001Right. >> Welcome everyone in to the February 25th, 2026 uh regular board meeting. Uh we'll call the meeting to order. Uh welcome everyone in and let's stand and say the 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. >> All right. Um, can I get a motion to adopt the agenda? >> Make a motion to adopt the agenda. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Um, can I get a motion to I guess is there any questions about the consent agenda? Good. Okay. Can I get a motion to adopt the consent agenda? a motion to adopt the consent agenda. >> Just just asking. >> Oh, no.
002Sorry. Oh, good. Because there's no like regular agenda. >> Yeah, the there's the adopt agenda. >> Okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry. >> Under the regular board. I forgot last >> reconvene. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. >> Yes. >> I'll I'll second. >> Second. Okay. Um all those in favor >> I >> the next thing we have is public comment. >> No public comment. Okay. We will go right into reports and communications update with the director of public relations, Miss Lisa Gris. [laughter] She's like all that. It was exciting. >> [clears throat] >> I just have to say I'm guess it's slightly different. Extra red and slide. Okay, here we go. Hi everyone. I'm Hillilchrist. I'm the director of public relations for Meridian. Um, so I'm just going to give a little update about my work. So, um,
003I thought it'd be helpful to kind of break down some of the work I do and the elements that you see and then kind of what do you not see. So, these are a lot of the visual elements of my job that you will see. So, there's social media, there's the website, um, there's flyers and postcards and the newsletter. Um, I'm not a trained graphic designer. It's something I spend a lot of time working on. I work really hard at it. So, um, when I look at some of these elements, I'm really proud of how they turned out. It's something that doesn't come naturally to me. Um, but I think one thing that's hard to see when you look at the stickers here and the flyers and all the different pieces, you don't see the
004work that goes behind it. So, for example, just like a simple social media post, which is maybe one of the quickest things I do. That requires finding out what's happening at a school, scheduling time to go there, observing what's happening, taking photos and coming back and going through all those photos, picking out my favorites, getting those photos cleared, being clear on what exactly happened. So, getting a caption reviewed by staff, um getting that figured out, and then figuring out where does this fit in the schedule. Does it go this week or next week or does it go um complimenting something? So, there's a lot of consideration that goes into something that feels pretty small. And I'm also thinking about how does this social media post like support our mission and goals of the district. So
005there's just a lot of consideration that goes into something that seems small but it's actually really big. Um I did want to point out the newsletter bottom left there and meridian connection. You should have just gotten it at your homes hopefully recently. Um, we realized that, uh, while we have a lot of staff that live in our district, we have a lot of staff that also don't live in our district and may not be aware of all the really awesome stuff that's happening at other schools that they're not working at. And so this year, we now are ordering enough copies of the newsletter to give one to each staff so they get it in their mailbox now. And I've heard really positive feedback about that that people are enjoying learning what else is going on
006around here. Um, I do my very best to be everywhere all the time and to celebrate everything that's going on, but there's just so much stuff going on that's fantastic and it's almost too much to cover, but I do my best to be everywhere all at once. Um, so some of the elements of my job that you don't see, I'm also the public records officer. Um, last year I estimated I spent over 100 hours of my time working on records. will process 25 records requests in 2025. Um, just for reference, in 2022, I only processed one records request for the entire year. So, this is something that's in over it's increasing over time. It's increasing in complexity and volume and it's just a reality of the situation. So, it's um something that does require a
007lot of time and when I am working on those sometimes that takes away from the other parts of my job that I would like to focus on. um or other things that I do that are not as visible like staff training. So I do all the training for parent square. I also do training with staff about best practices for communication. I do trainings on um kind of language access and that. So I'm meeting with staff that's often at the beginning of the year or it can be throughout the year too. I'll do one-on-one training with staff as well. Whatever works best for them to make sure that they're feeling good about the tools that we have. Um, I've also done some classroom presentations which has been really fun. I got invited to present about cameras
008to the TK class last year which was really exciting teaching them about the different cameras I use. Um, and I also worked with the uh leadership class here at the middle school teaching them about like social media best practices and also about editing videos and creating videos. Um, it's something that they're learning how to do because they want to share the news of their school. That's been really fun to have those opportunities to get into classrooms. I also support with like strategic communications. So last year I talked in depth about the bond communications plan that I did. So that's kind of a larger communications plan like the strategic plan communication plan. I work on those. I also do a lot of messaging support for school. So if you think about the reunification that we just
009had here at the middle school and a very comprehensive comm's plan around that that included uh messaging to our whole community and then messaging just to our families at the middle school, messaging to staff and what the day looked like for them. a whole script to be read to kids day of so they knew what to expect. We also um recorded a phone call for families who speak Spanish and that went ahead of time. Um and then we also had, you know, a social media post and postings day of just to try and cover all of our bases to make sure that people knew what was going on. But I'm available there for um principles if they need help with me support day of or to send things, you know, things come up and they
010need help. So I'm also working on that. um event planning and support created event planning checklist for our schools so that they can be thinking more about um how to communicate their events but also how to make the events more accessible so they have a checklist with a timeline of what to think about when I work on a survey so I create surveys I drop the questions and I do all the data analysis for surveys so every survey we do I read every single comment so you know if you leave a a response it is being Um, and then I also provide all of the technical support for parent square. So I provide training for staff, troubleshooting. I also support families. So I'll get a call from a parent who's like I can't sign in
011and I will talk on the phone with them and help them figure it out. So I do all of the training and support parents for make sure it's working and I do all the website administration. So I run do all the content updates for all of the websites and I do all the security updates and everything like that too. So if there's an issue with the site, I'm also figuring out what's going on. Um so I want to talk about language access today. This is another part of my job. Um so House Bill 1153 passed in 2022. Um and essentially it had these elements to it and um part it's so that we communicate with families in the preferred language. We've collected this information annually through Skyward for a long time. Um this was just
