00113 2026 >> [snorts] >> board meeting. We will kick things off. We'll stand the same place. pledge of allegiance pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Um all right. First order of business, can we get a motion to adopt the agenda? I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. I will second. All those in favor? I I I All right. Can we um make a motion to adopt the consent agenda? Make a motion to adopt adopt the consent agenda. I'll second. All those in favor? I I All right. First order of business is IRE student recognition. And this is going to be led by IRE assistant principal, Mr.
002Nate Beatty. >> [clears throat] >> You all have a smile here. Thank you for having us. These are the Irene Ryder self-managers of 2025-2026. And the self-manager program is one of three leadership programs that answer the question "What do we do when students know the material?" So, SEL and citizenship and um Meridian mindsets that are aligned with the strategic plan are very much an important part of the fabric of our school culture. And the fifth-grade teachers let me know this year that each one of the self-managers represented here really earned their spot. From the application process to the the obtaining of references, interviewing with Ms. Kratsios and uh Ms. Montgomery were your interviewers. Um they they passed the interview process and then they maintained their status as self-managers throughout the year through exceptional citizenship and
003exceptional demonstration of the Meridian mindsets. And so, they've each prepared to introduce yourself with big voice and say what your favorite part about being a self-manager at IRE is. We'll start over here with Zoe. Hi, I'm Zoe and I like being a self-manager because it helps me like be responsible and stay on time and show that I can be looked at in the future. Hi, my name is Ginger and being a self-manager has taught me how to be more responsible and make good choices even when no one is watching. I want to be a great example for the other kids in my school. I like being a self-manager because you get to like go to recess early and I like I like being able to help around when when the teacher needs it. Thanks, Clark.
004Can you say your first and last name for everybody? Clark Cosgrove. Thank you. I'm Pepper Tipton and I really love being a self-manager cuz I can help out with teachers which is the teachers can trust me. Um my name is Lexi and I like about being a self-manager is being more independent and and I responsible and teachers can trust me. I am Holly. My favorite part about being a self-manager manager is helping teachers with tasks tasks they need and showing that I am responsible and know how to help when needed. I'm Camilla Griffin. can give me more responsibilities and that other students can trust me if they need help with anything. Hi, my name is Allison and I can help I mean and what I like about being a self-manager is because teachers can trust
005me and I can let do stuff if they need. Hi, my name is Colin and my favorite part about being a self-manager is like teachers will trust me. Hi, my name is Aubrey Johnson and my favorite part about being a self-manager is being on time to stuff and I that teachers can trust me. Hi, I'm Cora Holder and my favorite part about being a self-manager is gaining more responsibility to be able to help my teacher and other classmates. Hi, I'm Madison and I I was so responsible and respectful I am and that my teacher trusts me to do my jobs that get jobs done. My name is Cali and my favorite thing about being a self manager is I get to go to specialist earlier before my class because sometimes they have to wait. And
006like if the class owes recess, like some recess time, I can already go to recess because she knows that I was like listening and I and she like trusts me. Awesome. Any questions for these student leaders? You. Um can you tell me somebody like to tell me about the application process and the interview process? How that felt? Okay. I remember it was kind of stressful but when I came in but when I came in she was nice. Okay, that didn't go that bad. Did they ask you a lot of questions? Do you feel pretty good about it? Yeah. Yeah, good. Do you guys all get to meet together very often? Not as a whole group. Typically it's contained class by class. So each class, each fifth grade class will have self managers as part of
007their their day-to-day. That's their role in the classroom. I would just say that it's so cool that he has put an application process. He went through the interview. Like those are you know, parent things that they go through. And so you guys be able to put yourself out there, establish yourself as leaders within, you know, not this your your your class but your school Um, really cool. And you can see the benefits of that. You guys get to go to recess early, go to your skills people early, and so um, I just think it's so nice. Good job. I agree. Yeah. All right. I I think um, every time we talk to students who are going to go to a new transition to a new school as you go through your educational process, put yourself
008out there. And I hope that you felt this was good, you'll get opportunities when you're in middle school, you've got opportunities when you go to high school, and then when you're in high school, you're looking at what might I want to do and you'll get involved in internships and um, you've got a head start on a lot of people, so good job. Way to be brave to speak in front of all of us. It's really great. >> A lot of good speakers. Yeah. Nice job. All right. Yep. All right, parents and students, do you guys want to stay for the reports? You're more than welcome to, but otherwise, if you guys can, I'll take them off your hands. Um, The uh, the next item is uh, is the public comments. Um, we do have uh,
009one public comment tonight. Um, Yes. All right. Um, our board has adopted policy and procedure uh, 1400. Public beta. I can. Um, so the purpose of public comment is to ensure orderly, respectful, and productive process of public testimony during school board meetings in alignment with policy 1400, meeting conduct order of business and court. Um, the public comment period, the total public comment period will be capped at 30 minutes. Um, comments can be provided orally during the meeting or submitted in writing at least 24 hours in advance. Uh, registration to speak, you must sign in to the the sheet here. Uh, the time limits, each speaker will be allotted 3 minutes of testimony. The board president may terminate speaker's testimony when the allotted time has expired. Um, civility standards, public comments must adhere to the following
010civility standards. Avoid libelous, slanderous, obscene, and indecent remarks. Refrain from violating policies related to you, uh, harassment, bullying, or discrimination. Do not incite unlawful acts or create, uh, disruptions in the meeting. Bruce, can I look at the meeting for Um, the board president may interrupt and terminate uncivil or inappropriate testimony. Response to comments, the board is not obligated to respond to public comments during the meeting. Silence from the board does not indicate agreement or endorsement. Uh, maintaining order, the board president has the authority to maintain order during public testimony and may remove disruptive individuals if necessary. Um, participation accessibility, members of the public unable to attend physically or requiring modification to participate shall contact the superintendent's office via email in advance for meetings or video meetings as soon as possible for virtual meetings. Um, and
011then in meeting order, the board president has authority to maintain order during public testimony may remove disruptive individuals if needed. Now for citizen input. Here is Bruce. >> [clears throat] >> You ready? I'm ready, yeah. Okay. Hi, >> [clears throat] >> I'm Bruce Bowman. I'm a parent here at Meridian. Um, I was made aware that, uh, some of the after-school FFA programs may be canceled for next year, um, and not available for next year. Uh, one of the examples I heard of was vet science which my daughter participates in and with these some of these actors well with the FFA after school programs they have a opportunity to go to district or FFA state competitions. Um these are students that like our daughter she used to be in sports and no longer could not be.
