MISD Board Regular Meeting - 2026 -1-15

001Yes. >> Everyone go ahead and call the meeting to order. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Um, and before we establish the agenda, I am going to make a recommendation to move the board reports not for students but for the directors to the beginning of the meeting. This is something that Julian and I and I had talked about previously. people more people tend to be attending meetings at the beginning and tend to be online at the beginning. This will give you know people who are watching or here in person a better sense to see what view. So we don't actually need to vote on that. We just want to let you know that we're going to try it out tonight. Um, so with that, can I get an establishment, a motion to establish the

002agenda? >> We establish the agenda as requested. >> Good job. Second favor. >> Great. So, we will go ahead and get started with orders. I will kick it off. I just wanted to say thank you to all of us. I really appreciate the support of the board. It's sort of hard to believe that this is my first regular meeting as president during the whole thing because so much has happened in the past month and I feel like we've done you know [laughter] been working so hard on so many different things. Um but I just wanted to to say that and say that I've been share a couple things that I've been thinking about over the past month. Julian and I have been involved in a number of trainings. I really appreciate all the administration who

003have showed up over and over again to give us all kinds of important information and I'm sure that's going to be, you know, a learning curve as we as we go forward. But, um, it's been really helpful to hear everything that we've heard so far and I've been also thinking about what I want and hope to do as far as how we communicate as a board or how I would communicate as a president with the community. I feel that there could be there is some room there that people might welcome that and so uh that's something that I will be on the agenda when we all meet as a board next week with the um schoolboard consultant [clears throat] um which I'm really looking forward to and that's I thought that would be something that

004we can all talk over and brainstorm and come up with you know love hear what everyone has to say and so a couple other quick things I guess you know as my first meeting as president um that I've been on in mind. One of course is all of the um important safety concerns in our district and I had the um I'm now joining the safety and wellness committee and I attended the first meeting on yesterday last night and you know I guess from my view and where I'm at now and what I have learned and you know where I see things are as I sort of look at it from a perspective of you know where we are right now and what is going to happen in the future you know how we're still you

005in some ways making peace with the past and my perspective is that a lot of our community members are still having a hard time with things and hurting and um don't all feel great about where we are. I've also seen a lot of what the district has been doing that, you know, I'm a little surprised by how much has been done and impressed by it. And I think that, you know, one of the things I want to do is work, you know, have the board work with youth red to make sure that we're really communicating that to people and and so I I feel good about where we're headed with that. Um I think that, you know, by the end of the um precidian has finished their investigation and, you know, the committee has wrapped

006up their work. you know, my bill. I think we're going to come up with some really solid recommendations and I and so I'm glad to see where we're going with that and I also want to keep figuring out how we as a board can be responding to the community and, you know, make sure that people's concerns are being addressed. And then the other thing that's sort of that's top of mind for me is, you know, as we've I've seen some conversations um and heard some conversations from the community and spoken to some people about, you [clears throat] know, the ongoing conversations around enrollment and a lot of the conversations have been awesome on social media and people make some really good points and I think from my perspective um you know, especially as we're this

007time of um season of registering for schools for next year and that kind of thing, I think, um I'm just sort of I curious and I want to explore, you know, what we can do, you know, as a district to make sure that we're, you know, meeting our our community's needs as well as possible. And, um, you know, Fred and I have had a couple good conversations about that and they look forward to talking about it more. Uh, there's so many components that go into that. And, um, I had the opportunity to organize um, some of the private school fifth graders to meet with the middle school um, this week, which was fantastic. um and was there and Nova several others and um it was really exciting for them to present information about the access

008for all program. So I think there's all kinds of really um you know great reasons of people who choose Mercer Island. I just wanted to point out that's something that I've been thinking about. excited to see where we go with >> and I know that we were for future islander night we were in our meeting last night but um I I had heard that that was a really big success and I don't know um if there was much conversation there but you know that was born out of the idea of not being about current eth graders at IMS but rather all of the families who probably either have kids in private schools and they're thinking about this or even you know thinking about moving here but it's grown into also including IMS which has been

009great but that's where that was born out of three years ago was really an attempt to think about our our students who were at St. Monica or over down at French American school or in other areas but now it's open to everyone which is great and I heard that it was a fantastic >> do you like it? Um I don't have anything to report uh because my meetings were covered for me by the people this week. Um except that of course the band went I'm sure they wrote this in the student report but the [clears throat] that band went to London for the New Year's Day parade and all of the students examined. I think that it's complicated having me also at the beginning because I think that all of my reports also are tied

010to the leisure rep position and uh and I was I wanted to ask if you're going to say something about the committee during your uh report or not part of it >> which committee >> yesterday were you going to say anything else? >> I will only expound upon what you don't want to add. No, I think that that that besides what what Stephanie said, I think that is important to understand for the community, we we are giving updates during uh board meetings and I have uh for those who have asked the notes of uh what I share on the school board, I have shared those uh so uh but I also wanted to say that we have had three meetings. Uh it was uh yeah and in December we are right now in the process

011of of a lot of learning. So we had had a webinar in in early December or mid December after uh uh related to policies and state uh uh law and policies and also the district policies. Uh uh so and and yesterday was a lot also a lot of of learning about precidium and then uh uh how the report process goes through the student. So there's a lot more learning. So I know it sounds slow maybe for the community but for us it's a lot of work a lot of learning and the plan is that by uh end of May June we will have the whole recommendations and this is a committee that is a recommendation to the board so we're not taking this lightly and everybody that is in there is committed to do something

012it is so within that we all will also have sub committee so even we will be monthly in between we will be meeting and we there's a lot of learning so uh but also do appreciate that if during this learning process the district those things that can be changed they're changing them and they're implementing it and for the community I will say explore the website I think that it has a lot of the frequenc uh there there's a lot of information there so if there's something there that the there's the answer is not there um reach out to to the district and and and um we'll see what else we can support the community that that matter and the more we know what the uncertainties of the communities are, the better we as committee can

013also ask more questions to the district and and our partners, community partners have been also fantastic in in supporting this work. So, um so that's the committee and then um I [clears throat] think that the other will go into the last drop uh report. That's fine. We'll leave it later. >> Uh sure. Uh it has been an incredibly busy time for me since returning from winter break in my work for the board. Um in my role as junior legislative representative. We prepared and held the linkage with our legislators last week. Uh we went attended the legislative conference on Friday and Saturday. Um but I will not steal Christina's thunder, but it's just important to note that there are uh significant work uh happening around uh school funding. Uh Stephanie and I continued our onboarding process.

014Fred set up meetings with the business office, with the facilities team, with the HR team, as well as uh learning services, and that was all very helpful. So, I want to thank uh Superintendent Rundle for his thoughtful work in helping to to prepare us to serve as board directors. Um since our last board meeting, I have attended two sessions of the tier one team at Islander Middle School. The first session focused on appropriate use of technology and ensuring that it is used for its intended educational purpose. Uh and dreams was actually at that meeting with several members of his team and there was a frank discussion about screens, their intended use and how they should be limited and controlled. Um, as many of us know, screens and technology are important topics to uh to our

015families, and I think it'd be worthwhile to have that uh IMS team and Andre kind of present to our full board to inform future decision- making around uh technology. Um, I also attended the Island Park parent advisory council with Principal McGawan um and Annie Larson are doing great work around belonging and we will hear more when they present on their school improvement plan. Um, as you know, I'm serving on the ad hoc facilities naming committee, considering naming the Mars Island High School gym for former basketball coach Ed Pebble. As a part of this work, I have been attending as many events in the high school gym as possible. I saw the boys secure a big win against Mont Lake Terrace this Saturday, caught the end of the girls blowout win against Evergreen on Monday. It's

016always great to see our stu our student athletes in action and I would encourage everyone to attend um as those games are much more entertaining than our board meetings. Um so the next committee meeting is now on the calendar for February 5th and I hope that that committee will be able to present a recommendation to the full board in March. And that is all I have to report. Yeah, >> I don't have much to report other than to say I um just finally watched the linkage session with the legislators uh earlier today and I was really impressed. It was a very thoughtful and kind of I could tell you guys really prepared for it. Um it was a really good discussion I thought. So thanks everyone who was involved with that and um I'm just

017so happy to see you guys coming on board with so much energy and enthusiasm and I know how steep the learning curve is. So keep it up. Uh that's it. Can I add a little bit about when you're talking about the linkage? I would say that it was fantastic because it was like we had the town hall then the linkage the next day and then after that we had also our student being totally engaged and also other students that wanted to testify. So the continuum has been uh fantastic in terms of the relationship with with our legislators and has been fantastic. So, so I think that it was like a whole continuum and thank you for both of you for stepping in and all the work you have done. So, >> yes. >> And we're

018glad you're feeling better in >> Thank you. Yes, I am alive. [laughter] >> Great. Want to bring our elementary team up uh to join us here at the table um as they um do this just historically uh since I've been in the district. uh at that time elementary school improvement plans have been completely different. At other times they've been almost identical. And uh I think where we've settled in and and as I've watched this team develop and come together as a team is there are and I think you saw that you'll hear it tonight. There are areas of con of consistency between them and then there are areas where you'll see very specific are you know topics that they want to improve on uh in their schools. They're oftentimes their own toughest critics as well

019as the educators who are behind them for this. Um they hold each other and themselves to a really high standard. But um this is about improvement and in in improvement we have to be vulnerable sometimes and admit where we're not doing as well. Um and I think that's reflected as well. So I just want to thank uh our principles and the teams behind them uh and along with uh uh assistant superintendent Williams for all the work. So, I'll turn it over to you, Nova. >> Well, you're turning it over to them. [laughter] >> I will turn it right over to our >> end. So, uh, good evening everybody. I'm Megan Isacson, principal of West Mercer. Um, I'm going to kick us off just by orienting you to the alignment we have in our schools and

020then we'll each talk about our individual goals. So, um, we have a slide deck that's kind of minimal, but also just kind of, um, opening it up at the end of our sharing for any questions or comments or feedback you have, and hopefully that discussion can yield more that you'd like to know. So, um, you'd likely receive very long documents about every nitty-gritty thing, but essentially um, our schools are quite aligned in the framework that we're using for our goals. Um, the starting place being that students are making a year's growth in a year's time. Um that should be kind of a basic expectation, but that's something hard to do in a really uh privileged position we're in, which is we have a lot of students who are at and well above grade level. And

021that's the same expectation there, too. So from students who are very emerging to very beyond um our goal is that in a year's time, they have that year's growth or greater. And for every student who is not yet at grade level, it's one of those gap closing goals where you have to make it more than a year's growth to close the gap over time. for our um focus academically this year. We're all working on math, which um isn't to say that we're not teaching literacy. We are um but we've significantly, you know, we've seen higher scores in literacy over time and so we're putting our efforts where we need to see more growth and that's in our math data. Um and then you'll see the second category is our social emotional learning. We use the

022educational effectiveness survey each year and it's a really trans you know [snorts] huge comprehensive uh uh survey that helps us see what students, families and staff what their perceptions are in the school and from that that's where we kind of break out um different components that we want to see uh greater positive responses to. So we'll speak to those in our own sections and then just the how um how are we doing this work? Um, all of us have really uh comprehensive professional learning community cycles, a really focus on targeted small groupoup instruction to meet students where they are. They're called different things in different places. Um, and then regular progress monitoring tools to make sure what we're doing is affecting students and really creating the impact that we want to see. Um, all of

023that surrounded by what our students need. um how they're involved in the process and driving their learning and uh truly engaged uh in this in this um learning school community everything. So they're they're a part of that and that's where our professional learning alignment happened this year is uh is really on student engagement. So you'll hear all those pieces as we go into our schools and just appreciate the opportunity to share with you tonight. >> All right, we're up first to Island Park Elementary. So just as Megan explained our problem of practice really is around students making years worth of growth and in previous year we focus just on one domain numbers on operation because that's the foundation of uh in math having success but we decided as a a school and as a principal

024team that really we want to have a little bit broader view over that. So that's why we're looking at all four of those domains looking at growth over the course of the year for all students. And one of the things that's been on top of mind for all of us is the difference between high achievement and actual growth because our students come with such high achievement. One of the things that maybe we hadn't been as in tune to in years past is the actual growth that students make. And we want them to make a year's worth of growth. And so at Island Park, we have 86 to 95% of our students already meeting the year's worth of uh I'm sorry, meeting the academic standard at grade levels. And so that was in 2425. yet some

025students weren't leading that typical growth and you can see this is where our area of growth was that it was only 51% to 72% making years growth depending upon the grade level and so that's why that became our focus this year. So as we talk about the social emotional learning we want students to be able to report that they have a high sense of feeling positive about their school experience and so not all students report that. So last year we had between 80 and 96% of students saying that yes, they felt that they had a positive experience at school. And our staff decided as we looked at where we wanted our school improvement goals to be this year to continue with that to make sure that we build up that stuff in the cracks because

026that's really the crux of having high success at school when you feel like you matter and you belong. And so that was important to our staff to continue that. And so just reiterating what Megan had said, our priorities are that all students will either meet or exceed typical growth in math. And then one of the things that has come to mind with our community curiosity around math and how we're challenging kids and making sure that they're demonstrating growth and not just achievement is looking at depth of knowledge, which is another way to look at student growth, not just based on achievement. And so our instructional coach Annie Larson, and our inclusion specialist, Dr. So have worked with uh students in our building and they identified seven students that or 17 at the beginning of the

027year who already scored at or above grade level on the first diagnostic and we had 17 students and so they're looking at another way to measure that growth and they're using the I already performance task and you can see in parenthesis these are the things that they're actually looking at. This performance task is given one-on-one with students with the adult and they're examining for accuracy. Are they able to justify and explain their mathematical language? Can they verify and can they have some real life application in there? And there's a rubric to score, you know, what your responses are. Are you level one, two, three, or four? And so they've taken all 17 of those students, given this one-on-one assessment, and then average their scores. And so we're looking to see over time, are we going

028to see that improve? And our theory of action here is that if we teach the curriculum with fidelity, we would expect to see that depth of knowledge continue to grow over the course of the year for students. And so they've had two cycles. It's every other month. So they've have the December, sorry, they've had the October and December and we'll do it again in February to watch that. And what else do they want to tell you? Oh, again that our seal panoramic is to be 100% uh positive response from students and the routines that we have established. You're going to hear many of these repeated for the other schools that students are engaged in that daily mind path experience under math and literacy. But since our goal is in math, that's our target. All schools

029have some form of what we call success block. And as Megan explained, it's called different things at different schools. And our PLC data cycle is being revamped this year. Our RTI, our response intervention team is looking at ways to formalize our process and to make sure that folks are having a similar experience. So we've re recalibrated this year. That's what we're doing over the course of this year. One of their tasks is to take a look at another way to examine school data. There was an interest in our staff to not just use the I reading diagnostic and not just use the depth of knowledge approach but to look at classroom data and how does that compare to what I diagnostic tells us so that we have more than one piece of data to look