012kind of putting um some requirements into place. Just a side note, this is an unfunded mandate. Um, it's really important work. I really care about it, but interpretation translation services are expensive. So, it's just something that's a reality. Part of the plan was to create um a language access program. So, that is actually a link to a web page on our site and it has a whole plan of the services we provide and how we make it work. Um, we provide interpreters and translated materials. I'll talk more about that. We how to designate language access leaison coordinator. That's me. [clears throat] And then it has some staff training requirements. So staff trainings I talked about. I talk about how to work with interpreters and translators and how to make sure that we're communicating with families
013in their home language. The graph here um I do want to talk about for a moment. This is a breakdown of our um families language. So it looks it's like 9% for Spanish, but for our students it's about 20% of our students speak Spanish. The language on their Mystco I want to reference for a moment. This is a language that's growing in our community. It's a spoken language. It's not a written language. Um, and it's been really challenging to find interpreters to support that language. Um, and it's just a language that is growing in Walcom County. So, one thing that's interesting about it beyond the fact that it's spoken and not written, it also has over 60 different variations of a dialect. So you may speak one dialect of MSCO but you may not understand
014the other dialect of MSCO. So when we're um having families come here and we hear they speak MCO like well what dialect is that? And sometimes it's hard to ask that question. So we have to ask it and like what region are you from to try and determine what dialect that is. Um so that has been a challenge that we've been working on in the last year. I also want to talk about um web accessibility is something that's coming from the federal level. There's be new requirements in April to my 26th. We're in pretty good shape already. When we've redesigned the website in 2022, accessibility was in mind. So, we [clears throat] have webs um compliant colors and fonts, our heading structures. A lot of those things have already been taken into consideration and parent
015square when we communicate has a lot of those tools built in. So, there will be some new things you'll notice in the next few months, like you'll see more alternative text with social media. That's basically just explaining what's on the image. Um, if you're not able to see it, you could read the text and know what the image has. Um, and things like audio transcriptions with videos will be something that'll be new that we'll be doing. We already do captions with videos, but audio transcriptions will be you learning. Um, a little more about language access. I have to give a huge shout out to Alvita Troutman. She is amazing. We've made some really great progress with language access in the last few years and Alvita is my go-to person. We talk often. I'm asking her
016um how we can do things better, what feedback she has, whatever family saying and thinking. Um and I just she has a huge heart for this work and she's built amazing connections with our community. So I cannot say enough about how amazing she is. Um one thing that we do is she and I record messages. I give her a script. She records a message for every holiday, no school day, important announcements, and that's um phone message that goes to families and they really appreciate getting that. We've also worked really hard on hiring more interpreters. That's one thing she kept saying is we need more interpreters. So, I work really hard on hire hiring more on call interpreters. Now, we [clears throat] have six Spanish, two Russian Ukrainian, um two Punjabi, a MSCO interpreter, and an
017Arabic interpreter. And I am really thankful um through just connections with other school districts. I've reached out to them and I said like we have this great need for MCCO. Do you have anyone and we did have um someone who interprets for Mount Vernon is now working for us as well and it's been fantastic. Alvita told me at school conferences last week that she couldn't understand what the interpreter was saying but the family's like face just lit up with joy to be able to communicate. So that means a lot. >> Um staff have access to language link which is phone interpretation and video interpretation through album. So, those are for all sorts of languages that we don't have interpretation um provided for so that we can still provide that service for families. Some other improvements
018we've made, um we wanted to make the experience better for families and interpreters at events. So, we now have like a sign that'll say I'm here for um Spanish services. And then we also have name tags that say like I speak Spanish with their name. Um, I've worked with Alvida for I schedule out all the holidays in advance for the whole year and so I was able to get her um my text for the full year for holidays for social media posts and she translated all of those. So there's more of our posts are in English and Spanish and new this year we are translating our menu which has been fun for everyone. Alvida says she's really enjoyed like learning how to translate some of the items on the school menu. So that's a improvement
019we're making. Um [clears throat] I put the graph there at the bottom is from our CE survey and it says communication materials received from the school are in the language I can understand. It's 99% 98% 99% but it's not 100. So we still have work to do. Um breathe for a second. >> No we still got work to do. >> Right. And I think another piece that falls in line with the accessibility that we're looking at too is getting a set of savers and broadcast tools so that we can have translations liveings are happening and looking at what other tools we have too. But >> yeah, >> that also falls within the realm of >> Yes, I've talked to a lot of districts across the state to ask what they're doing for events and gotten
020a lot of feedback and sort of working through that and seeing what would work best for us. It's been really helpful. I think that's one thing I love about working for a school district is people are so open and willing to share their ideas because we're all here to support kids and families. And so that's been really helpful to get that feedback from other districts. I did want to also mention we had over a hundred conferences interpreted this last week. So that was a lot of work. We had um you know over more than half that was Spanish but then we also had Punjabi Russian Arabic all interpreted. So big shout out to Alvido for scheduling those and also Daisy Valader that I read as does the scheduling. That's cool. So that's a lot of
021work. All right, moving on from language access. Uh also part of my job recognition programs. So I do a lot of recognition throughout the year, but these are just three of the programs I wanted to highlight tonight. Uh new this year is our shine and thrive awards which is a spin on our thrive awards which is for our annual recognition for staff. So these um it's just providing more opportunities for us to celebrate students and these awards are all connected to our commitment. So we have um thriving scholars our learning award Trojan heart awards belonging Trojan voice awards communication empowered learning learner award for support and shining star wire for wellness. So, um, those have been really fun. We do those every month. uh we go and we give the kids their certificates in classrooms
022and my favorite part of this is maybe an unseen part, but I follow up and I u message parents of kids who have won that day and I write a little write up and I give them the nomination and I give them the photo and that has been the best because I get these awesome responses from parents who were just like, you know, my student got home today and they were so happy and they were so proud and just knowing like the kids have smiles on their faces all days from receiving this has been really awesome. Um, >> you sent me one of those with Chobi one time, so brighten my day. So, >> that followup piece. I didn't know about that. >> Yeah. I just I thought they may not understand like what the
