MERIDIAN SCHOOL BOARD's March 26 2025 Regular Meeting

001e e e the uh March 26 regular school board meeting I'm going to call the meeting to order I'd also like to thank the uh board directors that showed up tonight appreciate your attendance so we can have a quorum and keep business moving forward so with that we like to begin with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and Justice I'll need a motion to adopt our agenda I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda I'll second then move to second then are there any question or discussion hearing none all in favor say I I here it is next moving on we will need a motion to adopt our consent agenda make a motion to

002adopt the consent agenda call second it's been moved in second is there any discussion about the the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor I and we move on to public comment I see that there's none and moving on to section four reports the Meridian School District athletic and activities report Mr Brant Michel that's why I was location you know how youall doing great yes okay is this guy fancy fancy all right um all right uh athletic report for the year the 2024 2025 um what I like to do every year and I know most of you have been here for a long time but those of you who don't know what I do is I go through and I highlight talk about um each season middle school high school and then I have

003comparisons at the bottom kind of a numbers guy I like to see when things are trending up or trending down and why so I always like to kind of be in the no um on our false side for both Sports we were down in participation a little bit um with the fall side I do attribute that a little bit so last year's numbers had increased numbers of folks doing equestrian we had like 10 and I include that in this report just because it's a unique thing that we do so I don't really I would say the numbers are very very similar um which is great A lot of folks out participating in sports in the fall um numbers are consistent I mean you last year I think we had two more vol players but you

004still have three teams so it's great there um on the Middle School side I think and I would have to go and check that the seventh and eighth grade classes are smaller than the freshman in eighth grade classes which is why we saw a dip in participation it's not necessarily that fewer kids are participating it's just a percentage um looking at the winter um numbers were way way up at the high school in participation and numbers were down um at the middle school level and again I think it's that um numbers number of students who are particip or who are in each class um some things that are pretty cool is we saw an increase in the number of students that were participating in unified basketball which is I know that you all were able

005to participate and come and watch the game that we had no Act is becoming a better partner on that side so they had actual he partnered twice but they had actual Partners this year um to come in and play with the athletes so saw more of their kids participating felt like our entire cross country team was on the UniFi team there for a bit super cool we're getting to the point where we may be talking about noack splitting off and mine and noack having our own independent teams so we're going to look at that yeah I have to say I was a little disappointed that we only hosted one game this year would there be opportunities to host more next year yep uh last year we hosted all three noack didn't host any and so

006I wanted them to have an opportunity for their community and so we said hey why don't you guys take two this year we'll one and then the next year we're combined do so and their Community one of the comments that Tom Haron their athletic director shared was that there were as many people at their unified basketball game as there were at a normal basketball game which is that's great yeah um bowling numbers are up the wrestling girls wrestling boys wrestling numbers are up huge um we the I think I I say this every single year when I come do the report but the turnaround of that program is has just been phenomenal from where it was when I came in and I was hoing hert and just The Testament to the coaches that we have

007the culture that they've created as just such a cool group of kids and coaches so um and then boy swim dive at Lyndon we had one student who kind of participated but then decided they didn't really want to those off-campus combine Sports difficult because the students have to find their own way to practices and that can be a deterrent um so we don't usually have a ton of kids who participate in uh boys swimm we did have three on the girl side and that was that was pry cool and again on the on the Middle School side numbers are consistent we have enough for three teams for boys and girls basketball boys wrestling was big girls wrestling down a little bit this year that will come back up um we did have a ton of

008freshman girl wrestlers this year so we saw those numbers come up and then volleyball is steady at four teams um we we do cut and I think we cut maybe five students this year but there was a year we had like 80 girls signed up for volleyball which is so cool but it just we run into a space thing and then also safety thing and and it just becomes untenable for the coaches so um unfortunately we do make a little cut there but this year we had fewer students participating so the number that we cut was fewer actually I'm not even sure if we had to cut this year because we said we might be cutting and then some there so I know that we weren't sure but um spring numbers uh the high school

009numbers are through the roof um which is just super awesome um baseball is steady boys golf is steady girls golf is steady boys soccer and this number is now outdated we have 65 students out for boy soccer and it has become this just awesome awesome thing we have varsity junior varsity for the first time in Meridian School history we have a C team for boy soccer which is not something you see at the 1A level for soccer you see it for the Bellingham schools and some of the 2A and the 3as um but to have the amount of students and it is an incredibly diverse and awesome group of kids um and I attribute a lot of the the recruitment to some of the pairs that we have at high school um and to Mrs

010shova who's been instrumental in letting um our ml students know that this is an opportunity for them to participate in sport so it's so uh super super cool Sorry who's coaching the boy soccer SE team so we just hired his name is Evan R Evan um his last name is German give me a second know that's fine okay so he is a super cool kid I actually had the opportunity to go and watch him one-on-one coach um and he I I see a lot of coaching a lot of soccer coaches in particular because I spent a lot of time on the weekends with my wife watching her coach um soccer and so I get to see a lot of soccer coaches this this guy is it's his first time ever coaching he never done it

011before and he is in there and he is so invested and Allin and the students a lot of the ones who are out for CT they're trying super hard but there are some who are just out there to have fun and he's just like man I just we need to be doing these things different I was like hey yeah keep keep working that I love the fire um but just realize kind of some of these kids are here to be here um so there might not be that expectation from them but I'd love that you're F that's cool he's going to be awesome um and he's just going to you know learning grow so so you had mentioned you watched him Coach so where did we get him from so really lucky we have um

012our assistant varsity coach Roberto Guzman who is a graduate of Meridian plays for won puny college or W College I'm sure which she spelled now and Roberto has actually recruited our JB Coach G Singh and then our C team coach Evan his last name but he's recruited and I'm impressed with G as well like his knowledge and the understanding it's really cool to have this is the best core group of soccer coaches we've ever had with understanding of the game and passion and fire you say J D saic no no no different G this guy's full name is geram s but he goes by G yeah yeah but the opportunity was he had to go there supervis it wasn't that he had to visit him somewhere else was there supervision yeah sorry I miss question

013yeah and I got to coach it's fantastic and I love that we have alni coming back to coach yeah it's it's great it speaks to the program and and the community and everything so um softball numbers are up we have a JV team a solid JV team for the first time since I've been at mdin we flirted with the JV team once or twice but never quite gotten there and this year they got their first win so it's the first JV win that we've had in I don't we'll say 10 plus years that's another program that um you just see the growth from where it's it came from to where it's it is now and we we won't see the winds and lo or the winds necessarily this year I don't think because the team

014is so young um but the investment and the excitement and the youth movement it's it's really cool to see so it was exciting to see the boosters put some money into that program too so that the girls can have pride in being a part of the of the program it's it's it's awesome we've got a good thing going there I good thing going with all our programs but it's that one that had been struggling it's awesome um and then on the Middle School side and the unified soccer 10 that number is going to grow exponentially because we always get a whole bunch of kids who come out late and that do start till April 14 and then on the this other side um baseball girls soccer track um the track number is actually up to