030at and triangulate and say does does the I ready diagnostic and does our classroom data does our knowledge data tell the same story and if they don't which one is accurate for each student. So, this RTI team is leading the work this spring with our staff to determine what that classroom data will look like with the intent of including that next year. And let's see, oh, a couple of things that have been additioned this year in our component. Our diversity, equity, inclusion team had not included student voices before. And so this year, we have a number of students on that team as well as our positive behavior interventions and support. You might have heard of it called PBIS. We have students on that team too as well because that's been a missing piece. As the

031adults, we think we know that we were leaving out a really critical component of student voice, which is their school. We want them to have a question. >> Should we wait as protocol till everyone's done or is it okay to jump in? Is there >> um every school has a little bit different um set of data. Do you have with regard to growth and looking at the island park data from 2020 to three 24 to 24 25 you know clearly you know there was a drop off in most grades do you know what the reason for that was >> sure we've had a lot of conversation around that the staff was very concerned as well and so we invited I ready what's his name >> lint l I always forget and nova came down to

032kind of explain some of the nuances of why that might be nova can you kind of give a refresher of what that was so that people can Yeah, part of it is that their achievement has gone up, but growth has gone down, right? So, if you start at a higher point, it's harder to grow to that next point. That'll kind of the biggest take away. I think this >> it was concerning to staff as well. After we have the conversation about why that makes sense and why that is occurring, that was what sparked the interest in having classroom data to use as an additional point and that's what sparked our response to intervention team to begin to plan how can how can that be so we're not just relying on other pieces of data. I

033really like the idea of incorporating classrooms data too because you know I think some kids are better measured great by one form or another and so I think that's that's great. I curious to see that more next year. Um so is it just the idea that perhaps as I Ready is um being used more widely and kids are adapting their growth slow but their achievement or not I mean does >> yeah I mean there's a lot of variables and what changed so we changed the curricular tool with the change in the curricular tool very different from our prior tool which was math math expressions our teachers I think were ready for a shift in that I think our administrators were ready in a shift of that it wasn't the tool that was right for our

034kids so we shifted to high ready which changed then some of our achievement. We've had multiple years now we're in year four with our elementary so um they're kind of well along the way in using the tools and so that's raised achievement but growth then goes down um with higher scores at the beginning of the year. >> Okay, good problems to have. [laughter] >> All right, here I am again. Um, that's pretty it's pretty bare bones. Sorry about that. I have a long I hope you have in front of you or on your laptop the actual school improvement plan. You'll likely see that blue and red chart um on the front page of that. >> Um I kind of want to share the story of a couple of our grade levels we're diving into. Obvious

035obviously you can see that across the school K5 we had 68% of students making a year's growth or more and all of us were not happy about that. Um when you look at the 32% who didn't make that year's growth and you break that down there's the the funfilled chart. Um, when you break down the 32% by grade and look at who's who's not making growth, you can see what Nova mentioned. I'm just going to, for example, take that second grade line. So, only 49% of that grade had made a year's growth. Yet, we have 67% in the achievement category. And then of the 51% who didn't make growth um half of those were at or above the end of the year grade level um at the end of second grade and the other half

036were not. So we had this big range when we talk about not making growth. It's from a emerging student to a well- above student. So what that tells us is the targeted instruction needed for all of those groups needs to get tighter, needs to get more frequent. we need to look at what tools we can use within and beyond our curriculum. And so this year we're really leaning into that as a opportunity um especially for our learners at and above in second, third, and fourth grade. We are doing um I know Joby went into detail on on that project, but we're doing something similar where students are getting um enriched tasks using a rich math task uh uh resources that we have and um also getting accelerated opportunities. So going into the next grade level

037in the Wolfpack block where we're seeing what growth measures can come of those two opportunities. So either extending, getting deeper at same grade level or or accelerating on. And we're starting to get back our winter data seeing how much the enrichment the extending in your own grade level is impacting students because one of the emphasis uh that we have in those groups is working on the standards of mathematical practices. would really like what are the dispositions and mathematical thinking that you're using to approach problems and that is actually having a great impact almost to the degree of a next grade level. So it's it's pretty exciting to start to see that come back. Um and we have a lot of time ahead of us to continue to refine those groups. Um but it's something hopeful

038especially because it is that great problem that we have um in this community. Um, similar to math, uh, I talked about the focus areas for our SEAL are celebrating learning, opportunities to celebrate learning and opportunities to progress monitor for our students. So, they are part of the learning process. And those are the areas that we were um earlier in our you know lower scores in our positive responses. So, um, for example, we have a system of celebrating student excess. success was uh an area that had decreased by 25% of of students feeling like they had that. So, there's some things we're doing this year, including a final Friday positive impact award celebration where students are recognized for positive contributions and progress they've made over the month. Um it's pretty fun because we kind of have

039it as a pep rally at the end of the month. Families are invited. Um we have some fun component. Yep, we had someone dressed up in a wolf at the last one. Um, there'll be probably some dance parties and things. I might get some teachers to get up there uh doing a choreograph dance or something. I have one who can play the drums who's willing to do a drum session. So, just getting the energy about making growth and it's not just on a diagnostic, but like how we are growing and learning in a community. Um, all of the small wins. It's all about 1% wins, right? every day there's a 1% gain in some way and some of that's on a quiz or um on a writing assignment or something that you don't always get

040to see in a big tangible number. And so just trying to like have our students be reflected and the progress they're making and and those students be a part of that. So that's been really fun and joyful. Um and I will invite all of you to the next one. Um and just like the routines I mentioned before, just really honing in on data. Um, I gave a I'll say this and stop talking. Sorry you guys. Um, right before the winter break gave a survey to our teachers just kind of like where are you at in the as we end the year? What are you looking forward to? What do you feel good about? What's challenging? And like the resounding thing is that people want to do every day what's best for our kids. They're working

041the butts off. They're working with urgency. They're looking at every single student and like this job job is hard, but everyone is like full steam ahead. we got this. And I just love that kind of resounding like what can we always do to do better for all of our kids, every single one of them. And that mindset and mentality. Everybody's kind of like in that zone and learning zone as staff this year. And uh it's really it's showing up every day and showing up when it's hard. And you know, this week was hard and uh we lost a really valuable member of our school community and we've been you know, just rallying behind that. And I think when we look at all this data that's important but like more so is the community that we

042create and grow and sur you know surely we see that uh this week and beyond. So thank you for the opportunity. I'm happy to answer any questions. Do you have any insight into why certain grades just perform you know distinctly lower than some of the others? Is that typical each year for that grade or is it just happens to be one class or another? >> Yeah I mean that's a great question. There's always um you know different different level of standards at each grade. Um the first K1 you can see our K1 crushed it. Um big shout out to K1. Um I think a lot of this really speaks to um you know the the work that we're doing at each grade level to target instruction. Um we've got a lot of great work on

043that in the building. It's not to say that other grades don't have that yet, but it's always a work in progress. Um, how we target students and how we use the time to do that. It's always kind of a growth um, opportunity. But I think that's something I've named in our staff meetings like we have in the building the expertise around student learning and so we can lean on each other for that. like first grade, uh, Miss Gazimi, you had every single student make a year's growth or more. What were you doing? Let's learn from you. Or fourth grade, Miss Robinson, you had every single student make a year's growth or more in in your math class. What were you doing? So I think we're really trying to lean into the strategies that people are

044using, but certainly it's like as tight of those datadriven small group cycles that we can get and not just in the Wolfpack block that's an additional block, but within our content block as well. So that double dose of targeted instruction. Um so we're, you know, we're looking at all all types of things to break down and remove barriers. I'd also just say that there's some natural fluctuation in scores between cohorts and we see that um especially right now I think as a result of the pandemic. So in like literacy uh areas is where we've seen it and that's kind of part of why we've launched so much into that access for all work uh and targeting some of those grade levels. So you will always sort of see a natural fluctuation in just how they

045perform based on cohorts. The hope is to see them go up from year to year. >> Can I answer that question that wasn't about my school? the time [laughter] >> because it it really is bothersome when certain grade levels see that their scores because and so what we basically did this year at Northwood is I you know we made the data public right so here's what's happening you guys are all working so hard so let's figure out how to work smarter not harder because you're all you know doing whatever so with a couple of our grade levels we actually aligned them with an instructional coach to say okay let's analyze the practices let's look at data more frequently. Let's do these things because I don't want you to run screaming from the building because you're

046working so hard and it's not having the effect you want. And so we're already the language that some of these grade levels are using and some of the analysis they're doing is really impressive uh because we do schoolwide professional learning communities so that we can see kind of those grade levels. But it when you look at those numbers, that's exactly how we look at those numbers and we're like, "Hey, what do we need to do?" So, um yeah, sorry. I just we we've been very paying very close attention to that and I feel like we've been doing some things to make to sort of >> I love that because I think our instructional coaches at our schools are so wonderful and they have so much to >> offer and I've already seen some of the

047effect so I get really excited. >> Yeah, I always promote her podcast but our instructional coach is like probably best instructional coach in the state or beyond and you got to [laughter] follow her podcast. It's commuting with coach Abby. But yeah, along those lines, just like we when we know better, we do better. Like that's why we're trying this whole um accelerate and extend pilot with second, third, fourth, because we did see numbers of students who were above grade level who didn't make that year's growth. And like sure, at the end of their grade, they're where they need to be, but they didn't have the opportunity to continue that same thread um over the years. So, it's always a work in progress. >> I think that's a really good question. That's one we're really looking

048at. >> Great. >> And and I noticed the same thing, the same pattern and and I had the kind of the same question, but my question will be probably V and Parker Northwood between uh those classes that have access for and those who do not. Do you see a difference in in how they also perform in math like uh pretty much that do you have and do you have data and how are you going to compare and bring that also to the rest of the school? Yeah. And our math is really language heavy >> and so obviously if you're having a hard time reading words off a page, you're also going to see the effects of that. So what we're seeing is tremendous growth in literacy. And so what we're hoping and I hope I

049don't um is that as we see that growth in literacy, we will also see the growth in that because technically the word heavy problems are comprehension. And if you can't get the words off the page or it's too slow, then you're having you're gonna have a really hard time. >> And this will be kind of the first year that you're gonna start measuring that. >> Yeah. And we've expanded the program. So it'll be really interesting to see. And so now it's not all concentrated making one class. There's a couple. And so it'll be really interesting to see that the data of that program has been >> I think it shows that it's exactly that that age when when problems in mathematics starts to be more wordy. So it is um >> and one of the

050built-in practices with IR ready is the three read protocol. And so the first time is just to read it to read it, get the words off the page, decode the words, then the next time is really to look for what is it asking and then what's the important information. And so we just want to keep sort of hammer is the wrong word, but hammering on kids to read it three times. That's just a normal practice because you know that's that's how you're going to get the most out of it and you're going to get the most correct strategy, the most correct answer. Yeah. Okay. Hi. Um, uh, so it's been kind of an interesting um, progression in the I Ready. So overall, if you ever look, we have high growth, high performance, but when we

051dug a little deeper, we found that there were kids who weren't making a year's worth of growth. And historically, we focused on the emerging students, but I really feel, and I think we all feel really passionate about students who are at or above grade level, that they also get to make years worth of growth. And I'm so excited that I already has the measurement tool because we haven't really been able to measure it in the past. So, uh, Northwood looks just a little bit different than the other three elementary schools. Um, and so we have done a little bit of different work. So, we added a second intervention block in our grades three through five. So, originally what had been happening was we had been doing literacy in kindergarten through second and then math third

052through fifth. um kind of for obvious reasons, early literacy is the most important. Um but we added a second block in our three through five um of literacy. So now they're getting kind of that double dose of intervention block um to make sure that they're getting what they need, whether it's emergent skills, above level skills, all of those things. And if I had 800 people at my school, I would also do more intervention blocks. Um, but because our teachers are um [laughter] who they are, they're like, "We're doing the intervention block with or without other people." So, my um my younger grades are also doing some math blocks as well, and they're trying some things to make sure we're seeing that growth at Northwood. Um Oh, it's right here. Great. Um so, just like everybody

053else, uh we want 100% to uh make at least 100% typical growth. We really want them to make their stretch growth um but we want them to make at least or greater. And then we um our SEAL sort of goals are around um all students have opportunities to choose more challenging work. Um and it really goes a lot with engagement. Our students are really compliant. Um and we want them to be really engaged and that's a that's a shift and that's different. So, as a team, we decided we're going to take the next two years and we're really going to dive deep into students driving their own learning. And so, you'll see our EES kind of aligns with that. So, it's all students have opportunities to choose more challenging work. Right now, we have 55%

054favorable and we want to get up to 90. Um, in class, we work with other students. Um, there's really not many jobs in the world where you don't have to get along with others and be able to work as a team. And so we do want to measure their individual skills, but we want them to be able to work together. Um, and uh, then the last one is um, work I do in the school is useful and interesting to me. So school can be boring and I don't want it to be boring. Um, and I want to know that we're preparing them for the greater world. And so at Northwood, you'll see a lot of why is division important? How would we use division out in the real world? What are you know those kind

055of things? because we do have uh trouble sometimes with buy in. And once they know the why, they're much just like grown-ups, um they're much more likely to buy in. So, we're really concentrating on that. And then also, what does success look like? How will you know you've gotten there? And how are we going to teach you to measure that growth? So, um those are sort of our big main goals. Um it uh what I realized when we started talking about engagement with students is the meetings I were leading I was leading were less than engaging. So I'm also working on making my pack more engaging. My staff meetings more engaging. My because what I really want to do is be leading how I want them to teach. And it's not fair for me to

056say make it so engaging and then I put a slide deck up in front of my staff and make them listen to me drone on and on and on. So, um, we're [laughter] we're working on sort of making it well-rounded. And even our first pack meeting was I'm not going to we're not going to talk. Here's some guiding questions. Let's get up and let's go observe classrooms. And that's what we did. And then their questions were guided around what they saw. Um, and it was way way better. Um, the other thing that I wanted to say is we are piloting the math progress monitoring tool. Um, we have a lot of literacy progress monitoring tools. Um, and we've always kind of wanted one for math. So, I already developed one that put it in place

057this year. So, in between the two diagnostics, our kids will take two very quick almost like quizzes um to progress monitor to see if they are somewhat likely not likely likely or very likely to make 100% growth. Um, so far it's sort of been interesting. We're evaluating the tool um because we really really want one, but it's a plus or minus standard, you know, of like 12 error, you know, there's a plus or minus 12. So, we want to make sure that not only is it um efficient, but it's also accurate. So, we're going to use it this year and sort of measure did it actually predict um because we don't want people to use a tool just to use a tool. We want to make sure it's actually predicted. Is that just our foot

