001starting I think to open a lot of people's eyes and they need to be talked about within our school district furthermore emotional needs to be focused on as well um particularly this month I've noticed that um there's been a very like small focus on mental health during mental health awareness month and our social emotional learning um I think that that would be a really good space to talk more about the mental health Avenue and what students can do and what resources students have through um our schools in the district um given that that time is set aside in specific for that kind of education um I noticed that isqua high school has actually done a really good job in my connection with another student that's part of um the ASB there he said that they
002have done a whole um month of lessons that are being focused on mental health and how to support your peers and your friends and ask for help and all of that so I think if there was some sort of uniformity um for what students are learning about in seal and um if there was more Focus mainly on um big uh social events honest or not events but big social conversations for change as well as um more emotional education I've noticed that a lot of um our SEO lessons at Liberty have focused on event planning and such so I I really think that we could benefit from more uniformity and more focus on um broader scale things and issues thanks thank you uh Tate do you want to go next yeah so the real um big
003question I have is um I would really having like trouble understanding of why the kids who want to come in person four days a week are like then there's not a set plan for them to do that um in all my classes uh we have at least most of them the maximum capacity is written on the wall and it's usually it's somewhere around 17 and uh in all my classes the maximum number of students I I've had is seven and like that was the biggest day I've ever had and so I know it's really helpful for some students to be in person uh the remote setting like doesn't quite work out well for them they feel like they're getting more out of their learning while they're in person and they're able to uh you know
004attack academically woman in person and um I just so I just think that it'd be beneficial if there's a set plan for them those people that really want to be in person to make sure they go back every day of the week okay thank you and I will just mention that there was actually a plan to do that but it was contingent on covid rates being at a certain rate case rates rather and they're not there so until we have five days of rates um or cases lower than 200 per 100, is that right um and that was part of the agreement that we had with the teachers union when we brought secondary students back so we have to abide by that um even if the classes are really small and it wouldn't matter um
005we have to play by the rules so as soon as we get those case rates down we can bring we can Give Kids the option of four days a week um Heather um going off of what like Tate said I kind of did have the same idea and confusion or questions of why there were like so many or so little excuse me so little students coming to school when students wanted to come like four days a week but they were only limited to the two and then you have students who don't even come in on their two days that they are allowed on campus so I thought like we could have gone at a better approach with it and I understand everything this year is just completely up in the air and like just like
006we don't know until the last minute and like but I do feel like that there should have been a better approach of how we get students on campus and like tend to those who need the in-person learning and that teacher like contact because I just know a lot of students aren't doing well this year and I wish we could have had a better approach for it okay thank you very much um and oh of course you guys are welcome to hang with us in the meeting as long as you want to if you want to ask questions or provide input on specific agenda items if you raise your virtual hand um if I don't see you one of my cohorts will flag me down um so you are welcome to um be involved in the
007meeting as long as you can stay and it looks like CJ already has her hand up yeah sorry um I just had one additional question that um wasn't really related to what I was talking about so I wanted to give um Tate and Heather a chance to talk before I um ask my question but I was curious if there was a way that um we could or the district could enforce participation I know that um cameras on cannot be um cannot be like a requirement based off of equity but I am wondering if students should have a mandatory participation in class just because I've noticed recently an uptick in students that join with their camera on and mute and then don't actually attend um so I was curious if there is anything that could be
008done about that with um rules and such just because I've noticed that if you're not in person um a lot of the students really aren't um actually attending class um and when you're put into a breakout room with those students it's really challenging to actually get group work done because it often falls on one person or two people thank you okay thank you yeah that's that's one of those can't really answer that one that's um I think at teacher discretion um how they should be or how they are handling it um okay we are going to move next to I'm sorry I have to get the agenda in front of me public input and I want to be um really clear on public input this is for public input for items that are not on
009the board agenda and specifically because I know we've had a lot of email regarding the reduction in force regarding teacher Staffing next year regarding classroom sizes all of that I am going to ask those people who want to give public input on that to wait until the agenda item on the board resolution because I think we will answer a lot of the questions and concerns that people have and so I would rather move the public input there and you can give your input afterwards if you still have questions or concerns so we're going to go with public input on items so not reduction in force items not return to school items but anything else that isn't on the agenda um I know I have some people in person and I will also take virtual hands
010uh please clearly state your name and School attendance area please limit your comments to two minutes director Moore will be timing and she will have her microphone on the little thing that starts beeping when it beeps you're done uh please keep your comments civil and respectful please remember that public input is not the appropriate venue for personnel complaints and please do not reference any District employee or representative by name and then please remember that the board does not respond to public input which I know can be somewhat dissatisfying um but we will simply take your input and thank you for it and consider it at another time uh so with all of those rules um uh okay we have one virtual hand so I'm going to start with the people in the room uh Denette
011Hamilton and yes you go there and that mic is on Nancy okay can you hear me okay first of all I want to tell you that I'm very grateful to be here I have three daugh ERS that have all been very successful going through the isaga school district one's um was a middle level manager of Boeing one's a dentist one's a nurse practitioner I'm grateful for you so anyway I am here to talk about the new sex ed program I am a dental hygienist I had to take Suicide Prevention classes as part of my profession I have I'm always talking to middle school students as and as well as high schoolers and I'm just not noticing a lot of more stress on them than I've ever seen before we talk about you know what do
012you think about uh School the the pressure on you for understanding your sexuality and it is very uncomfortable for them it causes a lot of them to tell me that they don't know how to deal with this and they feel a lot of anxiety they're on a ton of meds you'd never believe what these kids are on and suicide that word comes up frequently I also want to tell you from a personal perspective I had a daughter in particular that I opted out of the program in seventh or eighth grade I can't remember as probably 10 15 years ago she had to go to the library discriminate against had to read articles that she had to write uh paragraphs about she would come home and tell me the most disturbing things she had ever read
013in her life my second daughter when she had to get to that point I lied and said she was sick and my third daughter I did the same thing I'm very disturbed about what's happening and I really believe that we need to as parents protect our children thank you for your time thank you for your input uh next up is uh no we we don't do that please waver hands in the air uh next up is Peter McDougall hello uh I have two kids in the isqua school district um in the Clark Elementary isqua High School area if that helps um reason I'm here today is I've heard a lot about critical race Theory and I've learned that it is being taught in our schools um learning more about it uh watch reading the slideshow
014as published in the isqua reporter which I'll assume was actual isqua curriculum um I read a few things that I found quite troubling and disturbing I'll limit it to uh the material was presented meaning and I'll I'll quote if you um question this or If you deny for instance systemic racism you are willfully ignorant that was the exact phrase and as someone who is raised to question things and as I learn things I like to question that helps me learn things I find that type of approach disturbing where If you deny something you are willfully ignorant if I'm a a child I would think that well I'm not supposed to question this because that is or ask any question because that means that maybe I'm willfully ignorant and what child wants to do that I
015think it's a dogmatic and anti- educational way to present a subject even though it's a subject I'm willing to on several points agree with or believe it but as I said before sometimes I have questions um secondly uh also just bothered by uh this uh poem that that you know about that was uh assignment um and very disturbing rather graphic and I don't know a lot about the sexed curriculum for seventh graders I know I should um uh but I think making this a required this type of material required education I think is improper and disturbing and I would ask that maybe we don't do that right thanks for everything you do thank you thank you for your input and I do want to just add a point of clarity that um that that assignment
016was not part of our regular curriculum and the district was unaware that it was assigned so yeah we weren't cool with it either um Chaz spam did I get that right close Okay you can you can fix it when you get up there I'm trying to read ny's handwriting it's all her fault yeah I know I understand my name is Chaz span I have a daughter in Liber y High School I can't be out of time already no that's our bad sorry um I have a daughter in Liberty High School uh freshman this year uh she came in from uh rent and school or the uh excuse me rent and Christian Schools uh to have quite a shock this year uh to what public school systems are like and the the choice of curriculum that
017is being taught in there um and most concernedly things that have nothing to do with the T Topic at hand math should be about math English should be about English it shouldn't be about anything else um I too am very concerned about the sex head forc sex head that's out there but I'm very happy that our state gives us the right to opt out of that sexed class However if those topics do not stay within that sexed class that is very improper irregular and should be reprimanded um we as parents would like to know what processes are going to be put in place to make sure that poems like that don't happen again other conversation pieces that have nothing to do with the topic at hand stay out of those classes we're going to have
018the sex head class it's forced to be there great keep that conversation within that class so that I as a parent have a right to protect my child from that if I don't feel that that is correct for them um yeah same thing goes with the critical race Theory right it's if there's going to be a class about it great let the parents know what class it is and give us the option to opt out of that as well uh if they want to have Progressive talks like that that's totally fine as long as it's optional and my my child does not have to get stressed out does not have to have further uh Mental Health thy uh and medication so that she can just make it through the day thank you very much thank
019you for your input um Chris span and I haven't forgotten the person on Zoom I I promise hi uh first of all I have a daughter in Liberty High School um first of all I wanted to thank you guys so much for getting the kids back to school go I know that was a hard fight and we as parents appreciate even the little bit that we have now so thank you so much and for the sports I mean you have no idea you you do I'm sure you know what that means to our kids so I appreciate that um I didn't know he was going to say everything I wanted to say but I just wanted to reiterate the concern that things that are of a sexual nature stay in the comprehensive sex education curriculum
020and that if it's going to go out of it somehow that we parents are notified and can opt in I know realize for the curriculum itself we can opt out which is a little problematic because like uh one person said people do get a Target painted on their back and they get ridiculed because they leave the classroom so hopefully there's enough kids leaving the classroom that doesn't happen but just if if we can somehow have assurances that the inappropriate sexual references will stay in those classrooms we would appreciate it didn't feel a lot better thank you thank you um Lillian Skelton hi there thank you very much for serving our school district we appreciate it my great my grandfather went to isqua schools my dad graduated from isqua school district I graduated from isqua school
021and so did my daughter at all at isqua high school here and uh Ron you know my sister Heather Brooks so um we have a history of great experiences here in isqua with schooling we worked with things that were not great and we have appreciated everyone who has spent time making education good for our kids so I want to address today uh having sex education throughout Reading Writing and arithmetic it is wrong I ask that you do not do that in our school district I also agree with the gentleman who mentioned the critical race issues this is a time that is so important for our kids we hear so much about not having enough funding for regular education and we need to spend the money on Reading Writing arithmetic science not mixing in things that
022are not helpful for our children who are already inundated with things we got the opportunity to have a wonderful education let's give that to our children let's pass that on to our kids they deserve to have the wonderful upbringing that we did here in issaqua in an environment that was accepting of everyone but not forcing people to accept things in a school environment that might not be good for them thank you very much have a great day thank you um Renee Grove hello there I I think you might have accidentally turned off the mic hello okay that's better sorry um I have a son that is at isaquel high school and he's in the 10th grade I have a lot of things I'd love to say that I have experienced over the years in the
023school district we moved here for the school district and it's been a struggle to be frank and I'm gonna just pick one thing tonight and it is that he doesn't feel comfortable sharing his conservative views in the classroom he feels that the teachers are getting on their soap boxes about social justice issues gender Stuff Etc my vision of a public school is where all are welcome where people can talk about what they think and how they feel and I just don't think it's appropriate that teachers should be talking about what they think and how they feel I think we should cultivate conversation in our kids and let them hash the stuff out but when a teacher shares her perspective or his perspective it doesn't necessarily make you feel safe to share yours it's wrong and
024the fact that my son went back one day he was all about going back to school because he does much better when he's in school and he can only make it one day it feels like a prison there is how he put it so I would like to see I've talked to the principles I've talked to assistant principles I'm here um pleading with you to get a handle on these teachers and how much of their thoughts and opinion iions are being shared in the classroom I really want you to hold them accountable they can talk about that stuff in their free time with their friends social media whatever but in the classroom I want you to hold them accountable thank you thank you um and guys and then the last person I have in person
025is Becca s evening thank you so much for allowing us a platform to be able to share our thoughts with you um I have a lot that I want to cover in two minutes so I'm going to do my best first and foremost I want you to know that I appreciate the work and the effort that you're trying to do for these children um I've lived in isqua since 2003 all five of my children have been through the school district this last year I took out my two youngest because I could not I could not understand the direction that the school district was going I don't remember remember the exact date I want to say it was three years ago four years ago I came to the school district very concerned about transgender being taught
026in kindergarten using verbiage teaching our children in kindergarten that that is the way that they should be thinking that was my first and foremost um shock because I had never experienced that before then the progressiveness of taking God out of the classrooms then you find that um people have their own beliefs and their own religions and I high respect that but when you squash um beliefs it's not okay the the third thing I'd like to talk about is the sex education sex education is completely gone so far extreme I was shocked to understand and forgive me if there's um high school students watching but teaching having the possibility to teach children to masturbate with vegetables is in the curriculum they can do that I hope that you you guys are fully aware of what these
027teachers are teaching and not teaching in the school in this classrooms because my children will not have a platform of someone else's indoctrination um I want you to understand that I have witnessed children playing in Mass Athletics their noses are bleeding they refuse to take off their mask their masks are covered in blood I witnessed a young lady walking to school throwing up in her mask dumping it out and putting it back on her face we are hurting our children and need to make a big difference thank you thank you okay I have three people on the zoom and so I'm going to call in those people and then we're going to call um public input to a close uh and the first one I'm sorry I don't know it just says ISD parent so
028um you're going to need to turn on your camera and um identify yourself please hi hi yes I'm Jennifer Thornley so the first question I was wondering um about the resource officer program I wasn't sure if that's coming in an email to all families in the database or if that's just to opt in for the Eventbrite um event page is that is it only accessible the information on the event bright because I don't think I've seen anything come in my um issaqua School District email about the meeting on May 19th um the second thing I wanted to say is I'm really sad for my student I you know just learned he's got to take a pass fail he's in special education he's his grades would not support him to pass so I'm looking at a
029choice of a past fail or a fifth year and I just feel like that's just it's very hard as a parent to accept that and uh you know I don't want that for him so it's really sad we couldn't get back to school sooner you know to keep these kids from having to do a fifth year possibly um and the third thing is I agree with other parents what they've said about the sex ed um just just seeing in the media with what's been happening with Bellingham and the feedback they've gotten like I'm just afraid you know like a lot of families might move this might be a reason people might continue moving is if this this curriculum gets pushed thank you thank you very much um I'm sorry it's hard to read from here
030Meg a hi am I unmuted yes you are hi thank you I have students in fifth seventh and ninth grade um and I just wanted to speak because I feel very differently um than those who have spoken before me um I'm very proud to have my children in a district where their generation is learning to be better than past Generations which I think is really should be the goal of all societies critical race theory is an academic movement to critically examine the law as it intersects with the issues of race and and if you look at history um it is true that there has been discrimination against people of color through our laws through our school systems um and this is something that we as a district have been working really hard um to recognize
031this and to make things better um for example um we have more students of color that are expelled um in a higher proportion than students who are white that is showing that there is discrimin ation and I'm very proud of this District that we have worked so hard and gotten so many so much professional development that we're working to make that better um I also just wanted to share that our health curriculum any parent can see any lesson that there that there is and you can decide if you want your student to go to that lesson or not um our health teachers follow that very strictly so some of the issues that's coming up I believe was just one teacher in one class health is taught in health class there was one poem in a
032different class and the district has been addressing that and I I I feel like the district is dealing with that and so the rest of us don't really have to have a say or be worried that these things are talked in all classes and just lastly um I'm a very proud Ally of the lgbtq plus Community Skyline has a great GSA program and every year staff wears their Ally stickers and I'm very proud to stand by them thank you you oh good timing um and then the last person we will hear from I just lost her lurel Graves hi there um I just wanted to say I am um a parent of an isqua um third grader and I also have a seventh grader that I homeschool um my younger daughter is um she is
033Caucasian and my older daughter is black and I had to pull her out of the school district and I would love to have her back in um I believe that teaching critical race theory is something that our district needs I'm sad to hear that um so many parents in our district feel that it is not needed um I am proud of our district for taking the steps to teach these things I am proud of our district for having such a strong Equity board I am proud to know um some of the people on our Equity board and I am proud of the work that they do um I desperately want my daughter back in the school district when she feels comfortable and I feel comfortable and I think we're making progress to get there um
034the things that stand in our way are um quite frankly more the parents in the district that are putting up the fight to this I think denying the fact that we have um that half of our um population has struggled with um systematic racism is um basically denying the voices of half of our student population and it's hurtful um also I feel very strongly please get your children's sex education people um that's all thank you okay thank you very much for your input and please know that you can always email the board with your comments public input is not the only place um to share your thoughts um with that we will move on to the consent agenda the consent agenda is a meeting management tool whereby the board is able to pass multiple items
035with one motion the consent agenda items have been reviewed by the board prior to this meeting any board member May remove an item from the consent agenda and place it on the regular agenda for discussion so I believe we have two things going on here one is that I've had a request to move one of the items off of the consent agenda and the other is I believe do we have to amend the consent agenda um and and do you have that information do you mean amend it because we're removing an item yeah I don't think she means oh no I'm sorry I thought there was we added a person to one of the lists that's already there okay sorry that's my bad so um we have been asked to pull the item um oh
036just lost it sorry the item about the Liberty High School graduation requirements and would you be okay if we made that item four on the agenda Harlin yeah okay so we'll we'll do it after um superintendent the's education update don't let me forget I know you'll remind me um so with that I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda okay I move the consent agenda be approved as amended second okay it's been moved in second seconded all in favor please say I I opposed okay motion passes um and other than what I just did do we have any changes to the regular agenda no other than what you just did H there are no other changes okay um so the next item up is um a report out on the board retreat the
037board met um and we use that word Retreat really usely Loosely because it sounds like we went someplace nice and had lunch and in fact we worked in here and had sandwiches uh but we met on April 28 from 9 in the morning till 5: in the afternoon and uh we covered a whole variety of subjects including um discussion about a potential 2022 um School levies uh update on High School 4 a discussion around the Riff restoration language that we're going to be discussing on the next um agenda item we had an update on special ed from Dr Bailey we talked with uh Alicia angles on Communications and we uh took a small look at our GPS we actually need to schedule some more time to do that in more detail but we did we
038did identify one thing that we needed to change um I want to thank staff for all the time that they took to meet with us I thought we had some really good conversations I personally found the levy discussion and the um discussion around possible restoration of the rips particularly valuable um I will throw it out to other board members for comments am well I thought the um the levy discussion was good because it is an issue that we will have to deal with as far as running the epno levy and then potential capital and Technology type levies it also gave us an opportunity to talk about um the technology one: one for our students um I know it was deeply discussed at the last U time that the levy uh Tech Levy was put out
039and it gave us a chance to talk about some of the things that had been in that discussion kind of how we feel about the community now and then also really it's not just the technology but this the change in the instructional teaching which our teachers have had a lot more opportunity to learn uh about teaching through technology so that was a good discussion and and definitely a lot of work that we're going to have to U move forward on as we move closer to a levy so that was a good opportunity anyone else Sydney yeah I think those are good description of the first couple obviously we'll talk about the budget restoration here shortly so I won't belabor that one I think the focus on the communications approach that Communications update was really important
040that's obviously been an area um of focus an area of new some new thinking so it was good to go through um some of the strategy and approach to Communications going forward as well as how we can get more more Community input in not just what is the message that the district wants to deliver which is critical but also um getting a better sense of what is it the community wants to hear how want to absorb that information and so I think it was great to see getting the community input on even the website and and how that information is structured so um I'm always a bit of a broken record on the community engagement part but I think it's just really important and I was very pleased at um at the thinking around Communications
041by by audience and the difference in needs and um information and even approach by audience and I think we've you know we've already seen uh great progress in that area but there's more to come and I think that'll just be of great service uh to the the whole Community going forward and I think it's as part of those and to the community engagement is um really we had a short discussion about we at one time the board a long time ago actually went out to three different areas just to have a meet your board members and I remember it was CCO Deo Deo and and nobody showed up and we we were there and there was no one else there and I think the other ones there might have been one or two maybe three
042at the most community members to really understand what does the board do and how do we have that Community Connection because that is what our role is we're supposed to be the connection to the community and so where are the opportunities for us to connect as a group because we're not just each individual board members we we do our work as a unit so I might have philosophies but if it's not something that we share or a majority of the board shares that work doesn't move forward so just even being able to have the board the community know who are your board members what are your concerns I do you know we do get a lot of public input but I don't I don't mind it because that's how we connect and know what's out
043there um and so how do we better find out and then for me it's about engaging those that don't send us emails that don't come to board meetings that aren't on the zoom calls how do we find out what their needs are as well and so I think that's to me an area where we really as a board will have to figure things out and um how our communication Department can help us in that yeah and it's interesting because when um an and I did the um so you want to be a board member or are you interested in board candidacy Workshop um and we had a half a dozen parents there and I realized as we were talking back and forth that we were basically communicating hey this is what the board does and
044they were really interested and asked a lot of really good questions and I thought this is a half a dozen people I need to replicate this a few hundred times um and yeah we need to we need to figure out how to do that other than having a few hundred meetings which probably would not be an excellent idea um yeah you don't have to unfortunately Dr gallinger missed some of the meeting um from his work demand which are unpredictable and horrendous okay that brings us to resolution 1163 on program restoration parameters and even though I think we will probably have some amendments um we need to start the conversation with a motion okay I move the board adopt resolution 1163 program restoration parameters as presented second okay so um what I would like to do
045um actually before we have conversation specifically about the restoration or about the resolution excuse me is um because there was just it was evident from the email that we've received over the last few days that there is a lot of misunderstanding and um well misunderstanding about what we're doing why we did it how it works and specifically how restoration works and I tried to distill it and yes I'm asking Mr Cooper to come to the microphone I tried to distill it to five questions that I would like I know the answers I would like them answered in in a simple easy to understand public understandable way um so no jargon no three-letter acronyms no pressure either yeah no pressure um okay we keep hearing that we said class size won't increase and I think that
046we actually we're trying to address class-size guidelines and so I want Clarity around that and the fact that perhaps schools were overstaffed this year and how that all plays together how do we go about right sizing the Riff numbers when we have enrollment declines different enrollment declines at specific schools and different enrollment declines at different grade levels but the riffs the level of of reduction en Force doesn't match the enrollment decline at a specific school what do we do about that is there a possibility that elective course offerings will be reduced because of this reduction in force why is it important that we have reserves between three and 7% and well I wrote down why does the restoration process take so long but that's kind of passive aggressive so let me rephrase it to how
047long does it take and why why doesn't it happen quickly so that was a lot of questions and dive in we do one at a time one I'll remind you yes how about we just do one at a time okay but but those are the things th those are the five things that I pulled out of the emails that I thought were not being clearly understood so let's start with class size won't increase versus class size guidelines and how were we overstaffed this year and how does that impact next year so President we members of the board I'm uh Jacob Cooper from the Chief Financial Officer it is I have a unfor I have a mask on sorry superintendent um so what I said and I believe I said clearly and I'll articulate it again
