this award is being given out because the Blue Ribbon Award program that was coming from the US Department of Education is no longer in place. So, that was a need to fill and in
031terms of supporting public education in the state of Washington, really grateful to have that honor. I think it's again testament to our teachers and staff great work in supporting our students and also to our students and their families for the work that they put in as well. So, that is huge. And other big news as well, just want to and I I there's a legislative topic session for the board to discuss legislative matters later, but I do want to say that the the house yesterday passed the establishing a tax on millionaires bill after more than I think a day of debate. So it is up for the Senate. I don't know if it's now or very shortly, but it's in these next few hours day of the session. It is still going to the next
032step. So there would be some significant impact to potentially generate billions of dollars in new state revenue would help balance the future state budgets that wouldn't impact I think the state coffers until gosh 2029. But it is far away off, but it is helpful to know and some of those dollars would help offset the rising costs in public education. So we will see what happens and we'll wait eagerly for the news on that one. I also want to share an announcement that we shared internally today, which is that the Issaquah School District is a grand prize winner in the 31st annual Magna Awards program that is sponsored by the National School Boards Association and the Go Green initiative. Our district is being honored for our commitment to improve indoor air quality and reduce greenhouse emissions.
033The school board supported the creation of this by adopting a formal indoor air quality policy that aligns with EPA standards. The objectives of that are to reduce the level of indoor air pollutants through preventive measures, provide and maintain adequate air flow by repairing and maintaining ventilation equipment, and provide timely progress reports to all interested parties. So this is sponsored also by NSBA's flagship magazine The American School Board Journal. And the Magna Awards have a long history of celebrating exemplary school district programs. Our district will be featured in the April issue of the ASBJ, which is will be published very shortly. And we will officially receive that award in front of the attendees at the National School Boards Association conference the first weekend in April. So much appreciation to the board for their commitment to sustainability
034in the form of policies specifically also operational expectation 17, which will be our first year of monitoring that coming up later this spring. And also a special appreciation to former president and board member Marnie Maraldo who actually suggested that the district apply for this award. So, I think she was onto something that we should be recognized for and the spirit of continuing to get highlighted for our good work we should. And so, thanks to our operations team very much for that work. Um a little about to catch you up on the past couple weeks. We've also had some incredible opportunities outside of the school day to highlight different partnerships in our work. The Great Careers Day was hosted by the Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce and this was supported by Issaquah School Foundation back to
035Issaquah School Foundation at Lake Washington in Washington's Institute of Technology. Students had the opportunity to learn about different careers across different industries. This was open to all of our high schools and high school students. They were able to also develop their why in terms of how they would then pitch themselves to a future employer. They had an opportunity to take headshots, which is a very important part of being a professional. And actually those headshots were taken by a Gibson ex-student. Also shows those multiple connections where you can work the event but also attend the event and get benefits and and so much more. It was a positive vibe and I'm especially grateful to Jess Hall who works with Lisa Neighbors to advance and promote our career technical education efforts across all of our schools. Um
036I also had the opportunity speaking with the Greater Chamber Issaquah Chamber of Commerce to speak at the State of the City event, which was hosted a couple weeks ago. And the Chief of Police Paula Schwan spoke and shared her news of her retirement this summer and Mayor Mark Mullet addressed the crowd as the newly minted mayor. I would like to take a moment to just publicly thank Chief Schwan for her work in supporting public safety for the city and community residents and community members and employees and our schools and wish her well in her upcoming retirement. Um, looking ahead, next Tuesday we are, um, welcoming, um, 200 superintendents and district leaders to our district, specifically to visit our schools. Uh, one of them is going to be Maywood Middle School, which I appreciate. Um, I'm
037saying that for the audience members here that are attending. Uh, special shout out to you. Um, I appreciate you hosting folks in your in your building, but many others across the district. So, this is an important event that brings together, um, people from across the state who care about equity and access in education and want to share and learn about, um, what they're doing, but also see what we're doing. Again, so this is a great opportunity to promote, highlight our work, but also invite others in to ask questions. When people ask you questions, you often reflect on your own practice and that's a uh, an educator speak, I guess, but it's really important to be able to to give and get in these kinds of, um, conferences and and networking opportunities. So, we are, um,
038going to be, uh, uh, excited about that. It is a it's a lift, though. If you want to know where all of our team is and maybe some of our board members are on that day welcoming people. Um, you'll you'll find us across our schools, uh, on Tuesday. But, it's really a great opportunity to not only spotlight our schools, but to elevate teacher and principal leaders and their work and to also center on student voice. Um, again, this is a great opportunity for our district. So, that is that next week and then, um, I've talked a little bit about before and the board has with respect to the future ready work of the state Board of Education level. And they're continuing to make recommendations. They're coming to some conclusion with some of their subcommittees. And
039that work will inform next year's legislative session and high school graduation requirements. So, right now there is not anything that's overly, um, clear about what that direction will be and what those changes might be, but I always find it helpful to share those updates with the community. And, um, Dr. Downey and I, Dr. Jacqueline Downey and I split our time on the financial education and life skills subcommittee, Um, where it's really talking and I know that this board has talked about financial education and life management quite a bit. There's a lot of discussion around whether or not to embed an actual graduation credit that would would give districts some flexibility about how to achieve that or whether to embed that in current content and existing structures. When you add more to the plate and you
040know, we hear a lot about unfunded mandates, right? So we want to make sure that that is a thoughtful conversation going forward. So, it's very good to be on the subcommittee to understand the direction and also know some of the context and pros and cons for any of these kinds of decisions. Elena Sivadason is participating on the implementation subcommittee, which is focused on um themes another subcommittee which is focused on themes related to how to evaluate potential graduation policy changes. And those themes bring about different language choices, understanding operational and equity impacts specifically. And so, that's a helpful place for our team to provide expertise on a subcommittee in in terms of the evaluation of that criteria for how and what proposals might come forward, how to evaluate those. And then Julia Bamba is serving
041on the educator development and student learning experience subcommittee and those discussions really center on how we align teacher preparation with classroom practice and and the world of where we're moving towards to ensure that we do have strong relationships with our students as well as continuing to move beyond cultural competence and towards culturally responsive and sustaining practices. So, this is our focus on being able to be represented to also get an inside, you know, inside track to what's happening and to understand what's happening as we can move forward in the future. If anyone is interested in learning more about the work of this future ready effort at the State Board of Education, there is a website that keeps information up to date. They also are talking a lot about how they can enhance the mastery based
042learning effort, and that's actually one thing that's to note is that the mastery-based learning is actually now competency-based learning. It's so it's just a terminology shift just to make sure that's clear as people access what might be happening at that level. So, that's great, and while we're planning for next year, we're also planning for several years ahead as you know from the board's budget development guidelines, and we'll hear more about that shortly. And our our charge really is to start thinking about multi-year planning given fiscal and enrollment climates. And this dovetails very well with our efforts on strategic planning renewal and refresh. In addition to some community family groups that we've met with so far, we do have a plan to visit every learning operational site in the district. Already in the past week and
043a half, we've already had eight meetings across a couple of our schools or met all those have all been at schools so far and connected with over 175 staff members already. Which is great, and we discuss and focus really on the emerging thing emerging theme specific to student well-being and academic opportunities to gather feedback. We also have a survey that's open to continue to gather feedback as our staff members process that information, perhaps engaged in conversation with their peers with the presentation as a follow-up, and that will also be open through the end middle of April. That runs concurrently with all of our site visits. And then this is, you know, at the time of year when we start to see changes in our personnel and leadership. This is what happens. People start to announce
044retirements. We also confirm start to confirm and communicate any organizational changes both at a district level and school level, and that really happens, you know, starting around this time of year and through the end of the year. But we want to make sure that we are doing that well so we can determine plans to support in any transition as well as hiring as needed. So, that's what's happening in the district. It's it's March, and so there's a lot of overlap of current current current year activities to finish strong while also setting up for the next year. Great. Thank you. I'll just add that the superintendent gave a wonderful speech at the state of the city. Certainly appreciated that. Highlighted all the great things going on in the district, so uh I was in attendance. I
045was glad to hear it. Um okay, we are moving on to our next agenda item, which is a bond refunding update. Uh the administration and Foster Garvey PC, Piper Sandler, and Northwest Municipal Advisors will update the board on the 2015, 2016, and 2017 bond refunding. Thank you, Director Taylor. Um Mariah Van Ausdal, Executive Director of Finance. So, tonight we have, um as you mentioned, uh we have Lee Marchisio from Foster Garvey, uh Trevor Carlson from Piper Sandler, and Scott Bauer from Northwest Municipal Advisors. And um this is a very exciting opportunity where we can possibly reduce the bar rate cost and generate savings for taxpayers. And so, tonight they're going to walk walk us through um the financing plan, and um we also put the draft board resolutions as well, and we'll revisit those at
046the March 26 meeting. Uh Thank you, Mariah, for uh the introduction. Uh President Taylor, members of the board, Superintendent Tautyc, thank you very much for the opportunity. Uh my name is Trevor Carlson. I work for Piper Sandler, and for many, many years, I won't date myself, uh I have assisted the school district with bond financings, whether that's new money projects for refurbishing school facilities and expansion, uh or in this case bond refinancing. In our world, we use some lingo, just as the education world has some lingo. We call bond refinancings refunding, so you will see that refunding term numerous times throughout the presentation and definitely in the draft resolutions that uh Lee Marquisio uh will discuss. Um before I begin, excuse me, um I would be remissed if I forgot to thank your staff. These
047efforts take a lot of time and energy. So, Superintendent, thank you very much. Martin, Mariah, Emily, thank you for helping us herd uh you know, the resources to make sure uh we're staying on schedule and on track. Um first slide, please. Oh, I do I have Do I clickers here? Thank you so much. Technology guys are the best. Um uh President Taylor, if you don't mind, I'll I'll open this up uh if I'll let you decide how you want to uh approach this. I am happy to take questions live as we're going through. You can take notes and we can ask at the end. However, you want to run that piece. Want to be respectful of uh of your uh desires there. But, my goal is to brief you on this opportunity, but definitely be
048here to answer questions. I want to make sure everyone is crystal clear on what we're uh what our our path is here. Okay. Yeah. Um I think we'll probably take the questions at the end. >> Okay. Thank you. Um uh page one, just high-level why refinance bonds now? What are the benefits? Want to be crystal clear. The the benefit of refinancing your existing debt is to the district's taxpayers. Think of your uh existing debt as an existing mortgage. We're looking to refinance a portion of your outstanding mortgage for lower borrowing cost. And those lower borrowing cost and that lower interest cost is then translated into reduced property tax collections over a multi-year time period. That's really the main benefit. These are not uh dollars that are general fund uh dollars. These are in your debt
049service fund only. Okay? Um tax law, uh these are tax-exempt bonds. Tax law provides us specific windows uh during the life of a bond issue when a refinancing is more economically beneficial than not. And the uh the two bond refunding refundings that we'll uh look at in a couple pages were at that time period where that tax law kind of binary go no go piece uh is providing that benefit. There's another set of bonds, the 2017 bonds, that are included in the resolutions for your consideration at the next board meeting that would allow us to tackle that project later on in the autumn. Okay? So, there's And again, that I won't steal too much of Lee's thunder as far as your lawyer, but the resolutions provide uh a delegation for uh uh uh staff to
050move forward with these transactions within certain parameters. And I'll again, I won't steal all of your thunder. Um so, that's the opportunity set and why we're here now. Okay? Uh sorry, super tiny print, uh but these are uh snips from the offering documents, the documents that investors saw uh when they were looking to purchase your bonds back in 2015 and 2016. I've highlighted in the blue boxes the bonds that are callable, the bonds that have an optional redemption date uh that is soon or has passed. And And what that really means is it that that optional redemption date gives us that tax law benefit to utilize tax-exempt bonds to refinance existing tax-exempt bonds. So, those those are the opportunity sets that are in front of us now, the '15 and '16 bonds. I'll refer to
051those a couple different times during the presentation. Um interest rates, just want to give you a primer on interest rates. Uh they're a little volatile the last couple weeks or the last week and a half or so. Headline risk, the uncertainty that that's created in financial markets has driven interest rates up and down. Uh we have been in the market with two Washington school districts. Uh one this week, one last week. We accomplished those transactions. We have to be nimble. We have to have our finger on the pulse of the marketplace and where investors are willing to place uh firm orders for fixed interest rate bonds. Uh but from a long-term perspective, if you look at that one-year snapshot of a uh bond buyer index, so kind of think of this is a a Dow
052Jones index that changes on a day-to-day basis but but for tax-exempt municipal bonds, relative stability the last quarter or two um except for again uh the the caveat of you know the last week and a half or so. So, we'll keep our uh our fingers on the pulse of the marketplace as we move through time. The last slide shows a a schedule and I'll get there in just a couple minutes of how we're marching through to accomplish this goal. Okay? Um just for your reference, uh not really any decision-making uh opportunities here, but on page four and five, I wanted to uh uh provide you a detailed history of Issaquah School District's bond sale history uh by dollar amount, the borrowing cost, the true interest cost. You could almost think of that as an annual