012Um it gives her a different opportunity a different avenue to participate in after school activities. Um Let's see what else. Yeah and then also for students that um may not wish to participate in sports it gives something else for kids to do. Um I understand too one of our ag teachers is going to be leaving us uh only to be replaced with part-time uh teacher. Unfortunate unfortunate that uh the teacher's leaving. Um and I understand that the state is not fully funding the schools anymore so I I just would like an explanation at some point of why these programs are going to be discontinued. Is it funding? Uh is it Do you think it's lack participation from students? Um I mean we have students going to these competitions so I don't believe it's that. Um
013or is it going to be too difficult to find a teacher to replace full-time the teacher that is moving on? So Um I do know that the Meridian FFA boosters uh do support our FFA group uh with uh hotels, food. Uh they help with the shopping club with fees and shells. >> [snorts] >> Uh they help a lot with programs so that's what I know. I do have questions and thank you very much. Thank you so much for that. Yep. All right. Um on to uh reports. First one is counseling and wellness report. I'll click the button when you tell me. Yes, it is. Um April and Summer are here. I'm just going to click the button here. Tammy's team. Mr. Payne's is here. Yeah. Stand. This was done. So, this was uh moved from
014previously. So, we have a little bit of a a small but mighty group here representing our um counseling team. So, I'll click and they can kind of get introduced themselves and then maybe I'll also talk about who you're representing from your building. So, so I'm Don McMahon. So, I'm from the high school. Uh Sharon McBride would have been here tonight, but she had a death in her family, so she had to help in that regard, but uh she definitely helped in preparation of this presentation. I'm Brian Moscavage. I'm Meridian Middle School and and Lori uh Gabby Greshock can't be here as well. She had a family emergency, too. Was it Tyler you want to Yeah, Laura Laura would love to be here. She's sick. She's been out for a couple days. I don't want to
015go into all the details of it, but she wish she could be here. She's That would be awesome. Great. So, we're just going to kind of start off by providing a little bit of a snip from the school board policy around comprehensive school counseling programs. So, I'm just going to read this real quick and then we'll lead into the rest of the presentation here, but it is the goal of the Meridian School District Board of Directors that the district's comprehensive school counseling will assist every student in acquiring the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to become an effective student, responsible citizen, productive worker, and a lifelong learner. And so, what that kind of looks like of how we come into play with our roles is for school counseling, the practice is kind of guided by three
016different domains. We operate from providing academic support with helping students with their classes or academic studies, providing social emotional support, which is helping their well-being and navigating any kind of stressors that they're facing within their their school days or at home. And then, we also provide post-secondary or career support. And so, these are kind of like the different areas that kind of guide our practice. And whether or not, you know, what level you're at, it kind of is more heavier of one area versus another. Elementary tends to be a lot more social emotional. High school tends to be a lot more academic and post-secondary. And then, middle school is kind of blending a little bit maybe a little bit more social emotional as well. So, um you know, we still provide kind of common uh
017duties across all the roles, but it just might look a little bit different at each level. So, some of these duties could be short-term student counseling. We try to aim for short-term because if it ends up becoming something long-term, we like to refer out and collaborate with other agencies. Uh individual student planning for goal setting. As I mentioned, post-secondary planning. We try to implement tier one uh lessons that align with SEL standards and ASCA student standards. Referrals for ongoing support. We always like to try to collaborate with families, other staff within our schools, and community partners. And uh we'll also try to all advocate for students in IEP meetings or any kind of support meetings. And lastly, like a lot of the duties that I just talked about focused on the individual level, but we
018also provide leadership from a systemic level as well. So, we like to dig into data to identify where students still needing additional support that maybe is not seen at the surface level. So, we try to collaborate on those regards as well. So, that's each building to to just give a little highlight of a couple of things. And Tyler was going to step in and share a little bit about a couple of things. This isn't by all means an all of the things, but just a couple highlights from each building that they're happy about or proud of them. Yeah, so for prior specifically, one of the things that has been an awesome tool for us to use is the Panorama survey. It's a great kind of self-assessment for students in terms of how they're feeling about
019different aspects of school. And actually, I'm going to talk about this a little bit in my report, so I'll try to uh be have an economy of language on this one. Or cuz I can really get going if you let me. Uh but ultimately, what happens is we look at that information and then counselors deliver uh a classroom-based lesson based on that content. So, if it's self-efficacy, like kids having perseverance, right? Counselors talk about what it means to have grit and perseverance to finish difficult work and what are the strategies. Um and so, Panorama has been fantastic for us to identify specific subgroups of students who need support in those specific skills. And then Laura has also done an incredible job of talking about careers. And that starts as young as fourth and fifth grade.
020Um and so, we're always thinking about who you are today is not who you're going to be. And so, it's very much exploratory and kind of a survey of here are all the options, but you know, a lot of kids that when they're young, they want to be a pro football player or maybe a teacher or something, and that's about all the ideas that they have. So, or doctor, right? So, we want to make sure that they understand about all the different career options that align with their passions. Yeah. So, kind of moving on to the middle school, we also find kind of a a similar theme of career going all throughout the different levels. I think we all took uh various parts of trying to amplify that support this year. Um we like to
021really administer connection surveys to really see how students are connecting with their staff members. Uh this is a great way to capture student input. We use Panorama survey data, and then we've also used the survey data to just ask students like, which staff members are they feeling connected to? And one cool thing that we did with this um data for this year is we had a held a staff meeting to identify students who were perhaps not being identified by staff members and students also didn't identify any staff that they felt connected to. And we kind of used that to help students target support that we can identify and help create some more connection from then to the remainder of the year. So really using that data helps us identify and narrow in on additional supports
022that we can help create more connection with. We also have done tier one SEL lessons using overcoming obstacles and lessons around ready and mindsets for the past several years and we've honed in on just kind of, you know, what does that process look like, what is the framework that's going to work best for students to help them get the the SEL standards that they need to approach. And then lastly we held our third annual career fair this year. This is always a fun one, little stressful to to plan but a fun one to to hold at the middle school. And so this has been about 20 professionals at least for the past three years that have attended. And you know, when you think about the developmental level for, you know, hosting a career fair, you
023know, middle schoolers, you know, they have may have some additional ideas about what what they may want to do but they still don't know all the careers that are out there. So having professionals come in to talk about specifically different ideas, having hands on things that they can interact with. Someone brought in a huge like eagle sculpture that was like probably from here to there this year which was awesome to showcase that their their artistry. Um that was another great thing that we were able to hold this year. So that's been something that a few just a few things that we've been able to do at the middle school. At the high school level we have all sorts of different organizations not only that we connect with through this process but one of them one
024things that I really want to highlight for you is the very top one there of your high school and beyond plan links that we have to do. Uh we have started the process of onboarding with this state required platform of School Links. And that's what the students start in actually in grade seven and they use this same program to learn about careers, to learn about um different colleges, what programs colleges offer, uh how much you get paid in a particular job, what's the demand for that kind of a job, what kind of education do you need for that kind of a job. And all this information is embedded into this program that we just started this year. Um, as I said, it is a the new uh platform that the state has required every school
025will be on over the next few years. And they are in the process of creating a lot of different lessons that the high school will use inside of our home room program that we have. And all of these lessons basically fill out their high school and beyond plan. And as I tell kids, it's about learning about what they need right now for more credits and that to be able to graduate. It's about learning about what they need in that next step of their life, whether that's going into the military, whether that's getting a job, whether that's going to a technical school, a four-year college, whatever their plan could be after high school, it's our job to help them know what that next step is going to look like and what kinds of things that they're
026going to need to be able to be productive at that next stage of their life. And so this High School and Beyond Plan also a big piece of their senior presentation that they that every senior has to do at the end of their senior year. And so it's just kind of a process, as I said, that begins at seventh grade, starts pretty basic in a lot of the career interest inventories and where kids at one point maybe think that they want to be a firefighter or maybe they you know, the next time they take it, it's like, "Oh, well, no, maybe I not want to be an engineer now." And each time that they make a little change in whatever they want to do, it gives them all sorts of different prompts and moves them
