Issaquah School District Board Meeting 10/23/2025

001My name is Elizabeth Primo and I'm a um uniserve director with the Washington Education Association here tonight representing the voices of our Isiqua Education Association members at Endeavor Elementary School. Dory shared the context of our concerns. I want to share the impact of what's happening at the school and what we're asking of you tonight. Over time, both formal and informal reports have described similar patterns at Endeavor. the mistreatment of staff and students, the inappropriate verbal and physical interactions, and intimidation and fear of retaliation. Since the current princip principal assumed leadership and endeavor, approximately 80% of the staff have left the building. Such high turnover is not typical and reflects a deeper systemic issue. These conditions not only affect the students, not only affect the adults who work at Endeavor, but also impact our students. They

002feel the tension. They ask questions and experience the ripple effects and their classrooms. We want to be clear, this is not simply about staff morale. It's about the health, safety, and learning environment of our children. Despite ongoing efforts to raise concerns, staff continue to be told to report concerns to people they don't feel safe speaking to, some of whom are directly involved in complaints. This creates a chilling effect. Many staff feel that anonymity is not truly protected and that retaliation is inevitable. So, we ask you, how can the district claim that it didn't know about the complaints when there's written proof that they did? What systems ensure that staff and students concerns are being investigated impartially and with integrity? How would a board ensure that individuals raising concerns are protected from retaliation and that accountability

003is applied equitably at all levels? >> Thank you. Uh, Bridget Chippet. I'm Bridget Chapet, parent of two Endeavor students. I'm here to share a petition that was circulated this week. The petition represents the many voices of our community who are deeply concerned by the lack of district communication and action at Endeavor. Within 48 hours, this petition has gained over 543 signatures, including 19 current Endeavor staff members. If anyone here tonight signed the petition and feels comfortable standing, I invite you to stand with me as I read an abridged version of the petition. We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about ongoing reports of harassment, intimidation, and disruption affecting staff and students at Endeavor Elementary. These issues directly impact the safety and well-being of both educators and students, and they undermine the school's learning environment. We respectfully

004call on the district to take two immediate steps. First, communicate current safety measures. Share what monitoring and safety protocols are in place at Endeavor along with the metrics being used to assess staff and student safety and overall school climate. Second, commission an independent investigation and launch a third-party review into safety concerns and harassment allegations. In addition to reviewing the allegations outlined in the existing lawsuit, external investigators should speak directly with onampus staff to ensure that their current work environment is safe, respectful, and free from harassment. Over 540 community members stand with our teachers, and we all agree that we should put into practice the same values our kids hear every day at school. respect, responsibility, safety, and being a learner. All these things should be happening at Endeavor and are not. Thank you. >> Thank

005you. >> Next, I have Elena Lane. Good evening. My name is Elena Lane, and I am the proud mama of a first grader at Endeavor, a school we love deeply. I stand not here not just as a concerned parent but as a voice for our dedicated staff and students who are facing a toxic environment. The ongoing litigation has left our educators feeling scared and unsupported. It baffles me that issues of sexual harassment and a toxic workplace can linger unresolved while matters like playing football playing time can be handled in a matter of days. We are prioritizing sports over the safety and well-being of our staff and students. Why are we so quick to act on athletic concerns, yet remain stagnant when it comes to protecting our teachers and students from harassment and fear? We often

006hear about our district's impressive test scores and accolades. Yet, it feels hollow when we have not made the same commitment to fostering a safe and supportive environment. Our educators are the backbone of our schools and they deserve our protection and a support. It is our responsibility to ensure they have a safe place to teach without fear of retaliation and harassment. The situation should not be a topic of discussion but a call to action. We need transparency, accountability, and commitment to change. Our staff should feel empowered to speak up without fear of repercussions. We need to ask ourselves, why is this not already in place? Thank you for your time, and I urge you to do something tangible. Prove to us you hear our concerns. As someone who spends hours volunteering in our school each week,

007I assure you this is a present environment. This is not of the past. Finally, a note to our teachers. We care deeply about you or we would not be advocating like this. We know many of you are torn what to do next and where to provide your amazing skills. We hope you will stick with us. We will continue to advocate for you. Please stick with our kiddos. They are so lucky to have you. >> Thank you. Thank you. And then Dura Lakshmi. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Um I'm a new parah at Endeavor Elementary. I did not even come prepared to speak so I'm speaking extreme. I actually came here as a parent. My daughter was here a while ago and as a long-standing parent and educator in the community, I hear this concerns and

008it really bothers me to some extent that we are having to face such a situation. I hope it doesn't come to this kind of an unfortunate situation. But I wanted to share how my experience has been at Endover. It's an absolutely amazing school, great staff. I work with a lot of teachers. Most of you are here. Um the students are very nice. I feel safe in the school. I have only received love and um you know compassion. Uh I have gone to the my supervisors a couple of times uh with requests and I've always been meed out with uh kindness and understanding. So I just wanted to be honest and uh say that um I do not fear being endeavor as a staff as a parah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any

009others that um did not sign in? Are there any hands raised? Oh, feel free. I don't know your name, so I can't call on you. Thank you. Of course. Hi, my name is Anna Shice. I am a mother, the mother of a fifth grader. This is my kids last year, but out of concern, not only for her safety throughout the rest of this year of the school year, but for all other kids that are going to be there while the principal is there. Um, I want to try to understand because when we become a volunteer for the school, like you have to go through a background check process and one of the questions in that background check process is, have you ever been accused? Has anyone even complained that you've engaged in inappropriate behavior with

010a minor, sexual or not? Right. So, I don't understand why she hasn't been put in at least paid leave until an independent investigation has been completed. So, that that way if she's innocent, she won't be penalized. And if she's guilty, she won't be if she's she really, you know, if the conclusion is that she really committed those those acts, she wouldn't be close to the students and endanger endangering not only the students but also the staff members and like perpetuating this toxic environment for everyone. So I would like to get some clearance on that like why hasn't that happened? Thank you. >> Thank you. Any others on Zoom? Yes, Emily. >> Thank you. My name is Aaron Marsh. Um, board. I introduced myself to you, so it's nice to finally meet you. I sent out

011a lot of emails without responses. So, I think it's important that you actually see my face and take accountability for not responding and keeping the staff and students safe safe like you promised to. Something I was not able to do as I left Endeavor Elementary was to properly say goodbye to my teachers and my students. I couldn't tell them why I was leaving because I was not provided one. And I had students that wrote letters to the board. I sent hard copies. I sent them through my email. And what they felt is defeat. And I want them to know. And if there's any students out here that are watching on YouTube or are seeing this in the stands that I want you to know that your voices were heard, you are not defeated. and that

012it is important that you are able to stand up and it's important to stand up against what's wrong. And what we teach as staff to kids about what to do when there are bully situations is to stand up, hear your voice, protect the good. And so, especially my Merlin students who took so much Mulaney Shupe, you tell those kids how much I love them. I want them to know their voices counted. They were not defeated and they should be proud of themselves. And the lesson that they learned through this is something I could have never taught them in the gym. So, thank you Endeavor staff. I love you. I miss you. Thank you for the parents who have supported us. It's been a very hard, long journey, but I've always said good wins in the

013end, and it will. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no more public comment, we will go to the next agenda item. Oh, I do see a hand raised in the in the online. Hey, can you please turn on your camera and you should be able to uh turn on your camera as well. >> Okay. Can you hear me? Yes, but we can't see you. And so until we see you, um >> yeah, I I tried to turn on my camera, but it says um the host has disabled it. So I can just speak um and give my name or uh that's fine, too. Oh, okay. Started. Hi. >> Oh, thank you. Hello. >> Hi. Yes, my name is Mindy Mooney. I was a teacher at Endeavor Elementary uh for six years. um and I spent my

014first year there at Endeavor um with the current principal and I want to thank you for allowing us to speak and just um for your support and um really just ask for communication um on behalf of the teachers but more like my wish for what I like I wish we had when I was still there. um I couldn't stay for my own personal reasons because the environment um in that first year was too much for me to handle. U it's too toxic and it sounds like unfortunately time hasn't healed that and um I just ask that the district um continue to or start communicating um and just assuring the staff. That's I feel like that goes a long way just knowing that um people are heard and that their voices are heard and that they

015matter. Um because Endeavor was the best play the best place to work. Um the community and the family and those teachers that are sitting there right now. I'm I miss them and um I just don't want to see more people leave like I did. Um so Thank you. And then I also see uh Laurel Webb. Okay. Hi. Good evening. My name is Laurel Burl Webb and I'm a parent of a Liberty High School student. Tonight I'm asking the board to take a minute and pause and reflect on the words that have been communicated this evening. to reset and to look closely at whether your own systems and policies are being applied as you intended when you adopted them. Your policies your policies are sound. The gap lies in alignment and consistency across schools. This is

016not about management decisions or new initiatives. It's about governance, about ensuring that all students access are reflected in what policies you've already set. Compliance is not about access. Systems only work when they serve students in real time. At the end of the day, the law follows what a plan does, not what it is called. Thank you. Are there any other hands raised in the house? Good evening. My name is Lisa Galishia. I am currently a um substitute teacher in the Isiqua School District um which I absolutely love and am honored to be part of this community. Um I am also a prior second grade teacher at Cougar Ridge Elementary School and I'm also a prior parent of two students of my my girls who went through Endeavor. I'm also a prior volunteer um board member

017um at the school. This isn't about me, but I want you to understand the perspective where I'm coming from from many hats I have worn. This school is beloved. >> Getting ready for night. >> Absolutely beloved school. I've been to so many different places as a substitute and as the things I just said and Endeavor is my favorite like favorite favorite. I've also taught in the Seattle school district uh at four different schools. Endeavor there's nothing like it and the reason why is because of the staff. The teachers are welcoming, organized. I cannot tell you how thoughtful lesson plans are. I can walk into any one of their classrooms and feel like I am actually teaching. And that's a big thing to say. I am horrified that nothing has been done. Speaking to you as

018a current employee, as a substitute teacher, how do you tell me I am safe to go substitute here? I have not been communicated with by the um substitute office. We have not been notified of a lawsuit. Please take this into consideration. >> Thank you. >> Okay, with that we will be closing public comment uh and move on to the approval of our consent agenda. and I understand if you don't want to stay for the rest of our meeting. So, you are welcome. Uh thank you so much for showing up. Thank you for your input. We do appreciate it. >> Okay. So, I am looking for a motion. >> I move that the consent agenda be approved as presented and amended. A second. >> Any comments? Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >>

019Any opposed? The eyes have it. Thank you. >> Next is uh the um regular agenda. So, are there any changes to the regular agenda? >> There are no changes to the regular agenda. >> Great. So, then we will move to the first item on our agenda, which is a recap of our work study. So, prior to tonight's regular meeting, the board met with the ISD administrators to review our school improvement plan data and prepare for the upcoming SIP meetings that uh is coming very rapidly. So, with that, um I will open up to my board colleagues. I do want to note that director uh Gallinger was unable to attend today uh due to a work conflict. So, he is not here. Um, so who would like to start? >> Director Coin. >> All right. Well,

020um, thank you. U, we had a great, u conversation during our work study, uh, this evening and in preparation for our SIP meetings, or school improvement plan meetings. Always, uh, fun dialogue that we get to have with our school administrators. And what's great about the way that we cycle this through, so um we every other year we'll do elementary uh principles come together and then we'll do um secondary uh all all in the same room and then uh this year we're actually doing by feeder pattern. So um we're starting with the Liberty feeder pattern and then uh the Skyland feeder pattern and then the Isiqua High feeder pattern. So it was it it uh should be a great dialogue I think um when we come together for our first meeting on November 4th. I know

021for me in particular, what I'm interested with the feeder pattern conversation is really understanding transitions um understanding uh kindergarten readiness um really the transition from fifth uh grade to middle school and then from middle school to high school and um really seeing a dialogue between all of our principles um around how that works, how they uh work collectively to prepare students. Uh what's also great about these conversations is we have um uh a high degree of of data. Um and thank you thank you to our our district uh uh staff for helping to provide um good information for us really to be able to ask insightful questions during those meetings. So um it helped us to really frame up um the the specific items that we really want to um understand uh relative to each