01590 now um so and it's you know the track is actually started for Middle school um spring but baseball and girl soccer have not so those numbers will go up and down um here too but then and the numbers are down a little bit but again I attribute that to the fact that you know the number of kids were participating at seventh grade level and eighth grade level or less than what the eighth grade and last year's eighth grade last year's seventh grade class were so uh let's see um we have hired 23 new coaches uh this year um it's crazy um every year it feels like we have vacancies what's nice is we don't have coaches who leave the area anymore and then don't tell me and then it has happened at the middle

016school level a couple times where people who filled in as C team coaches just like up and move and and I text them like hey you ready to go for next week like hey I live in psbo now like so you're not coaching Oh I thought it was a onee deal okay a lot of them are college students so it's it's a learning process for them as well um but 23 new coaches right now and actually I sent this out before this happened but we've already hired our Middle School head track coach Jake Dennis who if you don't know Jake you need to get to know him he's a phenomenal teacher individual coach um awesome guy uh we are still looking for an assistant middle school middle school girl soccer coach I have interviews on

017Friday Middle School assistant track coach um waiting on posting that position till next week and uh two high school football coaches we had two of our um coaches resign um just family stuff so we're looking for two new coaches there and then facility Improvement stuff I always like to keep youall up to date on what's going on um we were able to through our booster club um and the golf tournament that the athletic site of the booster club puts on we're able to purchase brand new uh wrestling mats that go upstairs they have not been installed yet coaches want to do a deep clean of the area I just thinking um clean out the area and then um they also um want to make sure they do it after baseball season's over because currently baseball

018uses that space as a batting cage which is something we're trying to figure out for the future so they don't have to so um we have new netting and windscreen for the fast pitch team that has not yet been installed but we have it um we got a new water reel for the fields uh new practice fields for the high school soccer team and the football team the football team is out next F Bay Barn last year um that is not going to happen this next year we're moving back closer that was kind of a one-year deal the deal got really muddy really fast and it just was like oh my goodness so um we moving them back into a different space um and then we did as we always do thanks to Ellen uh

019turma um we updated the Hall of Fame Wall of Fame uh the 2024 is up 2025 is coming it's going to be a big class we're excited um and that's with the change and tightening up standards we still have a ton of kids who are just super high level athletes um so we're excited about getting that up updates so we have a digital side and then we also have a physical side and the digital side is um more inclusive I guess is the best term I can use um like I am INB you know the electronic six Place shop Not To Break um but then the hard the hard C one is a little bit higher standards you have to be fourth place or betterer in an individual event or as a team or All

020State and all that jazz so but yes we have both and the electronic one does include the folks that are in the hard hard say hard copy but and that's available online and also we have a touchpad in the gym fyer that was recently fixed um that you can go in and scroll and we see folks going through and looking at that all the time I think it's super cool um other schools looking at the old people people sorry the the folks who played Sports I was not looking um people 191 there yeah seriously it's it's really cool uh any progress on the tracks track board the yeah I am it's back on my radar it was on the back burner so I appreciate you putting it back on my radar thank you um but

021yes yeah we're we're working on updating that the last spot where I left it and I have to go back is I was waiting for our track coach just to give me updated distances times um and so because the what we have up there right now is outdated as you but we want something that is easier to change that's not so time doesn't take as much time the last time we replaced it was during Co and I was down there with a razor blade scraping out people's names to get new ones off so we want something that's a little easy takes less time and I think we have something in mind that will work um switching over to events these are the events that we hosted this year and that we will host uh 1A

022and 2A District volleyball were held out in rine this year will be the 1 a and 2A site moving forward we have the best two gym uh setup and the 2A schools really enjoyed how we run things we try to do a good job of accommodating people's needs and and putting on a a good tournament uh by District baseball tournament will be at Joe Martin field and seaholm on the seventh and the or sorry the 10th and the 17th Saturday and Saturday believe those are the two Saturdays right SE yes of what of May um and that that's really cool um last year the baseball team played there at by districts and then was able to play in the State title in the same stadium so that was super cool um on that note since

023we're hosting that how do we benefit uh financially when you do that uh so um the people who work at the event get paid by this by the district um also the booster clip sells concessions at the event and also by not having to travel to Seattle we save money on gas and drivers so is there a gate dispersement there is there is yeah so the money that and then also it was held in Seattle um the schools down there really don't come to events and so it's easier for the folks who would come which are walk County folks to get to the event so there's more money that comes into the district and then it is split between the two districts and then dispersed into the schools um and then the uh athletic booster

024club hosts the Trojan storm classic boys and girls basketball tournament every year it's actually been two years but it's it's a it's fun and it's it's cool um one thing that we noticed this year is there were three girls teams and three or four boys teams who were at that tournament who ended up playing in the state like tournament and won the girls team one of the girls teams that played actually won the state tournament so it's a very competitive tournament that we H so and that money comes back in and this year that money went towards um paying some stiens and things so we were able to help offset some shortcomings so it was it's good I think that's it for oh uh yeah this is just a a breakdown so you can see

025the highlighted yellow are areas where they have gone up in particular ipation and where it's not highlighted that means there were fewer students participating so highlighted goes up yep highlighting up so that gives you an idea of like if you look at winter and boys basketball's a bad example because they cut so you're never really going to have that as a yellow um but you we had increased numbers in every single and the year same thing we cap that year and there are well look at Spring numbers overall I mean that's crazy yes yeah that's just absolutely wild and 209 in the spring that was a record last year by like 30 so we have gone up by 30 and then up by 30 again so we may see a drop you know it's maybe

026a class get smaller like we talk about but it's still super cool so yeah I'm just curious so fall we saw numbers decrease overall by three students but are we off do we we have more offerings or are we missing are we missing some kids because we aren't alling something uh no I don't think do you guys have any input on it so we're down three students but it was more of the equestrian equestrian had like 10 last year and so this year they only have five go so it's a decrease of three oh sorry were you asking that I'm so sorry I just wondering if they hear from kids I think spren sports are more like more like individual face kind of and so it's like oh if I'm not very good at volleyball

027I can't really like be on the team but if I'm not good at golf I can still do it if that makes sense or TR great I love that so it's yeah like I think spring sports like attracts a lot of like newcomers where like fall Sports and somewh like team based got it great feedback thank you yeah and it feels like there's like a lot of options overall for everything regardless of whether people like participate in them like you like equestrians down that's like great people know about it yeah yeah you like right track sometimes the track meet I'm like okay heat five but everybody but everybody's competing and I think it's healthy to compete so even the ones that like might be in the fifth heat they took first in their the heat

028they feel like they're winter good thing or they PR by two seconds so you're competing with yourself a lot of those sports are super cool CU like golf you're tring to take one stroke off your last match and then you feel like hey getting better that's true just want to highlight Bryant for a second the success of the amount of students don't doesn't happen by accident and a lot of his work in hiring and making sure like like you talk about tournaments people enjoy him because you do a good job making sure people who are running them know what they're doing and invite them in and they understand what the program is the wanted to do and the other thing that Kurt and I see a lot is Bryant's really hard on himself in trying

029to set the standards and so um it's important he said it several times to have high participation as Su school right so anyway nicely done yeah I appreciate that I think um just on a side I think one of the things that is my ultimate goal as an athletic director is to see c teams in it would be awesome in every single sport so JB and C te every single sport that would be I think I could retire I don't think it'll ever happen but I think I would retire if I was able to well we used to have that back in the day yeah the day like the night days but but it is harder because there's transportation and there's after there's commitments kids work and do yeah there's just a lot of responsibilities