053percentage rate. Takes all those bonds and those specific uh transactions and boils them down into one number. Uh the new money {slash} refunding column uh displays uh the last three transactions that we've executed have been the refinancings or refundings. And the net present value savings associated with those. And the refunding percentage savings. That's important because uh we need to provide uh you with a target to move forward with the refinancing. Think of it as um kind of an efficiency ratio, if you will. If we have significant savings, we can move forward with the transaction. So, that's page four and five. A lot of different bond issues issuances over the years. This goes back to 2001. Page six are the bonds that are outstanding on your books today. As you look through your uh your financials
054in the note section, all of these transactions are detailed out with uh principal and interest schedules. I've highlighted in bold the opportunities for us to refinance the 2015 and 16 bonds. Uh I highlighted those call dates of June 1st of '25 and June 1st of '26. Those were included in those blue boxes on that offering document snip uh on the the second page of the presentation. The 2017 bonds are the bonds that are callable December 1st of this calendar year. So, a little bit later on in the calendar year. So, we'll again come back to you uh you know, this autumn uh with a refresh, uh show you where those savings are, and uh you know, give you a sense if that refunding opportunity is a go or no go. Kind of where the rubber
055meets the road is on page seven. Um, I've highlighted some important um uh bits of information related to the 15 and 16 bonds that we're looking to refinance on the top portion. Uh the principal amount of callable bonds, so those are the dollar amounts or principal amounts that we're looking to refinance. 37 million for the 15 bonds, 126, almost 127 million for the 16s. Think of that average coupon line as the cost of your existing mortgage. Okay, that's the borrowing cost of those bonds, 3.3% and 3.68%. Down below is a calculation that I have completed looking at today's interest rates or as of March 5th to get this in front of you in time for your board packets. Um the true interest cost right in the middle of that lower box at 2.63%. Again, think
056of that's the cost of the new mortgage. Refinancing an old mortgage at 3 plus percent uh with uh you know, round number 2.6% mortgage brings uh potential savings net of all costs to $7 million. Again, this changes on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis depending on how interest rates move. So, this is our best guess as of March 5th. If you take that stream of cash flow and net present value that back to today that savings would be uh about $6.5 million. Remember that efficiency ratio I mentioned, 3.96% embedded in the drafts of your bond delegation resolution, we have a minimum net present value savings of 1%. So, if we can achieve 1% or greater, we move forward. That's one of the big guardrails, if you will, embedded in that bond delegation resolution. From a a savings
057perspective, this on page eight, oh, do you know what? Let me go I'll just talk to it because I didn't include it. I wanted to talk to the 17 opportunity, right? That we will discuss this fall. Just for an example, the 2017 bonds are about $80 million worth of bonds. The efficiency ratio, I'm going to actually go back. On that transaction at this point in time is just a hair north of 10%. So savings of about eight to almost $9 million. The cost of that existing mortgage, if you will, the average coupon's 5%. So that differential is quite a bit larger. That creates that opportunity for more savings. Again, as we move through time, we can't act on that transaction now. Again, we'll come back to you with an update. So I just want to
058give you a sense of why that's included and the kind of the order of magnitude, if you will, of that those potential savings. Okay? The potential savings on the 15 and 16 bonds are highlighted in the green box. I wanted to display the potential savings from an interest cost perspective over time. So round number, about a million, million two in annual savings adding up to the, you know, about $7 million in total. Your tax base is very, very large. So that savings divided by a very large tax base of $57 billion equals from a millage rate perspective or tax rate, about a penny. All right, it takes a lot of savings to move the needle. Your tax base is very, very large. And last but not least, this is an abbreviated schedule uh that gets
059us to accomplishing the refinancing um on April 30th uh where we would lock in fixed borrowing costs for the new bonds that would then replace the existing 2015 and 16 bonds at a lower borrowing cost. Think of that as locking in your mortgage day. A couple weeks later on May 19th is the actual closing. That's when all the paperwork is done and money is transferred and everything is final final. Uh we have some rating uh presentation scheduled um uh in early April and then again March 20 uh excuse me uh March 26th consideration of the three resolutions that Mr. Marchisio will brief you on momentarily. I will pause there. President Taylor, is this a good time to >> some questions now. Stephen, is there a way for me to see Sydney too on the Yeah,
060just want to make sure that Yeah, thank you for the reminder. I forgot. Forgot that she was uh on the Zoom. Director Quinn? Yeah, uh thank you. Uh thank you for the presentation, really good information. Um I guess one question I have with the the June 1st call date, is the earliest that we can do the bond sale April 30th or do we have any wiggle room on that? Uh uh the um tax law provides uh a a 90-day window in advance of the optional redemption date. Um so we're we're right in that sweet spot. >> Okay. And and I guess the reason I ask and I know you alluded to it too, just with the current volatility in the market. I know right now current conditions are favorable. I mean, and I know I'm
061I'm you know, kind of asking you to read into a make a guess on this, but do you do you think I mean, what do you what's your sense of conditions, you know, between now and April 30th? Do you think we'll still see the savings that you're projecting now? >> Yeah, I I I'm relatively confident and why I say that is in general, uncertainty creates a flight to quality. >> Yep. Your bonds are of a very high quality in nature. They are backed by the unlimited property tax pledge of the school district. So, that means as long as there's a living breathing tax collector, they will collect collect property taxes on all the residents and businesses within the district's boundaries to make principal and interest payments. It's a very solid uh uh credit uh perspective
062or um plus, we're able to use the school bond guarantee program. So, the state allows us to borrow their credit rating, uh which is uh AAA with Moody's, AA+ with Standard & Poor's. Kind of belt and suspenders credit enhancement. It just on the uh on the margins creates another layer of security. And security in your case equals lower borrowing cost. Yep. Yeah. Lot of unknowns, but I feel in general, um uncertainty creates that flight to quality. So, I you know, that's that's our hope. Well, I think it's a really good point and I two things maybe I would just elevate cuz I think these conversations, I know for some folks might kind of gloss over this and think oh, this is this is getting into the weeds, too technical, but really important when we think
063about our taxpayers and this work that we're doing. There's savings, obviously, with this. And I think you made a great point around our bonds in particular in Issaquah and the quality of those. I wonder if you could just elaborate on that cuz I think it's a point for our constituents here in the community to understand that. Would you be able to just kind of go into that a little >> Um I'll I'll break it down um um in um I guess terms of a personal FICO score. Right? You go to buy a car or receive a mortgage, your credit report is pulled and it has data on it. The better your FICO score, the lower your borrowing costs. You have very high credit ratings on an underlying basis, so the underlying credit quality of Issaquah
064School District and its tax base with Moody's and Standard & Poor's, that translates into a wider audience of investors that can participate. And that's uh potential demand for your bonds. That drives prices up. The inverse relationship with bonds, price up, yield down. So, we're trying to make sure that the product, if you will, your bonds that will be coming to market are as glossy and shiny as possible to allow as many uh investors that have some have very specific requirements uh to be able to participate in the the transaction coming up. That's great. And then just one last question. >> Sure. Um just if you could kind of also emphasize what um what really drives that high credit rating. What what if you if you could elaborate on that, too? >> Yeah, it's great great
065question. Uh numerous factors, uh many of them are out of your control. Uh size and diversity of economy is is one. Um the rating agencies uh will look at also some kind of governance uh aspects, uh a district's ability to provide supplemental uh approvals for supplemental levies, like operating level levies and capital levies, bond levies also, transportation. Um they will look at uh definitely something that's not in your control, pension obligations, right? Cuz that's handled at the state level and and and uh uh is pushed down to you, but by and large the state funding there is uh um in strong shape, so that's a credit positive. The one area uh that is uh more focused than it has been uh let's say pre-COVID versus now would be enrollment. The trajectory, is there growth, is
066there stability, is there a decrease? And general fund balances. They're really honing in on general fund balances. And by uh by their metrics, they're looking at specific credit buckets. They have to place us in a very finite bucket along with other school districts all across the nation. And looking at general fund balances on average um a AAA rated school district would need to have about a 25% general fund balance. So, we're just not our our system here is not built for those types of balances, so we're we're hindered a little bit in the grading scale. There's a lot of talk about grading scales earlier. This this rating weren't there. So, that's a grading scale. Um and just the way our system works, uh we're hamstrung just a little bit there. But size and stability of
067general fund is more and more important with the rating agencies than it has been. I mean, I I kind of I I can argue that that might not be the right metric, but your we're asking for a third-party opinion to put a stamp on the offering document that provides investors some clarity on your creditworthiness. So, it's you know, it's their editorialism, right? >> and and that's helpful cuz I think that's helpful for folks to understand that too that our creditworthiness as you said is high. And it's very high. And it's because of those factors. I think one that I you know, elevate to is just our ability to pass bonds and levies. And that historic ability to do that, that drives us. And then we talked about that a lot, but I want to particularly
068make that connection to being able to do what we're looking at potentially doing at our next board meeting to for our community cuz this isn't, you know, this is open to us because of that. That's one of the factors. So, thank you. >> No, great questions. Director Anderson. Thank you for this very easy to understand report, especially for someone like me who's not very financially literate. Um, I'm very risk adverse uh in my own financial decision-making. So, obviously having the weight of our taxpayers, you know, in making a decision. Um, are there any scenarios where the risk outweighs the projected savings that we should be aware of? >> Great question. Um, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I can I'll take a break. Good morning. Casey with the Foster Garvey Law Firm. We serve as bond counsel and
069disclosure counsel to the district. Um, thank you for having us. With regard to that question, the third resolution that's up today um is the what we call a delegation resolution which authorizes the administration to approve the bond sale. And one of the thing that things that that does is it sets very specific parameters around what bond sale um I guess numbers that the administration can can select. And those parameters include savings in every year and also no extension of the maturity date. So, there's no way the bond sale will go through unless we have an an actual savings that's within the parameters that the board establishes. Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Great question. Um, I think I only had one question cuz Director Cohen asked most of my questions, too. Good job. Can you just explain
070to me again, you said savings of about a penny for the entire tax base. Was that Did I understand that right? Is that a penny off the rate per thousand? Yes. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I was doing the right math in my my mind. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you, tech team. Yes, the math at the bottom of page eight, million dollars divided by assessed value, you always have to lop off the last three digits cuz it's dollars per thousand. Is uh a penny .7. 1.7 pennies. Yeah. Or on approximate average home value, again, we can arm wrestle over whether that's the right number, but you know, use some Googling and it's about that. Okay. Great. I missed that. That would be $19 Okay. a year. Great. Thank you. >> question.
071Now we can move along. I don't think we need to I'm not seeing any other questions. I'll turn it over to Lee Marchesio to give you a primer on the three resolutions. Thank you very much. Great. Again, thanks for having uh us here tonight. Um So uh as bond counsel, our role is to make sure that all state laws, federal tax laws, and federal securities laws, in our role as disclosure counsel, are are followed in this transaction. And that ultimately will lead to us rendering an illegal opinion that is required by uh the bond underwriters, uh Mr. Carlson's firm, and then also the ultimate investors. They won't purchase your bonds unless there's a legal opinion to that effect that the bonds are validly issued and binding obligations of the of the school district. In our
072role as disclosure counsel, we're um helping prepare the official statement, which is like a prospectus for the bonds, and that is going to include all of the things that uh Trevor talked about with respect to um you know, the district's budget, the local economy, and why these are why investors would be interested uh in the district, and actually everything that they would be interested in about the district. And in that regard, I want to say another thanks to your staff, Mariah and Martin and everyone in the finance department for collecting that information. It's a It's a large document and they're um they've done a great job providing us that information. Um so, the first regis uh resolution um of the three is our registration resolution, and under federal tax law, um bonds that uh are
073issued on a tax-exempt basis need to be registered. And uh that that basically just means that there are no bearer bonds anymore. You've got to have them uh registered. Um so, that's what the first regis uh resolution does. The second resolution that you'll be considering relates to the state guarantee program that Trevor mentioned. And so, under um the Washington Administrative Code and the Washington State Constitution um and of course the implementing statutes as well, um there it's required that you have a uh request for the state to actually uh participate in the program. So, this regis this resolution um uh authorizes the participation and the request to participate. And then finally, the last resolution is that delegation resolution I mentioned, and this is the one that authorizes the bond sale within those limited parameters that
074um that I mentioned. And state law is quite protective of the taxpayers for refunding voted bond issues. We're not allowed to extend the maturity past the final date. So, the you know, home mortgage uh analysis or uh analogy was mentioned. You can't, you know, length You can lengthen your mortgage, but you can't lengthen the term of the bonds. So, um if there's 10 years left on these bonds, that's as far out as we can go for the the refunding bonds. And also, uh state law provides that there needs to be a savings in every year. So, as Trevor put up there, the way they've um scheduled the draft numbers here, that there is a a a fairly even savings in every year. And that's also protective of the taxpayers, which means we can't accelerate the
075debt and jam next year's taxpayers with a really high tax bill. So, there's got to be savings. Um and then again, this uh resolution includes all of the covenants that um Trevor mentioned before that make this such a strong credit. Your full faith credit and taxing power is pledged to the payment of the bonds. Um and so, that's very important and there's voter approval for that with these specific bonds. So, it's a very strong credit. And um with that, I'd take any questions. Any other questions? Uh Director Oh, go ahead, Director Mullins. I have a comment. You know, I actually don't know how to raise my hand on this app. So, I'll make a comment. So, first thing >> Hold on, Director Second, Director Mullins. We're having a hard time hearing you in the room.
