Issaquah School District Board Meeting 5/08/2025

001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. The first segment today is a public comment and we will start with a special um presentation the unveiling um and adding to the Kiri Bro Memorial Student Art Collection. So, Superintendent, I will turn it over to you. Great. Thank you. This is um a really special moment because it's the resurfacing of a very long-held tradition and ritual to honor a former superintendent who um who passed away and we are just thrilled to be able to revive the Catiri bro Memorial Student Art Collection and the recognition of the incredible artist in our district. Um, so we have two out of the three of

002our winners for this and I'll just share a couple of comments that we were uh so excited to um add and announce the addition of these student art pieces as part of the Catiri Dro Memorial Student Art Collection which was established in 1998. This dynamic and expanding collection of honors um this expanding um uh sorry the this dynamic and expanding collection honors the life and enduring contributions of Katy bro and who is not only our former superintendent but also a school leader in our community as well as a community leader overall here in the Isiqua area. Um, Couturi Bro served the Isiqua community from 1971 to 1992. And in 1988, she was named Washington State Superintendent of the Year. And she did lead the Isiqua School District as superintendent from 1987 until her passing in

0031992. And so I I do see that we have um friends and colleagues of hers who are still champions of her in her memory uh here tonight. and I appreciate your attendance to uh remember um Katy Bro and so excited to recognize our three student um artwork winners. Um a couple of things just to note about the history and the interruption of this very important tradition and ritual is that um no artwork artwork was actually purchased since we moved into this building in 2019 because uh that same year in 2019 to 2020 co hit so we didn't have inerson space and time. Um and then uh these new art pieces and you'll have to wait for the unveiling for the proper ceremonial moment um will be displayed on the first floor of this building. any

004of you have had a chance to walk around this building, you'll see the beautiful artwork pieces of the past that were selected and just show again the incredible history and legacy of the amazing creativity of our students um in our district. Um, a couple of other things is that these pieces this year were collected and as part of our tradition, the um, uh, national PTSA artwork celebrating artist. Um, it's called reflections. And this theme this year was accepting imperfection. So that will make some maybe more sense when you hear some of the titles of these artwork pieces. So first I'd like to recognize um, Asha Kumar and uh, Asha here on my left. um is the fifth grader at Sunset Elementary School and the piece that uh was was selected is called Uniquely Adorable. So,

005I think we can unveil your piece and see it if that's okay. And I know that Nancy Francis, thank you, Nancy, will assist with that. And then we also have um working artists get paid for their artwork. And so, this is beautiful. Um, Ashan, we have a a reward for your work, which is um how working artists get uh make a living, which is they get paid for their artwork. So, I hope you have a long future of also this. And I think uh Nancy, I think are we having you come up here or we can pass it to you. Okay. Thank you. Um the next um selection of art comes now from the middle school level and we have um Rashika Chinthakini and you are a seventh grader at Beaver Lake Middle School and

006the title of your artwork piece is called Harmony in Uniqueness and we'd love to see the unveiling now of your artwork. Thank you. And we have also something for you here. Thank you. And then um we have Ana Coy Mutm and uh you are a 11th grader at Liberty High School and the title of your artwork is what Makes me and you can unveil your artwork and we can see it and celebrate that. I think they're all three pieces are going to make a beautiful addition to our u office environment and will remind us and root us in um the great creativity and artistry that exists here um in the district and in your uh in your brains and in your hearts. I really found that this theme was just a really um beautiful theme

007this year of accepting imperfection and each of your pieces really speaks to that in some way, shape or form. So um thank you to our family members who are here supporting um you as well and we look forward to seeing where else you go in your creative um endeavors and congratulations. Uh thank you so much and we appreciate you very much. Okay. And if you'll stay in place, we're going to take one more picture. Yes, parents, you can take pictures as well. We will pause for as many pictures are necessary because this is an important moment. Don't be shy. You think I better fix her own. And when you're done with the pictures, we would love you to run the gauntlet and again give us an opportunity to shake your hands and and um congratulate

008you. This is also a picture moment for families if you wish. Congratulations. They're beautiful. Congratulations. Beautiful. I love animals. Beautiful people. Thank you. Thank you for that. Beautiful. Good job. [Music] Right. We're going to take a moment as we move the artwork out of the way. Uh we really do appreciate um seeing and and experiencing the expression of our students. Um I appreciate that Isiqua does not frown on the arts. We um really love and embrace the the work that our students do. Thank you to the PTSA uh for supporting the work of the reflections program. I know it is a lot of work for them to put together that opportunity for students. Um so thank you all and thank you for being here and you do not have to suffer through the rest of

009the meeting if you don't want to. I understand that especially with younger kids that probably have work to do. Um but thank you for coming out. Congratulations to you all and we absolutely love having your pieces hanging here in our building. And for those of you who are here to stick around, uh the next piece will be the remainder of our public comment period. So this is an opportunity for the public to comment on items not already scheduled for discussion on the meeting agenda. Just as a reminder, a public comment is allowed during specific agenda items that are scheduled for possible anticipated board action. and director Mullings is beside me to remind me to give you the opportunity to speak before we actually take action. Um because it doesn't work if we do it the

010other way around and I've done that before. Um so some of the for tonight these will include our sustainability policy second read the monitoring results for life management and personal awareness and um our calendar and future agenda item uh topic if you want to wait around that long which will be very late. Um, with that I do want to open it up those uh I have four people who have signed up already for public comment. So I will begin there with Elsa Huber. So if you can, this might be your first time you can come up. Uh go ahead and give us your name, your school attendance if you'd like. Um which I already have down what it is, which is fine. Uh and then you have 2 minutes. Uh thank you for the opportunity

011to provide input tonight. I'm here today to address the recently implemented district policies regarding graduation stoles and cords and how it came to a surprise to me and my fellow ISTD seniors that decision the decision was made to eliminate specific regalia. Over the past few months, we were told that specific uh stole units that have our ASB position on it, IB bibs and a variety of other cords are not allowed this year and we have received a patch as the solution. The hardest part about this decision is the lack of communication we have received. ASB presidents have reached out to the district and have received some communication about the reasoning behind this decision. And Skyline President Archa and I have continued to have discussions within Skyline. After being a part of these conversations, we have

012created a number of different solutions that we would be happy to share. I would like to point out that under district regulation 3220A, general standards for student expression, the quote, "Free expression of student opinion is an important part of education in a democratic society." Students verbal and written expression of opinion on school premises is to be encouraged so long as it does not substantially disrupt or interfere with the operation of school. Wearing specific graduation regalia is a part of our free expression, but more importantly, it acknowledges the hard work we have put in for our community. I also feel this addresses a larger issue within the IstA school district which is poor communication between students, administration, and the school board. We hope to see a graduation committee created for the fall with a well well-rounded

013panel with a variety of perspectives. In taking your positions, you agreed to acknowledge and listen to our student voice and we thank you for standing to your promises. Once again, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you. Next, we have Risha Adamalu. Hello, my name is Risha Anamolu and I am the current senior class president at Skyline High School. Today I'm here to respectfully also voice my concern over the recent changes to the district's regalia graduation policy. These decisions were made with little communication to students and they came as a big shock and disappointment. For many of us, these honors are not just accessories that we add onto our gowns, but they represent the years of service, academic excellence, and meaningful contribution we have put into our school. I am very proud of

014all the hard work I've put in at Skyline in the classroom, in clubs, varsity sports, and most importantly, in my efforts as class president. For the last three years, many of my fellow classmates and I in student government have put in extra hours before before school or after school to be involved in our Skyline community and create positive change. We work hard because we truly care about our school and the student body. And what we do is not easy and I believe it deserves to be recognized for. Wearing these items at graduation is a symbol to our families, to our community, and most importantly to ourselves of the commitment we've shown throughout high school. By limiting Regalia only to the GPA, the thespian society and small patches for IB students and student government, we have

015significantly reduced the recognition given and unintentionally devalued the accomplishments of many of us who have gone above and beyond. Leadership and service should be celebrated and recognized and graduation should reflect the full spectrum of all students including and not limited to academic, artistic, athletic, communal and so societal achievements. With that in mind, I would like to ask what was the reasoning behind this decision and how did the district arrive at this conclusion as well? What was the decision process to make this conclusion? Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Odin Harper. Hello everybody. Can you hear me? Okay, cool. My name is Odin Harper and I'm a student representative in ASB from Skyland High School. So, I would just like to uh point out I am incredibly disappointed by Isiqua School District's policy

016uh recently regarding the graduation regalia. So, I recently attended a conference over lunch with the district superintendent um and we and other ASB students and we discussed how we plan to protect diversity, equity, and inclusion policies within the ISTD community. And I assume the majority of us shared similar views striving to uphold the key principles through allowing students to have um fair representation like graduation regalia. Um I would love for our wonderful district representatives, staff and teachers alike to please reconsider their recent regulation update and I wouldn't like for my peers achievements and my achievements alike to not be recognized and I feel it is inequitable to limit that for all students who work extremely hard. Please gather student input before making decisions and let's work together to break down barriers. Thank you so much.

017Thank you. And we also have Archeta Chopra. Good evening. My name is Archa Chopra and I am the current ASB president of Skyline High School. Building on what Elsa and Risha have shared, I would like to address the process by which the decision to remove graduation regalia was executed. No communication was provided to students or staff until multiple ASB presidents chose to reach out to their respective principles and the executive director of secondary education at which point our request for an in-person conversation was not addressed. I was also curious to know why student representatives to the district were not utilized or why a committee similar to Isiqua High Schools in 2019 was not reestablished. In the communication sent by the ASB presidents that was previously mentioned, it was replied that the district would like to

018quote ensure a common experience for all of the district's graduating seniors in alignment with the operational expectations of the district. From the district website, operational expectation number two, treatment of people, states, quote, "The board values the engagement of its students and families and quote, both students and parents should be kept informed of district policies that relate to their rights within the educational system." With this, I ask, how was this decision well informed if the people actively impaire impacted by it were not involved? Equity and student voice are pillars of the district. Yet, we fail to see a clear justification for this decision. We request that this process be thoroughly conducted next year with a well-rounded panel with a variety of perspectives and that this year the recognition we've worked so hard for be restored for

019this momentous occasion. Our student leaders here today have brainstormed a number of solutions we'd be more than happy to share. And I would like to thank you all for offering the opportunity for us to speak here today. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any more comments um that were not uh um mentioned initially? Anyone else? Did you want to speak up for public comment or is there any in the Zoom? So, we'll first in the room, second on Zoom. Seeing none, we'll close out public comment. Thank you. Next on the agenda is the approval of our consent agenda. The consent agenda is a meeting management tool that allows us to address several uh common um regular items that come before the board that are required by law for us to address. Uh and we are

020able to do that in one easy um vote. Any consent agenda item can be pulled by any board member. Are there um uh do I have a motion for the consent agenda? I move the consent agenda be approved as presented. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. Next is the establishment of our regular agenda. Are there any changes to our regular agenda? There are no changes to the regular agenda. Thank you. So, our first uh item on our regular agenda is the report out to uh there's a lot of report outs and I don't know that I'll remember all the things that happened. um a report out to the Wazda District area 2 national region uh north regional meeting um that the board

021attended this on uh April 29th and several of us um managed that. Uh doc uh Dr. Gallinger is a member of the WASDA board the region and so he also uh kind of ran the whole thing. So, do I hear anyone that wants to report out? Director Coin, guess I'll start us off. Um, a few thoughts from our uh our WASDA meeting. Um, you know, I think what's most important, and I know we've talked about this before, is the opportunity for us to connect with other uh schoolboard directors uh particularly here on the east side and neighboring districts. So that's always fun to to see those familiar faces and uh share best practices. I think it's also important when we think about our own development as board directors. This is this is really training for

022us um to come together and and spend that time um going through um those WASDA uh sessions. So that also was great too. And then lastly, I would just say you know really helped I think key takeaway for me is brainstorming with the group there. They had some wonderful discussion questions that they um posed to all of us and um I think the biggest takeaway was us kind of collectively talking about how we engage the community, how we listen um and um some good best practices that were shared and I appreciate um superintendent talek uh joining us too. We had a couple superintendent from Belleview was there as well and it's always great to have superintendents and other district officials in the in that space with us too. So thank you. Thank you, Director Taylor.

023Yeah, I'll you know um my first comments echo what Director Coin said. It's fantastic experience for a thought exchange with um other board members across the region to talk about common issues that we're all facing and to also just share ideas and approaches incredibly valuable and to get to have a couple hours to have those conversations is great. The one thing I so the the event itself was great but I also want to talk about the location of the event. We were in Pesta Deloul Elementary School in the Belleview School District and it is a school built um with sustainability in mind and all kinds of incredible sustainability features built into the school um which I was very glad that the superintendent in Belleview shared with us um what those features were and all that.

024It was very kind of thoughtprovoking for me uh if and when we get to the point where we're building new facilities to try to keep those principles in mind. Um really a beautiful school and the capabilities of it from a you know environmental standpoint is really was cool for lack of a better word. Sure. I I think it was interesting for me. I agree with both those statements. I ended up at a table with folks who were either had been to the exact same session before or were facilitating the session. So it became more of a personal therapy session for the thoughts I had and you know group discussion of of um you know ideiation and input. So again super helpful um the topics we talked through and it's great. I think I was sitting

025with folks from Seattle and oh not Highline I think maybe Northshore. So, a few other districts as well. So, it's always good to get a sense of what's happening, what other schoolboard directors are experiencing, what they're trying, their successes, maybe shared challenges as well. Thank you. Anything, Director Gallinger? Thanks for attending. Uh, you know, I thought it was a good convening of almost every school district from the north part of our county. And I think uh there's so much more we have in common than that we don't. I think it's a good reminder especially as we had just ended the legislative session know that uh the work there is never done and I think the word I would leave from session is disappointment and uh as a reminder that we have more work to do

026together. So, as you look ahead, while WAZA no longer sponsors a fall meeting, we as a county have done it historically before, and I anticipate we'll do that again this fall uh in uh hopes of organizing collaboratively on how we're going to approach session and doing our advocacy for education funding that we much very much need. Um I also enjoyed uh being with my colleagues. I think I was pretty stunned that Sandy Hayes and I from uh from Northshore and I were the longest serving board members there. Um so that really takes me back to how long um I've been able to collaborate, but it was still good conversation. Um I also appreciated hearing about the um the dual language program um that Belleview has really done robustly for decades now. and just where that

027takes us and our opportunity after um you know as we're wrapping up year six of that and where do we go from here? So um was definitely an enjoyable time. So with that we'll move on to the next opportunity we all had to be together which was the nourish every mind student. Um oh I'm sorry you were because you were there. Thank you. Uh thank you. I uh I appreciated being that space. It was great to, you know, have Isaqua so fully represented at that meeting. Um, agree that the, uh, unique aspects of the building program, uh, for dual language combined with all the sustainability features. I think that what was noticeable to me was that there were sustainability features, individual sustainability features at lots of different buildings, but this building brought together all of

028the efforts with sustainability to um, be a better steward of our environment and and footprint. So, that was great. And I also just say that the the topic was leading with purpose, which I think um reentering uh in a time that's really crowded with lots of different things right now and the news and and what's happening. Um it was just great to hear that kind of conversation and use that as a moment to reenter on leading with purpose and focusing on student outcomes and I appreciated that conversation. Oh, and there were also state board of education members there too, which I think was also good for the state board to hear and be in conversation with um school boards and uh Peter Mayir from the Puget Sound ESD was also there, which was great. Uh

029okay, so now we will report out on the Isco School Foundations Nourish Every Mind Student Showcase. Um we were um I think we were all in attendance. No, uh Dr. Gallinger, wasn't it? You had a busy week, um, as I recall. Um, but it was a great opportunity for us to, um, hear from students. I love every chance we get to hear from students in that and how, um, our partners in education, um, help support our work. So, we know that we don't do all of this work alone and that we have great partners. We saw it earlier with our PTSA and the reflections program and all the art program that they do, uh, the art doses in our schools. Um and then in this case the Isiqua Schools Foundation which has been a true

030partner for decades and um being able to hear how things that they help fund um that we wouldn't necessarily be able to do um and how it's impacting students. So any chance in anyone wanted to speak on that? Director Coin, sorry I'm going to repeat myself on a few things but when the Squa Schools Foundation comes up I uh talk a lot on this one. I was on the board for many years. So, it's an organization that's near and dear to me. But just some things that I want to highlight. Um, one wonderful event as always this year. Uh, the last I heard, um, they raised approximately so far 300,000 towards their goal of 350,000. So, they're they're close to meeting that. I know they've got some other, um, sponsorship dollars coming in um, and

031are hopeful they'll be able to reach that goal. Um, you know, I think I've mentioned this before and this is where I'm going to repeat myself, but I think it's important to repeat myself on this, but this school found Isqua schools foundation is unique to the Isqua school district. If you just live in the Isqua school district, you will think, "Oh, every district has a foundation." No, not every district has a foundation and not every district has a foundation that is active um as active as as ours has been. Um, as director uh Raldo said, it has been with us for many years. was formed 38 years ago um and has raised over 300 or 30 million uh for its mission has been a model for other school foundations um across the country. Um you

032know as we heard in um for Nourish every month mind last week um so many of the programs um the school foundation has been an incubator for those and then um they're taken on by the district. So, it's this great opportunity for us to do, you know, for the foundation to build um creative programs um that um and and and be unique in some of the things that they're doing um and test them out before the district takes it on. So, I just wanted to note that. And I I think it's also important to note particularly for those that are newer to the district, if you've been in the district post pandemic, um the foundation looks different. The foundation needs our support. Um, at its height in the 2016 2017 school year, uh, the ra

033the the, uh, foundation raised just over 2 million. U, the foundation now is is under a million in terms of what it's raising. It's it's struggled post pandemic. It's coming back up. But again, I just I want to just make the note that it's important for us as a community as we talk about so many organizations with PTSA as well. We need members of our community to be engaged um uh both in terms of funding uh the foundation but also the foundation's always looking for wonderful board trustees. Uh it's a great organization. If you're thinking about engaging in some form or fashion, I would highly highly recommend it. So again, sorry I'm repeating myself, but it is extremely important organization and so so unique um to um school foundations nationally. So those are my thoughts.