022of our schools. So should be a really fruitful conversation and looking forward to our first one that'll be coming up with the Liberty feeder pattern on November 4th. >> Hey, >> um yeah, I think I'll just start by, you know, kind of letting the public know a little bit about these meetings and how valuable they are. Uh again, they're our school improvement plan meetings. we actually get an opportunity for uh it's a 4-hour meeting that we get to sit down with um leadership in our in our buildings across the district. Um and we took the time this evening to really try to be mindful about how we can maximize that time that we have with our leaders. Dive into the data. we have very rich data as to the performance of our schools and then

023have a discussion about how our students are doing and how we can ensure that we are asking the right questions when we have that opportunity. So, um, the building staff is incredibly thoughtful and considerate in the amount of preparation they put into those discussions and they're just super super important to us on the board to have an opportunity really to talk about what's what's going what's working well and where we can start to model things that are working well in one building and other buildings and continue to build on it. So, um I guess I'm saying really in in advance gratitude to the effort that is put into those discussions and I think that coming out of tonight's discussion, uh you know, we really spent an hour thinking about what exactly how are we going

024to narrow that conversation to make sure we're really honing in on the things that are important for the district. So, I look forward to those meetings when they come up. >> Great. Dr. Mullins, >> uh can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes. >> Wonderful. Um, so I love the good summary of what the meetings are and our prep for them. So that was great. I think what's important to me out of the conversation tonight is what are the measurements we're looking at? Obviously, we've worked for the last several years on what are the key the key moments or the key metrics that large impact on our student success over time. So that's in elementary, middle, or in high school. So, it's good that we'll have we were able to review having that data across all

025the schools and that we have an extended period of time to look at that in advance of those school improvement or SIP uh meetings. I think it's also important that we get to look at that data as it relates to previous year performance in a particular school building or across the district schools and cohorts as well as against state performance. So that helps give some additional insights as well as by groupings of students that um where we've potentially had opportunity gaps uh historically. So, I think tonight's conversation for me was really about honing in on kind of what's the direction to access that conversation and how can we have a good conversation because we're talking across the levels around um how some of our cohorts of students are performing, how we identify them, and also

026how we support them to ensure they're making progress um year-over-year. So, uh, good to have the time to kind of orient ourselves to the data, the data pack early. Good to have, uh, this level setting conversation about what'll be the most impactful discussions as we'll have three of these across each of our theater patterns. So, elementary, middle, and high school in one in one place. And you know, I think it's an incredibly important use of our time to get our building leadership, our district administration, and the school board together and really do a deep dive over the course of three separate 4-hour meetings into how our schools are performing and what we're doing to make a difference going forward. >> Thank you. And um before I turn it over to the superintendent, I just wanted

027to say thank you to executive director Rich Mullish um for the data and refining the data to the point that we have it today. I think is really really been important. Um it's it felt very scattered in past years because each uh school improvement plan had its own way of showing what data and what data they felt was important. And now we have that across the schools. it's all the same type of data so that we can do good comparisons. I also appreciate having attendance data as one of those markers um because if students aren't in school, how do we anticipate them to learn? And so you can see um with populations that are struggling um one of the things they're struggling to do is to show up to school. So it could be a

028marker of how do we now so how do we um look at achievement through the lens of possible um re-engagement with school. Um I think the other thing there was another thing for me and now I've completely lost what it was so I will pass it over to this superintendent. >> Just building off what um each board member has shared uh the ability to have data. We have always had data. The question is how do we display it and talk about it in ways that allow us to get to the insights uh that allow us to understand what's working really well at some of our school sites in what grade level uh or what content area as well as then where there's productive struggle. So being able to have the balanced conversation of uh taking

029away those important moments of success learning from them and then where there is areas of opportunity to grow and pro make progress that there is uh a reflection moment of what the plan might be and how that can be supported and I think then the next extension of the conversation is then what does the district do to support um the schools and that was where the school board was going in their discussion and has an interest in um furthering uh after the the sit meetings as a result of learning from all the schools. So, it was a great conversation. Thank you. >> And I did want to wrap up by saying I remember what my last point was is not every school does their school improvement plans this way. Often times they'll um well some

030schools districts don't have as many schools as we do. So they're able to look at those school improvement plans at a single meeting of the board. Um and where it's but in most cases they review it from the deis rather and talk about it amongst themselves rather than what we do. and to so much to the point that uh Director Gallinger has gotten us in um to be able to do a class at the Washington State School Directors Association annual conference this year. So, we'll talk about our process with our school improvement plans and the conversations that it brings because I think that that's the governmental oversight, right? Is to great, we received this data, we hear what the schools are doing, but we as a board need to also have a conversation. How is

031this aligning with our strategic plan? How does this align to us reaching um the the results that we have listed in our policies? So, um really excited about being able to share with other districts the good work that gets done in Isiqua. Great. So, next on our agenda is works in progress. Superintendent, what wonderful things are happening in our district? >> Great. Well, thank you. Um well the first thing is as a result of the last meeting where the school board voted to put the uh series of three levies on the ballot for February 2026 uh we've been able to start our preparation process and also have an early engagement with the um PTSA executive council as well as the presidents from across the schools at every single school in the district and uh president

032Moraldo was there as well. Also, it was a great opportunity to start to get them to understand what process we went through uh what the elements were and that really the goal that the board had charged uh the committee with and me with and my team with was to keep a stable um and predictable tax rate and that uh was what we came back with as a recommendation. Um and that the goal was to also renew and support and sustain the excellent programs that we do have across the district with a emphasis on student well-being and mental health in particular. Um and that we are really um we went through a process that was uh with 60 plus people on the advisory committee as a reminder and um really was a got good feedback about

033the engagement of those members as well about their experience and their voices being heard and the consensus driven decision-m that did occur to lead us to a recommendation for me to then give to you and for you to be able to um to to vote on. So, uh, that's been great work and we'll continue to make those preparations in the coming weeks and to partner with the board, um, on how to share information and then to support you in the role that you play as advocates for our school district, which we very much appreciate. Uh, we have also been continuing to work on a very important joint effort as well on the profile of a graduate and um, what those durable skills as part of the profile are and the dialogue that can be had

034with our community. The school board does have two board town halls to engage with a larger community on this. And um as of tomorrow um myself and several other team members on the cabinet level will have completed um going to each single learning site to have an optional staff meeting open to all before or after school. And that's been a great engagement opportunity just to dialogue around these are things that we hope to be true for our young people that are in accordance with the results the district goals um and how we can make those skills much more concrete that also meet the needs of employers but also the aspirations of our young people and their families about what our our kids can do that's uh content agnostic in the world as they um as

035they as we hope that they will thrive. So that's been exciting work. Um, on another note though, you know, this does mark week three of the federal government shutdown and so I wanted to just provide an update. It's uh probably on many people's minds about what that impact might be for our school district. Um, and the federal government has been partially operating without a budget. Um, so we don't currently see an impact to our district. However, I know if Congress has not adopted a budget or continuing resolution by the end of October and then by beginning November 1st, there are going to be impacts to basic food benefits such as the supplemental nutrition. uh assistance program and food assistance program. Um this actually does not apply to our district, but it does uh come up

036as a question. So I wanted to make sure that that was known to the board and to the public as part of this update and that many neighboring districts will have uh and see an impact as their community members do rely very heavily on those programs. Um we are also um continuing our efforts to build our teacher residency program. So that is a a great effort that we've been um taking on over the past few years especially is tied to our strategic plan um directly about building those pathways and we partner with the WA um on a teacher residency. So we do have over 20 candidates that have wanting to inter interview with the school district as part of this residency most of whom are coming from outside the district. So this is a way

037to attract um a pipeline of teachers to do their residency but also potentially then work here long term. And so we unfortunately can't take all candidates because there is limitations on our capacity and our resources but uh we're really excited about that and those um uh interviews will be happening uh over the next week. So that's pretty exciting uh as well. And then um one of the aspects of the engagements that we've been doing with the profile of a graduate has been to surface moments of joy. So, uh, this year theme has kicked off with, uh, centering on joy as a, as a really important way of affirming ourselves in the work as well as filling our buckets. But the positive energy that comes with talking more and more about positive, joyous moments just um,

038has really special ripple effects and can really influence a positive culture. And so a couple moments of joy I've heard um include um many uh many of actually our PTSA members feeling grateful for the incredible volunteer peers across the district that provide uh countless hours of support for our students and our schools. And that's an incredible space for them to continue to build friendships but also colleagues right future in in the work. Um I've heard many of our teachers say this has been the best start of the school year in some of their schools and they've been really excited about that. I've heard moments of joy where um our teachers are talking about the moments where they have just incredible powerful conversations with their students about learning and engaging with families, especially at the at

039the kindergarten level where they have family conferences before the school year starts. Um and then many of our teachers are just excited. There have been new staff members and new administrators in some of our buildings and they feel like that, you know, chapter turning has been a positive one. So those transitions for us as we think about uh where people are migrating in and out of seats and succession planning has been um reflected back to us in positive ways. So uh with that, you know, I just I'll end on a couple of those moments of joy and um there's so much great stuff happening. So thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Well, I'm a moment of joy is coming forward now. C uh capital projects update. >> Good evening everyone. Tom Mullins, director of capital

040projects for a capital projects update. This will will be the fin um final there we go be the final status update on the 2018 levy project unless specifically asked later. Um present status on the 22 levy update on larger general fund projects. outline the status of active grant efforts. Um a little bit on the upcoming capital projects oversight committee meeting in December and then share the latest updates on the new high school project. Um, all 2018 levy projects are complete or substantially complete with the exception of Challenger Elementary School and Newcastle Elementary School HVAC recommissioning which we've talked about and a reserve is set up to complete those two projects when and should the need arise. um 22 levy status. Um work continues on on an as needed basis to cover items on that critical

041repairs list and that'll cover us between now and the end of the four-year levy cycle which is in 2026. Um some new grant new grant opportunity with OSPI. It's a It's another indoor air quality grant that um helped fund retro commissioning similar to what we did over at at um Isiqua High School at and potentially for both Skyline and Liberty High Schools. Um OSBI is currently reviewing the grant applications and we'd expect to hear by the end of this month as to whether we awarded all or part of the funds. We we applied for quite a bit and um fingers crossed that we get all our part. Um our part our commerce energy grant is is going well. We're just wrapping up a few last items. There are things that were on order, equipment that

042was on order that took longer than expected. We're going to still looking at wrapping up in mid November. Um and then the Department of Ecology EV bus grant up at the Plateau Transportation Center. We we um appear to have gotten over the hurdle of that we did with the manufacturer and now we're just trying to get them to come out and commission the equipment. We've uh come to an agreement and just trying to get them scheduled and out. We'll keep you up to date as that equipment comes online and those buses can can be charged. Um, capital projects Oversight Committee. Um, the next meeting is December 16th. Um, we're going to include a presentation but by the um, design build team that's doing the new high school. We'll present information on the design build process,

043how estim how the estimates are arrived at. Um and we've got an over we'll do an overview of the actual project estimate. We have one that'll now and it'll even be more refined then. And then uh construction market update as well as other general project updates. New high school update. The next major milestone will be the first development commission meeting which will be held. There's a change to this that I just found out today. It's not Wednesday, November 5th. It will be Wednesday, November 19th. Um that'll be just two weeks later. They needed to uh a little more time to prep the um staff report and prep the development commission. Uh we're still on a target construction start date of March 1st. um still an August 27 opening and uh we're continuing to talk with

044the city staff during this whole process and keep those lines of communication open and things are positive there. This is the schedule that I do each each month to update. It had a slight slip in by four days, but um went from one week to 11 days, but it's not going to affect the overall schedule. And I'll update the uh development commission meetings when we meet next. This was already out when I found out about the change. Any questions? >> Are there any questions from board members? >> I have one. Yes, Director Mullings. >> In the um I'm curious about the new high school project. Has there been anything that's come up throughout the review? Looks like we've completed now two rounds of review that has um had any substantive impact on what the design

045was. Um so far, >> no, no substantive changes or hurdles that would that we had to do to change the project. There's always minor um minor things to pick up here and there, but nothing of any significance that we see that would either delay the project or change the project significantly. >> Thank you. >> Then what is the um outcome expected from the development committee? >> Well, they've scheduled the first meeting and then they've held the December 3rd, Wednesday, December 3rd meeting also. So fingers crossed we could be done in one meeting but they've got the second meeting of December 3rd as the backup. >> So do they give a recommendation? So what's the outcome? >> Oh what will be the outcome will be a recommendation for approval. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And that