076Just Okay, go ahead. Give it a shot. What about now? Excellent. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Um I was saying, you know, I don't actually know how to raise my hand in this app. So, I will just >> I'm watching you. You just raise your hand on camera. I'll see it. Okay. So, first just you know, I I appreciate the walk-through. My commentary will be more of like exposing some of my thought process on this, having gone through this now a few years. it's fairly complicated and I think I know Mariah talked about it, but it maybe will be helpful to go through the sequence of events again. But one of the things that's good I think about this process one is it's always a net benefit to the taxpayer for sure. We wouldn't we will not
077execute a refinance unless it's a net benefit to the taxpayer. But I think what's important to notice like the sequence of events so maybe if we step through that again Trevor or someone else which is you know tonight is a review of all the material. The next conversation would be an actual approval of these resolutions which then authorize the ability to sale to sell to to realize that benefit but even that when the sale happens is something that you're monitoring for to ensure that we fall between those parameters. I know for me that's always been helpful to kind of review that this is a multi-step process. So maybe it would be helpful just to step through how that timeline works again because we'll see all of this again to actually approve the resolutions and then
078the sale can't happen until we meet the criteria. Yeah, well said Sydney. The last page of the presentation I'll I'll go through that timeline in in a little bit more detail. Thanks for making that happen. Again first reading of those resolutions tonight. March 26th your consideration for the three resolutions that Lee described. After that it does provide us if those are approved that school bond guarantee resolution will have an application that we need to send to the state treasurer's office so we'll make sure that Mariah has that and it's ready to go. In early April two uh, conversations, credit rating presentations, again, a allowing those third-party entities to do their due diligence and do their credit analysis, Moody's and S&P Global, uh, will receive those ratings a couple weeks after those calls. Uh, uh, Lee
079mentioned is his role is disclosure counsel, that official statement, the preliminary official statement, the disclosure document, prospectus, if you will. It's a lengthy document that describes all the inner workings of the transaction and your taxing power. Uh, that will be posted on April 22nd. That gives my team the ability to start dialing for dollars with potential investors, right? To to get the word out that Issaquah School District is coming to market, in this, uh, case, on April 30th. We'll have a check-in call the day before to review, uh, what the market looks like with your finance staff, uh, and with your superintendent. Lock in the borrowing cost at at this juncture on April 30th, but you're, again, want to make sure we're clear, your delegation resolution allows us to pivot if for some reason April
08030th is just not a good day, the world has stopped revolving and it's not going to work, we do not have to go forward, right? This is our schedule as of now. Uh, we can pivot if necessary, but we're going to target April 30th, and then, uh, Lee and his team, post locking in the borrowing cost, post locking in the savings for taxpayers, uh, will help us put together all of the legal documents necessary to have a valid tax-exempt bond outstanding on May 19th. Did Sydney, does that help? Yeah, hopefully it does. Hopefully it just sets that stage that we're going to walk through a process and then if we get to a point where the math doesn't work, we don't have to execute. Yes. Uh Scott Bauer, your financial advisor, would love to chime
081in. Sorry, I just wanted to uh say hello. Yeah, Scott Bauer, Northwest Municipal Advisors. There's a reason I've been lurking over Trevor Trevor's shoulder cuz that's a little bit what my role is is we are an independent financial advisor. We're not affiliated with the underwriting firm. We are uh your market expert to help take you through this process and answer any questions on the staff. We'll be integrally involved uh throughout this process and particularly when we get to the sale date. So again, our fiduciary duty is to you, the district. So I just wanted to make sure you understood that that's our role in this transaction. A- Any other questions? Yes, Director Coy. Um just one other item I wanted to just highlight again. If we go to slide eight again, I just want to
082bring back the opportunity here. So we're talking about, you know, Trevor, I think your point around we're talking about two bond issuances that took place that we're looking for refunding opportunities right now. But this is outlining we have opportunities in the fall, as you said, too. And then I just want to highlight as well going forward that there's a potential opportunities, not that we'll act on them in all of these years going forward. So if someone's look if a taxpayer is looking at this and thinking, gosh, that doesn't really seem that material. True, but there are future opportunities and I just want to stress that again. I know you said that already, but I just want to elevate that cuz I think it's important to look at that cuz if you see that $19.14 out
083of context, it doesn't seem like it's that material. And and these are on the margins optimization opportunities to again optimize and and lower the district's overall debt burden uh which then equates to property tax burden. Um the the call date, the second column in from the right on page six gives you an idea of when we will potentially be coming back with opportunities. Again, uh kind of the right in the middle there, this 2017 bonds. Again, we'll come back in the autumn uh to refresh the uh the the analysis there. There would be another opportunity autumn-ish of '27 you know, first second quarter of '29 first second quarter of 2030. So, those are the opportunities that we will have moving forward and we will brief you um and keep your finance staff apprised uh you
084know uh prior to those opportunity dates. Sounds great. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Superintendent, any comments? No. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And then just a reminder that the bond refunding resolutions will be presented for adoption on March 26th at our next meeting. Moving right along. Uh next we have a uh 2026-27 budget update. All right, thank you. Should I just go ahead? >> Go ahead. Go ahead. Yes. Yes. All right. Martin Cherry, you too for finance operations. Thank you. This is kind of a good lead-in. That what we just went through some bond refunding. We get to talk about the budget now. These two things work together. I get to Thank you, Mariah, for letting me have the thank you portion of this
085for the levy voters and community. Thank you so much. And this is, you know, it locks in our ability to provide what we're currently providing as a district by having those secured levies for the next 4 years. So, very important. I will also say because it ties in when we went through the the whole process with the levies, we talked a lot about the tax rate. And so, I just want to say we are fairly conservative when we do that. We don't build in any of these future refundings. So, you can see we have had, you know, in the past 3 4 years we've done three refundings. We're going to We have potential for three more. We talk about the savings for one individual or one portion of those refundings. It might be It might
086seem small, but as they add up, there's Every time we do that, it takes a few, you know, a couple cents or so off the the tax rate. Lowers that, and it's a real savings for taxpayers. So, that kind of works in to this. And then, of course, we talked a little bit about how fund balance plays into our rating. And so, Mariah's going to go over a lot of details here for you. And so, some things to keep in mind coming off that last conversation is how our fund balance plays into that. So, I will turn it over to Mariah to give you those details. Thank you, Martin. So, first we're going to go over where we are in the process. So, in November, we met with the board and the community and provided
087information on our 24-25 financials. We also since then we had a February 12th board work study with a demographer and we have been developing the budget since October for next year and evaluating that process throughout the way. And so we're going to provide some updates on that process tonight as well as the current some information on the legislators session as well. So in November so just some reminders. So for 24-25 we had a decline in fund balance of 6.2 million so that means that our expenditures exceeded our revenues by that amount and then also from 24-25 to 25-26 to the current school year we have a decline of 559 students between those years. And so what you're going to be seeing throughout this presentation is how enrollment is driving financial pressures throughout the system. And
088we also talked about at in November about strategic alignment and cost containment and that leads into also helping with our our bond credit rating as well. We are in we are in one of the top districts in the state for our credit rating. So we we would like to also keep that retain retain that as well to help with those savings for our taxpayers. Okay, so for for the state budget so there's been a lot of news about the state budget about the decline the gaps and so we have seen that throughout the process. So the state the portion that used to be education was about 52% and now it's about 43% of the state budget and as our superintendent alluded to you know potentially with different taxes and different things that could change how
089those land in the future. For now uh, what what has been put forth as potential is um, re- reductions to the transition to kindergarten up to 25% of of those funds, and that would shift those costs to the district. As well as over this next year, they're going to be reviewing if they extend bus depreciation from 13 to 15 years. What What does that do for the district? Um, how does that work with replacement cycle? And then something else is the sales tax exemption for schools. So this is something that was passed last year. Um, however, this I think this was an unintended consequence. Uh, so the legislation did put forth about 1.5 million dollars in um, special education funding for our district and some MSOC funds as well, about over 500,000. But this tax
090that was also put in place last year is over 1.5 million dollars in cost. So I think they, you know, they didn't know that unintended consequence when that happened at that time, but we are we're watching to see if there will be a sales tax exemption for school districts. So for our local levy, um, it it ha- it has increased. Uh, so for 25-26, this current school year, we're estimating about a $6 million increase. But what what we have noticed is that and what we presented on in November is that our revenues, they grew about 3% and our expenditures grew by 7%. So the costs of, you know, inflation and staffing costs are are exceeding how much we're gaining in terms of our revenue generation, um, as well with our enrollment declining. And so what
091we're seeing since COVID, we've dropped about 2,800 FTE, uh, for students. And uh, we did have some stabilization. So 21-22 to 23-24, our enrollment did stabilize. And then with um declining birth rates in King County and across the nation, uh we're seeing those grades, you know, roll up through the system as well with smaller cohorts. And then family migration, uh people have been moving because they're working remotely and different things um that would cause them to move and also housing affordability. Um So, state funding is largely driven by enrollment. So, when we see these large enrollment declines, that does have a a large impact to our our revenue funds. Uh also staffing is a it's a pretty fixed cost in terms of you know, you have a contract you you already have uh agreed to.
092And we have over 80 about 83%, 84% of our expenditures are in staffing, which is very which is common in much school districts. And so, as enrollment declines, the the cost per pupil does go up as operational costs to operate the schools for the staffing um do become less proportional. So, you don't So, the costs do start to accelerate in terms of how much you're spending per student. So, what this is showing, it is a 3-year comparison of the the fund balance. And so, for the current school year, that's the navy blue line. Uh so, that's the 25-26 and you'll see that it did start lower because we had that $6.2 million decline. And then in January, you can start to see, you know, as expenditures start to exceed and enrollment has declined, you start
093to see that gap widen a little bit more. So, for our fund balance, this is an indicator of financial health. And um so, this is how stable is your district um, to meet the needs, uh, to pay payroll. And, uh, so we did see our peak in 23-24, and we had the decline in 24-25, and then we are currently estimating a decline of over $8.9 million for 25-26. And so, as we go along, we'll also talk about, um, cost containment and different methods that we're going to be doing to stabilize the district, uh, going forward as well. And then, part of, uh, the board budget development guidelines was to keep, you know, keep you updated on what was, uh, the unreserved at the end of the year. So, we're now it is projected with the
094$20 million reservation for future facilities, that would drop it down 3%. Um, so right now it's, uh, the minimum is 3 to 7%. And I also want to, um, put the let you know as well, currently under our we're under state audit right now, and they are looking at financial condition and financial health differently than they have in the past. So, I have talked to other districts, they are issuing exit items and management letters, um, potential findings. I haven't found that yet. And so, they are looking and they are looking at our monitoring reports and seeing if we are staying within our guidelines, and this is something that they will be reporting on as well. So, also in December, the board, um, the adopted their budget development guidelines, and there were some additions to that.
095So, looking at multi-year fi- fi- financial forecasting, uh, contingency planning, as well as preserving those equity-based budget investments to support students, and continue to align financial planning with the priorities and strategic plan as well. So, with meeting with the demographer in February, with enrollment decline they're projecting under any scenario low, mid, and high for the next decade. They're projecting decline compared to what we currently have for the 25-26 school year in enrollment. So, there's some different factors that are impacting that. One of them is we do have housing growth. You probably do notice that there's houses that are being built, but it's the type of houses. So, just the type of housing does produce more students versus others that they're finding in terms of their research. And also then these smaller cohorts, so once you
096have smaller kindergarten classrooms with these smaller birth rates, those will be shifting from elementary into secondary over time. And so, King County where is their birth rate decline of 14% in Issaquah School District for this current school year came 7% under that. In years past, we used to come in 102%. So, rather than 93% we were all the way above the birth rate. So, that is a quite a big swing in terms of how big our kindergarten classrooms are. And for those to work their way up through all the grades. So, we start we started our forecasting in October and we compared those to demographer report as well building by building grade by grade. Kindergarten we are we are projecting to be be below birth rate based on past trend without non-resident enrollment intervention. And
097so we do have over about 30 kindergarten students right now from non-residents as well. And that we expect that number to also increase. So we will continue to watch that very closely. We have released our our projections as they are right now to human resources. They are meeting with buildings to talk about those and do staffing. And then we continue to update update those throughout the year and watch how the enrollment progresses um each month. So just understanding enrollment data. So head count. So we use this for facility planning capacity. So you you would have say like running start students who could come back to your campus. And so you want to have capacity for that. Um full-time and equivalent. This is students that actually you know, they're in the seat. They are being counted
098for that school day. And so we have a couple graphs here that kind of explains the differences in when you look at our enrollment as a whole. So this one includes head count and this one includes running start TK. Um so you'll notice that the projected is 20 for 26 27. It's 17,809. And this also shows that stabilizing during those um in 21 22 to 23 24. You can see that as well. And then it's dropped since then. And so this one is showing the FTE. So this is removing those running start students. And so that brings it down to 16,904. Okay. So for 26 27 we're projecting a decline about 515 students, 3% of our enrollment. And we also have 90 new non-resident students. And so, um that is open and uh people are
099uh families are welcome to apply and be a part of our district. Uh there are some unknown factors as we are still developing our enrollment projections. We we still are watching, you know, how are those open enrollment numbers going to come in, as well as, you know, any impacts for online school as well. We also do monitor family migration monthly, um looking at each school to see if we can, you know, look for any trends there as well. So, for the long-term financial outlook, we're expecting that decline in students. Um we there are uh cost per student do continue to go up as as you do have operating costs that are relatively fixed. And so, without adjustments for 26-27, we would continue continue to see our fund balance decline. Um and so, that reduces our
100being able to stabilize in the future. Um and so, we will be be making strategic changes to for our budget, um and leveraging attrition and different things like that to to help increase our stability in our fund balance in our district. So, our next steps, we're going to Tomorrow is the last day of the legislative session. Uh so, we'll have some more information about that, and as well as any updates in our enrollment projections, our fund balance projection. We are working with our labor partners. We've had lots of meetings with all of our with many departments, um staff, um as a you know, as leadership as well, evaluating staffing, operational adjustments, um I'm looking at that attrition as well. And um and we're continuing to develop those uh multi-year financial projections. And we will continue
101to provide more information as well to the the board and community. So, I'm going to open up for any questions. Director Anderson. Um I have a comment and then a couple questions. Uh great presentation. Thank you very much. Um I think this highlights the concern of the state funding dollars tied to the students, um which we talked was talked heavily about at the multi-district town hall that Director Coin and President Taylor and I attended back in January. Um this is a very old model that needs to be changed. Um we had a student in my daughter's fifth grade class that moved out and took those dollars with him when he moved out of the district. Um and yet we still need to keep lights in the building, the teachers teaching, the supplies, all of that.