034Anyone else want to share? Director Mullins. So the only thing I will add is you you know we get to hear from students who are directly uh benefiting from the program. And so for me not having any kids that were in robotics, I have to say I'm really excited about it. And I want to figure out like how do I can I go to a tournament? Is there a draft? I was so excited about the team names and everything. So, I have to figure out how I can uh how I can get involved in this whole robotics thing because they were they were really jazzed up. So, that was my takeaway. I believe the this event is such a great again back to rituals and routines that we have as a district and community. It

035was such a great way to continue to showcase um our students and the impact of different programs and investments from donors uh in our students learning experience. And um getting a six-year-old to speak uh and talk about the things that are important to her um is priceless. So um seeing all of our students be able to show up and and show their best selves was incredible. And then and the last speaker actually the student just really brought many of my my tablemates to tears based on her personal journey and story. So um yeah was beautiful. So well thank you thank you for taking your time and for your continued support of um one of our great partners. Uh next we have a recap of the work study that I will remember a lot more about

036because we just had it. Um but over the past couple of weeks, the board has had an opportunity to have listening sessions with students. Um and we do that um just two at a time so that it doesn't have to be a public meeting for the students. They can feel free to share about what they wanted to share about. Uh this year our focus was on students who receive um individual education um programming and so um we had an interesting time kind of filling in the recap from that experience. Uh so this a this afternoon this early evening we were able to share our perspectives of what we heard and so I don't know if anyone wants to um report out from our work study director Mollings. Yeah. So I one of the things I

037think has been great is is having a focus each year doing some level of round table. um this year was no was no different. I was able scheduling wise I could only do one of them this year. So one of our high schools uh super impactful, awesome to hear about um students in all in high school but talk about their experience across elementary, middle and high school um and be really authentic and really clear about what had worked well for them, what their challenge areas are. Um, so I think the conversation earlier tonight, what what I leave with is um, you know, I'm glad to see that our administrators, our principles are dialed into those same conversations, that they're active works in place um, that they're continuously looking at um, improvements based on those students

038uh, feedback though them and other students. And so, you know, I leave encourage that um that we're we're checking in on all the different student populations and looking at how we can both surround them with the right humans for them to have great connections with as well as the right operational processes. Obviously, that's a work in progress, right? It's a big ship to turn, but I think um you know, I leave encouraged with that piece. Great. Thank you. Anyone else want to share? Director Gallinger. Uh, just first shout out to Shireen and the team that put together all these student panels. Uh, I know it doesn't just happen out of thin air and coordinated the schedule and just a expression of gratitude to our students who all participated. Uh I think it's super important that

039we hear from our students every year and you know I was struck by every student talked about their case manager and many referenced teachers that they really connected with that are really critical to their journey. I I think I would echo what Director Mullen has said is uh while we heard lots of things that are really working, we heard of lots of things that really aren't. And uh it's many opportunities for us to double down. And I know that our superintendent and uh Shin have led a lot of process changes. So we were really getting the hey, what have they lived through already and they haven't experienced the changes our district has done. But I think we need to not lose sight of this because we want to make sure that it's having the intended

040impact so that there's a really tight alignment between what students goals are and then their course of study because we the last thing we want is them to be taking classes in high school that don't get them to where their next destination is. Uh, and then I think we need to somehow figure out how and when we build more opportunities for students to develop agency to be able to advocate for themselves at a younger age than high school because it was consistently heard. Our high schoolers by high school, they felt comfortable speaking up. Maybe our students here could resonate, but when they were fifth and sixth graders, like being able to speak up about their needs was was much harder. And that makes sense to me. Director Taylor. Um, yes. Also, I just like to

041express my gratitude for the opportunity. Um, it was really enlightening to hear from these students experiences uh in our district. So, um, I was very thankful for that. Um, but I will say, you know, hearkening to what, uh, Director Gallinger had to say, uh, I did hear that we still have desperate experiences. And I said this in the work study and those I heard each student tell a little bit different experience that they were having in the system but also each student talk about a different experience almost year to year or class to class. Um and that's a a concern. Um but I think a lot of it has to do with making sure that our students are being seen and understood. And the success stories that I heard were almost always tied directly to

042an educator. And um I know we are doing more work in in this space to be more deliberate in our training and our communication with our educators to make sure that we're you know accessing accessing, understanding, leveraging accommodations that our kids need. And there's great hope for that. Um but I I do want to be frank that I came away from the discussion understanding that um there's work to be done. For sure. Director Coin, I'll I'll echo the prior comments too and want to thank Dr. Carver and team for their wonderful efforts in setting up these sessions and also the building uh principles at each of the high schools. Um, you know, I think one thing that I I want to stress though, too, is just the the key takeaway that I heard was connection.

043Um, love to hear the connection that our students had with specific educators. Every single one of those students that we listened to talked about teachers that had helped them through their high school career and um that was so wonderful to hear. In addition to that is the connection that they had with clubs, with ASB, with certain classes. all of them found that connection and I think again it's just when you think about students at the secondary level well I mean really at any level um but you know particularly when I think about high school um since those were the students we were talking about that connection is so important and whatever that might be where you have an interest if it's sports or a club or student government and so um that was a big

044takeaway for me because you could tell those students really made that connection to the success of their high school career being tied to that connection um that they had with a specific activity So those are my thoughts. Great. Superintendent, did you want to share? Uh, I want to echo my thanks to Dr. Carver and Tammy Enra for their leadership and helping to support this, but also the building principles, but there were two team members that were consistent in every single one as well, which are um two of our colleagues um that work to support our students on their well-being, Miriam Corlet and Ryan McGlin. So appreciate their effort, you know, to be able to um help support these spaces for what I would call sort of going deeper with a a fewer set of students

045versus sort of the larger group settings. And I think that sometimes people will say there's a danger in a single story. But I actually would prefer to say it as there's power in a single story because when we have every individual student and every single individual story um has meaning as it relates to how their experience could be improved, but also how that can be connected to other experiences and where we might see themes and opportunities to improve. And while we're on a pathway to continuous improvement, we always know we can do better. So the power of the single stories that came up through um each of those and reflected back to me and in the discussion was very powerful. Yeah, I think for me I would definitely echo all of that. Um I appreciated

046hearing the stories from students um as a parent of students that were on IEPs trying to differentiate what was and what is going to be. And so I think some of the students that we heard from were in a system that hadn't had yet to change. And so I want to recognize that we are in a transition of how we're serving serving um our students with uh special services in a different way in a more meaningful way. Um, but that because of that, it is incumbent that every teacher essentially be a special ed teacher because you're a gened teacher and these are gened students first that happen to need accommodation and I think that's how I would like to see them is as students who just they need accommodation and so how can we support

047them and I think that's a more supportive thing because I think yes I heard so many students that were talking about their connection with their with their teachers especially at Gibson neck and you know there's a a myriad of opportunities for them to be more connected with their advisor um than at a comprehensive high school. But I also heard when it when a student says, "Well, I know my teachers hate me, but that hurts." Or when they say, "Well, I know I'm difficult to be with. I know I'm the problem." And I don't want them to reflect in that way. So, I hope that um that our teaching staff can hear that and receive that and understand that you have so much power in the classroom for these students to benefit them in a way

048to help them feel engaged, to feel appreciated, um to feel seen and visible and you also have the power to do it the other way. And so, making that choice of of can I be the supportive teacher? Um I think the other thing for me is much about the transitions of when a student advocates and I mentioned this during the um during the uh work study is that what students experience when they're in elementary school with an IEP is their trusted adult, their parent, their guardian advocating with another adult. And that's a whole different dynamic than we throw them into sixth grade and suddenly they're the ones advocating as a child with their adult teacher and they're just having that amount of agency when you're 11 I think is asking a lot. Um, and so

049I loved hearing from some of you saying, "Well, well, the issue is that the student is the one that has to initiate the use of their accommodations or they have to be the one to step up and say, I have an I they have to identify themselves." And I think so the work for our district is to ensure that the student isn't the one initiating that conversation that there's teams that the teachers and the students are teams working together for the success of students. So I think that is my biggest takeaway but I do want to acknowledge that the district is moving positively in a in a good direction. And so um this was a good opportunity for us to talk to students and I hope in a few years you'll have discussions with students

050uh receiving accommodations and hearing a different story because they've lived a different story. And with that we will go on to works in progress. Um, I do want to make a a note before I uh launch into some additional things that are happening across the district, but um some of you might have noticed a change to the board website and how we are posting uh the agendas and really what we're doing is to ensure transparency, security, and compliance with state requirements um and open meetings uh accessibility. Our district is planning to transition to a new platform to to board meeting management. So, this is something that the public will notice and uh all the items, you know, are um housed on our website directly versus on the app that it had previously been on. And

051so, that will serve as a temporary home for the meeting agendas and related documents. Um and we're also continue to build our archive of previous meetings to make sure that we are meeting the retention requirement of state of the state six-year record. So, I want to note that for everyone as well. Um, I do have another important reminder on something that's important to share with the community and um is that we uh have had lots of different conversations and I've shared a bit about the waiver process. And so the district did receive a waiver for one day uh of our various school closures that happened over the past year, most notably the bomb cyclone. And so our last day of school is now June 24th. And so um each parent should check their individual school

052schedule for the details of that schedule. We've received a couple questions about why the district did not receive a waiver for additional days or for the for you know the entire event that had occurred. And the reason is because in addition to compliance with the state, it's not just the number of days in the year, it's the number of minutes. Um and so we are uh we are in need of having a minimum of a thousand hours for elementary for example. And so you know uh we sit right at about um a thousand hours with the waiver of that one final day that we had previously had scheduled. Um and so we're just at the bare minimum and we can't actually go do less than that. So that explains that. Um on a programmatic note,

053um last meeting I did talk about career kickstart, which is a new uh summer career development program for high school students to continue to access real world opportunities and to get exposure to the career um and industry fields that might be of interest. Uh I we have we actually received those applications did close over 150 applications for those 50 spots. So that does reflect strong interest from students who are eager to explore those real world career pathways. Uh the notification has been underway and actually we did get back 48 of 50 um students confirmed which is a very high rate of confirmation back. So that means we went to the top two on the wait list and we certainly have many more if those top two spots are not filled by those next two people.

054Um, so this does as a as a test and pilot show the need and right now we're uh conducting in the summer, but we also are thinking about what we can learn from this to not only potentially expand during those break times, but also as we think about what we do during the school day in the school year. And a real special thank you um speaking back to our opening with the Isqua Schools Foundation and Nourish Every Mind for their generous support in helping um us to launch this innovative experience and in particular um our our staff teams across the district and um and Julia Bamba and Lisa Neighbors in particular at the district level. So uh many many thanks to get that up and running and to take those lessons to the next level.

055On a on another note with secondary and high school work, we are working with XQ and as part of our commitment to improving high school experiences and post-secary readiness, we're conducting an educational outcomes audit and analysis in partnership with the XQ Institute. And we've held um some focus groups at all four high schools, each with over 20 participants. And we've just launched this week a survey for families, students, and staff to gather broader input. and we're using um our transcripts to do some detailed analysis to get a better sense of uh the class of 2024 to understand their course taking patterns and academic outcomes. Uh all of these data points, surveys, focus groups, transcript analysis will be used um to inform student journeys workshops um in June and each principal will collaborate with a team

056of 10 people from their school including student, staff and families to support reflection on this topic. And so we're excited about this. Um a note about the survey because that did launch this week. Uh we're collecting these um insights. And so we're specifically asking um uh the survey that launched this week for high school parents uh and caregivers to take 10 minutes to complete the survey by May 14th. And the feedback will really help understand how well we're supporting the child's learning, identify areas of strength, and areas of growth, and ensure that all students have access to the guidance, support, and academic pathways they need. So, um, eager to report back, uh, to the public and to the board on where what we find from all of these different, um, data points. And, um, this

057week I've had great opportunities to witness student learning. Um, on Monday, which was a wonderful way to kick off teacher appreciation week, I met up with directors Coin and Taylor to visit Pine Lake and Sunny Hills, and it was uh, wonderful to be able to talk with teachers directly and see our amazing students and staff in action. Um, at Sunny Hills, we were asked several questions when we went to different classes as well. And, uh, what I thought was great is, um, one student asked, um, directors Coin and Taylor, are you helpers? And I mean, at the end of the day, we're all helpers. So, it was a really great question just to be asking because it just so perfectly uh, summarized that all of us as adults like in our system, in our different

058roles, are there to be helpers for kids. Um, and so I think I didn't say that at the time, but I think I would if I had a redo to go back and answer that question, I would say yes, board members, I we're all helpers for you in your learning journey. So, um, I thought that was a great question to reveal how our students think about all of us as adults supporting them. On Tuesday, our cabinet executive team continued the great work of our equity instructional walks and we visited Grand Ridge. I would like to thank Jill Ravenscraft and Gary Aguilar and the whole team and what they're doing to focus on raising overall achievement. um while also ensuring that all students are thriving. So those students who are not um meeting achievement at the

059same level as their peers are having access to more content, more learning with other peers as well as uh all the different ways they're adjusting instruction to be able to ensure they're reaching every single student every single day. And yesterday um I joined part of the micro school visit to the Gates Discovery Center where students learned about the design process based on the Stanford Dhool model and they prototyped solutions uh in addressing public issues such as maternal health, vaccine distribution and access to fresh milk in rural and less developing areas. students were engaged and able to take real world problems and consider how their academic foundations and creativity could be put to use for greater good. Um, in closing, teacher appreciation week is coming to an end tomorrow and I have been so heartened to

060see the amazing signs, the food items and the show of appreciation from our for our teachers from the family and caretaker community. And thank you, huge thank you to also our PTA and PTSAs for helping organize this week-long uh days of recognition. So, thank you to all of our teachers and all of our staff, but thank you to our teachers this week specifically. That's it. Thank you. Um yes, and director Coin did ask me, he's like, "Does the board do an appreciation letter?" And I'm like, "Um, no, but we've never considered it." So hopefully in the future we will do that because we really do appreciate that. Um, learning doesn't happen without our educators. So, our facilitators of learning as I love to refer to them as. Um, so we we do thank you. I

061know there's a in the room. So, thank you so much for what you do and on behalf of all the teachers, we um we are so thankful. Um, next on our agenda, I'm very excited about this one is our sustainability policy, our second read. Um, so we're going to start with a presentation and then we will follow it up with public comment and then board discussion. Yes. Hi there. Uh, my name is Matthew. Um, you're in person this time. It's great. Um so based on feedback um from the previous board meeting um we made uh some additional adjustments to the vision statement of this uh piece to emphasize what the like the so what of the whole thing. Um so because we have several um different breakdowns of what um it looks like and within

062the operations of the district, but there was missing the so what piece that director Mullings had um mentioned out and um we had suggested one um but there's several examples um um of potential model lines that we could use for vision statement as well as in 174 we had a slight grammatical change um and those were the only um changes from the previous uh draft. Great. So, I'll open it up at this time um for any public comment on in regards to our uh proposed OE17 sustainability and is there any online any in-house? Okay, great. Thank you so much. So, um I think they're staying up here for questions, but then what I'll do is I will um uh move for a motion or ask for a motion. Well, so what I would say is

063that we probably will do a motion as presented and then need to amend the emotion with the value statement that or vision statement that we would want. I move the board adopt operational expectation 17 sustainability as presented. Second. Okay. Okay, having a motion in a second. We'll open it up for discussion. And the first one is what do what do we think about the uh proposed three proposed uh statements for the vision? Director Taylor. Well, I just need a point of clarification. So, we're to pick one of the three. These are three options being off because I read them in the totality. Well, it could be uh the motion right now is at the in totality. So, unless you make any changes, I would prefer brevity and I will offer an opinion in a second.