030there so I think you're doing really well yeah thank much to be proud of another great win too for the athletic department which I don't know if we celebrated it I know we talked about before but afterwards with was the Diana access and Court um presentation stuff that was great so I'm excited to see more of that yeah and on that topic I think we talked about when can we um name the football field so there is a committee in it's in process right now we've had one meeting so far we have another one on April 16th um and so we're meeting to discuss um some names we feel would be appropriate so and then we'll present that information to you we should hear back in the next we at least have one more meeting

031and then we'll see where we go as a group and then it may be another meeting after that before we set it so we'll have information to you guys soon when the timeline me that it would be launched for 20256 school year yeah y we would have the name out there all yeah but I want to you know commend you on a great year so far I mean it's not over yet and I know it's a lot to manage like you know of course you know being in all the games and watching you work and things you got do but it's like even the extra stuff like the Holiday Tournament you know you think about all those teams that we had to you manage all the referees that we had to get we had the

032hospitality room going us and I mean Grant granted you had some health right but but it went Flawless and what I thought was cool is how many people were willing I think you had to run home once they're willing to step up cover it you know like yeah Brian's going to be gone for a couple hours you got something like Steve Miller with one I was happy to do it but everybody just I mean it was such a successful tournament I mean every Everybody enjoyed it even the school district down south and you know sit with other coaches and teams and stuff it was it was a pretty cool event so I commend you for you know for for the extra that you do outside of the day-to-day routine and we do a volleyball tournament

033too yes J hugely successful Y and I I do not have a lot to do with that but I will say that the key in having success at any level and I know that you all know this is having a good team and I I could not do the things that I do or the athletic department couldn't function as it is without people like Randy KT Steve Miller Chris tuto paen Anderson Sharon mccor those folks put in so much extra time um and they just like be part of it so I'm I'm lucky that I inherited some of those folks from um years prior so it's great to great to have good folks working for you it makes things go a lot smooth um just a couple things uh districtwide 32 team playoffs for football

034um was adopted um by the districts it's not a state thing but um the 1A were short of the threshold to meet a 32 Team Bracket um which was I I believe was 44 and we had 43 so they dropped the the one8 to a 2014 bracket um so and then it works way up and we were unfortunately not able to make it um we did get three teams from our conference that made it in but we were not one of those teams we were the four so um hoping to have better success next year and this was for football footb yeah um let's see Statewide stuff um with the 32 Team Bracket was seen as a success for football so there are conversations about expanding brackets for all sports starting to and they're starting

035to take shape um I'm not going to toot my own horn but I did propose something do the district one board like preco about this like this is the way we need to go um and I was shot down because oh it'll never work it won't happen Etc and they gave me a laundry list of reasons why no and then all of a sudden you know six years later like this is great talk no one thought about this screaming here so um ads in the Northwest conference were like Bryant was working on that weren't you and I was like yeah and I got NOS from a lot of people some people in this room that's you're there so what what does that look like for us because I've gone to multiple different state tournaments for

036varing athletics and when I sit there it's so frustrating knowing that the number three or number four from wup County would Dominate and we didn't get an opportunity well I think um we'll see it as a expanded like state so it' be like regionals how you have regionals for basketball but there'll be expanded Regional so they'll just increase it so you play like multiple games M multiple Regional games you just double that and then it'll come back to their region so it's actually pretty easy like mapwise um you just you know double your allocations and then you're good to go um but for the individual sports like cross country it's where it gets a little more complicated um but they I think they figured out a way to make that work as well tracks easy

037because you have times and everyone runs around the exact same surface but for cross country every single course is different and so you can't use a standard qualifying time so that that one of the big pickups that they're trying to figure out same is true with golf like each golf has a different like difficulty so playing North Bellingham is not the same as playing with Trail um there there are things they're working to figure out they're heading in the right direction um uh Amendment seven and eight regarding the transgender athletes uh was voted on by district one there was a lot of discussion um the athletic directors voted to support the decisions that were made by or by the school boards so just representing like this what our school board wanted um and that went

038through um we presented our we get one vote as a lead so it was majority and then it went on to um the state and we presented that information State we were sent something back from Chris reel saying that it violates state law they're working through the process so they basically said thank you for letting us know how everybody feels we're working on us so but the the voices of the different districts Was Heard which was important to see how everybody felt um and then I already talked about the events that is it do you guys have any other questions or anything um was the the vote for seven and eight Amendment seven and eight that was for WIA right yeah it was yeah an amendment to the right and so I thought the final

039vote on that wasn't until April it was presented and then Chris re doll tentatively sent out a thing saying thank you for letting us know but at this point this is the information that we have to get you so so there's still more coming but they just sent that out prbly letting us know like hey we understand where everyone sits but so you know this is kind of where we're at okay thanks Brian thank you yeah okay next on report is the legislative update with Dr James Everett provide a update to the board so this is a point in time this year is the long session so um when I sent this in last week things have changed already and so um uh this is day 73 of 105 days and um just some highlights

040a lot of what we get I still serve on the legislative committee with Wasa and then they have a um newsletter they send out called tuo which is this week in Olympia and it gives a breakdown what happens with the bills and where things at and um as of Friday uh just reminders of how bills have to progress through the legislature so they have to pass the opposite house policy committee by April 2nd then they have to pass the opposite house committees by April 8th then they have to work on the floor to get agreement because bills in both houses have to look the same before they're approved and then you get reconciliation of the budgets and bills by the end of the session which is the 27th so there's a lot of talking going

041on and before Monday they hadn't released the Senate and House budgets yet so you have the governor's budget that gets dropped before the session and then you have the Senate and the house budgets that happen on Monday and next week we'll get Senate and House Capital budgets to deal with modernization or new skill centers or providing repair money that kind of thing so we don't have that information yet um as far as the budget situation at the at the state legisl legislature last Tuesday um a forecast came out that said that um they anticipate that the state will be 844 million below what the November projections were but still up10 billion so you hear a lot from the legislators about how we're in a downturn we're not in a downturn it's where the funding is

042being spent so the things that they want to do with the legislature don't match with the revenues but they have revenues coming in so both budgets came out on Monday the Senate's projecting over four years 17 billion dollar in increases because of taxes that they've introduced and then the house 13 billion so they don't look the same they all have some form of Taxation which isn't popular and a lot of it's on the heels of Education we don't have enough for education so we need to raise taxes um Dr ever could you please say those numbers again the um shortfall and the increase yeah so for the house on the on the bottom so Monday's release was 13 billion is what they're generating in Revenue with their tax initiatives and then the Senate was 17

043billion the projected budget shortfall was between 4.9 and 8.7 um it's still an estimate but it's bigger to be 6.9 or S billion and revenues are still increasing so it's less than what the projection was but they still anticipate about 10 billion before you get either of the two budgets where they increase taxes and that shortfall is interesting because it's like double like that's a big number you know for the state to go over here there and some of that is there are things they want to do but some of that is maintenance that they have to we can talk about maintenance on the legislative side they have cbas for state workers that they have to meet what they've projected that they're going to do with their contracts for compensation so think that's that's 4

