001Yeah, probably not. >> Okay, it's 6 o'clock. If everybody can stand up for 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. Okay. Has everybody had a chance to look at the agenda? I don't believe there are any additions. >> I motion to approve this evening's agenda. >> I second. >> All in favor? >> I >> Okay, we have an agenda. Next is superintendent report. Mr. Jesse. >> Good evening. Thank you, board president Wheelander, other board directors, student representatives, staff, and community members. Uh, lots of visits in the last week. So, here we go. Uh, today I was, uh, accompanied by board president Welander at OBJ, able to
002walk around. Um, super impressive to watch the staff connecting with students. um trying to manage in like you know 14-year-old energy is not always so easy uh to to wrestle with that and I really saw a number of staff really connecting with with the students um both from a relationship side but actually also from having expectations. So it's we call it the warm demander. It was on full display at OBJ. Um and um it was really nice when we walked in um zero students in the hallways, got into a couple classrooms, stayed for a while um in some and just able to watch some really powerful instruction. I do want to um give a special shout out for some staff that I thought were doing an exceptional job for warm demander. Uh we have a
003pair educator named DT. He's been around for a long time. Been wrestling those hallways for a long lot of things. I appreciate DT. Um Kristen Ping Pingle and Miss Diet was also there helping to direct and they were teaming up actually uh Miss Pingle and Miss Diet were teaming up on helping a number of students who were totally calm but just high energy and so it was kind of a fun thing to watch the magic happen. Last week I was in the elementary schools in LMS. Uh the one thing that I thought the theme was across the classrooms that I was able to visit was just teaching straight up teaching. they were modeling their private logic as they were instructing the students around some explicit uh elements of literacy uh that come from our units
004of study and the state standards. Um and so every one of the classrooms that I was able to visit, I saw definitely teachers teaching explicit skills right there and students practicing those skills on the spot. Uh last week also met with some the teacher leaders uh from the elementaryaries. uh they were having powerful conversations regarding conferring. So for those people out there listening um that are unfamiliar with that term, it really is a ability to meet with a student and engage with them around goal setting. What are some of their general uh study habits around literacy, their engagement with literacy, the book itself, and the skills that they're trying to work on? you're able to have an opportunity to kind of teach in the moment and then set up a next step with those students.
005We also they also talked about just write books and the art and science of it. I won't get into all of those things. Sounds easy, but it's not. Um and then just updating they were doing a lot of work around uh the standardsbased units um and planning this through and they were very efficient, very independent. Um, I know this district, the Shelton School District has come a long way when we have teacher leaders being able to literally design standardsbased units that are complex. So, um, awesome. Uh, thank you so much for those teacher leaders. Uh, I always enjoy, uh, hanging out with them and learning myself. Uh lastly, I was at a community event last week and uh it was uh number of folks there, but we also had a senior from Shelton High School
006uh that was amongst the crowd. Uh he was engaging and was part of the group. Uh I know u Clinton Sherman was there too. Um what a what a pleasant surprise. Sometimes you come around the corner and you just run into one of our students who was extremely articulate. Um, but he also has a story and he has not always been in the Shelton school district. He came to us I believe along his story somewhere around the middle grades. Um and he was really talking about uh he had moved around a lot so some mobility and he said you know in my pre last couple of districts I didn't really have access the expectations for me were really low in fact actually many of them said they didn't think I was going to graduate from
007high school and um I also was punished a lot I received a lot of discipline I don't think it was just I have you know uh I have a lot of extra abundance of energy um and um also just had a hard time just really engaging in learning until I got to the Shelton school district. And this student said it wasn't perfect to begin with. He was adjusting because he had been moved many times. But once he got on track, he realized that educators, especially at Shelton High School, were really committed to his learning. and he was so appreciative of all the things that he had been provided especially through the pathways especially for the rigor and the people really willing to teach him and I thought that was um profound and so he thought