048this evening is that we are not changing our class size allocations so we have class size Target goals K3 of approximately 19 to one plus or minus three that has not changed and then in that regard we also um when you add in Specialists and special education you are in compliance with State's K3 funding guidelines of 17 to1 that has not changed same with our class size targets grades four five those are 25 plus or minus three that is how the buildings are staff based on their projected enrollment so that again that hasn't changed in K5 grades 6 through 12 um I'll do six St first grade 6 through 8 um every 25.75 students um buildings are allotted a 1.0 basic get FTE that is the same as it was Prior year I'm sorry what
049was the number again 25 and 3/4s director Weaver three4 students okay there's no three quarters children in the district to be clear but it is an arithmatic formula that we use to allocate Staffing so again 612 um that allocation is the same as it is this year so during my presentation on the 14th I was very clear that the reductions provided to you and that you enacted upon were not raising the class size and in that way we are staffed the same as we would have been in the prior year so our how we drive in resources is identical on basic get Staffing as it was in the prior period now there are always nuances to that because um believe it or not I'm not perfect with the number numbers every single cycle and um
050grades in in elementary for example don't come in perfect ratio packages so there will always be a plus or minus on class size but major takeaway for our community and the board and staff is that we are allocating teachers the same as we did the prior year based on new enrollment figures so class sizes or the allocation for those resources is not changing yeah and to be clear I wasn't implying that you said something wrong last time I just think it was misunderstood and I wanted to be really clear no I was I was reiterating uh the fact um what I believe to have said last uh few times we discussed this and again uh this evening so the other thing that is of uh importance on the high school side in particular is we
051also add 15% to our um uh comprehensive high schools at Sky line in is high so base allocation times 1.15 or 0.15 so they can have staff for an additional seven period day because staff only teach five of seven so I need two Preparatory periods at those two comprehensive schools so that allocation is the same I did receive correspondence um as of the board on isal high school had expressed concern in particular about their class sizes I will say this um I did show my work as a good student um out to my fellow colleagues in the in the building and was able to demonstrate to them mathematically that they had the same allocation as they did in the prior year um and part of the confusion obviously is we staff buildings based on projection
052sometimes those projections come right to the good and other times I am either short or um over so that can have a in the end result could have a different impact on actual class size if that makes sense is there anything else on the class siiz front direct we you'd like me to answer so just for clarity for me yes go ahead so what you're saying is that once we get closer to actual enrollment if there's any right sizing that needs to be done that will be done um not exactly so there reaches a so right now or any throughout the uh the school year um Springtime is a traditional time where we would be hiring um or changing our Workforce depending upon as you notice enrollment levels now now there reaches a point in
053a time in the system where we have issued all those contracts based on projection and so we we're not able to then reduce that staff later so let's just say um Cascade rge Elementary had I projected them at four kindergarten sections there was 80 kiddos in there um but and we hire for four but only 6 65 kids show up we're still going to staff them very likely unless we have an open position somewhere very late in this hiring cycle we're still going to staff Cascade red four four teachers which is what happened this cycle when we had uh a large amount of teachers above our traditional Staffing allegations but if Cascade Ridge comes in with a hundred kindergarteners then what do you do then during our uh long and lengthy an exhaustive August process
054which we reverifying in August so that we're able to hopefully provide the right amount of instructional staff uh for our students before school starts so there's a least amount of disruption as possible so we would add a teacher in that in that uh um instance sometimes in that case we might transfer them teachers between two buildings so if one's over and one's under um we we do make those adjustments we make those adjustments all throughout August as an example then there gets a point in time where Staffing is kind of Frozen we want meet the teacher to happen and things to move move smoothly and secondary it's a little bit different because they can hire Point tws mostly or they hire for a a year-long class so some some teachers can work in excess of
0551.0 so they can work 1.2 contracts which is basically not having a preparatory period or having one on a five of seven and so those options are also there for additions to Staffing levels next so another way of saying that is we have a lot more flexibility in Staffing when enrollment goes up and we can add teachers but if enrollment unexpectedly goes down we have the same number of teachers yes okay so when you and that is the difficult part about well any Financial job but in this case when you are when your when your revenue is based on projected enrollment of students that may or may not show up and you build your budget accordingly um and you live in and die by the projection and so this year we died by the projection
056course truly was off 1250 students based on a pandemic and um of course then in that regard we we funded those teaching positions out of our Reserve um and because we were not receiving commensurate State funding for them question number two oh wait and just to be clear you're you're projecting a continued decline in enrollment next year correct Dr Moy so I think that's really important here it's there's a large enrollment decline in current year for contracts we could not um we did not impact this year the payment on those contracts was then serviced out of Reserve drawing down on reserve yes correct we're right sizing um and at this point we're saying based on what we believe is a continued decline that is the selected Staffing level which can grow yes if that enrollment
057shrinks it will we will then again carry out of Reserve that amount because will not get the commensurate St um revenue for for carrying those resources y beautifully encapsulated that is great okay one more in there before we go yes and and that's because that I think it also came as to one of the questions in the emails and how you figure out the enrollment why do you think the enrollment is continuing to go down what how do you pull this magic number for enrollment out of the air because I know you don't just pull it out of the air because I know you look at birth rates and rolling up um from grade to grade but if you could help explain that to people sure so traditionally I'll do traditionally first and then I'll
058do pandemic en projections because why not um traditionally our um enrollment models are very linear and historical based so we we take What's called the cohort survival so uh a simple way to say it's a five-year Trend and then you Trend those students as they move through the grade spans and then you get a basic percentage of how much Sur survive from cohort to cohort now we're not losing children I'm just saying how much retain retain them as they move to the cohort now we also have that math works both ways too it also accounts for movein right so if you if you know um as an example you talked about birth rate director more we uh I update the birth rate for incoming kindergarteners every cycle from Seattle King County Department of epidemiology they
059provide those to me in a crude birth rate fashion and then what happens here and doesn't happen in every district is we actually have enrollment above crude birth rate because we have inbound migration um by migration I mean we have houses that are opening up and so not everybody that actually uh lives here and gives birth um in the district we have we have birth plus here birth of 120 125 it depends on the year Well I also Trend that to be able to calculate kindergarteners now nothing in my models prepared me for a global pandemic um but what I have used and it's a breadcrumb process so few things I'm looking at now uh uh the canary and the coal mine as we discussed uh kindergarten registrations are down from where they historically are
060they were off by a couple 100 um I have been receiving updated transfer lists outbound um from my student records department so I can see now if kids are making decisions for fall wava um as an example example neighboring districts so some of it's just out brown movement and other and other is alternative choices for Education based on our modality now that is um right now that is lower than it was last year but still higher than it has been historically so that tells me there's still a drag potentially on inbound enrollment and then I think the wild card um as we know is the modality that we are going to be in the fall um there has been a lot of uh concern about masks no mas M there's those things that parents are
061going to make decisions upon for their child's education next year that are um some of that is beyond our control and some of it is in within our control but that is also figured into the conservative enrollment projection um so that is how enrollment is projected um we also to complicate things of course this year because we would make anything simple we also have a boundary change where we're moving students all around the district and so some buildings May believe that we're projecting downward enrollment but when fact at that building in particular when in fact it's actually a boundary shift that is drying their enrollment down or in other cases their enrollment is rising um not very many cases in uh in our boundary change but for the most part that is why um if
062somebody is not looking at from system wide perspective there's probably lots of puts and takes and it gets to be a little bit confusing so yes enrollment is a complicated um initiative but one that I've done for quite a while and every year is different and new um but again we just look at breadcrumbs like every other demographer or anybody else trying to predict the future based on the past and we do the best we can to be able to staff accordingly uh president Weaver I just I wanted to add that given the complexity of enrollment projections um this past year and going forward uh I participated in a professional development opportunity that was made available to superintendant to hear not because I don't trust my team but I um an outside demographer that a
063lot of districts work with and um honestly I came away from that um presentation um uh W with uh the same level of confidence in our ability to do this that I had going into it because what you just heard Mr Cooper describe is in essence the methodology that is used for enrollment projections and um the the uh numbers that that demographer was producing were very similar to ours and the conclusions that they were drawing I shared with Mr Cooper and Mr tney and the business office were essentially the same conclusions um that I think we're drawing about what has happened to enrollment the past couple of years or what happened last year and what we anticipate to happen so uh again it was just kind of a check I guess if you will on
064the system um and you know um Jake and I know many of the board have been on on the board for a number of years we've had a tremendous record of projections that were also challenging because of our tremendous growth we used to have and so it wasn't it's never been easy to do enrollment projections in the istd and in the 20 years that I've been here but um Jake and his team did a really outstanding job with it nobody uh really did accurate projections of enrollment for this year that's why you you see these problems in districts all around um because it was so hard to predict um and you know I know it's one of the other questions we're going to talk about but I absolutely believe as Jake just stated it has
065to do in large part to the modality of teaching that we were able to offer okay and so before we leave the high school World um can I'm G to go out of order um do you anticipate that this is going to have any impact on the elective course offerings at high school our ability to offer electives at high school I should say well it's a very interesting question so I'll I'll answer it first from my historical know I elective offerings change every year on high schools and our large comprehensive based on student demand and what they would like potentially to have um during the registration process that is also then is adjusted annually based on the staff we have present you know have you heard before and many times at your seats that some
066some programs are championed by staff um and they um you know they're popular programs and they attract a significant amount of students so I would say on the margin that's on the margins potentially director Weaver just based on enrollment decline not based on Staffing changes so if you have uh you know two or three less kids and we didn't have significant decline at the high schools um we had you know is high for example I think we lost 10050 students from over year over year um they were below projection 150 students students I should say uh in that regard you know that is equivalent to uh what three or four three or four teachers so that could have an impact on the elective offerings but it's there is not a direct correlation because a principal
067also can make a decision on their master schedule that well maybe I'll run Algebra 2 a little bigger and I because I want to offer guitar not saying that's a real thing but those are decisions they always make in the master schedule or I want to be I want to have my AP um C Class run large and I want to do X Y and Z for remediation so those options they they change every year so it's not as easy you saying yes it's GNA have a negative impact on electives I'm sorry if I superintendent I I believe that's yeah that's the scenario the scenario it's um and and I think even just listening to Jake you can all tell um we're he's trying to to use plain speak but it is a very complex
068process I mean you're you're scheduling about I don't know some somewhere between 40 and 45,000 secondary classes in the in the high school classes in the system and so it's really hard to say that this is why this elective was not offered there could be 20 different variables that happen you could actually grow electives I want to be clear you could actually grow electives even in this scenario depending on decisions that principles might make um building their Staffing um met uh schedule anyway so yeah and at the high school the the decline um is not we we experienced greater decline in enrollment at the elementary level than we did at the secondary level uh Josh Aly Deputy superintendent I would just add to that that uh my uh my best guess would be that uh
069the uh hit to uh electives at the secondary level will be minimal and more than most likely it will be just a diminishing sections possibly um of uh elective offerings that we offer multiple sections of uh uh just uh but as far as electives going away I know that our principles do everything in their power when there is a desire to have those electives to keep those electives around so uh whatever uh uh with the decrease enrollment at middle and high school um I I don't see electives going away and I know that our principles would do uh whatever they needed to do to protect those but it would be more probably less sections of maybe some uh electives that we run multiple SE of that would be my thought thank you okay so the
070big the big question and this try to do this one in simple people speak um we keep hearing that well my school's enrollment is only down 100 kids but 35 teachers are on the Riff list and how is that going to possibly work and I know there's a very complicated process that we go through when the number of teachers above the Riff line doesn't correspond to the size of the school and what if we have enrollment declines at elementary but the teachers being riffed are secondary and and there's a whole dance and process that has to go on and I know it's very complicated and it kind of also ties into why does it take so long but can you just walk us through how that's going to to work when you know say the
071high school didn't lose hardly any kids but 30 of their teachers were rifted so what happens how does that work well we'll talk about the reduction of force first um so what is important for people to know and understand is that an employee of the district is just that they are an employee of the district their assignment is a building so I'm a third grade teacher I work for the esal school district I do not work for cougar Ridge Elementary so that is an important thing to start because reduction in force is done at a district-wide employment level and through the collective bargaining between the education associations in in the school district and it's done based on seniority and that is a uh proven way um legally speaking to be not arbitrary and capricious about
072the staff um that you are proding so parties long ago have agreed that seniority based particularly when you're in a union environment um seniority is a very important tenant to um labor and in that regard seniority often drives decisions regarding employment so what what the board did and recommended by the superintendent myself was a reduction in force of Staff across the district based on their seniority it had nothing to do with where they were located now you will notice though the number was very un some people say well that's very large now we did explain during the rift process that of the three nearly 300 staff on that list that a large a third of them roughly um it's been a few weeks would be recalled because of their specialized endorsement that's special education hard
073to fill like physics cam foreign language is an example if I missed any of those hard to fills I'm sorry I'm just trying to be illustrative not exhaustive um so when when buildings say that x amount of staff were reduced that is a function of two things one it's a function that there probably have a large staff so I know I have that I'm concern from isqua high and Skyline in particular well they also have 100 CTS a piece so when you when you you know we have 14 1500 ft certificated staff and if you have a staff of a 100 um you as a proportion you're likely to get a larger portion of the 300 in the bottom the other thing that is driving that is that they were growing which means they have
074the largest number of new staff which means they have the lowest seniority so between the largest staff in total and the fact that they have been growing over the last four or five years which means they've done hiring and they have turnover therefore they would have a more significant number potentially on the Riff list than other buildings so that is why there is a disproportionate um relationship between the total amount of Riff um and then actually where the reduction is going to take place now they are not they're never they have never and they will never match because we're doing districtwide seniority when we do a rift it is now hr's job after um superintendent and the board and um upon recommendation executive reduction en Force we draw that line we know who those staff
075are and where they work and now we set out and put those pieces back together based on our uh believed to be uh enrollment and sta enrollment projections and new Staffing levels so human resources to date has began calling back as we as we uh noted special education staff so that that has begun in Earnest I think they're very close to finishing that um as my note from executive director Fowler says um they will also begin uh recalling some of your Restorations pending your action this evening or early next week and um remember also without a reduction en Force we go through annual processes where staff um submit for transfers so maybe they want to teach another building different assignment um that's all occurring and along with what we call excessing which means on annual
076basis when we have those enrollment fluctuations that's our reassignment of staff to buildings where they would have um sufficient enrollment to support their work and that happens on an annual basis so all that is happening in conjunction with recall right now and why it takes some time for recall is every employee on the recall list has an opportunity and time to refuse or accept an assignment when it's provided by the district so if somebody for example I think there's is it 48 hour superintendent I believe it is and that also applies to a transfer request as well so there are some time lags in there where the employee understand this is all spelled out in our collective bargaining agreement as well um has an opportunity um let's say for example um you have an opening
077now at Skyline High School and you have a uh teacher who has the certification that would allow them to take that job you offer them that job and then they have a period of time we are encouraging our employees to um answer those questions just as quickly as they can because it does help us move this process along I think we all share a desire to do it as quickly as possible um but that is one of the reasons that you can experience a bit of delay um and that the process can drag on a little bit so there's recall and then replacing excess staff at the same time as well yeah yeah yes Dr maraldo so with those transfers and this is because I'm trying to understand fully the the collective bargaining agreement so
078let's say you have an opening I'll just use an example a random example so Skyline has a language Arch teacher okay and let's say I am a language arts teacher at Liberty I'm not being Rift I'm I'm above that line but you know what I live in samish and I would love to get that job so I can reduce my commute does are transfers like that allowed first before going through the recall I I believe so I believe that is the first step of the Staffing process um director moraldo that they have to submit whether or not they want to be considered for a transfer by a a date near the end of February that's a staff initiated transfer staff initiated transfers yes and then there's by a process but that's that's not automatic in
079the in the example you gave it's common that it happens that way but it's not automatic either um there is a process by which um there's consideration given but it can also put somewhat of a delay in a called process if you have to go to those staff initiated transfers first it's part of the it's part of it that can that can delay it yes and we should just remind people that because we are also opening two new schools there's more of that sort of transfer going on than you might expect in a normal Year yes there is because we couldn't figure out a way to make it more complicated to staff in a pandemic with declining enrollment um and opening the two new schools but you know I I think it's important for me
080to touch on that yes we are exper we experienced a loss of 1,200 students were projecting another loss of another 400 but yet we're opening these two new schools I will tell you our enrollment is still at a level at or greater than it was when we bonded those schools because we needed them then in 2016 so it hasn't re and and any evidence of that would be we still have what, 1300 students currently um at Maywood Middle School that's not going to be that way next year because of um thank you to our voters and uh our ability to build a sixth middle school and um right siiz those middle schools but it it's one more factor that has complicated this Staffing process for this year in a normal year what we like to
081do is if if staff why we do staff initiative first because we want people to teach where they want to teach as much as possible that's how it's designed to do that and then it's after that it it becom comes District assignment so and that's where we get to the EXs so you know talked about elementary I have one extra teacher we know it now based on enrollment then we have a conversation about excess which means we have a you have a contract with us next year but we're going to move you to a different uh location for your assignment so excess is not a reduction in forc because under the statute we owe that staff member a contract after the May 15th deadline so that's why you use the term excess and riff in
082different fashion because an excess staff member is one that has a contract but needs a new assignment and and that would be especially so for people that their positions are being eliminated based on the budget but they weren't Rift they would then be considered excess correct um potential a good example would be Maywood at 12200 going down to 900 so in that Delta of 300 all the staff in that case if they did not choose to be you know didn't want to go somewhere else then we would exit access them out of the building and assign them to a different middle school so I I was thinking of um some of our teachers on special assignments that are working in the admin building if those positions were eliminated based on the budget yeah and that
083and that's a good point drdo in that case if you are a program that was um eliminated or diminished and you had a higher level of seniority then you displace somebody with a lower level of seniority because you because you were guaranteed on the CBA uh a equivalent position an equivalent position so in that regard you would fill an open position based on your seniority and then in that case that may or may have a domino on how many folks we eventually recall might not get through all the list because they would be pushing down the the recall list are there any other questions from the board okay and then my last thing that I wanted you to to address is why is it important that the school District have uh unrestricted reserves between 3
084and 7% my favorite question I thought it would be so um you've heard me oine here at the podium many times about the fact that fund balance is the Goldilocks of all numbers or we refer to it as Equity or some people call it the savings account it's basically money that is um built up over time in excess of expenditure and that is um in the district's reserves now predominantly what um there are different ranges of reserves recommended by different governing bodies um as you said g gfoa the government financial Officers Association recommends two months of operating which that would be about 16% of fund balance um there are times when of course I've had my labor Partners would love me to SP us to spend as much money as possible on their ongoing contracts
085and would rather have a fund balance that runs at 2 or 3% and then of course rating agencies they like 10 to 12 um and the parameters that we have before you are a little more nuanced than that that you've approved over the years you require that we have set asides for your emergency Reserve you require the superintendent to set aside funds for the uh startup of new school facilities um and so th those are set aside as well but that's not in the 3 to 7% no no I'm just getting to your to yeah I'm I completely no I'm just trying to be clear to the public yep so that's why we talk about equity in two kind of two buckets reserved and unreserved so what I just spoke about now was the reserve
086which can affect the total amount that you need in your fund balance um unreserved portions of fund balance for an organization are size so this year's operating budget is what 346 million in a general fund so 1 % 3.4 million an organization our size um at a minimum for cash flow fluctuations you need you need at least 3% in the bank just for cash flow timing um even that's pretty light I think last I checked we only had 30 not even 30 days of cash on and I'll have to run it again um just like a business or you at home you want a certain amount in your emergency Reserve uh for example we've had times where we had to pay two payroll Cycles because the state did not provide a portion we did not
087have sufficient reserves our employees would not have had a paycheck that month so we need it first off for cash flow and then secondarily we need it for unanticipated emergencies or expenditures um so those are the two main reasons there will never be agreement on what a perfect fund balance number is um if I raised my hand and said there is a perfect number I'd be lying to you which I'm I don't ever want to do so we take a middle of the road approach here a well balanced approach you're not asking for double digit reserves you're asking for 3 to 7% unreserved fund balance now people are like why do you need a 4% swing a 3 or four% swing well if the budget is 99% right that's $3.4 million one way or the
088other so it does that's one extra or two extra accounts payable Cycles depending upon how the weekends and holidays fall um as an example um we also have sometimes we have believe it or not our utility bills will smack our cash flow if we have a really rough winter or a really hot start of the school year I know it sounds funny but there are things like that that will affect your cash flow dramatic increases in fuel cost fuel cost is another one diesel so just as it is prudent to have a certain amount of reserves in your home savings account is also prudent Financial practice to have it in an organization this large um and I would say this the fund balance this cycle bailed us out dramatically because we were able to provide
089ongoing operations of the school district continue to keep employee groups particularly our classified groups employed in an ad hoc or lower hourly um work situation they normally would have been we think back to our investment we made in our bus drivers as an example that was all done out of fun balance so I do agree I think this whole year would be considered an unanticipated emergency expenditure that could be true I I do think Jake's point is good though because particularly related to transportation we collectively made some important decisions to use resources to keep our transportation Force intact as much as possible we haven't been able to keep it fully intact just given the nature of the pandemic and everything but we are offering pretty much a full complement of bus services right now there
090are districts in this County that weren't able to do that so I think that decision that was money well spent I would argue to to help keep our employee uh to keep our organization whole because we have always been working since the board took action back in July to authorize a remote open you made it very clear that day that yes that's what we're doing because of the situation with the the uh the pandemic at that time but the goal has always been to get our schools back and reopened and providing Transportation I think is a critical component of that for for a lot of reasons but for an equity reason um certainly as well I would also note too that um historically this has been a a rapidly growing district with a need to
091continue to build schools which means we've been going out and getting bonds and bond rating agencies as Jake mentioned like to see relatively healthy fund balances because it's a sign of fiscal strength of the organization it helps you with your interest rates and as we've said many times times over the years we've saved our taxpayers millions of dollars compared to similar districts who didn't have such a a high Bond rating as we did and then big part of that because I've sat in many many meetings with standard and pores and Moody was because we maintained not a crazy fund balance uh but a fund balance that um allowed us to get that that AAA rating if you will to be clear the board has an executive limit that requires the reserve to be between 3
092and 7% and I believe we also have an emergency board reserve of a million dollars yes um and those are things that that we require of District management as part of our values as a board uh Haron but it wasn't just the bus drivers I mean just doing hybrid learning I mean we spent about a third of our fund balance this year in order to operate the school system that we oper operated and we can all agree it's not exactly the one we would have liked to operate nonetheless it was a much more expensive system to operate and so hats off to you and your teams for having that fund balance sub that we could do that without even having to worry and wonder whether or not the federal government or the state government was