046goes to >> that's that's the final as I understand it. That's the final decision. That doesn't go any further. >> They recommend approval. You've met all the qualifications. You've you've done what's needed to be done. So >> yeah. >> Great. >> Director Coin, >> Tom, I know you had mentioned this before on the OSPI um IAQ grant um for I guess what percentage of that of the total cost would that grant potentially cover? I guess it could come back at any amount. Well, the >> but I guess what's on the high end like 50% of the cost for >> the new the new grant that we're out for right now. That one would be 100%. >> Oh, it would be 100%. No match no match required on that one. >> Okay. >> And um >>

047but they potentially come back with a lower amount or Okay. >> Yeah. We we com we put two projects in their amounts for both and tried to give them a a pathway that if they didn't give us all of the money, they could give us enough to be able to complete one of the projects. >> Okay. >> Given them that pathway. >> Okay. >> So, >> great. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. Next on the agenda is monitoring report OE13 facilities. So I will start with a motion then we'll do a discussion from a presentation from staff. Any public comments and then board discussion and vote. So we'll start with that motion. >> I move the board accept the monitoring report for operational expectation 13 facilities

048OE13 as presented. I second. Right. Oh, students first. We get a student presentation. Welcome Noah up to the uh lectern. Um am I good to start? Yes. Good evening. My name is Nila Natarajin and I'm an 11th grader and a student representative at Skyline High School. Today I'm presenting an update on operational expectation 13 facilities. This report is based on 190 survey responses to the whole school which is about 8.6% of Skyline students and additional in-person students interviews and conversations which happen during lunch before and after school. Um areas where OE13 standards are being met are that classroom and campus feel safe towards students. Staff presence, emergency drills, and building security meets OE13.1 safety expectations. Gym, theater, and fields are wellmaintained and accessible for both students and community events, and general building structure is reliable

049with no major faculty hazards, facility hazards reported. These areas show strong compliance with OE13 requirements. Um I have three main concerns though that were brought up by students um through the survey and through the interviews and conversations. The first is hallway accessibility which is relating to safety and access. Um hallways and stairwells especially near the commons but really everywhere are often overcrowded during passing periods. This makes movement stressful and slow for students and can create accessibility challenges for students with mobility needs. Um number two is bathroom conditions. This was the most frequently reported issue by students. Um, bathrooms are often closed off and when they aren't, broken sinks, missing stall doors, vandalism, odors, and the lack of soap or paper towels often deter students from being able to use the restrooms. Um, repairs also often

050take a long time, leading students to feel like the issue is overlooked. The third point is that the temperature and HVAC at Skyline are very irregular. Many classrooms, especially on the first floor and in the portables, are very cold or overheated. Students report that this consistently affects focus, comfort, and learning. Overall, Skylands facilities meet expectations and support learning. Um, however, improving bathroom maintenance, hallway flow, and temperature consistency would significantly enhance student well-being and align everyday experiences with OE13. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, now we'll move on to staff. >> Thank you. Martin Tney, chief of finance and operations here to report on OE13. Um, so the superintendent certifies the district is in compliance with OE13 with no exception. And I was hoping to just walk through each one giving highlights um through the report.

051Make sure this thing works. I might I might need your help scrolling. That's all right. Okay. So, starting with 13.1 um develop a plan and establish priorities for construction, renovation, and maintenance projects. Uh in this area, uh I'd like to point out a couple of things. Um, in terms of facility work orders, we received 6,371 work orders this past year and 94.8 were completed. So, that's how many we were able to get through uh during the year. Uh, we've got 22 trades people working on those. So, it's a pretty big accomplishment. We also have a crew of 16 grounds who maintain 542 acres around the district. Another big task. um vehicle maintenance, 10 uh vehicle maintenance techs uh completed over 3,000 work orders uh during the year uh mostly on buses but other vehicles as

052well. And I like to point out this statistic, 172 buses drove 1.3 million miles uh this past year. So, it's always good to get that out there. People sometimes don't realize how much uh we do with the buses. So, um, also wanted to point out in this area, spring of 2025, uh, we began planning for the the levy package that included critical repairs. So, bringing together work that had already been done on facility assessments, uh, initiating a survey of staff and collecting other data in terms of uh, how the facilities are doing and how we can work that into a uh, the critical repairs uh, proposition. Um, in 13.2 two project uh life cycle cost as capital decisions are made. Thank you. Um a lot of history there, but I did want to point out

053or reiterate what uh Mr. Mullen said about uh initiating the capital projects oversight committee um in 2025. So that was new. It helps us with uh getting those independent insights and recommendations as we go over our capital um work. If you can continue to scroll, I'm going to jump 13.3, develop and consistently administer facility use guidelines. Uh, so we have regulation 4260. Um, one thing that happened during the last year is that we increased or we adjusted our rental rates for class three and four. Those are the uh kind of for-profit groups or the groups outside of what is tied to the district. uh we did see an increase in revenue um for that and we also um went to uh more of an online payment system. So we saw a dramatic increase of payment

054occurring online which I think is a good uh benefit for folks who are renting our facilities and also for efficiencies uh in the system 13.4 um superintendent will not build or renovate buildings without board approval. We did not have any major construction or renovation projects over $350,000. We did give two instances where we did bring those to the board as best practice to make sure that we were transparent about that. Also want to point out um just once again uh plenty of information out there, monthly budget status reports that give updates on the projects. We have information on the website uh under the crit on the capital projects um site. So people can always go there and kind of see where we are on each of these projects. 13.5, we didn't name any mascots without

055checking with you first. Uh nor did we uh recommend any land acquisition in the next uh 13.6. Um 13.7 is about authorizing construction schedules and change orders. So all change orders were presented to the board for approval. Uh we have also been going through a process of enhancing um our information around change orders in that process and all approved change order information is now posted under each project on the district website for additional transparency. 13.8 allow facilities uh to be unclean, unsanitary, or unsafe. Um, we up until I just had that report weren't aware of any instances uh of any violations and I'm not sure if we have any violations. However, we are taking note uh of what we heard with the skyline situation particularly around the bathrooms. We do have our custodians who are

056doing um their own building inspections routinely and checking things that need to be uh taken care of. I'm actually going to ask Jason Morris to come up and and briefly um talk about the Skyline uh restrooms. Thank you, Mr. Attorney. Jason Morris, executive director of operations. So, this week Marcel Hower and I had the opportunity to touch base with our student reps, and I just want to extend a thank you um for that report as far as some of the feedback from Skyline High School. Um, I want to assure our students uh and our board that uh immediately following that meeting, we I did follow up regarding the concerns that were expressed. Um, I I can't do a lot about the overcrowding in the hallways or in the stairwells. Uh, but the restroom situation, um,

057I did work with, uh, my team. Um, we identified there were uh some documented vandalism concerns that were addressed, although I would suspect by um the nature of what took place. It probably did take a day or two for those bathrooms to come back online and so being closed does not surprise me. However, they were returned to um operational conditions. Um we did a check in our work order system and did not um have the work orders. So clearly those concerns had not made it to uh an adult in the building to put the work order in andor were missed by our staff as they do their inspections. Um I had our director of custodial uh inspect the entire building, all the bathrooms and those conditions that were reported to my understanding have been rectified

058uh yesterday u by the afternoon. So, we did locate a couple faucets exactly as the report read um and had those fixed. And we did some additional training uh on our systems to make sure those things are reported proactively uh and not um having to hear them from our students and then respond to them at that time. But I did want to reassure the board and the students um that uh we did follow up immediately on that um and we'll work on making sure that those systems are running smoothly so uh we hit it proactively. Great. >> Thank you, Jason. And um finally, uh 13.9 um has to do with use of facilities. So, one of the highlights I wanted to point out here was how we were able to um reopen the theaters in

059full for use over the past year. So, um, some statistics, school usage of our theaters went up from 9,297 hours to 13,22 hours as we had more, uh, staff there to help with the, uh, access. And then, of course, the community usage from the prior year was very low, 18 hours. That has gone up to 129 hours and growing. So, now that we have full use theaters, we're able to rent them out. And I think that's a success uh, from the past year. Um the last thing is we've been tracking for the last two three years now uh utilization and so as you can see the percentage of our buildings being utilized is 96.1% for the past year almost the same as the prior year. So as you can see we have a lot of

060use in our buildings not just for the typical use and the school use but also for facilities use. So there's there's plenty of uh activity being done in those buildings and they're and they're being utilized. In some cases, that means um we run out of space and we can't accommodate everybody, but um it's good to know that they're getting good use. And that concludes the highlights for me. Are there any questions? >> Yes, Director Taylor. >> Actually, I'm going to start with a comment and then I have two questions. Um I just want to note you know I think as a district we have really beautiful facilities that we can be very very proud of but in order to maintain those facilities we have the district has to pro um plan for preventative maintenance of

061those structures. So, um I mention that only because we are again dependent on local funding. That is the model in the state of Washington to up keep the upkeep of our buildings. And as we're getting closer to a levy now in February, I just want to remind the community if we want to continue to have these facilities to our disposal, we have got to fund at a local level in order to do that. And just to put that in a little bit of context, if we go over these utilization hours, I I found this very very interesting. 44,000 hours of use, 96% available hours of our buildings, nearly 40% of that is utilized by the community, not necessarily during school hours, but by other for other community needs. So, our whole community is really benefiting

062from our facilities. So, I just hope people will take a moment to think about that and let that sink in as to how important our schools are to our communities. With that in mind, I just have a quick question. In 2023, uh the report notes the district commission a detailed facilities assessment Um and that was used partly for the levy planning in 2026. I'm curious, are there plans moving forward to do another such assessment? >> Uh so that was really in preparation for the bond >> for the bond. Yeah. >> And so what was good about that is that we had um quite a few years worth of information on you know beyond a four-year window. So, I think yes, as we get into the next four-year cycle and uh hopefully we pass these critical

063repairs, we would we would need to go through an updating of that, as we complete those projects, but we do have we got so much information out of that that you know, forward look uh that it's it's going to be good for a couple years for us probably good until we do it again. Yep. >> Okay. Okay. And then my second question is minor point, but I'm curious. On page four, there's the uh statistics around booking and usage comparison. And it says the class 4 bookings slightly declined, but they went from 932 down to 5.87, which to me seems more than slightly. I'm just curious as to why. Do we know? Is it a cost issue because the rates went up or do we not have any indication why that might be? >> Yeah, it

064is. Let me see here. What I'm looking at is uh I'm looking at the usage by the districts because what sometimes what happens is as we have more usage ourselves, it kind of pushes. So the further down you go, you you have less capacity for those groups. So the class four sometimes are the groups that um kind of get squeezed out. >> That makes sense. >> Does that sound about right, Jason? Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the last thing I'm going to say is I did not know we had volunteers taking care of our flower beds. That's great. Love that. Thank you to those people. >> Director Coin, >> thank you both. Oh, hear me. Thank you both for the uh the update. And uh Jason, thank you. You answered all my questions

065on the the bathrooms at Skyline and Noah, thank you for your your presentation, too. I do hear that on a relatively frequent basis that the the bathrooms there could use some improvement. Um, you know, I think I just want to acknowledge to the work that Martin and Jason do and the entire team because it's a bit of a game of whack-a-ole. You hear one thing and you don't know about something else and then something new comes up the next day. So, thank you. You you are very very responsive to everything. So, I I want to acknowledge that too. Um, I guess a question that I do have in terms of just I guess going back to the restroom question and really tracking the cause of that and and specifically vandalism. Do we know? Do we

066have any tracking on that? Are we seeing that there's ways to prevent that from happening? Because that's really that's the root cause. I mean, this is and it boggles my mind why students would choose to vandalize a bathroom because there's a specific need for those. But I I don't know. Would you weigh in on that a little bit? >> Yes. Uh Jason Morris, exact director of operations. Director Coin, thank you for that question. I feel like I stand in a bit of a unique role here because I'm a former building principal for not quite a decade and a former assistant principal. And so I feel like I've been on both sides of of this coin. Um I would articulate um that our building administration staff and our safety and security staff uh in buildings where

067they uh operate um are very proactive. Um so most of our areas where we kind of have a suspicion where um supervision may be more challenging such as a restroom. Obviously, we don't put video cameras or security in in there, but we do try to place them in areas um where we can track um if if something uh happened, we can try to get a time on it and then we can observe security camera footage and follow up. That takes a tremendous amount of work, but in general, by and large, our admin teams, our safety and security teams do a phenomenal job of running that down. Um unfortunately, they don't get them all. and and that is a spot where if a vandalism situation occurs, we do sometimes have a hard time um you know