008he was really lucky little did he know that I also felt I was lucky that day to meet him and to hear his story I forget the young gentleman's name if I swear I saw him I would totally know him um because he was that he was definitely that memorable so with that I'm really glad we get to hear about SHS today. A lot of good things going on. So, with that concludes my comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good stuff. Okay. Uh on to item number four, the public hearing on proposed 202526 capital budget fund budget or capital projects fund budget extension. Mr. Chairman, >> great. Good evening. This is another mechanism of accounting. Um, so we had the water damage at Shelton High over at last uh of the win without that flood
009and insurance sent us the check for the half a million dollars uh to pay out to the contract that did the work and didn't pay them directly and so we receeded that check in but we didn't account for an extra half a million dollars of revenue in that expense. So it's really just flowing through the insurance check that came in. Uh it's why we didn't plan for that uh expense in the capital projects fund and that's that half a million dollar. It's like 489. Yeah. 489,000. So, we're just a flow through check from um insurance to pay off the reconstruction and the finish of work for the high school. What questions do you have for me? >> Any questions? Okay. Uh no, this is a standard practice that you end up doing. It's an audit
010proof deal and >> Okay. Super. Thanks. >> On to item number five, community comments. As part of the regular school board meeting, the board welcomes community members to make public comments in person and or by phone as conditions allow. Please see the full script with call-in instructions and guidelines for community comments displayed on the screen above. And we have one tonight, Emily Elliot. Hello. Mountain View wants to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the many community members who supported our giving tree this year. Your generosity provided meaningful gifts to our students and families and your generous donations will ensure that they enjoy an amazing holiday season. We truly could not do this without our incredible support of the Shelton community. Your kindness reminds us of what it means to care for one another and we are
011greatly thankful. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Okay. On to item number 6.01, the Shelton High School school improvement plan. Mr. Kipper. Good evening, uh, Chairman Wheelander, members of the board, uh, Superintendent Jesse. Thank you for the opportunity tonight to, uh, present our school improvement plan to the governing board and everybody out in TV land. And so I brought some people to help me tonight. and I'll introduce them as they as they um have their opportunity to speak. I thought it would be um a little more enlightening to have a sta have some staff members and some students speak um on behalf of the work that we're doing uh rather than me just standing up here and and droning on. So hopefully um they'll be able to provide some insight on um as I always like
012to say a closer look at what's really happening at Shelton High School. So first off, just kind of a picture of who we are. Um we've got just a little over 1,400 students. Um about a hundred of those are in running start and they attend various amounts of time during the school day. Some of them are full-time running start, some of them take a couple of classes with us. So we are somewhere in the mid300s for like full-time students on campus. Um 36% of our population uh qualifies for free and reduced lunch. And then we've got just under 20% of our population is English language learners. Um just a little over 10% uh students with disabilities and 4% of our population qualifies for highcap. So, looking back at last year, um, we we do set
013what I would consider to be pretty lofty goals in trying to move our students, um, I like to say that, you know, if you if you don't set something that's pretty challenging, um, you're probably not going to make much movement at all. So, we we try to we try to increase our our goals and move our students a fair a fair amount. Um, if you look at one of our goals last year was our freshman success goal. And you know, we we ended the year the year before just under 80% of our ninth graders earning six or more credits. And last year we ended up just slightly under that at 78. Um, and you know, we have a number of um challenges that we face. We have a number of strategies that we use. But
014what I what I'd like to do is look a little bit deeper into those numbers. As everybody knows, attendance plays a huge factor in students doing well in school. And when you break that number down even more, and you look at the students that attend 80% or more of their classes. So in a school year, 180 days, that's 36 absences to tell. That's quite a few absences. But even students that attend 80% or more, that number jumps from 78% to 92%. So 92% of our freshmen that attended 80% or more of their classes earned six plus credits. So our challenge is getting more kids in class. And that's why when you see this year's goal, you see that we we're going all in on on attendance strategies. The other goal we had last year was