058or is that all >> I think we're the only ones using it this year. >> [laughter] >> I think they're all using something slightly different in an effort to see which one is the most effective. Um, we have some other things too that there's another option. >> Yeah. So, um, yeah, and I was listening to all of us and we are doing things a little bit differently, but then the great part about this team at the end of the year like March 12 and then we'll all steal. So, um, yeah, I think that's Did I make sure I covered every question? Oh, sorry. >> Yes. Uh just a quick question and any of you can answer it, but how are you identifying the students along way points that aren't right if it's halfway through the

059year and they haven't made 50% progress kind of what uh how are you identifying those students and then bringing uh interventions to those students? >> Happy add to it. So the diagnostic is just the three times of the year we take a temperature check but classroom data and information is what informs a lot of it. We also have uh beginning of the year other assessments that are related to are related to that diagnostic test and so teachers are using that. We have a what we call a student support team at every school that's led by our instructional coaching. So as teachers collect data and try interventions towards students that they've identified that aren't making the progress or that they have concerns about. They come together and it's this consortium of people in house that discuss

060these are the things we've tried. This is the success we've seen or not seen. What else might we be in to do? What other strategies are we going to implement to try? And sometimes that's done in the classroom. Sometimes that's with our learning support services staff. Sometimes it ends up after they've gone through a couple of cycles and aren't seeing the growth that they move forward what we call our building guidance team. And that's our psychologist and all of our experts, our OT, our PBT, our counselor, the principal, parents, all that kind of thing to determine if all the things we're trying we aren't having the effect that we hope for. So, do we need to explore the option of some assessment to determine if a child is eligible for an individualized education plan? But,

061so to be clear, we're not just basing decisions on the diagnostic. It's not that kids only have twice during the year to demonstrate, hey, I need some support. It's just this is the check in. Does that make sense? Kind of sense. Julie, anything else there? >> I was just going to say the beginning here, we created a watch list. So we had children who didn't make 100% growth and we put them in grade levels and then with our instructional coach, me, our reading special support specialist, our ELD team, we come together and we say how are they doing and who do we need to add to this list and that's what we've been doing. So, it's a very um specific and it's very data driven >> and that's consistent as well where people you know

062we've got kids on our radar from the year before of these are the kids that were watching that are making some growth or not as much growth as we had hoped and that's what our instructional coach leads at the beginning of the year connecting up all of their new teachers to say these are students of where they were last year. These are the kids we want to have our eyes on immediately in addition to the beginning of the year assessment so that hopefully people aren't falling through the crack and we're being much more intentional about making sure support and services continue the next year with the transition of teacher and classroom. >> One of the really useful reports that comes from those diagnostics is a standardsbased one where you can look at a student anywhere

063in K5 and the standards anywhere K5 for that okay for that student. So, if I have a first grader who's performing well above grade level, I can open it up and see, well, where do they land on the second grade standards that are connected here and be able to target instructional groups um based on specific standards. And then one of the progress monitoring measures is a standards mastery tool that's like five questions. So, that's another checkpoint. So if you have a unit that's focusing on operations and algebraic thinking, an above level student in grade one, they're kind of pushing in. You can see where they are with grade two standards and those and then be able to progress monitor with the standards mastery checkpoint between the diagnostics. >> And I would add one other component.

064That's really the purpose of our success blocks, right? Teachers take the information and data that they have on students and we break students up based on like need and that's where they're getting the additional support. whether it's students who aren't succeeding or aren't having growth we'd expect or those who are already there and above and so that you can group kids together based on what their need is or what their readiness is for. So it isn't just based on a diagnostic. >> And yeah, I just had a really quick question for Julie. What do you call that that like sort of midyear couple to see how their growth? >> Yeah, we call it progress monitoring. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Director Newcomer, I'm surprised you don't have any questions. >> [laughter] >> I actually have a

065number of general questions. I don't I don't want to finish. [laughter] >> My name is Jennifer Cleaves. I'm the new principal and proud principal elementary school. And so, um, my SIP looks a little bit different because coming new into the role, um, I had to implement a 90-day plan to really start to get to know the community and to get feedback on, um, not only the the data and that story that the data is telling me, but also the um, the what the families want, what the kids want, what the teachers have to say about who we are um at Lakeidge. And so once I finished that 90-day plan, and that started in July, um once I finished that, um I really recognized that math was an area, um of concern for us, um not

066only on, you know, supporting the kids who are on um the the end where they need some supports and those prerequisite skills, but also for our students who are identified as code 32 and code 33. three. So, we have a wide spectrum of learners in our building. And so, really the SIP is uh an attempt of goal to try to meet the needs of of all of our learners. We have a really strong core um achievement is very very high, but as I dug into the data, I noticed that students below grade level need to make greater than a year's growth. And so, really, it's around how do we accelerate that for those kids? and how do we make sure that our kids who are at and especially above continue to make growth because all

067of our students deserve to make at least a year's growth in in a year's time. Our hypothesis at Lakeidge is that SEAL and uh student engagement affects that math growth. And so to that end, we've started some new um PBIS and culture pieces that we hope will affect the math growth as well. So in term uh terms of our set priorities, we have three goals. The first is that all students 100% will make at least a year's growth and that students below grade level will accelerate beyond a year. And to that end, we have started our prime time. That's what we call um our intervention block because we're lions in the pride, but also we made an acronym out of it just to remind everyone what that time is for. And so the P is

068for practice. The R is re-engagement. And we picked re-engagement instead of reteing because reteaching is not uh saying it again louder and slower. It's finding a different way then to engage the child with the material so that they can can access it. I is intervention, D is differentiation and then E is enrichment. Um we also have a walk to math model in our IAP classrooms and in our third grade. Um and so that is at the tier one level. So those students are getting um tier one instruction and then they're also getting the additional pride time. our high cap clarify what you mean by tier one uh classroom instruction grade level classroom instruction instruction um our high cap students are not participating in pride time right now our goal is to have that be a

069part of uh the intervention block next year um then our second goal is our PBIS and goal we want to strengthen school culture and have it one of belonging, safety, and equity. And so we launched um be the three that was um carried over from last year, but we had in the past I think it was nine character traits and I tried to memorize them over the summer and I couldn't remember them all. So I changed it so it's be the three the lion way. And so another acronym, so each one of those letters stands for a character trait that we want to see our students display. And as a way of recognizing them, our EES survey said that our kids wanted more challenge and they wanted more recognition. So in an effort to to

070meet the recognition part, we developed lion loot, which is a very hot commodity at Lake. And so kids get the lion loot. Um, anyone on staff can give it. We gave it to our bus drivers. We gave it to our uh people who work in the cafeteria, our office ladies, our owners, everyone has it. And so they reward the kids and say what it is that they saw the child do so that there's that reinforcement. And then the children save up their lion loot and they get to spend it at the roar store. Again, the lions. And so on the left side of the the uh lion loot pictures, I've got pictures of kids doing their shopping and then at the end um it's a picture of kindergarteners with their loot. Um two roar stores

071kindergarten got has gotten much better at counting their money out. So there's progress there. That's good. Um and so it has been generously funded by our PTA and so we're grateful for their their support of that. Um, as part of the roar story, you can also buy experiences. And so those are the pictures that are on the right hand side. So one student bought uh the birthday brigade experience. And so he got to go around and uh recognize students birthdays with me. Um, and then the bottom one is two kindergarteners who said that they wanted to um do the morning greeting with me. And it's a big lion paw. And the the little boy on the right hand side, his mother shared with me that he got up that day. He got up extra early.

072It's 5:00 a.m. and he said to his mom, "It's go time." And I just love that so much. So that's kind of the story of the Roar Store, just um wanting to really recognize kids and reinforce the positive behaviors that we want to see. And then for the culture piece coming in new, I really want to make sure that we have um a collaborative uh culture. We have one that we have collective teacher efficacy because we know that that's the um the strategy that moves the needle for kids. And we also wanted to uh want to build trust among the staff. And so that's within uh you know uh staff member to staff member but certainly between administration and our teachers. [snorts] And to that end we um have done some committee work. We've changed

073up our committees. So we have a belonging team, we have a student voice team, a student engagement team, and then we have uh we call it culture club. And so they have planned a lot of really fun activities for us to get together and to just be with each other. Um, we also as part of building that collective uh future efficacy, you can't just study about that and have it get better. You have to do the work in order to develop that. And so that's what we've done with our PLC cycles. And really our PLC cycles are around the prime time um planning and um and executing um those plans we are starting to get into. So we just needed to get it off the ground. Um this was our first year with the success

074blocks and so once we launched it then we wanted to make sure that kids were in the routine, teachers were in the routine and now we're to the point where we need to make sure that we are being really deliberate and intentional with what we're having kids do during that time. And the big question that we're starting to work on now is who is benefiting from this pride time and who is not and what do we do about it? So that's what we're tasked with right now. Um the other thing that I would add is that um we are looking at so we are using I ready data for measuring our SIP pole but there is a very strong interest from our pack and our teachers to look at a body of evidence and so

075right now we're in kind of the exploration um phase of that what does a body of evidence look like and so um we really want to triangulate data so in order to do that we want to look at SB BA data, we want to look at the I Ready data, and then we want to look at classroom um assessments as well and performance tasks. And if all three of those things are telling us the same story, then we know that the child is growing. And if not, then we have to figure out, okay, kind of like what my my colleague said, what is the the true story here and how do we respond? Um I think I said everything that I needed to say. So what questions do you have for us? So, first of

076all, welcome. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Um, is Lakeidge the only school doing walk to math? >> No, we have a fourth grade team that's doing walk to math at our school. It's part of the teachers that I these two teachers identified that they wanted this to be their professional growth this year, their professional growth plan. Each teacher decides in the ball what they're going to focus on. This team decided that that's what they wanted to focus on. So, they're giving it a go to see what the response is and how kids are liking it. they share positive results with student reaction as well as community feedback and they're also enjoying the opportunity to work with other students. So for them it's been enjoyable. So when when you do walk to math, are the kids,

077you know, I've participated, you know, in focus groups around code 32 kids and I know there's a lot of frustration around code 32 parents that they're not getting enough um challenge and that they don't have an opportunity to advance until middle school. And so is does is that are they getting that same it may not be high curriculum, but are they sort of getting that sort of advanced math and then they'd be able to go into the next level? >> So two prongs come to mind when you talk about that. First is that they're using the classroom assessment data to determine which groups they're going to go, which classroom they're going to go to. And so for each unit that's reassess, evaluate. So it depends. Just because you're code 32 doesn't mean that you will

078always be in the class that's performing high because it's dependent upon the preassessment for each unit. If this is something you don't know and you don't have the skill set, we would be remitting to send you into the higher achieving group. Does that make sense? Y and then the other piece that I would uh share with that is that that's the whole intent of our success blocks. So that all students who are code 32 as well as all of typically developing students and those who maybe are struggling that's really the crux of our success block so that they are having the opportunity and some classes may do some accelerations and some may do depth of knowledge and that's kind of what we've all explained. We're all taking different approaches to try out which things seem

079to make the most sense and which things are going to give us the most bang for our buck and where we're going to see the most growth as well as the most engagement. So, it's not just about growth and achievement, but we want you actually engaged in applying it to the real life. And so, that's one of the cool things about this school improvement process is that each of us gets to tinker with it a bit based on what that interest is and desire as well as meeting the needs of students. And so it's really truly these school improvement plans are a theory of action every year to try and see what might we do. >> Does that make sense? >> How often are the success do they occur? >> Some schools are three days

080a week, some are four days a week. >> Okay. So they're pretty for an hour each time. I I >> is 25 minutes four days a week. >> Okay. Ours is between 35 and 40, but if we have two, then it's 35 and 40 and 35. Got it. >> Ours are 30. One of the things that um >> [clears throat] >> You know, I think someone might be looking at it and say, "Well, why would there be different? Why are schools doing something different?" And I'm just going to expound upon that a little bit. Um, the banks of the river that we always work with is nothing we're going to do is not rooted in some form of research as benefiting students. The question is what's going to benefit Mercer Island students the most? And

081so walk the math or intervention blocks or um you know keeping students in a mixed ability classroom with grouping versus others all have research behind them. Um the problem is the research is you know pertains to it's very wide and there's different demographics that are using it and so the theory and I can't remember I think Julie it was you who said the collaboration between this team and then between the coaches and and our teachers I think has grown exponentially recently such that at the end of the year where is that mo where's most growth happening and then how do we start replicating that? And so there will always be some difference because our students are different and certain cohorts of kids um come through and just, you know, they just they look differently from

082cohort to cohort. So sometimes it's hard to measure how did second graders do last year compared to second graders this year because those are not the same kids. So that cohort um that that cohort look is really important. But you know, at the end of the day, that's where the adjustment happens midway through the year. Sometimes you throw out some assessments, sometimes you add some more. But I think that's the work that's been happening, but push back or expound upon that. >> And we're all data nerds. So right now we're in the diagnostic period. So we can do this refresh refresh because we want to see that data so that we can sort of make the next [laughter] game. [laughter] >> Yeah. for an individual student, how would their growth be communicated to their family?

083Would that be on a report card? Um, how is a family learning about the growth of their students? So part of the I Ready program has a four families report and uh every major checkpoint that fall, winter and spring um we communicate out like this is the the large comprehensive uh diagnostic that's taken and they can pull up that for families report. a lot of what comes with that. Obviously, we have conferences in the fall that are for all students. And then many many meetings with families throughout the year, but a lot of what comes with when they're opening those four family reports is conversations with the classroom teacher, with myself. You know, I meet with people, you know, almost every day just to talk through where their students are at and where we're going.