023certificate is. So, it's helpful for parents just to be able to check in with their child at the end of the day and say, "What happened at school today?" and to see it and to know and understand. [clears throat] >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Uh, so March, our Thrive Awards will open. That's our annual recognition awards for staff and these are also connected to our commitments. So they'll be accepting nominations all month long and then we'll be celebrating those in May. Um and then we have our thank you notes. I started this. This is during American Education Week in November. So these are electronic thank you notes and you can anyone can send them. And for the last three years that we've done it, we've had over 500 notes submitted. So that is just awesome
024to see and they're very heartwarming notes. So I put a little example there in the middle of one of them. But I also help with so we have education support professionals week coming up in a couple weeks. Um teacher appreciation week, senior celebrations. There's just all sorts of opportunities for celebrations throughout the year, but these are just three of the programs. So another thing new this year, we heard from our community that they want to hear from us more often. So, I h now have this monthly newsletter called the Meridian Monthly. This has been really fun to work on. I'm trying very hard to expand our community email list. Right now, we have about 200 people on our just community list, which is great and I'd love to grow it. Um, so they're getting this
025goes all to staff, family, students, and our community list every month. Um, it's just been a really awesome way to highlight what's going on in our district. Um, I really enjoy working on it. Honestly, it's one of my favorite things to do. Um, and that's it. Well, thank you. Any questions? >> I say we talk a lot about the little things that make learning uh special and you are definitely one of those and like the the stuff that you do like like the light we shine in our district is is so cool. >> So, appreciate that. >> Yeah. I feel like you are like the bridge between the strategic initiatives. >> Like you brighten them everywhere. like you like do these little bridges every you know like you bring everything together in such a unique
026way and like how you explain the time that it takes to do some of these things that people don't know it's really spend a lot of time and thank you for doing that especially like public breakfast requests that's I do those too at my job and it's a lot of time so thank you for doing those it's hard um but yeah thank you for doing all that we do and I I love the Marine Monthlys. >> Thank you. >> I think that those can be valuable and soon as we start to grow that >> with a lot of the community. Um at least find some other ways to bridge those gaps, too. That would be great. So, thank you. >> Yeah. >> When do you have time to sleep? >> I know. My gosh. >>
027Well, she starts rattling everything off like I'm exhausted. >> Thank you. I think I arrive at the office and I go upstairs to my office and sometimes I don't leave all day and I think they wonder if I'm here. I don't go up and downstairs, but I just try to just be really thoughtful about prioritizing my work. >> Yeah, >> we talk about balance and being able to balance your workload. Lisa is probably the most conscious about the time she puts in and how she manages that. I think um about the decision to bring her in and trying to fill a need that we were doing by committee if you remember Aaron in things where uh you know crisis management and messaging and things like that and Lisa has been phenomenal and she is a
028critical part of our district's operations for sure with all the other things that you you all mentioned. >> Thank you. How would one uh sign up for the community list to be off to receive the monthly meridian? >> Great question. There's a few different ways. So, there's a spot on the website under the public relations section. You can sign up there. It's in each monthly at the bottom there's a link and I've also been posting it on social media periodically. Okay. >> And it's also the newsletter that just went out had a QR code that you could scan to join the community list. >> Awesome. We'll definitely share that with our neighbor you too. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for the answer. >> I had never heard of
029the second. >> Um, all right. On to new business. Uh, first review procedure 2022P, electronic resources and internet safety. Uh, Mr. Eric will be your present. Yeah, I'm going to present both 2022P and 2023 kind of at the same time because they were both done through the same process. Cool. Um so the both of these have to do with um electronic resources, digital literacy, um safety. Um, I think over the last year and a half or so, a lot of conversations been happening around things like AI and different things and we didn't really have anything in our policy to address this pretty monumental shift that's happening and and how it actually can apply to the work of of what we do in the school. So, um, Lisa talks about the things that she does. Lisa's
030been a big part of this work and so I I'll I'll I do have a a point of recognizing her and Cynthia Richardson both for all their work on this. But um we created a digital literacy advisory group that met four times over the course of September through January. Um on that committee were or on that group were Robert Pratzig, Shawn Dawing, Cynthia Richardson, Amy Clayton who's a parent as well as a teacher at MB3. Um Brett Muscavage who's a counselor here at the middle school. Um Lisa um >> Kell, thank you. Um who's a parent of of students at Irene Ryther and then myself. Um we came to the table not wanting to get into the weeds about what this was actually going to necessarily look like in the classroom. We were creating a
031framework for um the work that's going to come later which is going to really involve our teaching and learning department and and looking at how to provide things like professional development to our staff. Um the m material adoptions process to figure out which tools we're going to use. Um and I think a lot like James and I were talking about this earlier today, but James has said this a few times just [clears throat] we we didn't want to create an AI policy. We wanted to create a policy that AI fit into. I mean, you know, we don't use we don't have a word processing or a spreadsheet policy in anything that we do, but we use them all the time in the classroom as teachers in the office and as kids. We use them um
032in the classroom. So, um the way that we um kind of went about this is we started with uh 2022P which um focuses on um electronic resources, internet safety. Um this is an existing procedure that we already had. It was due to be updated um anyway. So what we did was we reviewed not just our policy but modeled WASDA policy some information from Peninsula and Quincy school districts and kind of sat down and looked at what did we like what did we not like. What we found out is they're all pretty similar really. Um, and so the group sat down, created some some language, which you can see in the markups, um, and and and kind of tried to meridianize it as as well as we could. Um, we, um, there were some some additions,
033not a lot I think in 2022, but not a lot of additions around AI. I think AI really comes in in 2023 a little bit more. um [clears throat] which was the next step. Once 2022P was was developed, we we moved on to 2023 because there's references back and forth between the two of them. Um this one is is centers around digital citizenship and and media literacy. This does specifically call out some things around AI. Um and and there's a spec a section specific to that in there. Um, and then one of the things that we did, and I think I'm trying to think who it was in our in the group, but there was a there was a conversation about trying to focus some of the work around the commitments and and and our
034strategic plan. And so there was a concerted effort to when we got to the section that really focused on the local conversation, looking back at what our five commitments are and and trying to reflect on how we can reflect those commitments in the policy. So it was it was actually kind of a cool process to be a part of to have that conversation on how the the the the framework that guides the work that we do linking those two things together. Um once that was done um we we uh kind of went out to staff to get some feedback on some things. Um staff provided a lot of input there. There's a lot of widely I know this is going to be shocking. there's a lot of widely variet various uh viewpoints on on the