015looking at some discipline uh measures and trying to reduce the number of days our students are out of school when we do have to suspend them. And the year before about 50% of our exclusions, students missed more six or more days. So our goal was to try to decrease that to 20%. And we got below that number at 16%. So 16% of our students that faced an exclusion were out six or more days. So we we significantly decreased that number. If you look at this year, um, looking at our we we went all in on attendance. Um, we met with our staff before school. We have what we call our climber university. And, um, we looked at what can what can we affect? What what do we have control over? And one thing we felt
016like we had control over was making sure that all of our teachers implemented the the characteristics and the elements of PBIS, which simply means making sure kids feel comfortable coming to class. Make them feel welcome. As uh Mr. Jesse likes to say, knowing their story, strengths and needs. If you if you know if a teacher knows that with a student, they can make a connection with them. Um, and so we've worked really hard on developing some schoolwide structures and routines for our staff members and our teachers in particular to help students feel welcome and to give them some voice in class and feel like and and trying to build their ownership so they feel like I need to be in that class. Another thing that we implemented this year was um making sure that our
017teachers were monitoring their students attendance and making phone calls when a student missed when a student got to their three unexcused absences. Um that teachers were calling home and making contact and connection with families. Um the research is clear that it does matter who calls a parent when a student is absent. I can call, our attendance secretary can call. It does not carry the same weight as when the teacher calls. And when a teacher calls and presents it as, "Hey, we miss your student in class. Your student contributes when they're here. We enjoy having them in class." That goes a long ways with parents and teaming with us and partnering with us to make sure their students are attending class on a regular basis. Another thing we did was we really um focused on excuse
018me [clears throat] when students do miss class and they miss what I would consider a significant amount of time like three days in a row that our teachers are conferring face tof face with the student. We do have a schoolwide commitment with our teachers that that in the room in their classrooms will be posted the procedure for students to get makeup work. So it's no longer like oh go check Canvas. It's like there are there are protocols on each in each classroom that state here's the process you use to make sure you get your homework. But we want the teachers to go a step further and actually meet one-on-one with the student. U we call it conferring. We borrowed that from the LA work and we want our teachers conferring with our students on hey
019is everything okay? Is there anything I can help you with? Do you need support? Do you remember how to get your homework? so that they're having that connection with with the student. Um, and if you look at this, um, there's some really interesting interesting data. Um, if you dig a little bit deeper into this, so we have about, like I said, right around 1,400 students or whatever. And our goal is to increase the the percentage of students that are attending 90% or more of the time. And if you look at the numbers last year, this this was staggering to me. So last year, 25% of our students attended 90% or more of the time. That seems pretty low to me. This year after first trimester, it was up to 45%. So the work that our
020teachers and our staff are doing is working. More students are attending 90% or more of the time. Our two focus groups in this area are our freshman and our seniors. And if you look at seniors last year, if you look at the entire year, 10% of our seniors, that's I I I didn't 10% attended 90% or more of the classes. This year after the first trimester is 40%. And our freshmen were at 26% last year. And after first trimester, they were at 48%. So the work that our teachers and our staff are doing is working. More students are attending more of the time. Our second goal for this year is still our freshman success goal. It's where we feel like we can make the biggest um impact with our students. U making sure they get
021off to a good start their freshman year and are earning credits and working towards graduation. um creates an easier path going forward than having to make up credits as they go through high school. So again, we're trying to make that 10% jump. That's pretty lofty. That's that's moving a lot of kids. Um but it's where we get our biggest it's where we get our biggest bang for our buck. And the strategies that we're using um these are I mean we have many strategies, but these are these are kind of the four that stick out. Um, one is we still are implementing our frequent every three weeks a family gets a progress report or a grade report. So, we don't we don't go very long without notifying our families on how their their child is doing.