044billion six or seven so there's a portion of that that's it's not even up for discussion it's already been contracted that they have to follow through that's G to come through budget I met with contractors last week in there's billions being spent for new shipyards for Navy fleets there's there um the Republican um Revenue proposal was released a couple of weeks ago and this the Senate Democrat one was released last week but both models have a number of different taxes that they're introducing and so again it's over and I don't know if I said this but it's over over the four years and so 13 billion for this for the house and 17 billion for the for the Senate over four years over years and then the big three that we know about I will

045tell you that um transportation bills are dead what's interesting about the legislative process is that you can have bills that die and some that are identified even though they've died because they haven't met met a threshold in the process but they may be deemed de necessary to implement the budget so inti and they can be resurrected or aspects of a bill that died May resur Slater so we know the transportation bills both the house and the Senate burs are dead but on some of the bills that are being proposed there are aspects of Transportation so we may not see the full scope of Transportation support but there are for special for students with special services um that aren't being transported we may see that come through in the final budget but we we don't know

046what the bill will be that will they can introduce bills right up to the end so we'll have to see so the two that um I will talk about are the MSO and special ed so 5192 and 5263 had had huge hearings last week and actually had 5100 people sign in Pro so the mop Bill had 3500 sign in Pro and then the special in 2600 and there were 10 people that signed in con and 28 that testified and all of those were positive so um what will be interesting then is to see how well the legislature translates that into funding to schools so um in looking at the bills or at the budgets it doesn't look great just doesn't look great right now so we're waiting to see what's going to happen over the

047next three weeks in terms of conversation to be able to help support that have in schools um so um I don't I don't know any other way to say it just frustrating we were here 2013 we went through this before I remember we actually got down we had to give out Rift notices and it was painful and it was awkward and it was like how do you communicate you know because it was what it was but then they turn around like I mean the n9th hour bud was that 2013 it might have been earlier was it for the 12 13 budget I remember thas year around that time when they there a lot more stringent rules on Alternative Learning programs and so that but it was just like this the the unknown we we don't

048know people ask for answer like I don't I know what to tell you we don't know what to tell you well some of the issue for us is just the structure of the long session so we're not done and I've shared this before we're not done till the 27th and it takes OSBI three or four weeks to be able to go through and identify what was allocated to schools and then the drivers depending on the district and the number of students and how many are special ed and all of those different things are factors that have to go into that equation for OSBI to then let Daniel know what are we getting above what we had before and where does that put our own budget right and so because of that structure we also have

049to meet the state deadline for informing staff of any kind of reduction that's good we have to do that the responsible thing is to plan for worst case scenario do that and be ready with a plan on callbacks or rehires based on what we get and the problem is our staff and our system goes through a lot of anxiety before we get to the other side in May 15 is that that's that's the deadline to handle it to have it in people yeah so we've been communicating that there is going to be a deficit we've been communicating that um the nature of State funding for education and we see this all around us is not positive it hasn't been for three or four years and so um we've been having conversations and and sharing and

050what we will do is we will continue to take this information the work that we're doing is taking this information and trying to um identify as best we can where things will plan for us to come up with the educational program that we'll bring to on the 16th of April so this is what we're prepared what we're preparing for and then um you'll have a second opportunity to vote on that reduction plan a couple of other pieces that are just things that we are interested in transition to kindergarten um I shared earlier in the year there was a a gap in funding as they didn't understand or identify the proper amount of students being served by TK across the state and so both of the budgets and from the house and the Senate provide some

051supplemental funding to help support TK the TK bill that I shared earlier um in the session that was so offensive um is dead however it could be Resurrected Ed and um there is a lot of talk about and there was another bill that the Senate brought forward that keeps it is essentially the way it is now but it caps the number of students either last year or this year so that what it does for the for the legislature is it allow allows them to plan on the number kids so if you're a district that hasn't had TK and you want to bring it in you have to wait until another District closes their TK and creates capacity wow so it's nothing to do with what needs are right you can have a community where you

052have like ours Child Care desert or inability to do early learning and there's High need but because of funding you have to wait till capacity opens elsewhere well last year we staffed it without even having the funding right until kind of did emergency Staffing that third one for that third spot how did that work again that's essentially what occurred because we didn't we didn't have any information from OPI that they had under identified this the number of students so so we always look at how many students do we have what funding do they bring in and can we afford to Staffing for that right what we didn't know is as we continued to serve kids who needed support is we didn't know that they had projected below the state so I think they projected to

053fund 5,500 and they had 8,500 across the state so they needed to make up that Gap difference yeah so that's how that's how that played out and so messaging from Chris reall earlier today said both budgets have supplemental funding it looks promising so the fact that both the Senate and the house have the same provision to try and take care of that they need to come together and have one one budget that's in both is promising Levy lid and Lea discussions there are districts in the state who have been pushing to increase the levy lid so right now it's it's uh $2.50 per th assessed or 2500 and that's the cap there are districts just throw out Belleview or Seattle it could generate a lot more through taxes and there are legislators who think it's

054great let's let the taxes for you know prop you know communities cover the cost and so you have communities who who will gladly pay a higher tax rate and then there is also a provision called local effort assist where the state provides support for districts who can't meet that threshold we used to be able to get Lea funding we don't qualify anymore because we don't hit their threshold because RSS values increased so a bill that will allow a district like b or Seattle that's large to raise their levies and be able to raise more money is only going to exacerbate the difference between districts across the state so that's why any effort to increase the levey lid has also had an effort to have an Lea Factor but that likely won't help us because we

055so we'll have to wait see is there any potential reassessing that as we see the greater disparity between your rural schools and your it won't happen this session so it's it's it's uncertain that it's going to happen but what we understand is that is actually uh individuals who legislators who are pushing for this for their communities so they're they're wanting to they're frustrated their communities are happy to pay for more and they they're count and the way they're looking at it is we we ought to be able to serve our communities I mean I get it but it's not the same and then um during covid we had some some bills that allowed people who have retired to be hired and support especially administrative ranks and so that Sunset it and so there's a bill

056so this was something that was big in the tweo for for those districts who need people who have administrative certifications you can still access those folks and they're still looking through the process would they be contract or just rehires um well each of those would be contracted their short term because if you're retired you only have so many like you can only do 800 hours before you could do a th so it it changes but what happened is that rule was sunsetting and so there was a push to try and increase that bring back than Scott SMI used to do and then next steps for us is just to continue our advocacy continuing to be present A lot of times it's it's weighing in on um on testimony or signing in as Pro and saying

057that this is beneficial for school districts um when when we see changes in the operating budget come forward being able to speak to those and stay engaged and talk to our legislators so um A lot's GNA things are going to ramp up A lot's going to happen and things are going to come out in terms of information pretty quickly as we get closer to able to be St there was a couple weeks ago there was speculation that the two houses are are so far off that they may not get done in time and now they're saying no they'd be crazy not to get done so that's all I have it is it's it is kind of pulling something out at a point in time when things can change tomorrow right but it's been contentious it's