027around to different points in the program where they can learn about that particular career and find actually if that's a really good fit for them or not. One of the other really good things about this program that I think is there's an application [clears throat] manager. So, if a student wants to apply to a college, they can actually do that inside of this program. If they want to request a letter of recommendation from a staff member, they can do it inside of this program so that they can send an email directly through the program to their counselor, to a staff member asking and then the the adult then goes back inside of the system, creates the letter of recommendation, and it goes directly to the student at that point. That's not something that's in place
028right now, but it is one of the things that will happen over the next period of time. But, there's that. There's um a way for students or for us as a staff to put out like a mass email and say, "There's a recruiter from the University of Washington coming today at lunchtime. If you're interested, please go meet with them at lunch." So, we can send a, you know, put a little announcement in this and you can send it to every student that has either a plan to go to a four-year college, you can send it to every single student if you want to. You can send it only to students who necessarily say, "Oh, University of Washington is one of my interest colleges to go to." So, you can kind of create that lens, that
029filter any way that you want to in that process, but you know, we the next one is the Academy, and I'm sure that you've heard lots of uh details around the Academy over time, but we have probably about 45 students that go to the Academy every day and some of them travel down to Mount Vernon every day. Others stay on campus. And just a great opportunity for kids to learn specifically about of one particular career group in the lesson that they are. It also gives them a graduation pathway which they need for the state of Washington to graduate. And there's all sorts of great opportunities there for kids. The DDA internships is >> [clears throat] >> primarily, well, it's exclusively for students with IEPs. But one of the really great opportunities of this is you
030could say if you're a student with an IEP and I know this specifically cuz one of my kids went through this process is in the beginning they were asking, "Well, what would you like to do?" And she said, "Well, I think I want to be a dental assistant." And the people went, "Wow, we've never done that before." So, they literally started calling around to the little local dentist office and found a place for her to do a an internship, get paid for 40 hours to do this internship, you walk away with a letter of recommendation, be able to find out if it's really something that you want to do with your as a career or and you know, so one of the things every IEP meeting I attend now, that's one of the things I
031talk to kids about and families of, you know, if you have an idea of something you'd like to try, just tell them. They'll go out and find it for you. And it's a really great opportunity for kids to be able to do that and families. But obviously we have all sorts of supports around financial aid. Um we have people from the whole community that come in and talk to classes. We have representatives from the military, from colleges. And then the last one is the leaver study that's up there. And that's basically again for students with IEPs the year after they graduate from high school, we reach back out to them and find out what are they doing right now. What has been What did we do as a high school that helped you prepare for
032what you're doing right now? What could have we done better to help you be prepared for whatever it was that you wanted to do. So, those are just some of the things that we wanted to highlight. Obviously, as Brett said, we all of the counselors at all the different buildings do all of these things that we're talking about up here, but we partner with people inside the school, obviously teachers, the students. We have support teams. We go to IEP meetings, 504 meetings, all of the things that that happen inside of the school to help others feel supported. We work with each other and the and the staff. So, for example, at the end of the year, we will meet with the middle school counselors and talk about kids that have had struggles at the middle
033school level, whether it's that academic, whether that's social, emotional, whatever it is, so that even though we don't necessarily know every single kid, we have a little bit of a history of what what kinds of things either have worked or haven't worked for them while they were in middle school. The middle school counselors do that with the elementary counselors. And so, it's just a really good way for the kids to transition between the buildings inside the district. And then, of course, we spend a lot of time communicating with families about whether there's a problem academically at a school, whether it's you know, graduation types of things at middle school level. In the elementary, it's probably more around behavior and you know, social emotional kinds of things that they're helping families with, but there's also those
034academic supports that are kind of there to help scaffold kids along in through the process. And then, of course, there's all sorts of outside agencies that we have to deal with every day, whether that be CPS, whether that be behavioral health, whether that be mobile outreach places. We have counselors that are on the mobile response team that go out to different schools if there's an emergency in one of the schools, maybe there's a death that happened at one of the buildings. We have people from inside our building that go to the other buildings and help support those kids and staffs. And so [clears throat] you know, the counselor's job is kind of really all-encompassing kind of thing to just help kids feel like they're supported, to be there for parents if they have questions about
035either what's going on inside of the classroom or inside of school, or what we can help with outside of the school. And quite frankly, there's a lot of times where there's it's something outside and maybe we can't do anything with, but we can be there to listen and help them feel like we're there to support them as well in that process. So, that's just a kind of an overview of of our day. >> [clears throat] >> And the next part of this is really talking about another group of folks that are an important part of our wellness. Um and those are our mental health professional. >> Is Aaron on? So, Aaron on? Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. Hi everybody. I wish I could be there in person. Um obviously, I'm not. Um so, the mental
036health professionals um are are something that came about in the last 3 years and and are supported through a variety of of things. Partially, it's been a a community-based grant. Um also, our partnership with um the Northwest ESD. And I do know I don't see video of who's there and who's not right now, but I do know that we do have some members of the MHP team, as well as their uh supervisor here. And so, I'm not going to go into a describing their role in detail right now. Um I do want to share um the next slide though, if Adrian will click that, because what this kind of shows is is some of the numbers of of what's happening in each of our buildings. I will say I've been to multiple mental health coordinator
037meetings throughout the year this year and we are the only district in Whatcom County that has an MHP in each of our buildings, which is something that other districts are acutely aware of and and some districts are very jealous of that because we are able to support kids at each level through this resource. Um During the course of this year, I think our our counselors have have submitted something like 51 referrals to me. Many of those are for kids to to access resources at the building level through the MHPs. So, I want to recognize the MHPs as as part of this part of the presentation, just the work that they've done as members of our our community, the work they've done to support our counseling staff, the work they've done to support our teachers, our
038families, and most obviously most importantly our kids. Adrian, who who do we have here tonight? >> Introduce yourself. I'm Sarah. I'm the MHP at Irene Reither. I'm Zela and I'm the program manager. Drew Bolen, I'm at the middle school. And Roberta couldn't be here but she's at the high school again. Yeah. And I want to thank each of them for the work that they're doing. I know if if you were to talk to our our teachers in the building, they would acknowledge the level of impact that the MHPs and and this partnership with the ESD has had on our kids and we feel very lucky to have them as part of our as part of our team supporting supporting the community. So, thank you each of you for what you do and I will pass
039that along to Roberto when I see her next week. And did you want them to share any Yeah. Yeah, if Gio and and Sarah, if you can share each of you maybe just a a little snippet of what your days look like, I think that would help the board understand the work that you guys are doing. Yeah, so I I would rather I start my day by doing puppet greetings in the morning. I stand at the door and I say hi to every student who walks in. Um it's really awesome that I get to know everyone and not just the kids on my caseload. Um and then most of my days are just spent doing individual sessions, connecting with teachers, school counselors, attending meetings as needed. Um I also help run some uh groups, so
040some friendship groups, kindergarten uh Yeah, kindergarten was the one we're doing right now, um as well as a lunch bunch. And then I also just help kids in the hallway if they need help, which does happen a lot. Very similar at the middle school, but no no puppets. I don't know. >> [laughter] >> Uh as um it's my first year here, this has been wonderful. And I spend time in the hallways in the morning greeting everybody, um just [clears throat] welcoming kids into school and then yeah, throughout the day just doing sessions with with students and then seeing them off in the afternoon. Any questions for fantastic team? I just want to say thank you to all of you for being so loving and caring about all of our kids. Without you, um I just
041I don't know what our district would look like, and I think we're so lucky to have one of you in each one of our schools like Aaron said. So, thank you for being here. Um could Could Sarah, can you tell me more about your friendship groups? Uh yeah, so I co-facilitate them with like the the school counselors um as they request if I have the time in my schedule. So right now it's just a kindergarten friendship skill building group. We have to like compromise on different activities, which that's kind of the biggest thing those kindergarteners are learning. So we'll give them a couple choices and then if they disagree, we have to kind of do problem solving or split the time. And then I've also done I think it was a first grade group where
042it was more kind of structured as like we'll do start with deep breathing and then we usually read a book and then we'll go through kind of just the lesson after the book. So that's pretty good to do. Is it only kids in your caseload? No, none of the kids are actually on my caseload. So I'm assisting like the school counselor in it and then hopefully next year the plan is for me to run some of my own groups with like the kind of the separate [clears throat] caseload, but we're still kind of working on that. That's great. Donna had a question for you. Um, over the years that you've been working with the district, I know people I hear a lot of complaints sometimes. Not Not really about you. Not just about you. Right.