102So, um I am committed to doing what it takes to continue to push our legislators to change this. Um and Martin, your help is appreciated on our communication for that because um it needs to be changed. It's just an old model and it's impacting all of the districts in our state. Um I do have a couple questions. Um and this may be something that our you may not be able to answer cuz it might be for um our demographer. Um but do we know what is causing birth rate decreases? Is it generational? Do they have any data behind that? Well, um I would I was looking at it. So, it is a a nation-wide birth rate has declined. Um and then Washington state had declined a little more than what the nation had. Okay. Yeah,
103or King County, I mean. So, um that's probably not fully answering your question. and I'm happy to, you know, get more information about that. >> Okay. It's good to know, I mean, not good, but it's good to know it's not just our area. It's obviously happening everywhere. Um, and then I believe online school registration is still occurring, but do we have projected numbers for how many may enroll in that? Oh, uh, there right now it uh, the enrollment is open and so there isn't a known projection. Um, originally the um, director, she estimated, you know, 50 to 100, but, you know, it is continuing to monitor and we'll see as um, those numbers trickle in. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Quinn. Thank you. Great presentation. I just have one quick question in terms of projections on
104students from outside the district. I know, I think you said 90 students right now. Is that correct, Maria? And and do we have projections on that increase year over year, what that Do we have any sense of what Yeah. So, um, in prior years we've you we typically get about 220 students from staff members who have who bring their kids to the district. Um, and then since opening this more broadly to non-residents, um, that's where we we get the addition in addition to the typical what we get, we're getting that additional 90 on top of that. Okay. Yeah, and what we're seeing so far is it is pretty split in terms of it is going to elementary and secondary. And we don't have any sense of what that growth might look like. Any I mean,
105do we assume it'll probably grow year over year once the I mean, cuz I know there's probably less of an understanding that that that it's even open now and every year people get more aware of that. So, yeah, the what we can say is cuz we've watched some neighbors who've done it for a little bit longer. And so we did see where they did take they got some numbers, but then they started to ramp up once people started to get more awareness that oh, this district is open and the different programs. Um and so um and then you do get to a potential point where you do plateau. Um so just depends on but you you might continue to get new students as um new students come of age as well. So. Thank you. Uh
106just on that point again, one more time. I just want to be sure I'm clear on the 90 figure. That is actual or projected? That is actual. Actual. But could there be more? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um Director Mullins, do you have any questions? No. Uh okay, I do have one one more follow-up then. And this is just if you happen to have this off you know, top of your head. If not, no big deal. But I'm uh wondering if you know what the number is for the unreserved fund if we added the 20 million from the facilities holdback. Oh, what the percentage would be? >> would be? Yeah. Um yeah, I would I would have to run it, but it would definitely be over the 3%. Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.
107Any other questions from anyone? Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next up on our agenda is uh capital projects update. Um And there will be two resolutions on the agenda with possible board action. So, let's see. Are we going to have a presentation first, I believe? Yes. >> Yes, we will. Great. Good evening, everyone. Tom Mullins, director capital projects. Ready to give an update on the new high school and the intent to build. >> We're going to go update you on quick design recap. Um, update the project budget, construction budget. Um, we have a project we hired go into some project management services that we dipped our toe into. Present some information for board action that we that is necessary to get started with the project which include a approval of a
108GMP and associated resolution and also an intent to construct and then some other general timelines and next steps. First start out with a key term definition. GMP or guaranteed maximum price and it's kind of an important one so I'm going to read it. Is a construction contract method in which the contractor agrees that the total project cost will not exceed a specified maximum amount. If the work ends up costing less, the savings typically return to the owner. If it costs more, the contractor is responsible for coverage covering the overage unless the scope changes. This approach provides more certainty for the owner while still allowing collaborative project development. So quick recap. Design build is the project delivery method that we used on this project. It's uh in there's three types allowed in the state of Washington.
109Classic low bid, GCCM, and progressive design build. This one's progressive design build and if you want to know more detailed information, there's a link there. It's a design build team is made up of the contractor, builder, and the architect or designer. And in this in this delivery method, the contractor leads the team. Versus the other methods, the architect is the one that leads the design. The owner selects the design-builder primary primarily based on qualifications. It's kind of a it's a process we go through and um to to uh select we interview all of the different teams, go through a process and a matrix, and then uh we pick one. Uh the owner and the design-builder work together during the whole project to develop design, refine risks, and align on budget and schedule. And then the
110final price or guaranteed maximum price is negotiated later once enough design development risk assessment have occurred, which is the point we're at now. Um timeline Based on the design-build selection process, we ended up with Skanska and Bisetti. Um the contract was signed with Skanska back in October of 2020. And we've been working with them for the last 5 or 6 years through the design and permitting process. And a guaranteed maximum price has been proposed by Skanska, and we're going to look at it tonight uh for your approval. But recap of the overall project budget, the GMP came in at at 108 little over 108 million, almost 109. We have soft costs of about 44 million in the project budget. We have a contingency of 14.8 million for a total project budget of a little over
111168 million. There's some small print down at the bottom that gives the talks about some of the stuff that's involved in the soft costs and there's 23 million that we've already spent and soft costs and it kind of lists out all the different things there that are included. The construction original construction budget that we had set was 110 million. They came in at 108 million. We have about a 1.5 million dollar delta which will be put back into the contingency to be used for the project if needed. Let's stop there. See if there's any questions. Director Anderson. Okay, can we go back a couple to the overall project budget? Maybe it's just one side. Yeah. Okay. So when I was reviewing this, I had it in my head that the total cost was 147, 147
112million. So then I started doing some math. Um, if we take what was already spent in soft costs and take that out of the 44 that leaves us a balance of 21, which is the difference between 168 and 147. Is my math correct and previously we weren't reporting already spent soft costs or what our balance was something in there because >> 145 million was what we we had to move the project forward from the point we're at. And the 23 million is what was already spent in the last five to six years on design, permitting, and all the different things. So So do we have that 21 million to spend if 147 was what we had to secure before to move the project forward and now we're at 168? Yes, we do. Okay. We just
113not to just repeat it too many times, but we had been we had been talking about that 146 147 amount so much because it was really about how much do we have to go forward, right? So, you did the math correctly. It It is right. And so, we we we did a lot of work to make sure that we had exactly what we um believe we had. This we now are showing the total project cost because we want to add back in that 20 plus million dollars that was already spent. Okay. So, then the other math that I did is 44 million in soft costs is 26% of the total cost. That seems really high to me. Um I I see all the things listed that it's design, pre-construction, all of that stuff, but Soft
114costs are generally in the in the ballpark at 30 to 40%. >> Okay. So, >> doing pretty good I don't want to say we're doing good, but at this point we're we're not looking too bad. Okay. >> So, yeah. And we have some contingency and the 1 and 1/2 million potentially will go into contingency of the saving of the GMP. So, And if you look at the we have about 145 million left to spend and the 14 million would be about you know, it is a good amount of contingency for that amount. >> Okay. >> So, Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Anyone else I can't see Director Mullins? No. >> I have one. Oh, she does. Go ahead, Director Mullins. And as Steven said, he has to bring me up so you can see
115me. Um So, it's back to this the guaranteed maximum price. Tom, I guess my question is the way this is worded and you've underlined it in the description. What is this? On the third slide. Is that it is uh obviously they eat the overage unless we change scope. So, is there a like a go in principle on change. Is it uh uh like $0 change has to get approved? Is there a threshold for change? What is the I guess the the scope change philosophy? And then is that you know, is there I guess do we then do some sort of threshold is like inside can be handled within the project or has to come to board for review? So, the contractor has two contingencies built into their guaranteed maximum price. One is um missed scope
116and one is um design changes. And it's a it's a small percent, but those as long as the changes fall or as defined fall within that contingency amount in there, you won't see a change order. There'll be an internal change order to the project and will be tracked, but it won't be a um it won't be a a change order that is brought to the board. It will only come to the board if it if it if it comes outside of that contract amount. And if that contingency in there does not get spent during the project, that's part of the savings that comes back to the owner. Okay, great. Will there be an opportunity to kind of see progress against that internal change like I guess to get some sort of pre-warning of where we
117are to that internally held contingency? Uh Can you repeat that? Um my question is sort of about advanced warning that we might be exceeding that internal project contingency. So, is there a way that we'll be able to see how that internal either the detail of how that internal change is being consumed or some sort of pre-warning that we're we're going to exit that and we'll be moving into a phase where we may have to approve change above and beyond what's what's been scoped inside the project. So, if that's a if that is information that the board would like to track, we can make that part of our my presentation each month and we can make sure to keep everyone informed on that. I will say definitely to answer. That is a definite yes to your
118question. It is very important for us to continue to monitor the progress not only of construction but of expenditures and if there are any changes, you know, that come up, we will make sure that that's part of it. That's the kind of thing we would also bring forward as part of our work with the capital projects oversight committee as well. So, it is important for us as a value to maintain transparency with our taxpayers, but we also to your point, it's not just about after the fact, it's also, hey, there's something that's trending in a direction and we want to make sure you're aware of it because that does sometimes lead to different choice points and that's an important thing to disclose to the community and to the board. Great, thank you. Any other questions?
119And are we Is there more? Yes, there is more. Any other questions on No, I don't think so. budget right now? Okay, as we move through here. Okay, and on this something new to the school district is um with the recent retirements in the in the department, we have two people leaving, Grace Naragait after 40-plus years with the district and Debbie Rossin who is our capital projects specialist. We decided because of the limited amount of work we have that we would hire go out to a project management service. We interviewed several. We picked chose uh Turner Townsend Hery. And they're going to be on the new high school. Uh they'll supplement the ISD staff on the day-to-day project management. And a note that the project management services are part of and and accounted for in
120the overall project budget. And as a matter of fact, Debbie Kim, our project management person from Turner Townsend came tonight to be a part of it. Moving on. This is the latest >> comment? Can I make a comment on that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think um so I think it's a it's a good approach particularly given the shift in internal staffing. I think sometimes, you know, I will hear commentary again community commentary that that when we choose to use contracted resources versus employees can feel confusing. And so I want to pause on this for a second and just kind of tie the previous discussion on on when we talked about budget and costs and that staffing costs is the greatest driver of of costs within the in the district. And so where we have the
121opportunity in a case like this to your point where we don't have a large number of projects where we need expertise for a set period of time. Um I just wanted to share my support for leveraging contracted services and not making the ongoing commitment to you know, internal staffed resources. Um I just bring that up because I I know that I've had discussions with people. I've seen commentary where there is the seeming confusion about leveraging contracted resources and I just want to underscore that I think it's an important um approach and important choice point in managing again all of the needed costs and ongoing um ongoing budget of of the district but you know acknowledging for some people that may seem weird or different. So I just wanted to take a pause on that point.