064Well, I'll just say I I like the first statement very much. Um, as I think it's clear, concise, gets to the point. I really like that phrasing about modeling sustainability for the district as well. Um, so that would be my preference. Okay. Director Mullings. Um, I went with a combo of choices that are here. I do like the piece about modeling um, responsible citizenship, but I think I think it was also important to get to the reducing environmental impact. Like that's what we're practically doing today. So what uh I would offer is that the second phrase in the um value statement will be we aim to reduce our environmental impact and model responsible citizenship by embedding sustainability into every aspect of our work. Okay. Yes, director coin. Um the one I on the second statement,

065it's true. I do like the first statement, but I like how on the second statement it says future ready district. Um I I like that wording. I don't know if that could be included somewhere, but that did stand out to me. Um that's my initial thought. Director Director Gallinger, can you give us a fourth choice? So, I'm wondering, Director Mullings, if you could make your statement. So, slow enough for me to type it out. Yeah. And it sounded like if I heard the other feedback properly, Director Taylor, you um liked the piece about modeling, if I'm saying the right person, the right time. Director Coin, you appreciated the future ready district. So, here's what I want to offer is that we would end the first sentence with the clause. Um, it says capital projects and

066programs are essential for a future ready district. And then you guys can tell me what you think about this. If this second one is too long that I offered, let me go back to where I had it written. Is we and we aim we could, you know, play with that. We aim to reduce our environmental impact and model responsible citizenship by embedding sustainability into every aspect of our work. Okay. So, I see some head nodding. Does anyone want to make an amendment to the current motion? Was that I would I wasn't you was that um were there any other changes from what I just said? I think there were pondering looks. Is is pondering good or bad? Um let me try give me one second. Is it possible to read it one more time? I

067will. I will. Okay. Let me read it one time and then I'll do the amendment. Okay. Okay. So the whole statement would be the board believes that integrating sustainable practices and fostering environmental responsibility in all district and building operations, capital projects and programs are essential for a future ready district. Second sentence is we aim to reduce our environmental impact and model responsible citizenship by embedding sustainability into every aspect of our work. How does that still feel headnotic? I think so. Would you So you're offering that as that's your motion. I amend. Um Yep. Do you want me to do all in the amendment? Because I can if you'd like. You can if you'd like. Okay. I would like to amend my previous motion for the board value statement uh for OE17 to read as follows.

068The board believes that integrating sustainable practices and fostering environmental responsibility in all district and building operations, capital projects, and programs are essential for a future ready district. We aim to reduce our environmental impact and model responsible citizenship by embedding sustainability into every aspect of our work. Do I have a second? Second. Any other discussions about the amendment? Do I students student reps or students like to comment? Superintendent Tayek, did you have something you wanted to add on there at the end? Sorry. I Well, I was going to uh bring the board back to I think prior discussions even before I came on the on the use of the word citizenship in the various different um results and ends in even other other areas. So I I believe it the citizenship refers to a specific type

069of individual in our community and that might not be as inclusive. Is it citizenship in terms of stewardship or is it citizenship in terms of citizenship in this country? I like stewardship there. So am I at So I hear an amendment to the amendment to change the word citizenship to Sure. Yeah. But let's see if there's any other comments for a minute. So, any other thoughts or comments? Students, all students types. We have thumbs up from Milo and a smile from Nilla. We changed citizenship to stewardship. Stewardship. Thank you. Not remember. Um would So we should vote down that last amendment. No, you just amend the amendment. My amendment. Friendly amendment. It's fine to do an amendment. So are you are you making a motion to amend the word citizenship to stewardship? Not really. I

070was just wanted to be a friendly amendment. Yes, that is what we're doing. We're making a friendly amendment to make that change. We're making an amendment. amendment. I move to amend the prior amendment and to substitute the word stewardship for citizenship. Thank you. Is there a second? Okay. Now we have an amendment to the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment to the amendment say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. So now it has been properly amended. Any other comments on the amendment to this are and are there any additional amendments to the rest of the body of the sustainability plan? I did would love to hear from these two students. Is that something that you could live with? Absolutely. I um so yeah, Matthew again um I I think the I love the phrasing

071of future ready um just because I think that really encompasses a lot of what we're trying to accomplish both um from an environmental perspective as well as financially as well to make sure that we are um you know have an eye on the future which this district does and it provides a great model for that. Um, and I think um that that following sentence really encapsulates um all of the below um points of how we are um summing it up to you know lower our environmental impact um and um helped grow students into being responsible members of society. So I think that's great. Um, and I just would like to add that I really appreciate the by embedding sustainability into every aspect of our work because that's truly what sustainability is is it's an ongoing

072thing that we're all learning about. We're all learning how we can improve based off of the resources that we have um, and utilizing that and putting it in as like a blanket over everything. um rather than it being its own standalone thing. I think it's really important that um it is just kind of a thing that is in our lives and it's really cool that we've um gotten to this point. Great. And then Milo, did I see you looking to speak? I think it's on. It was on. It'll take a second. It'll be fine. Go ahead now. Is it on? Oh yeah, it is. Oh my goodness. Um, I didn't really have a comment um on like the specifics, but I I just wanted to say that I really appreciated you guys all coming together

073and giving your favorite points of each like sentence that they gave us. I thought that was really wonderful and showed um just a great example of collaboration to me and obviously all the students. And I also I just wanted to appreciate Zoe and Matthew for all their hard work throughout the past years getting this to the point that it is at and continuing to make headway on this even as they're reaching the end of their senior year. So that's it. Right. Okay. So we are going to now vote on the amended amendment. So, all those in favor of the amended amendment. Oh, did you? I just want to say, can we spend a couple minutes sort of debriefing the process after we do the vote? Absolutely. So, there because we're just voting on the amended

074amendment now and then we'll vote on the whole body of it. So, all those in favor of the amended amendment say I. I. Any opposed? The students are like, I don't even understand just what happened. Don't worry, we're getting there. Okay. So, now we have the whole body as amended. Um, and we truly appreciate that. So, yes, we do want to speak to policy as a whole. This is a brand new policy. So, this isn't us just updating its brought this forward. Um, Zoe and Matthew and I know you had other teammates that part. Um but no the the work that's gone through there's been many iterations just even understanding how do you even make a policy in the isqua school district. So there's been a lot of work um our student reps have also

075been involved in some of this work I believe um working through our board members to really kind of guide a policy. So there's been a lot of work that has gone through and I do want to open it up for the board members to speak to the whole uh policy and to the process by which we got here. Director Gallinger, uh I guess I'd like to first uh have our students be able to go first on sort of it's been a long journey uh probably longer than you thought it would be when you embarked on this last spring. uh glad to see it coming to fruition shortly. So I'd love to hear your feedback on the process, your experience in navigating it and sort of uh what tips you would give for future students. For

076sure. I just want to say how grateful I personally am for all the support that the district has. Um when we came to the the district, you know, we initially we didn't even think we were being able to get a meeting with you guys. Um but it was just like open doors of being able to um directly communicate um with board members and it wasn't like you know like oh my gosh you guys are like some untouchable people. You guys are real people and you guys are really um really cool to get to know and so it was really cool to be able to sit down with you guys and be able to go and just like line by line uh through this and really um take what our like passion is and what like

077what our direction we're hoping to head in and put that into actual concrete language that is actionable uh for the district. And so I think this has been a phenomenal process and probably over a year and probably more than a year before that of us doing research on other districts and other ways that we could do this strategically within the school district. Um so I think it's just been phenomenal to be able to um work with all of you guys and um to be able to ultimately have this come to fruition. Um and I think this will be um really just a pillar hopefully into the future um that can um guide our district um and to continue doing the great work that you guys are doing. Yeah. And just to add off of that,

078um me personally, I started working on the very very very beginning of the research and understanding different policies from all over the United States. Um back in the summer, right before my junior year. I don't know how long that has been at this point. It's felt like forever, but at the same time, it's felt like it's gone by so fast. Um, so getting to this point, I'm just overwhelmed with happiness and just appreciation for everyone that has helped us along the way because we definitely could not have done it on our own. Um, and we definitely didn't think that we we were even going to do this much. We were like, "Oh, well, let's just advocate for something. Let's just say, hey, we would like to see this and maybe, you know, they'll they'll do

079something. And then we were like, oh, well, let's just go ahead and write them an example one. Oh, let's go ahead and start making those first drafts. Let's start shifting that. And while it's much easier said than done to take what we originally had of I think around three or four pages and condense it down into one page and still get that same message across um I think was really cool and um just a really great overall experience for all of us students to be able to see how the world works in a different lens. Not everybody is going to be able to experience this um at such a young age. I mean, I'm still 17. My birthday, I haven't even turned 18 yet. Um so, being so young and having this experience, it I

080think is absolutely amazing and I'm so excited to um utilize this for future work when I graduate from Udub. So, I thank you guys so much. Thank you. Any other student reps want to speak? Naomi, good work. Okay, with that, we have a motion. Oh, you do. I do want to say one thing. Um, Director Quinn, I had an opportunity to connect with the board student reps this week and one of the things I was struck by in that conversation and just asking I think director Quinn asked them like what do you think of this experience? And um I think I was struck by the descriptions in in a way that was very casual in nature. And so what I want to leave you with same to the student reps is you are now policy

081makers. You are you are not this isn't some project you were working on, right? You've you've advocated in your own local government. You have advocated with elected officials and you have made policy that is resume building. And you said not very many not very many pe adults can say that. So I want you to be incredibly proud of that and I want you to to not forget how deeply impactful that is. everything you went through, the revisions, the advocacy, the research, those are real real skills and differentiating. So, congratulations. Thank you. Don't know if maybe you know at the bottom is when we put where we adopt it for the first time and then we monitor the first time. Maybe this one does require a special footnote where it says initially authored by um because

082it is going to be policy lives in memorial uh and it just really highlights their work. So that would be my only addition and then I would just do the connection because I'm not sure you were here earlier but uh we had a meeting at Belleview School District in Qua del Soul and it was really incredible to be in a building that generates electricity. sort of see the possibilities that exist nearby uh and and how it impacts and uh they believe it saves roughly enough to hire an extra staff member per building for the efforts that they do. And so that's the impact because that's what it's about is how do we drive change to better serve our kids. So, uh I would just say that I am super proud of the work that you

083guys have done and uh our students never cease to amaze me. So, thank you. Great. Okay, Director Coin, I just want to offer some quick thanks and glad that Director Mullings mentioned what she did because that was on my mind. Thank you because this is big work that you did and I'm just so proud of you and the other students that worked with you and I I um I think it's one of these things once we formally pass this I think we need to pause and big round of applause for our students. This is big. Thank you. Anyone else? I want to say I'm proud of you too. Great. With that I will call for the vote. All those in favor say I. I any opposed? I didn't think so. The eyes have it. Great.

084Thank you so much. And yes, breaking our own protocol. Oh, yeah. So, maybe we could have a picture in front of our the policy. Absolutely. Let's have one with them. And yes, I'd love for the boy board to join them and the student reps and the superintendent. Okay, stay there. No. Thank you. Father, awesome. This is uh some of the great work. uh some things take a long time to get through and get initiated and so we thank you for your perseverance and um now superintendent you have yet another operational expectation for your staff to monitor um but I think it'll be good work. So uh next on the agenda is a technology update and I guess we'll turn it to you and your staff. Yes. So um this is a important topic. Technology is

085everpresent in our lives and we it's everpresent but also omnipresent. We don't always see the ways in which it's working into our world. So this is a very important update at this time of the year um to make sure that we're you know reflecting on the things that we're doing but also preview some of the ways that we need to shift for the future as well. So, I will turn it over to Martin Turney, um, Rich Melish, and Diana Edgars, uh, who will present here. And I think it's timely because um we have been reorganizing our work to make sure we're more effective at both being able to um set the course for uh how we use technology and information to be better stewards not only of our taxpayer dollars but also to increase our

086customer service internally to ourselves as staff members with staff members and also to our community. and then enhance learning experiences for our students and to be um really thoughtful as they already are about how to navigate this digital world. Okay. Thank you, superintendent. So, uh, we're here today to provide this update, um, talk a little bit about the technology advisory committee, share some feedback, um, about the one on one:1 laptop initiative, um, talk a little bit about, um, artificial intelligence, and then kind of give an update on some training, levy preparation, some other things, uh, that are going on right now in technology. So, I'm going to let Rich walk you through some of the, uh, tech committee information. Great. Thank you. U planned and facilitated by director of educational technology Diana Edgars. The tech

087advisory committee was convened last spring and this fall. Staff, students, and community members provided feedback and suggested uh priority actions in the four goal areas of the ISD technology plan. Uh this valuable feedback has impacted um and informed ongoing efforts for improvement. not going to go through them specifically knowing that you had this ahead of time. U but we are here to answer questions about the tech advisory committee as we go forward. Did want to highlight some things recently um in terms of network uh capacity. We were able to um increase the bandwidth at the three high schools recently um which is going to be you know helpful in terms of things like testing where we have great reliability important in that area. We want to double the main internet bandwidth. Um, we are ready

088to do that. We're just waiting on the K20 network folks to resolve a little issue they're having and then hopefully we'll be able to put that into place. Also testing a more modern and secure way to access Wi-Fi in the district. So, uh, three things that'll improve um, how we're doing things and the network capacity range, right? And we continue to use observation and feedback to monitor the student laptop allocation and 101 program. Um using learnings from the feedback we it informs supports and improvements in future planning. Um and ensures equitable access and universal access to technology for learning. Uh here we provide a sampling of three insights from ongoing monitoring but are here to uh discuss other aspects of that as as needed. Right. And then um the integration of artificial intelligence continues to

089be an emerging and important focus. This year has seen works to update regulations and provide staff professional development and collaboration opportunities and to select AI tools appropriate for teaching and learning. uh we have engaged with tech leaders uh and educators around the state and nation as leaders and educators everywhere are working to leverage and safeguard uh AI for learning and preparation for the modern society and modern workplace. Um it's exciting work and look forward to conversation on that if that is what you choose. Thanks Rich. Um some additional highlights. Um when it comes to security, we recently did a penetration test to uh see what we would find out, which is always good to do, see where your vulnerabilities are. Uh we did have a server that was um isolated and decommissioned um as a

090result of this work, which was good. our internal security uh was able to um notice what was going on and react fairly quickly which gives us a a good confidence in terms of what we're already doing. Um then we had some minor things uh that we will take care of that were were noted as well. Um in terms of training, we're going to keep updating our annual and ongoing training uh particularly around the area of personal identifiable information. Uh that's an important area. We want to make sure that we're safeguarding that information and limiting or eliminating the the risk of any breach there. Can I add one thing here which is the the terminology that is spoken about in um in technology circles is that it's not about if a breach will happen, it's about

091when. And uh I know certainly my uh mind was certainly thinking about this as Highline experienced Highland School District experienced a pretty significant breach at the beginning of the school year which really um they had to go completely analog uh for for a long time. So it's it's a very important thing. We want to make sure everyone's information is protected and we have to stay on top of that um in ways that are outsized and you don't see that work but we um I want to pay attention to that as we move forward. Thank you. Uh speaking of looking forward, we are in the process of uh uh realizing that our next technology levy is coming up. So we want to do the prep work for that and make sure that uh what we're looking

092at to uh put a recommendation forward includes the things that the district really needs uh in this area. We recently were um fortunate enough to have some proono work done and uh have a technology audit with some recommendations. I haven't listed all those there give you some categories but we have started working toward accomplishing some of the recommendations uh one of them being you know the penetration testing so that's an example of one of the uh recommendations that came out of that another recommendation had to do with uh making some organizational uh changes particularly a chief information and techn technology officer uh to help unite uh all the technology uh in our system under one centralized leader Um so we are in the process of doing those interviews. Now we also um our director of

093IT infrastructure has recently uh notified us she is retiring and so I wanted to take this moment to thank Kathy Crop for her many years of service. Um done a tremendous job and we appreciate her. Uh she's been kind enough to do a lot of work here in transition planning uh making sure process documentation is in place. Obviously, this is an important position. So, uh being able to do that the right way um gives us a lot of confidence. And in addition to that, we have at least one um already budgeted position that we want to utilize to kind of flesh out a business intelligence unit. This is some work that the new uh CITO and the director of infrastructure may be working on as they come on board. And that would give us some

094additional capabilities to analyze data and visual provide some data visualizations um that will be helpful for the for the system. And so that rounds that's actually our last slide there. So uh do we have any questions? So I'll open it up to the board. Director Coin. Okay. I have one initial question and uh appreciate the update and all the the good work that's being done in the space. I guess one concern I want to go back talk to and I know you addressed his laptop quality. Um I know we um we had an opportunity yesterday to talk to the student reps um around um this topic specifically and I think the question on hey if your laptop is not working do you know where to bring it and it sound as like most of the

095students do. Um, but I guess which is good. I guess the bigger concern is how many times do you bring it if the computer isn't working? Like how like what is the what is the point at which the the it's retired and you bring and you get a new laptop. What does that look like? Yeah, I think that's probably an individual conversation with the tech specialist in the building. They can assess that and determine whether or not it's in a place where they can uh make some adjustment to it, whatever that might be. And but we're happy to replace those if that's the need. And so I wouldn't say we have a stringent uh how many visit kind of thing, but it's really about we want to make sure that we get the right piece

096of equipment into the hands of that student. We've seen an increase in like student damage. So, you know, some of those things happen that you have a laptop. Um I also will say on the topic of just kind of the quality is that we have been hearing a lot less in recently about the quality of the laptop. So, I think a lot of the um information about upgrade, you know, continuing to run the updates on your machines and things like that have really paid off. Yeah, that's great. Hope hopefully that answers the question. Yeah. No, that's great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Director Ballinger, I would love to hear more about what the plan is beyond like establish a comprehensive AI implementation plan. You know, I think there I guess I want that