043>> [laughter] >> But you know, oh my kid didn't get help or well they're not you know, how do they leave school without getting a high school beyond plan? But my question is I don't know I guess statement first I don't know how kids leave here without one because of all of the great programs that are at their fingertips. After seeing this, I guess my question is what is the involvement with student or parent engagement? Have you seen that involved in a good or bad way? Well, first of all in this new process in this new platform, there is a plan that every parent will put in their email address and they will have access to this plan as their kids go through it. There is going to be a requirement from each builder or
044each district to have a meeting at the beginning of the year that introduces the parents to the to the platform, gets email addresses, all the different things. So, that's really going to increase the level of communication with the parents in this whole process. That being said, that is obviously one of the biggest challenges that we've had at the beginning of this stage because over the past what, four or five years, we've probably gone through three different platforms, three or four different platforms that we've used for the High School and Beyond Plan. And just as I said in the last year, the state now has one universal platform that every high school in the state has to use. And so, if a student, for example, moves from Meridian and goes to Linden, their High School and
045Beyond Plan electronically will follow them. And so, that's a really big thing that will help kids that are more in more transitions than others are, for sure. And we get a lot of those kids in our in our building. The piece of a kid leaving here without a High School and Beyond Plan, number one, I'm sorry, but I don't believe that a kid leaves here without a High School and Beyond Plan because it's a state requirement for graduation. And I can promise you we have the deadline set right now historically around the 26th of January to do that. And for about the next month and a half or two months, Cheryl McBride and I chase kids around the school until their High School and Beyond Plans are finished. Bring them into our office if they
046need extra support, we work with them. Up to this point, it hasn't been I mean, while yes, we keep a copy of their High School and Beyond Plan, and everyone every High School and Beyond Plan in the state has looked a little bit different up to this point in time. Now, everybody's High School and Beyond Plan is going to look the same because there are specific what they call our checkpoints where at a certain date, the state will come in and look at the system and they'll send us an email the next day and say, "Oh, by the way, um you have 51% of your kids that have finished this lesson. Um what's your plan to get the rest of them done?" And at the end of or at about the beginning of May, every
047student in the high school had to go in and submit their high school and beyond plan to the state electronically. And so, at whatever level they were, whether they're a freshman or a senior, a freshman obviously is only going to have a few things completed on their plan, whereas a senior is going to have everything completed on their plan. And that includes a resume, that includes what their plan is, you know, whether that be just go go get a job, whether it's to go to the technical school, whether it's to go to the military, whatever it is, there's a piece of that high school and beyond plan that relates directly to whatever it is that they want to go to. And having been in high school and beyond plan meetings with um Don here, uh
048one thing that he's maybe not sharing that I just would like to recognize is the amount of really effort that the two of them do put in into having real conversations with kids about why they're choosing the things that they're choosing on those plans and how that lines up with what they're hoping to do. I think that's really important. I mean, yes, it eventually obviously everybody has to make a decision as to what they want to do after they get out of high school. But, you know, one of the things we really emphasize is especially as they're a freshman or a sophomore is leave here with as many doors open as you can for yourself. Because the decision that you make as a 18-year-old is going to be dramatically different than the decision you make
049as a 25-year-old. You know, we all know that our kids think they're adults when they're 18. As soon as that birthday rolls around, they're an adult now. And they've got the world figured out. But we also know that by the time they turn 25 and look back, it's like, "Oh, I really didn't have all that is enough." And so, they have they keep access to this plan. They can go back in. They can order their transcripts to go to college, to do whatever they need to through this platform as well. That's going to ultimately save the district some money because you don't have to do parchment and school links separately. You can do it all. Schools into one, and it's just that I think the main job I think is going to be to make
050it not just a box to check, not just a hoop to jump through, but actually make it something that's productive for them and they feel like is worthwhile. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. All right, next up, um IRE I'm sorry. IRE school board report with um Dr. Hawkins and Amy. Good evening. Thanks, team. Um super excited to talk about uh our year and just kind of an end-of-year report for our own accountability. Um today we're going to be talking about these uh couple items in terms of our flow. We're going to celebrate some things that went well. We're going to review our school improvement goals and progress toward those goals. Talk a little bit about what we learned along the way, and then where we're going for next year. So, first I want
051to celebrate Daisy Valadares. Um she won a Thrive Award for communication. Um incredible incredible human being who is a huge part of our success in a lot of different areas. So, I'll talk about attendance later, and she had a huge impact on that. Um she is somebody that if you go to the front desk, you'll see a lineup of coffees because parents bring coffee into her for just, you know, being amazing all the time in what she does and how she supports kids and families. I have to constantly remind her like Daisy, it's time to leave work and then I'll every day I think I have a check-in with her and where she stays 15 to 20 minutes late doing things and just kind of, you know, crossing her t's and dotting her i's. She's
052an incredible human being. She is a huge reason why we have a 95% attendance rate for our parent conferences in the fall and the winter. And she's also a huge reason why our attendance has shot up by like 20 to 30% in good standing over the last couple of years. So, I'd be remiss if I didn't move on with the night without talking about how awesome Daisy is. So, celebrate that. Also want to celebrate last year was up here last spring talking about how we were actually believe the banner was hanging up and really excited about closing opportunity gaps and achievement gaps. Um I think we talked and I grew up in a neighborhood that didn't have every best opportunity. And I think we talk a lot about the the importance of finding ways to
053create opportunities for kids who don't have them. And what I'm really proud of is that we're really kind of we're doing that. Right, the data is showing at our school that we're closing achievement gaps in many ways because of intentional work. And so, I'm really proud of everyone at our school and the work they've done and the thoughtfulness they've had in doing that and also believing that all boats can rise while we do that, too. And so, with that, a little DJ Khaled and we got another one. So, we're really excited that this happened two years in a row. Only 16% of schools in the state received this recognition. That's fewer than 300. And I'm also really excited to report that you know, I don't want to steal the thunder, but Meridian High School joined
054the party in that. And so, very, very excited to see this happen in a system in an aligned way. And I really truly believe that iron sharpens iron. So, it's very inspiring to work with the other schools and other school leaders because I think that we're constantly pushing each other to be better for kids. So. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> That's like 10% uh 2 years in a row. We're only three in our ASD. They've done it 2 years in a row. So. It gets great to get there, but sustain it. Awesome. I mean the three pizza dynasty, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I'm trying to go with some Chicago Bulls stuff there. We got six or seven, so but you know, we'll wait one at a time. One at a time. So, um
055also want to just shout out and Nate will talk a little bit about this, but this year uh we did a lot of work in terms of recognition with our students. And uh we had over 500 probably 600 students uh celebrated our monthly assemblies uh students aligned to our Meridian mindset. Um and with our CE data, we started to see a huge increase in folks feeling like we're celebrating students. Um and Nate, you can talk a little bit about what that looked like and what you're most proud of. Yeah, assemblies were the format for student recognition and partnership with teachers. And we would depending on the SEL data that we looked over each week as an SEL team, we would curate assembly content. Sometimes it was, you know, multiple weeks of data. Sometimes it was