058been it's been hard to feel like uh the legislature recognizes the state of funding for education is precarious so but our the next big day will be April 16th when we have some informations on plus prior to the 27 I did want to say thank you for all the time you spent uh looking at the numbers of this um term and it's 73 of 105 how many days of the have we spent advocating for our district you know it um thank you I mean there are times where the things that important to us like TK right or the skill center pieces and things that were really banking on quite frankly are ones definitely that I think are important and then special ad we just are not able to fund our needs especially app that yeah

059I mean I know we don't pay for our lobbyist but we do you know mean we Advocate right it's like right it's wonderful thanks okay next up for reports is Jay Jagger with the ask ass preservation report right I have my annual asset preservation report um the asset the asset preservation program um it's basically a system that was put in place to hold school districts accountable for their facilities where they receive state money through the scap program scap is the school construction assistance program so the schools that we have that are under that are Irene building a nothing at the middle school and then everything at the high school minus the north JY um each year I have to do a a building building condition assessment of all all those facilities um ranked on a

060on a 100 point scale um excellent is 100% good is 90 and then this is a lot of fall off here when you go from good to fair you go from 90% down to 62% um so there's a lot of a lot of judgment there on my part on have we have we made that almost 30% fall off and it it's just it's kind of a weird scale there um and also it's important to note that we should see the facilities on a pretty pretty steady downward climb over the the uh the uh 30-year lifespan of the building um so we want to see every 10 years about 15 to to 20% fall um so that way you don't have after the building is is 30 years old then you you become eligible for scap

061funding again so you don't want to see sitting at 85% 85% then all of a sudden you're you're five years away and now you drop down really fast right so um as I go through the report most of our facilities are at that that 10 to 12 year age um so you'll see we're down in the 80th percentile just just St end track there um so I've highlighted a few important areas in this report um if there's anything you notice I want to talk about as I go through I'm going to go really quick through it just please please feel free to stop me so the first one we have is the Meridian High School the South gym um that rating is at 85% down 4% from last year um one of the things that

062took it down was the wall finishes went from good down to fair that was where I mentioned what warrants that that 30% drop um but the age of the gym and the the pretty heavy use inside of their um took the wall finishings down wall finishings are are the paint the um the tile there's a lot of tile starting to get that that's to getting knock off and stuff so there's a lot of Maintenance items that we do during the summer but I do this assessment um I did this assessment last month right so I have to assess it honestly what I see but knowing that a lot of that stuff is going to get fixed V it for the sou gy next building we have is the the CTE building at the high school

063that rating is at 86 and a qu% um down a little down a little over 2% from last year um that building held pretty much the same um this is an important one so I I did downgrade the domestic water distribution um we're finding electrolysis happen in the hot water systems um found the cause of it is uh during construction there was never a grounding strap put on the the hot water pipes um so at at the the the the elbows were starting to see um a lot of leaks are starting to happen there um so that was first discovered about two months ago at that school um not on here but that's also been discovered here at the middle school from when the retrofit happened in 2017 um so to so you can't you

064can't fix that but you can stop it from happening um so we have since then added grounding straps to every water heater for every building of the district what about sacrificial anodes that work so I'm I talked with Pete neelen from from from from chemtech who does our our boiler water um that's one of the things we were talking about haven't landed on that because I'm trying to because you had zinc which is kind like on a boat right you had zinc softer in the cop right correct yeah but again that stops IT from continuing to happen but doesn't repair the damage it's already been done no the damage done already done but if it stops it it'll it'll start eating the zinc not the comp yeah I'm just curious I just I've never heard

065of it down on a hot water supply F before but why not you that's one of the things that de I did talk about um could you verify something yes or just how the comments written um in regards to like the South gym it has the building details profile type and then it gets some the bots of the Comet and it says 1960 is the place is a placeholder date um can you explain that because I wasn't the gym built in like is yes so this was something that this this the iOS report um originally was was put together in 2014 um the gentleman who who put it together from from from OSI he he had passed away in the middle of of of doing this report um two years ago we did our study

066and Survey um the district did everything to update all of the square footage figures all of those figures to get this cleaned up submitted all of that to um Randy Newman's office from from OPI and it has not been then so I will I will poke them on that and get them moving because that that has been two years that thank you for expain CTE moving along to the Ed building at the high school um we're at just under 83% down roughly another 2% from last year um I highlighted this one exterior louers and vents for the flashing failure that's in the The Commons area um on the south side of it kind of by where the American plague is south of the American plague where water has come in um I highlighted that to

067note that the leak has been repaired um that was repaired in the fall time of this school year um the water the the visual damage has not been repaired yet um that was kind of on purpose to make sure that we actually did get the leak fixed um so that's on the list for this summer to get that repair so that way you don't you don't see that damage and then your condition rating will be edited right yeah um thanks for that because we've talked but that's been that's been tricky because different times at surfaces and different times exactly um and then lighting this is one that we've made I'd say 90% of the repairs on but we still get some that continue to come up um that's the emergency ballist in the high school

068that'll start randomly beeping because the batteries die on them um we've we've made like I said probably 90% of those but we still get a few so I've left it rated low that's what is like more in there in the evenings and you just hear think is coming from all over the place I thought it was our security system but I was like that's weird because you can get in the building answer here okay so that's the batteries for the um emergency lighting it's also a deterrent because I thought it was thought it was our security system like you don't have very much time you gotta get out of here Ed building the ele school this one took a little bit more of a hit this year um we went from 86% to just under

06982% this year um some of the reasons wait sorry I read that wrong this is the greenhouse the greenhouse at the high school um took a little bit of a hit one of the reasons that it took the hit was and I failed to highlight it I apologize but um I guess first off if you look at the amount of things that you're you're you're scoring a system of that size on um when you lower one item that the the um the main score drops a lot more but the one thing that I did lower was movable Furnishings so they have all of the the stainless steel tables in there um and they're starting to show a lot of damage a lot of a lot of wear from the students just over the years with

070all the pods and then and yeah and what they do in there so but they're still functional they're just not still correct y now moving on to the elementary school um like I said earlier this is only building a does not include 10 Mile um we went from 84 and a half to roughly 79 and a half this year so about a fiveo drop um this one did not Chang from last year but this is one of the big items that is holding that score down is the exterior windows um if if you recall last year when I did this report we talked about um issues with just say garbage windows that we got from construction um and we were able to do um a a a moisture analysis last year I can't I can't

071remember if I reported on that during this last year or not but um so we stuck probes in checked for moisture in the walls underneath all the windows um there were a couple areas where it was slightly elevated um those repairs were made that was the first repair of last Summer's work um there was one repair that had to be made that was in the assistant principal's office that was made right away um so that was done but the windows so everything's safe there's no moisture we're good right but the windows themselves are still they're just they're falling apart they're fading um they're they're starting to to to delaminate um I have recently developed a relationship so those windows are made by a company out of Canada called called uh the company's called westtech I

072I just developed a relationship with their local sales rep um working on getting them out to walk through the high school we have the same Windows there as well to walk through the high school and and and the elementary with me and see what we can do with warranty um I've gone to the general contractor and the the war that they got for the windows has B expired so um but I'm going to try and go directly with the manufacturer and see what we can do I thought there have been some communication with the GC that they were going to help out with that or did they already do that they helped out with the repair that I spoke about um so they they covered that cost 100% okay um and that and that was