097flushed out a little bit more. Certainly well before we go into our next technology levy because just like I had concerns about handing a laptop to students most of which goes underutilized in our middle school still today four years in is like what are we doing to unlock the power of AI for our teachers like just saying like oh we have AI know but like what is the educational component and how do we know that there's implementation and adoption with fidelity so you know it's across buildings it's across departments and then the other part is there's a lot of businesses that are doing it for like the operations of this building so it would be so how are we doing it to help us right? IEPs, how are we doing it to help us do

098assessments? How are we doing it, you know, in all these sort of different ways? Uh so I think I would like a little bit more focus on that before we go to 2027 because certainly in this four-year period, we're going to see transformational change that's going to happen long before this. So, if we don't have a more robust plan in place, I would get concerned about there being a four-year commitment, but to what? So, like maybe it needs to not be four years. We can't figure that out in more detail than just what was written because levy planning, I'm assuming, starts in just a couple months. Does So we do um so thank you thank thank you for bringing that up. I think it would be uh at a step with also bringing on some

099dedicated executive leadership that has additional uh skill and expertise in managing largecale complex systems around uh technology and information um and bringing together all the components that we do have in a way that drives us towards uh exactly the things that you're speaking about director Gallinger for both uh lifting up and and alleviating the workload of staff you know especially our teachers. I think that is the number one opportunity that does exist. um but then also how we use it to um create um just better supports for ourselves to do things that that AI can help us do with certain um applications and so forth. So, uh, that is exactly our hope is to have some pretty quick turnaround on being able to have, um, some more details about how our plans moving forward could

100look, invite that conversation with others and have that be, um, certainly part of in tandem with, uh, the technology levy. Yeah. just in a if we have you know 1,200 teachers I would hope that the people that have been pioneers and early adopters and champions of this can be part of that conversation so that our teachers feel like it's something that's done for them not to them because that's the feedback we continually hear is like we have the best of intentions but so in this early planning stage let us try and get that balance better so we can make sure that we can hear from them on like so we may have like oh there's a great technological solution but it may have been tried already and they're like here are the barriers in the

101same way like in my industry they're trying to push like AI scribing and AI like documentation and well you probably should ask the people who are actually doing the work great point that's certainly on my mind as well and I know it is certainly on the mind of especially Rich uh Melish and Dian Edgar Director Mullings. Um, I actually think it's the next slide. Um, at least No, no, sorry. The pilots. Just I want to make sure we pause there for a second because I think it some of the items that you mentioned are listed here. That wasn't my comment, but I just saw it. So, I thought I would say we were I think if we'd rested on this slide, it might have been a little more helpful. Um so my comments are I

102I am very pleased to see the focus on security. I think it's very important that it is a when not if there security breaches and so that's table stakes in this whole um in all the work. You can't do any of the rest of it if you don't have a secure um dependable environment. I think for me the the staffing updates um are really important. So, Director Moraldo and I have just been working on our our next version of our podcast. And one of the things that we talk about, it's not about technology exactly, but it really is a reference to facilities and the rapid changing needs for facilities in recent years from having all the technology sitting in a broom closet in what was Holly Street years ago to needing um to have a

103full data center. And I think that conversation is really important that just the rapid um change over the district in the amount of technology to run centrally, the amount of technology required to deploy a onetoone strategy. Um and so I I think it's really important to recognize the the recency of that kind of shift to being deeply technology dependent. So I think having the upgrades in bandwidth are critical. we're just underserved and I think leads to a lot of the complaint about hardware. Hardware gets the complaint of many things. Bandwidth is usually one of them. So I think the the staffing updates are really important because I think it's an acknowledgment that of what um kind of brains you need to have in the conversation who are versed in a much more complex internal operating

104environment but actually the the external opportunities of where we can leverage technology but also the threat land landscape. So, I just think it's really important the um additional uh or the rethinking of how headcount is leveraged cuz not all of it's additional in in this case and um I think it'll pay a lot of dividends to then help with the with the plan forward. Any thoughts, comments, or questions? Director Taylor, I can see you ing and well, Director Gallinger and Director Mullins kind of summed up what I wanted to say, but I mean I really agree that I think the IT director position in particular is a necessity at this point. Uh we just simply do not want to be left behind in this space. And I feel the same way when we talk about

105all the investments, but particularly when we're talking about levy planning around professional development um for our staff because you know I was had the opportunity to uh visit some schools this week and I was really struck when I was in the classroom. I'm going to age myself horribly here but struck by the amount of technology in classrooms in the modern classroom today when technology in my day was a piece of chalk and a blackboard. And I think Yes. And I think moving forward when I well working in the tech industry and seeing what is coming with AI and the change is going to be exponential and if we do not do as much as we can now and really emphasize this as a point um of investment, we're doing ourselves a great disservice. So, I'm

106glad to see all of this and it I hope it remains top of mind for the district at all times in all the work that we're doing cuz it's just it's the reality of the world we're going to be living in. Yeah. With that in mind, I wouldn't Martin, would you mind just putting that that slide back up again with those staffing positions that were that we'll be adding the organizational updates? I think it's just good again for folks watching listening to our board meeting just to see these specific roles that we've just all talked about and how important these are for us moving forward. So those are my thoughts. Well, I was going to have you move back to the other one just to be difficult, but but to talk about the same thing

107because when you look at that list, that laundry list of things that we're working on, it's two pages long right on here because people will will complain about us spending administrative costs and it's like, well, I can't go and let teachers try to figure this out on their own what the technology is going to be for students. I mean teachers need to be able to spend their time actually teaching students and not determining all of this. There are reasons for administrative costs. There are reasons for having a chief information technology officer coming in that can work and figure out all of the pieces. Um how is it going to be what kind of tools are going to be necessary for students and for our staff uh for our teachers in the education of our students

108and then what pieces are going to be important for the managing of the district. uh when it comes this is just AI and when I think you know I'll go back to what director Gallinger was saying with the with the onetoone implementation um kind of my fear around all of that and our continued uses how are we how were we making those changes in the class classroom to actually utilize them and I remember long ago again my memory is now old uh because what my experiences my kids from is from a decade ago now practically um but he was given a laptop his freshman year and it was from ISF funding the start strong program and all the kids were going to get laptops. Well, access to technology wasn't his issue. Access to be able

109to utilize technology in the classroom in a meaningful way as part of the whole concept of the the teaching and learning. It was not integrated. So he could bring a laptop to class but it didn't make a difference because he didn't have it integrated as a tool in the classroom setting. So I still have questions around what how we've done that through the development uh you know as we work and tweak curriculum at the district level again administrative level trying to do this for all of our schools and then how we're helping teachers step up so that when students bring their laptop to school it's used in a meaningful way and not just put in their backpack that's set down by the side and then the person walking next to them kicks it because our

110classrooms are way overcrowded and there's no room for their backpack to have a laptop in it. I just integrated and then the laptop has to be replaced. So I think for me it's it's the integration. So I'm concerned about the integration of the onetoone and so as we move into AI and there listed on here are expenses and my final point before I get to our students who have already raised their hands. My final point for the public is that the state pays for zero for any technology. They're not paying for our technology uh staff that is doing that. They're not tech paying for the oneto one. They're not paying for the overhead projectors that we don't have because now we have smartboards. I mean I remember um right now that stuff gets funded. That's

111what the tech levy is for. And so um when I look at the things that we're looking at here AI plus if we want to maintain onetoone I think it will show up in what that tech levy looks like and want to prepare our our community now that that's because none of it is funded by the state. Not a dime. Okay Naomi you've been patient listening through all of this. Um, yeah, I don't want to circle around this topic too much, but it's been mentioned a few times and we do have teachers in the room and also on Zoom. Um, I want to go to you back to your point, Director Moraldo, about letting teachers teach um, and regarding technology and letting um, our technological staff figure what's best for what's in the classroom so

112our teachers can focus on their students. Um but given how much time and the impact AI and technology has already had in the classroom and across the country and just society in general. Um although I I know a lot of our staff and a lot of teachers around the country have already taken it into their own hands and gone above and beyond and gone their own undergone their own research and figured out what works best for their teaching style and their students and their classroom and their curriculum because every classroom is different. So I think um when we say let teachers teach I think that's very important and it's something that we need to let them do but we can also give our support by asking them what can help them. Exactly. And I do

113want to say that there are um teachers also on the uh technology advisory committee and that is important for them for us to have their voice in that committee. Chris he popped in he teleported. I've been here. Um uh so my question really focuses around the student AI toolkit. So there's been a lot of discussion about the teachers and you know helping them figure out the system. And so when I'm just thinking about uh new technology update, my mind immediately goes back to my uh freshman year during co or my sixth grade year sorry during COVID and learning how to use Canvas and the headaches both on my end and my parents end. So my question kind of goes re revolves around uh is there going to be any teaching for students like how are

114they going to learn to use this technology not only use it but use it meaningfully I'll start and we have our director of educational technology here to also jump in on that and absolutely um I I want to reinforce three things. It is it is a three-way partnership when it comes to things like AI. Um, absolutely we need to create the spaces and vet the tools and to make sure that they're safe and protecting protecting kind of the integrity of our programs. But we can't we can't make decisions without the input of our educators who can tell us whether the tool actually helps. And they you're absolutely right. they have often gone ahead and tested tools that we're still testing as well and can give that great valuable input. So that is that is absolutely

115critical. But also students are going to be that third partner because oftent times our students have been experimenting with AI even more than we have. And so there's going to be ways that as we roll this out having that student voice of what is what is becoming more intuitive to students, how do we help those who don't have that prior exposure get that so that they can they can have equal access. Um and then and then using our students to to help us understand kind of what they need to learn more. And so that is really a lot about the professional development we provide educators and prepare them to be able to teach the technology as embedded in the learning. So it's not a separate but it's a tool for learning. Um would you like

116to share a little bit about some ways that that looks now? Sure. Um well with the the list here of the pilots and you specifically talked about when students will be learning about technology or about AI. Um we have uh developed some lesson plans that our uh educational tech specialists have been doing uh mostly in middle schools um with students on um what AI is all about uh what to how to craft a prompt uh when they're um asking AI to do something and then uh how and when they should uh use AI especially as a student who's under 13. So, we talk about uh the terms and conditions and where they might find that information. Um the colleague AI that you see up there, we have a number of teachers that are piloting that

117um as a teacher tool. Uh this year we had just a couple um participate in the studentf facing um piece of colleague AI at I think it was just two of the high school teachers. Um it's the colleague AAI student is in their beta version. So that's what they've been testing and providing feedback on. Um we heard from colleague AI earlier this week that that uh studentf facing um piece for older students should be available in the fall. Um so as we have different uh curriculums come on board as we uh update scope and sequences um fitting that in uh to the appropriate uh curricula would would be um paramount. uh so working with our English teachers, working with our science teachers, where where do they go and access uh the colleague AI especially on

118the student side and then I have a quick follow-up question with the pilot specifically. So I'm just thinking through my current class and my current teachers right now and so uh a lot of my teachers, one of my teachers use one tool and the other teacher uses another tool and so on and so forth. Um, is this kind of, for a lack of a better words, like a starter pack or like just a foundation of AI tools or is this really like a end all be all? And what's kind of the nature of the pilots? Are they are they like things teachers have to use? Is it kind of like, oh, you can use them if you want to? Um, I I would like to get it into the you you need to do this

119piece that this this particular learning experience for your content and for your students um needs to happen. Uh part of our uh reasoning for going onetoone was to um get beyond the pockets of teachers that are using technology with their curriculum and make that technology available to remove the barrier of having to check out laptop carts and all of that so that teachers could more easily focus on the teachers teaching right and not having to wheel a laptop cart down. So we're hopeful um that uh teachers will see the value of this and that there will be an expectation um for students to have an experience using AI across many content areas. Thank you so much. Any other questions or comments? Hava? Um, I just wanted to say I really appreciate this presentation because I

120think it is very clear and understandable about what the district has done um to understand the like current situation of um technology and the way it's being utilized and um how effective it is in our district and some really clear deliverables that um we can look forward to and seeing exactly what areas the district intends to um implement AI tools and how it can um impact and improve staff and student experience. I just really appreciated that. And I also wanted to say I really appreciated um it helps to know from our last conversation in a board meeting about laptops to know the worth of the laptops to have some gratitude for the amount of thought that goes into the technology and like um director Moraldo was saying the um the funding that is put into

121our hands as students to uh just appreciate the gift that that is in our education and to um look forward to new tools being implemented in our classrooms. Right. Director Mullings. So, I'm going to be slightly off topic, so it's not particular, but one of the things I did wonder as I was reading this presentation is do we have a place where we're listing all of the various committees people can and are participating in in the district? I think that would be incredibly helpful because we have so many opportunities for engagement. Um yet we still get feedback, no one listens. So I would love to just get them all in one place because there's a lot uh funny you should ask that question because uh I was just having that conversation uh and uh with

122another team member. So we are actually going to actually do that is show all the different places and spaces where people can be engaged and where they can also raise their hand with some timelines on when they run. They might not run every time, right? But they're at least listed to say this might happen on every four-year cycle or or so forth. So or they're running all year round um because that's where it's important to do. So uh that is forthcoming and I'm glad that you asked that question. Yeah, because we've asked it before and there is that whole tab on our website that says get involved. It's um it's it's about also how the presentation of it looks and how it's accessible to others. So, uh fair point. Well taken. Thank you. just gonna

123say I know and I just actually went to the get get involved um tab here which it's out here but yeah I I think stressing too again PTSA schools foundation voice mentor I think any way to get people because there is an opportunity for everyone we think about you know all of these ways to slot in we think about the you know capital projects um committee as well um and we have people with different levels of expertise and experience and engagement um and so many great ways. So, great idea. Have that have these on there, too. Okay. Okay. Well, with that, thank you so much for this presentation. There's been a lot of great information and it really is something that uh the board is needing to consider is um where are we at with

124our technology because it is ever moving. Uh so speaking of technology, there's little pieces of technology we all seem to be really tied to called our cell phones. So next on our list is a discussion around our use of cell phones or student use of cell phones, I should say. Yes. So Dr. Dr. Dana Bailey will be coming to share uh about how the implementation of the level and then school-based you know development of cell phone policies has gone and some other topics related to this is you know this is news everywhere people are considering all different things and uh we want to make sure that we were honoring our commitment to bring this topic back up at this moment in time and I'll pass it over to you Dr. Bailey. Thank you very much.

125So for this pilot year um the first step was to have a consistent message and in all the student handbooks there's common language about cell phone use expected cell phone use including smart devices including the headphones that are Bluetooth at the high school. This is captured as oft and away during instructional time which would include if you were in the hallway during class time but then that would mean that before and after school during passing time and at lunchtime cell phone use would be acceptable. Gibson is moving towards this policy and elementary has an off and away for the day. Um for some schools this was a big change and for other schools this was not so much of a change and in all honesty this has been somewhat quiet with little or nothing that

126has risen to the level of executive director Cox or myself. Um but we have seen a spike in technology violations which show up in our Swiss data as minors. So there is a spike as we would have expected when we implemented a new rule. Um, I did a little followup in the healthy use survey just to put on your minds that our students report a higher than state average excessive screen time in the healthy use survey. And I looked it up to make sure I understood it well. And excessive screen use does not include school work or school time. So, it's screen time for fun. About 50% of our students are at 3 hours or more per day. An element to consider in the future engagement with the community could include a an engagement around

127community expectations that we build together about prioritizing in-person communication, community commitments to screenfree time and adult modeling of cell phone use and other devices while youth are present. Um, next steps for our district leaders include determining where where the cell phone policy should reside as a regulation or policy. And there are pros or cons pros and cons to embedding it into the acceptable use policy which students and parents see every year as part of the EVP or in a regulation and policy similar to the WASDA model policy. We're super interested to hear how the students have experienced if they have experienced a change in this pilot year. Okay. So I'll open it up to students first Naomi. Um, I know I gave a techno tech technology report at the beginning of this school year and

128during that presentation I I think I explicitly said um that students were unhappy with the new ban on cell phones in classrooms. Um, a lot of students were complaining um and saying that they needed it to do to turn in school work and uh do research and for some of the class time for some of the classes like ASB um and photography. I think it was also yearbook um said that they needed cell phones for some of the work that they do and it makes it a lot easier to do their work. Um, I want to go back and say like over the over this past year though, I've seen all of these un these disappointments and like unhappiness kind of die down. Uh, this uh new policy has kind of uh become I guess

129the standard now. It's more recognizable that uh cell phones are uh not uh are not meant for the classroom during class time. Um, and we've I think over my classrooms that's become more uniform. Uh, there are like still different rules for cell phones in different classrooms. Some of my teachers require us to put it in like a cubby um to keep it away uh during class so we have it off our person. Uh some of my teachers just just request that we put it in our bags or just keep it out of sight. Um and I will say that I think that's helped with keeping students engaged. Um, I still think that cell phones are still something that we need to learn to use more productively in school because they're not going away anytime soon.