068drilling down to the exact time and cause and person responsible. Um if we are able to work with um you know someone who's responsible, we take the appropriate steps obviously for consequences and and restitution if necessary. Um so I would say from my experience I think we do a very good job but we don't get them all. Um and in in One of the biggest things is having student reps and student building culture where they have ownership and pride in that school. And that's something our staffs really develop with our kids. That goes a long ways. Um, you know, just continuing to remind students this is their building. This is a community space. Take care of it, be proud of it. I think that's probably our best methodology in addition to uh being very vigilant

069and trying to follow up when when we possibly can. But sometimes we just don't >> we don't get them. >> No don't make sense. No, thank you very much. That's a great question. I appreciate that. >> Yeah. No, thank you for that that uh that perspective. And then lastly, I'll just uh tack on to what uh Director Taylor said and just again this idea that that really this our schools are the heart of our communities and um they play a big big role um in the communities that we live in. And so again, it's really good to highlight um you know, how many of our community members are using our schools um and it's great to see that and great to see that they're open and available for that, too. So, thank you. Uh any

070comments, Director Mullings? >> Yes, thank you. Um very thorough report and I definitely like seeing the utilization all up building utilization at the end. I know that's a question that comes up all the time about public use, the public being able to have access to our building spaces. So I love having that spelled out this clearly. I think the the only other areas that I maybe still get questions about or I will hear people asking questions about that may be included but maybe isn't jumping out to me is the usage of um the tracks like the tracks around middle and high school as well as playgrounds around elementary and um I guess a sense that there's limit limited access to the public on weekends as an example. So is there specific I guess polic around

071those items that we could also talk through? >> Sure. So the question is about usage of tracks and the availability. Um we do our practice is to after you know schools out we're no longer utilizing them for say before and after school those playgrounds should be open. Um there are uh times when we have fields that have tracks that there are uh folks who have rented the field. Uh but in those cases if the tracks available they should be able to utilize that uh at the same time. Uh I know it's not perfect. I think sometimes they they can run into a lock gate or the the wrong lock gate and uh not not know that the another entrance is available. Um but I think we have been in particularly um in the last few

072years trying to make a concerted effort to make everything available uh to the public after hours and and when we don't have students in want to add anything. >> Yeah. >> Director Mullins, thank you for your question. We do have a system in place as well at our secondary schools and it's important for the community to know this. um high schools and middle schools. When those tracks are not in use by a group that you know rented the space, um there is a process in place where um community members can work with the individual school uh for a modest deposit. They can actually check out a key to access those track spaces um on weekends and on off hours. And I would say that's also the case um for our tennis courts. um the the

073uh community may for again um there's a process I believe it's a driver's license and a and a small deposit and they can uh obtain a key to access those spaces um during off hours should they be locked um like on a weekend or evening or something like that. >> That is great. I I guess is that something that we've communicated recently or or periodically because that may be an opportunity to share that information again. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think we could probably um work with our communications department and put that out. Um and maybe just echo, you know, that we have a lot of community use and you know, we're proud of that and those opportunities are open. I can work with comms. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any comments from our students or

074questions? Is there any public comment? Seeing none, um we would call for an advisory vote from the students. So, we'll put the advisory v vote information up there. So, you should have the link to the minty. Okay, I have five out of eight so far. There we go. Does anyone need more time? Okay, thank you. So, it looks like we have a unanimous vote. I do want to say that this was a great opportunity to hear from a student and see the impact of um the the work that we give you. So, as a student rep, being able to keep your eyes and ears um on what's going on in your schools is very important. Um and also, if you hear about that from the schools that feed into your high school um would be

075really important to know. So, um I think it's a great example of why student voice is important. Um with that, I will call for the vote for the board. All those in favor signify by saying I >> I >> and opposed. The eyes have it. >> Thank you so much. So the next item on our agenda is a district update on technology and information. >> All right. Uh good evening board uh student representatives. My name is Jason Gold. I'm the chief uh uh information technology officer here for the district. Today marks day 97 for me here in the district. Um so this is a perfect opportunity to uh provide you guys basically with a kind of an assessment of what I've seen so far uh in the district and kind of the setting of the

076direction I'm trying to push uh technology and the vision for the future of the technology here in the district. >> That might be helpful. Uh clicker. Nope. From it shouldn't be that slidesh. We're going to go with it. It doesn't feel like it's right. Um the slide should be about my experience. And so as I come in and done the assessment uh for this and kind of start setting this vision, it's all been based on the 20 years I spent um overseeing technology in the K12 environment uh today. And so with that, I've taken the lessons I've learned um learned, you know, the things that impact technology that has a good impact on students, the things that have a negative impact on students, and applied those to look at what the district's doing, the foundation

077they've set, and looking for areas that we can improve uh and continue to grow in that. Um this vision is really shaped by those lessons learned. Um you know just the other day we had this outage uh in in the network in the south end. Again trying to figure out how do we you know build a robust infrastructure that helps mitigate some of those. Now that might have been a little bit impossible when they take out a whole south end. But that's the importance of having things so we don't have a disruption uh to that. Um the one commitment you always see me having is this continuous improvement. Um, and you always hear me say I'm putting the students at the center of this. So, I'm always looking to say what is the impact to

078the students? Whether it's positive, negative, we got to make sure we're keeping them at the center of this decision as we uh work on these. The first one I'll talk about and I should back up before we talk about cyber security is everything I'm about to talk to you about in this is funded by the tech levy. So, we're grateful that the comm community, you know, has voted and passed these levies to fund all these things about to talk about the things we've already done and the the need to continue to be able to fund these. We need the community uh to see the importance of these things. So, I just want to say thank you to the community. But all these things I'm about to talk about are funded by out of the tech

079levy. Cyber security. I bring this one up first because it's a very hot topic these days. It's very important. Um there's a district in Eastern Washington right now um that is down. They've been down for two weeks not being able to have instruction. Uh Isiqua School District has been there before. And so we need to make sure that we're doing our best so that we don't have those type of impacts uh here in the district. The number one thing that's important uh with cyber security is the user education. We need to make sure that we're educating our users. um not just having to harden systems and you know antivirus and all those but really comes down to educating the users what to click on what not to how to you know identify things that could

080be uh bad you know or fishing emails and things like that and so we're going to we've already started developing a um fishing or basically a um cyber security awareness program that Greg Jacobs and his team is building out to start doing that education. We'll start running more tests around fishing and start providing some of those results to show how we can continue to educate users to help prevent some of those things you see in there. Um, we're also going to do things um that will help increase the things like multiffactor authentication which I think everybody's kind of aware of these days. We'll continue to push that out for all of our staff. This helps um reduce the risk of someone from outside of the district, you know, gaining access to important information, whether it

081be P PI, student information, or even staff information. Um we'll the goal is to have that in by the end of this year, but that is something we continue with. Um the other piece is you know it may sound simple but trying to increase the length of passwords but also putting in things like Windows Hello so people just like you do on your phone you look at it on locks we want to do the same things where you can still have a complex password you just don't have to type it in all the time that gets me a little bit buy in with the users as I start trying to put some of those complexities into uh the system kind of ties back into what I was just talking about the infrastructure we have a

082solid foundation for the infrastructure in the district, but we're always going to need to build on top of this. And my goal is to have a network and an infrastructure that's about a year or two ahead of where everybody else wants to be in the district. That means when so that when we go and implement new platforms, new solutions, the infrastructure, we don't have to think about it. It's there, it's ready, we can go ahead and start implementing things. And so some of the areas that we think about in these is making sure that we have a strong robust connection between our sites. Make sure that we can upgrade those speeds as things come. As we move more things to the cloud and things like that, we're going to need more bandwidth between the sites

083and also out to the internet. You know, looking at things that we need to ISP connections. So the one goes down, we have problems that we can still operate. And so, you know, as we become more dependent on the technology and the access to it, I have to make sure that we have a robust infrastructure so that we can continue to operate even when we do see blips. The goal is that I'm not a barrier in any blip we have that nobody would see it and we have a robust redundancy in in place. Um, one of the key things we're looking at is looking at new infrastructure software that has AI powered pieces of it. Again, these would be things that can help us do more troubleshooting. um has the ability to do a lot

084of the troubleshooting for us. So when we get in there, it can reduce that downtime to, you know, half the time that maybe what we see now for things that are district um cause versus things that I can't have no control over from Comcast and some of those others. Moving on to um from infrastructure, this is another one I'd like to talk about is the student experience. And so as I was preparing OE15 and talking the student reps a little bit and talked to some of the others, you know, one of the things you start hearing about is the devices, you know, how it runs, you know, the speed and those things. And those things are all actually true. You know, you're going to have that there's systems we put in place that, you know,

085kind of impact some that from safety and security. But one thing we haven't really done is gone and gotten student voice. And so what I'm planning on doing, I started working on right now is we're trying to identify devices we'll use. We'll purchase enough to do uh pilots with at least 90 different students as a secondary. So we're focused on the secondary, have them run through 30 days on each device, give me feedback, do another device, do another device. So at the end, we're getting their feedback. We're meeting their requirements. What's important to them? You know, as we was talking a couple weeks ago, they would like to have touch on their screens. They'd like to have digital inking. Those are things that we can look for and put in the next platform. But the

086important thing is we're getting the students voice on what they want and what's going to meet their needs, but also trying to make sure that we balance out things that we can support. Um, both from a financial and just from a a technology standpoint. Um, but again, this goes back to what I said earlier. I'm always going to try and put the students at the center of this and this is one way of doing it and letting them have voice and the device that me best meets their needs. Here's another favorite topic for everybody is artificial intelligence. Um the district has already made a lot of great progress in here. Uh we've done a lot of great things. You know, uh we started working last year with Colleague AI AI pushing that out to uh

087staff. You know, looking to see how we can start rolling that out to students. I was just reading on Colleague AI's website from a newsletter they had about having their AI tutor and how it can help, you know, tutor their students and have connections back to the staff. Um the good thing about something like colleague AI, it already has some of those safety uh pieces in there that monitor. So if a kid is starting to see some, you know, distress in a student or anxiety, the system can start detecting some of those and start alerting the same way we do some of the other things like gaggle and our internet filters. It has that ability um to do that. And so it gives us this opportunity as we do AI throughout the district, we're taking

088this approach where we're trying to make sure we get everything put in place. So put in our guidelines to make sure we're doing this in an ethical way and make sure again we need to be talking to students get their impact you know figure out how do they want to use AI how are they using it how do they see themselves using it again making sure we're working with staff understand what their concerns are how do we address those way I look at AI it's just another tool for a student to be able to get deeper learning into any type of subject matter they want um if it's used properly and then we'll continue to uh work with our partnerships through AI. We have the um GSV ASU one. We have Kosen, which is another

089national one. And then with Microsoft, um they're continuing to roll out things. They just uh launched their Microsoft Elevate, which will give students access to Copilot as well. So again, we have to figure out how do we roll these out in a safe, usable way versus just flipping the switch on. We're trying to do it in a very thoughtful way um throughout Um the piece that I would highlight on this one on educational technology and professional development. The key to this is we have to continue doing professional development. I can't just give somebody something and expect them to know how to use it. I can't expect them to train them once and they will remember. We have to build tiered training. So I have to put in different tiers of 101, 2011, 301. And this

090goes not just from, you know, colleague AI or canvas. This is down to how to use word, excel, powerpoint, all these tools that we can put out there and provide additional training. But professional development is key if we want to utilize these tools to the best of their abilities and to make sure that um staff have that support. But this also goes for students. You know, how are we making sure that they understand how to use these tools so when they go off and go into the workforce, they understand how they work. you know, again, from whether it be Word, creating a presentation, OneNote, Excel, some of these other things, email, how to craft emails and draft things and, you know, schedule meetings and things that we do on a regular basis as adults. How

091do we ensure that they'll have those skill sets um as they move forward as well? The next one that I started working on pretty much since I hit the ground here was uh evaluating what we're doing for data data analysis. So data warehouse um and it really comes back to doing data driven decisions in real time. Um the district currently has a data warehouse. Um we're going we're in a process of bringing on a data engineer to help expand out what we do in that area. Again having someone help define data definitions, help define what visualizations working with customers, what do they need, what does the board need, what does the superintendent need from a data standpoint. We're always going to have some type of data warehouse. Most likely either we stay with the the