093going to deliver which they didn't so we were able to deliver education and inperson learning to as many students as we possibly could because of that fund balance so I think that's really important because we don't know what's going to happen with the next budget cycle we're all counting on and counting money that hasn't been delivered to us based on no recession and we've collectively the sport has lived through recessions in the state to know how they claw back money so there's there's no smooth sailing ahead yeah we're not out of the woods yet for sure that's those are all good points Dr G because and I know and I I often struggle as your Chief Financial Officer or just a few things one is I want to make sure that everybody knows the risks
094ahead but I also don't want to be accused of crying wolf at the same time because a lot of times government gets accused of that I'm saying government generally other branches of government cities whatever we're going to go broke we're going to go broke never mind um so I always there is a real balance on notifying your citizenry and your community of when things are really bad versus maybe things are just looking a little rough and you can manage through them this was a time with precipitous enrollment decline unknown enrollment for next cycle because if you could project enrollment next cycle within a few kids I'll buy you more than a beer I mean it's it would be pretty amazing and then none of my colleagues have quite they're all nervous around the whole state
095on what what's going what's going to happen with enrollment um so I do want the community and the board to know that we take this very very seriously about when when when to Ring the Alarm Bell that there is a financial problem so we've had years of stability since the recession and the pandemic unfortunately hit our enrollment and therefore our Revenue very hard so um we we superintendent and I really we we agonize over these um these decisions and as do you I know I've I've seen you at your board Di and table um that's so I just want the community to know that it's a it's it's very serious and um if you can get your financial house order that is one less distraction you have on the teaching and learning uh for students
096now there's hands everywhere oh oh sorry Sydney go ahead I I am not normally the one who does the add-on because it annoys me in general in my work life but I am going to do it today because I think this is this point we're on is one I just don't think many of the people we hear from you pass on the street understand every single decision in the lab what are we at now 16 months whether that is the thousands of laptops the Wi-Fi in hotspots that is dispersed around the district the meals that have been served and continue to be served and I'm grateful for that every day the um as we talked about having enrollment that dropped and still needing to honor the contracts we have honored many contracts for a very
097long time the decisions around um Furlow and making sure benefits were extended to our employees for as absolute long as we possibly could even if we needed to separate for employment the you know the additional masks signs on floors every single one of those decisions has a price tag yes and we have paid it um from my perspective I've been grateful that we've had that fund balance to be able to eat down on but ultimately we're talking about the financial stability of the entire system correct and at some point I just think it's really important for people to get that each of those decisions and if we maintain all of them will upend the ability to provide education for the 20,000 students who are responsible for or slightly less now and so while each of
098those decisions is hard and painful and personal it it is an entire ecosystem that has to be kept running for the benefit Ben of this entire community and I just have to reflect on every single one of those decisions each laptop each extr Tech that's helped image those laptops each piece of it the additional canvas system that we all have grown to love every piece of additional development has eaten away at our ability to keep an entire system afloat and at some point it is it is our job to make sure that the difficult decisions get made in order to keep the whole system going and I understand that that's painful but I just think we have to think back on every meal that's been served that we continue to serve to people who needed
099that during this break and every benefit we've extended as as an organization so I I just can't spend enough time on that the beautiful part of this conversation is we're going to talk about where we can restore and where we believe it's the right place to instore based on the kind of money is it one time is it longterm because we have to keep all that in in frame as well we can't just say oh a dollar showed up we're going to spend the dollar in this way we have to make sure it's the kind of money that we'll persist or if it doesn't that we spend it on the right thing today but I I just really need people to sit in that that each one of those decisions has an impact that if
100not managed upends the entire apple cart is there anything else from the board okay I apologize for that little bir walk before we um discuss the resolution but just based on the emails that we were receiving I thought it was really important to go back over those issues and how they work because it was just really clear to me that people weren't operating off the right information so I hope that that has provided some clarity um to those who are listening and um now I uh open the table to discussion on the res solution we going to do public input first or no um I was thinking we would do this first but I'm open to if you think it would be better to do public input first we can I'm getting yes okay so
101if there are people in the uh Zoom audience or I guess in this audience um I'm not used to having two audiences who wish to give public input on this topic and I'm currently seeing three hands so um I will start with Darren Chung hi there Excuse me while I start my camera aha sorry if I look funny my video camera is actually below my monitor so it looks like I'm looking up in this space and I I promise you I'm not um thank you for uh taking my input here I have uh another question about uh staff Trends and is there staff that are looking to leave not just transfer within the district but are choosing to leave their position um who are not on the Riff list and is that Trend higher than
102other years um there you know in the community uh I hear often about well you know these riffs are are making the teachers nervous um and people who are thinking that are on near The Chopping Block are are are just choosing to leave uh rather than get fired so that they know they have you know a a a a life uh or a paycheck coming in so I was wondering if if we knew anything about um any of that um also I was wondering if the May 15th uh contract deadline was part of the reason why we announced the riffs two weeks ahead of the state budget being released and I apologize as if this is not a questions type Forum um it isn't really public input so we don't normally respond to public input
103although if you have easy responses to those well I would say on the latter part absolutely the timing of the statutory requirement of May 15 and all the complexities of actually implementing the Riff uh the reduction in force um did cause us to um do it in the time frame that we did the April 14th time time frame and we also have a contractual obligation to notify the Union uh prior to the last meeting of April as well they were willing to push that but unfortunately for us if we pushed that out too far then we would have really ran up against a a time crunch as we were trying to get the Letters Out and begin that the Riff process I will say I don't have data and I doubt that we have data
104at this point related to are we seeing different Trends in our staffing we will certainly be looking for that um in terms of do we have more people who are choosing who are not under the Riff line to to leave or do we um you know I I I don't have any data on that yet I mean I'm speculating that we may have uh a little uptic in retirements just given the challenges of the past year and so forth but um and uh as I said on April 14th and I will say it again and again one of the real hardships of a riff is that um if I am on that riff line and I receive a riff notice and even though I hear all this conversation about potential recall I am likely to
105go look at other options during that time frame some of those teachers may be available to us when a re recall for them um becomes available some of them will likely have taken jobs in other places and um that's the hardest part of all of this um because there is a chance that we will lose good staff as a result of that thank you for your answers I appreciate it yeah okay so um yeah just for the the next speakers to come this really isn't a Q&A it is more an opportunity to give public input um sometimes if if there's really simple answers we can do that but that's not our Norm so um and I am just hands continue to come up as people talk so I'm just going to take these three that
106are up here now and then we're going to move on um Carrie Miller [Music] um can you hear me yes okay I cringed as my mom opened the letter to see if I got into Science and Tech boom hi my name is Grace Miller and I'm a fourth grader at bwood Science and Tech I used to go to Sunset Elementary my amazing teachers Miss con Miss Mason are on the edge of losing the jobs I'm speaking tonight to ask you to please recall my amazing teachers and protect bywood amazing Science and Tech program science in Tech demands a special type of teachers it's a different type of class first of all there's all 52 kids in one classroom 502 that's a lot of energy it's so interesting it's Hands-On lots of teamwork lots of projects
107lots of responsibility I am challenge I can focus better I love school and it's even better in person I know I'm growing my brain as Miss Mason always says I don't think two new brand teachers can learn the magic the Science and Tech notes the magic has has to be pass down my older sister went to B Science and Tech and her teacher Miss Leno taught her other teacher Miss Miller Miss Miller then taught Miss KH Miss KH taught then taught Miss Mason Magic One Thing Miss Mason and Miss KH had that new teachers cannot match is a great friendship they work really well together being good friends is so important for being good side Tech teachers they're like one person with the power of two people in for all 52 of us I understand
108o is in a tough spot with money because of covid students are not attending school but bywood room 146 and 145 is full to the maths the wait list is long there's no one who understands Science and Tech more than those two teachers please recall Miss con Miss Mason to save bywood Science and Tech I hope scitech is just as amazing for my little brother when he's in school thank you for your time thank you very much grace we really appreciate hearing from students and I'm glad that you're having such a positive experience um in your Science Tech classroom that is awesome um oops things keep moving Renee S saier I may have just mangled your name I apologize oops she was there and she left and she hi my name is Renee saier I
109am a parent of a third grader at isqua Valley Elementary and I'm the elll teacher I've been in education for 20 years and I just want to speak to the decisions that we hear being made and the decisions we make as an organization dictate our values as a system and I want the board and the superintendent to hear that it feels as if isqua School District values are budget in the bottom line first and foremost this has been an incredible incredibly difficult year for educators and this does not seem like the year to do this this seems like the year to skate low and cut Corners as much as we can can but to save Educators my belief as a school leader is that we Thrive and grow as a system when we take care
110of our Educators first and I would like to talk about the impact of the riffs as staffs we've spent so much time and care to build teams and to build professional development as staffs the decision is impacting all of our school ecosystems that is going to impact students for years to come we are taking iner District transfers first so we are creating a ripple effect that is going to cause so much change to our schools in Staffing and it it isn't fair to our kids or our teachers I really hear that we're willing to lose our most highly qualified and trained isqua school district teachers to other districts the morale is so low in our schools more than I've ever seen in my 20 years and I've been through a riff that teachers our teachers
111are looking elsewhere we have have Belleview like Washington with similar socioeconomics who are not talking about riffs and not putting their teachers through this our teachers are looking elsewhere we are losing teachers that are not even on our riff list I really encourage the leadership the district leadership to survey the staff about what is going on most other districts that I've worked in do this yearly and really take a pulse of what is the the morale and how can we take care of our teachers because I really think that should be our very first step right now to move forward through this positively thank you thank you for your input um and then the last one is it just says seea sea sea hi um that's my daughter's name sorry I have Lexi in the
112background I I want to say first grades that was so impressive um you blew me away um I cannot wait to see what happens as you grow up that was just incredible um and as an administrative point I just wanted to let you on the board note that when we're on Zoom it is really hard to see who's speaking on the board with masks I don't know if there's a way to um have bigger name platesc and to have a like a a green signal or something for who's speaking um just as a an administrative Point um that would make it really easy on the video side um for my talking points I wanted to reiterate the morale issue I think it's really important our teachers are are most important assets they really are the
113engine that makes our district successful and I would also reiterate as a parent that I am seeing exhaustion in our staff not just our teaching staff but all all of our faculty and staff throughout the dri we see it we hear it um I I think it's important to just get a pulse on what is going on and the exhaustion points and making sure we don't lose our valuable and talented Educators and how we can best support them as a district and it doesn't all cost money I think a lot of it is boils down to communication um my second point is I would like to know more communication on really what it is we're actually receiving from the state and federal government in terms of I was just I'm unclear exactly on the dollar
114amount um I Heard a number that was in the 20s millions and then 30 and if I could just get a point of clarification on that I think that would be really helpful and then I I also I know that there were several bills and I just could not follow which one was actually passed at the last minute and and signed and which years which fiscal years that was going to affect and if somebody on the board could just provide some clarification to the public I think that would be be really helpful and then my last comment goes back to the impact of these riffs on the Staffing for the new school that's going to be built for the new elementary school and the new high school we're going to be losing teachers but we're
115going to be building these two new schools and my concern is we're going to be losing really talented staff that could be used to help build out these new schools and I I guess from a parent perspective and my kids are going to be going to the new um the new high school and are going to the new elementary school that's opening up next year you know I want to make sure that these schools are stopped with amazing teachers and that the other schools are not left um short changed so I'd like to know that while these rofs are happening which you know I I understand why the need might be there but that in two year in a year or two we're not in a position where we're now having to make a please
116turn down Lexia not having to do a huge number of hires all of a sudden with all new staff and training and culture indoctrination for isqua okay thank you for your input appreciate it um okay so now let us have discussion on the resolutions I can I can I guess talk a little bit about it you guys have it I think the the goal and that's a good point like how do they know who's talking so this is Sydney mullings um uh the goal of this resolution when we were last together was to was to lay out principles on um as additional funds we were hopeful at that time came into the system what was some of the premise um how would we go about doing that um that's what's laid out here so I
117don't know how you want to how you want to go through it or if Jake you want to step through what's here um I would be fine either way D Molin um I think go ahead I was gonna say I I we have it we have it in front of us um my comment would be that I thought that we were going to do use the whereases to tell the story of you know we had all these pandemic expenses and we had this enrollment Decline and therefore we did the Riff but now there's more money and we have priorities and these are our priorities and it feels like I think all the we asses are right and they all feel out of order to me um other than the fact that I think we're missing
118the first one which should be something to the extent of whereas the district incurred significant covid related expenditures on technology Food Service fur PPE hybrid Staffing which had a negative impact on reserves that would be my first whereas and then I would just rearrange all the other ones I me that's just that's just me harlon I agree and I think that that's it should also then have so this has been the impact on how much money we've spent and impact to our fund balance so can it can tell our story and I'm sorry I wasn't here for this part of the retreat discussion but to your point and probably where Dr M was going it's this document should tell a story and right now I don't feel like it does I think all the plot
119pieces are there the long version I I think the plot pieces are all there they're just mixed up other than as I say I gave you that first sentence and I agree it would be nicer if it had dollar amounts I don't know what they are I'm open to your both of your suggestions if we want to edit this I can share it and edit as we go I think we have to yeah and I think we have the we have the dollar month so just not let me I don't have them you do we all have them so I think one that's missing for me though uh is the one that talks about I would say whereas in February of 20 20 we passed a levy that included funding for XYZ and the amount
120of that Levy that is part of our story and part of this board's commitment to mental health and social emotional supports and I think that's a foundational part of this conversation and then the with the therefore part but I think that's a really a missing part of the story Stephen can you let me put my screen up there so I'm sharing in the zoom but it doesn't appear there I think because stevenh is sharing his screen I think he's not sharing the zo screen I see it right the zoom can see it but we need to see the zoom up there oh is no no I'm in a Word document no that's not hers that's the attachment yeah yeah can an share her screen and I am she is it's just a different window there
121I'm sorry there we go that's what I wanted thank you different window okay so can you make it really big oh no that's me oh and can make it bigger okay much better okay oh okay all right so I've made it big okay so the story I would tell is okay we incurred significant expenses we had an enrollment decline um I would include harland's point about we passed a levy that included money for counseling and mental health and pbss um we have a priority of financial stability we've invested significantly in counseling and mental health counseling and we believe that having counseling supports is essential and we passed a riff we um implemented program reductions during the special meeting we provide I'm going to give you this in a minute we provided parameters we requested parameters
122for restoration we currently have so many staff people in um counseling and the leg the legislature has provided us additional funding and then there's another funding piece at the bot so do you have numbers on there okay you know what how about and while you're thinking about that I just want to say like we somehow need to say like for the current the second to last word as wait wait wait well let me give you a suggestion let me try to put this in while you guys work somebody else write down the wording of what you're talking about because I cannot do both of them okay but let me create this part while you guys do the other part okay sure and so what I think we've heard and I think that people always think
123oh you're just trying to protect their budget I think that in an organization that is education and that delivers a service of Education our budget is people and I think that we need to make that very clear so in the second to last one I don't think it should say program reduction should say budget reductions and refer to that impact is a better way how Mr trer talks about right sizing the organization to our budget like all of this staff that we're talking about is because of enrollment based like I went through and looked through and I see this missing from our website so it's probably should go somewhere maybe maybe Lea has linked it and I missed that because I know so much of our sof is hyper our en but the document that
124I wish I could share and I know she's working on this is the one that is the major factors one that you talk about that is a really good summary because I was on that hey har if you have something to share let me stop sharing mine because I'm just editing and you can share yours sure you're so techy because I think this really tells our story because I think there's a couple things about this one it shows that the reduction the primary reduction is about enrollment driven staff reductions number two it shows that there are notable administrative Cuts as part of this which is important and number three when I look when I look at all the things that aren't returned outside of those two buckets it's roughly about $2.8 million so when we
125talk about budget cuts we're not talking about it in the context of program reductions in the way that I think I thought it was and how I hear our team talk about it B I think for us we we're using language that I think our community doesn't understand and that this story needs to be told that it's really about enrollment driven changes which is why this board has talked about for a very long time about our community one of the challenges of teaching and working in a very fluent Community is that they have choice and that when the schools are closed to learning that families want that they will choose elsewhere and that's impacting our enrollment which therefore impacts our budget which therefore impacts how many teachers we need to serve our students so and
126I'd also say that we direct morala and I are meet with the other East King County School directors A Lot weekly and we have been told that other districts are going to be taking action I'm sure our superintendent would also say that they just haven't announced that yet that's correct so but the other District in our region that has a similar demographics is Merc Island and they also have announced a proportionate number of cuts based on enrollment so we are not alone so districts in our demographic do have that same challenge to their enrollment true so I just hope that our story that we tell on our resolution is reflective of of this because I think this is a really helpful story to tell and I would encourage that you to maybe refine this document
127toward something that could be more published as part of our news or or um a website post that really shows the delineation of administrative Cuts versus building Cuts versus program Cuts versus and this really shows there's zero staff like teacher classroom teacher cuts is what this shows to me it will all be driven by enrollment and I think that's the story that needs to be told because think people hear riff they think oh we're just cutting teachers and class sizes are going up and that's to what you said from in the beginning like that's not what's happening I'll stop Sydney I I feel like you're mixing things for me in what you just went through um not that I think we can update the document in many ways but in the first version or what
128you see in that document you were just showing was in essence restoral of programs that were on the original list eliminated there is a delineation there between functions that would not like the um I don't have it up but the math support as an example that all of those that entire program was going away so there is a mix there of both program and enrollment based Staffing reduction in that list right I'm talking right I wish should be clear on the final State like post when it's all said and done when okay when it's all said and done but this document about how do we get to when it's all said and done which is maybe the difference in the tents we're talking about yeah at least the original intent was how are we going
129to what are the principles we're going to use to get to this document not the and not the end goal although we can add that in the end our goal should be to have whole programming and the only impact be by Staffing um enrollment reduction right that thank you for that summary but yes so maybe it should show up before and after okay but I think there's also an important point that Haren made is that even when we're talking about program it's still people all of these Cuts yes are people they're not like books or Furniture I don't know what else is in our budget besides people energy energy bill just they are people even though we call them programs they're still people but there's a difference between things that are absolutely enrollment driven and
130other things correct as well as enrollment well at least in My Mind En an enrollment driven decline we will still have third grades we will have less third grades in some of those lines that were previously ruled out that we're saying we want to bring back there were programs that would not have existed after that cut so I just want to be clear that there is a differentiation there that there were things that we were taking completely off the board we would not have been offering that math support program it wouldn't have existed which is different than we would have less third grade classes as an example or even that we would have fewer counselors because we would still have counselors yeah so just semantics but so to your point I think um and yes
131they're all people it's not what I was arguing but no but I I just think it's an important point to make it's a hugely important point because a lot of what we heard is do these does this mean there's no drama High School yes the program of drama is going to continue it'll be supported in a slightly different way does this mean whatever I I just from a formatting perspective I think what I'm hearing because Ann's gonna do the good work to get that stuff in so I want to be of support when she's ready is we want to have Clarity of the the the kind of the story line Levy um pandemic cost for multiple things um in order to service the pandemic the need to reduce cost the principles by which we will
132store some and then post that reduction the things that we're committing to have it the things that we believe will be true which is purely an En enrollment driven um impact to Staffing man okay I have to write all that down okay okay well I've got this part ready I didn't um did you I didn't sck in harland's one about the ly that should be up near the top uh let me share and then you can tell me what you came up with I also didn't actually write it um you didn't cogently you have a question too from director moraldo well oh I'm sorry and it might it's probably a question for staff so when we look at the administrative reductions not only from what we consider administrators that level but the other cuts that
133are in the administrative building the the program programmatic cuts that you'll see on there where does that fall are those due to the enrollment drops or is that due to something else well the enrollment drop and I I see Jake moving down here to the right but I I I'll take a stab the enrollment drop drives down Revenue obviously so that is part of it the enrollment takes Revenue out of the system it doesn't get give us some of the opportunities to do some of the things that we do um because we um yeah you know we we try to be able to support our staff as much as possible um and so not every not every dime goes into a classroom teacher per se so there are some support positions that um you can
134see in the list that Dr G director Galler was sharing earlier that we at this point do not plan to bring back um and so there will be some impact now those individuals who are the people that are in there and I think that's a great point to make about programs are people school districts Mr Cooper and I talk a lot about the fact that um as a school system you need to uh you will spend right around 82 and a half percent of your overall Budget on people when you get up above about 85% no you're in danger of going bankrupt EXA that's how that's how tight our margins are not that there's a huge amount of flex in that system so we we didn't get complete you know the the while the budget
135was not the worst case scenario it did not bring us back uh it did not restore us all the way and to the public input even in this whereas Mr Cooper does identify about $20 million over two years that um recouping that that is not enough to allow us to bring everything back is that Jake did I yeah I think the important takeaway for community and is that since all our revenue is enrollment driven one way or the other every dime that comes through Levy Federal accounts to an extent that when you lose enrollment there's a ripple effect throughout the whole organization so you know administrators are funded on a portion of that students inbound Revenue only a portion of it some of it goes as you said we can go into the budget guide
136if you want but percentage of you know let's say just say 10% goes to administrative overhead for um you know outside the classroom so in return you know we have to make reductions you know you try to be as proportionate as possible um but we already have low overhead as we've discussed the lowest in the county and one of the lowest in the state um last I checked um so there's not a lot of overhead to be reduced so then everything else uh is enrollment driven or you know mostly ratio driven we could say when it comes to reductions so and and as I said earlier too um director moraldo when we were doing this work we we did Focus um on the classroom we try to preserve the classroom as much as possible so
137yeah you do see an impact on buildings like this one um that where we are quicker to move towards those and and listening to the school board as well in this very resolution that you're debating if you look at and if you listen to what you've said your words have also um driven us towards protecting the student environment in the classroom so counselors and pbss coaches and some of the things that you saw such as our our wonderful PLC program that supports our our new hires there that's not it that that doesn't have the same direct impact on the classroom plus given the fact that we're in a declining enrollment situation the likelihood of needing a program like that going forward for the next year so has diminished some so so so I think that
138that's maybe a section that's missing from this is some discussion around and don't ask me to Wordsmith anything um but as discussion around wanting to preserve as close to the student as possible that there have been cuts at the administrative level and at the you know administrative offices to be able to because because the community often says that all the time well why are you spending all that money on an Administration most of the time they don't realize that we have the lowest administrative costs in of any school district in King County as a percentage of our overall Bud budget um but I think having I think that's a piece that is missing is that we were focused on right sizing the entire system and trying to preserve the classroom and what what's in direct
139contact with the students as possible and I don't know the best way to word that yeah well and I think the other point is that since Administration is a relatively small percentage of our budget it is a comparably small percentage of our Cuts but it is there correct I mean I don't remember the exact percentage it's under 10 I would have to look at my ancillary spread which you not have before me it's usually low double digits well there were there were similar percentages of the overall for those two units I mean the amounts are magnific I mean hugely different because so much more is in the teaching staff than is in administration I believe it would it would be on that side of one of those spreadsheets I sent you on that it was