130Uh, but in terms of engagement in classes, I think that having cell phones away has helped. Kish, uh, very similar to what Naomi said, at the beginning of the year is definitely very shaky. Uh, there's a lot of, um, sort of discontent a little bit with the policy. Uh but I'm just reflecting back on my freshman year and uh there were a there were a couple more phones out then uh than now. I just feel like it's that like kind of fear aspect which is why a lot of students you know comply put in their backpack and put it away. Uh one of the biggest things though I've heard this year is like uh students asking uh why is it just us that have to put our phones away? Why is it not a buildingwide

131policy uh instead of just a policy on students? So why does this apply to teachers and so on so forth and so I think that's just something to consider and I've heard it a lot. Um but definitely as second semester rolled around it kind of became like second nature. Uh and so more people are saying get used to Greg Nilla. Um, so for my school at least, I've barely noticed a difference personally. And um, for my peers, I feel like most of them didn't even know or noticed. Um, as far as classes go, most classes tend to set their own expectations on how strict they are with phones and like behavior with that as like Naomi was saying with cubbies or just like out of sight or after instruction it's okay to see them kind

132of things like that. Um, but yeah, that's my experience. Okay, any questions or comments from the board? I would just say I I thought that we left it that by May we were hoping to hear a coherent district policy or plan. not uh everyone as a building level figure it out yourselves because I think what we heard at least what I heard from our teaching staff was it's exhausting to have to decide how you're going to enforce it when there's not a unified plan and then it's like oh well here you're doing that and then you're pitting teachers against each other within a building potentially or you're pitting pitting buildings against each other and then you're feeder patterns like for all these ones in transition like well why I got to have my phone here

133why do I not have it here so I was really hoping and expecting by May of 25 because that we wanted to end this year and walk into next school year with whatever whatever we needed to explain to everyone because you you even heard from our students there's wide variability I know Skyline has no policy well it's not no policy it's classroom driven policy uh that students could expect similar experience across our buildings, across the district. So, uh I would just say that I'm that's not what I'm hearing and I think the window to do that now is closed for yet another year. And [Music] uh I wish we were hearing something different because I think that we've been given pretty clear feedback about how important that is. I'd like to respond if that's all

134right. I think if I wasn't quite clear, the policy is off and away during instructional time. And what I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, for the student experience is a difference in the definition of off. So, some teachers I think have the cubbies that were originally designed maybe for calculators. Some is backpacks and out of way. Um, and so that I I believe what I am communicating is that is the policy. We were intending to spend the springtime figuring out where we're going to write it down in a thing place that students and parents can see it very readily. But that is the uniform policy. off and away during instructional time for secondary schools and off and away for the day at elementary Chris uh I would like to just add on something

135I said earlier I kind of feel like districtwide the expectation is pretty clear that it's often way but I do think that each building kind of having its um its own sort of like adaptation of that is kind of helpful because of classes like Naomi brought up, right? Like that individual building administrator and be like, "Oh, this is a core component of yearbook." Um, and so there's this exception. I know one of my history teachers prefers that we put it up in front of them so that they can see them while other teachers want them away. I feel like the expectation is really clear, but giving the teacher the option to the side uh like how they enforce or implement that policy is a good thing as well. That's something that's I feel like that's

136worked a lot this year. Director Mullings. Uh so I I think my my observation is I I get that we've set a policy where I tend to struggle is like where am I in the change curve of any of these updates? I think it's normal and natural to I I implement a change. Some will adopt, some won't. That's fairly natural. There's some level of review of that adoption and then maybe it's additional training or or accountability steps. I think this is maybe just an example of are are we operating in a planned change approach and so this is a check-in and we should expect that something else happens like not once we hear the variability that something else happens or are we not operating with in a structured with a structured change approach and then

137that's the case then I think it it just speaks to the fact that I think we need to get one. So, if we are going to have a policy, we should have a way to check if they're working and we should have a way to adjust after. But I guess as I sit here, it's unclear to me um whether these examples of variability are are um on purpose or by ignoring. And so I I I keep coming back to that same point like the goal is to have consistent experiences. So how how do we do that and how do we put in place a way that we can validate it and adjust if we don't this topic other topics hava um I think something that is also important is that in um Naomi's report part

138of the focus was like why are we trying to have less cell phone use it's because of student well-being and um I don't know how you would do that in a way where students wouldn't feel like oh it's just like the SEAL lessons like oh it's just another yeah they're bad for my health I know um and uh I don't know how you would do that but I think it's important and you can't force students to understand something or to make it feel meaningful to them but sorry excuse me I think that it is important to communicate not just this is our cell phone policy often away, like do it. But also like this is for a reason. This isn't just cuz we find it annoying. This isn't just because you're distracted. This is actually

139about student well-being. And that is the focus um and purpose so that like not only can you learn, but you can have healthy practices as you're going forward because that's that's part of our goals and results that we're hoping for for our students that they have healthy relationships with the technologies that they're growing up with. Director, if I can go back to uh Director Mulling's point around the change curve and kind of operating in a plan change approach. I guess a question I have. So, if the thought is that we're off and away during class time at the secondary level, it sounds to me based on what I'm hearing from the student trustees and just what I know from my own students um at Skyline, I'm not sure anything has been implemented this year and

140from what Nilla said too, it doesn't sound like it has either. Is that anticipated to be next year? because I'm hearing like at Isiqua High and Liberty, it sounds like there's a greater sense of what this looks like and I think also Gibson E. But like if I were to go home and tell my students this, they'd be like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I think when we looked at that earlier this year, if I remember the two schools that didn't h have because each school had a relatively set plan, I think it was Skyline and actually Pine Lake Middle School, if I remember correctly, that did not. They had plans but I think it was based on kind of teacher preference um with that. So what does that look like?

141Is the anticipation then like particularly at all high schools will we next year be off and away during class or is that because I don't or is it is the assumption like at Skyland that it's already been implemented or I guess what does that look like? Well, I'm not in the habit of making assumptions and I can tell you that the state of policy is often away during instructional time, which was a compromise with uh the the young people about not locking them up in pouches and with the parent community of having students have access to their communication devices if there were an emergency. and the landing on instructional time like super clear on instructional time including the hall when you're supposed to be in class maybe have permission to be out in class. So

142that is what I believe the expectation is and I take your feedback about um perhaps inconsistent implementation. I can tell you what to expect out of us the leaders from before the end of the year was to land on where the policy might be visible to parents and students and I'll reveal my thinking our thinking in the EVP in the acceptable use policy that is something that students and parents are supposed to read and they sign every year. So that would be a time to put it in front of people all the time. a policy like the WASDA policy which would be in the 3000s might not be something that anybody ever goes to look for until they're unhappy with something. So that's the pros and cons we're wrestling with right now to see where

143it best fits about the expectation to put it into policy. The elementary policy of a way for the day we believe is developmentally appropriate. Okay, that makes sense. And and I yeah I think going back and just clarifying I think at all the high schools because I I'm hearing it from our students today. I mean it's varied like with Naomi saying you know there was some rumbling about at the beginning that are so high and I'm thinking we have some schools that weren't even addressing that I would say. So I think having that consistency because I think this you know away and off and away for the day makes sense and it sounds like that is the policy. I think we just have to make sure that that's consistent across all of our secondary schools.

144Director Taylor, I just want to ask a clarifying question. So, it's often a way the baseline meaning, can schools, individual classes, teachers be more restrictive with the policy? I don't actually know, but I'll have to get back to you on that. I know what I uh found in the student handbooks and exactly it says off and away during instructional time. Thank you. Superintendent. So in in my mind, I think the change curve has been this year to see some of the more um clearer expectations for use of cell phones during the instructional time, especially at the secondary level. I think that was the biggest part of where we are change curve wise. That was that was a big change for many students and that was evidence in how students experience that um in the beginning

145of the year as well. I guess what we're I feel like we're normalizing a bit in terms of you know where we are. Uh, and this might just be a simp a matter of some communication components which I'm hearing some very helpful feedback on. But even when I consider, you know, Spokane had an article about them written about how they're away for the instructional day, but they don't use pouches. They just have the expectations that are being then um how that happens in a classroom uh can look very different. uh whether it's pockets and where you know you um you store them in a a locker or a little location or they're in buckets. There's different ways and mechanisms for doing that. Um I mean I'm happy to make sure that every single teacher has

146the same method, but I also feel like it has to work for the teacher as well and that in that um and that how that happens. So part of it's also we're already doing that work with having it away for the day. And so we partial part of this also might just be a communication piece. So, in my mind, we're kind of past the big hump of where it might be experienced, but I I think that sounds like we can maybe bring this back for some further discussion cuz I don't um hear full resolution on this. And I I maybe have to consult and bring this back to the board for some clarity clarity. One one data point we could uh consider is the number of technology infractions that are minors this year versus where

147that might go in the future. So, it's a spike. It's it's a lot. There's I think at Isco High School 900 cell phone um infractions for this year and if next year is less that means the implementation is taking the effect that we we want it to be but that is a data point that I hadn't considered bringing forward. Yes, director will what's the number at Skyline? I don't actually know. I was just shocked at the 900, but I do have that. I'm actually not shocked at the 900 and my my hypothesis it'll be zero at Skyline because we haven't implemented anything and that's my concern. So, it's I have a kid there. I don't I I think we've made a bigger deal of telling kids to put their phone away than it actually costs.

148Yes, they rumble in the beginning, but everybody adjusts. What I want to make sure is we actually have implemented a policy at all the schools. And right now it sounds like we have not done that at Skyline. 900 Isquahai actually does isn't surprising to me. I want to know it's the number at Skyline. I would like to know. Okay. And I'm on the website and I don't I'm on the Pine Lake student handbook and there's not a word. Yeah, I'll find that and forward that to you directly. Okay. Any other questions or comments? I think one of the things I um like Hava was talking about what is the purpose of this and I think um I'd love some com more communication once we get where the policy is going to live because if it

149doesn't live in the two areas that that you talked about then it lives with us as board members. So the policy can be put somewhere. Um, but I think communicating the why is very very important and it goes, you know, to what Hava is talking about student well-being, but also what our teachers talk about is I'm tired of teaching to the tops of heads and that's true. I mean, you know, for student achievement, for student um success, they have to be more attentive and um I think cell phones were taking away from that. So, um, and I think being really clear that we do have two separate policies, one for the elementary, one for secondary, and that secondary, they're still going to have it at lunchtime. So, it's instructional time and not put away all

150day because that's just at elementary. Correct. Yep. And we would welcome the feedback uh from the school board and other vested partners about those two options. A WASDA policy that goes in the 3000s or the EVP um that under the acceptable use policy where parents and students would see that every year or maybe it's actually both. But both are policies and we're happy to respond. Great. Thank you. Okay, with that we are on to our next item on the agenda which is the monitoring report our four advanced notice. So I'll start us with a motion presentation from the district any public comments and then board discussion. I move the board accept the monitoring report results for life management and personal awareness as presented. Second. Okay, superintendent. Great. I'd like to make sure that uh Dr.

151Bailey is able to step back uh to the podium um as well as joined by Rich Malish here for results four. Um this is the third of our results that we'll be reviewing through the end of this year and want to make sure that we have um a robust conversation. um has spent some time debriefing a bit of the conversation from last year and also incorporating that into um in this report. So I will turn it over um here to Dr. Bailey. Thank you very much. Um thank you again for the opportunity to present results for to the board and the public on the topic of life management and personal awareness. This report centers firmly on how our students are moving forward in learning to make choices that support healthy lifestyles and aligning their choices

152to their future plans. Student achievement in coursework that connects to wellness is presented with similarly strong achievement to last year for both health and physical education. Achievement in coursework that supports student finding and pursuing passions. students finding and pursuing passions is presented in the form of data that shows how often students in our high schools go beyond the minimum requirements in core content such as English and math and also those specialized courses and programs such as engineering, information technology, and manufacturing as some examples. We'd like to highlight in this report the development and implementation of the comprehensive school counseling program led by Elena Sevidasan, executive director of equity, belonging, and family partnerships, Noah Westerberg, director of counseling and student well-being, and Melody Melanie Banano, coordinator in the counseling and student well-being department in concert with

153a larger team of counselors and school administrators. This intentional work reflects the district's commitment to ensure that all students have access to equitable data informed and developmentally appropriate supports. Student surveys, be it in the technology survey, the district annual surveys, or the student representative surveys, allows adults to see how students experience the programs we think are in place. In thinking about grit and perseverance, the devel and the importance of growing these skills, students generally report being able to push through when stuck or when they experience setbacks. One way we consider how well students respond to struggle is how quickly and how successfully high school students engage in credit recovery. We see strong evidence of students taking the opportunity for credit recovery both during the school year and during summer session. This is an opportunity for

154students to get back on track to graduation and start the next year ready to go. Data from the National Student Clearing House on the percentage of students who immediately enter two and four-year colleges, how many of those students return for a second year and how many of those students persevere to a bachelor's degree shows Isiqua students are achievers in this area, show grit in going back for the second year and persevere to college graduation at higher than average numbers. Whenever a student's or whatever a student's post-secondary growth postsecary goals are setting goals and working to those goals and amending those goals is a life skill. This is a skill that's worked on through the career and future ready work through the strategic plan and the newly piloted teacher-led lessons. I would be remiss if I

155didn't highlight something about personal finance because being ready to manage your own finances is adultting at its finest. We know the school board has a strong interest in this topic and so do we. One bright spot to highlight is the evolution of the personal finance class to be two separate semesters each with different content which is an effort to create more opportunity. Perhaps next year's class might be interested in one semester one or the other semesters if two semesters didn't fit into their schedule. We are here and happy to answer your questions. Okay. Um, next we'll go to any public comment. Is there Well, the room cleared out. Um, none on none on video. Okay. So, I'll open it up to the board for any questions or comments. Director Coin, I had a few quick

156questions and maybe I'll start with uh Dr. Dr. Bailey, your point on on 4.9 on um uh financial literacy and thank you uh for noting that. I I I know as a board and myself, you know, specifically have talked about the importance of that, being a finance professional, wanting to make sure that our that our students are graduating with that skill set is really important. So, I'm glad the district is continuing to zero in on that. Um I'll start then with 4.1. Um, I know we talked about this before, um, when looking at at results for, but I I want to continue to make sure or test into that, you know, fitness is made to be positive. I know back in the day when I was in school, particularly middle school PE was it was

157not made to be fun. Um, and I was looking at at the and it's not a huge decrease, but the the decrease in a B minus or better from middle school to high school, there's a slight decline. you're seeing grades go down. Is that attributed to anything specific, would you say? I mean, it's it's not hugely significant, but I did see that that that change where we've got almost nearly 100% of our kids of our students getting a B minus or better and then that that shifts in high school. Do you have any idea why that? Um, I could posit a suggestion about middle schoolers being active, but I'd have to look into that and bring it back to you. Okay. Yeah. I'm just curious. I just again kind of this going down that route

158of hey is it are we making fitness fun and positive. So I I don't know if there was anything from that data. I was just kind of curious. My next uh question then is on 4.4. Um students will identify, understand, develop their personal um strengths and interests both inside and outside the classroom. I don't know if I missed this or not, but it goes back to our um high school um student focus group conversations that the board had recently, but this connection to outside activities, so school sports, clubs, do we have any way of tracking that percentage of students that are involved in some form or fashion of anything extracurricular? It is in final sight to track cut sports and not cut sports or open sports. In the tracking of students participating activities, it would

159be very difficult to track per pupil. It would be everybody who's involved in each of the 187 clubs. So you'd have cross counting, I guess. Yeah. But that would be um an ownorous task to present. But there are hundreds of clubs across middle school and high school. Okay. Well, and and I get that from a data standpoint and I know the importance of our high schools. I know we we promote that too for kids to be involved in that way. I just I wonder how many kids aren't taking advantage of that. And maybe it's from a data standpoint impossible to figure that out. But I'm wondering I mean I even if there's crossover you have students doing multiple things which is likely the case you'd maybe just count them once as being involved. I guess

160I'm just curious. I'd want to pull out what's that percentage of not involved in anything. I have a suggestion and it might not be exactly what you want would but would be something we already have. So on the senior exit survey there's a question that says I have had enough I have had enough access to clubs and activities that I wanted. So it wouldn't be necessarily a one a big it's it's already available but that tells us how many students uh said I had enough access to clubs that I wanted. that that would be great to see. Yeah, that would be great. And that that may answer that that question just this this sense of feeling that level of connection um to um and then I guess the the question to around um giving enough

161room in the schedule um uh for students to get the classes that they're looking for. Again, looking at uh 4.4. Um I don't know if we have any metrics that help with to show that or not. Yeah, the question before the question I just mentioned in the exit survey says I have had access I have had the availability availability to take the courses I wanted to and like it says in general I am satisfied with the availability of courses I want to take in high school. Both of those are in the senior exit survey so data easily um readily available to bring back to you. Okay, perfect. All right, great. I'll leave it at that then. Thank you. Gave it to us tonight actually. It's right here. So Oh, that's on the earlier. Oh, it's

162taking notes on it. It's right there in your hands. Thank you. I planned that all along. I do want to go back though to the point that Dr. Point was making first to the bottom of page two. So, I I'm concerning continue to be concerned about this because I'm not seeing iterative change or improvement. And so, from both an academic officer and teaching and learning, I would hope we would see change. And the needle is not moving. So if the district has set the standard is B minus is proficiency or whatever word we want to use today and below that is not and we know how important getting all your credits are in your freshman year. And then we also know that underassmen are generally the ones that are taking PE more so than our