056an urgent need. And then teachers would recognize students who were demonstrating the the behavior that we wanted to see, the way of being that we wanted to see. And it was aligned with the Meridian mindsets, which is a student-facing way of articulating the strategic plan. So, that was really special. It encouraged teachers by the data. They got the sense that we had formats in place to recognize students positively. So, it's rewarding. And there's probably one of the cutest photos that you'll ever see. That is like classic little kid missing two you know, front teeth and just beaming ear to ear. He was running around the school at the beginning of the year, too. He was He was running [clears throat] around. Yeah. I guess the other one was Meridian mindset. Uh uh uh 7 Habits
057of Highly Effective People. It's so uplifting with the message and everything. It's It's so cool to see those kids up there just smiling. So, it's awesome. >> Yeah. Um so, I talked a little bit about Panorama earlier, and this is our Panorama data based on the survey questions. And you know, I have varied questions like I have a trusting adult at school or I can do hard work and um I know when there's something hard that I'm learning, I can find a way to achieve it or my teacher supports me. Um as a school, we're doing really well in a lot of areas. Um you know, the numbers are important on the left-hand side around their score. That's percent positive, but the other part is the national benchmark of how do we compare and stack
058up against other schools? So, that puts it in to relative perspective. We oscillate between 80th and 90th percentile in supportive relationships, depending on when that survey's taken, which is very powerful. Kids, we still It's not perfect, but in general, kids feel like they belong. They have a strong, you know, a relationship with the adult. They have strong friendships. There is no end to how good we can get, and we're going to pursue 100 every single day, all the time. At the same time, we also got to recognize that we're doing really good work along the way. And as you can tell, there's a glaring one at the bottom around self-efficacy, and I'm going to talk a little bit about what that means. And then I'm going to talk about what our plan is later. But
059ultimately, self-efficacy, the questions are things like when I learn something difficult, I know how to attack it, right? I overcome setbacks. Really, what those questions are around are about grit, perseverance, and resiliency. And that is a data point that is fairly low in a lot of places, but in particularly, that's something that we need to work on. So, we'll go to goals in progress and talk about our school improvement goals. We had four big goals. First, we need attendance to improve. We had a goal of getting to 80% of students in good standing, which means that they attend basically nine out of 10 days, 90% of those days. The other thing that we noticed was there was a gap between our students with IEPs, so essentially students with disabilities. Um some of that is medical
060reasons. Some kids have medical things and that's why they're missing school. So, we have to account for that. However, at the same time, we also found a lot of our kids who were struggling at learning didn't like school and they didn't want to come. And so, we needed to do attendance to figure out why that was happening and what we could do differently uh to close that gap. We also wanted to see a reduction in office referrals for behavior by 10%. Last year, we had a 34% decrease, which was huge. And we want to continue to see that decrease, but but once you start to decrease like stuff's going to happen, so we thought 10% was ambitious and feasible. And then we also want to continue to see uh a median growth of 115% in
061reading and math, which this is kind of like our steady growth every year. We want to close gaps. So, those were our goals. Um this was attendance for the last 5 years. So, in '21-'22, we had 57% of kids attending 9 out of 10 days. Right? And then you saw the steady climb. And Daisy's a huge part of that. Right? Daisy came in in '23-'24. All right? So, you can see a huge reason that jump happened. This year, uh also this is the gap from the OSBI report card of where we were with our students with disabilities versus students without disabilities. So, our students with disabilities were at 42% in good standing. That and then that's increased to 66. So, we set that goal that we want to get over 70. Okay? Right now as
062it stands, we have 82% in good standing. So, '21, we were at 57% and now in '25-'26, we're in 82% good standing. Right now, if we end the year if the data's the same in other schools, that would put us at the top elementary school in the county. We went from almost the bottom to the top. And then the other part I would say is we are sitting that goal of closing gaps for our students with IEPs to 70% and that was 49% 5 years ago. Incredibly proud of the team's work. It's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make that happen. And I just want to say that that that is something we're really proud of because not only is it important for learning, but it also tells you that my goal when
063I first got hired here was kids should run to school, and we're starting to see that. I'll let Nate talk a little bit about the reduction, but one thing that's challenging when I first started, we had 710 715 kids, and now we're around 830. So, as your numbers go up, ORs are going to go up, right? That's just the basic math generally. What is OR? OR is an office referral. Thank you for your question. So, anytime there's an instance that a behavior gets logged, it's not banged over a kid's head, right? Like, "Oh, you're going to get an OR." It's just a way that we document that there was a behavior incident. And Nate will talk a little bit more about like what happens at six and what happens at 12, but ultimately we do
064something about it. We don't just watch it as it goes by. There's always a plan. Um and so, we look at our ORs per 100 kids. So, this is a ratio proportion kind of thing of like as a school grows, is the behavior truly growing with it, or is it actually decreasing, and it's hard to tell. So, over the last couple years, you've seen a decrease from, you know, 146 ORs per 100 to 106. And so, with that, we're really excited to report that that's a 10% decrease um that kind of accounts for the growth of the school. Nate, can you talk a little bit about what led to that cuz that was your work, but Um we have a weekly social emotional team. It's our PLC where we look at Swiss data. So, Swiss
065is where we enter the office referral. So, Lindsey Simmons and Kelsey Van Leuven, they are great team, and they receive the data, they enter the data so that we can look at the data and respond. And when a kiddo reaches six ORs within the first three months of school, then we're like, "We got to move to meet that kiddo's needs." We identify the function of the behavior, meaning what is the student looking for through that behavior. And we also identify a replacement behavior that's more desirable, along with incentives, family partnership, communication, and then progress monitoring. So, um students will have their trackers that they check in and check out with caring adults throughout the day, at the beginning of the day, at the end of the day. And then once they hit an 80% success
066rate over a 6-week period of time, we congratulate them. So, we try to align that with >> [snorts] >> um the PLT data progress monitoring tiered approach of our academic um approaches that we've heard about at board meetings this year. Um we try to align that with uh with behavior and social emotional as well, so that we're all moving in the same direction using the same paradigms. What I love about these plans that Whitney and his team do is it's both. It's the carrot and the stick. When you see a behavior, we want to reward the coaching behavior that we're doing. Like we're saying, "Hey, we want you to do this instead of this." And when they do it, we we attaboy. Nice job. You did a good job with that. But at the same
067time, the consequences are there, too. Because what we don't do is we don't tolerate things, right? And sometimes I know that it happens where folks feel like they want to know exactly what's going on, but those plans are very balanced. Um and and we're there that we we're we we do those in a way that um holds the same expectation for all kids. How to get there is going to be different, but they still have that same expectation. So, very proud of that. Okay. Last part is we're not done with i-Ready, cuz i-Ready happens at the end of the year. So, we can only really look at midyear data. Um what I'll share with you is that the the way this looks is it says 115% median growth, which basically at the midpoint of the
068year, we had 72% median growth. And so, if you're shooting for 100, you basically want 50% median growth. So, doing the math there is we are we are doing good. I And to give you context, over the last 4 years that number has been 64, 62, 62, and 59. But this is the highest we've ever had at the mid-year point was 74 and we're blowing our results out of the water with reading and so we're starting to see the fruition of multiple years of doing phonics-based instruction and tweaking our our our reading curriculum. So we're on track. Math's a little bit close. It's not quite where we want it to be. So um that one seemed a little bit lower than our typical situation. It's It's better than it's been in the past. What I've
069noticed is our spring growth tends to be higher than our fall growth. So there were still on a wait and see. But if you do that same math of just double, this would be off our our math reading or math growth target. Um but we'll we'll wait and see. We you know, we're not done in for a couple weeks here. So um our formative data, which you've been seeing in our presentations on PLCs have been trending higher than last year's when we look at year-to-year comparisons. And so that's the part where we might be reaching the point where we actually shift from growth to target-based goals because we're achieving a lot of growth and when you grow a lot, there's not a lot of room to grow. So that's the part that I'm kind of