022Um, included in that is again our commitment to making sure students know how to get their makeup work and how that process goes and assuring that our students are getting caught up and and part of that is determining what work needs to be made up. Not sometimes not everything has to be made up. Sometimes that some things are more important than others. We want to get that student caught up and get them back on the track with the with the regular class. Also really doubling down on our MTSS process and employ and and you know getting our staff involved in that having teachers getting some student voice even uh making sure that we're meeting on a regular basis and we're really diving in to our data and looking at our numbers and and looking at
023which students can we move and how do we move them? what are our strategies that work? Um, which ones are proven not to work and let's move on and develop some new strategies. But again, it just comes down to constantly looking at the data and then doing something with it because anybody can look at the data. It's doing something with it that is the hard part. And then our freshman seminar class, you're going to hear some really detailed information about freshman seminar. You're going to hear from a couple other staff members. You're going to hear from one of our students about the impact that freshman seminars had since we implemented it. Um, this year's seniors are the only students at school that didn't have freshman seminars. So, our juniors were the first year, sophomores, and
024now our freshman this year. So, this is our third year of having it. And then we're really working on um kind of focusing on our algebra 1 class. Um, this is my 38th year in education. And all 38 years, every year, algebra is the most failed class of any school I've worked at. When you look at the maturity level of the student and you look at the content and the curriculum, it is a very difficult course. It's probably the most difficult course we offer. And so, we're really trying to look at are we ali are we aligned in our curriculum? Are our teachers aligned in their strategies? and what can we do to develop some effective strategies to make sure more kids pass algebra the first time they take it. And if you look at
025our so if you look at our freshman data from from this year after the first trimester again we're right at about 78% of this year's freshmen earned two credits because if they earn two credits each trimester they'll get to their six. So about 78% of our freshmen earned two credits first trimester. If you break that down and you look at the students that attended 80% or more of the time, it was 91%. So any parents out in TV land, please, I cannot stress the importance of having your child attend school on a regular basis. It is the number one factor in making sure that they achieve academically. So now I'm going to turn it over to some of my colleagues here. Um, so we have Brandy Readinger. She's u one of our assistant principles that
026oversees our freshman class and works with um our freshman um uh academy teachers and our seminar teachers. We have Katie Shrum. She's one of our seminar teachers. Um Katie teaches four classes of seminar all day every day. Four classes of freshman and she volunteered to do it. So, um, and then we have one of our students, [snorts] Lo Hernandez Mendoza, is here to talk about, um, his experience in, uh, freshman seminar. He's a sophomore this year. Um, one of our most articulate students we have. He's very involved. Um, he's been our leadership class. And, um, we also have, I don't want to leave out, we have Miss Stray here. She's one of our other assistant principles. And Mr. Stewart is hiding over there in the corner. Uh, he's another one of our assistant principles. I
027appreciate all the support and their hard work. Um, they're really what makes makes it go and so I appreciate them every day when they come and and do the very best they can. So, who's going to go first? >> Okay, so I'm going to turn it over to Miss Shrum. >> I hope not. Um, hi, thank you so much. I'm Katie Shrum and um, yes, I am one of our four freshman seminar teachers. Um, I have been fortunate to get to teach all three years of seminar. Um and truly like freshmen are my favorite to teach. Um they are amazing. Um some of the things that we do in freshman seminar, we actually start before school starts in August because we do our freshman orientation and it is a dedicated time for our freshmen to
028come on campus as only that class. They get to learn where their classes are. They get to learn about their advisory. Um they actually get to meet their advisory teacher and their seminar teacher, learn where everything is. We do mock bell schedules and such. but it's a really great way for them to learn about campus um before that first day of school. Um freshman seminar is a two trimester class and um it really helps us build our foundational skills and academic, social and personal skills for our freshman class. Um some of the things that we do cover is um some career assessments through youth science. Youth Science is a program that we actually as a district use for um our high school and beyond plan. And fortunately, our freshmen actually get to start doing that