122Yeah. And that's the same process thought process that Martin and I and others in the district went through to make this choice. So thank you. Any other comments on project management services? Quick updated aerial view of the high school project. So one quick thing just uh let you know Tom you can expand on this for me is that you know there there are some um potential um perceptions that this is all currently forested land and that's not the case. So there are large portion of this is already cleared and Tom you can help me out with that but um you see this is the final product. There will be some tree removal um but there is quite a bit of that land that's already uh without trees at the moment. Correct. And if you look
123at Google Earth you get you can see it very clearly. Front entrance commons and the entrepreneur maker spaces. Okay. Quick update as to where we're at. We're awaiting issuance of site works one permit which will allow the contractor to start site work. We are expecting at this point to start April 1st. The expected opening date still remains August 27th. We're still working through programming development with ISD staff and others. We have a groundbreaking ceremony that is TBD and we're ready to get the new high school project underway. Finally. Okay, another key term just to bring everybody up to speed. Uh the OSPI has a program called the School Construction Assistance Program or SCAP and it's uh provides state-funded financial assistance to public school districts for constructing new or modernizing existing permanent instructional facilities. It requires
124districts to secure local voter-approved bonds or levies with funding based on student enrollment projections, eligible square footage, and state funding assistance percentage. Um tonight one of the requirements of the SCAP funding in OSPI is to get to approve a board resolution approving the GMP for the construction portion of the project. The GMP for the project as stated before was 108 plus with that includes Washington state sales tax. Sometimes you're going to see that if you see the number raw from the contractor, it's 99 million, but with tax it's 108. Original budgeted construction cost estimate was 110 million and tonight we're going to request that the board approve the GMP and associated resolution. Any questions? Comments? Dr. Coyne. Um Tom, thank you for the additional information. I want to go back to a point that both
125you and Martin made around the current state of that space. I've seen a lot of commentary recently where people have said this is the last forest of in some on the Samish Plateau. I I guess maybe just elaborate on that. I mean, it is already clear-cut. There was a structure on there. Um maybe just speak to that again. So, we can move on from there. >> this this all of the Issaquah property all of the Issaquah Valley's been logged at least twice. So, none of this is old-growth forest. That's just a point. And uh when the Sisters of the Providence bought this back in the '60s, they cleared a lot of that land and you can tell from the Google Earth photos that, you know, that there's probably just looking at it, 40-plus percent is
126logged is clear is clear right now. And it's just the surrounding outsides of the property that are going to be the additional trees will be taken from. So. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I I So, I think this is a really important point if I could make another comment. Yes, go ahead, Dr. Mulvaney. Yes, because uh you know, I think there's been some intentionally uh you know, some flat-out lies about what's sitting on that property. I I've decided to stop saying misinformation cuz that's just not what it is. Um so, two points. One is when I first moved to Issaquah 14 years ago, um the YMCA sat on that property and that is where I took my children to the YMCA with roads and a gigantic building, multiple buildings, and a concrete pool in which they
127they went to swim. And so, again, this re these these ridiculous pictures I've seen of AI-generated lush forests next to full streams, um just to call them out for what they are are just absolute lies. And so, we need to be clear that that we are building a school on a property that had surprise a school. That had multiple buildings, that had large large installations. So, that's one piece. The other piece that for me, I think is really important just because I have to get this off my chest, is there's a reason why we have something called an urban growth boundary, in which we have determined that we should build and and a lot for the growth of humans and services inside that boundary, and that is where this land sits. And therefore, it has
128been determined that this is the area in which to build. Now, if we decided to build this school, you know, 40 miles away outside of the urban growth boundary, then I think there's lots of questions to be asked. But in this case, I am so excited to be moving forward with this project. I am thrilled to get to this point. I am just couldn't be happier. In fact, that's why I'm here in a very far off time zone to make sure to be a part of this moment. Um and so, I just appreciate all of the work and the effort and the time and the clarity and uh bringing in experts and meeting all of the regulations by all of our all of our cities and municipalities and partners multi times over. So, I'm just
129deeply grateful and thankful for this work and and believe deeply that this is a wonderful improvement for our community, for our traffic, um and I'm deeply grateful to this work and the work you've done here. Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent, Dennis. I do want to note here, thank you, Tom and Martin and for other folks who are not in this room for helping to make this get to this point. Um and echo Director Mullin's comments as well on appreciation for where we are today. I do want to also note that the GMP portion of the budget is actually under the original cost estimate. So, that's something you kind of glossed over, but it's an important point because, you know, it is a little bit about 1.5 million. So, that's important to note, and I see
130Mr. Turney wishing to say something else. Yes, thank you. This actually helped me get to get back to what I point I was going to make. I don't know if my clicker can get back to the slide. Um Another question was asked earlier about the guaranteed All right, so right here. I just want to stress the scope change part because this is kind of the beauty of how this is done is that this is not the process where, um you know we can see the type of change orders that maybe we've traditionally seen where it increases the cost of the project. There is, you know, the likelihood that we're changing scope in this project is pretty slim. So, this is what really kind of locks this in to that price. So, I just wanted to
131kind of clarify that that this is this is one of the benefits to us in this type of project. And so, we are not doing we are not considering any major scope changes to this project. So, this is this is a benefit to us. So, I just wanted to point that out. Yep. Okay, and another um OSPI requirement is that the board board pass a resolution that is intent to construct, and this one is a very deliberate um requirement by OSPI because when when they lock money in for us on a project or set aside money, it tends to take it away from somebody else who might be doing something. They see that want to know the school district is serious about construction. So, they require us to go through a resolution. And it's called
132an intent to construct. And it's and that will be another request that the board approve the intent to construct resolution. Any questions there? Okay. Um we've started Comms has started a new frequently asked questions uh link on the high school the new high school web page. That's the link there. And uh we're going to continue to build those FAQs out as we move along with the project. There's there's going to be kind of a frequently asked questions concerning program on the high school page itself. This one will be the one we're referring to here will be on the capital projects page. So, any other questions overall in the presentation? Rex. Um thank you again as like everyone said for this presentation. It was very good. Um I think um my questions or concerns come from
133kind of what we heard in the last presentation about um budget updates like that we are continuing to see enrollment decline and birth rates decline. And I'm just wondering what the effects of that are going to be over the few years cuz we're we're building this new high school kind of as that um cure to fix the overpopulation we're seeing in Liberty, Skyline, and Issaquah. Um But like as the presentation said, we've seen elementary um enrollment decline and that's going to eventually feed through to our secondary education programs. And I just wonder if we'll see the day where we have built this high school and we realize maybe we didn't need to spend the $168 million to build it, but I'm um I guess I'm just kind of wondering what what where that is factored
134into your plans on this capital project. Yeah. No, great question, and I appreciate the the attention to our previous conversation. Uh not everyone always pays attention, so thank you. Um but great question because one of the things we need to remind ourselves is that as a district we were able to adjust and and build at the elementary level and the middle school level throughout those last 10, 11, 12 plus years as we've had uh those that increasing enrollment. What what unfortunately we've been is we've been very stifled and because we haven't been able to do these things at the high school level, we are obviously still well over capacity as it is, right? So, we're starting from a a capacity spot where we're well over capacity. Now, one of the things that's happened with this
135project also was it was originally a full comprehensive high school. So, it had a lot more students that were going to be um at this site, right? So, actually the reduction to the current 700-ish uh amount plays well into that anticipated enrollment going forward. So, in addition to those things, there is, you know, the capacity to do some of those um programmatic things that we want to do as a district to provide better offerings. Uh that allows that in this kind of deal. So, in a nutshell, uh even as we decline in enrollment over time, uh we have such a we we are so far behind in adding capacity at the high school uh that it this is really a move that helps us uh with that capacity even if it's going to ease a
136bit over time in the in the next decade. So, um thank you for the question. Uh I very astute. Thank you. Um sorry, yeah, I also have I have a one more follow-up question to that. Sorry. Um I was looking at the um the aerial view of the uh um project and I was looking at the sports facilities. Looks really nice and I was wondering will this new high school be offering sports teams? Uh this high school campus does not have the same level of athletic space that our other high schools do. We have already discussed previously that this district school will be open for enrollment across the district. And so there's still a lot to be worked out on programming and similar to our other school that is open enrollment across the district, participation
137on athletic teams happens with the feeder pattern school. So that is likely the outcome is that there will not be athletic programs associated with this high school campus. However, we still have a lot to work through on the programming side and that's a really important thing to just say out loud. Yeah. And um I I I totally understand like thinking of Gibson Ek, you know, they they don't have their own um sports facilities, but for example iron cross country, a lot of my cross country teammates go to Gibson Ek and they're able to still do it through that. And I'm thinking if this is going to be another smaller opt-in school like Gibson Ek, um why are we building the sports facilities we see on the campus? I'm just wondering if um not necessarily that
138it would be a waste. There's no way that it could be a waste, but would it be accessory to what we're needing to get from this high school? Yeah. I would love to respond if I could. Go ahead, Director Morris. Yeah. So a couple things and one is I would like to draw a distinction between sports and athletic programs and physical education. So, in order for a campus to have athletic teams, there's a lot more build-out than a track. So, we should separate that out and and be diligent in saying we still have requirements of um physical education that exists regardless of if there's sports teams. Two, there's also requirements of over overcrowding in sports fields both in the city and on the existing school campuses. So, those things do not have to Now, to
139superintendent's point, programming isn't done, but I'm just bringing up like two things can be true. We can still need more field space and not have sports teams. Those those two things um don't have to exist in the same place. Does that make sense? Um yeah, I I think it does. I It just um like you brought to my attention uh physical education. I'm just thinking about the um elementary schools. Like they don't have that same kind of Try like I went to Sunny Hills and they had the um the sand field, which was great for the PE mile and and all the other things. I'm just wondering why um we couldn't do something smaller. Well, why we are going for the full track and football field for the um physical education needs and other things
140that you're talking about. So, the the field is a multi-purpose field. It does not solely service football. Yeah, sorry. That that that was a conclusion that I jumped to, but um yeah, just fields in general. Yeah. Sure. My my answer stands the same. I don't I don't have a different answer to that question. And I would also note that we partner with our cities, our city partners too, who are using our fields. The community uses the fields. So, you know, we want to make sure that the the institution that we're building has as much you know, much um viability as we can for the programming we want to put in there, as well as for the community use. Things of that nature. And in case, if at any point um you know, if our population
141changes many, many, many years down the road, and we need to expand that school in some way or another, that infrastructure has already been purchased at much cheaper cost than it'll be to expand it 15, 20 years from now. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. I'll put Wait, does this work? I can just speak loud. Oh. Never mind. All good. Sorry. Um so, a couple of meetings ago, we had discussed potentially also using the facilities at the new school in order to help expand and ease some of the tension or um of the athletics put on our facilities at like our other main high school. So, um we had talked about that maybe looking like teams from IHS or Skyline like practicing at the new school. Uh I was just wondering if that's something that is
142still kind of top of mind as the development of this is changing, or if it's looking to be something that can be used more like for the community or in a multi-purpose sense. I'll just jump in cuz I think at least the tail end of that question was can it be used for community use, which I think Director Taylor was mentioning earlier is a definite. Uh and then it could be used for any any of those like uses, I should say. And I think I think it's early still, you know, in our planning processes. We'll start having those discussions. Um so more to come. Any of the director correct? Um let's see. I've got uh comment and then a question. And I'm going to I went to I know uh Tom you were sharing on
143the last page of the presentation the uh the new high school uh website and I was pulling that up. Um and there I want to highlight the frequently asked questions. So um there are uh six on here right now and these are very common questions that a lot of us get asked and they're very good responses in terms of um you know, answers to these. So one is was a transportation um analysis performed for the proposed school project and what was the city of Sammamish's role in the analysis? That's the first question with a comprehensive response there. Um the second question is what if the school enrollment boundaries change in the future? Third question is what traffic mitigation conditions are required for the full build out of the project? Um the fourth question is what
144transportation improvements are proposed for phase 1A portion of the proposed school project? Question five is what's the project doing with stormwater and how will it impact the downstream uh tributaries and salmon popula a population? That is a common question. So I want to make sure people know there's a response out there. Um so please take a look at that. And then the last question is why can't the initial phase phase 1A be constructed without removing all of the trees? So again, what we were talking to a bit connected that. So want to make sure people are kind of centered on what's out there now. Um, my question being, and I know I had posed this to the superintendent, too, getting um, a lot of interest from folks who want to be a part of our
145advisory committee and really kind of having a voice in the build-out of the high school. Um, I know that that will be out here soon to be able to sign up for that. I don't know if you have any thoughts on kind of timeline. Um, it's great so many people have interest. So, I want to be able to point them to this site and give them a sense of timing on when that'll be available to apply. Uh, thank you for that question. I know that there's interest. I know that there's lots of interest in, um, in the sort of programming and, uh, offerings and, uh, eagerness to contribute and lots of, um, great ideas already out there. Uh, we were moving through the appropriate stages, which is to really get through this in, uh, resolutions
146tonight to ensure that that was a formal part of the cadence of the work. Um, and we have been certainly gathering feedback over many years now on programming that has, you know, been shifted and formed, um, by the rapid change of our economy and the workforce. And so, that is something that is also important that we have taken into account in the most recent years. So, coming very soon as we, uh, move through tonight, um, successfully, I hope, that then we can march towards, uh, very quickly getting, um, some early information out there, um, and starting to, uh, show the avenues in which people can share their additional input. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Director Anderson. Um, Director Anderson, sorry, didn't have my mic. Sorry if I missed this. Um, I see that it's
147on the Issaquah School District website under capital projects, but there's also mention of a website. Potentially, is that still going to happen? It's not available yet. Or is it just going to stay on the Yes, that is the next portion of the website to be released. So, it's mentioning that reference now in in anticipation. That should be released very soon. >> Okay. >> Yep. I thought thought originally it was February, but we're in March, so Yes, yes. So I believe there was probably some miscommunication about that that this was the part of the website that was being built out and and launched and adding on the other components. So there's a distinction there that probably wasn't made as clear at that moment in time and I appreciate that clarification. Any other questions? Okay, I'm not
148seeing or hearing any. Which means I think we're ready for a motion on when do we take the first resolution? Okay, so this is resolution number one 1259. I move the board adopt resolution number 1259 to approve and accept the guaranteed maximum price GMP of 99 million 2973 dollars, which is um million 807,012 dollars with WST in the format of of an amendment to the original form of agreement between the owner ISD and design builder what is it Skanska USA building for new high school previously high school number four. I second the motion. That was a mouthful. Before we vote, I realize I did not ask if there was any public comment in the room on this topic before we can vote. Nothing on Zoom. Okay, not hearing any. Okay, I think we're ready for
149a vote then. All those in favor of the motion, please say I. I >> I I All those All those opposed? Nay? Hearing none, motion passes. Great. Okay, let's move on to the second. Much much shorter. Let's see. So this is resolution number one 260. I move the board adopt resolution 1260 to approve and adopt the intent to construct the new high school previously high school number four. And I second the motion. Okay, all those in favor of motion please say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Hearing none, the motion passes. That's great. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. You. And now we're going to move on to another meaty topic. Which is the monitoring report for operational expectation 16 equity. Um, and I believe we will have a presentation first. Right,
150I just want to Should we need to do the motion first? Oh, we do the motion first? I'm sorry. One second, hold that thought. Hold on. Uh, do I have a motion? Yes, hold on. Still learning still learning. I move the board accept the monitoring report for operational expectation 16 equity OE 16 as presented. I second the motion. Okay, great. Um, we will go ahead with presentation. Thank you. Donna Hood, assistant superintendent of human resources. Good evening, Elena Sivadossan, executive director of equity, belonging, and family partnerships. Uh, I'll just share a couple of comments before we go forward with a uh, presentation. I think we have some uh, student information as well that will be accompanying it around the public comment portion. Um, but I just want to say this has been incredible progress. Um,
151when we reflect back on our year over the past year of our work towards ensuring that we have a more equitable system that serves all of our learners based on what they need to achieve and to thrive. I feel that this monitoring report reflects our true commitment of our team to learning, growing, and building that capacity across the system and putting our commitment into action. And we also know we need to continue to make that progress and much of our next level work will center on accountability to ourselves and drive capacity building and address inequities through effective management and using structures and systems and the lessons that we have been building for ourselves to extend that to others across the rest of the system. So, as we see the progress already with our student outcomes,
152especially with respect to opportunity gap closure while maintaining a high level of academic results, we know that the goal for this policy and and this is important to say out loud is that it's not to eliminate racism or bias because that's part of human nature and but it is our capacity and important role to recognize and be able to identify when barriers do exist to addressing and reducing inequities and how we address that through building capacity, building skill, and really dismantling systems that are not proving to be helpful in our efforts to achieve greater equity. We want to make sure that we get to those barriers at the root. And we do want to achieve both equal and equitable access for all of our students. So, with that I just want to say this is
153really great progress on behalf of the team and many thanks to our staff members here in the room and beyond and especially thanks to Elena Svitlana and Donna Hood as a partner on this on the reflections here. Thank you, Superintendent. We are excited to share tonight's OE 16 monitoring report, which reflects the district's continued commitment to cultivate a school system where students, staff, and families feel welcomed, supported, and valued. And while schools alone cannot eradicate racism, inequity, or bias from society, we do have a responsibility to build systems that prevent harm where possible, respond thoughtfully when it occurs, and remove institutional barriers that limit student opportunity. Last school year, the district continued strengthening systems that support equity, and student well-being. This included professional learning for staff, culturally responsive instructional practices, improved use of disaggregated data,
154and stronger partnerships with families and community organizations. Staff participated in professional learning focused on cultural and religious literacy, addressing systemic bias, supporting LGBTQIA students, responding to harmful language, and strengthening inclusive practices. These efforts equipped educators with practical tools to foster classrooms where students feel respected, supported, and able to succeed. We also expanded initiatives that directly supported students' sense of belonging and opportunity. Highlights include the launch of our first annual student summit focused on black and brown excellence, continued growth of affinity groups and student clubs, and expanded social emotional learning. Access efforts focused on things such as the expanded breakfast program, culturally responsive menu options, and the back-to-school resource fair supporting nearly 900 students, helping to remove barriers that can interfere with learning. Additionally, the district continues strengthening systems for examining data through an equity lens.