035topic of AI specifically. Um I I know that's going to shock people. Um and so you know taking that input back to the the group and and talking about that a little bit more. Um Lisa took it to the student advisory group got some great feedback from our kids um specifically around you know uh safety and application of the policies. I think kids know they don't know a lot about how to use some of these tools and so I think there is a desire to make sure that they're learning how to do it correctly. Um which is why it's so critical that we teach our staff well with this so that their staff can be the teachers that they are which are strong educators. Um there are some studentf facing documents that that the committee
036kind of worked to put together. those aren't part of this. Um they're more things that that we'll kind of use as a as a as work around. Okay. So, what does it look like for a teacher in terms of like what does the syllab what could a syllabus look like? Um what what what are the varying levels of of artificial intelligence integration into the classroom? What does that look like? Um and you know the next steps, you know, should should the policies be be approved? Um, the next step's going to be sitting down with with Adrian and and probably Joe a lot and talking about what what does this what does this next step of teaching our staff how to use AI look like? Um, I know some of the work has already started in
037terms of of tools are out there. I mean, I know I know special ed department's using a a tool right now to help efficiency of of work. And so having this policy is is a critical piece I think to to making that that work continue and and improve the outcomes for our kids because we know that this can be part of their world of work when they leave us. So, um, yeah, I want to thank the the group, all those people, Lisa in partic Lisa and Cynthia in particular, like especially when this kicked off, my life was very interesting and so they they did a great job of making sure that we were keeping on track and getting stuff moving and going where we needed to. So, are there any questions or anything that you
038want to add or >> I'd like just to share? Well, we look at what we want to think about when we bring in tools and how we approach the work. I also want to make sure everyone knows that we don't have control over a lot of things that we already have contracts for, whether it be Microsoft or Zoom or whatever. >> Any given day of the week a new version comes out with AI already >> embedded. And so, this is one of those things. A year ago, I said this is not something we get to decide about. to we have protections that we have to have in place and things that we need to consider. And so I very much appreciate the group and and the leadership to be able to navigate this in a
039time when it changes all the time. >> So we'll keep bringing this forward when major pieces come out. But it's super important too not to have a policy just on AI. It's technology integration and AI is just one of the tools. >> Yeah. I like the word you said the policy that fits that policy that AI fits into. >> Yeah. >> And that's not written around. >> Yeah. >> And growing up with so much technology that growth, but it the word could be calculator, >> iPhone, >> internet, >> right? Internet. It's just a word, right? We're having to grow with and having to learn how to adapt into our current curriculum or whatever we're doing. So, it's not It's such some people take it like as a scary word I feel, but it doesn't have
040to be scary. It's just that we're just trying to adapt it into our everyday life. >> Yeah. >> And so I I appreciate how that >> Yeah. And I think our kids are doing that right now. Yeah. Whether whether we we want to whether we want to allow our kids to use it or not, they're they're doing it already. So they need to have some guidance and some some support and and doing it in a safe and and effective way. So that I mean, again, like I I have two kids. I have a 19-year-old and a and an almost 17-year-old. I want them to be able to use these tools successfully when they when they go into the world of work because they're going to need to. So, I I mean, yeah, it's a pretty
041important thing, I think. So, >> yeah. >> And this policy, um, is this essential or discretionary, >> Kurt? >> This is a >> I don't think it's an essential. I think it's probably discretionary. >> Sure. I'm going to go. >> Sorry. >> Thank you guys for being proactive. >> Yeah. One of the things we found is like there's not a lot of districts that have done this work yet. You know, I I talk about Peninsula and Quincy and those are two of the school districts that have really been kind of out in front on this work. Um, which I think is interesting when you think about Quincy. Well, Quincy has a huge Amazon hub and a large then large data centers in the area. So, um that they have a very techdriven community as it
042is. Um and then Peninsula's been out front on a lot of this stuff from from the very beginning. >> So, these are both important. So, okay. Thank you. >> You have any questions or anything? Thank you for sharing. You >> um Okay. Uh next item is the Wacom Early Learning Center facility use agreements presented by Dr. Jim Bever. >> Okay. So, this is a draft of an agreement that um came to us after we were awarded a million dollars from W County Health Department for the Early Learning Center. And part of the vision of the early learning center was to serve birth up to 100 students birth to five. And in the effort to obtain the $12 million to build it without tapping into local tax dollars, um there was an opportunity to revise the
043early learning center because the new request for proposals from the county um from the healthy children's fund was to put together hubs which would address early learning, child care, and also mental health. And so we revised our design and applied for a grant and increased the capacity and added a couple of multi- or excuse mental health offices um and some conference rooms. And so when we were awarded, the county was doing their due diligence to make sure that they had access to the facility that they're funding um at least partially. And so this is after a lot of negotiations and what we have is um a lot of legal ease around what access that the county can expect in terms of providing mental health supports and access to 15 hours a week for a conference
044room. And then the um early learning c center's um aspect of the skill center is to have an adult classroom for high school students that will will house um up to 24 students for two and a half hour sessions up to three times a day and they wanted access to that adult classroom. And so um what we negotiated is after our high school students use that space they can have access to it. So whole reason for the early learning center was to create um a space where we could address both the child care need as well as help with workforce pipeline and um be able to give our students firsthand access. And so um we protected that in this agreement. Um in preparing the draft, one thing that we discussed is what kind of health
045support could be provided. So um I was unable to reach anybody. So what I can tell you is I will seek some bumpers around. I think that the request is to ensure that there isn't medical types of health and so I'll have some dialogue with them and I plan to be able to bring back a revision for for when we come to ask for approval. So that'll see if that that then we can talk more but um uh that's a one request that I had but I didn't want to pull it off. That would be one thing that I would bring to your attention or bring it the next time. >> Yeah. So in our discussions it was just I feel like this needs to be a little a little more defined like even the