140it was to the right it was yeah like seven and a half percent of of what would be certificated and it was six and a half percent of administration so proportionally they're very close when it comes to their uh percentage percentage of the budget which is what you like to see when you're reducing budget now there are points in time where you may make make decisions to keep certain B you know if you if you boil thing down down to business units like you would do in a large corporation um you know you may have initiatives or needs you know we're going to talk about some of those needs right now that you in your restoration that that is in particular in one business unit um in one area that was important to the board
141and of course the superintendent and the community we talk about mental health and and guidance counselor so you know we try our best to be as equal as possible but there are times when you maintain Staffing um because of the work you are doing um and so you're not able to get perfectly proportional reductions but the most of our reductions as Dr Galler pointed out are based on enrollment Decline and those students no longer exist to teach in our system so I know that's hard to hear for many but if the students aren't there then the teacher doesn't have anybody to teach that's that's the a difficult part of our business okay so an has rearranged the bullet points this isn't necessarily the answer this is just what I came up with I'm happy to
142um defer to other ideas um she added my whereas on the co related expenses I'm not sure where that um the fact that we passed the 2020 EPO Levy with funds for counseling and mental health supports should be um I'm sorry I would put that at the top well I was wondering about that because it I mean if you're going chronologically it's the first thing that happened but all of this all of the reason we're here though is because of the co related expenditures so yeah well you want to make it number two I could do that I'm not sure I phrased it the way you wanted it to harlon I scribbled it really fast and if you want and it would potentially uh I hate when I get into friendly amendments with the board
143I'm sorry but that would you could say that in in 2020 the district passed a two-year educational programs and operations Levy for approximately 100 million a portion of if you want to know the details because that's what it those were the two numbers well charlin's Amendment let him I think it's 54 Smith it 54 and 45 million so pretty right there yeah I just want to include I want to appla the amounts that were dedicated towards uh mental health and social emotional support that up right now you guys keep going I'll give but rather than we replace I would recommend replacing word funds for a dollar amount I'm just G look at that right now yeah and we could say voters approved the 2020 EP Levy love word smithing in public I know I just
144have to join the zoom real quick so I can read it I can't see that far and I did want the board to know that the superintendent had already spoken to um so that could director Engles and myself about putting out a message following this with some your action this evening not KN what it is with some as to Heart Dr Galler is pointing about a more uh website friendly summary of the financial puts and takes so we will work on that okay Marne do you have any even remotely suggested words for what you wanted to add right and I'm say Jake and where you wanted to add it that can be the start of your budget pages right on the website I Jed some stuff down so which topic I'm I'm sorry I did
145not hear what Marne said I jotted as people were talking so which which comment were you Mar said something to the effect um that we're trying to preserve the programs that are most closely um most closely impact students I think as opposed to in other words willing to cut administrative level things to hang on to things that directly impact students in classrooms I think is what you were trying to say but maybe I miss right with some with some way of denoting that the the percentage of total cuts that are to the administrative positions so we can go with something like where is a um we're using the word priority a priority was given to um preserving resources closest to the classroom or close to the student Cuts were made on both admin you know
146focus on administrative I don't know if you want to distinguish between building and District or just administrative as a whole Clump use the term support Serv I was going to say I I would recommend administrative support services because we may cut a a POS position that is not technically an administrator but they support through an administrative function right I think that's that's good I would also recommend a friendly amendment to I guess uh and I and I think you you'd said it both ways closest to the classroom but I would recommend in this case closest to the student given that we're talking about counselors and support positions that don't necessarily exist inside the classroom but they are there inside the building to support the students for sure okay that makes sense oh we're able I
147think there's going to be some math that they need to work out something like where's the priority is given to um preserving I said resourcing closest to the student um I don't know cut Cuts were reductions um in what did we just say support staff uh administrative support position administrative support positions um was executed I'm trying to give more words to you could even say reductions were proportionally executed good yeah reductions were proportionately executed for support but don't you like the proportionality of it yeah that might not could you say priorities G um was given to preserving resources closest to the student by including reductions to administrative support staff need to have to say that just we have I don't know Marne wanted to say it St that's why I said if people aren't bought
148into it that's fine and that's kind of what I felt was like no one was bought into it no I think that prioritizing to preserving resources close to the student is is good I don't think we have to necessarily spell it at the expense of anything like that's all right what I'm saying is it doesn't have to be a deficit type of conversation yeah um oh gosh I wish I wish I had this printed out in order um and I was even thinking M that that line could go back and go into actual therefore because I think that that that that intent is really part of it and I want the whole well I have suggestions for the therefore period but our therefore is kind of small so I think that intent could fit there
149so just a thought yeah because that's instead of awar no then I don't have to figure out where we're really taking is because we're we're doing the all of this priority was given to pres so it should be priority should be given to preserve resources clest so my introduction but so did you get that answer did you hear that one in the therefore priority should be given yeah before the um right after the therefor um no the board hereby directs the superintendent to prioritize resources closest to the student and to restore no I would say clst student by okay by restoring okay to prioritizes prioritize resources closest yeah which is unfortunately a word it's the only time you ever get to corrector you might as well take advantage when you can by restoring this is
150numbers by restoring and since you're on that my recommendation would be in areas of counseling uh social emotional supports and mental health supports so I would the word counseling support or social emot supports I like that too and mental health supports comma or whether there a Comm I don't know wait wait wait social emotional supports and mental health okay and then what was your next thing as prioritize in the 2020 EPO Levy or somewhere like I want that part in there somewhere as well ideally in the 2020 EPN I want to bring it back to right these were things that were widely supported by our community and I think they need to understand and see from what Marne is saying about we're prioritizing things that are closest to the student including all these things that
151the community has said and voted with their pocketbook that yes they agree on these things can how do you fit that in can we do it as as committed to as instead of prioritized again as committed to in the a whole because we want the district to be able to prioritize which kind of counseling although in this we're bringing back all the pbscs all the EM um Elementary the other halftime counselors the Swedish mental health counselor so aren't we by and large bringing back all of that part the the middle school counselors were not right the um but those are AC okay trouble with the words again but I think of those as the academic counselors well how about consistent with the 2020 Levy priorities yeah as deemed appropriate by the superintendent because I agree
152it's not we don't want it to be prescriptive but we want the spirit and intent to show and I think we're all on the same page for what we want yes Levy as deemed appropriate an I think the story for me boiled down is we collectively ran a levy in 20 that was supported by the community we we pledged that we were going to put continue to put money into mental health supports and counseling services yep and that's continued yep during even during the pandemic so and that's that's why it was first on the restoration list because it was a I won't say it was a pledge but it was it was a was a high it's a high priority high priority for is a priority in the levy it's been a priority in implementation
153and it continues to be a high priority and a priority during your tenure of superintendant to be quite Frank yes and and the answer is $5 million approximately $5 million a year oh that was up in the top is that all it was well remember that that's very close to about 30 FTE which is yeah that okay remember we talked abouto 25% of what we got back from the state over two years our Baseline was roughly 50 uh counseling or counseling support staff we went to 80 80 and change so yeah right there at 30 in change is about five million bucks just what you were doing five million yeah yeah and it's per year is that an annual number or is that a total number annual yeah okay so do you want to scroll
154through it and see if people are happy with the way it reads now because I didn't ask anybody for a vote on the way I ordered it tell me when I Mo oh uh in the first one the first word as it's not spelled correctly number one but uh can we have an estimate wasn't that like $22 million bent on the which had a negative impact of X on reserves Reserve was 43 from 43 to 27 no yeah but our Co related expenditures just period on technology Food Service furlows the uh preservation of benefits PPE and then Staffing for our hybrid classrooms right around 20 24 million I would say okay wow I I had a negative impact of approximately 24 million on Reserves well it wasn't a total draw that wasn't the total net
155draw on reserves because we also had extra money right right that's why we're not we're not but I'm not asking for that we're talking about the raw expense correct we talked about a few meetings ago nearly $10 million in paid administ of leave alone but then here we say it uh which had a negative impact of approximately 24 million on reserve so what we're saying is that's not accurate oh yet on because he's oh I'm sorry he's what he's saying is there was net additional Revenue that came in so this is a true statement there was just some replenishment I want I want to Encompass what we well then don't deserves but it did have a negative impact on reserves just other things had a positive impact I would remove the unreserved like all right
156that's fine that's what I would I would recommend that let's 22 sorry I was I was doing math on My My by hand over here I thought it was 22 because that's the number was in my head because you 22 not 24 million but on what though the overall budget well I don't mean to be obuse here but the hard part is also it's across multiple funds so I get it gets fairly confusing pretty quickly oh because we we also expended amount of money at a capital projects for yes laptops I agree yeah so it it yes I agree Suzanne that's perfect there we go that's better I'm used to her being a lot closer to me oh one one one large very expensive portion of CO as it first began as we were sorting
157out high risk and who was allowed was PID administrative leave or leave uh is actually yeah leave and health benefits the biggest drivers besides your it expense yeah and it it's it's staff leave but it's leave that they were they had I mean they were they were provided to remember there was um Co leave yes under the first uh Co Relief act on the Trump Administration that provided for Le leave had to be given to employees and then uh Governor Insley also uh required districts to either have remote work or let them use leave um in some cases whether they had a crew leave or not um and then we initially as we sorted out who was highrisk in the pandemic had several months of paid administrative leave or furlows in some cases for workers
158because they were getting doctor's notes we had no remote work etc so and then additionally required by the legislature we had to maintain benefits for anybody that had benefits Fe as of February 29th 202 20 that's a leap year so so currently we say on employee furlows but you're are you recommending in in that first whereas Jake that we add I would add employee furlows leaves and benefits okay that would be more accurate portrayal of those where all those expenditures what those expenditures were yeah okay yeah because I was just thinking about like the bus drivers but that's a broader thing that's better oh uh you know I don't actually know how you embed commas within commas and maybe you use semicolons but let's just not go there although you should um there shouldn't be
159a space between million and SC for the fourth whereas I would recommend that we remove all the words after balance yeah I think I did that on one draft yeah I'm age with that I would agree again I think we need to avoid the deficit thinking I would like to move three to two though and just cover the you want the enrollment before the levy I do just because it goes along with the overall circumstance I was just I had the levy up there because I was sort of being chronological but I I I'll go either way I don't care but Co is what started this and the enrollment decline yeah yeah that's Mak sense that's fine yeah thank you for doing this an okay yeah you all appreciate you I'm glad I'm sitting all
160the way down here because you know it was going to be relegated to whoever was in that so are we good on these first four I am okay okay now we're on the next call okay so when we is this another one where we say um academic counseling counseling support that should be counseling and mental health or should be social emot social emotional supports instead of counseling supports yes and should it be academic counseling or should it be counseling our guidance counselor yeah gu leave it as counseling okay so just eliminate academic definitely yeah supports there social emotional supports like that and mental health counseling and I'm just curious why did you guys choose the word District consider of board when you were doing this [Music] resolution sorry Mr Cooper was working on it you
161know I was thinking about that too just usually the resolutions would be I was I was a little surprised yeah I didn't know I wasn't there so I was no it it I mean it is a board resolution and yeah it is interesting where district and board C they cross like that in statute too yeah I mean some of these some of these make sense to be District but um the priority of financial stability and 3 to 7% fund balance could easily be the board that is definitely the board well it does say no but that's that one's perfect it says the has a priority of financial stability and the board requirement of I think that one's fine oh I'm sorry okay I missed that okay it's when it when it comes to a belief
162where it says the district believes that having counseling supports in place for students is essential well I and and to be honest I always struggle with what what noun to use there because it is you you are the rep you are the Govern you you govern the entire District so right yeah I agree with harlon that if we're talking beliefs it should be bored so I mean not that the district doesn't also believe that but that's a board value but the the district is an entity and the board is a collection of people yeah so I don't think an entity can necessarily I don't know so you invest We Believe okay I would change that one to board yeah that's fine and just to be picky I think wouldn't it be counceling supports are essential
163no that having counseling supports in place for students is is essential that's right because it would be down to that having supports is essential if if yeah so the one the one category that we have on the restoral list I just want to make sure gets covered in that line on the the counseling we just edited which is the math path the extra math um science that isn't referenced in here is it I don't think that H in the there force in the the where in the whereas we're specifically calling out um the counseling social emotional support mental health counseling but the one I believe in looking at the list the one that wouldn't fall into that is my understanding is the math pass Staffing so I just want to make sure we or or
164does that fall under a counseling category of something no it's that's actually something that go dates all the way back to the old I 728 days to bring in additional Staffing and reduce class sizes it's something that we have done um and again this all gets kind of complicated but because in one level because special education does not recognize science as as one of the uh areas so you have kids who might not be in a regular English class because they're receiving lrc one English but they have to go to a science class so what you'll notice in the schedule is you see this big bump up in science class sizes so we recognized that and we thought one of the ways we could help mitigate that is by providing additional um FTE to each
165of the secondary buildings as that FTE rolled out over time we learned from uh administrators too that it wasn't always in the science where they had the issue but that they could use the help in the math class as well as we were going through a lot of different iterations of math Pathways over the years so we've just left that in the buildings historically as a place where they and and I know there was a time when we used to they had to provide a plan correct for how they were going to use it I I I haven't supervised a principal in a long time so neither of us but um and and so it really it really does provide a I I would argue a significant value to to the system because you know
166we place a high value on those stem courses and this helps keep those class sizes down it it made sense in a worst case scenario that you would cut that but in an effort to uh in in restoration but it is kind of lives outside of the counseling things it was not in the 2020 Levy so it is a little different in that way oh I was gonna say on the one hand we don't have to necessarily list everything that's being restored we're telling him them what to prioritize in restoration and this counseling as a lump you know is where we're prioritizing after that they get to prioritize yeah I did not see this resolution as exhaustive yeah that's a good way to think of it I would um thank you for that director Moore
167because that's exactly how we thought of it so just given what I've heard the board say if having this discussion we knew that counseling supports and behavioral supports is had to be the priority we have we can do that and still have some restoration money so we've chosen to go in for that particular one yeah get I I totally believe in the choice I just want to make sure we're so maybe I'll go to a different comment which is we probably should take the opportunity to talk about what specifically what specific items we are discussing because we haven't shared that and it would be good to at least be clear on that list to the questions of I think we spent a lot of time when we went through what would be in the reduction
168but we haven't given visibility into what is on the restoral list so maybe that satisfies what was just going through my head of let's just talk through what's here and that I would encourage as as Mr Cooper referenced um he and executive director uh Eng Les are writing you know a a postboard meeting message to the community about this we could certainly embed that in that message as well that that's that's another thing yeah so let's finish going through the resolution and then let's take a minute to do what Sydney suggested and um Marne has a question so I wanted to go back to the math passer so in your explanation kind of the original intent was a support for special eded students is that now the is it different than that now is it
169more about the overall math paths are confusing giving any type of support if you get an amount I I because to me it makes a difference if it is a focus that is to support especially special ed students I think that is one thing that's missing from all of this is how much of this to me the high school grad specialist is less about counseling and more about supporting students that that are struggling and I think we have some more positive language and I don't know if staff back there is striving learn well see striving Learners thank you Dr Mar we when we were're creating the math pathway Staffing I think superintendent was right there was mult but there was there was multiple yeah one Dr just said it was also was twofold one was
170class size reduction in science you know for supervision and academic needs second was um an an opportunity potentially at our middle and high schools to do double dose of math of need B so if you had pre if you had to pre-teach as an example or needed some remediation before you went into your math class we were doing some double dose um particularly when we accelerated the path as as superent said we we changed the path a few times the years um where we had acceleration we were pushing really hard to be uh what geometry by 8th grade at one point in time we were really working on acceleration then we slowed back um based on the standard so but that that Staffing is stated in the buildings whole time I uh but in my
171example I gave though director Moralo I want to be clear this was not and hasn't been intended as a direct special education student support it's really more of a class siiz reduction because a lot of those students um they didn't have an IEP for Science and maybe didn't need it and it but what it was happening was those class sizes were driving higher and then the other problem we were having is you know science is specialized you that's not a great place necessarily to have too large of classes because you have the lab tables and all of those kinds of things so well yes the the fact that special education doesn't recognize science is one of the areas um resulted in larger science classes than maybe some of the other core content areas but it
172wasn't specific just to support the special needs students it was really to support all the students in the classroom just by keeping the class sizes more manageable it it could be um for an advanced bi bi could be for biology course in Middle it could be a for a physical physical science course in high school it depends on where the need was and the the principal would have the discretion to drive it to where the need was in their building sure do we need the weas where we identify the FTE Cuts does that level of detail help tell our story well it was part of it to tell that we didn't eliminate all of it it's a it's 24 people I don't know I think it helps tell the story then I think we should
173go up near the rest of the other ones I talk about the counseling and I would modify the language or the social emotional support and remove the word academic yeah yes after last meeting I put as many descriptors as possible in from the counseling so I didn't miss any yeah i' remove the word academic just speak and and in this Jake we're also referring to our behavioral support staff positions correct can I can I roll down yep I think we're almost there should probably be a comma after next I'm a big comma fan though I I was gonna give you a break but since you saw it I'm glad you kept one one of my warehouses intact I'm pretty flattered I was wondering about an above two that currently the wording seemed awkward to me
174has currently or currently has but but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it thank you superintendent currently has right um after 2020 EPO Levy there should be a comma works for me and that's the end that's the end that's the end I'm gonna look for one thing so I would just order them so there's one in the middle that I think should belong that should be paired because it talks about something that's the same you went not I don't know what he's saying go to the middle he's got go to the middle go to the middle you're gon have to tell me about that's about the middle which one are you looking for so when they talks about program reductions seems like that should go along with the actual paired with one that
175talks about the drop in student enrollment oh to go uh like before that one's pretty high up put it after number two is the one that talks about the drop in enrollment right oh oh you're talking about the drop in enrollment okay well because that's what this one is talking about yeah yeah yeah you're talking oh okay I see what you're saying see move it here or after this one to me it makes sense if you're gonna talk about linking things are yeah are you talking about before or after after yeah yeah that does make sense okay there can we talk can we word change the word program everywhere we see it to budget the budget reductions like here is the this word you're talking uh here yeah I just think program doesn't that's something
176that I I I understand what that means but I don't think that I I think I think it's clear if we say budget and just and just so the board knows and the community we we use program reductions in the action you took on the 14th of April because that's what is recommended by Council this resolution you have the latitude so when you're talking about program reductions that's that's a a legal term of art that you have to do when you're doing a reduction force or you're detailing programs like that so but but budget could be interchanged on the resolution okay so you want budget yeah let's do budget I car it's clearer did we use that word any place else lots of places I probably use it all over well we start with the
177word program oh program restoration parameters and that part's fine because that's that that links it to the resolution and then uh the epno is the here that's okay so we have restoration of these programs no that's programs that's fine and the next one's Fain that one's fine uh here we could do budget yep right yes yes I got to find where I was okay okay so we're here that could be budget and I think in you resolved that would be budget there okay okay anything else one more in the the notes in the notes said I was jotting down about items we wanted to make sure were fit into the story I have one left that I we haven't touched yet so I'll just mention it and see if we want to include it and
178it was around um timing of state budget and the need to make some of these decisions to stay in compliance with different um agreements or regulation is that something that we want to have in the I think that was more for the timing of the of the reduction in force correct not the timing for this actual document correct but it was one of the things we said was part of the kind of the story line and so I just want to for me I don't feel like it necessarily has to go in but it was it was the last one I have in our our little brainstorming there so I raise it I I I don't know that I would want to include it but it is part of the story as to why are
179we putting together this parameter basically the answer I gave to the the gentleman who gave public input tonight when you know why why did you have to do it when you did it and it did have to do with the statutory requirement and the fact that the legislatures weren't done yet and it it was it was bad timing if you will but um it's just the reality of well and it was also because we at the time we scheduled that April 14th meeting many of our um students and teachers were not in school which was going to make it that much harder to deliver notices because they have to be delivered by hand to the person right it was GNA create if the people aren't on campus it's much more time consuming to go out
180and hand out all those notices well and to be clear I I I would think that the number has been six or seven out of the past 10 legislative legislatures have not ended on time yes so the legislature has a more recent history of not ending on time so we could not be guar guaranteed especially when they were if they were dealing with a budget crisis that they would end on time and I think some of the story about the timing could be on your budget Pages versus in this restoration document but yes I would say in the communication Hopefully Dr Engles hears this and yeah part to the of you know connecting the reduction Force the timing and that was required because of all the things that you've mentioned and in this document last
181I'd say an is that there's some that I feel like the social emotion ones are should all be together too oh I'm sorry what like we do a social emotional one then we skip some and do more social emotional ones I think they should all be together instead of the word no I think he wants to rearrange oh he wants to rearrange okay uh okay so we've invested we believe that supports are essential and then what else do we have so I would put those right so I guess I would remove the 3 to 7% one because that's that's one that seems like it's in the middle of and move it down or up either one I don't care let's see just not in the middle of those three oh I see what you're saying
182um it could go here after we talk about um no yeah I'd put it before the budget reduction one I would put it right after enrollment no because the enrollment leads right into commensurate Staffing levels right right so it could go after that yeah okay okay I that's where I put it I could see here does that because then we talk we're talking about Co the drop in enrollment we have to have staff match enrollments we have this strong desire for financial stability and unreserved fund balance then we go into the levy and the social emotional the counseling I'm fine with that you can scroll down a little bit more yeah so then I think that last where as on that on the screen should go up with the rest of those then maybe the
183the very last this the one that says the 83 staff to yeah again it's talking about social emotional support have it go up here yeah so maybe after before the the whole Pandemic part again where oh yeah I noticed that too okay yeah let's fix that I know no I wasn't GNA pick at it super you remember the board member we used to have that said don't let great be perfect be the enemy great yeah okay it's a Microsoft okay anything else remember deagle going once going twice need a space there um I know I think actually it needs to get up here yeah there you go even better and then I mean Diane will clean it up if we have anything glaringly wrong or Miss comma yeah I know why doesn't it like to
184I don't know I think it's right it just wants me to I don't know it keeps doing that okay so now are we do we think we're good okay would somebody like to amend yeah we might have made an amendment or two right so now I move to amend the resolution as now presented sure would somebody like to second that second thank you so all in favor of the amended resolution please say I I I I opposed okay so now we have an amended resolution so now we have a motion on the floor to approve the amended okay so we just approved the amendment to the resolution now we're approving the amended resolution that feels like I said the same thing twice question okay well I I still think we need to go back and
185talk about what this actually means so what are we talking about in this res what does it do we haven't what what does it do so I'd love to just run through what is actually being restored because we haven't been clear on yeah could you do that please and it be great I would love to hear the superintendent on his opinion of this too since what what did did you say you wanted to share I'll yeah I'll stop sharing and I'm gonna send this to Diane or maybe he's gonna have someone else on the staff go through this document is that what you want yeah yes I think Sydney wanted to just identify the things on the document that we are calling out in the resolution is that correct I I know by and and
186additional programming we are indicating for restoration that may not have been called out in that resolution as we just discussed assume we are looking at the things highlighted in blue yeah I I do think it's important as we start in this document though I I had correspond email correspondents back and forth with a few community members saying well if you if you had a $22 million reduction and you got 20 do you only have $2 million in Cuts left I'm like no that's not the case because remember this is a story problem and we also have additional expenditures as well in the coming year so um I think if you could if you mind you I I'll take you through the whole document if you want sure to the top so yeah harlon make it