155School improvement plans, tier team structures, and new data tools support staff in identifying opportunity gaps, and implementing targeted strategies. Family engagement also remains a central three theme through our family partnership liaisons, advisory groups, and parent learning opportunities. Additionally, our district's efforts to diversify the teaching workforce and our total district workforce have been mixed. We've had very steady increases of 1 to 3% each year in the total diversity of our classified workforce and have had by contrast much more inconsistent results on the certificated staff hires. That said, 29% of all cert hires last year were staff of color um and yet we hired fewer total cert staff than we have in many years. We are mitigating bias in the screening and hiring process, but again, hiring at a much lower rate than years past. Where it's
156while our total percentage of staff of color went up 3% in our first year of making that concerted effort in the area of teachers, it returned to previous levels the next year and now hovers at about 10.4% as measured by our internal data sources. That those two are HRM, our hiring platform, and Q, which is our staff and student database. We have since learned though, just this year, through our partnership with the Puget Sound ESD, who relies on uh data that staff self-report in the state certification portal, uh and they then reported that in their landscape analysis of 2024. In that system, we are at 11.6% cert staff of color, so a nice modest 1.2% increase in that platform. And staff have the option to report their race differently there. Well, I know that uh
157the student reps and the board have had an opportunity to review uh this monitoring report, so we open the floor to comments and questions. Would anybody like to begin? Or should we go to the student student report? Okay, yeah. Um hold that thought. I went a little bit out of order. I understand we have a student report. So we'll hear that now and then we can have a discussion. Hello. Today I'm going to be reporting on OE16 equity at Skyline. The school wide survey that I sent out was conducted from February 24th through the 27th and received 74 responses. It was distributed through Canvas broadcast and consisted primarily of multiple choice questions with optional short answers sections to clarify. Overall the findings were positive and the district appeared to be largely aligned with the standards
158set at in OE16. However, there's still room for improvement particularly when it comes to maintaining safe and welcoming environments for students of all backgrounds and identities. Extracurriculars and school offerings received mostly positive responses. However, some students expressed concerns that students with unique needs could fall through the cracks of the systems. As well, one student mentioned the lack of a culinary program at Skyline compared to other high schools in the district. Separately from the survey students have also reached out regarding changes to the online summer 2026 course offerings that were announced today I believe. Some students feel that the previous variety of options allowed them to better meet their educational needs and goals and they are concerned about how these changes may affect equitable access to courses. Students were generally positive about the district's communications with
159families from different backgrounds. However, responses related to discrimination and administrative action were among the least favorable of the survey. Some students felt that the district is not always swift or effective when responding to incidents and that consequences can feel insufficient. Students emphasized the importance of decisive and transparent action, particularly regarding racism and discrimination against students of color. Finally, students were asked about how Skyline supports social and emotional health. While responses are generally positive, some students mentioned stress, ineffective SEL lessons, heavy homework loads, and school events that do not always relieve student stress despite their intentions. Overall, uh the district is meeting OE 16 standards, but there are rooms There are opportunities to make Skyline a more welcoming and equitable environment. Thank you, Bernadette. Um is there anybody in the room that would like to make
160public comment on OE 16? And nobody on Zoom. Okay. Now, we will open the floor to questions and comments. Would anybody like to start? Are we all being bashful? Director Cohen, thank you. All right, I'll I'll kick us off. First and foremost, thank you for the overview and thank you to the district. I think the district has done some some very good work around equity and I want to applaud the district for that. I guess a couple things that I wanted to highlight. So, on page four 16.1 number four, if we can go there really quickly, that's responding to bias and offensive language. And I kind of I want to elevate the response on that. I know that's in there and I I I I know some good work's been done there, but I think
161about our role on the school board and we hear This is an area that we hear about quite a bit. And so, I wondered if we could maybe just highlight the work that's being done there. Maybe if you could speak to that. Yes, so every year we have our staff go through some professional development on how to respond when they encounter racist or biased or stereotype situations. And we often will build in scenarios that did happen within our buildings that they have to walk through. And one of the protocols that we use is called interrupt, question, educate, and echo. So, interrupt is really based on if there is something racist or harmful that's being said, the expectation is that the staff member is interrupting that immediately. We are not allowing that to continue. Um, and
162then question is maybe a a student or another colleague says something that you're not quite sure what their intent was, you would ask some clarifying questions before determining how you're going to respond. Um, educate is that if there is a student or a colleague that makes a comment that is harmful, hateful, racist, that we are educating them on um, what the impact of their statement was and and helping to kind of make sure that we're not continuing that in the future. And then echo is really about kind of a bystander piece, right? So, if somebody makes a comment that is harmful, um, then and somebody says, "Gosh, that that felt uncomfortable or it felt harmful." that we would acknowledge that also and say, "Yes, I agree. That comment felt harmful or um, um, hurtful." So,
163we really, um, work with staff um, to equip them with the tools to be able to respond when these incidents come up. Uh, I think where, um, I acknowledge and hear that there is still more work to do is more in those unstructured spaces, uh, where it's maybe in the hallways, um, or at, uh, a lunch room table or something like that. So, we're still we know that there's still continued work that needs to be done, um, but we do feel like we are very intentional in providing staff with, um, tools to equip them to address this when it happens in real time. That's That's great. Um, I just have two other quick items. So, 16.1 number eight, I wanted to elevate this on, uh, page 13. Um, it speaks to curriculum that provides a
164diverse viewpoint and empowers diverse learning paths. Um, I was tying this back to our our, um, I think it was our OE 14 conversation um, that we had around or actually I think it may been OE 12 where we were talking about, um, history specifically in in civics classes and students maybe struggling in those courses a bit and I think one of the the areas that was identified in terms of why students might be struggling is because it doesn't necessarily offer sort of a diverse um, there's isn't enough diversity in that curriculum. So, kind of was wondering if maybe you could speak to that and I I also wanted to tie that back to because my sense is that the work that the district is doing in terms of creating more diversity around the historic
165history curriculum, um, will obviously engage kids students more around that very important topic and that also ties back to civics cuz this is another question we often get is are students learning civics and this will also district and the answer is yes. And I my sense is this is just another way to get them more engaged around this topic of civics and history. So, could Do elaborate on that a bit too? Yes. so a couple of things that I just wanted to provide as context um is when we created a um an equity curriculum and framework um for really how to ensure that we're providing um curriculum with a diverse viewpoint. Um first we created that that hadn't been done before and we did that in um collaboration with our families kind of gathering that
166feedback um that you're touching on and then also with our different um diverse student groups at the high school levels just to make sure that we were um uh hitting on and embedding some of the the good feedback that they have about how it might be kind of um challenging at times to engage with the curriculum or where they feel like diverse viewpoints are really missing. And so every curriculum adoption that we do has to go through that framework. Um we also provide training um to our curriculum adoption committee and our instructional materials committee right which are part of that um uh that work as we're bringing on new curriculum where we're giving them that equity lens and sort of that cultural competency focus. Um so we we um we really have tried to increase
167in that area. Now what I do want to say um Director Quinn is that um you're asking a great question and I would also I want to be thoughtful that I'm not um speaking to work beyond the areas that I oversee. So I also will um check back in um with the team that really does this um this great work around our curriculum and follow up with you with more information. Thank you. Yeah, that was great. And then my last point is just more of a comment on 16.3 page 20. I wanted to just elevate the work around family engagement cuz I think that that is exceptional and that list is lengthy, and lot of detail around that, and um it's it's impressive. And and yeah, I really want to thank you know, all the
168individuals that are tied to that here in the district cuz it is it's really good work, and we you know, we continually hear positive feedback on that. So, thank you. That's everything. Thank you. Director Anderson. Um so, thank you for this report. Very thorough, lots to read through as I'm the newest board member trying to get used to these 30-40 page reports and digest it for the first time. I really appreciated the professional development topic page because as I was reading through, I had questions about well, how is this training happening? Who's it training with? Is there feedback from the educators on how the training went? And all of that was in there. Um so, that was really helpful for me. So, thank you. And and it gives great transparency to the work that's being
169done. Um I do have some questions. Um on page three, when addressing systemic bias and inequities, in the looking ahead section, there's reference to more data collection, which is great. But then there's no like, well, what do we do with that data? What actions are being taken to identify those marginalized and historically underserved students. So, I didn't know if there was any any information that we provided into that because it seemed a little bit vague for me as far as great, we're collecting data, but then what are we doing with it? Yes, so great question. I think um we as within our academic cabinet team, we are constantly looking at um all sorts of data, whether it be academic data or behavior data, attendance, discipline, those pieces, and then using that information to help us
170kind of better determine where are where our students not thriving in our system and um specifically what students are not thriving in our system. I think um often time in our district our so many of our students are thriving that we can kind of get lost in those great numbers, but we have taken a concerted effort to say, "No, we really need to be looking at where we're not where we are not thriving." And um and looking at how things are happening through the eyes of those students. And then designing what our responses to that will be um going forward. So, I don't know if that >> it's the responses to that is what I'm looking for. Like, once you've identified those, then then what action can take place? Yeah, so I think for example,
171um if we are looking at um our I'm trying to stay within this monitoring before um because I have a lot of examples, but let's say we're looking at um a like achievement disparities, right? Then um some what we're doing then is like going back and working with our um school lead leaders or building leaders to really say like when you're doing your sit plans and you're doing your gap goals, um we need to be intentional about um the students that we're focusing on and the interventions that we're doing, right? So, if it's a third-grade reading score or pieces like that, we're being intentional that way in our focus. Um if it's uh an issue with Um. May I add on? Yes, cuz I'm I'm going to go into things that we're not monitoring, and
172so that's Yeah. I think that's a great example. Um, I have three thoughts that can augment what you're saying. Uh, first and foremost, um, at a systems level, as uh, Miss Sivadasan was talking about, it's about how we then cascade, um, up and down what we're finding. So, one of we rely on our school leaders to surface where they're seeing needs and maybe not being met, um, for some students, and how that we can assist as a system. But, we also then look at the data and say, "Oh, what does that tell us?" Or, what questions would we ask? We're not at the school level all day and can see that and what that context might mean. And sometimes it's a maybe an error. We We also know that when you report up data, sometimes
173there can be a a break in the system to have that data feed. So, what we can do is improve our work on, um, ensuring that what we're seeing then gets discussed, right, through the different, um, accountability lines. And that's what I meant through talking about our next level work is around how we hold ourselves accountable, how we take the skill development, um, of understanding where we can really look more closely at where there are disparities and what the root causes are, and then be able to have that not just be held in, um, one department of equity, for example. How that is being driven across all different aspects of our team, the lens that we develop through our food service, um, components, how we look at equity through, um, not just school management as
174well. So, there's all these ways when we think about, um, accountability that we can be using our data conversations to then ask different questions and then, um, invite more curiosity, but also develop actions where we see there is a need. Um so that's important to say aloud. number one. number two is um and now now my brain is going to lose my thought process for a second uh cuz that was a little bit longer of a response. Um Oh, number two is uh as we continue to build our MTS systems, our schools are working in their teams to look at data, um how students are doing. And MTS encompasses both academic and behavioral um information. And so when we look at the whole child at a school level, we need to match that a bit
175at the systems level. So we are developing our own practices, routines, and rhythms to be able to match what we're asking also our schools to do as I think about the whole child through the multiple lens of data points. Um and be curious and be thoughtful and be able to then have those thoughtful conversations back with um with our team. And then finally, I would say um the the work that we do as executive leaders because we are removed from the classroom and and we don't walk in the shoes every single day as our teachers, um we have to be really proximate and and make sure that we keep um a strong kind of connection to what's happening on the school building level and the experience of our young people in all ways, not just
176in the classroom, but also on the playground, um and in their activities. And and that's what we do and that's why our commitment is to being in schools uh together as a cabinet team to be able to see how our student experience is from multiple angles, um how they experience our facilities, how they experience um our food service, how they experience our classroom instruction, and how um we can then be of support. So those are my helpful, hopeful responses that we need to continue to go in that direction. Thank you. Um I really like the interrupt, question, educate, and echo model that was previously talked about with Director Coyne. Um I just was curious if that's being used at the elementary level. And if yes, is it successful? Cuz it seems like a model that