029high school and beyond plan their freshman year with a career assessment, which is an amazing process. It allows our students to through a series of brain games connect to their own um attributes and learn about what uh careers they might be really good at um while just still exploring. um and which actually sets them up for visit visiting theirmies which I know Bry's going to share with you as well. Um, and some of the skills that we do teach in seminar, um, we teach about time management, prioritizing, and planning because they're coming into a new school and we teach the importance of earning their credits, um, because they're coming from junior high where those classes may not have counted as much and they're learning about that importance of earning their credits. And so prior prioritizing
030their tasks and learning how to use planners and calendars is really important for them. Um, we do study skills as well, the importance of taking notes and staying on top of their assignments. We talk about communication, not only um verbal, um, but also written when they're learning how to email their teachers, um, and not putting that entire um, email in the subject line. Uh, you're welcome to anybody that is going to receive an email from a student. Um, but it's really important that they're able to have that communication because when I have a student that comes to me and says, "Hey, I need to talk to this teacher and I said,"Well, they have a class going on right now. Let's open up your Chromebook. Let's open up your email and let's email them and talk
031so that they can get back to you." Um, and so that's a really important way of doing that communication. Um, we talk about goal setting. We talk about what they want to do. In fact, just last week we did a trimester 2 goal setting so they could look at their trimester 1 grades, look at what they need to do for trimester 2 to continue that success. Um, and we also talk about organization, not only of their personal backpacks and such, but also of the things that they do in their everyday life. Um, when they're getting to class, organizing that, making sure that they're on time and present to all of those classes and such. Um in addition to um to those skills in class, um we also talk about teamwork. We talk about collaboration. Um
032but freshman seminar really gives our students those tools to help them be successful in high school. Um we've seen the data start to increase and their their success really improve. Um, and having taught this class for three years, um, I just absolutely love watching the growth in all of them. And it's been so amazing looking at our junior class now, which was our very first freshman seminar class, and seeing their success and seeing their involvement um, and is has just been empowering um, not only to us, but then we've been bringing those students back into the classroom and they're also talking to our current freshmen and then they're learning about that as well. Um, but it really just gives our whole High Climber Academy and our whole High Climber community um that success and we're
033all growing together. So, it's it's really been a fun process and um I know that um Bry's going to share with you some things about ourmies and the connections that our freshmen are making to that. Um do we want to do questions now or wait till the end? >> Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. Hi, good evening. I am Brandy Reinger. I am the ninth grade assistant principal, which means I also get to be the assistant principal of the High Climber Academy. Um, since we operate on a academy model over at Shelton High School, all of our freshmen that enter SHS are in our High Climber Academy. And this academy really is designed to build a good solid foundation for our students as they move through their high school career and then out in the
034work field, college, whatever their choice may behind um the high school. Oh yeah, next slide. >> We're supposed to be on the next slide. We're having technical difficulties. Here we go. Okay, so the High Climber Academy starts really with exploration. Um Katie already mentioned the youth science that all of our students in the High Climber Academy take to kind of build on those career skills that they would have the skills to provide in the future. But it also looks at the elective courses that our students can take at Shelton High School. So every Friday our freshmen participate in fun Fridays where our elective teachers such as the fine arts, PE, all the different areas come and elect student leaders to come into the freshman classroom and kind of give hands-on um exploration activities about what
035those classes are about. So for like metal arts, we had some student leaders who came in and helped them make like little metal hearts and bookmarks and stuff. So, it's a really fun way for our freshmen to know what the classes they're signing up for actually is versus just picking, oh, this one sounds neat. It really gives them that foundation of here's what I'm going to learn in here. Here's how that would help me in my career path. Um, students also were able to participate in some academy exploration. So, our natural science academy and our health science academy both had skills fairs. So, it was set up in rotations where some of our industry partners had booths either informational or hands-on exploration as well as our student leaders in thosemies also did some booths and