084And um so there's kind of an open door with that, but there's certainly a pretty great report that they can access through their uh Skyward. >> For some of the advanced students, for example, in that family report, would it say you're a third grade student that is advanced and this is where you're at on the fourth grade standards or can you >> It doesn't say a grade level necessarily. It'll show them kind of where their student began the year and then as they're progressing and then it'll give them some additional detail that's more familyfriendly. Okay. So for us, it's going to have a lot more around standards and specific discrete skills that the students need to work on. But on the family side, it's much more generalized in terms of the things they can do

085and things they might need support with. So it gives them both of those. >> Yeah. Um, I just want to say that that like I love how well coordinated all of this is actually like that I've seen like this this gradual change from when I started on the board six years ago where it was meant very much like everybody was working on their own individual school but there wasn't like this kind of like cohesive effort with with people using a lot of the same tools and being able to kind of like you know work with the same data. It's just like really neat to see. Um, I love the idea of lion loot and I think bucks Stephanie. >> Yeah. But also I was just realizing that I I I preede I think all of

086you >> with the down the street. Yes. >> But it's lovely to see and it actually makes it it becomes easier to explain to parents what's going on and how things are monitored and kind of progress monitored. And it's like the the cohesiveness is a is an easier story to tell that makes sense for parents who want to understand it but who aren't necessarily like none of us is versed in the kind of like you know super nerdy academic you know like power analysis of you know you know which students are doing what how you know so this is >> it's one of the most exciting things too I think for this team is that they have a cadre of humans together who can now do this work and really examine what are the things

087that are working best. Each of their populations is slightly different naturally, surprisingly maybe for some, but on a small island, yes, each of these schools is very different from one another. And so, I'm loving that they have that ability to be able to work together and really look at trying different practices and then re-examining. They meet weekly to have those conversations as well. So, they've got lots of opportunity to do some cross >> and as as you guys were pointing out before, like it's different from year to year. It's different from class room to classroom, right? So part of what you're learning is how to kind of customize and tweak and like respond like in the middle of the year. It's like well this grade just really isn't you know this class for whatever reason

088isn't really getting this like you know how can we pivot. >> Well and our professional development has been all of the schools together and so then they take the opportunity to be like what did you do in unit three? What did you do in you know and so it's actually cross school pollination which is really cool because you don't feel this side look. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. >> One question I have is around homework. I've heard that it varies by teacher and grade and school. Do any of you have consistent policies with homework or I'd love to hear more about what approaches you're taking. >> If you think that could be improved any any of these numbers could be improved by changing that. >> It's teacher discretion. They determine if there's going to be

089homework or not and it's supported by the building administration >> and the research for young children doesn't support homework um and and its effectiveness. And so I've really latched on to that. Whereas our teachers, I'd let them have that decision making. Um I also know that a lot of our children are very scheduled and so um to have to go home after working really hard, especially the population we have in Northwood, they work really hard all day long. Um to go home and then have an additional half an hour, 45 minutes or hour of work is it feels almost like punishment. So we do have some teachers who give it, some teachers who don't. And we're in communication with parents. So if they feel they need something, we can give them, you know, resources and

090things like that. Um, but we also want kids to be kids and we're seeing less connection. And I um have written communication at my school and I know that they value it at all the schools about just the value of playdates and running around in the in in the park and getting along and doing all those things. So um yeah, just so I know understand when you say young children, are you referring to all sixth grades or is it different? >> It's mostly I think K to three where the real research is. Um and I would say in my school at least fourth and fifth grade did homework all the all the classes in fourth and fifth grade. >> Yeah, I would say yes. Okay. the I mean and we and this could be a

091topic you know uh that we could discuss further you know where homework breaks down is when there's not when it's not connected to the learning obviously but trying to reinforce skill um particularly in kind of even the K8 um but even uh on into 12th grade it's really I mean there's a lot of variance there because of the intentionality that really need to have um with that homework. Uh and so it continues to be debated and there's come there's plenty of articles that continue to come out yearly around the the nature of homework. Um, at the end of the day, I go back to the engagement piece and I think that's the piece that they're talking about is is it engaging the learners in something that's meaningful, you know, or um because for some learners

092having to repeat things more and more, particularly the higher achieving the student, the more frustrating that can be and actually the regression that that can cause. So, it's an interesting topic. There's no doubt. It's been going on my entire career. >> Yeah, I think you definitely heard a lot of that, too. But one of the reasons I'm curious is because I've heard from people who who educators who really like it I already that one of the areas where it's less strong is in fluency is or the amount of practice that kids get. And so I'm just curious whether that's ever been discussed about whether maybe that's one of the things missing here is um giving the chance kids chance for additional practice. >> An example of grade two at Park they start every success block

093with five minutes of accuracy. That's the one way that an example of a team that's addressing that piece that seems to be less strong. >> So there's ways that you're doing is it like when you do that is it in I or using different >> No, they're using something that's outside of just regular practice. It's just the time to pass test. Okay. >> So grade levels have ways to they look for the the things that are maybe not as robust and every curriculum has something that isn't as robust and that's one that's been identified and that's just an example of how creative that's decided to address the rest. I I actually just had this conversation a couple days ago with some parents we met about math and went over like all the components of I

094Ready and Beyond. And one of the there there are fluency components within I Ready. There's like a piece called fluency flight, but then also students are um part of the program has 30 minutes per week um in a like individually designed program that is um track like you get onto the track where you need support based on your diagnostic. So that has a lot of fluency especially because it's getting those found out foundational practice skills out of the way. Um and those are that you'll hear called my path. So um you know one of the things that comes up a lot is like how much are students on screens but it is uh 30 minutes over a 5 day period. So you know approximately like six minutes a day where they have that fluency practice

095especially like multiplication um early edition subtraction fluency K2. So those those are still part of it. Um you know I'm I'm an old school from the 80s 90s learner too and like we had just memorization of all that. Uh, but I say in in our math curriculum these days, uh, God sounds like these days. [laughter] >> You're like 10 years old. >> I know. Why did I just do that to myself? But it still is, you know, like there's three main components of math. It's like the procedural fluency, the problem solving and reasoning, and the conceptual understanding. And those three pillars all still exist. I think back in the day though in those days the fluency might have been like elevated quite higher and like a lot of drill and standard algorithm and we still

096use standard algorithm is that you get to that level of progression when you know what you're doing and you're able to then make sense of when you make mistakes and think a lot more um flexibly about math problems. So, I'd say like there's still that in it. And like when you're a parent probably at home with your kid like trying to read how are we even doing this array problem today or whatnot, we don't want them to live in drawing arrays forever. We don't want them to live in drawing equal groups and all that, but to understand it and get to the point of a known fact and and more efficiency, that's the goal. Um, so and to know what you're doing. So, I'd say it still lives. >> Go stadium high. homework creates a

097bridge to home so they know what they're learning. So on us if they're not doing homework, we have to really making sure we're communicating so that they know what they're learning and how they're doing. I do think that's an area where things have shifted in education is around fluency and that's part of what I already talked about now professional learning just I'm going to speak as a recovering math anxiety human um is that I think those some of the fluency practice that we did when we were all in school also generated a lot of stress for kids and so the approach is very different to fluency now than it was then. Um and that is very intentionally and that is very grounded in the research. um no longer are we just handing over packets and

098saying you got a minute to complete this thing um and checking to see how quickly they can do those things in the same way. >> Christina >> I have two and I think that this will be the last uh and I would say that I ready is one of the tools that that after it was implemented um is the one that is generating more data than before. So we are uh in this this moment that you are changing things but also with that comes uh with then what right so the interventions and I I love that you mentioned that you are comparing also with other tools to see if it's in the three tools that the the kids not growing or or not and if not what what goes next. So I think that that

099also shows and I think that uh as different tools and technology advances we will have a lot more data. So we have to be very focused on on how are we going to intervene once we get those data um uh we can yeah so and the other is is for those students who are not uh consistently uh meeting girls across elementaryaries like what have you seen a pattern beyond the average or something that you are seeing or have have you stopped to analyze if there's a pattern between those students or or not yet and then maybe there's something to explore there to if there's something else that that is worth exploring there and um to support those students. >> I love that question. >> I I do because well I mean to data so I

100think that's a really good question. No, we haven't really looked at across the school yet of what that of the schools and I think we probably will >> because I think that's a really interesting question and how we can kind of um put our team brain together to figure that out. Yeah. I just I'm so interested in what you were saying before and I'm also interested in tracking like that COVID cohort of the kids who sort of like got feral during how they're coming out of it >> um in a nice way. Um and I think it's really interesting to hear that we're still sort of tracking that and seeing the effects of that with our with our younger learners. Um, so you know, no action item or anything. Just I'm very interested in that

101sort of like that >> group as they move through and the differences of the groups before and even after like now we have these littles who have, you know, been in school and in real life for several years. >> We're coming to the finale in 2020. They're in our kindergarten classes now. >> Yeah. I only wanted to say that I think um just replying to what Megan was talking about before that just like engagement is really everything. My daughter is in seventh grade now and she's in like the math seven eight the seven slash8 you know class. She's doing great and she was just very confidently saying to me you know I finally understand fractions like it's really you know like it's really like they're really useful and I'm like yes I struggled with her

102understanding and not understanding fraction since you know whatever third grade or something and she's never gotten it. She's never gotten it. And so she was like yeah they're really useful. you can do this, you can do this. And I was like, it's true. You know, I'm trying to like be like the zen parent. And then she goes, I don't think anyone ever taught me these before. And I was [laughter] it was like year after year of like people trying to like teach her in different ways and use different modalities and different like practice and whatever. And it's like now she's engaged. Now she's enjoying math and she's like, "Yeah, this neat thing, but I don't know why nobody would ever talk." >> Yeah. I was just going to say I love the work on like

103uh using other data other than I Ready. I know I hear from little elementary schoolers that like sometimes you know you don't do as well on the I Ready test because it's doesn't really count to your grade. So there's could be difference in motivation there. So I'm glad to see that. I also think this is what Christina was getting at, but like the have you seen any differences in like the demographics of students who don't make growth because I know we were talking about like the high school of like certain marginalized groups not you know achieving below standard. Um so if there was trends like that in the elementary schools as well. I would say at a global level it's pretty consistent as what you're seeing at the high school across all six schools to

104be honest with you like last spring I was really like where we falling short for different demographic groups of students and like for example our students who receive special education services have made much greater growth than other students like some of these groups that you're really wanting to make sure we wrap around all services like turns out wrapping around all services is working. So like there isn't a disproportionality. Um but I'm really uh excited to look at what we you know what we need to break down this year to to make sure there isn't any gaps. But right now uh no you know there's not even like any significance really from like a male female breakdown or anything that we're seeing greater on the grand scale. So um but we'll continue to keep looking at

105that. Of course, equity is always in mind. >> Yeah. I was just wondering because of the high school trends being >> what's your high school what you see in high school African-American students, students with disabilities and English learners tend to underperform compared to their peers. >> Okay. So, one more question on I Ready. I think it's great that these kids are getting more opportunities to advance, you know, during their blocks and that kind of thing. If you get to the end of the year though, so say you're a third grader and you're you're working in ahead and then you get to the end of the third grade year and I ready, are they able to keep going then in the middle of the school year? >> Do you mean in the online content or do

106you mean in classroom instruction? >> Because the online content. >> So the online content, yes, they can keep going. There's a cap at a point where it just becomes that they don't have all of the foundational stuff to keep moving necessarily. There's going to need to be more instruction happening along that pathway. So it's not as conducive to helping do that. But yes, there is they can keep going beyond grade level in the online portions of so what happens though if they get to the point where they don't have the foundational, you know, the classroom hasn't caught up with it. Is there another way to challenge those kids or there other opportunities for them? Yeah. And there's instruction within my path if they're missing questions over and over again. So they can continue to do

107that. Okay. So they have there's a way for them to continue to get Yes. Anyone else questions? Next steps. >> Well, we kind of already talked about all these things, so I don't want to kind of hammer on it, but um I do have to say I just want to shout out our staff because um all of our staffs because they're the ones who are really on the ground. Um they're really doing a lot of hard work and implementing all this and analyzing data and um really looking at assessments and also teaching the whole child. this is only one component of the child, right? And so our staff is really awesome at teaching the kids that are in front of them. Um, and that's a whole, you know, spectrum of children. So, um, we get

108to meet the face, but they really are doing hard work and they're very amazing, amazing people. So, I agree. >> Thank you so much for coming. A couple more slides. [laughter] Yeah. >> So, in >> in response to I think an inquiry when the high school came because we did the middle school in October, then the high school in December, and then January, we wanted to just put together a couple slides to show you what's the through line. So, you as a board can kind of see how the different levels are all working. >> You're going up. [laughter] was going to tell you about all these great things. >> Why are you looking at? >> Okay, so um we've been talking about our five-year plan and teaching and learning. Uh the teams all know about

109that as well. And so um one of the things that we've been doing is aligning our practices in that K12 continuum of services. Uh, one of the actionable ways in which we did that this year is that each of our schools all had the same template for their school improvement plan and there was an expectation that they would align those with our five-year plan and goals that are associated within that. Um, so I'm just going to kind of do a a swath across the whole sort of garden of schools, if you will, around kind of what they're doing. So, like as you just heard from our elementaryaries, we've got math growth and built into that. Our middle school has turned its focus toward reading growth um intentionally designed because it is meant to support uh

110all of the other content areas as well and student engagement. Student engagement really falls in both spaces honestly. I think K12 we're seeing it everywhere. And then our high school has culturally responsive education uh training for their teachers as well as a focus on tier one and ensuring that students are getting equitable access to the tier one instruction and an overall reduction in failure. If you click to the next one there, entre um these are just sort of the buckets of our five-year plan goals and um each of these you can see threads of throughout the whole of all of those school improvement plans. So, uh achievement is outlined in each one of those. Um whether that be grades that the kids are getting in their courses as high school students or how they're performing

111in their math assessment tools and classroom tools. uh as well as how do we ensure that all kids at each of the um support levels is receiving that service. So that's kind of the MTSS um bucket where in this group they are focusing on really the full spectrum of learners from students who are still needing additional support to those who maybe need some more enrichment uh as a part of their work. And so the schools of each have an opportunity I think to really think about what works best for them. So, it still gives them some of that autonomy in thinking about what that population needs, but aligning better as a district to ensure that we're seeing that growth in our K12 continuum and not just in spots. >> Yeah, I appreciate thinking of it

112in that context. That's great. Looking at it that way. >> All right. I did. >> One, two, one. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. I did. [clears throat] >> Okay, now we're going to we're not taking a break. Sorry. >> Officer and me. >> Great. uh in response to questions regarding the Island Crest Way improvement, um we went back to work with the city uh team and so that involved their legal counsel and uh and Aaron and then Brandy uh and uh the team at the city behind the scenes there. So we wanted to bring back to you uh what we think might be some language that meets the interests that you had expressed in the last four meetings. So with that, I'll turn it over. >> Yeah, as uh Dr. shared at your

113first reading, we shared a proposed unrest wage easement and you raised some pretty thoughtful questions regarding liability and access and as you shared work today. They were great to work with. I want to start with the easement as it originally drafted was legally sound and already covered that liability. What we've gone back through is make it very clear for the non-legal reader um about uh where a liability lies. And in this case um you ask for clarity in terms of um what's moving around sorry like what would happen if someone slid or or were to fall or that type of thing. So now there is language not in this document it's actually in the uh yes that if you scroll down to the red. So that's the theme version. You want to go to the