177might be more successful in middle and high school. So, that's why I was just curious. Uh yes, we use it at all of the levels and I would say um that it is helpful even at the elementary level. I think um particularly as we get to maybe fourth or fifth grade, right? It's it's um we are seeing incidences where, you know, staff are needing to intervene um that way. Another thing though that we might do at the elementary level is um like a class meeting where um if there is um issues that are coming up with either like hurtful um language that's coming out, the teacher would, you know, hold a class meeting to kind of say, "Hey, this is something that's coming up in our classroom. Um how do we want to How do
178we want to solve this? Um I know we've done these social emotional learning lessons on this. What can we take from those in order to be um um make this classroom feel welcoming and safe for everyone." So, that there might be some little differences that are done, but we still do this um PD for everyone in the system, K-12. >> I love that. Um and then my last question is it looks like a lot of this training is kind of pushed to the educators, but is there opportunity for spot training, say an educator wanted to take something on bias or, you know, any of these topics that are covered in here, could they get that training on the spot if necessary? Yes, so we offer out um a lot of our own internal PD uh
179and staff can sign up as they wish and and want to. We also advertise a lot of low-cost or no-cost professional development that's offered in the area. So, our Puget Sound Educational Service District offers a lot in this area and WEA has really seen the increasing need for this kind of really intense training as well. And so, they offer low-cost, no-cost, and often summer time training too when they know staff maybe can really focus and have less on their plates. So we advertise those opportunities as well. Great. Thank you so much. One other thing I would say is that we also have building equity leads in every building and they also will provide what you're talking about maybe that like just-in-time professional development or that you know teacher specific PD that they're wanting and so
180that's that has been another great resource for us as well. So Go ahead Layla. Layla, excuse me. Yeah, thank you so much for this report. I just want to ask about on page six the student summit. I thought that was an incredible opportunity and seemed so cool. I just want to kind of get like a bit more information about how students were either invited to or told or told about this event and how many students came and were impacted by it. Great questions. It was an amazing event. Thank you for recognizing that and to the event but it was also really you know, uplifting the experiences and identities of our students that identify as black or African American Latinx specific Islander or indigenous and so students were invited through Canvas or through their administrators that
181or a school counselor and we ended up having around 80 students at last year's event. So it was wonderful. Thank you so much and then just one more thing on page seven uh number four about uh student safety and sense of belonging. Um and so sorry if I missed something, but it's So it says that um survey results indicate that the majority of students report feeling safe at school. I was wondering um if if there like if I could if there would be a need for some more clarity on that with um maybe a specific percentage or or just like how that kind of is split up between students who feel safe and like um maybe students who had some uh feedback to provide. That is a great question. And I will take note of
182that and I'll um loop in with the person that was doing the survey and the results and report back. It's a great question. >> Thanks so much. Director Gallinger. Welcome. Thanks. Uh can we start on page 13, 16.2? And so I would suspect that the intent it's been with intention that there's not a lot of data embedded in this report. And I think in a lot of ways that makes sense. I think there's a lot of opportunity where you could cross-reference to our academic data cuz I don't think it needs to be necessarily regurgitated here, but I think especially when we're talking about gap closing, which we spent a lot of time with, seems like cross-referencing to that would be important. Where I think that it would be really helpful here is uh on the
183next page, number two, tiered team data and protocols. I think it's been now many years, more than I can remember, where we've referred to tiered supports through MTSS, but I think it would be really helpful for us to see some data on that. Like just globally, since you have academic and you have behavioral, maybe there's other other support to have beyond just those two domains, but to really show by grade band like, how many students are in each tier? Because, I mean, I I think the whole intention of all of this multi-tiered systems of support is to support students to hopefully need less supports as they go through our system. So, I think it's hard for us at this level to know, like, is all of this work that you're doing for MTSS moving the
184needle or not? And I know it's hard to objectify that work, and I'm not asking for us to find just some metric just so the board can look at numbers. But, I I ask then if there's an alternative internally by which how do you know that you're moving the needle with MTSS? And so, whether you choose both or whether you choose academic or behavioral, it just seems like it would be really helpful for us to see like if the investments are actually making a difference. And if it belongs in a different report than this one, then that's fine. I just I just feel like we've heard so much about it, and we should figure out a way to see, and if that's not the right way to measure, but I would love for us to
185have some movement away from just purely subjective of a laundry list of here are the things we're doing to support students to outcomes. I appreciate the question. I And I And it might live here. It also might live other places in terms of how to peel back the um one what a tiered team meeting A looks like, B what the um next steps from that meeting also look like and then see what the actual outcomes might be. In theory, uh students are not living in a tier. Like they it's it's a fluid thing, right, in theory as well. And your and kids can move up and down um where they need support based on where they are either in their learning journey or um other other experiences they're having socially in school. So, um I
186wouldn't want to start to track data about where they are and when they move and how that looks. In theory, though, the success of our practices and the system of MTSS would lead to the outcomes of less disproportionality in academic measures um that are top-level such as SBA, uh graduation rates, and so forth. But, um I think it's a good push question to to think about as as we consider um because we don't track data coming out of those meeting. We track next steps and then we look for the conversation that's a a little bit more nuanced and very student-specific, which would to your point, maybe not be appropriate for this kind of a reporting mechanism, um but also more importantly, uh there might be other ways we can look at the start to look
187at what the effectiveness is of our systems. And we're still building out the practices for for MTSS and it does take quite a long time. It's a big journey. Um but I I don't know if you got anything else to add Elena or Dada, but I that's my first thought about this. Yeah. Or not, it's fine. I mean, that's a an invitation. >> Yeah. I Yeah, I mean, I think the I think I'm in agreement with you and we can and there are mechanisms for us to track the effectiveness of how students are doing in the different tiers, especially with our intervention matching and pieces like that. So, and data that we would be tracking. So. Yeah, I just would be curious to see if we're closing gaps in the same way where I don't
188know where it lives anywhere else, but the ECE in particular, that is a ECE exists for an intervention. And it should be aligned to what we do globally with early learning and TS Gold pivoting to our kindergarten assessments. And I would really love to know if our interventions through ECE are making a difference. Like these are our very first uh impacts hopefully in families and students for equity. But I have asked that for years and haven't And that's data that does exist cuz these are our students and these are our students who track through the system who we should have years at this point of longitudinal data for our ECE kids. Uh So, I think there needs to be some way that we can reflect on is the work that we're doing for intervention at
189our earliest grade levels having a lasting difference. I think the the big when you step back and look at Head Start data and why like there was that fade out, it was because the supports went away as they got into later elementary school. Our hope is that if we see similar thing that we need to drive more supports for longer or what not, but again just from a policy side, it would be really helpful for us to know for those 100 or so kids in our district, are we actually making meaningful difference? Great question. Um I'll confirm with the team on on some of the data and and that longitudinal work. And that's a it would say take some time, but we can figure out the right time to bring it up and and look
190at it. To your point, we have many years. Yeah, cuz I don't think that this report should be like, oh, let's uh hold like all of our data. I think that just picking a few moments for us to look at in our system as checks on the investments in equity would be real really helpful for us as policy makers. Dr. Mullings, do you have any questions coming? >> I do have a couple and I'm going to try to go from my most hopefully easy to explain to my more philosophical ones. So, where I'd love to start is page 15 and it is the section three tiered intervention systems for attendance. And Mike, I started with a basic question in the section, which is I don't quite understand what the chart at the top of page
19116 is telling me and then I realized that maybe it's the whole section that I I need maybe the flyover for, but um specifically in that chart, dismissed equals what? We're happy about the outcome or we're sad about the outcome? I I don't I I'm not tracking what that actually means. I mean, I think we're overall sad that truancy exists. So, I think that's that's that I mean that No, no, I I know we're sad that truancy exists. >> obvious on that one, but um >> No, sorry, let me make maybe be more specific. So, I know we're sad truancy exists. I know it's saying by law we have to report truancy at a certain point and then I get down to the number of petitions that had to be filed. What I don't understand
192is when we get to dismissed, what actually happened? Like we no longer have a concern about truancy or we've stopped tracking this truancy. I just I don't understand what dismissed means here. Sure to mom this is a great question and it's been a minute since I've done some of the Becca work. So I think we probably should get it sort of technical definition back to you on that one and I think that's very doable. I just can't exactly remember what that technical definition means. Okay, that's and that's fine. So let me put it in like then I started reading the whole section. Can I pause one second? It's that kids start coming to school. I mean that's that's the that's the that's the that's the end state. That when it's dismissed, they come they're coming
193to school. They move out of truancy. They move out of truancy. Okay. Okay. So dismissed means they move out of And as defined by the court. So the court's dismissed it and that's they've they're no longer that's that's the verification of that by a legal body that move them off of truancy, I would say in other words. Okay, so that's that's helpful. I guess where where I'd like to go next in this section is how do I think about truancy versus absenteeism in this in this analysis. Do I think of like which is it absenteeism and that statistic will start to show up first? Like I didn't know what to do with the 10% right? And the 10% of the 180 days versus the way the truancy is counted. So is one of them a
194leading indicator and the other one is later in the process? Like am I making sense? Like I don't understand how to put them together. Yes, you are making sense. So, absenteeism would be what you would lead with and then the and then the follow to that is then the truancy. Okay. And and at which point in in the student being like uh indicated as chronically absent and/or truancy, do these reengagement activities begin? So, the I'm going to give you the principal lens. Um the the reengagement should begin from the beginning. So, um as soon as you start to see that students are absent, even if it's just a couple of days, the um the intervention should be um happening where um the classroom teacher is reaching out, kind of seeing what's going on, um what
195have you, and then um we have mechanisms built in where then after, you know, if a couple of absences, maybe it starts to raise to um five absences, seven absences, and that's where maybe the dean of students or the assistant principal would be reaching out um to the family to kind of figure out, "Hey, what's going on? What are little um maybe even the counselor, what are things that we could be supporting you with or there are or are there things that are happening that we're just not aware of?" And so, there's a lot of um reaching out and connecting with. We might even get a family partnership liaison involved um from the equity department just to kind of see um well before it gets to the truancy stage. And the truancy stage really comes
196into play when um the the interventions that we've tried early on are just not working or sometimes even the parent needs help, um, getting the student to, uh uh, to come to school. And so, that's that's how it would look. So, what would be, I guess, maybe what would be helpful for me in this section cuz, you know, I I'm I I really appreciate the work that we do on attendance. I I I think we're doing, but in some way to kind of put this section in more of a chronological order of, like, how do we see the indication of early, I guess I'll say, absenteeism? Where do we see some of these interventions that we mentioned, like the reengagement steps? And like, do they start reducing the number of students that we might track
197over to the truancy side? Like, that's where I'm having trouble orienting cuz we're kind of going from percentages to numbers to these individual cases of success, which I appreciate cuz you can't get into, you know, naming people and all that, but it's hard for me to gauge, and maybe it's kind of back to Harland's point, like, are the interventions are is our notice system working? And then, are the interventions helping to decrease how many, uh, students end up on the the truancy list? And then, kind of the dismissal of the truancy back to the reengage, like, I assume came with some working intervention. Do you know what I'm saying? So, that would be helpful, I guess, for me to understand the cycle of this. And are the steps we're taking, cuz the steps all sound
198they sound right. They make sense to me that they're here, but what I can't see is, are we interrupting the behavior? And at what level of interruption, if that makes sense? It does. Okay. Awesome. Okay, so that was my It really started out as like a technical question, what does dismiss mean? And then I was like, "Actually, I have a bigger question." So, the next section um in this report, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, which is uh I'm at 18, so the resource allocation, I just want to call out that um I think that this work this work at looking at getting beyond the per pupil expenditure and getting to how do we differentiate resourcing based on on need is just incredibly important work and I believe this is the year that we're monitoring that it