046word county county has a lot of a lot of options a lot of departments and so I think more clearly defining the scope I think would would help. So elementally push back for feedback. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Do you guys have any questions at all? >> No. Okay. Uh the next item is learning assistance program. Um and this will be Dr. Kurt Arbell presenting. >> All right. >> Good afternoon. I guess good light outside so I was confused. >> All right. So we have three policies for the board. These are all first review policies. Um and oh there we go. So the first policy is a revision that was made to um 21108 learning assistance program. It's a critical policy um and it's update to existing. WASDA as you as you're
047aware produces a monthly or a quarterly magazine and in it it gives your update and it tells you why. Um for this update, Wazda just put update. Um and what they did is they removed the language during COVID. Um they lap is traditionally used for math reading behavior and so it's pretty specific and during COVID they expanded the ability of us to use LAP dollars. Um and so this now that CO has passed they are removing that language. Um and so that is the major major change for this policy. >> Appreciate >> y All right. Uh the next policy 3226. Um this is one that we mentioned at the last board meeting um that we were going to bring forward. Um, this is an encouraged policy. It's an update to our existing. We updated the
048policy, I believe, in March of 25. And for whatever reason, we didn't update the procedure. So, that was on me. Um, and WA was basically resign revised this policy to align with House Bill 1296. And that bill is also known as parent rights. And so they made changes to the policy, the actual policy. The only change they made was um they referenced the RCW relating to the parent rights. In the procedure, they made changes in each of the areas um where it talks about students being interviewed for various reasons and the l the overall language changed. It was administrator will notify parents at a reasonable convenient time. Um the language has changed to will immediately notify the parent or guardian about the interview unless the parent or guardian has been accused of abusing or neglecting
049the students. So the language really cleaned up. Um and then if a parent the other part that they did is if a parent or guardian is not present for the interview, the principal or design will be present if the student or law enforcement or other services request um their presence. Um it used to be and and so they modified that to or so this is in direct align to the um house bill 1296. And then the last upgrade. And so as we as we talked about previously, um there's a variety of reasons we update. Often we update them because WA was um sometimes we update them because we get legal guidance to update them. And so recently we were um referencing 3141 which is our non-resident students. Um so this governs our students who attend
050Meridian School District but who do not live within the district. Um and so this is a critical policy. It's an updated to an existing and during a recent process we were advised by our by our legal council to include in the policy it talks about why a student can be accepted or denied upon application. We as a district have used that same criteria when we resend a choice transfer but it wasn't documented. So we we were able to to verbally say >> in the policy >> it was not yeah written in the policy. So we were able to verbally say these are the criteria we use when we um when we choose or when we are working around rescending but the recommendation was to include the language in the policy >> per policy XYZ. >>
051Yep. And so it it says, you know, it says in there, um, we added the language about revocation of acceptance. And it says, uh, MSD can revoke a choice transfer if the student fails to meet the standards described in the reasons for rejecting a student non resident enrollment. And then the other part is the process we will follow and the notification to the parents. Um, and then their appeal rights. So um that is the that is the major change to this policy >> and it's rare when that happens >> and I think it's also important to know we have 25% of our student enrollment is choice in we have only 7% choices out >> and that's that's that says something about our district that students want to be here um and are willing to we
052don't transport students beyond are beyond our district boundaries. So that says something to parents that they're willing to transport their students here um or arrange a transportation to get them here. So um it's a big it's a big uh um representative of the teams and the services our principles provide. Um so yeah questions got total. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um All right. Next item is the uh move on to old business um confirmation of MYS graduation date. So [clears throat] we typically do this in March, but I looked at ACUE weather. It's been awfully warm. We're taking a gamble because our senior families love to know sooner than later. So [clears throat] the recommendation is to ask for approval so that we can publish that graduation is actually targeted >> June
0533rd. >> June whatever's in the calendar, right? >> Yeah. >> Y >> let's do it. making sure. >> Yes, please. >> Um, awesome. All right. So, >> yeah. Can I get a motion to approve the Meridian [clears throat] High School graduation rate? >> I'll make a motion to approve the 202526 calendar update. >> Thank you. >> I will second. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> Thank you. >> June 3rd today. >> June 3rd. Uh next up we have Daniel York. >> Hello. >> Finance. >> How you guys doing? >> Good. How are you? >> Good. Yeah. Family. >> Yeah. >> Just living dream. >> There you go. >> Okay. small. >> Try to do it without breaking it for James. >> What? >> Yeah. >> Oh, without breaking it. You'll still hear.
054>> Yep. Yep. Um, okay. So January um enrollment up two in the core program from December. Uh MP3 was flat. Uh special ed was up seven. Um ECAP and TK are are are pretty leveled out at this point. Um and then uh running start was up three and dropout or engagement up one. Um and then compared to budget uh in January up six in the core program up seven um in MP3 for a total of 12. Um special ed's been up quite a bit this year. We're up 28 and uh flat in the ECAP and running start. We've also had a lot of enrollment running start this year and this is uh the January finances that this budget projection report um the enrollment percentage that we received was 8 and a half%. One thing to
055note is from September through December, the a portionment money that we receive is based on how we budget uh budgeted enrollment and other factors. In January, uh OSPI squares us up. There wasn't much change this year. So like all of our state revenues netted out to us giving an additional u $50,000 from September to January. So, not a significant change, but it's it's positive. So, that's always good. Um, as up here in the top in the green, you can see kind of a snapshot of the enrollment um trending that we have. Uh, the purple is our beginning fund balance, 3,628,000. And then there's all these various revenue streams coming in. Uh there wasn't anything um standing out in uh January as far as uh district revenues. We received 2,579,000 right here in the blue. On
056the expense side, uh total expenditures were 2, uh 938,000. uh salaries are a bit higher um in January because there's a couple of cash outs um that occurred uh vacation cash outs and then um for accounts payable it was uh about at the average um yeah >> somebody cash out on their vacation >> there's only um there's only specific employees that can cash out. It's basically executive directors have that um in their contract. The only other time there's a vacation cash out is when you have a um a 260day employee that leaves the district, which we did, you know, January [clears throat] and um he had a pretty significant um leave balance when he left. So, we're working on a policy to uh limit the amount that when an employee leaves that they can cash