036it was a great way for the students to kind of see what their academy choice would lead to in the future. Um, went over really well, a lot of success. We plan on continuing that because it really helped to bridge the gap between here's what I'm learning my freshman year and what we're going to do outside of school because what the choices they make now is important to where they go down the road. Um the business finance and hospitality academy exploration is coming up in January and that one's a really neat one if you have a chance to come observe because it is our version of Shark Tank. We had to change the name since, you know, it's c copyrighted. So, it will be orchet tank this year, but students actually come up with an
037idea. They collaborate to work on the marketing technique and they actually present their ideas to business partners and it's a really neat way for the students to get involved and also showcase some really good ideas that could potentially be something in the future. Um, and then at the end towards the end of the second trimester, all freshmen then make their academy declaration. So, they've had all these experiences that lead to that culmination of, okay, here's the academy I want to enroll in. And then that kind of leads their path so that they can take classes in their pathway to make sure that they're on track to graduate in that pathway and that they're prepared to enter the workforce or college, whatever their life choices would be after us. So, our academy is great at preparing
038them for that. And now I will turn it over to the man everybody's want to hear from, Lao. Good evening. I hope you guys don't mind. I have my notes on my phone. Um, so I'm just here to talk to you a little bit about about our freshman academy being a sophomore who attended uh sorry, freshman seminar who attended the freshman seminar. Uh I have four topics that I'd like to go over. Um social academic opportunity and the growth of the program. So going into high school, um we come from all different schools and so having a place where it's all just a clean sheet where everyone comes together. Um there's a lot of teamwork opportunities where you guys uh have to collab with your classmates. Uh there are also some lessons that are important
039and deal with mature topics that ensure students build a maturity expected from high school students. So some of these can be like awareness of healthy or unhealthy relationships. Uh how to be a kind student or human just in general and often can include professionalism where we have a ton of emails on a ton of lessons on how to write professional emails, how to talk um in front of people professionally and just interacting with others. I know we had this fun activity where we had to do handshakes and introduce each other um to kind of just practice that interaction. The the second one is academic. So in my experience, French and seminar's goal is to help students get used to and explore high school. So freshman seminar teachers kind of serve as a second or other
040academic adviser. A lot of students are unaware or unsure of how the credits and the classes work at high school since it's their first year. And so that confusion can be asked to the teachers and they will give you guidance on that. I know I had a lot of confusion on how credits work, especially when it came to PE, science, math. I didn't know there was all different types. So having them was a really good guide. Um, and their overall goal and their intention is to help uh the student pick the classes that are in their best interest. As you know, we have a lot of opportunities and activities to help the students explore what type of classes they would like to go into into the future. So, a lot of that has to go
041with um natural scientist, natural resources, uh engineering, which is what I'm in, business, and othermies. So they learn a little from each one and then from what they're most interested to as well as aptitude test that we have to take. Uh we pick what we want to do going into high school. Of course there are alternatives if you wanted to to do multiple you can pick. Um but you'd have to set that up with your counselor. So there's a lot of different opportunities that are given to students and the teachers in freshman seminar make sure that the students are aware of that. The third one is opportunity. You guys heard of Shark Tank or Orca Tank? [laughter] Um, yeah. So, Orca Tank was a really fun activity for me, but it also kickstarted my internship
042experience. So, having community partners there like Kevin Shy, I introduced myself to him after Shark Tank and I established that relationship with which granted me an opportunity to work as an intern at the Mason EDC. Um, this opportunity led me to create a great connection with our CTE uh office. So that could include uh Mr. Ramos, Mr. Taylor Ramos. Um, and that also kickstarted my relationship um with our community partners and getting other internships. I just did an internship at the auditor's office and that was a very great experience. Um, it also affirmed my interest in legal work. So that was a really good experience. The fourth is the growth of the program. So every year one thing I always hear is you guys did that because the opportunities grow and grow and activities just