070curious about for next year. So what we've learned is formative stuff is really helpful. We're going to Last year we talked about that. You heard about that over and over. Um this year what we learned a lot about uh was the WIDA language standards. Um what we've actually gotten to the point of us holding kids accountable to reading out loud fluently in a fun way. So every classroom right now is uh basically cold calling kids for reading out loud and that and that seems a little opposite of what we've heard as being a good thing. Um but there's a great way to support it um and it's and it's called the phase reading method, which means fluent, accountable, social, and expressive. Comprehension is really based off of a kid's reading fluency. And so what we
071have done is we've said fluency is the bridge to comprehension and we're holding our kids accountable to reading out loud and you may hear say like read out loud for 10 minutes every day. That matters. We also did a lot of vocabulary instruction and we learned that that was our kind of sore spot in our data. And so we did a lot of work of aligning our vocabulary and making sure that we were teaching all the same words and the the right types of words that are transferable. And so that was been a big focus in language all year long. And through all of this, what we've learned for next year is we've said we need to do something with writing. So today we talked with all the teachers saying we've been listening, we've been
072looking at the data, and the next year we're going to talk about explicit writing instruction. So we've had common rubrics that you saw two or three years ago. What we've going to What we're doing with writing is now we're going to circle back and we're going to have that same systematic explicit common language that you've seen with reading. So when I start to talk about, you know, compound complex sentences, what comes exactly right before that, what comes right after that, and how are teachers all teaching it in the exact same way across every grade level and both a horizontal aligned way and also a vertical aligned way. So that was one one big project. And then like I showed you earlier about the self-efficacy data, that area of like how do you develop kids' grit
073and how do you develop their resiliency is really important. And so that will be the second focus area that you'll see in assemblies and how we shout kids out. And And there's a lot of work about building that that before you build that, you need to have a sense of belonging, and I think we're there. I think we've got a strong sense of belonging. Now we got to teach kids how to be tough. We got to teach them how to persevere in the face of difficulty. So that's our hope for next year and want to say thank you to the district leadership because I think a lot of this is possible because of the type PLC systems. I've said it before, I appreciate the parents who have that change in schedule. It's not easy to
074have a different schedule on Fridays. Um huge gratitude for the staff and the families that partner with us because there's a reason why we have successes cuz 95% of families show up to conferences and partner with families. Um and most importantly, students. They're the ones that are putting all the work in making a special place to be. Questions? What does WIDA stand for? >> Oh, good. WIDA I I always forget this one. Um, what Can you help me out with this one? It's basically the assessment that we that are students in English learners to track how they're developing their their English ability. It's like Wisconsin It's Wisconsin something, yeah. I know it's based on Wisconsin standards for language about how do you support multilingual learners in in turn in terms of grasping the English language.
075Yeah. Incredible and I dig it you're Tyler. This is really awesome to see. Also love that the goal is not like 100%. It's like, hey, let's shoot for 115%. Let's gain ground. Um, so I think that's that's amazing. Yeah, 100% you're only just you're holding steady cuz the thing about schools is it's a moving target every year. Kids are aging, time is passing by, so if you just have 100% goals, the gaps will continue to persist. We got to close them. And you can't do it when you're It has to happen with multiple teachers over multiple years to do that. I think these are really cute shield awards. They're really cute, huh? Did somebody make them? Like, where did they come from? >> Yeah, so Nate and I thought partnered on it. We wanted to
076align it to the Meridian mindsets and then I got a guy. I got a 3D printing guy that helped me out with that, so Yeah. That was Yeah, they they were like cheap key chains that they put on their backpacks or they can choose what they want to do, but yeah. They get to keep them. They're like little key chains. Cool. Remember what the different logos mean, yeah. So and I think the kids you know, perseverance and grit is something I don't know if kids just don't know what that concept is, so maybe when you ask that question, but I think that you could be the poster for what that is. And so I feel like that's why your school is very successful. Your perseverance and grit and your steady um just care. And so
077when you look at all the the numbers growing um there's a reason. Honestly, we all know what that is. So thank you both for for staying so steady for the kids. We Yeah, you could be the busters. So thank Well, I think it's it's a team and we've got some really awesome teachers. And I want you to know that I've learned a ton as a principal from our teachers. It's one of the places that's the most kid focused that I've ever worked. I think it's um I mean it's a testament to school leadership. You're talking about increased improvement with increased population of a school that's busting at the seams. Right? So systems in place and the way that you're managing your people and giving space for people to elevate. So that's happening. Do you know
078off the top of your head about the how many students were seeing with those six officer referrals in a three-month period? That needed that plan of improvement? >> Yeah. So 87% of our kids have zero or one. So that gives you an idea of kind of where we're at with kids that actually have referrals. And then with Nate with we checked this morning it was about 30 32 to 34-ish around have received a tier two intervention plan. Congratulations. Kids the they're upwards of in the 40s, but then kids graduate. And so So that works out because it's a it's a it's a moving dynamic because once a kid hasn't received a referral for a while and they've done they've met a threshold on their plan, we celebrate it. We buy them lunch or we celebrate
079them. Um because as much as you want to do to address the behavior on the negative side, you also want to demonstrate positivity on the progress because we got a lot of kids that you know there's some there's some stuff they shouldn't be doing at kindergarten, right? And now they're doing awesome, right? And and and who they are today is not who they're going to be tomorrow. And and we've had some kids do a journey and and I I know I'd say that those plans have been really helpful and integral focus thing on the specific behavior and they need to change and what that replacement is. So, yeah, over I mean we looked at this morning that there were probably a total of seven kids that have gotten six referrals in the last 3 months,
080maybe. So. Are we seeing that same specific grades or is it just spread the >> Yep, every year kindergarten and second grade are the two toughest. Kindergarten and second? >> Yep, kindergarten because they're learning school. Yeah. And then second grade is then what I like to call the seventh grade of elementary school. I've taught at high school, I've taught at middle school, and I've taught at elementary. And what I'll tell you is second grade is when developmentally they start to realize that they can poke other people's buttons. So, the social dynamic starts playing out and they go, "Oh, this is kind of fun." So, that's the best way to put it. Yeah. Holy light, terrible. >> Yeah, it is it basically terrible, too. Yeah. Um and and and what's consistent with different teachers. That's the
081other thing is like I've looked at data back before I was cuz we've had this data since 20 was it 15 or 16? So, it was 10 years now and different principals, different teachers, everything in second grade is always high. All right, nicely done. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. And is Daisy still going to be at the front desk? Yeah. She wasn't there the other day and I panicked. >> Yeah, she was just out for the day. Okay. Yeah. Yes, I know. She slid over into a new role as a registrar temporarily, but she'll be there. >> Okay. She is fantastic. We all love Daisy. Awesome. All right, on to new business. Um Section A is review and approval resolution I don't know if I'm right. Yep. Yes, sorry. Review and approval resolution
08201-26, emergency declaration and waving bigger than laws. So, you'll see the resolution 0126. It's listed there in new business. It breaks down. Typically, I read those. The bottom line is the roof at 10 Mile is failing. And we didn't know Mr. Richardson would be here, so I'm going to ask you to take the chair and I don't know, in a minute or less if you could share what you found in the process, but Yeah. we were able to work J agreed I would secure emergency funding through OSPI, and so I'll talk about the CSD like that as well, but if you give some overview. Yeah, so one of the first things that I saw here was when I took my first tour was to go over to IAR building B and noticed that there was
083quite a bit of water damage that was occurring in the edges of the roof. And I know Jay had been working on it quite a bit in the past trying to trying to get the funding or figure out how to get funding for it. I have to credit my wife because she's doing the same thing. She is at Mount Baker and she's getting she was able to get an emergency grant to get a new roof put on very under building because it was failing also. So, it kind of got my wheels thinking. I was like, well, maybe I can get one of these going for us, too. So, I had a couple companies come out and give us take a look at it and give me some more insight into what was going on with