187bigger so as we recall from your April meeting um we had um estimated a beginning or ending fund balance of this coming fiscal year of 27 million down from 43 for the prior year so we've talked about that reduction and then what what what has been complicated and uh took both conversations with the board and many back and forth o with OPI is to trying to try to figure out which bium uh some of this money was Landing in because usually in the supplemental budget the legislature they'll Tinker around with things but in this case they had Esser money to deal with and they also had unused basically K12 money they were trying to allocate so we received funding over two bial uh two budget periods and so the first number is the hold harmless
188um so I've adjusted the revised um ending F outs of this year are beginning for the future budget year to 39 million which is basically that cash infusion of 12.2 and then as the year starts the major budget drivers we have talked about it we have uh 5% increase for um it's Education Association two of which is the ipd uh other closed contracts um nearly close to $3 million in increase labor and then we also have inflationary increase to mxs which is shorthand for Material supplies and operating cost or anything non- labor and then the fixed costs um for those two new schools that are opening up that's Middle School 6 and Elementary 16 also known as uh Cougar Mountain Middle School and Cedar Trails Elementary we adop we had a uh fund balance spend
189down already adopted in the prior budget that would carry forward unless we remed remedied it in this next operating budget we talked about the enrollment declines um and the loss of program Revenue quite exhaustively and then future enrollment declines um as we talked about um e both being conservative and pragmatic of uh the 57 or 472 depending on when you measure it either whether it's October one or mid year and then estimated loss of Transportation Revenue at 2/3 then we had a total deficit or increase of costs of increased cost in that case of 478 and then this is where um the new Revenue comes into place so at the very top of the chart I added in the new revenue for uh this fiscal year and then the result are the increases the state
190funding driven by the implicit price deflator the PD the successful passage of a one-year HB 1476 um which allows us to collect our full Levy Authority as if those students existed on our books so we've done ghost money and now we're doing ghost students according to few legislators um the supplanted amount of Esser two and three so the district receives a little over $6 million um in net eser funds remember the gross on some of those calculations is a little over seven which as we figured out as we were doing calculations on exactly how much money we were to receive the hold harmless and transportation that is um ensuring that we will not receive any less than we did in the 1920 uh school year so there's that 4 point uh eight or three sorry
191my eyes are getting tired 4.8 million and then the hold harmless on the Esser floor to complicate things further uh that is uh a floor of federal funding so Esser um was provided the school districts and other municipalities around the nation uh to support themselves through the pandemic we of course have talked exhaustively about since that funding was pushed to the title one formula how we were disadvantaged as it relates to covid cost in that case it is a floor of $500 less the 365 I believe we received um I don't have annotation on my spreadsheet so the net of course is just over three and that leaves us um a positive of 17 million uh in new Revenue with a remaining deficit of 30 you and scroll down Dr gallender we'll get to the
192so we start again with all the new fresh Revenue so we still have a $30 million deficit to cover uh new expenditures and to the board's point and they've gone through this so want the community to be very um clear about what if the board chooses to pass the resolution before them as they've amended it what it will do is Will direct the superintendent to restore three FTE and of contracted Swedish mental health all the reductions in pbss coaches at the elementary making going them back taking them back to full-time all the elementary counselors going from half back to full um superintendent talked about the math path that's all certificated Staffing that be restored that we go right back into our secondaries hopefully that will um curtail some of the concerns that we've received from
193high school staffs over emails about class size um whether that be actual or perceived class size that is FTE that will be retained so that they can continue to have lower uh class sizes or at least commensurate class sizes um High School grad specialist 3 FTE we talked about the importance of that that support um particularly for kids that are coming back and of course I think um we've talked a lot about Co Recovery Services here but again kids are just really trying to graduate have to come back from the pandemic We Believe those that program is essential uh to continue and then there's still um a reduction amount there because we just restored one position in the assessment Department uh to enable us to execute and support the asacks or the whatever state assessments
194are coming our way for next cycle so that is the um encapsulation or summary of the financial highlights and then in the end all said and done we should end the fund balance with about $27 million if everything comes together I mean there's a lot of water that has to go under that bridge um it is not a particularly High fund balance but it will keep us right around 4% I believe unreserved last I check um and does allow for some allowances if there are unforeseen enrollment declines which which could happen given the state of the pandemic hopefully we're out of the woods on that but again um no models would predict what could happen so that is the summary of the financial gations from April 14th to now legislature is additions and now the
195board of directors recommended Restorations to the superintendent okay thank you that was very good one small question because we've re we've restored this math path search sta thing and that's eight because we used to have five middle schools and three high schools but now we're going to have six middle schools so someplace in here that six Middle School's gonna get one of these right yes but you're not restoring something you never had I know I know but I'm just asking there'll be nine fce that will be dedicated to that like from that Middle School the the reserve for the startup of the middle school it's kind of in there I just want to make sure that our new Cougar Mountain Middle School also gets one of these yes just asking actually I think I'm glad
196you brought that up because somebody proba would have emailed us about that so we didn't forget them appreciate it I I will note and and the good news is I'm going to be able to shave off quite a bit on my the next agenda item because we're covering it a lot of it right here so that's good but I I did have a note you know um this will be the lowest fund balance Reserve that I've seen in this District in about 15 years so you know we have to go back all the way to the early 2000s coming out of the strike uh time when when we saw fund balance reserves that were smaller than this and I know it's got Mr Cooper nervous and the biggest part of the the nervousness he just
197spoke to is it's really challenging to know what's going to happen with enrollment I thank the board for um passing a resolution to um really set in motion a return next fall I'm glad that superintendent reall caught up with you all today and made a similar statement um because I do believe that that is critical to our enrollment return which will be critical to our Revenue return which will help get us back um on the right footing but I think it is important for people to know this this though is an incompliance budget which your superintendent feels much better about than the The Proposal that I brought uh before you on April 14th and um then the other thing I I just want to say about this too I really appreciate the effort I know
198this has been a long kind of slog and it's never easy to write documents um group WR like this and so forth but um I think it has caused a level of conver budgetary conversation between the six of us and my staff um greater than we've ever had during my 10e here makes sense we we're in the biggest crisis um that we've had during that 10 year but the the fact that you all took the time to get this detailed and provide this level of Direction because as we noted at the beginning of all this conversation weeks ago the board establishes budget development parameters for us but we've never had parameters related to Restoration what a great opportunity for you all to express your values in this document and I am thrilled because of the
199alignment that I believe the six of us have and for me as a person who advocated to bring a lot of these programs in to not have to cut them feels really really good and so thank you for that and um I just really I I I appreciate the effort that we have gone through to do this and superintendent um I think it's important to to uh thank our folks in the fifth and our legislative delegation generally um they they did go to bat for us um during the session you know we have long relationship with Senator mullet representative call Ramos I mean you you know really all the elected all our electeds in our in our that represent ISD I I don't want to leave out um the 41st or the others as well
200because in the end they all voted for a budget that was not a worst case scenario for the ISD do I wish it had been better absolutely but I do appreciate the effort I know all the challenges they face down there so and that just so you know Mr CER that was in my notes as well to to recognize and thank our our our legislators for the work that they did on behalf of our education system and Dr I wanted me to point out too the same um we'll we'll also be adding another pbss and counselor Elementary 16 we they're just not being restored they're those same logic applies to we were Staffing those buildings like we staff other buildings as well and then I did want to go on the record about Science Tech
201is going to continue as a program that's probably in your things as well sorry superintendent that's no that's fine remember this the Staffing is position based and has nothing to do with the program continuing in that in that regard so I know that we heard about a little bit and we have received emails to an extent but I did want why I was at the podium here to recognize that program is not going away we're gonna try to continue to keep the magic alive yeah correct assistant superintendent bungard that was a wonderful testimony by the young lady yeah and um but I did want to go on the record for that because um it's important the program has not being eliminated it is impacted by this process the district I know uh would entertain conversations
202assistant superintendent bongard and I have had these conversations um as the young lady I believe Grace was her name pointed out it is kind of a unique program and it is a team taught program that's a different type of teaching and um currently it is it doesn't require a special certificate or anything like that which is why it it it's not considered a hard to fill however it is hard to fill so maybe we need to have some conversations um as we head back to the table with our with our um colleagues n IIA at least to have a conversation about that program and the Staffing of that program um that was a very um wise young lady I thought that spoke tonight and she made some excellent points and points that have we've discussed
203in this very building uh we had not obviously we've been in a closed CBA for the last three years and it just is not so it's the kind of thing that comes up when you're in a situation like you're in now so it's hard to pre um predictively had that conversation but we've made note of it so and I just thought she did a lovely job presenting the problem I think that's all I have on the technical side as well okay we still need to vote is there anything else before we call for the question no okay so uh we have a motion on the floor to approve the resolution as amended all in favor say I I I opposed okay motion passes and yeah we took longer than our 45 minutes um I did
204want the board to know that since you've taken that action that um executive director Fowler was texting me she apparently is off an airplane now and she said she'll get right to work recalling those counselors um effective Monday so okay thank you yes so that is great and I do I agree with what superintendent thy said I know we spend a lot of time word smithing but I think it's important to establish for the board to establish and make public exactly what our priorities are and what our values are and how we want um our budget dollars restored to the extent that we can restore them really truly thank you this is this is exciting news for us this is the opposite of the news that I was bringing on April 14 um and so
205I'm glad to hear that um executive director Fowler has a plan to begin that restoration um immediately so just really appreciate the effort that the board has put in on this okay so the floor goes back to you for the educational yeah in a big chunk of this was about enrollment budget riff and recall so I'm G to go ahead and just take that out we've covered that we've tied that ground quite well I think so I'm G to try to get through this relatively quickly I did want to take this opportunity um first to recognize and acknowledge that last week was teacher appreciation week and yesterday was School nurses day I um I I understand the timing of all of this and and you know I I I wish I could change it but
206I don't control when these things happen and why they align with um our statutory requirements to deliver Rift notices and May and everything but uh regardless of the fact I wanted our teachers and I want our nurses to know how much they are appreciated they do some incredible work both these or these groups our teachers our nurses with our students our families it's important for them to know how much they are appreciated and valued by our students by this school board by our families their colleagues that work with them out in the schools um all of our administrative staff and I certainly want them to know directly from me how much I appreciate them um and as I stated in my message to staff about teacher U messages about teacher and school nurse appreciation I've
207been so impressed watching our Educators learn new teaching modalities while they're teaching it's not like I could take my staff and say hey I'm GNA take y'all away for a training for the next three weeks and train you how to teach in a hybrid model or a concurrent model or a remote model it was more like we need you to do this and it's going to start on this day and we're going to kind of learn it while we're doing it and and that's not the best way to do it but um I I've been really impressed of how they have been stepping up um to do the task that none of us could have ever imagined uh needed to be done prior to the pandemic and um they've done it in a very caring
208and supportive manner for our students and families and and I do want to note that I've had a few opportunities to visit schools during this this time in witness hybred in-person learning I've been impressed with how well the staff and students are acclimating to this very different circumstance how they've embraced The Challenge and are persevering through these challenges to provide meaningful learning experience experiences for our students several staff and students have shared with me directly as well as administrators um who have observed that with each passing day of in-person um instruction and schooling staff seem to staff and students are becoming more comfortable uh getting back into the routines of school this is all good news in my mind uh particularly in light of our board and OPI position that school buildings will be reopening
209full-time in the upcoming School year I think routines I I've come to learn through this process routines are important and um maintaining schedules in the like so then I was going to talk a lot about what we just finished talking about for the last hour I wanted to address the message that went out today about our our pilot expansion of uh K3 at two of our elementary schools um I'm sure you probably saw that we announced that today that we have reached a tentative agreement with the squ Education Association on a pilot to expand the elementary day at two of our elementary schools um and this expanded day would include lunch service um additional instructional time and additional recess I throw that one in because I already got feedback from one teacher that one of
210the students when hearing about it the thing that they were most excited about was that additional recess um our our first desire I would have been to have all 15 of these schools uh be able to have this expanded schedule but unfortunately as we went through the the process the preliminary process we discovered we we have more um severe staffing issues maybe than we had even contemplated and um those are big barriers to our ability to to be able to do this so we were left with okay if we can't do it everywhere is there still is it still important to do it and we determined that yes it was because we knew we could learn from this um so we approached the Ia the district approached um the Ia and asked for um bargaining
211sessions to talk about this and we certainly appreciate the collaborative effort among the two parties to come up with this plan um the district feels this work has been very important as we learn where we might have issues related to staff facilities Transportation food service and any other obstacles that might impede our efforts for full return in the fall we learned a lot through these conversations and they did surface several challenges such as substitute teacher availability potential Transportation challenges um given our our unique schedules that we're operating under this year um and even some issues that I I hadn't anticipated related to Food Service challenges given what we are asking of our food service workers um this year in this unique setting um so we we did you know we were left to we really
212want to do this so we had to figure out well where can we do it so through this we had to select schools two schools that we thought um would work and so what we were looking for were schools that were almost entirely walking schools because that would have little to no impact on an already stressed transportation system uh we wanted it um to we looked at schools that were currently having um full day options for lrc 2 students because we knew they would have some experience with lunch service and things like that we needed smaller schools because again we don't have a lot of um Subs both on the certificated or the support side available to us so if we use smaller schools will have less impact on Subs so while I'm I'm very
213sorry that we we don't have the ability to expand this right now to all 15 of our schools I understand that because I believe that a lot of people want this and um but this is this is truly a pilot this is an opportunity for us with a very small group to learn and and take that experience and be able to move it forward um as we plan just 100% our planning for a full open in the fall so I just have to give a big big thank you to uh the K3 staff and again this is a K3 expansion that we're doing because our 4 five in the concurrent teaching the model just didn't work as well um for expansion but I can say um for the K3 staff at Challenger Elementary and Cascade
214Elementary um we are very much appreciative of of the efforts and that I know will happen over the next few days to be able to make this happen so the system can learn from it I'm very appreciative again that um the esqua Education Association would entertain our desire to to do this and work with this as a partner and I just have to give a big shout out to our assistant superintendent of Elementary and to our um CFO Cooper um They Carried the water for the district on this bargain and uh did a wonderful job and I just I'm grateful to everybody who's been involved in it the other thing that I was just going to touch on is it related to an educational update and I should note too I've got a number of
215things on Works in progress because I'm working on educational issues as well so I'm just trying to figure out where to place the items for my report outs tonight but I did want to and it was touched on I Believe by someone in public input just touch briefly on Sports and other activities those continue at our secondary schools and again I've heard from a l a lot of feedback from students and families about how important and positive these opportunities have been for so many of our students and so I just have to give another big shout out to our our Secondary School ads and the coaches and everybody who worked to make that happen with all the covid mitigations and the schedule changes and I honestly had to ask I um executive director Hood one
216day what sports season are we in now and what sports are we playing because we were rolling through these Seasons so fast but hundreds and hundreds thousands of ISD kids have taken advantage of this and I think that's wonderful and I just am very appreciative to those uh those uh Educators and coaches who have worked to make that happen everything else I was going to talk about had to do with the budget and the Riff and enrollment and if there are any other questions about any of those things certainly I'm I'm here to take it but those were the things that I was going to talk about tonight okay any questions for the board Arin so I really appreciate all the work that your team has done to Pilot this uh I still would say
217that it's disappointing to me that we have two schools that are up in samamish yes I think the need as a schools like Maple Hills and I understand the The Walking element to it I I think that not only is it from an equity standpoint about schools like Maple Hills but it's hurdles that we're gonna have to get through come August 31st so I do worry that if we're having trouble doing this in May how does that pretend for us in August so it was rhetorical yeah not for you to answer um so and I know your team is doing everything they can and it's not to diminish the work that is done but I think I would be remiss not to fight for every District I I I understand I have I I share
218some of that disappointment as I said I when I originally went into this I was thinking 15 schools going four days a week longer days um that that is and you know of course the the goal going forward um for next year is every school going five days a week full days so um yeah it's it it it is complicated right now and certainly we kind of covered some of this in the previous discussion too um there have there are some Unique Staffing challenges that this pandemic has brought without a doubt and um so yeah we were we were we were literally looking to where we thought we could pull it off and that's how we landed on these two schools um we would certainly have a desire and we were looking at other schools
219along the way and we just weren't able to make it work director Mullins I think you had a question I you know first a comment and so I am particularly happy about this topic in the speed with which we got to agreement and I think it would be um remiss to not mention that and I think it just bods well for what seems to be our ability to start moving faster and faster to get through some of these big questions and we're going to have more and so I just say thank you for that because we we absolutely need to be able to get through each of these steps at a at a at a faster Pace that doesn't mean we don't negotiate hard and we don't hear all the concerns we absolutely should but
220we've we've got to be able to do that at a pace that gets us back which is so I thank you for that the the thing I really hope we can take this opportunity to do because you just went through some great learnings around Staffing and lead and transportation is I really think we need a building by building um review of what does it take to get back to full to to full students in place like what are the components we need to evaluate to make sure that we can execute in the fall and use the summer months to want establish what that what that grid looks like of evaluation and then to look at that along the way my I I believe without taking that step of of um like knowing that answer building
221by building that we're going to get to another brinksmanship sort of circumstance in the fall and the truth is we have some months to to avoid that not for anybody's lack of effort not for you know any effort for sure but just from a lack of clarity of what are those components that must be in place and it's going to differ by building based on walking population or lots of other lots of things in mix but um My Hope Is that we can have that coners ation over the next couple of months and really understand are we are we ready to go and understand what those blers might be sooner than later but again I I just couldn't be more grateful while I wanted all the schools like not just the 15 elementary I wanted
222all the schools um to have four full days or at least you know five Wednesdays you know I have my Wednesday thing but um this is great progress and I really just want to applaud the pace and the speed and just encourage us to stay faster in these conversations it's good point one thing I will say I think that will definitely Aid Us in the fall is being able to again look at our system as a prek 12 system you know we kind of we came into this starting uh collective bargaining just talking about uh preschoolers and then first through third grade and we created almost like the these separate school systems we have a K3 remote system and a K3 hybrid in-person system we have a 4 five concurrent or a 412 concurrent teaching
223system and the problem too that we we created for ourselves is we put our elementary day and our secondary day a shortened Elementary in a full uh secondary day and lining the transportation system around that with reduced uh availability of drivers that has just been a big challenge that should go away when we go back to our original schedule with our original start times and can get back into um you know the job that um sardo and her staff do in the transportation department really creating those bus schedules that that work for our system so that should be one thing that will really help us and and again my hope is is that is our staff is vaccinated and feeling comfortable returning to to the work environment and and that that will help us as
224well we we'll get a return of Staff who for for various reasons had leave and leave that was made available as a result of some legislative actions as well so I firmly believe that if we were going for F four or five full days right now that are enrollment and the whole conversation we've had over the past few months would would not be happening in our district but we're not yep I actually agree director gallinger but I think we need to be doing things to eliminate barriers and I think one of those is immunizations and so I think that with the ability to immunize age 12 and up I think we're missing an opportunity locally I think that that would breed confidence in our system number one and number two I'm not confident that uh
225everyone in this community is going to go travel to Seattle to get their kiddo immunized I I will have an update on our imun ization efforts Dr gallinger that are coming so the other part is is how we communicate Co cases in our buildings and on our website again if we truly have had zero epidemiologically linked cluster cases in our buildings that should be at the very top number of linked cases or clusters in our schools to date since February of 2020 so 16 months if that number is zero then put a zero up or from whatever date it is I I don't care but I think that needs to be helpful and two we've heard consistent feedback from the community about the data on there you can't tell how recent it is and I
226think that really is an important thing and so I think it should be consistent with the King County of the the two week sort of geography over time so having these case counts cumulatively as well as the last two weeks I think it would be really helpful especially in the context of secondary where kind of anyone can start going whenever they want in model I think that that's an important thing lastly I want to share my screen on the data for King County Because by the way I look at it we are on day three of case counts less 200 and so day four would be tomorrow and day five would be Saturday so my understanding is after 5 days we return to four days of inperson learning so help me walk me through that
227part but I want to share my screen first yeah because I thought on the King County website it showed a case rate of 239 so it it gives you the number for uh seven days in the past if you actually look on it and you scroll down here so on 511 which was Tuesday wait you're not not St to put the zo back up sorry oh to yourself and the zoom people oh so the zoom people aren't seeing what we're seeing confused okay I think Zoom people are seeing what I'm seeing but yeah okay but we're not can you see it now yeah yes okay so you see on 511 the incident rate was 1903 on 512 it was 171.5 and because of this language right here that says that the targets have fewer than
228200 new cases for every 100,000 residents over two we period This is a 323 new cases per day if you toggle to oh no I can't see because the screen uh it's the daily case rates and you just look at today's at 285 so it's less than the 323 then you know that today is also going to be less than 200 so you can look by that number of if the next two days are less than 323 you're going to have five days in a row of less than 200 per 100,000 so the number that they list is a sday stale number just like they test positivity rate but minor understanding based on looking at theou it's not about a 7day scale rate it's about what five days in a row yeah so my question
229is if that fifth day is Saturday how do we move the system to four days a week yeah and I hadn't looked at the numbers like this um Dr G and that's not to say that Dr Aly and the others hadn't been I I kind of pull up the daily so that's why I was thinking of that number number of 233 but the reality is when we meet that Benchmark and if we have met that Benchmark below 200 we've talked a lot about this recently um there's there's capacity in those high schools for us to do it is there a transportation impact though are the bus runs different from Monday Tuesday and Thursday Friday they're not okay the The Bu the buses are are are running it it may in increase some of the numbers
230in them but um I um I mean that that's what the goal of that language in theou was about was about our ability to expand to a 4 day a week offering at the secondary level right she seems like we're on the cuss of that so I want to know I mean we I haven't seen any communication to our community about preparing for that for next Monday and it could be as early as Monday so again like I have a secondary student I know the two directors to my right also have secondary students yeah and I don't know if they've heard any communication because we all live in different feater patterns I don't think there has been any I I you know again and I I don't know if uh I've been looking at the
231numbers differently than what you just um shared them with me I don't know where the rest of I don't know and it doesn't sound like the methodology that sounds like the methodology that was envisioned in the uh in theou so it's around the county I'm not I'm not there's no calculation involved right and you can see it shows it's below the line anyway so but my point is is it's the communication part like I just want to reinforce as family I mean as parents in the district I I I'd say communication out to the staff too well we have a we have in theou we are required to notify the staff yeah and so I would say we could be notifying them tomorrow to say you know as of Monday we will definitely be five
232days have will have passed and I think is it like a five day buff buffer as to when they come back so I think any notification tomorrow that you're even on the cusp might be I didn't think in this mou there was a buffer like there was with the K3 is there a buffer in this one an increase buffer I would there was a note about change in no meaning like how like you have to like it has to be a certain number days and then you notify like there was in the K3 one I didn't see that in this yeah I I I apologize I I'd have to I don't know theou well enough off the top of my head in the back trying to speak to us I see Leisa has her hand