163seniors and juniors. This is the disproportionate data for our nerclassmen that are not being successful. So that's why this data is super important to me. And if we were seeing change where gosh, three years ago it was 85% and now it's 90%. I could live with 10% being not proficient if I saw a change in progress. So I'm a little concerned. No, I'm a lot concerned that we're not making progress. So, I would love to know by building level, sorry, by buildings because this is all consolidated data. Like, is it 85% at every one of our buildings or is there distinct differences between buildings? Because historically there has been. And so I would like to see that sent to our emails because again we have lots of barriers to student success. This should not be

164one of them. Would you all select that by grade? I don't think so. Okay. Thank you. So, I think from what I'm hearing, I I don't know who has the nice little chart uh to make sure that that's included in future reports. Yeah. So, that when the when that data comes to us that it's broken up by school and that's the fizzad. Great. Any other comments? Director Taylor, I have questions. So, I I would just uh love input on on page let's see here. Where do I want to start? Page 12. Back to Director Coin's point. And this is just a little bit different. Um, it jumped out to me that the percentages are falling in in the senior school exit survey when asked the question ability to access sports clubs and other programs that

165we're seeing less participation or a feeling of not being able to participate, I guess I should say. Do we have an explanation for that? And I'm curious if that Well, I'm going to let you answer that first before I make an assumption. Um, drawing to your attention that last year, uh, we had a poor response rate. So, only 300 and Oh, well, you can see the response rates by school. It was definitely less. Skyline was still high, but the other schools were less. And also remember that last year we instituted the neutral response. So the previous years could have had neutral in the positive because they they could they we added a neutral response. We changed the metric. Um and the response rates were were low. So it would be hard to interpret that. I

166would be remiss in trying to make a judgment about why that would be. Your assumption is it's a data anomaly, so to speak. I think I will be interested in what next year's what this year's class says when they take it in a few weeks and see, you know, three points makes a line. Yeah. Okay. Um page 14, high school and beyond plan. Um there's a recognition, right, that it's not being meaningful. It's not meaningful in engaging our our students in career planning. Um and I know we've had this discussion in the past. I realize I want to have a better understanding of the strategic plan. There is work I know going on to try to make career planning more meaningful. My question is is that work dependent on trying to make a high school

167and beyond plan program meaningful or should we be asking our question if that's the right tool at all? I know it's a state requirement, but at some point I'm just wondering if this is a square peg in a round hole. Yes, vice versa. Round. Yeah, you get it. So, you understand what I'm asking? I'm just wondering if at some point we have to recognize that high school and beyond plan just isn't it and we should look for some other tooling of some sort. You understand what I'm trying to get at? I just I would like to have some discussion. Let me take a stab at it. So one the high school and beyond plan is required and we will be doing it right in its iterations of at the state level but we also can

168strive to implement something that is more responsive to students and also meets the overall goal which is as we talked about in the work study students are planning for their future and taking the courses that get them there that hold the doors open to plan for their future. And so the um the two parts of the strategy that I think are underway and I'm I'm quite proud is moving the high school and beyond planning lessons for middle schoolers into middle school with teacherled lessons. We didn't do that before. We had a strategic plan. It was always on the wish list and never on the action. And also this year they piloted and got feedback from students on teacher-led high school and beyond planning, career planning, future ready planning, course selection planning that we now have

169great feedback on to iterate and do um a better example of next year. So, we won't not be doing the high school beyond planning tool, but we will do our very best to make it current and relevant and important to students to meet that overall goal, which is setting goals and iterating them through your growing up years to make sure that whatever you're currently planning, you are taking the courses that get you to that stated after after graduation goal. Okay. Yeah. I just I think that's it's just absolutely critical that we've got to find a way for kids to identify their aptitudes and their interests as early as we possibly can so they can tailor their education, you know, accordingly. So, I was curious about that. Um, let's see, hold on, there's more. Oh, point

170of clarification on page 20 again in the survey data. Um, we have all this data here about increasing achievement and then I see the percentages where we start talking about the percentage of students who scored below one year and then they get they increase their scores the next the next attempt. My question is are these numbers good or bad that 59% 60% I I don't have a point of reference on that that is really you know this type of analysis we cannot do with comparison districts or state data because it's looking at individual students and their improvement and that's not something that we have access to. So I actually have some of the questions of when I see some differences yeartoear, how much of that is due to the variation in the actual testing and

171and cut scores of the testing and how much of that is a difference in the cohort itself is is really hard for us to speak to exactly and I and I I so wish that I could have comparison data on this data point with other districts because that is an excellent question that I I cannot answer directly. Okay. Okay. Then my last question, which I think I already know the answer to, but I'm going to ask it anyway, which is page 22. Again, exit survey. The question about I felt safe in high school, and I just noticed that the numbers here again fell precipitously. I take it you're going to tell me less survey respondents is the reasoning, or is there some rationale for why kids are potentially feeling less safe in their schools? um

172this data point in this format is missing the neutral and a probably a stronger or a corlary would be to look at the healthy youth survey data over the same question. So we're trying to replicate the questions from the health youth survey but that we want to know every single year because the healthy youth is every other. So I do not recall that this number if you added the neutral option back in was much different than the healthy youth survey data from the year before. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Director Molink, please. So, I just want to go back to the question before last from Director Taylor and the point on resilience, which of course I just scrolled away from. Um cuz I know this is one that was on my mind quite a

173bit the last time we we monitored this point and you know it's a very interesting oh 4.6 so it's a very interesting point right that we're making in 4.6 It's that students will be resilient, take informed risks, deal constructively with failure, and flexible and adaptive to change. And I I um I know that we don't know yet if these grow scores in the second attempt are good or bad. I think it's probably going to have to be a little bit more runway to know that. But I think what they're doing is getting a little bit better to the point that 4.6 six is making which is you know do we have any data points that say that our students are trying again like that there's not a defeatism in the in the process so I

174was looking at the same numbers like was that good like how what do I think how do I feel about those numbers and I guess for me where I'm landing is I don't right now at least for me that's not the point I think it'll probably take a longer data set to figure it out how we feel about it like if we see it drop off or or do something else interesting. But I at least do appreciate that it helps it helps bring in some of the items like the credit recovery and grade improvement like how many are not feeling defeated by a previous challenge. And so I think put together with the credit recovery grade improvement below, I think we're at least getting closer to that answer. I worry very much in in our

175highly competitive environment in our some of our grading practices that we create an environment where kids feel hopeless and therefore that bit about I'll stick it out the next time um gets washed away. So I just would say like it's better right it's better at getting to that question. I don't know ultimately how you measure the resilience, but I think these couple of data points are more are more helpful because that's something I I deeply worry about is in our highly competitive, our highly academic environment, we forget about our goal being hope that kids can do better the next time. Thank you. Any other feel free director Gallinger I will get first so I'll let What was that Naomi has Okay. Okay. Well, Milo did. Okay. Sure. Um, I'm just like I'm like deeply deeply

176concerned about our answer on page three to in the 2023 healthy youth survey. Um, that 50% of our eighth graders and like 78% of our 10th graders and like 86% of our 12th graders did not get more than eight hours of sleep. I know that's become the norm, but I I really don't think it should be. It It's down a little on the survey. Um, and I mean, from all the things that we've learned through I mean, science and everything in the last few years that like getting less than 8 hours of sleep is you really can't function on it, especially not growing children. Um, I mean it it causes all kinds of things like difficulty with all the tasks and social difficulties, mood changes, reducing your brain function. Um, but also can cause like

177really impactful long-term effects. And so I I would like to see previous years too along with this to see if we're going down or up in those percentages. Um, but also just wanting to know what what we're doing about that to to change those percentages because they they really do need to be changed. And I feel like the the points in my life where I've been getting the least amount of sleep were the most stressful, the most academically draining, the most like depression fueling times of my life. And I know that's similar for a lot of students. And then the same with the eating like eating breakfast yesterday or like this morning is is just an insane number of students. Um cuz if you think about how many students like we have um 67% eating

178means that like 23% are not or 33 I don't know. Um but gosh I'm I'm also functioning on low amount of sleep. Um, and I I would just want to know if the amount of sleep that they're getting is also linked to the periods of like if there's testing coming up or how many classes they're in that have like high workload or AP or IB um because those are big concerns. I know we we strive for um our students being high achieving in this district, but I also think that we should strive for them being physically and mentally healthy. And I think that might even be more important than their academic outcome. So, we are teed up to do the healthiest survey again in October and we usually get the results by the end of

179February of next school year. Okay. Director Gallinger, I think I'll just start at the bottom and work my way up. So, I'll go back to page 26. And uh I think that when we see that for the post-graduate survey that 43% of our graduates feel prepared and working numerical problem with finances that it's our job as a board to take action on this. And I think we've been talking about this enough times about the need for a personal finance class. The whole point of why we're doing all this is for our students. Their students are saying, and this isn't new, like for a decade I've been on here, I've seen where students have said they don't feel very ready for that finance piece. No, now more than ever seems important. So I would love for

180that to be captured on the notes of and I want to bring it up as a agenda like future agenda topics tonight of I I just think we need to move from talking about it admiring the problem to actually coming up with an implementation plan and I don't know again that's the dance that we will do as in our role because we prefer not to have to outline it policy a specific item but feel like we're not being heard from an administrative level of saying like we want to see an on-ramp of when this is going to happen, not as an option. Because if you look at it by student, by schools, you'll see there's an inherent inequity about the true access. And I love that everyone who wants to take it can take it,

181but I think it has to go a little bit deeper, more curious about why there's such a gap. I would also say for that table where it says other business said and when the number there exceeds all the other rows combined that's not helpful to me as a policy maker like what does other business side mean. So that means if there's 536 kids at Skyline that are in business classes and I would love to see like a little bit more breakdown like is it marketing? Is it like I I don't know what it is, but I know that when that number exceeds all the others combined, that that becomes the relevant table for me. Thank you for that note. I am wondering if because only 108 students took the post-graduate survey and those results are

182always low and we don't really have any authority if it would be acceptable to put this question in a similar format to the senior exit survey which we generally do get a lot more about their graduation moment not a year after their graduation I think we would get stronger student response and if the if that is an acceptable solution. We can work on that right away. Yeah. As long as it's changed, the tens has changed as you get ready to embark on your next step of life. How prepared do you feel to navigate your personal to manage your personal finances? That'd be perfectly fine for me. I don't I'm not speaking for the board, but I I would say I would, you know, when I look at do you feel how prepared do you feel

183in working numerical problems? I try to think like a you know some students may stop there and go oh unprepared rather than understanding our real question is around finances those are way too different things so it might be in with our senior exit interview or survey we get to control the questions much more so that we're interested in what the outcome is and I'm I think this ends up being is that a math question I don't know what that question is really asking and what students might interpret that to mean. But if I ask them how prepared are you for doing your own finances, I think is is much more clear and that's what we're interested in knowing. I think chat GPT and I will take a stab at writing an exit senior exit survey

184question. Upon graduation, how prepared do you feel? Whatever chat GPT advises me. Director Dinger, can I just add one? I know you're I I would just want to tack on to this point and what director Moraldo said too, but I think yes, very specific, not even just personal finance. I think very specific items that would fall under that so students know specifically what we're talking about. And I think one thing that I would like to test into this section too is I think there's this sense of, hey, if I'm taking advanced math, I'm not going to take the personal finance course. Um, and we have to think about that more as a district because they're they're different. someone's taking advanced math, they still need to be taking personal finance. And I think we think of

185in our district, personal finance is maybe an option for a lower level math course. Um, so I would just throw that out there. Um, as a thought, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I agree. It needs to be as essential as our CTE and every other part of it. That's part of the whole child part that we want. Uh, so on page 24, can you bring clarity to the the table data? uh is that where they could select numerous options and then of the numerous options 42% or sorry 34% selected resume and senior interview activities meaning that the the the numbers don't add up to 100%. Right. I'm glad you asked that. The whole pro postgraduate survey is in um is posted on the district website, but they have about 10 options there to um to choose

186from. And I bring this forward to show what part of the high school and beyond planning worked for them. And so these these two have been in the top two for the past two years. So be when we start asking that question. So I guess I would like to know what's the district response when it's dropped down to only one in three students feel like that is value activity. So uh is there an adjustment to change it? Is there because if twothirds of your population feel it's not valuable then that's still important instructional time that is being spent on this. So either one how do we make it feel more valuable or two, how do we who's responsible for getting responses for these types of things when it's only 95 people responding out of our

187you know Yeah. of 1,200 seniors has to have who in the organization is responsible to make sure that this is actually completed. Sure. So in this senior exit survey, it asks the students basically give us if you're willing, give us your personal email account so we can send you this survey. But we don't really have any authority after they leave the school to make them do anything. Um I think this strategy in priority two about uh making the high school and beyond plan activities not just check boxes but make the activities relevant and important to students. I think that this is also shown in the senior exit surveys when people go interview students. Although that would be very hard to get adults perspectives of what the students said, but that is a question they ask

188like what really worked for you? And the reason this is asked a year later is because I don't know that seniors know what they don't know until they go out into that first year after high school. But if there's a better way to ask that question, happy to model on that. We we don't have any authority to make the post exit survey any more than it is. And the entire strategy, not the entire strategy, a big part of the strategy in priority 2 is about making the high school and beyond plan exercises not check boxes, but more relevant to what the students are are needing to know and learn. Thank you. I do think also on this is the question is uh which exercise did you find most valuable? So is that a single answer

189that they give and so then you really can't measure the they rank them one two three. So there's like so it might be that oh some other things in the high school beyond plan are now better than they used to be. So it's without having the full list it's a little unclear um the information that this is providing it. This does raise a question for me around the post-graduate I mean the post-graduate surveys are something you're raising a question on which is how do we make ourselves accountable to gathering as much data about how the experiences of our graduates after they leave our system which is beneficial but these are just such low numbers and it would take a a really big significant shift to have the level of accountability where we were really and

190the culture to get students to fill it or alumni of our system to fill this out. Um, so the question I guess I have is is this data even in this form somewhat helpful with, you know, even with modifications to try and get at the questions that we're wondering about. Is it is it helpful? I mean, this is one of those legacy things that have always been in place. And so I always want to take the moment to ask the question of the board. You're asking questions because we're presenting it to you information-wise, but maybe it's not yielding the kind of input that you were hoping for as well. But I think I'd reflect that back to you as a superintendent. is a post-graduate survey like not just in isolation but in totality it does

191it bring value because I don't know I know when I see 95 that doesn't give me a like warm fuzzy as far as feel comfortable like taking action correct yeah so I or making meaning based on less than 10% of our graduates correct so I I find this data not helpful but part of there there's a legacy question I also don't have the full history on as to why this was you know developed within the context of monitoring reports. So maybe well President Raldo can help you. Well, I think because we used to have higher rates of responses and I think the district was looking for what can I give you. Um I think do I find it meaningful while the current data in its current form with its current values of people answering is

192no longer helpful. But um there is a nearby school district who the last time the healthy youth survey happened only had 39% of their seniors take it. So then the the so then they can't report on it. So their answer to that was in 2023 to not offer it at all to their seniors. Well, that doesn't get you any better data. So for me it's not so much I think it would be meaningful that after students have been away for a year and can reflect back I think their answers are very meaningful to how did we do what might might we need to do different because we think we're doing okay but as long as we're not getting answers it then becomes well it's not valuable. So my question would be is there a way

193that we can look at doing that differently? is that having another outside or I think you know having an outside organization that's helping us to ensure that students are taking it. Um whatever that might be having somebody sponsor the survey so that students can get a a $5 gift card for responding something that can initiate improving the number of respondents rather than dumping the whole thing. and then we do have meaningful data that can be reflected on. And I see Naomi's hand. Um, adding on to the list of potential potential solutions to what we're discussing right now. I think when I think about a post-graduate survey and I think about the emails I receive from the school district and how other people receive emails from the school district, it's not something that we pay much

194attention to even while we are students within the school. And we can tell that from our surveys right now. um we aren't getting a lot of attention from our students. So what I think um if we want to get more attention, I think we can include more of our student groups that are currently in the building. For example, ASB, journalism, I vision, uh yearbook. Um I know when I'm looking at my emails, I don't pay too much attention to like the regular emails that look very business-like. I pay attention to the ones to the emails and messages that come from people I know personally. So for example, my underassman in ASB in my badminton team, if they were to say, "Hey, like you should take this survey so that our school can be better, then

195I would pay more attention to it." So I think if we had I know a lot of the school Instagrams, the school ASBs have Instagrams and I know a lot of the alumni that graduated, they still follow it, they still keep in touch. So if we do want to get a little bit more attention from them, we can also explore that avenue. I know it's not very conventional but just another option. So moving to page 23 where we do have responsibility and ownership. I would love to know the numbers have like really dropped off this past year as far as survey response for our secondary students. So who like where is the accountability for that? Because when it becomes 20% or less than 5% uh how do we make meaning of that? And so for

196me that's troubling to see a high school skills soft skill survey go from responses to 103. Yep. So uh we were aware of that. We saw that coming in the later part of June last year. We sent messages again to the schools and that there was a number of things that could have happened in the land of technology about students not seeing it or thinking they were done because we had too many surveys going on at once. In effort to remedy that last summer, we sent an email to every parent of a student in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th grade, and we got almost no more. So, we were trying to push them out again, say, "Hey, we we had something happen with the surveys and we're asking for your help and got almost