057out. Um that's we've got a draft right now, but we're working through that um just to kind of financially protect the district when employees do leave so it isn't >> um too big of a hit. Yep. Um the I always like to point out this is a good indicator looking at this budget percent at the bottom. Um where we would trend if we were spending equally throughout the year and spending the whole budget we uh would expected to spend about 41% of our budget. We're at 39. Um, which is which is good that it's just like a quick way wherever if those numbers ever flip-flop, it means we're probably in pretty big trouble and we need to make some shifts. >> Not only is it in the right direction, it's two and a half%. >>
058Yeah. Yeah. And we've been >> pretty narrow. I think over the last couple of years, just staff across the district have done a very good job of kind of taking that message that that funds are tight within the school district and really just spending on what we need to and you know in the accounts payable area. you know, we've done a good job of reducing costs there. Um, our ending fund balances in the yellow, 3,269,000. Um, pretty quick report tonight. Any questions? >> I know like our fund balance over three million is what we're after. So, we're we're right in the great. [clears throat] >> Yeah, it is. Uh it just uh feels a lot more comfortable this year than the last couple of years or it was, you know, something broke. We're not going
059to go out of business. We're not going to go into buying conditions. Or a couple years ago when that fund balance was low, it was like a little bit of walking on eggshells just to make sure nothing went wrong. And and we spent a lot of work building that back up this year. So, it's it's nice to have it should be >> you can tell your cadence when you walk in here where it's a little different, >> a little less stressful. Yeah, >> we put in a lot of procedures to to really ratchet down and just make sure our spending was within the revenues that we received. Uh we're we're budgeting now and um kind of starting that whole process over. We're pretty deep into it. Um I don't know if you guys saw the
060state did They're um the House and the Senate budgets came out on Monday and they're both showing reductions to schools specifically in early learning. >> Yeah. >> So, we're watching that and now now it feels like we're fighting to stay where we were and instead of maybe a fight to get a little bit more money. So that that part of the budgeting is a bit discouraging cuz we had two pretty heavy years of reductions and I was really hoping we wouldn't be there again. But you know we at this point we're pretty good at it and we're going to we're going to have a budget that um is sustainable >> and we appreciate everything that you do. So keep us on the right track. So thank you. >> Thank you. Next up is the superintendence
061report with Dr. James Ever. >> So like on scroll mode or still you have to So, we're we're scrolling. We're not >> I'll scroll. >> All right. Concentrate on what I'm going to say. So, um first, it's a lot. You know, it's been three weeks since we met last, so there's a lot that's happened. and um amazing our athletic team, the wrestling team as a former wrestling coach to be able to go down and watch wrestling and then worked out that we have an administrator that was supporting the wrestling tournament that got me access to the floor. So, I had seven hours of just being in the ropetop area was outstanding. to see Rhett go through his and just they changed the format a little bit and typically it's tough competition and so if you
062make it to the second day it's it's really a big deal and so this year they more wrestlers the way it was designed wrestled the second day and every time you turn around there was a wrestler on a different mat. It was it was fun. It was fun. Um both boys and girls did really well. And then also the drama club put on Little Mermaid and um because I was in Seattle, I did not go to this, but um several people in our office and other guys talked about positive that much. So um it's really great to see how involved our kids are in diff. Thank you. So a little bit of report on my role with a as a liaison with WASA. Um I went down to Nash Nashville for the national conference and
063then Dr. Harville came a day later because I had this meeting ahead of time and um really this year it was looking at some of the policy changes within AASA and also identifying just what steps were being taken by the current administration to um dissolve the department of ed and have um labor take over distribution of funding to the states. And so, um, that was much of what was going on. And then when Kurt arrived, we, um, spent much of the time going to sessions around safety, um, and also how is AI being utilized. And, um, some of our Washington colleagues were presenting. Um, and we also had Michelle Whitney who is the superintendent. Pasco was the superintendent of the year for Washington. All 50 superintendents are there as they select the superintendent year for
064ASA. So, um, for superintendent in the field, this is a conference that's pretty important to to network and be among people who are leading districts to see the work that's being done. And so, really appreciate the board supporting our ability to go share what we're doing, but also see what else is happening. Um, any questions on that piece? Okay. And then the next item, uh, this has been something that's been mumbled. Um when Watcom County Sheriff's Office um secured the office building on Risix's Way, which is in Cordata area, four miles away from us, uh there was speculation would they be moving their office out of our campus. So they've been housing a North County office gosh, seven years. >> Yeah, it's been seven years. We've had we engaged in a two fiveyear leases, but
065I did receive a letter. It's in the administrative view on board docs for you. Um really nice letter conveying appreciation for the relationship and collaboration with the district. Um and I responded on behalf of the board and the district um in email format to thank them for their presence. Um, I can remember a particular vehicle going through the front doors of the high school and within minutes there was a deputy over there with Kurt and I trying to figure out what was going on and many other things that just even their presence as a deterrent has been. Um, and then the other piece that um will help we will manage moving this portable somewhere. We haven't discussed it, but we'll manage for women's portal, but that will increase the footprint for us to navigate what
066we're going to do with the early learning center because we do have quite a congestion point where MP3 and the high school um egress and um congestion on Laurel is is not healthy. So, being able to maybe rethink how that all plays out is going to be maybe a blessing that this is coming together. So, um, little bit of an era ending here. >> Uh, an update on admin council meetings. So, uh, all of the sending school districts that belong to the Northwest Current Technical Academy superintendent serve on the admin council. They have a general advisory council for the programs that they have. So, people in industry, whether it be welding, firefighting, vet, meet to talk about what it is they're doing in their programs. But the admin council is superintendent and so we meet
067once a month to every six weeks and so um they changed the meeting used to be a lunchtime meeting and so now they've switched it up uh and so we went to 8:00 in the morning and got to see our students down there because by the time we go for a lunchtime meeting they're done on the bus and back up here by 11. So it was fun to go and see we did classroom visits and seen some of our students in different places. Um, one of the big ones was uh video design and we have a pretty strong contingent down there. So, it was good to see that. Uh, we reviewed other programs and then what I can tell you is if we get enough enrollment, we are in a position right now to host
068early child uh learning here at Meridian campus, hospitality and tourism, allied health, welding, open doors and u should put fire science on there because that's also still there too. So, um, we do not currently have early childhood learning or hospitality and tourism, but we do have the others. So, it's good it's good to provide those opportunities for our students because they instantly get grad pathways and certification, college credit. So, [clears throat] >> um, part of what you saw Lisa share, she does such a phenomenal job around recognition. I have been visiting classrooms and and how we've approached it is I'm visiting a classroom from each grade level and I'm I'm mixing it between our traditional schools as well as uh MP3 and so sometimes they'll be at MP3 for a grade level and sometimes they'll