084the with the structure of the roof and things like that. And it just became evident that if we didn't try to tackle the problem now, it was going to turn out to be even worse obviously in the future. Um there's uh some issues on the south side roof um with the layout of how they did the uh the shingles on the roof. Um it's letting water come in through where nails are sitting uh or where nails are um underneath the next layer below. So there's quite a bit of water and some of that water is actually getting down and running um not like not like a creek but a nice trickle all the way down to the edge of the building and it's starting to affect um the the vertical structures on the edge of
085the building. Um and so uh like I said I went ahead and um contact I went Jake uh with Jay's info. I contacted um uh Scott Black at the OSPI. And uh he gave me the paperwork we needed to get going. So I ended up uh writing up some a few things for him and um and did a little bit more research and kind of figured out what we needed to do to to get it rolling and and so they approved it. We just needed to get this uh declaration um from the school board. So hoping to be able to get it passed today. So timing is important in an emergency funded circumstance and ultimately as it's continued to degrade the interest is getting the repair done before next school year and being able to
086get everything lined up um because the basic fact is we don't want any failures on top of kids. Right. So the request is it's new business but we're asking for approval now. All right. Um so the request is to approve. I get a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve resolution number 01-26. I'll second. All those in favor? I. I. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's great. My second item review and approval CSG inner agency agreement for project and construction management services. Okay. Remember Dr. Pardo. Yeah, so this one is specifically for the roof repair and industry as new role. He did provide technical support and CSG is really well known for providing support even if they're not under contract. They know as someone that we would use
087as a project manager that that comes later if they get awarded. So we were awarded and so in this case um this is predominantly for the roof replacement, but there is also a clause in here for additional services that we've had with other arrangements with them so that they are service to us for pre-bond and pre-levy planning uh district office relocation project, Waukegan Early Learning Center, and Waukegan County Skill Center on an hourly basis when needed. So it just clears the path that we have the need for technical support. You just pick up the phone. They can bill us hourly. So that's included in this as well. But we're also asking for approval tonight on this so we can get going on this project. Any questions? Can we get a motion to approve the CSG
088inner agency agreement as presented? I'll motion to approve. I'll second. All those in favor? I. I. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> [clears throat] >> Hey, all right. We'll sign tonight and you can call tomorrow. Yes. Thanks, Kelly. Awesome. Um first review policy 1310 policy adoption manuals and administrator procedures presented by Dr. Pardo. Good evening. Good so tonight we have four policies. Um and these are first readings. Um first policy is an encouraged policy. It's policy and procedure 1310. This is an update to an existing Um and this one goes back to House Bill 1296, which is promoting a safe and supportive public education system. The big change in this is the laws that added language stating that um sets clear priorities and expands requirements for school districts to prioritize safety, non-discrimination, free access
089to basic education, and privacy to the fullest extent. Um and so that is the only modification to this policy. I think the question is you guys have any? I'm good. Um the next question or the next policy is policy uh 1440. This is again a state to existing. This is discretionary. Um this one the only change is in the very bottom of it. And they they recodified the RCW. Um and that RCW um is basically recording a school district board of directors meetings and it talks about that RCW. So that's the only change. Um typically board approval, well, board approval is not necessary to update the legal references portion. We've had a history of anytime we update a board policy, for transparency, we bring it to the board. So. Questions on this one? Okay. So,
090the next policy This is policy 1610. Again, update to an existing. This is an encouraged policy. Um this number is districts fewer than 2,000 students. Um so, there's two two different policies here. One is for above and we're we're below. Um and this policy, the update is that it changes the um beneficial interest in contracts from 1,500 to 3,000. So, what that means is if one of our board members owned a landscaping company and we contracted with that board member through the bid process and all that stuff, the with this change, the board member's company could make up to $3,000 per month versus the old standard of 70 or of 1,500. Um so, it goes to that conflict of interest. Um but that is that is the only change to this policy. Okay. Okay. And
091then the last one, um the last one is policy 54. We went from the 1,000s all the way to the 5,000s. Um 5411. This is a discretionary policy. I'm presenting this to the board as a new policy. Um and and here's a little backstory behind this policy. Back in 2013, um Meridian School District went through an entire We brought in, I think, WASDA and they led us through an update of all of our policies. Um this is the one that we've you've heard me talk about, Caroline Crabtree. This was her wheelhouse. This is something that she really got into and so she reviewed all of them. One of when doing the research for this policy, what I found is during that time 5411, we had it at one time. And the board had asked for
092it to go through another review. Um wanted more clarity. And then it never came back up. And so bringing this board policy back to you, it is different enough that I'm presenting it as new. We have ran it through payroll. Um Daniels weighed in on it. We've had the attorney weigh in on it. And basically what this does is it sets parameters for how much vacation hour employees who are not governed by a CBA are allowed to have, are allowed to accrue and can carry over. And then it also gives guidance on if if one of us leaves the district, how much we can cash out. Um and so previously it was a it was kind of vague, but this policy really kind of tightens things up for us. Would this negatively negatively affect any
093current employees? Um no, we are working through a system where um we have So once this is passed, there's going to be some grace given to some employees who have don't take vacation often. Um to kind of whittle down their vacation pay or vacation. Encourage them to take more vacation. >> had a date that sunsets it. If they're not there, they lose what they don't do. But right, gives them an opportunity. That's that's most And again, all four of these are first reading. So if you have questions, please reach out. Awesome. Okay. Does policy 5411 replace a different policy or it's the same number and it's just significant enough language that >> It's the same number and it's significant enough language that we just bring it brought it to you as a new policy. Good
094question. Thank you. Our final item is the superintendent report. Superintendent Oh. Thank you. Sure. So I don't have any other report. The compiler already did a little bit, but super proud of both our high school and our elementary school adding to our state recognition. I think the way things are going, you're going to see a lot more of this. So, super proud of that. And then um I think we're in a different structure because we skipped a meeting and there were some pieces and so um yeah, I just said just of course we're still going through budgeting and bargaining, that's happening. Um and we're oh so close with the budgeting. Um Manuel's got the F-185 already in its first version and um process as he sets that up and then it it's it's looked at
095by the BSD and back to him and and then you'll end up seeing presentation in the um will be the bulk of it and then you'll just get out you'll be asked for approval in June, but um a lot of work that goes into that and so um I think that uh the great message there is we're not going through a formal reduction, of course. We have a revision of staff that we're shifting and um but not doing a formal reduction, which is excellent. Um but a few different items on here that uh you know, we've had uh couple issues that you heard about with the messaging with the the water pipe and uh Taylor's team reacting quickly and just uh you know, Kurt and I were in the office talking at 6:45 and we
096got a message from Is that right? 6:45 something like that? Pretty pretty pretty close. >> Pretty close. Here at the water at the middle school. And so um you know, we scrambled for a little bit but before 8:00 rolled around, water was back on. So, anyway, um it's good. That's a problem when kids are rolling already and >> [clears throat] >> Um we had our exit meeting with the state auditor's auditor's office and that went well. Um appreciate Michelle um being able to attend that. That's good. Um They The art show, you know, we also had our senior projects. Senior projects. And one of the pieces that I um was going to say earlier but but Don got there. There's been a real concerted effort to make the high school beyond plan meaningful. It used