092vendor we have now. We may have to find a different vendor. Um but this again we put money into the upcoming levy to help us continue to build this expand this and to pull as much data. You we do a lot of stuff right now with um student data. Ideally we want to see a lot more financial data getting brought into this as well. So now you start looking at things from a financial standpoint, student impact, student outcomes and things like that. That's down the road. Um, but we have to start with the foundation and continue building. Again, we've already been doing a lot of great work. You guys have seen some of the visualizations that Rich and his team has done. Um, we're going to continue to build on that. Again, hopefully the goal

093is just to continue to improve and get you the data you need to make your decisions, whether it's the board members, uh, district leaders, or just people in the classroom. My next one is customer service. Um, I bring this into the end because everything I talk about, if I don't provide support to our customers, it doesn't matter what I do, they're going to have run into issues, they're going to need help. And so, for me, again, I'm putting the customer at the center, whether it be a student, staff member, or whatever. Um, some of the things I talked about was in uh the message or the report I delivered was coming up with like a unified ticketing system. The importance of stuff like that is that as people start putting tickets in, I can start

094watching trends. This goes back to data warehouse and data trends. I can identify issues that oh, we may need to do more training. We may need to get some type of different hardware, a different solution. This all goes back to it, but also gives me the ability to see what how well we're doing. I love running surveys to see what customers think. What am I doing wrong? How can I improve? The only way I can do that is by getting their feedback and be able to make those adjustments within the department so that we are back to supporting our customers and make sure that they're feeling supported uh utilizing these technology. And again goes professional development goes make sure the infrastructure is there the hardware and all these things we have to wrap it around

095with customer service so the staff are supported students are supported community supported uh when it comes around with technology so to me what does success look like to me and this is the thing I've always said about technology as I if I've been in the K12 environment is I want to move remove technology as a barrier so a lot of times where I go somewhere where go see something. Technology is that barrier. It's keeping a student from doing something. It's keeping a staff member from doing something. It doesn't work. We don't have access. There's not enough of it. My goal is to make sure that no one can say technolog is that barrier. They've had the training on how to use it. That it's working as expected and it ends up being like a light

096switch. You can go turn it on, it's there, and it's working and people are able to do what they need to do. Students are learning. Uh staff are able, teachers are able to teach and things like that. And so I like to look at this technology as becoming a bridge and not a barrier to the student learning. And so that is that key piece. When I can get that and I can visually see this in the district and happen, I'll know that we've had success. Um I do have some other things in there, but it really will come down to is technology not being the barrier and has actually helped moving um our goals forward. And so with that, I'll open up to some questions. First, I'll remember this time uh for public input. Is

097there any Oh, that's the next one. See, I don't know why they have me running these meetings. Um, so I'll open that up to uh comments from the board. And uh Dr. Coin, you're next to me and I can see you already have notes, so I'll call in you first. >> Do I highlighted my notes here? Um, first and foremost, Jason, thank you. We're so glad you're you're a part of our our district and and leading these efforts. Um it's funny. I was actually doing school visits yesterday at Maple Hills and Brierwood when the internet was down. >> Um one sometimes I think maybe when I make a school visit I bring bad luck. Uh internet down, power outages. Those tend to follow me when I come to a school. So um but I you

098know a couple things on that. I think one I you know the staff was really resilient in terms of figuring out alternatives when during the outage but it does remind me how reliant we are on that technology. So when you talk about infrastructure and really you know understanding that um here across the district I think that uh definitely important uh when we think about again how widely used that is. I think another piece that uh that you noted is um professional development for this technology because this is a space that's changing so fast so rapidly. I think about AI um you can roll you know these tools out these resources out but if you don't have the the training to necessarily support it um then it kind of it essentially falls flat. So thank you

099for for mentioning that too. One question I had that I I was reading um your your letter to the board um related to areas of focus and this idea around um you know the the the district issued computer following a student throughout their career and I think it was high school remind me the time period again >> yeah the goal will be um and we'll work on this is from you'll be issued like a middle schooler be issued at sixth grade it fall until the eighth and then when you become nth grade you're issued another device that follows you to um 12th 12th grade to 12th grade. >> The purpose that is to provide the students with ownership. That's their device. They can put some stickers on it, help identify, but once they feel ownership,

100they will take better care of those devices. They will last longer and it gives them a continuous experience that they see throughout the device. >> I I think that's a great idea because I know we've talked before about the district issued device and being the unlucky one who, you know, the student who gets in line who gets issued the one that's been kicked around the whole prior year. Um, so it's great because I think you're right. It does provide that level of ownership and students know it's going to carry them through their entire high school career for instance and so they'll probably at least hopefully treat it with a little bit better respect. >> That's the goal. >> Yes, exactly. So, thank you >> Director Taylor. >> Uh, I have a question and two comments

101and I apologize because my question might be clumsy so bear with me. Um, lot of discussion in the deck about infrastructure upgrades. Great. Which I'm fully supportive of. >> I do know though that when you start talking about infrastructure upgrades, sometimes you run into legacy systems and that can create lots of challenges as to the extent of what your infrastructure needs, things of that nature. So thinking I realize that you know we just approved the tech levy for 2026. So this is really a question maybe looking forward to 2028. Have you do you see anything already that might be a significant cost for us moving forward when we start talking about infrastructure upgrades? It would be out of the norm that we as a board should maybe be thinking about budget-wise or levy planning wise

102in the future that we might want to be aware of. >> My goal in all that and anyone was helped developing the levy, you know, when they first got here is putting everything into refresh cycles. And so it's really looking at what the dollars we have and maximizing them by looking at the age of stuff and then putting everything on a cycle. So I can very easily then predict and say in 2029 this is what our expected costs will be. And so you start with your older stuff first and we get into the cycle that will just continue on >> for as long as you're going to have it. And that kind of instead of having these big spikes of like oh my gosh we need an extra 2 million. I've kind of mellowed that

103out. And so it just rides through there. And so that's that's the direction we're heading. This is what we're working on whether it's even around student devices, staff refreshes, switches, access points, everything you can think of from these monitors, projectors, it all has a life cycle and we have to manage that better so that we can uh smooth that line out. >> Oh, that's smart. That's great. Um, then just two comments. Uh, love the pilot program with training I mean uh testing devices with the user. We should ask the user what the user wants. So I think that's fantastic. We've heard a lot of comment, I think, over the last year or two from our students about their devices. So, I'm glad that you're getting that input and that there's some options. Um, I just

104I'm really excited about that. And then the last thing I want to say is about the AI uh adoption. >> Um, I'm very very supportive. you know, we hear a lot of um I don't want to say fear, but skepticism or concern about AI and what it might, you know, what the possibilities are from a negative standpoint, but I heard a lot here about the hope and optimism of AI and what an incredible tool it can be for our students to empower them in the world that they're moving into. So, uh I hope that we can really keep that message front and center with our community. It's just it is the future obviously and um there's just some incredible opportunities. So, thank you for leading that uh that work as well. >> Director Mullings, do

105you have any input? >> I do. Thank you. Um, so I I'm really appreciate this presentation and I think for me it really supports or highlights the importance of having a role like yours within our district. I I in going through the material we just went through, I feel like it really gives us a very well-rounded and thorough view of our technology um footprint within the district, our within the district. And so I just want to take one second to just appreciate the thoroughess of the review um because I think that is incredibly important for what we're trying to do. And I and I think it it it is a it shows a maturation in in the approach of going from the infrastructure to security to what is on the you know the hardware itself

106to how we can enhance the experience for both our uh our staff and our adults in the system as well as our students. So I just really appreciate the well-rounded kind of full full view of um what we need to do from a technology perspective. I'll take this moment just to underscore maybe the one on here that is of the most important to me and that all these other things have to get to right we have to have the infrastructure we have to have the right hardware we have to have the right um capabilities and learning systems but on the student experience one the piece that uh in addition to the student input which is important but the empowering through equitable access for me I think the opportunity I'm most anxious for us to to

107get to is how are we ensuring that once we have all this technology that we are really um making sure that all of the devices that are available for assisted assistance with learning are in use are and our students are getting access to them and I just feel that to date we have underutilized you know free resident uh functionality and tools as support to support our learners. So, uh that's really my comment. I just have to underscore that that's really important to me as we go forward and review our progress is how are our students accessing technologies? How are learners of all types getting to features and functionality that help them in their in their journey. So, I just want to highlight that. So, thank you. Thank you. Great. >> Any comments from our students?

108I see two Ava, I'll let you start. >> Hello. Okay, great. Um, I just had a question about like the laptop ownership uh pilot program. I think it's really interesting and I would really like it if I could kind of take more ownership over my school laptop. Um, and just kind of be able to use it more uh universally and for a longer stretch of time. Uh, my only thought with that is I also know that not all school laptops are created equal. Um, sometimes you go to get your assigned laptop for the year and you see it and you see your friends and you're like, "Oh, shoot. This is going to be a slow like laptop. I'm going to be toughing through this year. Um, and so if that was the case for all

109three years, it would make me feel as though some students who maybe didn't get the laptops that were as nice or as fast would feel a little bit frustrated, especially uh if they were involved in activities that would require like a lot of that processing power, whether that be robotics or CS classes or whatever. Um, so I was just wondering kind of what the approach to that would be or if a student feels like they maybe have different needs for a laptop like you were talking about earlier, how that could be addressed. And we've actually started having some discussions. And so where you get into the processing part is you start thinking about CTE, you know, what programs you may need there. But the goal is once you're, you know, you start nth grade out.

110And again, I'll have to start somewhere. I won't be able to do all this at once and it'll be that phased approach. Once you're in nth grade, you're issued a brand new device. The following year, whether you keep it over summer or you give it back, 10th grade, you get that same device back. We will issue that same device back to you, the same thing will happen 11th and 12th. And so that is that ownership of that device following you. So you'll know what that experience will be over those four years because it'll be the same device. Now if you have a issue with it and need to repaired, we'll give you a laner temporarily. When yours is fixed, you'll come back, give us a loaner, and then you issue back your device. So that

111the goal is that device follows you unless it gets really damaged and we have to truly replace it. But you'll be issued a brand new device at 9th grade that will follow you the four years. Very similar to how we do staff. The life cycle device is about four years. Yes. Followup. I think maybe I didn't word that as clearly as I thought I did in my head. Um I would say for example like if you were looking at my school laptop versus like Crush's right here. I'm assuming you have a district laptop. Uh they're both districts devices but like they look different. They operate slightly differently. Um, so I just mean like in that regard if a student feels like maybe they didn't get one that was as good and now they have that

112for four years. >> What I'll be able to do is on per grade level they'll be identical. Once you start going different grade levels because typically a vendor will only keep a laptop for about 18 months then they got the next version and so I won't have that ability to provide that same one. So as it's a ninth grade they'd all be nth grade the same one across the entire district. >> Okay. >> And then same thing eventually it's going to roll all the way across. So a grade level it'll always be the same uh model. I just can't do that over a course of four years. Vendors don't provide devices that way. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you so much. >> Great. Next. Go ahead. >> Oh. Um I just wanted to

113comment on the introduction of new AI tools. I know that that's always like a pretty hot topic, but um I think just something that that I've seen within my schools is that a lot of AI tools and a lot of teachers um as was mentioned before are there are a lot of kids are scared to use AI tools and many are completely opposed to any form of of usage of them. Um and I think this is something that we we really believe want to change if we're going to implement more AI tools. Um because I think AI again is the future and it's so he heavily used in offices and workplaces. So to ensure that students are ready for the future and that we're preparing them for that. I think it's so important that teachers

114like all teachers understand that AI can be used in an efficient manner and can be effective for students. So I just wanted to emphasize that point. Yeah, >> I agree with you 100%. >> Great. Thank you. I had one um kind of question. Um overall I just really appreciate we were very happy this I've been looking forward to this. So welcome to your 90 plus days the Aqua School District. Um so I was wondering about uh especially around infrastructure um or even some of the software that's available. Do we have restrictions um from Watt? Um because I know that on the Washington State School Board uh school directors association they are limited to what they could do. They couldn't get you know an outsourced um ASM system because oh that's not authorized by Watt. So

115do we have the same type of things? >> No. Okay. We typically try to purchase things off of um state contracts and things like that, but we always had the capability if we want something that's not listed, it's over certain values, go out for RFPs and purchase things legally that, you know, following the procedures that are outlined in um accounting manual, we can get purchases that way as well. Okay. So, there is not really a limitation. Typically, the limitation is funding. >> Great. And I do appreciate uh some of your mentioning around professional development for teachers and that it's ongoing and some of the issues that arise from you know you have to you know not only do new teachers come in but new technology comes in. So how do you prepare every student uh