233up as well does do we need Stephen to unmute her there we go thank you Stephen um I was going to address two things number one is recent cases on the website um if you navigate and open up is aa. wet. eduid and you scroll below the ones where it says current where it says students current and there's a lighter blue those are cases within the last week and when you see green and there's a lighter green and it says current staff those are cases within the last week and I think Dr gallinger mentioned um something specific as it relates to that and so I just wanted to explain that the current cases on the chart is exactly what that means it means that there are cases that have been reported within the last week
234to the district um we can add the verbage at the top about that there's no cases linked to the district as far as spreading the virus and then I'm happy to send out a communication I believe the district itself was tracking a different metric and so to my knowledge there wasn't a need to do that until right now um if that is indeed the right metric we are supposed to be following so I just wanted to comment on those two particular items excent so I I appreciate that I would just say that then we need to Define what current is when you see that current could mean a lot of different things so it says within the past case within the past week that would be helpful I know that there's um that we've been
235refining that dashboard a bit over time with input um so this is all good input for us to have and um and and I believe we I was in a conversation that was really about the same thing that you know some of these cases happened months ago in a school so it's it's almost like they're not even relevant anymore and really what we want to know is what's been happening in the last few [Music] weeks anything else from the board I guess I I would like to just maybe it's something that we get after this but I think to finish out on harland's question is it would be great to get to because I I am a secondary parent I do follow that exact chart I've watched it dip below and and so I think
236it is important to make sure we're leveraging that data in the same way and that the notice process is is happening or is planned to happen as expected what I remember from looking at theou is there was going to be a survey which I know was done as well as a notific the notification to staff was around any CL any changes in class roster so my assumption was after that survey was done that the notification to class roster was completed so confirmation of that would be great and then um you know how we know when we we move forward would be also a good confirmation and I know staff are talking about that right now as we speak and trying to get that uh so we may have to re you know make we want
237to make sure that we're we're speaking the same language that we all intended at the table as well too I'm not we're not trying to pull a fast one or anything but it clearly from what I saw tonight that's looks like where we're at yeah use updated data like that 233 is from 55 which was a long time ago and especially in the context of covid I mean my student has three weeks till her senior project and pres presentation her ex exhibition which is what they're called it it's Gibson X and it would be great for her to have double the time to make sure she's getting her stuff done because today she just shared with me how much time she's able to focus when she's there on the projects that she needs and she's
238not being distracted by all the other things in the world that can be distracted when you're outside school trying to learn so to me those three weeks are critical and it's her last three weeks in this school district okay anything else clearly we'll have to you know we hopefully what we'll be doing is communicating out just what we talked about here I guess I had one other thing and it goes back to Transportation Food Services because those were some of the reasons why Maple Hills the other thing about Maple Hills is that we took advantage of the reduced number of kids and the fact that we weren't serving lunch to utilize that space for kind of construction yes um thank you management and so unfortunately that's that to me is the primary reason but I
239am concerned because we're starting to see it throughout basically the overall economy is that people who are receiving benefits unemployment benefits that outweigh what we can pay them and I think that's going to be a pro primary concern for me when you look at um bus services or Food Services if they're work working reduced hours in that position that their benefits may not outweigh the fact that they get a full-time $16 an hour payment as part of their unemployment and so I'm curious when if if staff has evaluated that as part of the issues with why we're concerned about not having the proper bu Staffing levels because that was one of the things that came up about Maple Hills is you wouldn't be able to bust them right we chose the two School that wouldn't
240require additional busing but I am concerned that come next year we have more students on buses are we going to have bus drivers to do that and um and what's and what are we doing as a system to mitigate that if part of it is that it just doesn't pay well enough yeah I mean as I understand it some of that unemployment H has a you know it's going to run out the uh the covid bonus part component of it as well so because I've heard and read some of the same things you were just referring to director moraldo that and it it makes sense if somebody hours have been diminished and they can literally make more money being on unemployment I've I've heard it more um frequently attached to restaurant workers because the other
241problem they're having is I could go back in and get more hours and then if we get pushed back to phase two then I lose my hours again do I want to take that Gamble and go off of unemployment to go work more so I've heard that same thing I don't know if that's impacting us at all I just don't I I don't know I I could speculate maybe some of that um but I don't know exactly what's behind it um why we're still having the numbers on leave and thing that that we're seeing okay ready to move on okay so at this point we have the item that we pulled P off the consent agenda on Liberty High School graduation requirements and I think I still need a motion okay I move the board
242wave local graduation requirements for Liberty High School class of 2021 as presented second Miss Hood thank you executive director of high schools Donna hood and I am here to summarize and explain anything you'd like me to about this petition for an emergency waiver of local graduation requirements so I'll try to summarize briefly um this is about a 10-page whack so please do ask me anything you'd like the State Board of Ed requested additional waiver Authority from the state legislature this year to enact emergency waivers again they received that Authority and um wrote extensive rules for how schools should implement the waiver in that set of rules and OPI has also of course chimed in and done some training on this they really stressed that local graduation requirements may be waved at local discretion without approval
243of the State Board of Ed and they wanted us to do that before using the State Board of Ed approved additional waiver so right now in any given regular school year we can wave two elective credits for students in our high schools we can also wave PE we have a particular process and form for doing that and we can wave the non-credited Washington State History requirement so all of those things exist now with this additional waiver um we can actually wave a total of four credits um but the State Board of Ed really would like us to consider our local credits first because ours in the isqua school district go beyond on the State of Washington's requirements so that's why I'm here to ask for that they would like us to to consider waving elective
244credits um first that go beyond the state requirements so mathematically speaking isquat and Skyline under the emergency rules could graduate a student at 20 credits if they needed to use all of the 4.0 waivers that are available to them the student of course still has to be expected to graduate reasonably expected to graduate this year we still have to provide a good faith effort which includes offering summer school in a fifth year and all of that we are currently doing the students at Liberty High School have had a higher graduation requirement so this year seniors would be expected to graduate with 28 credits so if we use the 4.0 total credits for student at Liberty they still have 24 credits remaining that puts it slightly out of step with of course Skyline and isqua and
245given the current emergency I brought forward the petition um based on the State Board of Ed's encouragement to do so so I understand the math currently every senior at Liberty has had the opportunity to have 32 credits is that a correct statement not exactly and I dug in to the kid level data because I anticipated that would be a very rational question to ask many of the students who might not be able to achieve the 24 um are students who joined us later than their freshman year uh and that was I really wanted to know that for sure so I pulled that kid level data um with intent so some of them came from a six period day or a seven period day somewhere else um and only two of them in fact that I'm
246thinking of and are in my data have only been with us for a year yeah but if we had students that were with us for a year they wouldn't have to meet the full 28 credit requirement of Liberty High School would they uh counselors do make some adjustments they have historically had a calculation whereby they do that knowing they didn't have all the same credit opportunities in their prior school it also depends on how some of the credit requirements transfer if it's from another state so it's hard for me to give sort of one one answer that applies to all kids but yes they do accredit evaluation and they do the best they can to make sure that there is um a fair transfer or calculation done how many credit opportunities did you have how
247many do you now have remaining and then modify it from there that is true and are we doing the same calculation for the students who've moved into isqua and Skyline High Schools that have had the similar circumstances certainly if if they did not have a seven period day for example that would be a calculation those counselors would have to do as well if they were coming from a six into a seven so I think my concern is is on Face Value it looks like we're having the potential to wave 12 credits of earning opportunity if they if for for a student that was at Liberty High School for four years see a current senior and say well you had 32 opportunities and you only have to do 20 and certainly the required 20 I know
248there's what like 4 17 or something in the state um board requirements that I I would prefer to have some sort of a more information before just blanketly going forward through some sort of a work study or whatever process because this just makes me uncomfortable in saying that our diploma is Meaningful no matter what school and no matter what circumstance and I want that to be an equitable meaning Equitable piece of paper across from our district and so I'm concerned about this as written and I did debate a little bit how um how I could share with you what I learned about the kids looking at the data that was um that's that is a challenge because I the numbers are small and I I don't want to certainly do anything to identify a student
249and I'm not asking you to and I I understand the intent of this and I fully support what you're doing so it's not the intent at all yes but I do worry about the blanket and not really knowing and certainly this is not the Vue to have that detail conversation right I I would just add um I raised many of these same issues Dr gallinger with so she's had an opportunity to do this already and for me what helped me was exact ly what you you just spoke to it was frankly I got to sit down and look at a spreadsheet kid by Kid and the story behind each student and uh that's that's what helped me get to the place that I needed to be because I started from the same place well they
250had more opportunities so why wouldn't I require them to have more credits that's been the premise of the eight period schedule and how we've operated the whole time but when I started to hear individual stories of the student moving in and things like that and whether they the the the student might be on an individual education plan or a f before that's that's when I became more comfortable with the idea so I do think that I've had the benefit of that additional information that um we could create a system somehow a structure in which Donna could share some of that I think so that might be helpful is it mandatory that it gets passed Tonight meaning if it was tabled for the next meeting and we had sometime before the meeting to have that more
251detailed conversation in a work study would that be or executive session I don't know what it would be framed but is that or just be sent to us I don't know and and from my standpoint it is it is fine we have enough time I don't think it needs to be handled this evening so Marne did you well I was going to say for me I'm going to point to the sign that's um near our president that says our students are prepared for you know our mission is that our students will be prepared and for and eager to accept academic occupational personal and practical challenges of life in in a dynamic dynamic global environment and so I guess our biggest concern and my kind of thought is that that's that's what we anticipate is happening
252and so with those students is that what's happening and so it's it's one of those where do I want to trust that the counselors have had those conversations with the families that everyone is aware this is our goal and do the families feel that that's that their student will be prepared I think that's important yeah that's a very important question and the other thing is if we are looking at students who are primarily either students on IEPs or students of color are we then creating a system by which we're shoving them out the door and they're not prepared but that it makes every body happy so I and that's I mean so I I I'm conflicted in that absolutely and there are some rules that the State Board of Ed has really clearly set out
253for us we must offer every student and family summer school in a fifth year and we we must allow them to decline the waiver if that feels to them like it is not going to help them be prepared we also have to look at the entire number of and type of credit that each kid has earned Case by case and look at out which ones that are least applicable to one's postsecondary plans and those are the ones that we are supposed to apply the waiver to so it really is quite individualized um and each of those conversations is happening I was just going to say uh would it be um uh valuable for the board if uh as when executive director Hood had shared this information with us I felt as if there was probably
254anywhere from one to three themes that we were seeing with these students and whatnot would it be uh advantageous in two weeks for us to bring back more specificity on when we might use this waiver based on some very specific circumstances perfect segue to what I was goingon to say um I I actually don't have an issue with the waiver and I actually don't think I I need to see the individual student case what um I guess I guess my question is where there is concern is your concern with how this tool is used so under what circumstance because if because to me that's a very different question which is I think it's a a tool that should be used but I want to make sure under what circumstance is appropriate but getting into the
255individual student level detail for me doesn't feel like what I would think would be the appropriate Next Step yeah So when you say a small number of students are we talking like less than 10 yeah right now what is small yeah so that students have to to get any waiver students have to have been reasonably expected to graduate this year so the students that we're looking at right now that I'm most concerned about are totaling total number of eight okay if we had a number of other students who were struggling for some other reason right now because I looked at I looked at a whole I colorcoded them all for myself there there are some others who might conceivably um not hit 24 but it it looks unlikely and that the largest maximum number I
256could identify was about 33 and to keep myself honest I had Melanie bonano take a look at it with me too because she has that expert counseling ones um but most realistically I'm thinking it's eight okay and then so this additional waiver is only for elected so these still have to meet the four credits of English the three math three social studies three science two CTE one and a half PE unless they have that little PE thing rer um half Health two P art or personal pathway and two World Language or per personal pathway so they still have to meet all of those this would just be waving the elected yes the State Board of Ed has allowed us in their waiver authority to go up to 1.0 in a core area um but that
257is only after we have done the local work so they really if we don't have to use the other waiver we won't right but I also wouldn't want and I'm not sure where you're going like if we use the our local waiver of four and then you go in and start cutting credits from the state board now you're telling if that's where you're going now you're definitely a much lower number of credits the only the the the bottom as defined by the State Board of Ed is 20 There's No Going below 20 period they' the old requirement until core 24 was adopted a few years ago but it also used to be where you could never wave a Core Credit so this is New Territory is quite different given that this is New Territory I
258don't feel comfortable and well I agree with you s it's not that I want individual student records and data I don't want that but I do want to understand what the impact is and I am concerned about this process because of the extra credit earning opportunities at Liberty am concerned about that extra or credit and how is that impacting or missed opportunities at our other Comprehensive High Schools I really truly think that this deep look at it means that we could be potentially applying this unevenly in our district and that raises serious concerns for me and so I do believe this warrants further conversation and only way you can have further conversation is by talking about so in the student population what is this and then how ises this look same or different in our
259other two high schools so sorry just so I understand the your concern is the that the ratio is different the ratio of opportunity to achievement across the schools no I'm concerned that so for instance if if we could potentially because of this we're wave we're we're doing this effort at liberty for all sorts of reasons that's been announced right but I haven't heard us doing that same thing at Skyline and at is for that one Core Credit that we could potentially wave for all these various circumstances so this this document in front of us is a very specific Liberty document does that make sense oh I I may have omitted something important then so the the State Board of Ed has given the issaqua school district the emergency waiver Authority already but so maybe I'm
260I'm not sure I'm totally understanding director gallinger so the 1.0 Core Credit that could be waved is from the State Board of Ed now and that could be utilized at any of the schools right I understand but so my concern is is because it isn't clear to me how this is truly being implemented at Liberty then I don't know and can't appreciate how it is or isn't being utilized at our other Comprehensive High Schools I guess as an example what would happen What would the minimum number of credits or how would it work for a student to have waivers at either esqua or Skyline so they they require 24 cred credits to graduate this this corre so could they graduate gr you wave all four of their electives and they could graduate with 20 correct
261yes so in that sense it would be equal it's aligning them they would each be required to have basically those core credits of which depending upon the way I described it Liberty actually had one more because they have two CTE not one so it depends on how specific we are with that but then it I I I admit against the number of opportunities they have I think it's right then they're definitely have done are graduating with way fewer credits related to the opportunities they have but then they did meet those courses those core 20 credits I guess well potentially 19 but I I think my concern is I would want to know if they had the they can't graduate with less than 20 correct well it could be 19 core credits and then one elected
262credit yes okay that I'll the total is 20 is it this would be a interesting and probably beneficial opportunity to hear and see data of those 33 students that you've mentioned to see so at Liberty High School where they get 32 credit earning opportunities what are the barriers or challenges or or how do we need to better support those students to be successful and if there's students that haven't been in our district then to understand that um if that's what their barrier is but then again to my point of wherever they came from they should have come with credits that somehow created an equivalency to a Liberty High School type credit acrel and sometimes it it really does work out great I think one of the things that we saw when our state changed social
263studies requirements for example um we found that very few kids were coming from out of state with the right social studies credits and that was was just not something we could wave it really in any way and so there are situations where there is a mismatch and and we can't resolve it easily um so that that's just one example of of something I have the impct a student might have to be taking two Social Studies classes they're trying to make up what they should have taken before but didn't have the opportunity yep now they're taking that instead of what would have been an elective yes so particularly world one two and three sequence is very out of step with other states we get students from it just is different um and sometimes Civics doesn't fall
264in the right spot and it's about when a student took or didn't take something and it just then takes up space in their schedule um and they gota they got to fit it in in order to graduate on time which is typically the goal and and if it's something that we really cannot wave right we we don't I mean that's we just don't so so then I guess I agree I think for me the great next conversation would be the um like the opportunity to credit achievement where we have at risk graduation across all three and the methods we have to assist and how what that look how it applies in each case because it's a little different to get to the final number to me that would be helpful not necessary I'm I'm interested
265in the themes of concern that the students have but I for me it's I I understand that just is it a are we applying it in the same manner across all the comprehensives for me would be the bigger one so are you wanting to or to table this then with that be the request to table this until our next board meeting with an ask for staff to come back with specific information yes that was my request okay but I'm also happy to vote like I as you know I'm happy for majority rule that's the country I live in so it's totally fine either way well I was gonna ask Donna what is the impact on those students that are waiting to know um I think I we are engaging in every kind of intervention and
266support we know how to do and can do in our current model to to make sure that kids do earn the credits they're scheduled into um that's our our first number one priority I think probably what would be the most helpful as I'm listening to you all discuss is a little bit of a walkth through in how we apply the state board rules they they are the same for everybody so we will um be applying them the same across the high schools with Fidelity um it does change from student to student depending on what their post-secondary plans are but I think that I could certainly walk you through that and I'd probably call on Melanie to help me a little bit with that um because she has that counseling expert lens and I think it'd
267be probably pretty useful I I think that would be good because I still I'm trying to go back so you know um president Weaver and I had the luxury of meeting with you when we were doing agenda planning and there I got a sense that students at Skyline and isqua would have an easier time meeting the graduation requirements utilizing the wave than at Liberty so for me that's why I was prepared to come in here to vote for this because I felt like the whole purpose of this discussion is to place a more Equitable opportunity because it would be significantly easier for a student at Skyline or isqua to be able to utilize those credit um waivers whereas at Liberty they could utilize it but never get down to meet our graduation requirement ended up
268being higher and so I just felt like that's the piece that was important to me and I am concerned about kids that are waiting to know am I going to walk right you know today I spent my time Building the address list to make sure everybody got that notice of my child graduating and so how many kids are apprehensive to really talk about it because they don't know okay so it seems like we're going to table this for the next meeting are you have enough Clarity around what the board is asking for I believe so I'll I'll talk probably with superintendent thely about what mode I bring it back uh and if you have a preference just let him know yeah I want to see the rules to table a motion as we say we
269need to do it officially or I need to withdraw the motion so it has to be seconded it's not de able not amend amendable and requires a majority vote okay so we need a majority vote to table the vote you need a motion in a second and then a majority vote okay would someone like to make a motion I move to table this item until the next meeting I'll second okay so there's a motion to table all in favor of the motion to table please say I I I opposed oppos I'm sorry you opposed okay uh so the eyes have it so we will table the motion until the next meeting thank you Donna thank you Donna I'm sorry that went so late I thought we were gonna get to you a whole lot earlier
270is there a way we can take a f minute break because we've been going for five hours there is a way we could take a five minute break um thank you director do that Stephen can you pause us okay I move the board accept the monitoring report el2 treatment of people as presented second okay want me to take it away ju just a reminder that you know I know recently the board was doing a lot of work on a modified el2 this is not that this is the previous one monitoring the 1920 school year so and I'll try to given that you know we're past 10 o'clock I'll I'll try to move relatively quickly but I've always viewed thisel as um kind of the uh it requires the proactive creation of policies trainings the implementation
271of of procedures me and practices that are directed towards the appropriate treatment of people um as they interact in the issaqua school district so we've mostly updated this to reflect last year's um the last school year the 1920 school year um a lot of our work is related to the uh in in this one the treatment of people is related to um having those appropriate policies procedures practices um individual training or uh trainings um so that we can address issues as they come up we we recognize there will be issues but do we have the systems and structures in place to to address those as they do and hopefully correct behaviors um if in fact there's been an inappropriate behavior so I'm not going to go through everything a lot of it uh through pages
272uh one and two and and even three is mostly updates um and again you can just kind of see the Cadence of how we go through um for example under sub bullet one methods of managing information that fail to protect confidential information and then we'll we provide evidence on how we try to protect people's information and make sure we're following all the furpa and everything that we need to do both um protecting uh hard copy information and digital information as well um in item two fail to provide a process for the effective handling of complaints and there you see again here we rely pretty heavily on uh District regulations uh related to uh complaints and what our requirements are to communicate information such as our student handbooks our special education um procedural safeguards um prohibitions
273against harassment intimidation and again on on that policy side and then so we create these policies regulations then we have to train people and how to actually Implement them as well I did want to highlight one thing on page four uh of this report um I believe it's on page four if I'm sometimes I'm I'm working off two different pieces I just want to clarify that I'm on the right page here for us um yes uh so it it last last year the board had a question about how do people know how they should approach the system if there is an issue if they have if they have a complaint or concern and so one of the things and and I believe this was actually created by assistant superintendent uh bongard for elementary education and
274you it is now posted on our website and we put the link in in here um and it it's we literally call IT issues concerns or questions and we created a flowchart I apologize I printed it out because I didn't know if I'd be able to pull it up um but I just wanted to make sure that the board knew that that's what this link went to and it basically just outlines as we discussed a year ago kind of what um the steps would be and of course you know contact your students teacher contact the building level Administration contact that it that um that ad administrator um supervisor if need be and just kind of that three-step process of how to do it and then provide the uh contact information for all of those levels
275yeah so if you go to page four Stephen under yeah it's page four and it's the piece issues outcomes there you go that's what you will find on on the website now if you were looking for you know how do I how am I supposed to approach a uh situation where I have a concern about a teacher or an adult in the school system so we just tried to try to clarify that um that that's one update that uh that was probably of a little more significance and oh it's found under family resources on our website too and then um on under item three same page I just wanted to note you know permit any form of illegal discrimination and again this is accomplished mostly through uh obviously having the appropriate policies and regulations in
276place training staff on those and this one you know can be quite comprehensive because it can involve uh job uh interviewing and and uh and hiring and um placement issues as well so just obviously um making sure staff understands that that is not permitted and giving them the tools to ensure that that doesn't happen um I did want to note just a again and there's a so many trainings in that particular Arena but so I thought I would just highlight a few of them um and one that we've talked a lot about here is our trainings that we have done over recent years on uh cultural competency so that that we would would be a more culturally competent system and a system that um teaches in a manner that is culturally responsive as well so
277that's been a big part of what we originally called cultural competency work it evolved into our Equity work which I think it's more appropriately titled as Equity work now um but with that goal but it relates to that that treatment of people as well um under number four on page six uh fail to maintain organization culture cultes that conform with the following values encourage an exchange of opinions and I have to say the board and the way you've conducted your meetings during this uh very unusual year and stressful time uh I think you've been very open and transparent in inviting people in to give public input um in a manner that I don't think a lot of districts have done so um and and it hasn't always been easy particularly if you're the superintendent when
278people are unhappy but I do think it reflects a transparency that we can be proud of as an organization um we need to reasonably include people in decisions that affect them and O open and honest Communication in our written and interpersonal interaction focus on common achievement of the boards ends policies and again a lot of in here there's a lot of procedures um so how how do we involve people we involved them and and I'm not going to go through an exhaustive list but I wanted to touch on just a few that have been created in the recent years the continuation of our district Equity Advisory Group continuation of our Equity family engagement partnership uh we continue our our curriculum adoption um including um uh opportunities for parents to provide feedback on on those materials