069be at one of our traditional buildings and um Angie and and Lisa conspire to make sure that I'm at the right place at the right time. But um students in the classes always put together questions for me which a lot of times center around why why do we have what we have for lunches and how do we get to change menu items or um what's what's my role and what do I do all day and um I always start with a lot of adults don't know what I do all day. So it's okay to ask and um we have we have a good conversation. We talk about what it is that they're learning. We talk about the the strategic plan in as much as the commitments are are stated and um you know I had
070a um I was in a fourth grade classroom. It's two days ago, right? It's got a blur. Um, and the question was around a belonging and so asking the students have a conversation with someone next to them and um get some feedback and one of the first responses um was a a boy. He said, you know, I I really wish that my teacher called on me more in math because I think I know the answers and I wish they would call on me. And that was an interesting way for him to say, "I feel good when I'm when I'm recognized." Right? And so, um, these are good conversations and, you know, it's it's fun for me to be in a room with children. That's not typically what I get to do. So, and these are
0712020 tests. These aren't long. That's the latest. Um, I have these on here. I I they're long. I'm not going to read them, but I I just wanted to hear from our principles. After COVID, we stopped doing conferences in October. We recognize that it's really important to elevate the status of our families and have conferences right away when we come in and then early on second semester period. So, it's this second semester piece about what we learned at the beginning of the year is what's important for your child and how you can help us understand that and then this is what we've learned on our own and we're checking in on that. And not every building does conferences with every student. The high school concentrates on students who are who are struggling by far. Um,
072and we always encourage during conference time that there isn't any two weeks that a parent has to wait for them to reach out and talk to a teacher or two. They can contact any time, but some really great comments from our principles about what they're seeing around interactions with families and students. So, I know you've already read them, but they're in there. We did have a contingent of students that walked out. Um, and these students um were well organized. They created an Instagram account and said, "This is what we're planning to do." And they started the plans about two weeks earlier. So, we had a really good sense of what our students were thinking about and they were checking in with our um our principal at the high school, Mr. Dawing. And um what you
073saw from Lisa today was also what she does when she communicated with the community about being able to uphold students first amendment rights and freedom of expression and also what we have a responsibility to do to keep our students safe. And so um working with principles working with Dr. Harbble and and discussing how to communicate that We had about 80 students that went to the corner for fifth period and I think half came back for sixth period and um the others didn't and those who were marked absent were parents were called and it felt a little bit like a non-event for us but not not so for the kids and it is it is a part of our democracy to be able to share what you feel about something and so um as Mr. Doing
074said they demonstrated passion and maturity. So proud of our students for that. >> Yeah, I was happy that it wasn't a big to do, if you will, like it was for some districts and other communities. It was short stint of time. They were polite. They used their voice the way it was supposed to be used and then went back or did one about themselves. >> Yeah. As to how they conducted themselves, what I feel was a large factor is the dialogue and the respect that Mr. Dopping and our students have established for themselves. And again, a two-eek period of time of wanting to be able to do something that's not typical and then being being permitted to do so in a way that honored them and still told them we have responsibilities that are important
075on our side as the adults in the system. So, appreciate those comments. What I did have one question and we can address this at another time too, but just maybe we can follow up with it. Is when a student is absent or an unexcused absence, are they allowed to come back to schools during the middle of the day? >> Depends on what the circumstances are. Okay. So, we have specific reasons why someone could be absent >> and then um >> we can talk about what those are. >> Okay. Yeah. And then just for I guess just like safety wise, you know, I guess we knew where where they were, but even while they're at the corner, could something safety wise, you know, be brought back, unsafe wise be brought back to school with them and
076we not know about that or, you know, just something to that effect. >> Certainly. And we have students just in in in um to provide more context, we have students that come and go for the skill center. >> Sure. We have kids who have different schedules where they're coming and going for um running start. Um they go through a procedure, they have to be buzzed in, they have to sign in. So >> I'm sure I can ask them going to the doctor's place. >> Yeah. >> Sure. >> So we manage kids coming and going a lot. >> Yeah. >> Good question. So it's it's a common wondering, but we we do manage kids coming in and out a lot. >> It's different when we went to school. >> Yeah. Right. I mean, I think we
077got to go out to the corner and go to Mex Mexican restaurant. >> There was right across the kitty corner. >> Yes. >> And we could go at lunch and come back for $1.92 for an enchilada. >> You know, those were the dicks. >> It was 30 bucks for the dinner, right? >> Two more early learning program visits. So, as I shared the early learning contracts, we've already hired and you've approved our architect with Dykeman and they have started. We had our third meeting today, Kurt, >> our third meeting, uh, visioning and design. And so, part of that is going to visit other early learning centers and seeing what they've considered and what materials they use and how they've established. And so, we ended up going to both the Bell School Chicapus. They have a
078two classroom early childhood center there and then we went to the Barkley Center that YMCA has and they have do you remember the amount of students? They have seven classrooms. Do you remember these students? About 100 students I think. >> I don't remember the student total. >> Okay. >> The difference is that the Barkley Center does serve infants and so we will have infant to birth to five and so it was good to see that. Um the other thing that we're super excited about is we have uh directors of early [clears throat] learning centers that are on our design team. Um we have um Wacom County U Chuckut YMCA Boys and Girls Club. U they all have been a child care coalition. They've all been members that have um been in attendance at at least
079two of those meetings. They also are very busy, so trying to find spots. Um, and we're excited on March 19th, we'll be going down to the um, Edwin Pratt Center, which is part of the Hering Center out of Udub on child development. Um, and and they have some really I've been there before in anticipation of this ever happening, and they have some really great structures that they've got built in. So, that'll be one more trip that we take, and then our fourth meeting will be next Thursday. And then finally, I'm just going to turn it over to Dr. Herbal um and discuss the excellent reunification drill that we had on the 20th of >> Thank you, Dr. Um, so on on Monday >> 23rd, yeah, Monday, >> we did a reunification drill at the middle