197no response to add to those numbers." This is the a known um blip last year and we have already pushed them out for this year and we are on it. We are on it like you've never seen before and we push the due date up a little bit. So we have full two weeks of school if we don't see student responses in the numbers that we would expect to see. So our strive for this year is to have 70 I mean 80% participation for middle school and high school all the way up through the senior exit survey. Love it. And then page 16 that top uh table when it says I felt my creativity and individuality was valued and encouraged during my high school years. Uh to me those are pretty significant drops where at

198least Skyline has very similar student responses between last year and this year and Liberty certainly has a trend also down uh had more student responses than two years ago. [Music] So I think when I look at this and combine with the other chunks where creativity, individuality, uh other things about like do they feel like they have access to things? Uh, I get a little nervous or I would like to know the why behind it and I don't know, have you guys explored how we could tease out more of the the why? because that would be really helpful in knowing like what's changed because the board uh made big investment in adding a seventh period to our high schools in part to be able to ensure that students could choose their passion and to pursue things

199that they were interested in. So to me it's troubling to see the trend going where they don't feel that that's valued and I think to me it's all it's more connected than not for we want students to have opportunity to explore but we want it to be where it's explore in a low stress environment and when many of our teachers are approaching this where it's another this grade is as important as your act I mean this class is as important as your core classes that are graduation requirements. I think that stifles the willingness for our students to put themselves out there. Uh, and so I I think that that's what concerns me and why it's connected to the bigger picture about grading and homework. I don't know what any of my board colleagues think about

200directing Director Mullings. Go ahead. uh director and director Gallinger you may have mentioned this but it's just interesting when we look at Gibson Act relative to the other schools on that specific question again I know our number of respondents is low and that's a concern I have with so many of these data points because it's tough to make conclusions based on some of there was only about 30ome graduates so yeah that is true though you're right yes that is true yeah it's getting late so you're right um but I think it does show something I think that you know it at Gibson X students have the ability to be more closely tied to their career, their field of choice. And I think when we think about the other high schools, we have to think about

201how do we give them that opportunity. I think director Gallinger, you're right with the seven period period, the intention of that. I just wonder if students have are feeling that that's giving them that lift at Liberty at Squan Skyline. And I don't know if it necessarily is. So I think it's a question we have to ask ourselves. Are they feeling that um that that seventh period is not it? I I my guess is they're feeling it's giving them more work and less choice with seven period. Go. Hello. Okay. I want to touch on something that uh director Gallinger brought up and it was the low stress environment in this kind of like seventh period class um being more weighted than a core class. And so I'm going to share a quick story. So uh this

202Wednesday was actually my first day of school and like a week a week and a half cuz I was out traveling. I got sick for a couple days. And so I come back um I'm looking at my homework and all the stuff I missed. And my hardest class right now is not any of my core classes. It's actually that one elective class that I chose to take um that I was interested in. And it's just the workload in that class is so much higher. It creates that stressful environment. And I feel like that's kind of why we see this kind of like a steady decline in uh agree strongly degrees because a lot of students I know similarly feel that way. Um because the whole point of those classes, you know, to take a risk,

203uh take a chance, figure out what you're interested in, figure out in your life. But when that class becomes, you know, as important, if not more important than your core class, it's kind of like it's like a why' I take it sort of thing. Thank you, Director Mullings. Um I guess my comment is on like the response level in general. I think one of the things we're going to have to rethink, many organizations are going to have to rethink is the approach we take in which we collect information from people. We are at a generational change in how people interact. Um, you know, you're you're asking a current 19year-old to go into an email account they don't care about to answer a survey for a place they're glad they're gone from. I mean, just just

204be honest. And I say that thinking about my own 19-year-old who there's no way she knows where that email is or will ever respond to it. Now, I think if you were if there was to be, I think to Naomi's point, a friendlier known option, if we decided we what we really want is alumni engagement going forward, then we would structure an alumni engagement program that keeps um cohorts of our students engaged with what's happening at school. we do that in a format that they actually care about, which I I don't even know if there's anything beyond Snapchat or something else. But I think I just think that there and I experienced this professionally, email, and I spend millions of dollars on email marketing. It's it's just becoming an ineffective communication device. And so, um,

205I I would argue we probably have a question we should be talking about if we care about these things is like what's our alumni engagement strategy and how do we really build that that sense of community before our students leave and, you know, find out from them like what what do you what do you care about? maybe be the only thing I'd ask in the senior survey and let them pick if it's the sports teams or what's happening in my club and then use that as a as a targeting method going forward. Like some kids get the update from, you know, girls flag football, other kids are getting it from robotics, which I'm a new fan of. You know, other other kids are getting it from someplace else. But I think I think just in

206general, this method won't serve us going forward. And that's not a a problem with like what we're trying to do or the point of it. I think we're just at a generational change in how people choose to engage in this way. Sorry. Now we're finally the parts that I really care about. Okay. So, uh, page seven. So if it's about students that are doing responsible social media and digital citizenship and the numbers going down and this is after we've adopted a different curriculum that focuses on this in our middle schools. That begs the question for me is when at social effective because the response would show that it may not be and obviously just one tiny piece of data but still if we're investing resources and expecting I think a different result than what we're

207getting. So one year does not make a trend but if the next year comes out and it's similarly like that I hope that there is a curiosity of we probably need to pivot from this because while it sounded nice it's actually not effective and we need to be able to let go of things and I feel in our district we have trouble letting go of things and we hold on them for so long. I'm sorry. Can you uh I we couldn't quite hear what section or page you were looking at. Page seven. It is page seven. Okay. Thank you. So I am looking at this past year's um students are taught responsible safe legal ethical ways and you uh I see the drop that you might be responding to about agree and adding those two

208together we still have 90% of the students who say they are taught what to do. Maybe we could look at finding a triangulation question in a different survey somewhere else to say, "How can we ask that question in a different way to see if that is a true answer or ask the students to help us rewrite that to get to what you're really wanting to know?" How do you get to 90%. Why would ne why would neutral be included? I think sometimes middle school students uh don't have a my opinion Dana Bailey opinion is that sometimes neutral for a middle school student is a positive response. Uh also to your point around discontinuing things that are maybe not showing evidence of impact is is a question that we are asking more and more and agree

209it's sometimes hard to let go of things or we just sort of keep going with them because they're already in place. So, it's a fair question and I expect that we will revisit that um for all things, but also just hear your point around how we're improving the um awareness of our students and uh being digital natives in an ethical and responsible way. Thank you. And then the section about mental health and the Swedish partnerships and all the different attachments that came with that just you know one of them you have you have to enter your board email and and uh password in order to for the link to open so it's not an open link so that needs to be Thank you. We'll check that. Thank you. And then uh I liked on it

210where it shows and compares the uh difference or the similarities between last year and this year as far as the student need with regard to what's the reason they're visiting counselor and I think for me I wanted to highlight the importance of it because uh for our students that ultimately seek care beyond our doors which this is not intended to be a long-term therapeutic relationship. But because it is documented in Epic when they go out and visit someone else in the community, having that documentation is essential for that continuity of care. And so I know there has been numerous frustrations uh about that partnership with Swedish. I don't want that to be missed for the importance of continuity of care because that ethic documentation can be seen by any healthc care provider in our region.

211Um any other comments? I just had a few. Um going back to things information that we used to have, one of the things that we used to have is uh how many students are taking PE during summer school and we had that by or or online as a means of um because uh and then by school because I find it's probably less effective than the actual class. And so it's interesting to know how many students are taking that as an opportunity to open up their schedule because they're busy doing other things. um rather than taking the actual class. I'm specifically interested because Liberty used to have a very high PE um in the school uh numbers when they had eight periods. Um so I'd really like to know how the seventh period day impacted um

212the number of Liberty students taking um PE. Um then I want the one I really wanted to look at and I think we might have discussed I no actually we didn't discuss it. um was on page 22 at the top, the senior's exit survey. Um I know we changed the question on that. So the first the original question is in general I feel safe in high school particularly in classrooms so that I could risk being wrong and not ridiculed or marginalized in my high school years. And we took that changed it a little bit to now it says in general my in my classrooms I felt I could ask I could risk being wrong and not be ridiculed or marginalized during my high school years. The numbers on that are stunningly low especially in some

213of our schools that students are actually answering. Yeah. I think I felt like I I was fearful that I would be ridiculed or marginalized if I was wrong. That to me out of all the items on here, this is the one that I thought that is egregious to say that 45% of our students at Skyline don't want to risk being wrong because they feel they're going to be marginalized or ridiculed. that that number is even higher as at liberty that they're scared of being wrong. So I I think to me I don't know where this discussion lands but this was the most shocking data in the entire report cuz I think especially in a world right now where people do feel like I don't know if you know if you live in one type of

214state you can't say things if you on the other hand live in another type of state you can't say things if anything we've got to be able to create an environment where our children can start shifting how they interact with the people around them and that it's okay to take that risk. Sometimes you are going to be wrong. Sometimes you might not be wrong, but others think you're wrong. But how are we going to interact with each other? If I start to fear that I'm going to be ridiculed or marginalized if I take any type of risk, I won't take any risks at all. And what's the point of being a high achieving student who doesn't brave taking risks? It's really like you've taken your education and you're just keeping it to yourself rather than

215some of the other things that we want you to live as responsible members of society. Part of that is taking a risk using what you've learned. You can be uh academically prepared, but if you can't take the risk to pursue the opportunities you want to be taking, are you really going to then be a student living healthy sat satisfied and productive lives? That's why this is in there. Could be more. I think that's for me the heart of why social emotional learning is so important and why we still haven't gotten it right for our high schoolers. And you know I think in the same way for as hava said for yourself self policy you need to explain like the why behind it. I think we haven't clearly articulated the why behind social emotional learning, why

216it's so important. And maybe we need maybe it needs a rebranding of a name because I think people hear it 6 through 12 and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I I have like vomit in my mouth." So, but it's really about trying to equip students to be able to engage meaningfully with internally and externally so that they are healthier and uh more competent and somehow we're missing the mark on that and I don't know any answers but I seems like we we've got to figure this out because those are terrifying numbers and I But I believe those are real. I mean, I have two secondary kids in my house and I know they both feel that way. And and I'd love at some point listening sessions with students around this to be able to dig

217in deeper, you know, even more than three questions like where is this coming from? Who are you at feeling at risk of being ridiculed or marginalized by? Because it may be things that we can't control or it may be things that we can. Is it that we need to be teaching students at a much younger age how to react to others who make mistakes? What is our response to that? You know, we talk about even things like um restorative practices when it comes to discipline. So, what are we doing when students make a wrong decision? How are we teaching them to support themselves? How are we teaching them to support others who make the mistakes? How are we ensuring that our the adults in the building aren't actually contributing to this? And that's the part

218we can control. So that's what I was left with. I don't know if there's any other thoughts. Uh doc uh director coin and then hava. Um just one thought on that because I I I do agree. I think it is concerning but I I wonder with some of these questions their their interpretation can be a little bit different. So, I like your your point, Director Moral, around um maybe a focus group of sorts because I'm not sure it' just be useful, I think, to dig into this a little bit more because I think students could be interpreting this in different ways and I'd love to just know more about that, too. Um, as we think about, you know, how we act on this, I guess, going forward. Hava, um, I have a few things to

219say. Uh, first of all, kind of like logistics of surveys on Monday. Yes, Monday. Um, I don't know if it was the same across all Gibson neck, but we spent almost an entire period filling out surveys, which is kind of frustrating. And we were not allowed to, it was, it was effective. We were not allowed to leave until we'd finished all of the surveys that we had to do for that day. But, um, but it was also like a lot of surveys. And it's been kind of like that throughout the year. Um, and then also, I don't know if it's been rectified, but for this year's softsklls survey, um, at Gibson, uh, pretty much as far as I know, none of the freshmen were able to log in. So um and then uh for this

220question that we've been talking about I think that something that is important is for students to like not only know how to respond to somebody else who is um like who may have made a mistake or said something incorrect or whatever. Um, but also as the person speaking, like how to state opinions in a respectful and a respectful way that invites other views. I think that's another important part of communication and interacting as a productive and respectful member of society. Um, and also teaching like an attitude of like making mistakes is the way we learn. We don't learn by first learning exactly how to do it correctly and then not doing anything unless we're exactly sure how to do it correctly. That's not how we learn. We learn by making mistakes. We learn by falling

221down and and practicing and messing up. And to instill that attitude in students that when you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. Like when and when you somebody else makes a mistake, we don't need to look down on them like, oh, they've they screwed up. they don't know how to interact in this way. They like are totally wrong. Like what? And to teach that we make mistakes and when we make mistakes, we learn from them. And if somebody else makes a mistake, respectfully share like, "Hey, that didn't I'm not sure that that is what you meant to do. I'm not sure that was the best way to handle the situation." and to be able to do that respectfully student to student and to have examples set by staff and teachers. Kish,

222thank you. Uh I want to go back to a point Hava brought up and it was explaining the why behind and so I remember uh my middle school years I despised because I I didn't understand why we were doing it. kind of felt like I was just sitting there and you know just listening to these teachers uh explain the stuff to me. the teachers, a lot of my teachers didn't like teaching as well. And I can't I think the last lesson I had was honestly my eighth grade year. And so it's been it's been a long time since. And I think that's why a lot of people are responding so negatively is because they don't understand or they're not like being uh reintroduced to this idea that hey, it's okay to take risks. It's okay

223to take mistakes. And I think that explaining why is such a big component of that because you know but but by by seeing this other dimension you like I if I known that focusing and paying more attention SEO would have benefited me 10 times better now I definitely my year would have been talking in the back of class with my friends. I would have been obviously paying more attention. Um, so I do think it goes back to explaining why and you know getting not only students but teachers on board with this as well because a lot not just students but a lot of teachers dislike going through these lessons as well. Great. Thank you. Well, this has been a robust decision but we still have a motion on the table. So, um, if we're ready

224to take a vote. Oh, student advisory vote. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And then our board, all those in favor say I. I. I. I. All opposed. Any abstensions? The eyes have it. Thank you very much for that robust discussion. And then on to our next agenda item is communication strategies. Uh executive director Sherwood, I always like to be the headliner. So uh thank you for this opportunity, President Moraldo, members of the board, superintendent, student representatives, and our community for the opportunity to share these communication strategies for 2025 and 26. Grounded in the theme of building trust and and strengthening engagement, this work reflects our shared belief that consistent, transparent, and inclusive communication is essential to a strong school system. Communications is more than crisis response. It's a strategic function just like marketing. Both require

225analyzing our audience, identifying their value, and learning from experiences to strengthen our board, our brand. Recently, we completed a district communications audit using ENSPRA's rubrics of practice practice and s suggested measures that place our district in the established category, affirming strengths and highlighting growth areas. As a small but capable team, we're already implementing many of these strategies. Like the board, our communications team is strongest when working in unison, collaborating, and ensures our messaging is consistent, our experiences are cohesive, and our community trust grows stronger with every interaction. These strategies emphasize alignment, help us work smarter, stay student- centered, and increase impact through clear and effective communication. Our purpose is clear to improve internal and external communication systems to build trust and strengthen engagement. That means aligning strategies to what matters most to our audiences. We

226need to show what's going well in our schools. And we're in a local media desert. We must become the storytellers. We also need to reach the residents without school-aged children, those who vote on bonds and levies and want to understand the impact of our work. By using real-time feedback, we can improve the customer experience, track performance, and ensure our communication builds confidence throughout the district. RPI framework. To do this, we are adopting this RPI framework, research, planning, and implementation and evaluation. This means leading with data and by gathering feedback through qualitative and quantitative means. We'll align our all communications with ENSPO's critical function areas and our strategic plan uh priorities. We'll leverage brand storytelling, use the right channels for each audience and set clear metrics. Then we'll adjust because responsiveness is a key part of

227our strategy. To build trust, we must connect more deeply with families, especially those experiencing barriers, misinformation, or lack of engagement. That starts with clear, consistent storytelling that reflects the real strength of our students and staff. We'll simplify how communicate how we uh will simplify how we communicate strategic plan progress and and create feedback loops that inform decision-making. As our community demographics continue to evolve, multilingual accessibility remains essential. We will be intentional in how we address misinformation, focusing on facts, empathy, and accountability. Engagement must go beyond parents and caregivers, taxpayers, business partners, and you mentioned earlier, alumni. These voices matter, too. We will emphasize collaborative leadership, highlighting how the board and the superintendent align decisions with student outcomes and community values. Through unified messaging, we can demonstrate shared success. We'll also make sure district updates and

228decisions that affect families and communities are easier to access. Elevating our narrative. Our stories are powerful tools. We'll highlight innovation, equity, fiscal responsibility, instructional approaches, and inclusive progress, showing what it looks like when students and staff thrive. We'll elevate studentled uh media, integrate storytelling across platforms, and ensure our board and leadership voices are part of that story to connect classroom progress with governance. Through consistent messaging and story alignment, we can show how district values come to life every day. Every interaction is an opportunity to build trust. From front office calls to email replies, families and staff expect professionalism, empathy, and consistency. We're committed to training staff, all staff in customer service practices, recognizing excellent service, and providing leaders with tools that help them communicate effectively and consistently with their teams and communities. Service must reflect