114marked up version. I'm sorry I'm not dropping that. I apologize. All right. To go there. There should be markup. So that's a better one. It should say mark up. You see it? Perfect. Can you make it a little bit bigger? And basically as you can see here on the top like usually the grantee shown solely responsible for the operation and the grantee in this case is a city um for the operation maintenance and repair of the trail and related improvements within the e and for claims. So that's a liability and think uh correct Martinez that was your concern that you raised and so any claims arising from the condition of or public use of that trail except caused by the negligence or intentional misconduct of the branch war which is the school district. So unless

115we're grossly negligent, if we have a treating over the auds issue um but otherwise it lends with the so hopefully that was designed to sort of belt the suspender and address the concern and make it very clear where liability lies. The other issue that was raised, at least as we heard it, um at the last meeting was related to access and ensuring that this maintenance and what have you of the trim that the city was doing that those doing that maintenance would adhere to district's policies and procedures with respect to access. So that's if you look below in the red you can just see um that they agree to to conform with their access but we're not unless it's an e situation. >> So hopefully that addresses your uh concern totally questions. >> Thanks for

116thanks for >> No problem. So our hope is that you could approve this um today um so this isn't actually Right. So I am going to make a motion to approve ABXXX2 and AB X X XXX 3 as revised and authorization provide superintendent rental authorization to sign on behalf of the district. Second >> all in favor I zero. Thank you. And so with that, we take a break. Sure. >> Okay. Recess for We are now moving on to board policy budget finan budgeting and financial planning budget. >> Thank you Dr. Um, as former current board members know, um, as part of my call when I took the job about three and a half years ago, uh, my charge to superintendent Rundle was transparency across the board, especially in business services. A part of that we,

117uh, then put together the 30 40 page year-end summary, the 3040page budget summary. Uh, we have done every single year the worldwide tours, we know the budget road show that is ongoing. Um we also pulled together obviously the financial dashboard on a monthly basis that helps uh ease with the information of the budget status report on a monthly basis and then we also posted all those documents online including our audit documents too. Um as we look at our budget calendar this was a kind of a lead in that process. This provides a kind of a guide, a road mapap to all of you of the sixmonth process from tonight as we walk through this document to a budget adoption. It was we hope would be June 25th. Obviously, this week uh legislative session of the

118second half of the bienium uh started. That's a short session of about 60 days. That'll end about March 12th. Uh this document, like I said, is a guide. it does kind of move and flex depending on that legislative session and what comes out of that. Uh some of the key points uh will be February 12th where we will provide the enrollment estimate. That conversation is already ongoing. It started this week with our initial uh process of looking at our uh demographic studies from several years ago uh via EDS and Davis. We look at trends simple trends from first second grade to 8th 9th to 10th 11th. Um, and then myself and Director Adams do a modified cohort method of enrollment where we look at a kindergarten class to a fifth grade class and those ups

119and downs. And we also get out um, assistant director Garcia Fer and Director Adams. We'll be in the schools over the next several weeks working with those principles and seeing what they, you know, kind of gear to the ground and what our enrollment will look like coming through next year, but we're already in those discussions currently. And then March 26, uh, everyone's favorite property tax document. We'll pull that out. I work with King County Assessors and provide that information to you all as a page in our budget. We can talk about that, walk through that at that meeting. And then we kind of get really into the nitty-gritty. Uh, April 23rd, we'll look at fund balance projections presented for all five of our funds and we look at look back a year compared to what

120we estimate coming into next year. We also look at our district fee proposals as the business services team as is in the buildings. We also meet with principles and administrators looking at what fees need to be increased or or held the same or anything new. And we'll provide that to you April 23rd. And then May 7, um, we really dig into it, get granular as we look at our revenue expense projections, uh, by object. We look at our certified, classified salaries, the benefits, the MOT, material, supplies, and operating costs, etc. Uh, we look at that by fund, our five major funds. We look at our expense and revenues by state, local, and federal. And then working with our talented HR team, they'll present uh certified and classified positions with a five-year look back so you

121have that comparison as we go into next year. And then finally, our June 4th with a bud budget study session at UWOL, we go page by page that summary and that's really a good interchange and exchange with all of us and our our business services team. And then finally, uh June 11th, we have the budget presented to you, but it's complete in whole form. our first reading and then June 25th we uh hopefully our final adoption given the legislator is wrapped up obviously >> I have a question just not about the schedule which looks very coherent and easy to follow but um you mentioned whether we might need to increase the fees um I know that we're now charging families fees for some things like um you know participation in like musical activities ities or

122I don't we have any we didn't have any fee for for like band for example >> band orchestra yeah choir >> so all of those things now there's a fee does any portion of those fees that we collect go towards those activities or do they just go into the general fund >> yes and yes the idea is that all the money lives in the general fund but it's designed to help offset those costs for those programs >> thank you >> none of them are revenue generating they're but they are helping to supplement what the rising costs have been and then our ability to keep up. >> We'll now move on to board policy 10 non-discrimination and affirmative action annual update for the workforce diversification. [laughter] HR team will come on up here. You can see

123that um the plan actually extends a number of years and so um the next major update would be is it said yeah so this is kind of a mid point and we provide this year I'll turn it over to our HR >> um so thanks for having us this is as Fred said um as usual he steals some things [clears throat] this study goes from 2022 to 2027 seven. Um, so a lot of the data in this report refers back to the 2022 baseline data comparing um, where we were then to where we are now. Just a couple things. Um, just to go through because you've seen it and I know there might be some questions. Um, and you go to the next slide, please. Once again, we continue on a trend of our population

124becoming more diverse, our student population. And I believe that Fred a couple years ago, I remember him saying that couple years ago was the first time we kind of change switched from the um population being dominant white to population being um not dominant white. And we're continuing that trend um about a half a percent every every year. It seems to to shift over in that. Um but you see with our staff on the next slide, our staff doesn't necessarily match where our students are. I think we are not alone in this. If you look at some of the data from around the region, um we are very similar in where we are, but we want to try to get to a point where we're following the research and the research talks about how students perform

125better when they see people like them, teaching them with them, um mentors that that match who they are. So our our goal is obviously to try to get to much more of a of a representation that's very excuse me similar but we have some work to do. I think we as I said we're not alone but we do face some unique challenges of a smaller district. Um one of the challenges is that uh we tend to be later to the hiring cycle. So when you have a a group of minority candidates um that everybody is trying to attract, we are um sometimes a little late to the game based on being small in terms of a bigger district, they might be able to go out and know they need an English teacher. And so if

126they find a candidate, they can go out find that English teacher in April because they know across the district or across the system they're going to need an English teacher. And so when we're all vying for the same candidates, it's a little bit challenging uh for us because we have to be a little more surgical and wait um to see where we might have uh openings in our system. Um I think so a lot of cases we're just we get our candidates from um luck in some cases. They just happen to move here. They travel. They find us through word of mouth. they find us through um some of the things that Ian and his team puts out um around the annual report, things like that. But it is challenging to make a switch in

127that because everybody is trying to do that same thing of matching their student population and their their staff population. So on the next slide, you'll see some overall notes from this year's data. Um a lot of this I've already talked about. One of them is that we continue um to become more diverse as a student population. um our but our staff population continues about that 20% of diversity. So about 70 about 80% uh is white of our staff and about uh 20 20% is is diverse. We do see an increase when we talk about our classified staff. That tends to be a higher percentage of our diverse staff. Uh and so we I'll give some ideas in a little bit about how we can leverage that maybe into some change. Um, I want to give

128kudos to our transportation team. They have done a great job over the last couple years of diversifying their um, their population, not only male female ratio, but also in terms of diversity, equity. And so, I do want to point out William was here earlier, but I do want to point out that um, I think we need to have some continued work in our certificate administrators. Right now, I believe in that the data we have 17 certificate administrators and none are of a diverse population. So, it's something as we get openings to try to look and see how can we maybe fill those with with some diversity. When we talk about our teaching staff, I think the biggest gap we see is of our Asian population of students versus our Asian Asian population teachers. That's a

129big a very big gap for us. It's about almost 25% difference in our student population to our staff population. So, that might be an area we want to dig into. And then our clerical support staff. Um, I think we need to continue to look at that and how we can become more diverse. But our classified staff, as I said before, really, um, does give us a nice broad um, diverse range of much more than our certificated staff. So, something to continue to work on. U, the next couple forms are um are charts just giving you some of the data that that led to my conclusions. we some of the state some of the areas we underutilize um comparing us to King County data um are continue to be the same and so there's not a

130lot of uh change I don't think it's lack of effort um but I just think it's trying to attract those diverse candidates and like I said we're not we're we're not in this challenge all by ourselves um I do think a couple things and the next one and ree is just another slide that has kind of the baseline data as well and then the final slide which You don't need to go to Andrew. Just kind of talks about how we're kind of in the same boat as other people. But couple things to think about as we progress forward into 2027, which I can't remember Aaron is 2027 is the the last year of this report or the start of next report. >> It's it's both. So, it's a monitoring. So, it's the last year of

131this report and then we also create the >> Got it. So, a couple things you might see um or be able to influence as as we get it in the report. Is this data helpful? Are other sets of data helpful? Is there other things you would like to see? Some of the things you'll hopefully see from from our end next year as I continue in this role is trying to figure out ways we can we can diversify more. I think being in contact with local universities to see do we have a grow pipeline? Can we get universities in here to partner with us to have some of our parent educators become uh certificated staff? It's hard in a small district. They don't necessarily University of Washington are going to bring a bring somebody here from

132two or three people, but if we can get around with some smaller districts and come together, maybe we can get a cohort of um a pair of professional to certificated staff um pipeline. That's something. Uh continuing to work with Ian on our social media um trying to get our our word of mouth out there when we have openings. We have had some recent success with that, but continuing to do that to try to hit some different populations than we might normally get. So those are some areas we're going to focus on over this next year to see if we can we can experience some growth. So that's kind of the area. You have anything you want to add? >> No, I um just want to sort of echo the appreciation to our staff being mindful

133in trying to secure those um the small N especially certificated staff that are um from historically underrepresented groups and because it is challenging. But if you're looking at that does bleed into then your certificate administrators because first they were certificated teachers, right? And so if you have a only 12% of the state certificated staff being people from underrepresented uh ethnic or ethnic groups or racial groups, then you're not necess you're to try to get to a parody with your students where it's over 50% is going to be very challenging. Um and that's the other work that we work on through the um the ESD is trying to see how can we increase the pipeline of people teachers. That continues to be another area that we'll try to support and that's through programs we've been hats

134off to our teachers who've been fantastic and our administrators and supporting student teachers in our schools. So we uh are very active and are regularly calls for people wanting to have student teachers in our system which is challenging for a small school district and it is is work um for our teachers and they're willing to do it and it it has enabled us to bring in some um [clears throat] people from different backgrounds into our school. So, I think it would be um a mess if I didn't call that because it does encourage people to come to our district if they see how great it is because they've been there on the inside. >> Um it's not as a big of a slice with our staff, but I I see that because we have such

135such a big percentage of our student population that's two or more races and and I know that we on the board have expressed like interest in being able to break that down. I know this the numbers are coming to the states. So, it's not like it's not a question that would be an extra thing to ask, but um I know like we've historically said that we we would love to know like how the two or more races break down. Um and it's not such a big issue on the staff side obviously, but is that something that we could work on breaking down? >> Yeah, I mean you can answer that. I I know we where we pull the data from the OSPI reports and so >> at least for for this ser for this um

136>> report that's how we give that now are there other tools there if there's other tools to to break that down even more >> so is your question I want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly you sounded like you had less staff and more interest >> well it's only 2% of the staff so it's not as relevant as the >> the student data and Yeah. >> And I am not really in a position to comment on how we would collect the student data. The one challenge I would say is we are comparing ourselves. We're looking at staff to the OSBI state information. And if they're not breaking that down, it's not going to give you a lot of information other than what races are represented in the two or more races in our group.

137That's all it's going to tell you. But there's not going to be an analog um at the state level for us to compare those data. you won't be able to say if you're Hispanic and Caucasian, that's your two or more races, Hispanic and white or whatever it is. Um, you're not going to see that in data as a comparative tool. But with respect to, if anyone here is able to speak to gathering student data, >> so on the student data side, and we could talk to Giovana more, um, we have every single race as identified by our students. We can get all of that data. Um what I don't think we can get but we can ask is can you take on the federal race category for students can you take that group and figure

138out what the you know that is and I I don't know if we can get that discreet um but I could definitely get you and and I've shared with the equity advisory over the years you know all of the different combinations um and comp the complexity of the racial makeup of our community um is is quite surprising to many people. >> I think when Giovana was presenting last year, she had that breakdown for us and it was astonishing like it's we're such a widely diverse >> student body. Um >> yeah, I I don't I don't think it's irrelevant, you know, in this case because and again the for the staff it's so tiny like it doesn't make much difference but but for example my guess is at least twothirds of those two or more races

139students are at least part Asian and so it just lets us know that we're even more off the mark in terms of our representation matching. So if we can say you know 28% of our students are you know Asian and then of the 14% of mixed race students you know twothirds of those are also Asian but we have 5% Asian instructors that makes it just like a little more compelling to try and hire and I know there's lots of barriers to >> show the gap is probably bigger than the numbers >> right right that's the reason >> yeah that's what I was trying to get to >> did you have another question >> no that Oh, sorry. Now she's just transparency. >> Extra polite. [laughter] >> It's the new year over new le. >> So

140for me, I think that I see the numbers and I see uh a decrease in numbers particularly in leadership. I think that that it it it's not promising and my ask is like whether our current uh our current leadership development system are equitable accessible to all the staff including those from underrepresented groups uh regionally and with disabilities rather than assuming that the pipeline will will fix itself. Like what opportunities are we with the staff that you have in uh the different levels that are not necessarily in leadership? are providing those opportunities so that different um staff do grow and as just like students see themselves represented themselves in their teachers. It's the same for staff if they see themselves in leadership, it's easier to also retain them and also uh um attract other uh staff

141members uh to come and work with with us. So I think that it is um important to to acknowledge that it is also within us that uh it is we have to do an equitable accessible staff training for those >> and they you know there are two um we have kind of two categories of administrators. We have certificated and then non-certificated. So speaking just on the certificated side um you're pointing out a tremendous challenge um that we have um and it starts with do people even want to do the job of a principal or um some of these um accord my understanding from the association of Washington school principles um out of all the graduates last year who earned a principal pro uh certification state of Washington only 15 wannabe high across the whole state.