043get better in my opinion. Um I know I am a little bit jealous of this year's freshman is because they got a lot of cool uh fairs or expose that get that they get to participate in. I know I was a student volunteer uh for some of them helping the natural resources academy uh with explaining macro invertebrates. That was a really fun experience. So yeah, um it's it's really cool seeing community partners coming in for those fairs as well. I know I talked to Sierra Pacific while they were there for the natural resources and getting to know them was really cool. And I think I have an internship set up for January. And those are just some things. Overall, the experience was very cool. It was very fresh. Um, it was very social. So, a
044lot of the students interacted with each other. It wasn't some boring class where you just sat down, had to take a lot of information. It was a lot of you just getting to do what you want to do to see what your interests are and growing as a student and a human being. So, yeah. Thank you. Any questions? >> I'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> Oh, you you will. >> Anybody? >> Uh, excellent work on uh increasing your attendance numbers. That 10% number, that was uh that's pretty appalling. So, to to quadruple that in just a few months, that's seriously impressive. So, great work on that effort. That's uh that's fantastic. Um something I just caught on one of the slides that you mentioned high cap. I didn't even know we had
045a high cap in high school level. What what does that look like for us at Shanghai? >> That I would cap I would capture it as like our gift our gifted program. And so um those students are um they have access to some different resources um higher level classes, some more challenging classes. Um, and so it's just really making sure that we're meeting the needs of all of our students, whether they have IEPs, 504s, or they're they're gifted and talented. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, I appreciate all of you coming and sharing that. I appreciate your passion for freshmen. Um, that is a big transition and to invest so much there. I think Wyatt shared the data. If you can get your your credits at freshman year, your graduation rate just skyrockets. And so I
046appreciate that. Um and appreciate you sharing um so articulately giving us an inside view from a student's perspective. That was really helpful uh with attendance. Those numbers are pretty tough numbers that you're coming up from. What is I'm sure there's more than one obstacle, but what are those obstacles? What are you up against as you try and increase that attendance in this community? >> Well, I mean, like anything else, it's multifaceted. I think that um geographically prevents prov provides some challenges. It's a big district. Um square mileage wise, there's flooding taking place in the Sko Valley. Um I saw a a Facebook post where he had to go rescue somebody. Um and so physically getting to school sometimes depending on the weather is a challenge. Um I think um since COVID um there's been a
047little bit of um malaise or apathy on the importance of attendance and um that has that has played a part I think and I but I really think that it comes down to um creating an environment where kids feel like they're welcome, they're invited, they're contributing, and making sure all of our classrooms provide that atmosphere um to where it's not cool not to be in like sometimes kids think it's cool not to go to class. We're trying to make it cool to go to class. And so hence the efforts in our PBIS um efforts and the work of Brandy and her team with um the the PBIS team um trying to create that schoolwide culture of wanting to be in class. And we're doing a lot of work with our leadership class right now. Our
048leadership kids have some really great ideas on how to, you know, you can you can target specifically attendance and you can walk kids to class or whatever you need to do, but creating the culture um is going to go miles further. And so that's what we're currently trying to do with our leadership class to start is getting students involved and and getting students to affect students and their attendance. >> Appreciate that. Uh, one more question. >> We got to put in place a cell phone policy this year. >> Y >> um, which is a a new thing for some of your sophomores, juniors, I hear the seniors. Um, how's that gone realistically? Have you seen, you know, rewards from that investment of a new policy? >> Well, I mean, like I like to say morale
049is always highest in the general's tent. Um, so I think it's going great. Um, but I will tell you that at the beginning of the year, I was getting about 14,000 steps a day going out and retrieving phones. And now I'm down to about 8,000 steps. So, I've cut the number of my steps. Uh, I'm still getting my 10,000. Um, but I'm not getting them chasing phones. U, but really the number of um, we have very few students that have So, we work with them one and two like first offense, say, give me your phone, pick it up at the end of the day. Second offense, I'm get your phone. Parent can come in and get it. Third offense, we need to we need to sit down. We've had very few of those. You know,