116or every teacher for that and being able to utilize that? So I know that there's a big lift. Um, I had a a friend that was a um a teacher that did not appreciate when they took away his uh overscreen projector, overhead projector. So, um, change is difficult in some regards and so preparing our our teachers for that. Um, I do appreciate that. Will you need additional staffing or do you think with the staffing you have that you'll be able to do some of the things that you mentioned about servicing? >> I would never turn down additional staffing. Um, but I >> will Martin give you staffing >> to utilize what I have and really, you know, maximize what we have. There's a great team there already. And again, just like I need to build

117the district and staff and that I also need to build my team. We have a lot of great uh staff members that are hungry to learn more and do more. And so I really need to let get them involved in in things around the um cyber security. We're already utilizing our tech specialists that are seeking degrees in that area and bringing them on board to help do that. So that is also increasing their skill level that is building that pipeline for future staff members as well. >> Great. Thank you. So not to let you off the hook, I think the next item on our agenda is operational expectation 15 technology. >> Yeah. >> And so I will look for I will ask very slowly for a motion. I move the board accept the monitoring report

118for operational expectation 15 technology OE15 as presented. >> I second. >> Great. >> All right. Um, >> are you ready for me? >> Yes, ready for you. >> Um, all right. Good evening again, everyone. Um, again, my name is Jason Goolick. I'm the chief information technology officer for the district. Um, I'm joined by Rich Melish over here and Diane Edgars who helped uh prepare this report with me as well. Um what I want to do is just kind of read a summary of this report and then we can kind of uh move into questions and answers uh on the report as well. Um this this report summarized our progress we've made over the last year. Make sure our technology across our supporting um learning access uh daily operations for every student and staff members. Um

119overall the district uh is in compliance with OE15 with one exception. um noted under section 15.5. This section addresses our ongoing work uh to maintain a safe and secure and reliable uh computing environment. Earlier in in the 2425 year in the spring of 2425, we had a limited um data access incident involving a single student who was able to access some staff documentation that had sensitive uh student information in um which we was uh able to quickly contain. Um we reviewed the issue, notified families, and then we strengthened our systems uh to prevent uh from happening again. At the heart of this report shows that technology in Isqua is much more about devices and software. And I hope some of that showed up as as I was talking a little bit earlier there. It's about

120creating an equitable and engaging digital learning experience. And that's the experience for the students. Um, every student in the grades three through 12 now have a district issued device. Um, again, we'll continue to improve uh how those devices are issued. Every classroom is equipped with a uh teacher presentation station. Again, making sure it's a standard um classroom that when someone walks in, you know, you have your standard equipment, things in there. All the students have been have access to assistive or adaptive technology when needed. Um, so again, this cover covers our students in special services. make sure they have any additional uh technology, software, hardware that they would need uh to help remove those barriers to learning. In the 2425, our focus has been on inclusion, innovation, and cohesiveness. Um that means making sure our

121systems are reliable, um our tools are consistent across schools, um that our teachers have the training and support uh to integrate technology effectively. Um the digital learning experience in the Ignite program have been central to this work, giving teachers practical strategies to personalized learning and decrease uh student engagement. We've continued to make progress in expanding access to advanced technology and CTE courses, clarifying uh staff expectations for uh responsible uh technology use um and updating our regulations on student cell phones and personal devices to better support mental health and classroom focus. Finally, the report highlights our early efforts around artificial intelligence. We're updating policies, training staff, piloting tools in the classrooms to ensure that AI is introduced in a way that is safe, ethical, and beneficial to the students learning. Taken together, these efforts show that

122the technology system that is evolving thoughtfully, one that supports academic excellence, operational reliability, and equitable access for every student. Um, and with that, I'm happy to take questions. um on OE15. >> Okay. Now, this is when I ask for public input. Is there any public input in the room or on Zoom? Seeing none, we'll move to questions from the board. Questions or comment? Board and students. Did we have a student I we were emailed the student report. Were you anticipating to Yeah. Okay. Next time we'll make sure that we're prepared. for that. But thank you. Thank you. And we did read that report today. Um >> so any board members or students? Director Taylor. >> Following my previous pattern, I have comments and questions. >> Um I want to just go to page four real

123quick. Uh student device repairs. I noticed we're all the way up to 738 in 24 25. Do I just assume that's because there's more devices in circulation? Is that the reason? >> More devices. >> Okay. >> The age of the devices, the older a device gets, the more repairs you're going to see on it. >> Okay. Uh and then I will just say I was very surprised that 180 devices have not been returned after students withdrew from the district. I am hoping that those devices have depreciated to such a point that that's not a that sounds like a big financial hit for the district. >> I haven't done a deep analysis to all those. I'd still have to dig a lot of data. Typically when you see that happen because it's typically a lot of

124your seniors or you know just families that are higher um grade levels as that device depreciates by the time our devices here year four they're worth about 50 bucks. >> So okay the cost of the district is low and typically we're going to surplus the device. So there is a financial piece >> okay but it's not >> it's not like a brand new device. Now I'm not saying none of them weren't brand new >> but typically that's what I've seen in my experience. >> I think I was just very surprised by that number. Um, and then I'm going to talk a little bit on page seven about um opportunities for um computer technology courses I should say. And I I actually think I make this comment to my board colleagues uh more than anyone. I

125am really surprised that computer science classes at the middle school level, which seemed absolutely foundational to technology, were really only offering those courses at the middle school level at Pine Lake and not all of our other schools. I just find that surprising. I mean, um, and I wonder if there's not an opportunity there to provide more computer science one, two, and three courses across our middle schools. But, um, again, just an observation, something I thought was interesting. Um, >> you want you would you like, Grace? Um, >> yeah, go ahead. Great. So just to clarify the data a little bit, the um different different schools do have some different naming conventions for their CS courses. So you'll notice there's computer science 1, computer science 2, computer science 3, there's the computer science discoveries is also

126um an approach to teaching computer science in there. Um and so there's there is just a mix of different naming protocols. So just to kind of highlight the data is a little bit little bit more uh broadspread but >> Okay. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Appreciate that. Um and then again maybe another clumsy question for me but I'm I've uh curious um I note that the collective bargaining agreement we have with our teachers uh asks requires the staff to incorporate technology into their instruction. love that we give a lot of um uh flexibility to our teachers and how they do that. Um but I am curious it didn't I couldn't quite connect it. I'm just curious about the digital learning experience and what that interplay is like with our teachers and what the digital

127learning experience provides teachers as they are trying to incorporate technology into their instruction. that just was wasn't completely clear to me. I know that there was some other information here that I I probably need to to read. Um, but I would just love a discussion about the intent behind that initiative and how it works, so to speak. >> And I I'm going to ask Diane to come up a little bit because she's been the the driver for Ignite. Um, again, this it ties into a bunch of this that professional development. How do we support those teachers? And me and Rich is having a conversation earlier today. We teach teachers how to use technology and we ask them to teach students. How do we continue to provide them support in what they need to be able

128to teach? >> Exactly. >> No, the teachers, they're not technology experts. I'm not a teacher expert. >> How do we work together so that we're delivering the best we can to students? >> Don, you want to add to it? >> Yeah. So, the the digital learning experience uh started with the the current tech levy when we implemented the 1:1 for 612. So in the first two years of the levy we had required training for teachers and we called that the digital learning experience. Um when that ended uh working with uh teaching and learning and the universal design for learning that that we were really leaning into and TLS um we launched our Ignite program which is an optional program that teachers sign up to but it aligns the UDL uh principles along with tech integration

129and uh continues kind of the work of the digital learning experience. Um, but as I've been reading our uh our reports and looking back, I'm also thinking that now we need to kind of re-evaluate what what do we want our students to experience in their digital learning. Um, so maybe taking it from the PD that started that last levy and envisioning what their learning experience um should be and then how do we make that happen for our students? Uh we've been working with um uh our content specialists or our math, our um social studies, ELA and figuring out how can we how can we embed the technology that they will need to use and learn in English and how can we embed it in math and how can we embed it in social studies and

130in science and then how does it look different. So if we have this core set of tools that everyone is um familiar with and behind like canvas would be a core tool or Microsoft 365 would be a core tool, Canva is one of our um creative design tools. So those are all core tools that all kids have access to. But when you're taking biology, what specifically do you need to know about around technology and use to learn more around biology and learn in ELA and in social studies? So, um I think that's ongoing work for us and is kind of the next step that we need to take in figuring out what should every kid experience as they go through our system in kindergarten, you know, up through 12th grade. >> Great. Yeah, I love

131that approach. It's not easy. I mean, it's no >> it's very difficult, >> right? and and we don't have a I mean overall time with our teachers around professional development as a system. The way that schools are constructed just doesn't allow for a lot of that because our teachers are in front of kids teaching kids. And so to do an EPD um often it's it's a pull out model. We pull the teacher out of the classroom and and that's not always the best either. So it's a it's an ongoing balance of uh what works and what we can do. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, yeah. And to the point, you know, our teachers aren't technologists. Well, some of them probably are, but most of them aren't. And so any support that we can give them,

132you know, is is fantastic. So, thank you for that work. Last point I want to make is uh again small point. I note on page 14 when we look at monitoring enforcement that inappropriate computer use and misuse of the internet is down, which makes me think that our instruction to our students about how to use our technology is maybe paying off. So, that's it. Thank you. Thank you, >> Dr. Coin. Any >> uh Director Mullings, any comments? >> Hearing none from our students. Yeah. Well, I wanted We actually had so much of a conversation on the last agenda item, this doesn't surprise me. Um, I did want to say Ava had a great uh item in her report saying we talk about um uh in our in our language we utilize the words I'm trying

133to look for it um techn technologically rigorous >> without really defining what we mean by that. So I thought that was interesting that the students are like I don't know what that means. Um, so I don't know if you wanted to talk a little bit about that. And I did want to go back to the middle school um, offerings. I'm glad you're Look, Stephen, you're right where I want to be. Um, I am The reason we do this is because we were looking for some of those inequities. And so it really pops out to me that there are some inequities specifically around Pacific Cascade that the n the types of offerings other than your book are so small that that's why you have a small number of students being involved. And so I would hope

134I know my biggest concern about any of our middle school um electives is that they're driven by teachers available to teach those classes. And we don't hire technology teachers to go to the classroom. And so um I am hoping that we can look at ways to be able to provide this this right now. I think when we start talking about what jobs are vulnerable, what skills do students need, needs around um understanding technology are going to be critical. It will be like teaching math like why are you not teaching this to students? So I am concerned around the inequities at the middle school. Do you want to address the rigorous course question she had rich or like how was it defined? >> How do you define when we say techn technologically rigorous? >> Yeah. Um

135so we in the report we defined it a couple different ways. One one is um very loosely and one is a little bit more tight. And um we do recognize that we're looking for technologically technologically rigorous courses. um in a classic sense in the high school when we listed the CTE courses we said let's we have categories of courses we said let's look at communication technology engineering design and information technology so we we those those courses that fit in those three categories we called those technologically rigorous courses in the elementary and middle school those have a lot to do with design and industry they have to do with the understanding of the computer technology and so there's some building blocks uh section that we have there that say we build towards those. So do I

136consider woodshop a technologically rigorous um course? Not in and of itself. Do we hear students who are exploring how to design and and understand how materials fit together and then get later go into engineering design and other courses. Yes, we do see that as a as a common pathway. So there's there's a range of development of how rigorous technologically it is as you go from kindergarten up to 12th grade. And by high school, we're we're holding ourselves to a pretty high standard of what technologically rigorous means in terms of the integration of technology and design. >> Right. Thank you. So, I'm putting a note for myself for the board um because I don't think this will happen in the next seven weeks, but I would suggest on 15.3 that there be an alteration to say

137provide equitable access to advanced technologically rigorous uh courses for students because I think if you're going to get at the compliance around middle school, we will have to be explicit. Okay. Is there anything else for the good of the order on this? Oh, yeah. That can be one of those. Jot that down. Okay. We will open it up to the advisory vote from our student representatives that are remaining and I know it's starting to get late. I'm watching the clock so that you can get back to studying and the other things that you do as well. Students. Right. Uh, thank you for that advisory vote. So, now I put it to the vote of the board. All those in favor? >> Sorry, I couldn't see I couldn't see the advisory vote. >> Uh, there are