073a pretty significant repair so that was was was a Tiger construction um extremely helpful there very good work and that was like the brick repair and the walls right yep that was great that was above and beyond Tiger's been that's the second time in three I'd say second time in three years I think they've come back to do repairs um well past the warranty period um and pretty high dollar repairs to and these are only our south facing windows at both campuses correct up pretty hard sorry the the high school is the west facing windows and the elementary is the basic I did also downgrade in working with with Joe we downgraded under Communications the distributed Communications and the monitoring um there's the communication from from building a to building a is extremely poor um

074there's equipment that was repurposed um and not not not upgraded and that equipment is at 35 years old um technology doesn't last for 35 years so can you give us an example of where you find it's poor the communication between the buildings I'm gonna poke back to Joel apologize this great yeah so in this one when 10 m was built they have an intercom system that was installed back in 1990 that intercom system is still in play and what happens we added a new intercom system at the new building and we created an overlay that's supposed to bridge between them that bridge doesn't always work um so it's regular that you know they have Bell schedules they have announcements that don't get over to 10 the I do we have concerns about safety with that

075if it's not consistent short answer is yes we usually you know we get over there once we get a report we go and address it and they do have a separate system over there so that was mitigated but now that that's no longer it's no longer in the office over there where that is so but if there's if there's an episode or situation building a and we don't have the intercoms working what is the form of communication to get that relay over to building Fe that would be I I would love that to Tyler from from my standpoint we try to address that right when to get noi but there's an issue with ENT and there's layers there are layers to that system so you have the clocks the intercom and the bells and so

076you can have one or the other not work at any that's like in those boxes on the wall right that show everything yeah yeah yeah yeah like that yeah those been for a long time Tyler can speak to it better but a lot of it will fall on Personnel Nate's office is over in building have physically run over there there's an issue well we have these new phon no no but I mean this is something that that Joe's been the district done but Jo can you speak to the phones in the capacity and at least it it may help satisfy a little bit of what your question is but we need to we need to find a way to fix it but anyway just take a second what we've done is is we've switched our

077all of our District staff um we've switched them over to now a district cell phone we had some staff that were doing sty things and then the cell phones we have uh J and I work with a company called first net and so they they are an emergency response okay um is what they're geared towards but they've allowed schools in as well and it allows us to have so we have 58 phones in our district plus 30 some odd uh units on our school buses and all our support vehicles and so we have um push to talk groups okay perf so and so what our process is through the Safety Committee is we started just with our Safety Committee team when you have a drill any kind of event they go on the push to

078talk gr they announce that they're having an event and then once we go through testing we that'll be part of our process so at any time an event at the middle school you know there's going to be 70 to 80 people across the district that are immediately going to be notified of that and then you would then activate the event through the intercom system is that part of the 10 L that was not that actually was you that was cost neutal um we went from a Verizon carrier and a mix of stiens to the first M so there's a small savings from a PR standpoint that'd be a really great thing to highlight yeah that we're doing something like that for safety of our our students so so so in terms of your question around

079safety that's one piece to help mitigate that the the day in and day out communication between building to building is really where we see the intercom not working yeah right but um yeah that's an area we need to fix or replace I gota use right and that that wasn't something that you would have considered for the levy I know we used Levy dollars for salaries so I'm kind of curious did you have to pick and choose or what happened here yes that's a short answer to that I like your short answers that's great I'm done now okay so that closes off the elementary school any other questions on on this report okay thank you jks J you great thanks he section five moving on to new business first review policy procedure 3205 sexual students Mr

080good evening um tonight we have two first readings with policies for the board um both of these reading both of these policies are directly from the change in the federal government made to policies um earlier this year um the first one we'll start with this 3205 harassment sexual harassment of students um and if you you think back to July of 23 um that is the last time we updated 3205 prior to November so in 23 we went through this process to update 3205 we Enlisted the services of our attorney um and they provided feedback and so we brought it to the to the board in April of that year of 23 and the board approved it and then we went back and our attorney got back to us and said hey we just we just

081put this in play and I made some procedural changes to the procedure so we brought that piece back to the board and the board approved that in July of 23 so what we did is we went back to for the guidance returned to the 2020 guidelines and so we are just asking to reinstate the previously adopted approved Schoolboard policy 3205 um 3205 is specifically for students um for title Dy issues sexual harassment sexual violence um and it and it is really a detailed um description of what procedures we follow on the title n complaint okay I included the previously adopted version in the board docs um and the any comments were in the little um text box in there um questions on this policy procedure okay um yeah I have a question about this first

082part that talks about like the effects of off-campus conduct like I know that we talked about not punishing students for things that happen off campus like how does that factor in the B specific so anything I'm going I'm going to have to honestly probably get back to you with a very specific answer but we had a situation that happened previously and because it did not take place on school grounds Title Nine did not impact that so the 2020 no the 20 yeah that that situation U because it took place off off campus Title 9 did not come into play but I want to I want to review the policy and get you a a better more accurate answer are you refering to when we had a policy that we wouldn't enforce and it was about

083was it drugs and alcohol yes that was what I was like referencing okay then that's not title n that's not title I think that's what she was wondering just like in general where we ar like enforcing things that don't happen on campus okay so then I think you're going back to maybe the athletic policy where if if things happened outside of Campus during an athletic event or during an athletic season on a weekend there was a party and there was drug or alcohol use would that still impact I want to get back to you on that okay okay thank you yep yeah but two different two different policies and Logan at one point it would have but I want to review our current Poli policy to make sure I give you the right answer other

084questions on 3205 maybe we can just clarify two along the lines of what Logan's saying is if it's off campus but it's still a school event that's still yes that is still going to be school school yes so if it's a field trip to Seattle and something happens and it's sponsored by the school yes if it's a weekend party not sponsored by the school down on PO bar at the End of the poer Road thank you for the specifics Marty I want to get I want to get back down okay other question 3205 no and then the next policy for you is again similar to changes because of the the change in the federal guidelines um this is policy 51 this is a both of these SE are essential policies um this one similar to

0853205 which is for students this one is specifically for adults and it covers both sexual harassment targeted at District employees by students so a student assulting a teacher or adult staff or employees or third parties so this is very Mrs this adult specific um can I ask um just really quick and we talk about this here but you don't want to um how do we Define an adult I would say a it says a district employee so any of our coaches staff and staff nonent yeah nonent and some of our coaches are pretty young yeah so and they're getting younger as we get older we get older they get younger so this is more of an employer standpoint yes are yes other questions okay if between now and the next reading you have let me

086know thank you thanks and besides this policy I think we talked about this before we also have mandated training correct yeah thank you okay moving on to Old business we got secondary and approval walking County Capital project contract yeah child so child care facilties has the agreement between wat County the Marine school districts so I'll need a motion on that I'll make a motion to approve the agreement to Mar County and School District I second in the candidat OR Logan you have any input on that I would love to yeah to approve okay a first and a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor I carried next on Old business second review and approval interdistrict Cooperative agreement for the financing and operation of the wam County Skills Center it's a a Washington state

087Skills Center at spoke about that last week so comment what can I make a comment there was some Community confusion based on I believe it was the Lyon Tribune who covered the board meeting of Lyndon looking at some document about this where there was some confusion that a skill center was also going on Lindon high school campus so did they have a conversation about that I mean did they resolve it in the meeting it was just our community seeing it in the newspaper going oh they're getting one too when was that was that the larde that just came out I think so last week so they were showing them I'll have to look because they just approved this agreement so Lyndon and vain has approved it and that's what I my comment was was because