199that really took hold and you can start to see um uh that that differentiation really show up and so I was glad to see that in the in the report highlighted in that way and um you know, that's probably one that's worth exploring at greater lengths as we go forward as we go down this budgeting process like how do we continue to learn from what we're doing to differentiate resource, how does that need to change and shift over time? I know Martin likes when we tie back to the budget park and we were listening, so I thought I would do that. um So, that was just a comment on that one. That one was easy. So, then I want to go back to where actually it was pretty popular topic and maybe I had a
200very different reaction to page four, number four, which is on the response to bias. um And so, I mean, I'm scrolling back to the top. So, in this one page four, trying to get myself back there. I I actually uh I don't know. I I felt maybe a little unsatisfied by this section. This So, we're talking about responding to bias and offensive language and you know, maybe you tell me if there's more work here or there's more that we can talk about, but but the the highlights here and what we're talking about here is really like the staff training and like the protocol the staff is using. Where I feel maybe I would still like to see us highlight more if we're doing it or do more work in the area is how are we
201actually establishing a zero-tolerance environment for staff and students in this area. I think we still based on the guidance I see in handbooks, for me it still feels like we are we are missing a step to get very clear that once you enter the doors of our schools, these are unacceptable behaviors. And I we we like add a lot of words to it, but that's that's the piece that I still feel like we are not maybe either documenting if we're doing it or maybe being bolder in in getting to. So, that's that was my reaction to that section. I appreciate that, Director Mellings. Um I do want to um at least provide the information that we we have and do in fact discipline staff um if they are not upholding the appropriate professional standards that
202we have outlined as a district, and that data though is not in this report. It is, I believe, in OE2 uh with the other staff discipline data. So, it isn't called out as a separate type, um but it is in that data and and I absolutely can attest to the fact that we have taken action on those matters. And students? Noting to me also possibly OE11. Thank you for the assist. And the student side of that? Hitting that. Yeah, so the student side of that would be um existing in OE11. But that's the So, sorry. If I remember what's in OE11, that's a fairly complex matrix that keep the ends in education. But the last I read that, it doesn't actually say there is a zero tolerance in this building. Okay. Noted, and we'll loop
203back in with you. Okay. So, for me I I would I would like to get a lot more pointed on on this point because where we seem to get to is you know, if I happen to be as the adult in the room and I hear this, then I will go through this process that I've been trained on. That's great. Um I I think we're not as clear on I you know, I really don't care what your background is. I really don't care what you brought in with you in in these walls. Not acceptable. Those are my comments. Great. Dr. Gallinger. I have two more. Uh one on page 11 can you help us make meaning of these? So, the tables and this may be for Dr. Carver, but when you're talking about the least
204restrictive environment and the percentages in each I don't know what the goal is or I'm assuming we're not going to get every student into these restrictive environment number one because that wouldn't be appropriate. So, I don't know how to make meaning of the distributions and then the year-over-year changes for the respective subcategories. And I I just would appreciate the little decoder with that. And you don't have to answer that now if you don't have it, but if you could just send that along to us so we could make meaning for that. I appreciate the information. I just don't know what the significance is and what the target is in a respective the not the first table, but the one that specifically talks about emotional, behavioral, communication. I I don't know what should we be looking
205for? Noted. And then this one is specifically for human resources uh page I got to toggle myself. Uh uh 31. I would love your thoughts on why you think there is a consistent pattern of our classified staff of color feeling more sense of belonging than our non-staff of color or classified. And then it's the inverse for our certificate and both consistent and nearly the same year-over-year. So, just I mean, they all work in the same buildings. Yeah, it's it's a really great question. Um I do think, based on work we've done with our administrators and our department um leaders, that there might be some truly unique pressures and challenges that our cert staff of color are facing that staff who fulfill other roles maybe are not facing. Um and having done some connections interviews with
206some staff as well, some of those things surfaced in those um moments. So, there there just tend to be different pressures and different demands. Um I think in different expectations as well. Um but, I am happy to report a slight sneak peek um for this upcoming data set for 25-26, we had far more staff respondents from both groups. And um sense of belonging, interestingly, is up for both. So, it's it's exciting to see it heading in the right direction, and disaggregated, it's up for both. So, I'm very excited about that, but I do think we have some more to learn there. Um and I think supervisors will want to continue to listen to their staff and really tease that out. Yeah. Uh I'm going to ask just one question, which is page 17. There is
207a graph, and I will just admit I cannot make sense of it. And I'm just wondering if you can just very broadly walk me through what I'm looking at. That graph right there on the bottom, yes, with the colored bars. I just I I couldn't put it together. That is a great question, and um I I know like this is our culturally responsive um tiered fidelity inventory um that each of our uh buildings take with their tier teams to kind of see where are they with fidelity um in that regard. Now, I um again, I need to be thoughtful that this is that I'm not I don't want to speak to work that I don't oversee, so I don't think I could as thoughtfully walk you through this as somebody who this is their work,
208and so I could uh get back to you with that information. >> Yeah, okay. Yeah. >> at a high level, I mean, it tracks the progress. So, this is not about outcomes just cuz I sometimes when we present data, sometimes you want to know, and I've heard these questions even come up tonight, is this about outcomes or is it progress? So, this is about the progress of our work uh, to reflect how we are looking and linking the other components of uh, this assessment of ourselves um, to be able to support our young people. So, it's interesting because if this is we should note it about sort of just in general the theme of, hey, when we present the information data, we have to also provide the narrative. We we do forget that we live
209in the world of education speak all day long. And so, um, I appreciate the questions and we can certainly aid with that, but this is about the progress and process by which we go through to evaluate ourselves and how we're doing. Thank you. That's exactly how I read it, education speak at some level. So, thank you. Um, okay, do we know other comments? No. Okay, I think we have a motion to accept the monitoring report for operational expectations uh, 16 on equity as presented. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Not hearing any. Um, we've accepted the report. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Uh, moving on to our agenda now. It is time for legislative matters. Next on our agenda, um, do we have any reports out?
210Legislative representative Anderson. Got quite a few things. >> Okay, hit me. Um, first I wanted to highlight that we've had three ISD high school students page for Senator Victoria Hunt um, in this last session. Um, we've had uh, students from Liberty High, Issaquah High, and Gibson Ek. So, just a shout out to uh, Senator Hunt for providing those opportunities to our students. Um as Mariah stated earlier, today is day 59 of the 2026 regular session, so the session will close tomorrow. Um WASDA's summary uh legislative summary says week eight of the 2026 legislative session was focused on working with legislators to minimize harm to school districts during final budget negotiations. House and Senate leaders began those negotiations this week working to find middle ground. Generally, budgets remain disappointing and frustrating for K-12 based on proposed
211reductions to local effort assistance, transition to kindergarten, and school bus depreciation in particular. Um all while gaps in basic education funding for MSOC, special education, and transportation persist. Um the three bills that we've been following have not moved. They still remain in the House Rules Committee or the Ways and Means Committee. Um and that includes the school district sales tax tax exemption, the surplus technology, and the MSOC funding. So, with the session closing tomorrow, looks that we are not moving forward with those at this time. Great. So, that's my report out. I think we have some other legislative updates. And I think I Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I got I got all this. Um okay. I wanted to give just a quick update on um engagement with the city
212of Sammamish. Um uh the Sammamish City Council has identified council contacts uh for the two primary districts that are within the um the city limits of of Sammamish. Um council members uh Rochelle O'Farrell and Amy Lam have been assigned uh to uh the Issaquah School District. Um and um I have to say I'm yeah, I'm thrilled that the city of Sammamish is is looking to build a stronger uh relationship um with uh the district. Uh you know, I think as we've shared before um and looking at some of the past data that we have, um almost 40% of our ISD students um have uh Sammamish address. So, having that engagement with the city of Sammamish is really important for our district. I had an initial meeting um with council members O'Farrell and uh Lamb a
213couple weeks ago. Um notified President Taylor of this too. You know, we plan to hold kind of these informal meetings on a quarterly basis um and um you know, look forward to um engaging and having a full council full uh board engagement meeting um eventually, too. So, that's my update. Okay. Uh and I was just going to mention I think we saw that the state Senate passed the uh income tax on millionaires this evening. It's expected to head to the governor's desk um and he is expected to sign it. So, um maybe that will be some more revenue for our beleaguered state budget. Um all righty. Uh I think next we have announcements and correspondence. Does anyone have anything that has not been reported already to add? I have an announcement. You have an announcement?
214>> I have an announcement. >> Go, Director Andrews. Um so, I'm excited to share that the Issaquah Education Association has selected uh Christie Santa Domingo, a dedicated life science teacher at Pacific Cascade Middle School as educator of the year. She will be honored alongside other outstanding individuals and organizations in our community by the Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce at the 70 or sorry, the 46th annual community awards. Um the celebration will take place on Thursday, May 14th from 5:30 to 8:00 at the Fairfield Inn in Issaquah. I will be in attendance and I warmly invite my fellow board members and superintendent to join me as we recognize Christie's remarkable contributions to our district. Um she's passionate, hard working advocate for education and this honor is truly well deserved. We are incredibly proud that uh what
215she does for our students, our district and the broader community. So. Great. Yeah, great. Fantastic. Very proud of that. Yep. Thank you for that. Uh anything else? Okay, next, last I shall say. It's time to get out our calendars for future agenda topics and calendaring issues. Uh it looks like we need to first of all potentially adjust the time for the June July 9th meeting. Is that correct? Yes. In which point I will need a motion. Uh let's see. I move the board adjust this Is this for July 9th? >> Yeah. Yeah, okay. I move the the board adjust the start time of the July 9th uh 2026 regular meeting board meeting from 6:00 p.m. to new time. Um it will be held over Zoom only. So. Do we wait for We have that new
216time? Then yeah, let's pick a time. This is Usually we do it in the morning. 10:00 a.m. >> Yeah. Yeah. That would be better. >> That's fine. Yeah. So let's amend the motion. So we will amend the motion. I'll read it re- I'll just reread it. I move the board adjust the start time of the July 9th 2026 regular meeting board meeting from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. and it will be held over Zoom only. I second the motion. All those in favor? I. >> I. Okay. And then we also have an opportunity for uh a joint engagement meeting it looks like with the city of Issaquah. Which I'll need a motion. Oh. Uh let's see. I move the board schedule a joint engagement meeting with the city of Issaquah leadership. Wait, well, we need
217to insert a date on there. Oh, on on April 27th uh from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. to be hosted by the city of Issaquah. I second the motion. Great. Okay, all those in favor say I. I. I. Very good. Is there anything else we need to calendar at this time? Yeah, we we just said we're going to do. Yes. So, I can I am a yes. time on my hands nowadays. I know I didn't have to bring the work phone to check. >> I do have one more one more item. I Yeah. I can make that work. What's next? What do I got? Listening sessions at the schools. Oh, listening sessions at the school. Oh, the listening sessions at the schools. >> apps. It's Oh. Okay. Okay. Uh previously the board had discussed uh listening
218sessions to uh with students and this is an opportunity to schedule yourself the uh goal um was to have two board members at each session. Um and so there's just in order to get the schedule. This is hard. This is why we probably couldn't have it much earlier than right now than the dates that are offered, but we're just looking for responses. But I I I think everyone here at the dais actually already responded. So, I think we're looking for The people that are not at the desk. Correct. Is Sydney still with us? I mean it's got to be late wherever she is. I She is co-host. Yeah, I think so. I mean it's Okay. Or so. Director Gallinger, we're talking about listening sessions. Yes, and dates thereof. Therefore. Thereof? Um I actually can probably
219make the April 8th meeting. I mean April 8th now. Oh, no, wait, I'm doing the exit interviews. I'm sorry. Mhm. This is all >> This is Skyline. I can only do the one on the 22nd. So, I don't That's you and I. So, we have Skyline covered. We have Issaquah covered. So, it's just a matter of Liberty, correct? What? On one of these two days, >> days. either April 8th or the 22nd. Yeah. And we can't do it. It would have to be whether Director Gallinger can do the April 8th one or if somebody can do the April 22nd, but that can't be you and I because we are doing It'll have to be Sydney, Natalie, or Director Gallinger. On the 22nd? Well, Sydney's already But I'm already And Natalie's already on both. So, it's
220Oh, you're already here. Yeah, that's right. Director Gallinger or Yes, or me. I could probably do the 22nd, but how did it get to be where I wasn't on the March 25th one? Director Gallinger. I will I never got a response. And I am happy to defer. I will >> Okay. Yeah, we I thought that was we did that in agenda planning. That's why I thought Oh. Oh, that Yeah. I don't get I'm happy to let you let you Got it. take my spot. That's fine. Okay. Do you have Patton? So, he'll take my spot then on the 25th. Yeah. And did you get the other? I think Director Gallinger also said that he could make the 20 the second second of April as well. Yes. Actually, I I don't think I can do the
221March 25th. I'll stay in the 25th. So, then if AJ will stick Director Gallinger Well, because I've already I've got a a tour scheduled that morning at Liberty anyway. So, Oh, that's a long way away. Skyline. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, we will do the Okay. We got it. Director Gallinger and myself on the 25th at Skyline. Uh we will be doing Director Koin and myself at Issaquah High School on the 22nd. And on the 22nd as well at Liberty, we will have Director Anderson and Director Gallinger. Do I understand that correctly? Okay. Yes. Very good. Is there anything else for the good of the order? Okay, we are adjourned.