142And so your point is well taken. How do we then encourage people to a want to be principles, directors in places, leadership and b are they representative of the students that we have and who are they in our schools already? So yes, >> it is also not only uh um if they want to, it's like what other supports do you have to put in place to actually make them know that they can do it? Is is this um Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Well, I might I might wonder. So right now, if we think about our practices around um our internships, it's really waiting for people to come and ask us, hey, I'm I'm going to give them program. you have an internship place for for admin. I wonder if there's a spot where we we

143might be able to go out and recognize some talent in our district. Have you thought about becoming an ad? So more of that proactive and and less reactive might be a way to do that too. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think that's um and it's something that you will have to think and analyze like what what do you have in place and what can you support to actually uh because I think that we have been talking about this for for a few years now and and we have not make a real change and I think that the change has to go within it before we can even attract >> correct a time at the beginning but like a toddlery. That's about right. >> Fair enough. >> Great. Um it was interesting a couple of times we

144heard um inside of the elementary principal presentation and on to the whole child and it's whole child month. Um and just that's also rooted in the uh mission vision and values of our school district of thinking about our kids in multiple dimensions and that they don't just show up um you know uh as athletes or dancers or performers or academic um uh students that they show up uh with so many other talents and and it's important that we continue to lift those up and celebrate um how our students uh uh achieve both in and out of the classroom. Uh we also have uh Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday coming up this Monday. Um oftentimes thought of as a day on rather than a day off. Uh really thinking about service and uh how do

145we serve our communities near and far. Later this month we'll have International Holocaust Remembrance Day. There's another day, I believe it's in April, which is uh Holocaust Remembrance Day um that we celebrate as a country here. But this one is by the United Nations thinking about um [clears throat] uh uh the history and the complex history. But really u taking a moment to think about that moment of time. And the last recognition uh is really to you as a board and that it is uh school board recognition month. Um and uh couple things. Um, I think you said it kind of at the beginning in your opening remarks, uh, President Bernett, and that is, uh, you hit the ground running in December when you become a new board member. Um, but you're hitting the ground

146running as any board member, especially in January. This is not an easy month. Um, there are number of engagements and I wish February was going to be better, but uh, we have linkages in February, we have board meetings and also all of our committee meetings are going. Um, you know, I I I know we talk about it and I think our community says, you know, thank you for serving on the board and what that is, but you know, until you're in the seat, you don't really know just how much you care um of the school district and the responsibilities that come with it. Um, I can't do my job um without you. And I think as we're looking towards next week and working with Marty and you as a board thinking about um how you're

147coming together as a governance team, I'm really excited about the future and being able to look alongside you to support our principles um all the way through to our teachers, our pair professionals, our bus drivers, nurses. Um everyone plays a part, but the five of you do it for almost free. Pretty much free. and you give a lot of time and I hope people understand just what a burden that is that you carry and you do it locally and I just want to appreciate it and I have some certificates for you but the certificate I hope means so much more about what you're doing for public ed and these kids in this district uh because they need you. So thank you. As a quick comment to what Fred said, I added up all my hours

148that I spent in meetings and events, not including emails, prep time, or anything. And I got to 21 hours in the last week. So, >> we did warn you. >> I [laughter] I didn't know it was going to be that bad. But yeah. No. So, that's a lot of hours. >> Yeah. Whoever told me before I ran for school board it was 20 hours a month. I want to find that person and hold them accountable. They're so pretty this year. And the other piece that I would say is recognition of Lucy and Brody as student board reps. Um Brody took on a leadership role um and was nominated back at the WASDA annual conference and then just this past week down at the legislative conference. Uh Lucy took the mic along with a number of

149other board dire uh student board directors in a Q&A in front of the entire assembly um up on stage answering questions from uh that perspective and then both serving in a really um powerful role last week at the legislative um town hall. Uh so it's really um fun to watch you continue to elevate as board directors too. So with that, if I could get those of us who aren't board directors just a round of applause, just to thank our >> so impressive that you guys shown up that way. I think it's really great. And with that, you students. >> Thank you. Yeah. you think we show up and then all of a sudden you see the other 4,000 students in the district who are doing this stuff every day. So last week at SSA we

150were working on spreading positivity around the district to thank everyone who made all of us students who we are and as capable as we are. So all of us um including uh us too right here. We wrote letters to staff members in our district, whether they were bus drivers, principals, lunch ladies, or just teachers um who we see every day, and we don't we often forget to thank them. And it was just a really nice way to spread positivity because sometimes you realize that just being like, "Thanks," on your way out of class, uh is not enough to acknowledge the work that all of these people are doing to make your life so much better and make you so much more prepared in the world. And so we hope that everyone can take away from

151what these fifth through 12th graders were doing and spread a little more positivity especially as you know the new year it feels like it's a new you and you realize kind of the same you a little busier [laughter] get it's getting a little harder and so you probably need it now more than ever and so the best way to get it is to spread it onto our elementary schools. Uh, high school radio students recently visited Miss Loiselle's second grade class to support their literacy unit, government at work. Uh, the second graders recently used KMIH material to write public service announcements. So, the KMIH students came in to hear their amazing work and give them feedback on their pieces. In a few weeks, the second graders will come to the high school to tour the radio

152studio and record their PSAs. >> Right. Then Roger Fernandez, a storyteller and educator from the lower Ela Sealum tribe. Sorry, I butchered that. Uh recently visited third graders in all four elementary schools. Um they learn about Native American traditions and then use charcoal paint to paint a salmon on like a block of wood. Um this has been going on in our district for a very long time. I even still have my salmon from when I was in third grade. So this is a great tradition, really a lifelong memory for a lot of people. Um, additionally, King County Solid Waste Division put on a play at Northwood about how overconumption impacts the environment, animals, and human communities. They taught students how to make choices that have a positive impact on the environment, reducing waste and conserving

153resources. Students learned how they can solve this problem in their own communities and help the environment. The West Mer student council also hosted a glove and beanie drive before break that went super well. The fifth graders collected beanies, gloves, and mittens for those who can't afford them so they can stay warm in the winter months. Um, and they got a bunch of donations. So, we're really glad that our uh community is willing to help out. >> On to the middle school. This is kind of an interesting time of year because it's January, so it's about halfway through and yet the eighth graders are all picking their high school classes. And so it has been a busy week with future Islander night being last night where uh both eighth graders but also students around from other

154districts can uh get to learn about MIHS and the amazing things we have to offer. Some of the highlights were a culinary arts showcase, performances from the band drum line, and a speech from Mr. Wald and some students. And another really magical thing that I got to hear about was how one of the current flag dudes, uh, her name is Reese Hardesty, she moved to our district when she was a junior, which is not, you're definitely not in the majority if you are moving into our district then because as you know, we have one middle school, one high school. So, a lot of us have kind of known people for a long time. And Reese was speaking around to some families who have students who will be new to the district from other districts. Um,

155so not necessarily coming from the middle school or coming from even St. Monica or French American. And she was speaking about how amazing the experience was as a new student too. And she talked about how there are so many programs at our school and she was so inspired to be welcomed in this way. And it was amazing seeing these interactions because as a student who attends every day, you sometimes kind of feel like, you know, I kind of take this for granted. We have a lot of really great things. And you kind of forget when you are coming in new. These are really amazing things that we have. And so as eighth graders came also yesterday during the day, uh they toured the space without their parents because they're grown up. They're getting to be

156their own people. And so they learned about some of the class options they had. They got to tour the school. They got to meet some of the uh counselors and the principles. and they also got to meet some of the students around the school that they might know next year as ninth graders. On to a choir event that happened in December, the IMS advanced choir, which is a new middle school program this year that's uh taking up the Gator Time period. Uh got to visit the high school choir. So, you can see everyone's happy and I'm in the back somewhere there. [laughter] It was an amazing exchange because I remember as a middle school choir member, just to be frank with you, I wasn't that good. Like they're so much better. It's amazing actually what

157they're doing. And we got to hear a performance from them. And then they got to go ice skating afterward. And it's awesome to see a program that I've known and loved for so long grow like this and have so many more people, so much more love put into it, and now so much more talent and quality. >> Yeah. And then moving on to the high school. Um, as you all know, high school bands traveled to London over winter break to perform at the London New Year's parade. This was definitely an action-packed trip uh filled with both playing their instruments, but also some touring and sightseeing. Definitely a lot of positive reactions from a tour that they got to take around Oxford. I heard that that was great. Um, senior and drama major Owen Clarkson uh

158shared on his experience that it was such an amazing opportunity to get to hang out with my friends all while performing at such an amazing venue and representing certain fund on a national stage. Um, other board members who traveled also had positive things to share. Overall, this was a great experience and opportunity for everyone. The winter spirit assembly was also just as high energy as they all usually are. It included a robotics show, robotic show, a cheer and drill performance and musical performances from the bell canto choir and lots of fun games. It then ended with an amazing basketball quad night with food trucks and was altogether a day to remember right before break. >> The speech and debate team com uh competed at the University of Puet Sound tournament this past weekend. It was

159just another opportunity for teams across categories within debate to earn a state qualification and uh the team did well with one like they're they're split into teams because they can do different categories and so one of the many teams earned semi finalist and another senior who's working individually James Young earned quarterfinalist. Junior Jasmine say about her experience as a firstear debater this year. Debate has been such a fun way to develop my public speaking skills and also connect with people from other schools. Say and her team won their tournament earlier this year at Tacoma and will be competing at a different tournament this weekend. At the DECA area 3 conference, the debate was on the right and DECA is on the left. DECA area 3 conference on Thursday, December 11th. 45 Mercer Island High School

160students qualified for the state conference with a roleplay placement of 13th or above in their respective category. Other marketing research projects were submitted to DECA judges this week and last week and all state qualifiers will compete at the state conference on February 28th. >> Is that a D that they're making or >> Oh, the Deca. It's a It's the DECA square. >> Oh, >> yeah. Gang. the look up the DECA logo, you'll totally get it. You're really you're really a part of the squad when you're in DECA. [laughter] >> Um the most recent issue of the MIHS Islander was amazing. You all have copies of it. Um journalists and students spoke up about current issues including the process of MIHS discussing whether spirit groups should be officially affiliated article on that. Um whether politics belong

161to the classroom and how and why to maintain respect during the daily pledge of allegiance and war. This was a amazing issue. The Islander definitely sparked a lot of conversation at lunch tools. They always pass them out very much. So, it's really great to have such an amazing program that's just really getting better every single year. Um, and sparking lots of discussion about what should go on in our schools. It's really good representation of student voice. So, we encourage you all to read it. >> All student written and edited. As MIS students gear up for finals week, which will be next Wednesday through Friday on January 21st through 23rd, the grind has begun. Student life has included many review packets, study guides, and high stress since returning from winter break and will continue through the

162end of first semester. Many students at MIHS feel like their teachers and admin do not always see how much pressure and commitment they face on a daily basis. One student, junior Samantha Janison, speaking on her own commitments, stated, "I've been studying a lot for finals, and despite my busy school life, I'm still balancing my whole schedule with a job and a sport. I also have to set aside time to complete a service project and study for the SAT. While we give kudos to our high achieving students at MIHS, we know that pressure does build very quickly, and we hope that we can continue to help them be able to balance." >> The annual e-card night market visited. There is some timing where it happens on February 28th. Sure to mark your calendars now because as

163always it will be amazing with student stalls with art, food, games, and merchandise. We all we recommend you all go. Um in the month of December, MHS students be MHS student leadership began a deck the halls campaign to improve staff and student morale going into winter break. Seniors Gabby Frederick and Carson Kusen hope that they could make the school more inviting and make people happy amid a time that is always very challenging. They deck the halls with snowflakes, streamers, and posters bringing light to people's lives as they walk through the halls. Frederick stated that um I know we are trying to make it into winter break every year. So, as a student who joined leadership this year, I really wanted to make the change and make our school a happier place directly. I definitely did.

164brightening up our somewhat beige hallways. Tola will also be happening this same Saturday, January 24th from 7:30 to 9:00 at the community center. The theme is City of Stars and will feature a DJ, snacks, games, and more. This dance is a great way for Islanders to celebrate the end of finals and recover before second semester begins. >> Lastly, tonight is the girls flag football and girls gymnastics senior night. We're so excited to celebrate the class of 2026 seniors who have built these programs, especially for girls flag football because this was the inaugural class for the sport. Uh it began at MIHS three years ago and these seniors are the first ones to have gotten to play four years of flag football >> as always. Yeah, it's a lot of work to pull all that together.

165I like the way you have like the input [clears throat] from the individual students like or you know like you have like student individual voices of like >> the quotes. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Okay. We'll now be moving on to the sorry I don't I don't believe you have any public input confirm. Okay. Great. We'll be moving on to the full governance process monitoring. And the first item we will be turning to is board policy 18003 appropriate treatment of community members. And this is one that we uh decided to shift last meeting by long. And so this one I'm going to I think is it appropriate for me to read one out loud? >> Okay. Great. So item one is the superintendent will establish, apply and maintain a learning environment that is safe, respectful and

166conducive to effective learning placing priority on responsiveness to student needs. Monitoring level one and so we need to determine if we want to say in compliance but not in compliance and if we have any comments. And I actually do have one thing that wanted to say about this. [snorts] I feel that we're sort of in this interesting place right now where we're dealing with a lot of safety issues since this one specifically mentioned safe um that emerge from prior administrations. Um but at the same time we're having to come to terms with them now in our current administration and on one hand there's certain a lot of data that says in the EES surveys and that kind of thing where most students feel quite safe um at our schools but you know we can also

167see um you know with the comments in the islander this month you know that not everyone does and some people don't feel safe to report and I think that to me I see that as something that we still need this district still needs to work on. Um and it's you know it's sort of how we process this legacy these feelings of lack of safety from what's happened in the past and how do we ensure that you know that doesn't happen in the future. So my thought here at the same time I should say I have seen in the past month um I've been really actually surprised and not that I didn't expect it but I've I've seen a lot all the work that they have been doing as a district to remedy things and to

168make our schools safer and I and I think you know one of my goals is to figure out how we communicate that to the community so that they also see that. Um and so my thought is to include some board comments that just acknowledge that that we are while in many ways we do have both strong sense of safety and safe schools and this is still something that we are working on. We haven't yet um finished the committee work we haven't yet had the preidian investigation and complete and then to make a note to uh reevaluate this in six months once those items have had a chance to be resolved. So I wanted to get your feedback. I mean we can also just postpone it for six months and until those more of that work

169is done and then just comment on it at that point like is there what is there a requirement that this has to be done by a certain deadline for >> I mean this is your annual um kind of checkpoint um and so because it's an OE that you're not monitoring about yourself you're monitoring me you're monitoring the system. I think it would be better to take a vote tonight on it so that you have, you know, what does it look like today in time? Is the superintendent and district um in compliance or not in compliance? You could put the noted things and then also do six months from now you want to return and do either a partial or a full. You'd probably do a partial governance monitoring of this in six months. That's almost

170like you were hearing from the schools tonight. you're going to do benchmarks and then come back again in a year and say, "Okay, a year later, are we in a different place than we even were tonight?" That would be my recommendation. >> That makes sense. thoughts. I just want to I just want to make sure that we're not sort of grading the district against sort of like what happened in previous administrations and that we're grading the district against what they're trying to accomplish and what they're doing currently because like you I see a lot of the you know the a massive amount of work going into making sure that our students and staff and faculty feel safe and heard and I want to make sure that we're acknowledging that and that we're not saying well