279of course we maintain an instructional materials committee uh lots of roles for for parents and staff and even students uh typically secondary students to serve on committees and work groups and listening sessions that the staff has done that the board has done is trying to find lots of opportunities we do survey a lot I I it's I find it interesting when in this time when people are saying I think you need to survey us more because boy every time we hit the button on a survey these days we're just like H you know because it's we''re doing so many of them but there are some really critical ones um that the board is well aware of the biannual healthy use survey which we missed we weren't able to administer last October but it will be
280administered this coming year um we still continue to do our soft skill surveys in fact those just got pushed out here a few days ago because that happens at the end of the year um we do our senior exit surveys so we do create opportunities for us to get input and and obviously the reason for that is if we see a trend in something that um is demonstrating that people aren't feeling well treated then we have to you know analyze what's going on there and and make uh changes to the organizational culture as necessary it is still encouraging to see when you look at some of these surveys um and some of our internal surveys by and large and again we're reporting on the 1920 school year here so I I assume data is going
281to look very very different um when we talk about the 2021 uh school year um but that our students do pretty much consistently report at very high percentages feeling safe and supported in school and that's that's that's important um let's see under five failed to brive an open and responsive environment that encourages parent involvement and again here's more opportunities um we we enjoy a wonderful and of course this has been so impacted this year um just an army of parents who volunteer in our schools historically who have done that we're really missing that we're looking forward to to bringing them back in um participating in events in our schools uh cultural celebrations um our um activities for our our our middle school and high school students uh to get in and parents to come to
282the campus and participate and and observe student performances and the like um curriculum nights on the academic side um Outreach one one great program that is often in Partnership now between the isqua schools Foundation the PTSA is parent wiser and often we are able to combine we'll be bringing in some national speaker or something they'll pick it up um and pay for the speaker to Prov additional uh parent or evening presentations that's been very popular um over the recent years and then of course opportunities for parents to engage uh I mentioned the four mentioned Equity advisory committees Levy committees boundary committees like we we did earlier um this year um we we want to find ways to encourage that parent voice into the system to help um form our decision making and one I just
283wanted to note too um which has been an important one for the last couple years for us is the uh dyslexia parent engagement meetings um because you know that that's a group that was of high interest and I really appreciate how um uh executive director melish and I know he was helped in that endeavor by Deputy superintendent Al me to to engage with that parent community and and the board might call it first that it it was almost like a hostile there was there was a tension between the two groups and that's not to say that we have addressed all of the concerns of every parent that has concerns about dyslexia but I would argue I think we went a long way towards um collaborating better with th those folks and bringing them into the
284fold learning from them and their experiences and incorporating some of their ideas into the work that we did um through a Elementary literacy adoption so those were the main highlights that I was going to share um president Weaver so obviously any questions as well questions from the board Sydney's thinking about it um I'm I'm thinking about it because I would say I've read this I fully Now understand that it's a year ago it's year and it's year in a re but it is really hard for me to I guess absorb knowing some of the challenges particularly in the protection of data and the sharing of data in the last year so um I think what's here makes makes sense to me but um I do want to make sure we're still looking at some of
285some of the challenges that have happened in the last year and are making proactive steps now um uh uh to resolve some of that I'm particularly talking about some of the covid data uh challenges and the concerns we've heard from parents about being identified in public forums um their family circumstances so I I think this makes sense for a year ago but I I do think we have still work to be done about this year and I want to make sure that we're we're actively making traction there yeah and so um there is follow-up work that the district still has to do on helping to educate our employees I I I if if I'm tracking you correctly director mullings related to some of the social media things that were happening earlier in the school year
286and how correct staff uh were posting um maybe access information and and I know we we'd had a session uh with one of our legal Council related to that as well and a gray area we do have some uh some guidance for as I mentioned a lot of this is about training how do you train your staff and when we went through that experience and I looked at what guidance we were providing to staff related to social media I'll be honest it felt very outdated to me it it felt like it was almost from another era that was really more about contemplating how uh discouraging almost uh interactions on social media between teachers and staff because you can get in trouble doing those kinds of things and that it wasn't contemplating well what happens when
287staff members in turn have access to information and uh and choose to push it out on social media accounts so we we have some guidance uh recommendations from the attorney that presented to the board we just have to follow up with that in terms of how does that become new guidance does it can can it be a regulation um what do we have the authority to um to control what people do um with social media and how do we um how do we provide them good guidance in that area as well and we have to be clear it's not also about just social media because it's not necessarily the employee that put the information on social media but shared information outside of the employee group right oh I see and somebody else posted it okay
288yeah right yeah yeah and that that is a is a challenge Harlin did I see a hand I think for me with this one I just always struggle with page three number two fail to provide process for the effective handling of complaints I maybe in previous years maybe it's a different de I'm getting confused where I feel like you provide data on how many cases that this went through this process um but that would be helpful for me to see if to show that we're a learning organization meaning like I know in this year that we're talking about we certainly had a board case in this room it was during Co because we were all spaced out so I don't see those types of things reflected in which to me I don't think it's an
289intentional Omission but I think if we don't document and talk about it and track and Trend it so if we're not measuring it then we're not going to improve from it right I think that's why for e2s always bother me and why I push for like el2 versus l12 and whatnot but even regardless as we move towards that for the treatment of people I think we we've got to look differently about moving from just oh the compliance like here's the hand book and here's the regulations to how are we actually engaging students families staff to say hey if you have this concern here's how you can get it addressed and then of those how many of those aren't addressed satisfactory get escalated and then addressed yeah I'm making any sense but I just don't feel
290like we're I feel like we're we're like groundhog day every year and think part of it is because we don't go through and track and Trend this type of information so I don't think there's incentive to change it from just a purely compliance thing yes I'm checking all the boxes but it just doesn't feel good for this to be a box checking thing and I know you don't feel that way either so I I don't I don't know if I'm making any sense well wait is this you mean like um do you mean like over the complaint section because like in the section that talks about um illegal discrimination I mean they actually described there were three three complaints from families or adults of illegal discrimination on behalf of students and then the complaints were
291appropriately addressed so you mean so in the area of um just complaints more like the 4220 or something having indication of how many cases yeah over the course of time I know in the past when we've had this conversation um you know it is easier for us to track the actual formal complaints that have been filed and I know there was discussion about so okay so you know how many formal complaints parents filed um obviously the board knows how many of those ended up in a board appeal um but I know at times we've had a conversation too around kind of lower level complaints that are brought forward we've talked a lot about that as a staff and I'll be honest we struggle because I hate to have to say it like this but a
292lot of what we deal with every day is complaints and we we literally have sat around and said so at what level would we start collecting you know I had a phone call with somebody who um was um you know wanted to share they were upset because the pickup line was moving so slowly at the school you know often what I would say kind of refrain this well have you brought that complaint forward to the school yeah I did but they didn't do anything about it um which in fact a lot of times that prompts me to make a phone call and then I find well no maybe actually we did do something about it it may not have you know that's that's where I get kind of I struggle with this a little bit
293because I'm not exactly sure how to capture all of that and bring it to you in the form of a monitoring report I guess well I think there's a lot of data management systems that are built to do that but I mean I guess what i' would say is like if we had that approach then we would never adop to beasy like right I mean like we're tracking like whether a child gives looks of the child the wrong way or pushes a child or says the wrong thing I mean like what we're asking our buildings to do is we are yeah that detailed level of specificity so I think for me it seems inconsistent if we're asking our teachers and our buildings to do that kind of data collection surely we could adopt a data
294management system that certainly exists and is mandated in Healthcare systems and you're right there's a lot of having to sift [Music] through what is legitimate wrong word but what is a clearly identified a system issue that caused it that impacted or harmed a patient whether it was intentional or unintentional like I think we'll never get we'll never get there if we don't start I guess is my point Mar well I would agree so um this is not something I really talk about I started really in the industry in customer service so I have a customer service background and being able to log calls what are you doing how is it resolved was it resolved to the customer satisfaction Cisco I when I worked at Cisco Sy and we have like a 96% customer service rating
295right it's really high and it and it comes from tracking and understanding how to serve so I think we consider ourselves overall as a learning organization but I do think when you get into the school office that is a customer service organization and are we really considering that and maybe it isn't the things that go directly to the teacher but once they start to get escalated after that first escalation I would want to start tracking and having an understanding of how somebody can make a make a complaint informal versus formal I think we had this discussion at a board Retreat over a year ago is really you know that really comes from our Equity work of I know I can look at policies find where it is but if I'm if I'm not even aware
296really of the of the system if I don't if I'm not cognizant of what the system is I'm not going to get the support that I need and so how do we one break down that barrier and then to your point how do we start tracking those informal complaints versus formal complaints and you're right we we don't even have I would love to see a thing over time about our 420s you know the 422s that are coming to step at what level they get resolved because we as a board we had the discussion the other day um uh with our lawyer when we were doing an appeal just how many appeals are coming to the board and so being able to track that over time to show the public when you do these complaints there
297is a process and we um are adhering to those process processes so I think that's important to build off that I think in my six years here on this board there's one thing consistently I've heard from the community and it's not majority but a consistent theme that I hear from our community is they don't feel hurt like whenever they actually do have a concern they feel they get marginalized or plated or whatever word you want to answer and I don't think it's intentional I really don't but I think that we're all so busy we're struggling so many things but there isn't a process by which that is cataloged and then therefore you and sit in that role at the 30,000 level can say there's not a problem but if you had something that was like
298wow this is a consistent theme across 15 of my 25 buildings that's all lowl but like that's an issue I think that would give you more visibility to closer to the ground things that maybe aren't going as great as you think they are from both a staff perspective or from a parent perspective I think that's what's missing for me and again I don't think it's intentional yeah but I think that without a process in place we'll never get to be the true learning organization that we want to be Josh I you had some thoughts I just had an idea just as somebody who works with a superintendant executive directors principles uh on the 4220 P process as uh board member moraldo was saying and I'm just going to speak on the formal piece of it
299um I believe that we could put together uh uh a Data Tracking piece that really tracked those when they Rose above the building level and like step two steps three ones that went to the board um I think that that would be very doable um we're doing that work anyway um but to bring it as a data point I think that the more of the informal piece um would have to think about that a little bit more and maybe want more input from the board about what that could look like but um I think from the formal uh complaint process tracking that um you know soon as it rises above the building level um would be very easy to do and over time um it would be data point to see if are those things
300that are increasing are they decreasing are they are they static what does that look like and I don't know if the board would be interested in that type of tracking of the formal complaint process but um from my perspective that'd be very doable so I I I heard that as well and I I don't disagree I think um and joshh is is a step in a lot of these so he would have a sense of it I'm actually kind of more interested in unpacking the discussion about a a data management system kind of like what you referenced in your when you worked in the private sector director moraldo um I'm just kind of and then I think what I heard and I'm not sure who said it and been Josh um of complaints above the
301teacher level if that would be the starting point well that was Mar yeah yeah I mean teachers have to deal with all levels of things and yeah that's probably where I get my head around beyond their Excellence as Educators they are problem solvers and um I appreciate when they have to deal with all those emails that come in and they solve those problems but I mean that was a a i I am curious about that if that um because we've had this conversation a lot I get it does feel a little bit like deja vu all over again for me as well and I'm just I've always kind of tried to figure out well where at what point do we want to and and what it I mean I'm really trying to establish a baseline
302so we're not saying teacher complaints but okay so it couldn't get resolved by the teacher so this is now somehow landed in the lap of the dean or the assistant principal or the principal that's when we would start tracking that what how it gets resolved and it may be that the assistant principal says yeah I tried to do it I couldn't so they called Jason Morris and he responded not happy then maybe that shps into a formal complaint it ends up either on Josh's desk or mine so I've really been we seriously have had conversations around how do you do this and this is actually helping me maybe to understand and I don't know what that data management system would be but and I think there there's a you know obviously a starting point would
303be tracking the 4220 that's that's relative you got to start somewhere yeah um but I'm thinking back to many many years ago when I had one single real big problem with the teacher and we took it to the principal and the principal came in and I thought the resolution was terrible I mean we weren't happy at all we walked away mad but I never filed a formal complaint I just figured Bad Thing Happened principal sided with the teacher I'm done um you know I I imagine that experience is not uncommon you know yes I was very dissatisfied no I didn't file a formal complaint so other than the teacher and the principal and now all of you nobody knew about my dissatisfaction so you know those are the ones that yeah how do you how
304do you track them and given that the principal didn't think I had a particularly valid complaint would that get tracked right so yeah and how is that recorded in the system or is it yeah because the one challenge I'm just gonna you know be honest here is that when I have conversations sometimes with a building administrator they may say oh no I think I did exactly what I need to do there they may not be happy with it but that doesn't mean I was wrong right and I don't know how does that get what ises that recorded as as just but it's still a complaint complaint unresolved or resolved to who satisfaction and that would be the difficulty I don't think whether it's resolved or not it's whether it's escalated or not yeah and if
305that's the level of data that it just it made it out of the classroom to the principal office or to the principal's office and to the EXA director office and I guess for me that's not what I'm getting at actually what I care about just to be clear it's more if if all a sudden we we started to hear so we rolled out a new curriculum let's say and there's this one part of it in the science or the this our new stem curriculum for elementary and this one section of is just really bad and we're hearing about it across buildings but it's a low-level complaint but if you were hearing about that and you you wouldn't have heard about it otherwise because you have no way to track or Trend that it's it's those
306types of things that that I'm I'm wor we're missing so one way you could also get at is so you track all the families who Give A and B maybe you have focus groups for everyone who gives the district less than a c like if you're getting a drf maybe we bring those families in and let's hear from them because they're probably the people who are unhappy because something happened that they were not happy about because generally about everyone says they moved here for the schools right yeah we hear that a lot and then they something goes wrong they're not happy so that could be another way at it I just think if we don't do something we're still next year I'll be having the same frustrating conversation I mean I have to say as
307a leader to actually have access to the data as you just described it would be really valuable I mean I I can see a point in wanting to have that that data particularly if you're looking for Trends across the system I just have been Limited in my ability to figure out how to do it and so that's this conversation these conversations are are helpful unfortunately we have them and then we move on and you know so we've clearly um I think part of it is creating a or buying however it is but it's in a web- based process where whereby a student a parent or a teacher staff member could make a a complaint and that's and that's it can be however you want it in the back end out them to it but there's
308some process by which this is managed and it will take time for this to become something that's built upon and managed but yeah it would be if you have this concern and it can be anonymous or not Anonymous that they're putting that in and that's where you might get lots of people who are concerned about I'm concerned about things that we heard tonight or I'm not concerned about things we heard tonight right now I think you can get a very um filtered view of our community if we only were listening to this and in this room and this group we don't do that yeah but I worry that we're just missing that opportunity or for instance when we've had principles that we know like we know because we've had to been our principles like oh
309Ron you know there's some things going on in the building that you might want to look at and you're you from your guys' level is like well I'm not really hearing anything and to Suzanne's Point like your executive directors do such a good job of managing things in people that sometimes they do such a good job that you guys don't hear about the problems until they're really big that that's typically true harlon that's kind of the way the system is almost set up when a problem arrives in our office it's usually a pretty big problem yeah so that's I think that's what I we're not ever that's why we're struggling to become and so for me this is part of the opportunity to reimagine right clearly we have to do a lot of rebuilding of
310trust across the community I think this would be a way and for for staff also to be able to say like they may they may be in a situation where they're in a building and they're being bullied by a St we've we've had that too and this would be a way where they could be able to do that in that way you would have a much more contemporary time frame of of knowing those things that are really important to a lot of people and a lot of students and a lot of families and a lot of staff right now you don't have visibility to yeah I also heard from the board uh two things not only the data piece um but uh I would wholeheartedly agree about uh focus groups uh and if there are
311families who are giving us a low grade based on this that are we engaging them and and and hearing what they're saying and why why they graded as slow I hopefully we capture that too superintendent anything else my computer's restarting so I can't really reference anything oh no it's going around yeah it's contagious um I would say to me the other piece um and I sorry I don't have it in front of me to be able to point to which part in the E really talks it's it's specifically around um respecting people's opinions um that section and I am I think I am just wondering how we measure that at all so we can say oh yeah it's in our e we're doing fine but how do we know because I can see what I've
312seen on on Facebook that somebody will state an opinion and um again because because you have staff members using their personal Facebook but we know who they are and the way they I mean it's an attack like you can't have that opinion I'm going to tell you all the reasons why you're wrong and it makes me wonder if I'm seeing that on social media where else is that happening and how do we even measure it so we say we're fine but I would say that especially in over the past year we've seen such a divide in everything is that even possible and then we have public input saying my student feels like they can't share their views in our classrooms so how are we measuring that at all so it's like well I guess I
313can say you're in compliance because I don't know that you're not but I really don't know that you are yeah it's that's it it goes back to that's hard information to gather I mean that how do I know if a teacher if a student feels like their opinion is not being heard or valued or that they're not being allowed to express their opinion that's a tough one I mean because a student may feel that way and just choose not to share it just as director Weaver chose not to share that she had a unsatisfactory resolution to a problem but wasn't going to file a formal complaint that's a tough one you know you try to create an environment in which kids will talk to you and you know they'll have somebody of if you're in
314a secondary environment that you know that there would be at least one of their teachers that they would feel they could talk with and bring something like that forward it's just really hard to know it's not that I don't want that information I'm I genuinely struggle with h how to get it how to get in get all of that and and know exactly what people are thinking and feeling out there well and even that parent who said that her child was uncomfortable she shared it with the board did she share it with the teacher did she share it with the principal I mean I mean I'm going to assume likely but yeah I don't know well and someone else might observe some of those interactions and not come away with the same feeling somebody else
315might say no I felt like you got to express yourself you maybe you didn't get the response you wanted but again it's all gonna how I interpret what just happened to me is going to be just that my interpretation of it it's complex I mean the interpersonal interactions that occur I know in some of my general interpretations in some of these eels I say there are literally countless interactions that happen every single day in this system and I would love to tell you that everybody leaves those interactions feeling good but I know that that's not the case to what degree they don't feel good I think is kind of what we're having this discussion about to at some level because if and and how does the system know that and clearly we have a we
316have a a lack of information that comes into the system based on that anything else Sydney no I think we've covered it I I saw you hitting your mic so I thought maybe you wanted to talk um okay are we ready to vote okay there is a motion on the table to approve the E all those in favor say I I I opposed nay nay so uh guys have it and the E is approved thank you uh I recognize even though the has been approved we've got a lot of work and a lot of thinking that we still need to do on in this particular aspect of our organization so um going to try to do better okay um next item oh for board discussion only no action needs to be taken um and this
317is what we talked about at the uh retreat was adding a line to uh gp5 which is the chief governance officer's role would be me um and on uh point two between c and d add that one of the uh duties of the president includes appointing a subcommittee of two board members to review and update the board handbook no later than early spring of each election year and that was what an and I suggested because um we we wanted to be sure that that document continues to be reviewed and updated and just doesn't get lost in um the history of the board so comments Corrections nothing I think we're good uh so we will bring this back next week um or next week next meeting for a final vote to add that to gp5 legislation
318Dr dallinger uh there was one item we wanted to bring to your attention uh it was printed for you s electronically you would review that and I will hand this off to Dr moraldo um who wanted this presented and reviewed and it's a wasda position that we would like our board to support uh that's coming from East King County that's now grown to become more than just King County right so um as part of our meetings um with not only with uh the easts side School directors um also as um as um the legislative uh folks from wasda have been meeting across uh the state virtually um we decided we wanted to put together a um a some type of prop proposal for a legislative or general assembly it's new name uh this coming fall
319and so um Northshore no actually it was Cassandra St Sage from Lake Washington um came together with this language and it was um it was helped by uh I think um board members from Belleview and I think also some board members from um Evergreen but really talking about or excuse me yeah I think that's right um but really talking about um what we've had discussions around what instruct remote instruction looks like if we're going to offer it being able to get full FTE for that um and then the funding that would also include regionalization so so that's essentially what this is about um talking about either um the district providing that directly or in combination with um um a Cooperative with other districts and so um part of wasda process is trying to get sign
320on from more than one District so yes uh Lake Washington can submit this but the more that sign on I think the more kind of it has behind it and so we've been asked if we would uh want to sign on to this and Marney since this isn't actually attached to the agenda do you want to just go ahead and read the uh sure proposal sure wasda shall initiate Andor support legislation that defines remote learning as a valid modality in basic and special education alongside full-time in-person learning legislation should allow districts to offer remote instruction either as a district or as part of a Cooperative with other districts and permit students to choose choose a modality or combination of modalities without loss of opportunity State funding should support all approved modalities at or above FTE
321levels defined for in-person learning including any regionalization or other applicable local adjustments so really the intent is that remote students would be equal to a in-person student as far as funding correct and would this give us the flexibility say to have school on a snow day I don't know about school day but what is right now currently the Alternative Learning environment is a lower funding threshold okay fair enough and so right now it's unequal and the state has had to make exceptions and so I think that hampers Innovation okay yeah so it's a 75 funding so for every student that was in there and it would be0 75 of basic Ed like the the the basic um allocation not an allocation based on regionalization so it would actually be 75% of $64,000 right and then
322um when it says an applicable local adjustments are they talking about trying to have them count for levies or what what what is that that I'm not sure of it might be right because do they count as a whole student towards our student count right um because our levies are funded at least for us it's per student right when we hit that that level yeah right whatever yeah with the increase anyway I just because we want that those students to look as right be funded just like iners students now I think that the legislature looks at the reason they funded at a lower level is because well you don't have some of the operational cost you know you don't have you're not paying for electricity for that student you're not paying for the lunch person
323for the student but there are other costs associated with providing remote learning that you don't have in a building so I think that's part of of what that is you might be more professional development it might be different systems by you know um technology systems and even offering technology or things like that that would be necessary um for uh successful implementation it might be different curriculum that you're going to have to purchase so I think there are other costs that they would that we would encourage for the remote portion that may not be to kind of offset what we're saving in operations and I think we have found that throughout this past year that we didn't see a huge cost savings and I maybe we have well um no I I I would say no
324but it goes back to some of our earlier discussions about well we may have saved some money on that side we were spending extra money on other things um I I think for me it kind of comes down to um as as this is written um it says it defines remote learning as a valid modality but I'd be curious what do you all think of as remote learning because you know there's a lot of talk about online learning and remote learning we we've chosen to Define this past year remote learning as our ISD live system and um that's very different than an online for example online schooling at wava would look like so that would be one question I would have and then the only other thing that because I because I certainly understand uh
325the intent behind this but when it says choose a modality or combination of modalities without loss of opportunity I get it if they're using multiple modalities but if you're strictly on uh um remote or online there may be some opportunities that we we can't replicate I that's where I struggle just a little bit I I I don't want to overpromise something that I might not be able to deliver so you know what does that loss of opportunity even mean or refer to yeah maybe it's the way I was interpreting what that that was I was thinking of it as well there won't be every class available to a student in that environment that there might be in a large Comprehensive High School right I think more that could you offer a class because of whatever