138five yes and one no. >> Okay. Thank you. So now all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? The eyes have it. Thank you very much for um comprehensive information tonight. We we stuck it all in one night for you. >> Thank you. Great. >> Thank you. >> Next on the agenda is a review of OE14 policy um instructional programming. So speaking of um inserting the word equitable uh that is what is before us today. So the first reading uh simply is that on is that on OE14 instructional programs 14.3.B B should uh the um the recommended change is that it would read courses provided providing the opportunity for students to accelerate learning that leads to equitable college credit earning opportunities starting in 9th grade including advanced placement and college in the

139high school courses at all comprehensive high schools while facilitating access for all students to unique opportunities and course offerings at each individual high school. So, wanted to open this up to comment and then um depending on how people feel about this addition, we can look to put it on the agenda for the next meeting for uh action because we are not taking action today. We didn't put it on the agenda for for action. >> Yes, director Coin. Um, all right. Well, I, you know, I think I want to, I guess, understand what this means and what it doesn't mean. Um, and what this change specifically speaks to is equitable access to college credit earning opportunities. So, I think we want to be careful around this maybe being confused with sameness. I think that we as

140part of this and as a board um appreciate the different options that are available that are listed here. Um be it AP, college and the high school, IB all have um value in our district and I don't want to lose sight of that. I think this change specifically is just making sure that we have equitable college credit earning opportunities at each of the schools. So it doesn't diminish programs that are currently in place. It would just broaden that opportunity for college credit earning opportunities. I just wanted to make that clear because that's how I'm looking at it. Not diminishing anything that we currently have in place. It would simply be just offering college credit earning opportunities. >> Any other comments? >> No, I mean I think that's the intent and I think the concern is

141is that currently, as I think Dr. Uh, Director Gallinger pointed out in our last meeting that there's a potential that somebody at IHS could earn more college credit now, therefore lessening their potential college tuition bill down the line versus a student at Skyline. And we just want to try andor Liberty. We just want to try to make sure that we can even that playing field as much as we can. But to your point, it's not about sness. I mean, I don't I don't view it that way. Um, so I think your point's all >> Yeah. Well, and I think you maybe I'll just add to it, too. I mean, I think we have distinct programs across our district and I think um they're strong and I I think we want to continue to showcase those.

142Again, this is um this is again adding, you know, offering that equitability, you know, that those equitable opportunities across the district um and uh for for college earning credit. And I think one of the things specifically that I think about um with each of these is they're unique. I know you know there's there's oftentimes conversation we think about gosh well at Skyline specifically that's offering IB an option might be to do running start um if you want uh more college credit earning opportunities. I think we have to remember though that is also that's different. nothing bad about it, but that is not going to replace the potential of of you know what you would get um in terms of college credit earning from AP. Um so um again, I think we just we want those

143equitable opportunities um across all of our of our schools while still again showcasing the good options that we have across the district. >> Any comments? Uh Director Mullings? Uh yes. So I'm on board with the spirit of what we're trying to do here that it's that there's an opportunity across our across our schools to for students to be able to access college credit. I'm a big supporter of that uh for many many reasons. I think what's awkward just listening to the the um two of my colleagues before me is it's the clause of including advanced placement and college in the high school courses. And so I guess my question is should we be listing all of the different ways that there's opportunity? Is there some reason why it doesn't it's just odd like we have

144AP but not AB. We have college and high school but not Running Start. So I'm I guess I am questioning why why why we would have just two selected none selected all of the opportunities selected is maybe what's going through my mind. But I'm I'm absolutely not against the update. I think the equitable piece makes full sense to me. It's just for it sort of highlights like why why these two. >> I think these are the ones that are going to be at all the high schools. So we don't have IB in here because we're not going to require the district to put IB at all of the high schools. Although if the board wanted to make that decision, they could. Um so that's >> but Running Start is available at all. >> And Running

145Start is available at all. So this that phrasing the including so it's it it could be that we could go back to director Gallinger like how do we then separate out we want equitable college earning opportunities but I think it was last year the board inserted the language around including AP and college in the high school at all comprehensive high schools and that was a deliberate addition >> because at that time those were the ones that were missing across the board. >> Skyline did not have those opportunities for students >> and and IB only was limiting the ability for students to earn credit AP or college and high school at earlier grades, >> right? >> Or for topics that weren't included in IB. So I can take that back to director Gallinger if there is

146concerns that there needs to be some separating out of those two clauses. I guess what is my my um I guess I guess I just want to make sure we're addressing the core issue and so if it's equitable that that um I guess I personally would like to figure out way for non-S skyline students to access IB So, so is it, so, so here is it about ensuring that every school should just have these two just as an intent perspective. These are the two that we want to make sure every school has. Anything else can be negotiable or is it about more or different than that? like um because I guess without running start there that seems it just seems a bit odd. So um I for me it's worth at least a question of

147clarifying like what's the purpose when again when we go to monitor when we go to check is it that we want to make sure these two are available in every school or do we want something else specifically to be monitored and if it's these two then I just want to make sure that that's what we're um they're there purposefully for that reason. >> Okay, Director Coin, >> I I do think Director M, you bring up a good point. I mean, I think yes, we're looking at these being I guess kind of the the foundational options, if you want to call it that, at each of the each of the high schools. But I think that there is a good point that you bring up. I think by missing by excluding IB and Running Start from

148this, I I there is a miss. We need to figure out how we incorporate those as options. >> And I would say too, I I know there's costs associated with it, but I would love to be able to see our IB program at Skyline open to non-S skyline students as a choice for for those students. I mean, again, I think it is a there's strength in that program. I'd like to give students choice around that. The students at Skyline choice around IB or AP, but then non-S skyline students that choice too if they do choose the IB path knowing that we have a wonderful program at Skyline that they would be able to utilize. I know again I know there's cost associated with it, but I do feel like there are some components, two key

149components that are missing that I think we should call out in this. I know the intent with this is equitable college credit earning, but I do think there's there's an opportunity for us to think about maybe the wording around incorporating those other two options, too. So, >> okay, Director Taylor, >> uh, while I understand that, I think we're going down a different path than what we discussed last year. I think the idea was to director Mullen's first point that we as a board and from a policy standpoint thought that it AP and college in the high school are the two foundational programs we wanted everywhere. >> And now we want to make sure as an add-on to that concept that there is equitable opportunities to earn the same amount of college credit from school to

150school. Now, that's a different conversation I'm willing to have about IB and I understand opening that perhaps. >> I think we're same thing though, >> but that is a that's a big adjustment for the district, I think, >> to start thinking about IB everywhere now, too. So, I um or the availability of it. So, I would just go back to I I I understand that discussion. Don't mind having that discussion. I don't think that discussion is for here. >> Yes. Go ahead. Um, thank you for bringing up uh, Director Mulling's the question of monitoring because I I would want to know what would be the ideal evidence that would then address because I do think there's maybe two things that are coming to light here in this conversation about this particular item, the 143B. Um,

151what would be the evidence that shows equitable college credit earning opportunities? Because to some extent there's a lot a lot of variables. What if we can't run a course one year? Does that because of a lack of interest? Does that mean we are then out of compliance? Because that's not, you know, what am I trying to work towards uh as a district with my my team and our and our high school uh our high school principles and their team. So there's a question there around what does that evidence look like that would then meet this because it's very binary. This is either you're meeting or not because of it uh or there's exceptions to this. So that's number one. The second question uh is actually just building on what was being discussed which is I

152I am hearing this question this comment around foundational right so uh I I I want to dete what's expected for consistent at all uh which I think we're starting to get to greater clarity on which is helpful but then what happens after that because then the rest of the sentence is like also facilitate access for all students to unique opportunities and course offerings so I'm trying to square uniqueness with consistency with equitable all in one bucket. And so this conversation is moving towards a I have a legitimate question. How do we deteather some of these concepts to make them very clear? And then what evidence would be what shows that we are meeting that expectation? >> But I I would go back to I don't think equitable doesn't mean sameness. So there is I think

153there is flexibility in what that evidence might look like. It's about fairness. And I think what we discussed is the fact that currently we do not feel that those opportunities are fair across in particular IHS and Skyline. Meaning a child going to Skyline has more opportunity to graduate out of that school with more college credit in their hip pocket. >> No, it's the other way around. >> Other way around. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Um, and that is not fair, which is equitable. To me, the meaning of equitable is fairness, not sameness. So, you see what I'm saying? I think then the evidence is in a range is not a black and white. >> It's it's all grouped together though. I mean, that's the that's the hard part though because you could see sameness

154from how this is grouped together under 143B when we talk about equitable. >> Let me go back. And then yeah, >> is somebody willing to work with uh Director Gallinger in improving this um section to better meet the needs of this discussion. >> Yeah, I I I am because what's going through my head is that I think that last piece that was just said, the sameness like we're combining in be too many things. And so what I would be happy to work on is like a B and a C. One that's about equitable access full stop and the other one that is about recognizing that we have opportunities for similar foundational programs and unique offerings across our high schools. That's what goes through my mind because I think having it all in one for me

155is what is not >> I like that idea. I think that's a good point that it's true. They are two separate concepts >> and I think that that is where this does that sameness feeling comes because it is all combined. I and I'm willing to help too with that. >> Yeah. Well, I can only have two people working on it. >> That's right. That's true. >> So, send me your ideas. Send me your ideas. >> I will give it I will give you director. >> Yeah. I will give it to Director Mullings to work with. Director Gallinger. >> Okay. >> On that, I did want to hear from the students um your thoughts on this if you have any bed. Go ahead into the microphone. Um I know that uh this topic is specifically like

156um uh like a topic of discussion or not discussion but like uh pertinent to like the teachers at Skyline. And I know a lot of IB humanities and uh a lot of IB teachers like believe strongly in their um their curriculum. And so I guess I kind of wanted to just ask um I know I know I don't think uh like IB going to everywhere was like the topic of uh this discussion but I think it got brought up and I just kind of wanted to like ask since like IB is such like a like whole together curriculum and since it's like all like integrated um like if students were to be able to like have access to like Skylands IV courses would like how would that look? I mean I I guess if this

157isn't the topic of today's discussion um then that's okay too but um if like Skyland is such like a or not Skyland IB is such a like a whole curriculum I feel like it would be hard to integrate just like a portion of it towards all the other schools especially because like the diploma and everything it has all these aspects and to try and go like havves with it with AP wouldn't really I don't think like any of the IB teachers would like like believe that is how the curriculum is meant to be experienced. Um yeah, so I guess I just had a question about like so yeah, we definitely are not addressing specifically IB. I would say to some of your comments um that we've been told by IB teachers that students don't have

158to take all of the issues. So not every IB uh student taking an IB class is on the IB diploma path. And so that is one of the things that um if there is flexibility in that that not everything um not every student is driving towards an IB diploma. Then what are their other options using utilizing AP as well that can begin at the earlier grades because the thing about IB is you cannot take it until 11th grade. But we know even at Liberty, 40% of students by the time they're finished with 10th grade have earned college credit. 40%. So that puts Skyline at a great disadvantage. Uh Rex, >> um yeah, I think that's where my concerns were also when when we're reading uh 14.3b when it says only the advanced placement college and

159high school courses. Um, and then combined with what uh, Director Mullings brought up with the exclusion of IB programs, CTE programs, running start, etc. I think I'm wondering how we're going to achieve the same standard of fairness that we're looking for if students at Isqua High School are only going to be able to take AP classes without access to IB or things like that and still maintain that level of fairness because I know students that have tried to go from Isqua High School to Skyline or to Liberty or vice versa in seeking other courses that their school did not offer. And I think I'm just wondering how we're going to maintain that standard of fairness when we're trying to be different yet equal. >> And that's that's much of the questions that we have. I

160do think it's interesting uh that you bring up where is CTE in all of this. And so I would say under 14.3 where is CTE in all of that? Especially as we as a board seek to put more CTE options in front of our students understanding that 30% of our students do not go off to a 4-year college and institution right out of high school. So what are we doing to meet their needs? So that might also director Mullings be part of your discussion with Director Gallinger as we start looking at this more robustly. and what I thought was going to be an easy we'll look at it today, we'll approve it next time just went down in flames. >> Oh, I would just so a couple things for me. I think CTE is actually

161what A is about. So um A143A has been about how do we look at CTE and formalize the credentiing paths around CTE versus the kind of try before you buy method. Um I I would also I would also just offer I guess for my personal opinion I think I think it was Viday who made the comment. I think there at least for me none of this is about IB as a program. I think people are like oh IB is this own sole program. IB is great. That's not the question. The question is when students are completed with their school, regardless of which path they went down, regardless of which of these amazing opportunities available, is do they have the equal amount of buy down on their college degrees? And the reality is today that is

162not true. And so I think sometimes we've gotten blurred of whether this is some sort of indictment of one one um type of program versus another. For me it has nothing to do with that. I I I I think that they are all great ways and approaches to learning. Um so that is not in question. What is in question is at the end of the program what do students walk away with? So A is about how can we figure out that students have a certification again if it's not going toward college how they have a certification that makes them earning ready. B is about if I'm choosing to go down a college path, my time spent in the Isiqua school district, do I have the equal amount of I'll just be very direct buy down.