171because people felt unsafe in the past or thinking about the past that this is something that we're going to like, you know, take into consideration now. >> Yeah. I mean, I think I hear you and that makes sense. I think I'm probably reading it in a little legal framework and it says establish and learning environment that is safe. So, that's sort of the way I view any is like is it currently in this moment? does everyone, you know, how do we feel about it? >> I think that um I see what you're saying and I do like your idea to wait six months because at the same time I I I I kind of agree that that this moment is this moment that this feeling of do I feel safe? I I do think the

172schools are safe. I think that the effort that this has done in in addressing uh uh not only uh the sexual uh um assault or or the the all the graffiti that happened in middle school like all those things I have seen it and it has been amazing but that doesn't mean that the community feel the same way and I think that until there's more things that they can see measured uh it will be a disservice uh to I I think that that waiting six months might be a benefit in that sense because we can show uh kind of the overall um I don't know you're making me think >> on on the best way and approach and I think that um um because I have seen the work but I think that that um

173I'm curious about how the students feel at the high school and and how the overall um conversations um >> I I mean I don't know for I don't think I mean being a senior I've had these teachers but and I don't think that it's necessarily I haven't heard a lot of people saying that they feel unsafe in the schools. I mean, we talked to our SSA about it and we had a majority of people um say that they still felt safe in the schools that the data was still true and I think that's because the district has responded so immensely to this that it there was a massive response and you know there's still obviously people feel like they can't report at times but you know people sometimes feel like they can't report and then

174we've also had a massive increase in people reporting so it's I think there is work to be there's work being done and I think that makes people feel safe because they know that the district is taking these things seriously >> or having it in six months to both and and uh because I also acknowledge everything that has been done and I I see it and I see how much extra work you are taking um addressing everything that is happening uh at our school. So um >> do you think you have any thoughts? Um, sure. Just from the uh reasonable interpretation that is below, the board and superintendent value an or an organizational culture where students, parents, staff, and community feel respected, valued, and heard, and when concerns are raised, responses are provided. Uh, I do

175believe that we are in compliance with that. I'm happy to revisit this in six months, keep this on the agenda, but um I would vote to be in compliance with that uh reasonable interpretation this evening. >> Okay. So, I would suggest then that we mark it in compliance. We include notes, some some notes just to say, you know, this is a work in progress. Acknowledge that, you know, our community is still coming to terms with sort of almost how what safety means and how safety feels and that there there still needs to be addressed there. and then to like set a date to come back to it at six months, which would be in June. I almost think back to this beginning of next school year. Give it a little bit more time since we're

176>> we'll have more data by then. Yeah. Um >> and to make that a partial process. >> Yeah. And I would move that to a level, my recommendation, move that to a level two report so we can bring you back data that's relevant to that. Um, and then you can make a determination as to whether or not you want to take item two and move that to a level one or leave that a level two. But that again is up to you as a board. >> Great. So, do we need to vote on each individual item? Um, >> you can vote on it as a whole if you feel like. >> So item two is the superintendent will establish and consistently apply and enforce discipline policies, maintain safe and effective environments for all students. Accordingly,

177the superintendent will take reasonable measures to prevent student behaviors that disrupt learning and to inform employees, students, and parents of disciplinary expectations of students. monitoring level two, short-term, long-term suspensions, classroom exclusions, and emergency specialists, demographic information if possible on a four-year rolling basis. >> So, we can answer any questions um related to this. Uh so, Superintendent Battersby and I um you know, can can speak to uh the data there on your questions. Um, historically speaking around this, um, up until about probably four or five years ago, we used to just report yearbyear. The problem was you just received a lot of data that we couldn't actually report to you because our pens are too small. That's why we went to this kind of fiveyear rolling and so that you can see that over a course

178of five years what's happening um rather and so that has been the history and how this uh report has changed over time um and the other thing that I would note on this is that when you you really have to separate occurrences from um the number of people. So, a student who could represent a demographic, there might be 10 occurrences of vaping by someone who identifies as um white, but that might not be 10 people. That could be one person with 10 offenses. Um and so it's important that we don't conflate occurrences with the number of different individuals who have been suspended. And the data that shows up here is usually short-term, long-term um suspensions or in school suspensions. Would you like to add anything more to that? >> No, I'm available to answer questions.

179I think the district we continue to maintain pretty clear accessible discipline policies. Um and we provide a written code of conduct. Families receive the students right responsibilities handbook at the start of every year as student handbooks. Um and we continue to make resources available. I think if you look at the five-year trends, you continue to see instant inclusion to just decrease slightly. I just want to highlight that it looks a little different. There's less of a drop than in prior years, but that's because there was a shift actually in the disciplinary um laws state of Washington, which made exclusion sort of your uh [clears throat] a less likely outcome for um student misconduct. And so where the it was looking at older data where the prior to when the roles changed versus measurement exclusion. So

180you see still a slight reduction but not as great as you saw in previous years just because of the role of or roll off or lack of better term of that older discipline data. Um, so I do want to highlight that and I just think there are areas that do call for continued focus. Um, sort of the fighting and some uh unsafe behaviors increase here and that's something that we're monitoring just because there's increased more physical allocations as director highlighted. It could be just a handful of kids but that's not something that we want. Um so and it's how do we provide appropriate interventions to support even those handful of students. Um because those activities especially get older can have very real and damaging consequences. Um and we are a learning institution and um we

181want to make sure that they're learning from this so that they make good choices as adults and don't have those consequences. >> So any other question and any cell phone discipline is not in this report. separate from >> it's not in here because those are not um suspendable unless the cell phone was being used to >> do something else. So it's kind of like you know in and of itself that is not enough to trigger something else. >> Just a question on the the cheating plagiarism violations. I'm just shocked that that seems low to me. Why is it so that >> there are cheating and plagiarism violations but not significant enough that would require a school removal. So this is capturing if you were suspended because of it in school suspension or whatnot. So it

182would need to be pretty egregious to not be able to come to school because of that. >> Yeah. >> So there's many more offenses. [laughter] This is like >> anything else comments thoughts? >> I think that my only comment would be um I see the data and it's an aggregated K to 12. I'm just curious on kind of the breakdown in in if it's or middle school and if it's an elementary like how are if there's um kind of if if everything's applied fairly within the elementary or elementary it's never like it not it's not significant here and and there's not anything that that will flag anything but um more on the breakout of those incidents like by grade like it's more in middle school high school or I don't know if I see them

183or um this more as a K12 in general, right? >> I was going to ask for the same thing. I just feel like it was just touching on Dr. Madison's point. I just feel like it's like if you're preparing people and students for like the real world, you probably want to make sure that as you're going up in age group, you're seeing these offenses go down. Um and you probably don't want to see them peaking in senior year. just I they do go up the other way largely because alcohol and vaping and some of the other things that you start to see. So that so the same trends we looked at with the superintendent student advisory where um vaping and alcohol drug and went up on that data on the healthy youth survey that's where

184you see it there. Now, I agree on some of the other things. You hope that it would go the other way. Um but unfortunately, that's kind of what we see there. Um with that elementary, there's not a lot of suspension that happens in elementary, particularly after third grade. I don't even think K through three has that. Um I'm looking to you kind of Aaron on that one, but >> yeah, there's limits on um rules of students at K3 and under the statute. So, it's very very specific offenses. But I will also share that um for example, if you have a kindergartener shove another kindergartener, two black girls, they shove each other, they're still learning um social norms and how to interact. The consequence of that versus two seniors shoving each other and are different and

185have what the response is because as you rightly noted by the time you're 18 years old, we're assuming or you're 17 18 years old when you're senior um you've had those lessons. So your choice to engage in that physical altercation is going to have a different response than and that's true also. I mean that's the same it mirrors what happens in your 5-year-old right there where you're fighting. >> Any other comments about this one? Any thoughts? I feel that we would be in compliance. >> Yeah. That's right. The next one here is with respect to relationship with staff and volunteers. The superintendent will not allow conditions, procedures, actions, or decisions that negatively impact their ability to perform their jobs and to work in an environment of professional support, respect, and courtesy. I mean, I feel

186like we've seen evidence of that of the administrative team being in compliance of that like and we've heard sort of consistently throughout the years of the efforts that the team makes to engage with feedback with their staff and to really support staff and make them feel valued. So, I don't I don't see anything to the contrary. >> Yeah, I don't either. I think that I've seen positive seems like you all work hard to create a positive environment and seen that even more in the past month and so I think that for the district all right and last one on this with respect to relationships with parents and citizens the superintendent will maintain an organizational culture with expectations and practices that treat parents and citizens with respect dignity and courtesy. Um, from my perspective, I have

187seen uh our superintendent uh treat people with quite a bit of respect and community courtesy and we also have in the reasonable interpretation a timely fashion. Fairly impressed with how quickly you respond to people given all of your responsibilities. Um, so it seems to me like this is a compliance. >> Yeah. And even even when when people are not being courteous to you, you're always courteous. >> We try. >> Best can be done. [laughter] >> Anything else? Any other comments? All right. So, I would make a motion that we approve these as we've just discussed. >> So, like I move that we make we find the the superintendent in compliance with OE3 appropriate community members. Second. All >> in favor? >> I >> 525. >> 205. Okay. Great. Okay. Next one is >> uh just

188for our purposes. What I heard is you want to leave when you So the next meeting is when you do um language review. So, we will make that an agenda item, not make it part of consent because you want to consider changing the level of monitoring which you would do at the next meeting. Um, typically um and I'm just wanting to make sure that that's what you're you're intending to do just so we can tee that up. >> And when you say that, that means we are monitoring at a higher level. >> Yep. You're going to change I heard that you want to change set part one to a level two monitoring which means I would bring you data and evidence just like you saw in the second one relative to demonstrate how are we

189doing relative to safety. Is this something that you're going to bring us anyway and that sort of result of the safety survey or the network? Because I'm I'm wondering if it's just going to sort of naturally occur and then we monitor this again at the same time next year or is that something that we want to monitor twice. I mean, I just wonder that if we're already going to get that report >> as part of the >> You're going to get that. What I would also bring you are things like um our students on the safety committee are doing a survey right now asking about safety. The EES data um the healthy youth survey is going to come back. So I'm already thinking about a number of data points that I can bring you. I

190can either bring it if you're doing a partial governance halfway through the year that might be the precidium information and then a year from now you're going to get a very robust explan explanation or demonstration of why I think our school district um based on our our team and myself's performance. So it'll I think it'll be twofold. I I like the idea of of officially elevating it to level two and just following the protocol. And I do I guess I like the idea of revisiting it at the beginning of next school year when we've had time to wrap up the committee work, you know, get some new data. I just think it's such a relevant issue right now for our community that that's the way to be responsive. >> Is that so what we'll do

191is we won't necessarily then make that an official agenda item. I can put it on consent agenda with those changes. um we'll note those in there and then we will make a note on our agenda for agenda planning once we get in towards June and into July preparing for August that we'd have an update of some sort if we don't get to it in case we are now moving on to board policy 16005 monitoring superintendent performance superintendent Job performance will be monitored systematically only against the superintendent's job expectations which are reasonable progress toward organizational accomplishment of the fundamentals stated in board policy 1800 OE1 and organizational operation within the boundaries established in the other operational expectations set forth in board policy 1800 and this is for us as a board of director to determine full

192compliance going from compliance just so I can understand this is the first one I've done of this. Is this we are voting on our assessing our own compliance as a board or is this for the >> um sorry I was making my notes from our last uh item there president. Give me just one second. Oh, this is you. This is your um this is your policy. And so you are um what we need on this one is um are you acting in compliance for this which will tee up the ability then for the next meeting um or this I guess you're going to move it to February then to do the evaluation. >> Great. So I'll just run through these and see if anyone has any comments. First one is monitoring determines the degree to

193which board policies are being met. Information not formally presented as monitoring data and that does not contribute directly to this purpose is not considered monitoring data. Any comments? And I I guess from my perspective, if you think that the board is not in compliance, that would be a reason to comment. So you have no comment, we'll take it as you think that we are in place. Number two, the board will acquire monitoring data on the fundamentals and the operational expectations by one or more of three methods. The internal report in which the superintendent discloses information and certifies compliance to the board for internal monitoring reports delegated by the superintendent to other members of the staff. both the superintendent and the respective staff members are required to certify compliance. By external report in which an external

194disinterested third party selected by the board assesses compliance with board policies. C by direct board inspection in which the whole board formally assesses compliance with the appropriate policy criteria. The board may choose to utilize a 360 degree evaluation process with staff as a direct inspection mechanism to validate the superintendent's compliance with OE5. If so, the compiled results will be shared with the superintendent as a means for self-improvement. Any comments? Okay. Three. A consistent performance standard for operational expectations shall be whether the superintendent has reasonably interpreted and acted within the scope of the operational expectation being monitored. The standard for the fundamentals shall be whether the superintendent has reasonably interpreted and whether reasonable progress is being made toward achieving the fundamental being monitored. The board will make the final determination of whether superintendent's interpretation is reasonable,

195whether the superintendent is in compliance, and whether reasonable progress is being made. In doing so, the board will apply the reasonable person's interpretation. >> I do have a comment there. So, uh, and I think that I have shared that with you, Fred, before that I would love to have your interpretation of all the fundamentals. I think some of them were from past administration. So I don't know if there I think that has been a conversation in the last maybe semester maybe or less. So that would be my only comment on that. >> I just poked uh Jody and and or director Lee and uh director Bernett on that uh to kind of rephrase that um as a question about an interest in that especially as you're going forward. So it's on our agenda for next

196week. >> Yeah. Four, following the monitoring of an alterational expectation and/or fundamental, the board will review the policy language and make any desired revisions at the same meeting as the monitoring or when otherwise feasible. And five, all policies that instruct the superintendent will be monitored on schedule and by method chosen by the board. The board may monitor any policy at any time by any method, but as a rule will depend upon the following schedule. And I'm not going to read the entire schedule. >> You don't want to? >> I I actually really do, but I don't. Um, any comments? Great. And finally, six, each January, the board will conduct a formal summitive evaluation of the superintendent. The summitive evaluation will be based upon data collected during the previous calendar year from the monitoring of board

197policy 1800. The board will prepare a written evaluation document. The evaluation document will consist of a a summary of the data derived during the year from monitoring the operational expectations. B conclusions based upon the board's prior action during the year relative to the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of each fundamental, whether such fundamental has been achieved or reasonable progress has been made toward its achievement. C. conclusions based upon the board's prior action during the year relative to whe whether the superintendent has reasonably interpreted and operated within the boundaries established by the operational expectations and d conclusions based upon the determination of whether the superintendent has achieved or made reasonable progress toward the superintendent's goals to the board. So I mean this basically leads into time to have the discussion then about pushing the evaluation since this is