326enrollment issues at one of the high schools that is you know maybe it's a hybrid so those kids are in person at Liberty but there's not enough people so they would go to the library for a Skyline in isqua and that you would still get the normal amount of credits that that seems very good that kind of flexibility is what the intent of this is because right now that's currently not allowed and that's just silliness I mean right now it's currently allow I mean yeah no I know what you if that's what they're talking about allowing us to provide uh opportunities for kidss that we wouldn't be able to provide um by accessing a hybrid option that makes a lot of sense to me that's the intent of this I understand the wording is kind
327of clunky but that's what they're trying to accomplish to say let us be Innovative and thoughtful but these students that we delivering education to they should get we should get the same state funding for every student no matter how we're delivering their education and we shouldn't be penalized for being Innovative well in particularly because in the example you gave the students are still in school they're just not in the school where the class is being delivered so I agree but in the current state without Al get less money you would Sydney um I guess I'm unclear on the purpose of this this statement and how it gets used um um because the beginning of it is saying that wasda shall initiate and support legislation so it just seems like an odd statement altogether to me
328is this this isn't a position this is saying that we're going to plan to have a position the way it started so that's a that's a standard um format for how they all of their positions are in wasda and so it's to say that they may work with a legislator pre session to C craft a bill that addresses this or a legislator may have a bill that they bring forward that Wasa would then support and so Wasa goes and supports or doesn't support bills based on the positions within W that they get approved by General Assembly I guess my point is why are we word smithing this part if this isn't the actual legislation it seems like we're not wor smithing anything we're giving feedack back of whether we agree with this piece whether we
329want to sign on to okay because what I hear us doing is trying to word Smith through individual pieces of okay no I'm just trying to answer the questions because like you guys aren't W out the conversation just you can get the answers for where they were thinking sure by this yeah I think this has already been Wordsmith and it's just a question of will we vote to um sign on good we can probably then have a shorter conversation so I probably should have asked for a motion before we had this conversation well I move that we approve or excuse me I move that we support the proposal for the proposed wasda well I don't know how to word it support the proposed wasda proposal from Lake Washington school district thank you there a second
330second okay it's been moved and seconded are there any other questions for harlon or Mary so um is there an opportunity to actually give feedback on this item or we're just accepting it on its face yes or no you can absolutely give feedback and we will relay that tomorrow okay morning but in terms of the vote on the table right just yes or noort of this just because this is our last meeting before the May 15th deadline right wonderful I am ready to to decide on that okay so all in favor say I I I opposed okay you have the support of the ISA School Board anything else on legislation nope thank you okay home word stretch or home stretch I can't even speak anymore Works in progress superintendent deely that I have a really
331long list tonight so I may do some editing along the way here um just as a comment to this if if we are successful the devil will be in the details of whatever the piece of legislation is that's where we're going to want to really dig in and spend our time so just a note there so um some of the the work that's been happening in this building first of all can I just say how nice it is to have this building open and full of people every day and you know I personally have also observed as people have come back into the building at first there's a little hesitancy and we're not sure can we get in the elevator together but with each passing day it feels more and more normal and that's playing
332out in our schools which is why it was so important that even if we can't get full days or whatever we just have to get people back in those buildings I won't I won't belabor that point anymore but and I know that this is happening in other Industries as well so it's not just unique to us we I'm just believe we got to get people out of their homes and back into the routines of work in in school in particular but I take great joy in getting to discuss things that really aren't driven by covid-19 so you know that this district is has had a um a a desire to develop a strong multi-tiered system of support for our students and so that work has continued on this year even during the pandemic it just
333at a much lesser level than been able to I I do have to commend a few individuals in the system uh uh Dr MCH and the uh MIT and the special services and uh C greenside in student um intervention services they've kind of kept this initiative alive we are very excited to re-energize it in the coming year as we get back to normal work and continue to build our multi-tiered systems of support we also believe that that is going to be critical as you know we are we are currently and your sanctions for the overidentification of black males for special education and the way that you address that is by having better pre-referral interventions and that's what multi-tiered systems of support are about so I'm excited that that work that is the right work to
334do to address um that issue so that work is continuing and there'll be more to come on that and that will continue to be a focus along with inclusive practices um as we as we get back to normal earlier just a brief uh um conversation but I I I do want the board to know that we are actively working to um find Opportunities to vaccinate now our 12 to 15y Old students um you know when I saw that map in the Seattle Times and showed our high vaccination rates I did say to myself I have a feeling that we were we the isqua school district Dr gallinger and our nursing staff and team we're part of why we have that high number because we put over 3,400 shots in people's arms in this community so
335I'm so grateful to that we know I I know I believe that um getting uh as many people vaccinated as possible is critical to our our return to normal so to those ends um we've been reaching out and working with a couple of providers but it appears that Costco is going to be the one that is is really stepping forward and um I thought we might have a Costco Clinic up and running in some of our schools this early as next week it might be the following Monday uh they're getting lots of demand as you might imagine um all the providers Safeway r a Costco anybody and and that's because they've been told they should work with us to try to make this happen we are really trying hard to have um so we surveyed
336our community we had 20 about 20 250 people say that they would be interested in having their 12 to 15 year old um or 12 to 18y old uh receive a vaccination through the school district if we could make that opportunity available and we believe that we will be able to do that and we should have vaccination clinics either um and we told basically we said wherever you want it whenever you want it we're here to do it you bring the the the jabbers and the drawers and uh we'll provide you we've got spaces we've got freezers whatever you need so um Martin turn provides the vaccine I mean who they would bring they they would request to bring the in the vaccine yes and so uh that's why we did that survey work because
337they wanted numbers okay the providers we were talking to wanted ballpark numbers if we could give it to them can you repeat the number you said again I'm I'm sorry what the response number from the survey it was like 22 50 so we we're using the number 2400 Sydney that we think that um so two 1,00 a day clinics and then of course you'd have to follow that up three weeks later for the second dose the goal was to get them in try to get them in before the end of the school year and do it in the school in the school we we're we are I Costco's been running clinics out of the cinear um but you know wherever we our schools would be the preference because the kids are here and um and
338we'll work with the permissions and do the parents want to come or not come I mean frankly I just my my uh my guidance to Mr attorney was just whatever we have to do to make it happen let's make it happen we've we've got you know a month of school left or so five weeks um an opportunity here uh this will be critical to the fall for us and so in our community's done a great job of going out and getting vaccinated so I believe they'll take us up on it uh ironically I think the longer it takes for us to get started our num is going to go down because I believe our community goes out and finds vaccines that's what I was just going to say because I'm already seeing people on Facebook
339going yep I already had my kids vaccinated yeah yeah you might get some for the second shots I don't want to discourage that but I also know that and what we've seen as a nation is that there are those eager people and I would count myself as that but then once you get to that 50 60 percent rate then it starts you got to start coercing people a little more and uh so maybe bringing it into the school is one way to make it easier for those that might be a little more reluctant um let's just take down barriers and and get people vaccinated so I just want you to know um Martin is doing a great job on that um staying on top of that as soon as we have the information we will
340push it out they have their own um registration uh appointment system and everything so they're they have been running these clinics and they are um actually I believe if I if I remember right I think they were going to do something for the Riverview School District maybe even as early as this weekend so that it's starting to happen out there I think in the over the course of the next two weeks you're going to see um vaccinations covid vaccinations happening in school systems all over the region that's what I I'm hopeful for um we did talk a little bit about um uh communication when you were doing your update on the uh the board retreat Retreat and I just wanted to share again as a work in progress um our Communications Department is really taking
341off now on the uh the development and um of our new ISD website that is coming it looks like it'll be a soft launch in December with the idea that we will go full Full Tilt starting in January of I I bring this up now because there's a lot of work that's already happening and a lot of meetings that are are happening and you know Leisa is working with an outside vendor and I'm very excited about the the potential here to bring our website in into the into the modern time because frankly we have a website that looks like it was built in 1998 and we need to move away from that and and uh so I think there's an exciting opportunity there for us to work on the district image launch a new website
342all of that starting um starting in the winter of of uh 2122 um I did want to talk a little bit about end ofe activities and I you know um I've had an opportunity to talk to some of the board members individually but we are excited about the opportunity to um graduate our comprehensive high schools at Lumen field and but I do want the board to know it won't look like it has in previous years we won't be able to go into the Diamond Club uh we we are very limited by how many people can be on the stage uh the ceremonies themselves have to only run an hour in length and it takes about for Skyline in this Quai about 45 minutes to run through the names the important part of the ceremony so
343as you can see there won't be a lot of long speeches we do need the board to accept the class we don't I we we've we've gotten rid of the speech I I I I'm sorry that we've gotten rid of the speech I know how bad that makes you all feel um but we do need you to accept the class and there's so um but we're going to be there it I mean the one thing I I do just want you to be aware of that again we there's we there's no food or or anything and it could be a very very long day so you might want to ask yourself if all of you want to be there there for all three graduations um I'm just posing that I'm I will be but just
344however you all want to work it yeah did you have a question har are these like uh non-negotiable things I meaning the guidance has changed so much over the past you know that's a fair point that's the latest that I had from from Lumen field but you know what I haven't I it's been in since last week that I've checked in that was the guidance that they were giving us the the the Mariners Lumis they're now doing full Suites for vaccinated people so means the the normal number of people in a suite which is 20 so things have changed rapidly over the past two weeks I'll double check obviously and bring back another report have Donna um that was the latest that we had but you're right harlon they may be loosening that up that
345would be awesome if they're doing that for our graduation ceremonies as well ful sections where you can sit next to people you don't know and all sorts of things right because the capacity is now increased to 22,000 people great which is dramatic so maybe it won't be quite as St as we originally thought it was and just know we were accepting that because that's what we had to do and that was our way of doing it outside or doing it an actual inperson graduation so but I I just wanted you to all be aware of that yeah director moraldo I just I can't imagine a world in which we don't attend graduation for students yeah no that's our final measurement of our ends right yeah so I I would like to attend and figure out
346a way to get us fed at certain points yeah and I you know because I was even wondering about that and it maybe that we have to leave the stadium in between one of the graduat ation or something and go to a a nearby place again uh I'd have to see what's open and available I mean it's interesting I still go into some parts of Seattle and it still still feels more shut down I would say than what I experience living here in downtown isqua but we we'll figure it out I mean I'm assuming that you would want to be there I just I didn't want you to show up and and know that we were just gonna have to sit in there for 10 hours or whatever that day is and uh given the
347experience that we've had in the past which is quite nice when we're able to go down and and wait in between the graduations and didn't they also say that the kids couldn't do the processional because they don't want them lining up in the tunnel as of now they're not allowing the processional that that actually kind of does make sense because they're pretty crammed together in the tunnel although it's too bad because the processional is a really nice part of it I mean it's you can't if they're vaccinated but it also takes time and if they only have an hour well that's that's I mean that's this whole thing should be looked at that I mean baseball games are 4our events yeah well their their concern was they were planning on doing some disinfecting in between
348each graduation it's not a contact virus yeah I might have him call you Dr Galler and just say hey come on work with us a little bit Belleview and Lake Washington are also using the facility this year for for I think the first time for them so uh you started with Patty Hayes uh last week about it so oh yeah well I I would be uh I would be thrilled if some of these restrictions could be opened up and make it feel more like a a normal I mean just being able to do it was I was thrilled by but you know so we'll we'll keep Heather's doing a great job working on that in Donna's office too the other thing we have been working on And discussing and it's related to the action that
349the board just recently took is what what are we thinking in terms of online learning options for the 2122 year so we've been um discussing that internally as a staff uh Don and I participated in a regional conversation about that as well and right now things are kind of all over the map um districts are trying some different different things um some districts have already had you know like the Federal Way Academy um or the Spokan Academy they've had these things set up but those are I would describe them much more as online and not remote if we're thinking of remote like there's a live teacher and there's live streaming and stuff that is not typically what a wava or a Virtual Academy is they're more asynchronous pushing of information traditional kind of online learning
350classes so I'll I'll voice my opinion here because we really haven't had that conversation what is remote learning and I to me it is about live instruction done remotely and if people want something else there is a wava they can apply to but if we want to say we're in isqua and we're going to provide a different level of remote experience I would say I'd want it to be that live instruction and and that's what we've heard if you look at the data from um you know from the the thought exchange we did over the summer it was when we didn't have live instruction that our community is not going to be okay with that so I think whatever we do for the fall I think we do have to consider there are some people
351that are just not going to be ready to send their child it might mostly be at the elementary so maybe it does look a little bit different uh because they're not going to they may not be able to get their vaccination so people won't be feel feel comfortable moving them in so I think depending on on that um and maybe asking those questions like what would be the barriers to you coming back into full-time learning yeah you know because we did Focus so much of our attention was getting kids back into school and we know that a segment of the population have not done that so it's now asking and kind of addressing their concerns like what what is it going to take for you in the fall to be okay coming back in the
352classroom and if you won't be what what does remote learning look like for you and I think it's likely it would look very different for elementary and secondary um because it's just to to offer the breadth of courses that students want to take in a remote setting um it to do it as you were just describing would be very very challenging now at the elementary and I and we are just so you know we are planning obviously because I don't think the numbers would justify it any other way a ISD remote experience not a sunset element we're not going to try what we've tried to do to this point was recreate that third grade classroom at Cougar Ridge to the best of our ability in a virtual setting that that was kind of the goal
353we wanted to live stream we wanted it to have it feel um we could um that's more realistic that we could create that kind of a live stream not class or school by school but at the elementary level there are some additional challenges at the secondary level to be able to offer the bread which is why in The Proposal that we just um agreed to sign on to it talks about a cooperative and I really had that as kind of my thing of what can we do that's a wanic style thing so if like Washington's doing something Belle's doing something Northshore us Mercer Island can we work as a Cooperative so that we can build a schedule that's robust for students uh interestingly and I don't know I I just heard this briefly today in
354a hallway conversation but you know because they had put it out already in the Lake Washington school district that you know that they will have a remote option um there as the longer we are are moving towards more normal their numbers are already declining so like they had 100 people register for it and a number of them are already saying well look looks like we're going to be back in full-time in the fall so kind of to Dr gallinger's earlier point I honestly believe a lot of the en moment decline has been driven by um our not being in person and so that's why every chance I get you hear me say the intent is to open full-time five days a week because I really honestly I'm trying to promote enrollment growth in the system
355and because I believe that is the the best way for us to deliver an educational product and we can do it successfully yes so um so so I you know being my hope is that there's very little need for this that that it's all an overblown conversation right now and that there's very little need for it but it does appear based on everything I'm seeing come out of OPI and and the the motion that you just all passed that option is going to have to exist in the fall I just hope that most people don't want to take advantage of it because they want their child to come in person to school and we're able to provide that for right because if that's a really small group that becomes very difficult to staish it harder
356you can't have I mean even if across the whole District you can't have one full first grade class right I we already have staffing issues yeah only add to it it present you could end up with some multi-grade classes or we'll just have to see I mean we'll have to do some work to try to determine numbers but the fear we have is if I ask that question today right I don't know that that's going to give me decent data because it come August 20th we're out there saying guess what everything's back to normal don't worry about the mask we're rolling those numbers could just dwindle away and then what do I do if I'm left with 19 kids over eight grade levels if if families sign up for it it's it a full year
357commitment because we also can't necessarily have people going back and forth so that becomes problematic it does there's challenges to this mostly I just want you all to know we're thinking about it and we are talking with our neighbors and and recognizing that it's like something we are going to have to to do so um so that's part of our ongoing work I did want to note too the city of isqua and ISD SRO discussions um there was a reference that somebody wasn't able to find them I do want you to know that we have pushed out that it's a city organized City's taking the lead here but we have pushed out that information through IMS through PCMS through isqua high and through through the district as well um I followed up I I um
358president Weaver and um director moraldo I did want you to know because I I got that question from um council president hunt in our meeting the other day I just couldn't answer it on the spot I did follow up with an answer through um through the city manager and ask him to share with her or any other people that he thought might be interested I shared with him here's the statement here's the the link here's where we've posted it so we are advertising that so it's on the website notice of school board assembly city of isqua or listening sessions and it gives the dates and the times but there's nothing in there to link to the event Bri so I think that would be a good place to have an easy access on the website
359yeah now I thought that okay the E newss message I believe that went out on Tuesday did have that link right it's under the event event details okay um so I know because we have been because you do have to register to attend and and I I did share um I was at the first listening session I am not planning to be at the next two which are both on Wednesday the 19th I I have a family commitment that and this was a rescheduled meeting and I it's one that I I really can't miss we'll be well represented I I I'll have the staff there that that needs to hear this um we are we are busy uh oh wanck was mentioned and I wanted to share just today as a matter of fact as
360part of the wanck Leadership Council this is our our Skill Center Consortium that we belong to with Lake Washington Belleview and uh Mercer Island and Everett and a number of districts um our interlocal agreement is coming due it's a five-year interlocal agreement so um I gave some time today with superintendent Holman from Lake Washington and um superintendent Smith we're Anthony and I are kind of a two Old Guard now in the area because we've both been here for a number of years um to go through and and do uh rewrite and make make uh updates to our interlocal agreement and that we'll be bringing back before the council for approval but uh just wanted you to know that wanck stays a very viable and and um and they've actually continued through the pandemic as well
361but you'll be shocked to learn um those classes do much better in person as well so we just know um that that's that's something we have to do um but I did want to note too one of the things that we agreed to as a Leadership Council and I should point out the Leadership Council is just the superintendence of all the districts um we are adding a special education position to the wanic staff um because we have a high percentage of students with an IEP who take courses at wanck and we just feel like that they needed to be better supported while they're on that campus at the Lake Washington Technical um Community College so that again anything that's kind of nonco related work just really gets me jazzed up these days um we are
362interviewing and uh conducting um interviews right now we've got some important admin staff positions were're filled we've interviewed for um Beaver Lake Middle School principal I believe I have second level interviews for that tomorrow we've got Echo Glenn principal interviews coming up and I just wanted to thank those hiring teams a number of Staff parents who sit on those teams everybody is is working hard to get that work wrapped up and then the last thing I wanted to share today um and it will be on the YouTube but and and you'll hear me talk about this publicly a lot more but as the board knows a long time time assistant superintendent for elementary Ed um Jody bongard announced that she'll be retiring at the end of this school year and um she will be sorely
363missed Jody is just an outstanding educator somebody that I've had a relationship with dating back over 25 years I was actually the um principal of her children who are adults having babies now uh creating grandchildren for her so um I'm really really happy for jod I'm really bummed out for us because she's just been an outstanding partner and she'll be sorely missed but I am very happy for jod and uh we should all get to uh go away and retire at some point in our careers I guess so um but there'll be more to come on that that's all I had okay thank you can I follow up with the question for him sure so I have a question that I would ask that you or your staff find the answer to for me if
364we what is is the regulation on if we wanted to mandate covid vaccines that's right for students or for staff for our district yeah and and you know that I I'll have to research that Dr gounder because I don't know but I will find out and specifically the the question was that I heard was what is the regulation uh related to was the question yes is there any regulatory body in the state that would prevent us from mandating vaccine for staff or for students right because obviously the state can tell us to do it but if the state doesn't tell us to do it can we still do it if they don't tell us not to right so is there anything that bars us from doing it yeah right again it's about removing barriers to
365returning to normal and I know that a lot of families would feel a lot more comfortable if they knew that they were sending their children to schools where everyone around them was vaccinated also uh the Nuance to that is if we didn't mandate it for everything can we mandate it for extracurricular activities like high contact Sports so that's where it becomes very important so for football for example rather than all the work that your staff has to go through for the contact tracing and the now State mandated testing twice weekly for high contact sports that seems like a very big expense yeah and and then they changed the wrestling one right as the season ended it made no sense it's like okay so now you got to do all these crazy things for wrestlers oh
366by the way the season's over okay so I will absolutely um follow up on that I know I know it was interesting hearing the state come out and say that they wouldn't make it mandatory as long long as it was an emergency authorization thought that was kind of an interesting preemptive move on the state's part but especially since big state agencies like the University of Washington and Washington University mandated it yeah I took that it can be done I was I was super encouraged by that by the way I just want you all to know because if you can't tell by now I'm a big believer that the vaccine is a critical part in our battle against this this virus and um I thought to myself with a school district like ours where 65% of
367our graduating seniors go on to fouryear schools and most of them they go to are in that list udub WSU Western that's awesome because that just tells me my kids are gonna my seniors are gonna be going out and getting vaccinated because they're going to college in the fall so good job University system in my [Music] opinion so I'll get back to you on that um on what how that will play out whether there we can do that or or not I I will say I've been frustrated historically about our our state's rules around vaccinations because I I feel like the loophole to not be vaccinated is you know I know it got tightened up a couple of years ago and it's better now but there for a while we had some bad vaccination numbers
368as a state because our loopholes were so easy well I guess that would be the secondary question that if we can mandate it what are the rules around follow those rules what kind of uh exceptions do we have to offer any ex exemptions from it and then what would that look like right because that would be the second next phase of the question if we're allowed to do it I think we would have to be consistent with that I always think Soo well but it's very interesting because I was reading something that talked about all the vaccines that our kids have to have and they only talked about the exemption related to the measel months and rubella and I did not understand that so I don't know if it was poorly written and that was
369not clear or that's actually true that's the contested vaccine and so I sat on that technical committee think Ary so but that's the contested vaccine because that's the live vaccine byar the challenge which one the MMR so that's the why kids have such a strong reaction to it so but the other ones there's no exemption for yeah I don't I don't believe so okay did not know that yes see I didn't know that well we've got some learning to do as an organization about the requirements regulations related to it it I you know it's just never come up in my career where we wanted to contemplate can we we make a vaccine required even if the state doesn't right and obviously it would only be for the ages it's authorized for I mean we wouldn't
370be trying to overdo that yeah I don't think we can override no I don't CDC FDA they do talk about lowering that age I know down and by then we may cover them too yeah so I'll get back to you on that okay announcements correspondence we had correspondence it's listed if you have more send it to Diane anything urgent no because it's late okay calendar and future agenda topics thank you Diane for always sending out the things that I never remember um 59 19 the audit the audit exit interview an and Marne you guys are set for that cool um and Ron already mentioned the two SRO Outreach meetings also on the 19th on the 21st um 11:30 there's the Wasa Community awards ceremony if anyone wanted to attend that it's virtual yeah I'm not
371gonna be I usually go I used to go when it was in person I can't go this time I am BR I you know I am the Wasa Metro uh incoming president and one of my goals is to get back to an in-person Wasa Community award ceremony next year um June 3 6 o'clock my house for uh wrapping up the superintendent evaluation uh June 10th 2m Gibson net graduation someone said that was on the lawn of the community center yes yep okay and um June 11th graduation of all the high schools 1:00 4:30 and 8 PM that's all I've got anybody else well then I will not be at the board meeting on the 10th because you have a daughter graduating and that's very exciting so I think I think we'll excuse you from that
372meeting meeting that night we do have a board meeting following the graduation because okay well Marne and I can try place it because I don't think I'll be at the last June board meeting so okay okay um I won't be at the one in August but we're not planning that far ahead all right so unless there's anything else for the good of the order uh we're a j