080school and kudos to Lisa, kudos to Robert, kudos to the entire safety team. Um, but Robert, Mr. Katzig, started the drill at 9. Students evacuated to the field at about 9:10. students started loading buses. I want to say 924 and the drill was complete. All we used nine buses. We evacuated all adults and students from the middle school, took them on, they loaded specific buses. The buses went out to Smith Road over to the guide up to the pole and then came back to the middle school. and we um they offloaded the buses one by one. We had our safety team out guiding them by grade and so the sixth graders were in the small gym, seventh graders were on the west side of the big gym and the eighth graders were on the east
081side of the big gym. We had everybody all the buses returned, all adults and students accounted for by about 1010. Um the the communications that Mr. Kratzig and and M Gilchrist did just kind of set the tone. Staff were staff were calm, students were calm. It was like a like we've done it before >> and that is the first time to my knowledge Meridian has done that um as a district. Um so it was it was great to see good to see processes. We had a gentleman from Lyndon um who was on their safety team. He was observing with us um and so he had some feedback and then he took back a lot of feedback to his school. Um and they'll be working on one as well. Um and then we will be working
082on the same process but for the MP3 district office and high school campus. Um and then in May we'll be working on a similar process for all of Irene. Um so it was good to see it's always been one of the questions we've had of what is that timeline of getting if we have to evacuate a building and reunify? What is the timeline on getting drivers here? What is the timeline on getting our students there? So during the reunification, we also had um we had a contingency plan if we had students arrive late. And so we had two students who arrived during the drill. Um one of them hung out with the safety team and then one of them we was arrived early enough that we he went with his class. Also during the drill,
083the high school had a fire alarm. >> Oh my gosh. Um and so the high school was evacuating [clears throat] for a unplanned fire alarm um while we were doing a planned evacuation here. So um but it went we released Taylor to go to the the high school and so it went it was it was good to see. So so thank you. So, a little more context when we do drills and we're required to do drills, whether it be earthquake or fire or any of that. Um, reunification is when we talk about, okay, the one we can talk about pretty easily is there's a gas leak and we need to evacuate everybody. But the other one that we talk about is catastrophic and that is if there's a shooter situation or something of that nature.
084Anytime being where we are in proximity to the border that there is something in crisis we know events that happened at Ferndale or at Blaine there will be a ton of response and so what we didn't have in this is a lot of other vehicles right or other agencies coming in and wanting to take over um but I've been involved in several systems over my 30 years and I haven't been in a district where we've actually drilled reunified where we take a whole campus and evacuate and then bring them back in. And so, um, was it two years we did the other one with the countywide? Yeah, two years ago we we had a countywide reunification process. Then we hosted it at the high school, but we had we Ferndale, NUKAC, Lynden, I think all
085county schools were there either participating or observing. And that drill was essentially after the students had been either moved over or had been bought brought back, it was how to then reunify them with their parents, >> right? So it was that piece. So two different parts. So >> super proud of the work and then really leading for the county. And so now we'll we'll do the other buildings and then um I know you have some other districts interested in coming as well. So, and the sheriff, we did had communications with the sheriff just on, hey, this is happening um and we have asked them to either observe or advise or participate at our next one um in some some level. So, the goal is to really partner with them. Um but the first one we
086really there was a concerted effort of can we do and we we showed that we can. So >> I think it's not if this happens, it's when. We've talked about that. Not, you know, either catastrophic or natural disaster to some degree. >> Um, and I'm just so grateful that we're preparing and think that all parents will be thankful for that, that we just thinking forward and not being reactive. And then a couple of pieces. Um I don't have dates for these. These are ongoing. These are multiple dates, but we've started the budget process as Dana talked about. Um after uh trips to Olympia, conversations with our local legislators, letters, um we still see that the legislature is balancing the budget on the backs of kids and it's disgusting. And so we see TK is being
087cut by 25% and moved into income need, which is exactly what DCYF has for requirements on ECAP. So all of the allegations of districts trying to compete with early childhood centers is now going to be true because of the way that they have reclassified TK funding. And the difficulty is it was built to address a need for kids that had an educational need but didn't meet that income threshold. So, um, thankfully the legislature said we'd use levy funds to pay for that, which they also >> Well, yeah, but we need they're not giving us enough funding. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, I was being a smile. Sorry. >> Oh, yeah. >> Um, and so they also cut back on LEA, which is local effort assistance. So, um, that is a circumstance when districts comparatively across
088the state do not have assets in their district. um they get support from the state because they don't have the the capacity to generate as much local funding. They've cut that as well. And they've also pushed depreciation value schedules. Instead of 13 years, it's now going to take 15 years. Um and I should say all of those are proposed budgets. It's not passed, but both houses have those provisions and so some version of that is likely to go through. So anyway, we're starting budgeting. Um and then the other piece is bargaining. We're bargaining with both our unit groups this year. Um we have had really great relationships and communication with our bargain groups and and we end those processes with it being an agreement. So we work well together. So we're working on that. We
089have a Meridian Middle School career fair on Friday. Um and so if you're in the area, we have a lot of local groups that are hosting tables and I believe we have our own table. Hopefully S will be there. Sharing, what's going on? Um I'm going to be heading back to to Nashville for um the risk pool. I sit on the board there and so that's their national association. Um and then we have a waiver day on the 6th and that is non- studentent day. We have our our building leaders are leading those staff development days. And um also on the 6th I have a superintendent's advisory council meeting with the ESD and Anacortis where we have our student board members and special ed directors are going to convene and I think we'll have different
090things happening but um this will be the second year with school school board student representatives will be able to participate with other district school board student representatives because it's pretty isolating [clears throat] >> for them and they're typically just two in a district. So getting all of them together in ESD has been good. And then we're set to come back here on March 11th and it's March 11th and we have the history day at >> 4. And I think it's just going to be adjacent to us here. So >> Oh, good. >> Okay. That's what I have. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Um no student board representatives. Um any information from the board of directors? I just want to share how proud I am of our high school students and thank
091Mr. Dolphin for what he handled their walk out operating was really encouraging to to see and said it seemed like a non-issue. It wasn't really a big event. the kids have got to speak speak their part and so that share that okay with.