097to just be check a box and he said that. Um and he did say something about about it meaning something. The tension to that is when the state said we're going to do it one way, then they required everybody to have this program and then that means every district has to take money to train them and it's just part of that long list of unfunded mandates. And so, while the ideal is really great, you have some flexibility and kids can move from district to district, the implementation is not always well thought out. So, um there are tensions with that. Um Dr. Harbold joined me to uh to go attend the NCTA admin council meeting. Again, these are superintendents from all attending that send students there. Um so, they got their first taste of that. Um
098so, that was good and see a little bit of how that works. We had a successful talent show. And then, the state superintendents conference I attended in Chelan. And uh really happy to to speak about that in a second. I know to have the senior presentations, I I'll just say in terms of the content, it's really involved into something that is practical and does lead to where students may actually go. Previously, it was very much 90% what's what's what was their high school experience and what did they think about. Now, it's about 10% of that. And it's more about what their job interests are, what their pathways are, uh for some, what internships they were involved in. Uh it's really much more career-oriented. Um and and certainly it's it's their story as well. Um It
099was a great day. It's a really great day. The superintendents conference, um one of the things that I want to share about that and I have never, and I'll thank the Lord for this, but I have never ever received any flak or grief or criticism for going to Chelan to meet with other superintendents. Others have. But and I think it's that idea of going to some kind of a vacation place, right? But >> [clears throat] >> there with that feedback, there is new leadership at Wassa. And what they did is they changed the they completely changed the structure. And so, before you went, you got a choice of three or four different areas of interest. and and they're all listed here. I don't Oh, that's awfully big. Um, so coalition building and government government alignment,
100authentic family partnerships, mathematics literacy and coherent pathways, AI and the future of learning, inclusion, access and belonging, and then accountability and public trust. There were six different academies throughout the two and a half days and 25 to 45 superintendents and so superintendents only, superintendents and some of the legislative uh leaders at WASA. The programming was about those topics. So, I was in the last group that the accountability. One of the things the legislators did is they approved $140 million to feed children for for this next biennium. No one no superintendent asked for that. Most kids most systems are at a 30% or higher free and reduced rate where every child eats breakfast and lunch. The districts that don't have 30% predominantly reside in King County and have an income level where they're not hurting for
101food. It's something that a lot of us as superintendents cannot understand why they went that direction. And so, in this, we spent two and a half days working on the data and the information we need for a bill to move and pivot that $140 million to fund lab funding to make sure every child can read by third grade. And so, we are going to be meeting and we also are going to leverage early learning in there cuz you can't just talk about putting money into something without talking about how we serve right nice funders. And so, uh we're super proud of the idea that this is now conference that is functioning to create a product that actually um Something that came out of the math group is they want to change some of the math
102standards. So, really really positive uh things. Um outcomes. And so, this was the accountability measure um and it talks about if the state legislature in the 27 session, so they would consider adding 150 million annually, which is about a 20% increase. Um to laugh funding with the goal of all kids reading, what accountability measures would we as a group of Wassa superintendents recommend? So, a lot of the dialogue was how can we get the legislature who isn't accountable to their own state constitution that says school district funding is first priority. How do we as superintendents and school system leaders say, we will do X, Y, and Z to ensure our kids receive that funding and increase their ability to read. How can they meet us halfway? So, that's what a lot of that was. And
103then that's the group. Um And then uh this is the I'm not going to read all these, but um you know, other factors like increasing access to high-quality developmental appropriate early learning. Okay. Probably not surprised that's in there. And then um Anyway, my my point about the conference is that it was very productive and it was less about networking and connecting with whatever initiatives are going on and more about actually coming coming out with a product. And then um we have uh superintendents meeting tomorrow and then Region 108 awards and I'll tell you that we are honoring Logan Oh, great. and Marty Graham. Oh. So, we'll have a luncheon at the Sky View because you know and WSU puts that on. Um they have a fund for that. They'll get They'll get a plaque in
104the So, contributions will go to them. So. That's cool. Yep. Yep, that's really great. Um in the past, last fall, um Sean Daugherty and I went to uh the ESD and we represented K-12 in a room full of university and community college presidents and the Northwest Coalition of Educational Workforce to talk about the pipeline and what are we doing in K-12 at the intersection of uh job forces and job force creation and workforce. Um that's coming back around again. And so, being able to have conversations, particularly with our our CTCs, our our um community colleges and and uh technical centers, to talk about what are they doing to meet our students. That's the latest. They're saying, "We're not We're not doing a good job of serving students as they come to us." And so, we're
105super interested because we see a lot of times where students leave us, go to Running Start, very few are super successful. Many come back to us in a deficit because our timing is our timing of our semesters and their quarters are not the same. And so, we're actually having dialogue as systems to try and talk about how do we how do we actually support the interests of our students. So. It is good for some students. It does have a place, but we also want to make sure we're giving good guidance to our students on these opportunities. So, that's happening uh next week, uh Memorial Day, and then uh May 27th, we're going to be here again. And then, mark your calendars. June 3rd and 10th. So, we are down as a a a board a
106special board meeting on the 10th because all of you are convening. No, on the 3rd cuz it's the graduations. We're convening. Um and I'll just say it may be necessary to pull all of you together for a brief 18, but maybe not since uh we're going to come together on the 17th. But just you know the graduations typically at 6:30. If we're going to do that, we'll probably ask you to be there by 6:00. And those are at and and it will be less endeavor if we need to, so. Okay. I have a district office meeting. Yeah, all right. Okay. We'll we'll definitely communicate out of this meeting, but um the big one is June 3rd and 10th are coming quick. >> Yeah, they are. It's all right. Crazy. Make sure you're Okay. Awesome. Thank
107you. Thank you. Um with no student board activities this evening, um do we have any information from any board directors? We have some information to share. Let's do it. Uh I will also add that I also was very honored to attend the senior presentations. Oh, I don't know if that will help watch that was in uh there was one student in our group and I I was asking uh what their screen time was and one of the students that had just an an incredible resume of work that he's been doing up until now. Uh 2 hours of screen time. And the other students in the room uh of course they're perfectly recommended. >> [laughter] >> But they're doing great things. It it was really really awesome to see their collection of their for high school
108and beyond. Yeah, I'm glad you got to see it. I know I actually kind of see you there. Yeah, it's good. Um on Monday, I was honored to be a panelist at the Latinos Advocacy and Leadership Association of Whatcom County event um >> [clears throat] >> in partnership with Vamos Outdoor Project and I was the only non-Spanish speaking person in the room but and it was so humbling to be in a situation where I was the minority in the room and it really tested my Spanish cuz I haven't had to use that in so long but I was able to pick up about 50% and it was enough to catch the good jokes. Um but it was uh presentation of panelists from two from Bellingham School District and another board member from Ferndale School District
109and myself. And they asked us questions about what does a school board do, um what's the importance of a school board, how can we get in contact with your school board members? Um and I also added how can you run for a school board because in the Ferndale School District, we have a vacant position. So, it was really enlightening and I think a lot of people in the room felt more empowered and bridged that gap between okay, this not uh some shadowy government board back there, you know, these are real people and we can contact them. So, with any luck, hopefully we'll have similar applications. It doesn't sound like some people are Nice. Yeah. So, more to come. We'll be partnering more in the future. Awesome. Cool. Okay. And if you think it's a good
110time to if someone would watch this, we are seeking someone for Director District 4, a a replacement. And we do have a short timeline and the application information is on the website. Yeah, applications due by May 22nd. Next Friday. Um we will adjourn and uh sign official documents. Thank you. Thank you.