163no longer have to pay at the collegiate level. Whether that's running start, whether that's IB, whether that's AP, whether that's I think we blur this topic when we get into feeling some sort of um I guess attack or indictment on one of them. From my perspective, there is none of that. So, it's just a question of at when we're all done, what do students walk away with? And so that's what I hope to capture here, which is one, they we should be able to use the same time spent to not just sample CTE, but actually have a certification as value. B, in my mind, will be about if those who choose to go down a college path, are they walking away with the same amount of credits toward their next step? And then C would

164be more about are we allowing for a level of uniqueness including including which is hard to do and we don't know how to do yet. If someone is going to Liberty but really as an example really wants the IB experience is that something we can provide? So hopefully at least my perspective on it hopefully that helps. I think they're all valid and helpful and beautiful ways to go about education, but that's not my concern in this section. >> Okay, great. Chris and then Nava. >> Um, I think both programs are great. I think they serve very different purposes. I think something that really like nailed it in the coffin for me in the terms of you know offering college credit was that a couple board meetings ago there's statistics a statistic where it says 100

165students were at Skyline were self-studying for AP tests and you know that might not seem like a lot but when you take into account that these are 100 students at Skyline doing their regular course load and on top of that studying for an AP test which you know a lot of the content may be the same but a lot of studying has to do with like the answering the questions a specific format or getting used to it. That's what really like shocked me. I was like, "Wow, this is something that's in demand to the point where a 100 students will take on an extra course for that extra college credit." I think the college credit point is valid, especially because IB is, you know, a more 11th and 12th grade program. Um, but something I

166don't really know is are they valued the same? For example, is a two-year IB course valued the same as two years of AP like science or is one AP one year of AP science valued the same as a two-year IB science course. Um the other thing is something that Vid brought up with IB it's a little bit more of a rigorous program at least to my understanding. So unlike AP, you know, where you can just self-study and take the test in IB, is that something, you know, if I was at Liberty, would I be able to just take the course by myself, you know, especially when there's a lot of extra components rather than just, you know, one big test at the end of the year. And the last thing is I feel like this

167has been said a little bit um with like an easy solution for college credit being running start. It's a great option, but for a lot of people, it's not for them. I know there's some of my friends, you know, they they just they need that extra support. they can't really they don't feel prepared right now to take on classes by themselves and really enter that college environment. So, I think it's a great backup solution, but I don't think it's, you know, it's it's more of a band-aid solution, right, Alpha? And then I saw Nila's hand up. >> Okay, sorry that took a second. Um, I think I'm just kind of echoing a lot of the same ideas. Uh primarily I think that sometimes it almost feels as if we forget that we as students don't

168choose our feeder patterns or the kind of educational system that our high school is going to have. Um and they're all really interesting systems that serve different purposes. Um, but I think that even though teachers curate their curriculums in IB or AP under the mindset that that is the course load that is going to be offered at the school. From what I've been hearing, there seems to be a mismatch between what serves a specific program better and what serves a specific student better. So, say for example, the IB program where the IB diploma is so all-encompassing. Um, that serves the program of IB really well to have a student take all those different IB courses and complete it in the way it was intended. Um, but if I'm a student at Skyline and I don't

169want to do IB and I want to do AP, then to me it's more worth it to have options for students within those schools so that we're not only honoring the integrity of the program, but the needs and the wishes of the students and I understand that there's contention around that, but um, as someone who would have been really interested in IB, I just wanted to draw attention to it. >> I see Nilla. Um, I actually think Ava said a lot of the things that I was going to going to comment on, but I did have one thing to add about the difference between students showing interest in a test and a course where the environment in Skyline is very much like very competitive and any any advantage that they seem they could get they

170would want to work towards. So I know a lot of students that would take the test and not take the course because they do want the credit and they feel that that is a good thing for them to work towards. So I think when like gathering data on that that should be considered. >> Feday and then the superintendent. Oh, >> um something that uh Nilla just said uh made me think about how if because of the way IB is structured and the way that with basically two years of um full IB courses, you get like four credits or four college classes worth of credit. if like a large amount of AP classes are also added to freshman and sophomore year um offerings, especially at um Skyline. And just because of the competitive nature of the

171school, I think we would see that not only students would be fully like loading up their courses in their 11th and 12th grade with IB courses and then they would also add on AP courses in their freshman and sophomore years. Um, just because, you know, our school environment is to constantly be doing more and be doing the absolute maximum. And I guess not having courses your freshman and sophomore year and because of the way Ivy is, it kind of gave us those two years to have a little bit less of a a workload. And I know we're talking about college credit and it's not necessarily about the classes and the workload right now. Um, but I think if you while it's always good to have more options, putting more options would actually end up to

172people like giving them so many options that they would like overload themselves or I guess that's just what I was trying to say. >> Rex and then the superintendent. I I think I'm just going back to the uh like the different courses that we're having at the different high schools. Uh like like Ava was saying like there might be people who really wish that they could have been in the correct feeder pattern to go to Skyland to take AB or IB classes and then vice versa Skyland kids wanting to maybe go to Isqua to take AP classes. And I think then like what if we were to do the thing where we blend AB AP and IB classes within the schools and have have both. And I just found a few problems with that. Like

173the credit amounts I think is something that we're bringing up like IB courses are usually only offered to the upperassman students. So then where leaves room for those ninth and tth grade students to get that same college credit? Let's say they decide to take an AP course in in their freshman and sophomore years about a similar topic. Would those curriculums clash? Could there be gaps in learning? Things that might have been missed from from point A to point B that they never got. And then now that they're in this new different IB curriculum, are they expected to know these things that were left behind? And then um I I really like what Chris said, like are AP and IB courses valued similarly to colleges? And I know this is very heavily focused on students that

174are wanting to attend a four-year uh university after high school, but I think that's a big um point of con contention right now is like how do we keep the same level of fairness throughout the schools while still blending this uniqueness that we're talking about? Yeah, I I I think that's it. >> Thank you. And a lot of that data was shared at a work study and there were some disparities in the number of credits you could earn through even though you're taking the same number of classes, how many credits you earn and what you uh what expectations universities have to be able to accept those credits even after the test. though there was some discussion around that and we do have some data around that specifically around um students doing the most and taking

175everything to what Viday was talking about right now or I guess it was last year um or it might have been most recent data is that it students taking seven highlevel classes accelerated classes all seven classes being that in their senior year oh I think it was seniors In at Liberty, there were two students in the senior class taking all seven periods accelerated. At Isiqua High, it was 16. At um at Skyline, it was over 70. So, that's also something from my perspective. I think that the seniors at the other two high schools get to get their credits in across four years whereas at Skyline they only have two years to do it through the IB program. Superintendent, >> thanks. So I think uh so I uh the terminology will be helpful to get clear

176in this next round in terms of uh because fairness is a new concept that was introduced to the language here from a policy level but sameness versus uh or foundational or um equitable I think those are all different terms. So I think getting clear on that would be very helpful for which part of the ABC right is um included here for 14 14.3. Um so technically I just want to address this technically we have an intra district transfer process. So if you don't live in your feeder pattern, you could in theory, right, request to go to a different school. Now, how reasonable is that in terms of your own schedule going from uh the Reton Highlands all the way up to Seamage? That's a long commute and that's a where 110 square miles as a

177school district. So there's a sort of physical barrier to actually maybe even if if you were offered a spot at a different school, that could actually enhance that. you also would then potentially lose your neighborhood feeder pattern friends and then be in a different uh social peer group. Um so but in technically you have that option. Um the challenge though that does exist is that our schools are closed right now to uh transfers because we're so overcrowded at Skyline and at Isakqua High. So we have this structural and actually volume barrier to actually having that kind of access across the whole district to be able to um have an intra district um approval. So that is a challenge that that sort of speaks to well then is there equitable access and the answer is right

178now no because of all these other factors and I wouldn't be able to then say that students have equitable access to IB because of these challenges with enrollment that are so high. So I'm just saying that out loud because I would be out of compliance if it were to say do we have equitable access to IB and the answer is right now technically no but there is that technical choice option. So appreciate the discussion and I look forward to the next round of um uh words. >> And I'll also say that based on research that I did last year, Liberty is also overcrowded. >> Yes. >> And I I I think >> Yes. Yes, Superintendent, I think you make an important point, which is why for me, I want to make sure what we're saying

179is it's equitable access to credits, not necessarily equitable access to specific programs, which is why I get paused from the way it's written at the moment. I may think about that differently tomorrow, but I think there's something in there that we have to solve those two problems separately, and one of them is building a new high school. So, I just think there's some pieces in there for us. >> Yeah. Thank you for this discussion and I look forward to um the results from uh Director Gallinger and Director Mulling's work together. That will probably be more than a fivem minute conversation I'm guessing. So with that we will move to our next agenda item. If I can bring up my agenda again. Um we are at Yes. And as the students take a break, you are

180welcome to leave now if you need to get to studying for those AP and IB classes. Um, our next item is legislative matters. >> Nothing at this time. >> We are still in a shutdown >> federally. That's my federal >> update. >> That's the agenda. Yes. >> Okay. Next on the agenda is announcements and correspondence. Are there any additions to the announcements and correspondence? Hearing none, we move quickly then to the next item, which is calendar and future agenda topics. So, we did have a town hall that was cancelled um due to activities outside of the district. Um those activities are not moving forward uh to next Monday and Tuesday sadly but we will be having our two town halls. Um so we the discussion is around um rescheduling of that third town hall that

181was supposed to be on October 16th >> two >> because we have the two next >> they're back to back next week we have the 27th and 28th. So the 27th is this Liberty feeder pattern and then IHS feeder patterns the 28th. Are we looking at trying to do something the week of November 3rd? >> Yeah. And we already have a sips on November 4th. Correct. >> Right. >> Um what about November 10th or 11th? We were cuz we're hosting on a or did we want to do a Wednesday for a different night? >> Well, we've got Veterans Day though on the 11th. >> Oh, that's true. >> I would worry a bit too we'd have folks maybe kind of extending that vacation time around that. So, that might not be a good week. >>

182And we have WADA then the week of the end of the week of the 17th, but I wonder the beginning of that week, >> right? Uh the 17th or 18th. That's a busy week for us. No, >> be hard. >> The other thing is we can just hold two and not do the third up in Seamish, but that would require them to come down the hill. >> Is there one on Tuesday for the IHS pattern is where again? I know the one Monday's Maywood. >> Okay. >> I think it's going to be hard to get in a third one. >> I know. We're getting close to the holidays. I mean, maybe and that's maybe the better way. People there's two options that are there and for folks coming from the the plateau down middle school's

183not that far. >> Okay. So that I think is the input from the board is that we uh maintain the two on this coming Monday the 27th at at uh Maywood and uh on the 28th at Isqua Middle. Um and really I realize the public probably has stopped listening to the video too. Um but it's important to say that the these town halls are specifically around our profile of a graduate and we want to hear from the public about um those durable skills and are we on the right track with with uh that work um as we move forward with it because that will feed into our strategic plan. So, it's really important for us to get that grounded um as we then move into um looking at the strategic plan and moving into, you

184know, um kind of resetting that for uh a new round. Um and then we also a reminder of our SIP meetings was mentioned earlier that November 4th we have our Liberty feeder pattern plus echo uh echoglen. December 2nd is the Skyline feeder pattern and then December 8th is the ISOclaw feeder pattern plus Gibson E. Any other items for future agenda topics that you want to include? Um hearing none. Uh anything else for the good of the order? Having gone through all of our business items, this meeting is now adjourned. >> Thank you.