229our values in our strategic plan because we meet we need more positive tangible experiences to be elevated and shared within our community. Crisis communication is about clarity, consistency, timeliness, and respon and reassurance. We're reviewing and updating our procedures where necessary to align with national standards and emphasize training, redundancy, and accessibility. We'll conduct joint drills with emergency agencies and ensure staff are trained and send families annual safety expectations. Multilingual access will be considered and built into every layer of crisis messaging. will also be transparent and compassionate during difficult times, showing casing leadership at all levels and how we recover and move forward. This also builds trust. As the old adage goes, what gets measured gets improved. We'll track engagement, sentiment, and reach, then align those metrics with the strategic plan priorities. We'll annually evaluate our effectiveness

230under NPR's critical function areas. We'll continue to incorporate and monitor board and superintendent reflections within our work. By connecting data to decisions, we can stay accountable to our goals and to the students and the families we serve. And in in conclusion, communications is not just a support function. It's how we show who we are as a district and how we deliver on our mission to ensure all students thrive. As a team, we're committed to listening, learning, and leading with strategy. Thank you again to to the board and superintendent and the student reps for your time and your shared leadership to prioritize communication as a part of good governance. I look forward to continue collaboration. Happy to answer any questions. So I'll open it up to the board. Any questions or comments? Director Coin. I had

231two items. Um Mark, great presentation. Thank you. Very comprehensive. Um if we go to slide Oh, we're on slide two. Perfect. Um I guess a couple things. One, um I always like to emphasize this for our community, but 70% of our residents um do not have school age children and they also have the highest propensity to vote. So um communicating with that population is really important and I think would love to and I know that you know probably obviously not the discussion tonight but as we move forward love to understand what that engagement will look like and how we target that community. I also as you were going through this was having a thought around have we ever thought strategically about telling our story to those that sell our community so to real estate agents

232developers doing more because they inadvertently they're always selling it you know top rated Isiqua schools but I don't think they really know our story I'm just curious if there's opportunities to engage in that community doing some sort of information sharing with as you've written here with different facets of the community is that something that's on the radar Um, absolutely. And I've done this before and actually in partnership with board members in their regions and their schools. Y so you're you're having kind of a discover kind of tour um with some real estate leaders and brokers. And that's part of the reason is so they can come in and learn and not just take it for granted what's on Zillow or Red Fin or any any of the tools that they're using out there, but they

233actually get a you know, I talked about tangible experiences. They're not just looking at data at the bottom of a real estate sheet saying, "Oh, this school is great at A." and that's what they're telling their their their customers. So, I think they need to get also a feel for what our school looks like in the community that they're selling houses or multif family, you know, housing or condos, you name it. Yeah, that's music to my ears. I mean, I think we want to make sure too they're selling the right information too with it. So, that's great. Those are the questions I had. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions or comments? Director Gallinger, thank you for your presentation. Super appreciate it and excited to see the work ahead. Uh you mentioned alumni on one of

234your slides and since we were just having a lengthy conversation about that, do you have any thing that is top of mind regarding how we could strengthen our connections and their connections to the heart of what we do? Yeah. So obviously our high schools have you know their own alumni associations and year after year whether they have their fiveyear their 10 year what happens is a lot of times the alumni presidents aren't coming together for an annual like all district alumni event or all you know or how they can get involved in whether it's um you know having their own booth at salmon days and or or having different opportunities to engage with the greater broader community but to show that they're also in support of the district as a whole. Uh some other districts

235have done things where they've done hall of fames. So then they start getting a little bit more of a an older crowd getting back interested in the district. So when I say a hall of fame, you know, could you know it it's it could be in joint venture with a foundation or a fundraising opportunity annually. And then again now you're you're you're providing a little bit more of a an opportunity to reconnect with the district and that also provides those opportunities for the current district to share some key updates of what's going on. So I think there I think those are some tactics we have to look at. But I think it's getting those current high school presidents to or alumni presidents on the same page and meeting where we talked about having advisory committees

236and groups. That's another advisory committee group that should be probably formed down the road. Thank you. Yep. Any other thoughts or comments? like you're not temporarily in charge. I got um not so much questions. I just want to offer some comments as well. Uh along with director coin, I very much think it's critical this piece about reaching out to the 70% of our population don't have kids in the school. During the bond campaign, I heard it over and over again while I was out doorbelling with older citizens saying, "I don't hear from the schools. I'm not sure what's happening in our school system. It's just critical for our voting block moving forward that we need those people to be engaged as much as we can. So, we're highly supportive of that. And um also just

237wanted to two other things. I love this idea about cultural topic or geo uh specific town halls. Yep. Um, as we know, our town halls can be rather hit or miss as to what the participation level is, but I think this approach might give us an opportunity to really have some more in-depth informative discussions with the community, which I think would be valued. So, again, I think that's a great idea. And then um lastly, you know, the studentled media that we saw during the bond, I think our most, you know, effective communications were those videos that our high school students made. Uh being at the ISF fundraiser just recently and watching our students that are so poised and well spoken um and those real life stories are what really register. So, I think this is

238spot on trying to do more of this stuff as we move forward. But overall, commend you. This is a great plan and I look forward to working with you as we move forward on it. Looking forward to it. So, I I have a few. Thank you. Absolutely. So, I guess maybe my overarching question is I I love a framework more than the average person. So, I love seeing one in place here that that's what you'll leverage. when or how will we see how this translates into I guess more of the actual um editorial calendar the actual artifact like what will we put out in what order well then still pretty conceptual at this level sure you want me to answer that question or do you have okay okay and then I'll go on to my

239next couple um so obviously we're doing a little bit of flying the plane while we're building the plane right now and um and as you know not telling you anything you don't already know in the marketing and communications world you want to have all your qualitative and quantitative data in your hands. Then you want to start creating your objectives and you want to align them with your strategies. And then you start choosing the tactics you think are going to best connect with your audiences. And as you know that the the the behaviors are changing. They're not exactly the way they you know we can't use all these traditional means. Um, uh, you know, Director Taylor just said, you know, when I was knocking on doors and I was, you know, talking with PTA, uh, members,

240you know, some of the grassroots methods of getting engagement are going to have to probably come back into play, especially in an area where we don't have a real strong, like I said, we're in a media desert. That's part one. Part two, not everybody is utilizing all, you know, email. So if I'm trying to target and I'm trying to do some diff different digital efforts to to get into their into their feeds in various ways, we have to find unique ways to to connect them. So to go back to that is right now I'm taking these strategies. If I've got your feedback then my team is going to kind of work from a little bit from top and b from the middle out to the top and the back. So we're going to continue to

241gather some qualitative and quantitative data to see if the tactics we choose are aligned. I'm going to formalize that into a plan throughout the next year and that part of that will be an editorial calendar and what we planning to do in each month and then also making sure the story ideas that we bring into our team are actually assigned to key priorities. So if somebody's telling me hey I want to do this and it's not aligned to the strategic plan then I have to make that decision is like is this a a board initiative a superintendent initiative or is this just somebody who's just saying loudest why we should do it and then I have to make the decision that it may not matter or may not be something we want to do. So,

242I want to go into the new in the new school year having a solid plan written that my team has adopted and they're helping me build. Okay, that's super helpful. Just to get a sense of expectation on when we'll start to see the new structure like start coming to life. Just to add to that, while I'm trying to get quantitative and qualitative data, I also know we have our levies coming up. So, I'm trying to see how I can leverage gathering some of that data at the same time. That'll also help me um as you we're doing all of our data with our student our student surveys. some of that data is going to help me too as well as we start you know assigning and aligning some some key tactics. I will okay add

243that the editorial calendar is even more important because one of the best ways to reach the 70% of people that don't have students that also skews a bit of a different generation in terms of usage patterns and how they consume information. Uh we are going to increase the direct mail. Yeah, we had decreased that question. So oh well there you go. But so that's one you know thing but that also then uh will be a driver for the editorial counter cuts more production of pieces. Um but also we know that that's an important way that people consume information and and the kind of content that they digest in those pieces too. We're going to adjust that to to be a little bit easier, a little bit more streamlined so we can increase the frequency of

244of reaching some mailboxes. Uh wonderful. So, um, so I think I guess at least for me, I maybe wasn't as aware of when we decreased the direct mail. So, I think being more clear, that's why I'm asking about what's the full calendar and how do we reach some of these folks? So, then maybe my last piece gets to your point about misinformation. And I'd say one of the pieces of misinformation that uh is most troubling to me is is or conceptually is we get caught between like national stories or even broader regional trends that people will apply to isqua even though they're not actually factually true. So, we have all these wild things people will say, but one of those I think we don't have the the best we could have better ownership of in

245the message is our school district's performance against state um numbers and even national trends. And I think we're today we're missing a huge opportunity to really be clear about that and and in any other in any other way where we are differently performing from some of these national trend or national story uh items that go out. I think we have to be much more proactive um in saying actually we are 20 points above state performance. Like people love to complain about sliding performance, but we're 20 points about across all of those all those metrics. And I think we're maybe a bit um demure or or something in our posture that doesn't allow us to just be clear on that. And so it's not just so in addition to the more regular or the clear calendar

246how we're reaching the subgroups I think there's also um some positioning I think we need to talk about that historically we've we've maybe I don't know if we just didn't want to brag or something but we also just don't take clear ownership of what are better results and so I think maybe that's my third piece like and so we leave space in that way um for misinformation to seep in that that I just think is not productive. Like there's lots of other kinds of misinformation, but where but where it relates to actual performance, we're seating we're actively seating that ground because we don't ever talk about it. So I just think there's the positioning and messaging that we have to look at as well about how we talk about the district. I agree and I

247think um you know on an annual basis the state is putting out their their data. um that that is definitely an opportunity for us to to blow it up and make sure that that our entire community is hearing it and then built it into our frequency when we spec you know specifically when we're talking about achievement making sure people are reminded that this is where they can get the current data and that what it means and maybe it's like you said it might be a little bit more of a a value a value proposition along our achievement where we are and repeating that repeating that with frequency Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Um, yeah, just my overriding qu comment is great job and we're really looking forward to better connecting with our public. Yep.

248Thank you very much. And the next item on the agenda is legislative matters. Uggh. Um uh what to say? Um the session is over as we saw. We're waiting to see the governor's uh response to the budget that's been presented to him. Um uh I think overall, at least me personally, rather disappointed with what we saw come out of the legislation, I mean come out of the legislature this year. uh thankful for the increases that we did see modest increases in special education funding and MSOC but um you know many factors below the funding we need to fill the gaps that we continue to see in in those areas. So, um I have personally reached out to several legislators over the last week and had conversations with them, um which they many of them have

249shared the same frustration, but um I expressed this is AJ Taylor's opinion, but I just express my position that we continue to see this constant um kind of statements of support for educational funding. We see it over and over. Yes, I support education. I support education. My message to these people though is we find we need champions. We're at a point we need champions for these causes now, not people that are in a way in my mind gladhanding um educational support. So, uh, I expressed that opinion and, um, have asked our legislators, um, particularly Representative Hunt and Representative Kalen, um, if they'd be willing to spend some time with us this summer to strategize in this area, and they've both enthusiastically said they would. Um, so I'm encouraged by that. We'll have an opportunity to

250have a discussion with them. We'll try to reach out to our um uh contacts in the 41st as well and have similar discussions. But I think we need to spend some time this summer thinking very purposefully about how to move forward and perhaps a different strategy. I don't know what that is right now, but that's my summation. Great. Any anything else from the district? We're grateful for the, you know, the increases in a time when many agencies and other parts of the budget were reduced. Um, I'm also grateful that the eminent domain bill um included certain components that are favorable to our district. Um, so those are my thoughts or our work is really now moving to the tactical of working through what that means for our budget and our projections and that's coming forward

251back to the board uh in a couple meetings. uh in addition to um making sure that you know we take advantage of all the available additional grants that might come out through part of part of the bill as well because there are additional funding sources that might be available through uh for special education centers of excellence for example. So that's an opportunity for us to take advantage of those opportunities. Right. Thank you. Um the next item on our agenda is announcements and correspondence. So there is a list of uh correspondence that we have received. Um and I don't know if there's any that need to be added. Hearing none um we can go on to the next agenda item calendar and agenda future agenda topics. So I did mark uh the future agenda topic of

252how to how do we put together an implementation plan to ensure students are ready for dealing with the uh numerical problems and finances and I think specifically around finances. So, um that's something we can put in the future. Um and that might be something even during the board retreat we can consider. Um the board will review, let me see, we have a uh reminder for a town hall on Monday from 5:30 to 7 uh p.m. at Isiquam Middle School Library. And then um per a discussion earlier, we want to um previously we want to move the start time for the June 10th uh board meeting. Excuse me. Okay, we want to move the start time for the June 10th meeting to 7:30 p.m. So, an executive session is planned from 5:00 to 7:30 and then

253um we'll move that. So, I do need action. I move the board move the start time of the June 10, 2025 regular board meeting from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Second. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed. The eyes have it. And then we have um it looks like [Music] um three meetings uh de from November 3rd to December 9th. So have we not next page goodness I can't do all this paper. So, we are looking at um which of the three. So, choose your favorite three um where we're looking for as many people as possible to attend. Tuesday, November 4th, Friday, November 7th, Tuesday, December 2nd, and Monday, December 8th. And I haven't looked at these yet, so I don't know the answer to me. And these were ones we already marked available

254in in the survey tool, right? So my preference would be not Friday. I'm happy to not say I'm happy to rule out the Friday as well. Am I hearing any objections to that? No, I think Friday that off makes sense too. That's also uh Veterans Day weekend. Well, although I guess Veterans Day itself is Okay. So then I would need a motion. I move the board calendar three school improvement plan meetings for fall 2025 on the following dates. Tuesday, November 4th from 1 to 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, December 2nd from 1 to 4:00 p.m. Monday, December 8th from 1 to 4:00 p.m. to be held in the boardroom. Right. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. And the last one is scheduling our board retreat for the fall.

255So, um I don't know where we want to start with this. September is a busy busy month. Remind the first day of school. What's this one again? It's August. August 20 August 28th. August. Okay. Do we want to try to do it before the start of school? I know we did that last year. We did the end of August. I' I'd prefer not to do September, but is there any chance I Yeah, I don't know. I might be out of town, but I don't know. As of now, I'm not. I think we also used it last time as the school board rep onboarding opportunity. Okay. If I remember correctly, a section of it. No. So, it would be good to get it locked in. So, that I'm fine with August. It would be best if

256the student reps, they are late on Wednesdays for most of them. Gibson, not so much. Um, so I don't know if a Tuesday Wednesday works for anybody in the month of September. I think I need to hear from our superintendent like what are the what are the can't do weeks because I know as we get ready to launch school and as we start school so I need to know where we can't look and for me I don't think I can commit to anything in August at this point. Okay. So now we're too close to that window. We're three months away. So now like August is kind of unable. Yeah. Late August is gonna be hard for me. September is going to be real challenge for me. Um my we have a drop college drop off

257for my son. What week? Um it is be late August. Yeah. Uh let's see. Let me go back to my calendar. I mean like what about like the 29th 30th? Yeah, I could do late se Yeah, I could do late September like that. 29th through 30th. Repeat that. Uh September uh September 29th and 30th. I can do that as well. Let me check my work calendar. I can personally do that. Yeah, I can do that as well. That actually would be better than late August. I think our biggest considerations to answer director Galling Gallander's point is a August is a hard month in general because we're kind of slicing ourselves between different trainings, new hire training and then the first two weeks, two and a half weeks of the school year just full out, you

258know, focus on the launch of school. So end of September is a reasonable time. I don't see any other any other major conflicts in those two dates that you mentioned. Yeah. And for students, if they were to come, that would be some type of excused absence for them, right? I think you would have to go approach it that way if it was a, you know, uh, during that time versus a Wednesday morning or Wednesday. Well, the 29th and 30th or a Monday and Tuesday. So, yeah, those work. I checked my work calendar. Those work for me, too. Right. But any student part we could schedule at the end of our time because school higher high schools get out early enough so they could join us for hour or two. Right. It's very little of school.

259Yeah. Um so is there are am I hearing that those two days work for everybody? I think it's fine for Yes. Well, then I would be looking for a motion. I move to schedule the board the fall 2025 board retreat on September 29 and September 30th in the boardroom. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. I think that's the easiest I've seen us make a schedule in forever. Um and with that we are ajourned. What just one last topic I'd like to add for consideration over future agenda. Okay. Topics would be grading uh in more specific detail. Uh, so fact that an a the fact that a 92 or a 91 is an A minus in our school district or a 90 and an A in the Lake

260Washington school district uh has a real impact for kids and even where it's a direct comparison is an East Lake kid and a Skyline kid takes the same Belleview college class. They both get a 91 on that class in Bellev College and it gets translated to their high school transcript differently. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. So, I think we need to have some real serious conversation about the alignment. And I know we heard from our Liberty students about how important that A minus was to them. I I just think we're we need to have I think at this point we need to leave that conversation because like we're literally putting ourselves at a disadvantage at least when we're right right up against the district boundary of a very large the second largest school district in

261our state that has a different grading practice that directly impacts kids and college applications. Great. Thank you. Um I also said that one of the things I want and this might be during the board retreat is a discussion on um the evaluation process for staff members across the district and what that looks like because I think just you know I have 16 years of experience being here when we implemented the Danielson model but um I recognize that not everybody has that experience and that might be a good discussion. I'd welcome us to that be great. Okay. Anything else?