198talking about January. >> Um you well um kind of two things on that is you will >> we're addressing it later. >> Yep. You'll get it and you'll you'll end up addressing it in >> I'm just going to make a note come back to the timing of the evaluation. Um, other than that, any comments? >> Okay. Can I get a motion for the >> What do you learn how to say? >> I move that we find the word compliance with board policy 1605 monitoring superintendent performance. >> Thank you. Seconded students. I >> I 50s. We'll now move on to the partial governance process monitoring. And this is board policy 10002 governing style proposed language revisions to board policy 1905 monitoring performance. So on this one, um the board president and vice president, we discussed um

199the kind of moving forward, there's kind of that challenge when you're a new board member. Uh you haven't even been on the board long enough to evaluate me. You have three who have. Um and so there was um some discussion about allowing you as a board to spend some time on the 22nd. you can do some discussion around how are you performing as a board even though you haven't all been together but then also relative to um just thinking about um a little more time for you to work together to determine how you know what the true evaluation is. So, our proposal is because it is board policy um that you would make a temporary um change and that's what's in there with the markup and that is for this calendar year instead of meeting

200your January 31st deadline, you would meet a February 28th deadline to evaluate uh me and provide me with my uh summit of evaluation. >> Yep. And the thought was that basically [clears throat] as said that it gives us a little bit longer. Also um since we have our meeting next week with Marty that will give us a chance to evaluate ourselves as a board first and sort of you know talk through our roles and how we want to come together and then begin a ton of sense and even more so in the alternating election cycle when you have three potentially three new court members right like yeah it's never made any sense to do it in January. I think this is a great idea. So, so my question there would be if it um does

201it have to be always in January or can we just move it forever in February? >> Yeah, we just move it. >> Your policy on that that I think um >> then you don't have to change every other >> Right. So, I'm thinking about kind of um the process from a superintendent perspective. Um I don't think that that changes the the calculus for a superintendent on that. Um the intention is you know if if after a year there were areas that you felt that the superintendent was not meeting expectations as laid out in your OES then the superintendent has time to make corrective action because in June that's when you vote so whether or not you're going to extend the contract. uh a vote of not extending a contract is typically a signal of until

202we see that improvement, we're not comfortable adding that extra year and or maybe it's time for some different discussions that might take place. That's typically what you see. Um but in uh if things are going well, you extend it and we can get on the rhythm there. Um Erin, did you ever since did you have something you want to add to it? >> No. >> Okay. is four months versus five months of time then to like potentially improve performance like materially. >> The good thing about the way you evaluate your superintendent is with the OES and you do them throughout the year anyway, the superintendent should know based on your approval of OES if there are already areas of of concern. So um because it's so uh formative in nature along the way, there shouldn't

203be any surprises. >> So should we just try to change it? Yeah, I think unless anyone feels otherwise we could just revise this instead to say to remove the additional language and just to say each replace January with February. >> I think that that makes sense. So then going forward we're signing people up for success board members. Yeah, >> because because like definitely it's worth noting that the the hypothetical superintendent would have a little bit less time to respond, you know, one month less time to make changes if necessary, but the board would know him or her or them better and would presumably be giving better feedback at in February rather than January. So, it just overall seems like >> nothing else, you have more time to actually meet, >> right, right? and to have

204the conversation in executive session about the superintendent performance because it's also a little tricky. Yeah, it does seem like every election year it would just be like >> hello new colleagues now let's write this letter >> right it gives the board time to come together and form the team and >> right so could I make a motion to approve the change that we will replace January with February in restaurant school board policy 1605 monitoring superintendent performance and for clarity purpose sorry the PD gallery over here um that you are not adopting the otherwise suggested modified will not adopt that language and we will simply replace in section six we will replace the word January with the word February [clears throat] >> I am sorry >> can you make that motion since you just said it

205so >> yes [laughter] to make a motion uh to revise schoold policy 1605 monitoring superintendent uh by only changing the word January to February in section six and with no other additions or changes. >> Second students and now we are moving on to the table meeting. If there are no comments then um I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Seconds five. [cough] >> Great. Uh just a few things for you this evening. Um the first just building on the student safety and well-being committee. Um we in addition to what's been said, uh we're going to have three kind of focus areas. Um we're kind of in this interesting space where we've done a lot of learning as director Martinez has mentioned um and there is a need to want to continue

206to promote action but at the same time not get too far ahead of ourselves while Pidian does their work. So there will be three focus groups um that will be doing some uh deeper reporting to the whole committee and it will be made up by committee members doing the report. So one is on reporting in general. We spent quite a bit of time at last night's meeting talking about the say something app and its utility uh and really getting a sense of how did it work. But we're going to expand on how do students report um and or staff members uh report. Uh the second one is on staff and student boundaries and giving greater clarity around what that looks like. And the final one is um what do we do in terms of education

207from students K12 in the area of sexual assault, molestation and battery. So those will be three of the focus areas. Been a couple questions that have come up around Prescidium and they came up last night. Some great questions um around Prescidium. Just for you as a board, as a reminder, u this is a group that has over 30 years of experience doing this in higher ed, um private schools, school districts, um individual schools. Um they also work in other sectors, but from a education standpoint, um I feel strongly and believe in and and I'm hopeful about their work. Um a they're not based out of Washington, so they're doing this work all across the country. um and looking at different um aspects too because our Washington state risk management pool um is using them to

208do some training which we had um almost all of our leadership team members on a training just this week um with the presenter who was there last night. Um we already have some ability to not only take the report but then go right into training and start working um with some pieces there. Uh, and then finally, um, you know, this isn't a group that's worked in Washington, so they don't have that, you know, preconceived notion about our laws and regulations. Um, in fact, the person who's going to come has never even been to Seattle. And so, being able to come in and truly look at this and think about all the other schools they work with and then what does it look like here, you know, I have a lot of confidence in what they're

209going to be able to provide us uh, at the end. Um, they'll be on site for three days um, later this spring. We have not selected the three days um quite yet. Um during that time they meet with parents, students, staff um and do focus group interviews as well as perhaps even one-on-one. That's up to them. We don't dictate that. They'll look at all of our policies and procedures. Um they'll walk each of our campuses, all six schools, um and take a look and make recommendations with regard to the physical plant and how are we even set up in our schools from a structural standpoint and for areas that there's nothing we can do about it because it's structural. Make recommendations on how do you better supervise, how do you better train. Um and so

210it's really kind of a comprehensive look at that. They'll have two practitioners on site for those. There was some questions around how do people get selected to be a part of those focus groups and there'll be multiple inputs from that. The committee itself will be a big piece of that. Um we'll also look towards um uh our PTAs and our packs and um booster clubs and others to recommend people. We'll have certainly our staffs and and talking with um uh staff leadership, our building reps to make recommendations on staff and then looking to our build our our student reps um both Brody and Lucy as well as the student reps who are part of our team and a larger one to also make recommendations. So, um this isn't something that we're trying to drive as

211a district. we really let them drive it and then we provide them with and they've given us an idea of what are all of the different demographics they want to see um athletics activities um uh all the way through. So I'm excited uh about it from the standpoint that we are a learning organization and we're going to learn what we're doing today to get better for tomorrow. So that's kind of the update there. Um uh looking forward to next week. Um your agenda is posted uh for January 22nd. Uh the president, vice president and I have been working with Marty uh to set the agenda. You'll spend the bulk of the time in the morning on the governance team and building a strong governance team. Uh we'll do an hour on board evaluation as the

212president mentioned and then we'll wrap it up with board structures to support the governance thinking about your meeting norms and and structures of your meetings. So I think it'll be a nice um opportunity for you. Um and then uh just want to thank our team uh each of our assistant superintendent uh putting bringing their teams forward as was mentioned earlier to uh really try to give um both uh director Bernett and Bradley a look into who are all these people that come and who does the work behind the scenes to really support the schools. So with that that's the end of my report. >> Thank you. legislative report. >> Um, okay. So, um, uh, so Julie and I will, uh, are going to start our lunch session started this Monday, but I will start first.

213Uh, I know that I have said it several times to thank both of you for the town hall. But I, I will want to acknowledge that uh, that whole town hall was a big collaboration between 10 districts. uh you know it was uh fantastic to see uh not only uh school districts but also uh uh directors uh education associations, PTAs and community members putting togethers and actually working together and I think that the collaborations uh that have come out of it have been already impactful in a way that I thought that by now I would have been able to wrap up the the temple and I have not finished wrapping up and I know I always superintendent uh uh some list and some emails just because it keeps coming just because uh the outside collaboration

214has been reaching out in different ways especially now that the the legislation has started to ask extra data of what happened during the town hall or or some of the stories that came out of it. So I think that that is is a fantastic uh outcome because uh we are are moving as a block and I think that it was shown during the the linkage session that that um um I think that the conversation uh was was uh a little more it was deeper I think that uh and the question so I think that that was a great outcome. So I I um I am excited that that this has come out of it. Uh so the legislation just started and I know that Governor Ferguson just uh is trying to push a little more

215of the budget to see so uh as all the education associations and us are trying to push to see how much of that extra budget will be dedicated to to education. So, uh, this is this is probably a question that I will have with with Julian, how are going to work, but I also will ask this to Fred and and the staff here like what we did last year on alerting you which builds were coming. Did it work? Did not work. So, uh, it was a lot of work. So, I want to make it a lot more efficient uh and see how how the system of alerting the the district and the community on when to start uh logging in and yes, at least sign pro or a bill or if you want to testify

216in person, virtually or just in a written testimony uh um uh is work last year or not and if we will continue that way because I think that we have to um I I think we if we just narrow like I think we tried to keep track of every single bill and I and I think if we narrow the number this year and our and it will naturally because it's a short session. um narrow the number so it's not quite as labor intensive, but I I found it really helpful and it helped especially when you had the links at the bottom of how to sign into the pro and con because I could quickly grab those and just send that off and I didn't have to hunt for it and then get people on how

217to do that. So, okay, I found it really helpful. >> Yeah. And I think that that uh um we had two students testify this week in favor of mental health >> uh in in schools. Uh so one of our students uh um it was virtually uh and submitted the the written testimony. Uh there were other two um students from the different districts that were part of the town hall that also testified and they did it virtually. And then we had our student Ryan that he went to Olympia. Um, and it was impactful. But at the same time, I think that that knowledge of how to do the steps for the students and maybe give them a guide on if you want to testify, sign up pro and how do I know that um there's a

218legislation on changing the uh how to register and voter uh engagement for students to January to earlier in the fall when it's uh setting up for boarding registration, things like that. and bring more civics related to the importance of of being uh being present in civics and and voting program, letting your voice know. So I think that having those guys might as help our study study buddy um get more into into that. Uh and I know that uh Julian brought some ideas on on uh bringing opportunities for uh students to participate differently in in in in different opportunities, right, in in in Olympia. So, um >> well, I will have to be down in Olympia with my son for a week because he is serving as a page for his uncle in the legislature. So,

219um I have actively been setting up uh meetings with the WASDA lobbyists as well as members of the education committees. Um again, it is a short session. It's a I actually think it's sort of going to be a very interesting session. uh because uh a lot of politics is language. I think you're seeing some very interesting language shifts from all of the lobbyists um you know and even in our own legislative priorities. Um both us and WASDA are using words like unfunded mandates um which you know is sort of a very interesting change of terminology here in Western Washington. I kind of view th that as a center right concept more than it is a center left concept. So to see those types of words and language changes I think actually show that the landscape

220is shifting in the in the relationship between the districts and the state legislature. Um and so I think that there is starting to be a recognition that the system as it's constructed is not working well. And so people are starting to have working groups to figure out maybe what comes next. But all of that is in its very earliest stages. So um I think that people sort of need to pay attention and a big part of the lobbying is just on education right now to tell the legislators how the system is actually working as opposed to how they envisioned it working. And then we had another conversation that uh eventually I think that we it's worth maybe on hold and I know that uh um um I might want to bring Andreas and Magi to

221this conversation because this is a big part of of a something that we have been commenting here and there but uh I know that Senator Wellman uh did mention uh last linkage session about the Microsoft is maybe bringing the elevate Washington uh to kind of the the school districts in Washington. And after that I had a lot of conversations with different people and calls from um uh uh different uh uh uh pe people from the region that that we started working with after the Tahoe on on um how cautious this they were about this program without having any legislation regarding a um AI and how should we be right now very involved with legit legislators on how do we want those policies and and bills to protect student safety and this is when our expertise

222should show up before they start drafting their own bills. So I think that this is something that we have to see like what do we have in place, what is working and what do we want before they start uh drafting because I know that they they had one bill earlier this week related to AI and the use of of AI in uh to monitor behavioral things in in schools and it was it was a I think that that it was not something that that that um was going to pass like this is just something that that they were wanted to really avoid having and that's a policy there but at the same time they're just developing these policies and with this push of Microsoft trying to see like we have this this is the time

223that that I think that uh us and the region saying like what do we have in place what is working what is not before uh we have something that we are testifying in instead of being part of the process is something that we should engage early uh if I could just add to that one of the things that we did as part of our work group and one of the things we do is we evaluate all uh technology, software and solutions that we utilize is um rather than waiting for federal resol legislation on that. Um the services that we use, we vet against our existing student privacy agreements. So we think about FERPA uh COPA uh and those pieces. And so when we think about the tools that we've utilized or we've implemented or we've

224promoted, there are many tools that we've said no, this is not meant for educational settings and we're we're not going to promote this. Um and then there's tools that we vetted against policies that we utilize for our learning management solutions and for other tools um that meet those requirements. We also look at age restrictions and other pieces like that and really keep the student safety and privacy and security in mind at that. >> And I think that this is where we are ahead because we are where we are located geographically and this is something that we can actually uh help the other uh school districts in in in more uh uh rural areas that they might not be ahead of us in terms of of what places we have developed or different things just because

225of that technology uh reach gap. So uh so I think that that's something that that is is worth uh um giving our expertise to the legislators. >> Yeah. >> Uh and I think that that's uh I think that we will develop something that will work for everybody too and and we h will be meeting next week to uh start stronger. [laughter] We were going to divide and hunger and I don't know do you have something else? Uh, no nothing additional. Yeah. >> Well, all right. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for all of your hard work on town hall. So, students 1492 and thanks to you for your hard work in the linkage session and I know it's been it's been a lot of long 21 hours. >> It has it. >> All right.

226Um, so with that, um, I would like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting. students meeting. We got everything done. >> We did >> from the last meeting because we thought about >> letting it down. Fred suggested it and I was like, "No, we're >> we're not carrying this bag.