088they're all in support of this particular one going on our campus yeah I I know that there were I don't know what the convers it's hard for me to comment I don't know what their conversation was but I can look at the Tribune and see what the article is but I know that when director Brower and I presented they were super excited also wanting to talk about how does this affect their building of a new high school and programs they want they want to build right and then um but I did hear from superintendent vot that they approved it on Friday probably at the board meeting that you're talking about so yeah so I haven't checked I just clarifi there's only one coming into that's correct there's only been one approved us um on can

089I I'll make a motion to approve the interdistrict Cooperative agreement for financing in operation of the Walk SK Center a Washington state second been moving second any feedback from our student board Representatives yeah okay been moved and we got a second any other discussion hearing none all those in favor I car thank you both okay okay next on to the finance report budget and finance report Daniel hello everyone okay uh we have a lot going on right now uh in finance department so we've got um the Washington State aor office is doing their completing their audit they were on site today they've been auditing since the beginning of the month um it's going it's going well so far they have four different Auditors this is our larger audit we have the financial statement audit U

090which reuse all our financial statements from last school year and then uh there's the federal audit uh which is basically all the Federal grants that we've received um they've done their planning for that and they're auditing the Food Service uh program and they're also auditing transitional kindergarten uh which is when they speak to it they're going to call it Esser dollars because that's kind of how it flow we had one year where uh TK funding was Federal so that's how it ended up in their hands so they're reviewing that and then there's the accountability audit which basically means they can look at anything they want that's over two fiscal years so uh last year and the year before um they're still doing their planning uh for that so far they've identified um three sections they're

091they're reviewing the um learning Improvement days and then they're also reviewing um enrichment activity expenditure so that basically is you know what we spend the levy dollars on and then they're also reviewing employee supplemental contracts so those are the three areas we know about um I would I would guess they're they're likely going to review the high school septic project and then we'll see what else they identify for i' say probably in for another six weeks from from them but we have three the four Auditors have been here before and two that are in charge were here last year and uh we worked really well together so happy about that um so are they on site for six weeks or they coming no they they kind of they're mostly remote nowadays so if we request

092to come on site for for some time they will and so it's one of the things that I like to do is have them come on towards the beginning and just make them feel welcome and kind of get more of that human interaction with them and I think it help and it helps and then and then I'll go in there well like today I went over a couple times and and kind of just sat with each of them and let them kind of go through all the questions that they have and um it kind of just front loads a lot of information to them um they also send out uh kind of like the requests that they'll put out for every audit and so I've been working through that I finished that up over the

093weekend so they're they're kind of flush with a lot of work at the moment so so that's good they should be busy for a bit um uh we're also in the budget process as you're aware of um you're kind of just the only thing that I want to comment on is you you'll see other districts are kind of putting out you know their reductions in their numbers pretty early and just one of the approaches that we've always taken in Meridian is that you know once we hire people we we do our hardest to maintain them and so we're just really cognizant before we put any information out there that we don't want to like you know impact people's lives un necessarily so we're kind we're we're really paying attention to when the deadlines are and

094getting as much information as we have as we can and having as accurate a picture as possible too because there's like last year when you look at it we had to make $2 million in reductions but we didn't have to do any official layoffs and it's a little bit we don't know exactly where we'll end up at but we just went through heavy reductions the year before we haven't seen the new revenues yet so we do have to to plan for the worst but at the same point we're not going to rush out there and put fear in the people that's unnecessary so just a little bit about our approach there and we do have quite a few meetings coming up to to go through everything that we need to get ready for um April

09516th uh i' say that's that's probably on the the budget side of things so I'll look at these reports here um this is the uh February compared to March we're down five um enrollment but still um still up compared to budget we're up 45 compared to budget and this is the um budget St report which you probably can't read from where you're at De the general fund as always uh just reflects the budget projection report that I'll be going over um in a minute and so no need to go over the general fund but you can always tie out the figures from that report to this one if you if you wanted to um and then the only other fund that I really wanted to to take a look at was the capital projects fund

096there's um an $800,000 Revenue in there and that that's U the donation from the W Community um foundation and that is for the walkth Early Learning Center um and the the ending fund balance is 2,256 th000 um but most of that's tied up for very specific things you know it's tied up for each of those various programs also the money goes in there for um technology Levy and then we spend those funds out of the general fund and then as we spend these funds we Mo from the cap projects to the general fund to reimburse it um actually can one second okay so that's that's it on that report the see if we break this here right tyer James's superintendent update but hopefully not um this is uh this is January uh budget projection report

097so January is the month that we get squared up from the state um um for our actual enrollment and so that's uh it's a pretty important month so in the far right side of this report you'll see the allocation dollars and those are have all been updated based on um on our actual enrollment and so that the top in the green you can see you know we started out at a low of 1776 of September and then it gradually in inreased until January and then it's we've had a bit of a slow decline since then we lost nine from January to February and then another five from February to to March uh if I were to project I would guess that we probably see that declining trend for the rest of the year a little

098bit that seems to be just what happens in school districts um on so we're still up but we're still up we're still up 45 from the budget which you know provided with um significant additional revenues um but at the same point when we received those additional revenues we looked at what the needs where we had a lot of needs across the district we basically spent those revenues on needs but we have stayed within the boundaries of the additional Revenue that we had um and so those additional revenues those are reflected for the remaining months when you when you look at um these Revenue projections down here um so just a couple things to point out in in the revenue side the uh right here 120,000 the special uh special education Federal grant there was a

099bit of a hold up on the approval on on that one get some details in there and actually I think it was more like the Staffing at the OPI level where they just didn't have the staff to to get through all the districts and so that 120 ,000 is a reimbursement for January through December so caught up on the cash flows there which is good um also this area that I'm circling right here I did a I went through January or September through December and look what we had spent so far in the technology Levy and capital projects um area in that is going to be reimbursed to the general fund and so I I transferred some of that over and you can see this projection of a couple more transfers at the end of

100the year as well I did that for cash flow purposes um on the expense side uh salaries were right about on average the accounts payable was a bit higher than average and that's that's just because we pay our fall running start payment um in January and that was U 82,000 to BTC and then 190,000 to walking Community College so it's a very significant amount so most of that money that we received for running start just flows through Straight to them we get to keep like 5% so it's not not a whole lot of money that goes to the the district related ter so goes all of the the colleges so this this is also an important area here we've been watching this really closely um if you this this shows like our spending compared to

101you what the average spending for the year should be at this point in the year and we're below by about a percentage point you know in a in a really healthy year we'd be below a few percentage points but last year we were flip-flopped we were spending high like our trending and spending was higher than than our budget so being below with a significant budget reduction is is a positive indicator for the district we've been working really hard to hold the line on expenditures this year U you remember I spent a lot of early fall working through new procedures um to kind of make it easier for us to do that so we had some like set steps that we would go through anytime we made additions in those types of things I think that

102was good important work that's that's been paying on for us and the ending fund balance is uh 1,812 th000 uh which you know I'd like to see I want to get to where this number doesn't fall below 2 million but that's it's going to take a year it's going to take some years where we can have our revenues be higher than our expenditures and we can put more money towards um fund balance and you know something we were able to do pre pandemic but it's been pretty hard to do that recently um so it'll be it'll the next couple of months it'll be below that 2 million Mark and then we'll receive our our tax revenues in April and that'll count bring the cash flows back up which will bring us through to the end

103of the year and we should and above that to that's all I have for you any questions I always appreciate how easy is read the chart so yeah I've said it several times but it's very easy to to follow I appreciate that it's good PS to be consistent right absolutely I will share um the risk assessment I think that David who is the the auditor he calls and we have a conversation answer questions and actually he is seeking Marty would you be open to him calling you yeah you've done it before to ask questions on your end but just some questions about how do how do we as a district know where finances are what's going on just the budget projection report talking about how Daniels share what the budget is and what our actual

104are and com that's not always the case and being able to have to share with you where things are was positive so good I'll let yeah I appreciate the time that you guys me my Approach is to always be as great side prust thank you you know when I do speak to them too it's like the conversation go on I you realize Daniel he was the auditor once himself you know oh yeah yeah we know that we know then it's almost like if you want to end the conversation like quicker than normal I well you know he was a was yeah that's true I think well I think that's all I have for it does help for knowing what they're looking for I don't have a ton um another reminder uh again Lisa gilr does

105just a phenomenal job providing opportunities to highlight people who doing great work in the district and so the Thrive Awards again alignment with the five commitments but conspiring educator Community Builder Communications Excellence partnership and wellness Champions um these are nominations that or due March 28th so um students parents staff and can nominate people so she's enjoying reading those and she's got a committee of all together and later in the spring we'll go around and get a Wars those are fun um my last um conference was with the Washington State risk management pool and it was the um Association of governing body around risk pools and so a lot of a lot of the conference was dedicated to incorporating artificial intelligence into risk pool business and uh providing risk management um Concepts a way for people

106who manage that we're talking actuaries people that play with numbers in a way that I don't understand and can identify multi-million dollar um budgets to be within $100,000 based on all these different factors that you have to when you talk about insurance so this is really insurance that we're talking about with risk pools in our experience and this isn't just for schools the conference also dealt with municipalities and so cities and County governments as well but um as it relates to us we're talking about weather related damage things that J deals with we have weather or extreme situations pipes bursting these are um Personnel issues uh sexual abuse and molestation cases um things that happen when people drive students places so all of these are are Insurance to mitigate situations that happen and there isn't

107any detail left out how do how do you do and so uh you know one of the things I've talked about since being on the board is the terminology has changed like Kur is our Point person but um we talk about being able to understand some of the terminology around willful disregard you know what the law says you know what the rules are someone does it anyway doesn't matter what insurance you have right and then understanding what's going on in a place and not doing something about it is not not okay right so um you know you you may be seeing things where something was identified somebody reported something but nothing was done that perpetuates and now they're lawsuits and things that nature so that's all the work right so that's what that was about

108they also spent a lot of time talking about Workplace Health programming so that goes back to your Elma conversation and just how to embed those in our systems and then well-being programs for employees and so um and again in an era of extremes how do we have public discourse how do we how do we treat people with dignity so there were some sessions in that too so um really helpful I don't know that I have a need to go back to Las Vegas I never been and that wasn't really never been no I'll go in your place really okay loud and busy and yeah um the other thing um Kurt and I attended a leaders meeting uh Latinos in Action and this is a leadership group that is actually been around since 2001 um a

109teacher at the time Dr Jose Enriquez founded it in Utah and was really intent on how to provide an opportunity for Latinos Latinas to be leaders in their communities around service and support and Bellingham and Ferndale have now started some programming and these aren't these aren't specific Latino multilingual classes these are um very diverse classes that they have a breakdown of of 40% 30% 40% and so you have communication you have learning and you have opportunities around service and support and Leadership and um Ferndale is actually the first district in state of Washington to have a program for high school middle and elementary and it's and they do a lot with mentoring um it was really it was really exciting um they had the leaders meeting with with a breakfast which was really him talking

110about what the programming was and then they had um the actual conference where we had class leadership classes from middle school they had Elementary people uh elementary students and then they had high school um from Bellingham Schall see represented fale Mount Vernon Burlington yeah think Cedro Cedro so uh they had student performances they had native performances they had all kinds of things a lot of a lot of cultural aspects tied to the serviceing work around mentoring so it was really encouraging something that I know Sean and Robert have reached out said students were curious they wanted to know more Robert asked me and I told him you should come to the meeting tonight and busy so anyway I'll meet with them and talk with them but there's some really positive opportunities what was the other

111opportunity we had where Latino students did get to came on site so we have a migrant have a migrant summer program this was something else took place at the high school I remember seeing theot you know what I'm talking about that sted our conversation about doing the passport yes yeah they they came and they were all leaders and mentoring were they from Western or I don't know I just was like post on Instagram yeah okay thank you if you think of it you know what she's talking about so check okay okay in any case it was a great it was a great Gathering um at all districts uh several principles from County Schools um all district superintendents were there well attended um they have a um a Washington Association of Latino administrators that was hosted

112in Mount Vernon last year and that is a group that has also sponsored this work again with the big three I already shared a little bit nothing inspiring there and then uh coming up we do have a a Wasa leaders Workshop this is a a a Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday and then uh Limitless learning you remember the four-year grant that we have around the postsecondary spring break is coming up and then um we're back here on the 16th I do want to let you all know that we do have an executive session starting at 5: on the 16th yeah so that will be where I bring you an updated evaluation we have any information from our student board Representatives uh yeah so I guess tomorrow now um tomorrow we have our second ever districtwide advisory

113meeting um we're meeting with we're meeting here with Elementary Middle MP3 like we did last time um and we're going to focus on uh the core value of support and also we're going to just have each group kind of share like the best things that they've done in the time since we highl like your wins that's really important good job oh it's really y any information from our board directors tot different that's it is totally different that's a Washington state leadership program around Latino Latinas and supporting that Community leadership okay and we have had they usually come through the middle school with high school students and they become they put those prr they're dayong programs but I'll ask about good job thank you oh we did have we did have our cheerleaders were invited to

114All State and they did perform they did not medal but they represented mdan very very well um there were up the 20 30 some submissions only seven were selected in our our Cher spot was one of those nice there's nothing else I I also wanted to say we had salmon that was that was served last week and and a little start three weeks ago as a soft start but we have 300 pounds of salmon that we we've got for this year y for lunch it's for for this year and next year cool that get donated so it's um no it's through Commodities so there's a certain amount that we can purchase and then watch and decide what we purchase and yep so they they did that last week at the high school how go did

115you guys have salmon I usually cold lunch I would invite for those lunches so about 40% of the students Chosen and so they'll do middle and high school when it comes up again Ask sure we know when any I know that was a question before whenever we get Loc fresh food for yeah that's awesome keny saw Pierce SC honorable mention for it just posted last night but for sophomore I thought yeah yeah he did he has a good tournament yeah he had good T he course he be one of the first ones actually Canon James also did too as well but I I think school being a sophomore okay we don't have any other information from board directors we have the board signatures of official documents and our meeting is adjourned