050there were some students at the beginning of the year like, "Oh, let's see if this is really going to last." Um, and I I've had students tell me like, "I didn't think you were going to be this serious about it." Like, we are serious about it. We're serious about eliminating the distraction of cell phones. And so all of us um we have on our phones, we have an we have an app we use um where our teachers can alert us if they have an issue with a phone. All of us get it on our text messages and our emails. Um as soon as we get it, we respond to it because students need to see that somebody is responding as soon as possible. >> If I respond an hour later, it doesn't carry the effect
051as if I respond right now. and then everybody else sees the principal walk in the classroom or an assistant principal and that has a little bit effect on students also. Um but it we we've significantly spend less time on it now than we did in the beginning of the year of course. >> So um >> thank you. I just appreciate I know that is effort and extra effort but really appreciate that >> we all of us are committed our teachers and office are committed to it. >> Thank you for sharing and uh bringing some of your team with you. I'm really appreciative of the data that you've been looking into and that extra level that you've been digging into it and really appreciative to the staff who are willing to engage and reach out to
052students during their hours and help bring those absent students back into the classroom. These strategies seem really effective so far this year and I I'm really encouraged by them and I hope that everybody can keep being encouraged by them and keep engaging in want to continue. Um, one of the things that you had mentioned was that you have schoolwide structured routines and I like to get sort of that snapshot of the classroom as students are moving around and can I get an example of one of those? >> Yeah. So, so we really have three or four what I call schoolwide commitments. One is um that our cell phone policy, our electronics policy, it is posted in every classroom. It's posted in hallways. It's posted, you know, anywhere you walk on campus. It's posted and teachers
053go over it. They teach and they retach it. In fact, we just um met met with staff today after school about this is a good time to retach structures and routines because we start a new trimester um in three in a couple weeks. We have winter break coming up. So, we need to retach when we get back in January. Um so, our electronic policy is one. Um our makeup work uh protocols, so how do kids get makeup work? that's posted in every classroom. And it can vary from class to class depending on the class because what makeup work looks like in a CTE or a, you know, like an electronics class or a um a a welding class might look different than in an ELA class. Um so what our departments have done, most of
054them have come up with a department policy and that's posted in every classroom. Again, it's taught and rettaught. And then um our hall pass. So, we use an electronic hall pass system and so that that uh procedure is posted in every classroom. So, that's consistent across the school. Um kids don't have to guess, hey, how do how do I get a bathroom pass or how do I go see my counselor or how do I travel during advisory class to get help? Um that is posted in every classroom on how to access the pass system and what the expectations are for that. >> That's great. Thank you so much. >> [clears throat] >> uh outstanding the focus on the the freshman and everything and and the people behing behind you right now are proof of concept
055um in in excellent ways. You know, it trickles down from from leadership to to teachers to this student is obviously picking something up. Um, I go back to uh the the head coach I worked for uh used to pound into the rest of the coaches. They can know no other way. And when you start with the freshman, that really gets into that. They, you know, that is where they they get they they learn it. Those are the the attitudes and the the exercises that they do every day. Um, and it it sounds like it's going great. Um, one of the questions that I I do have for you, um, is in our everchanging world, I listen to a handful of things that were said and they take me back to the how are you managing
056the growth of your staff in a world that is changing so fast. They they mentioned really quickly that they taught somebody not to put the entire email in in their header. And I still put two spaces after a period when I type. Um, how are you getting the staff bought in? I, you know, I live by the see it, do it, teach it model. How, how are you conveying that? >> Well, I I think that um Jordan um has a lot to do with that. Jordan kind of coordinates our PD program and the the professional development we provide our staff. And we really tried to listen to our staff. So, we we did some surveys last year and tried to really a ask our staff like what do they need and like what what are
057their roadblocks, what are the challenges they're facing and then how can we build um professional development around that to help support our staff. Um feedback from our staff after after our high climber you this year was very positive. they felt like it was uh one of the first times that they really were heard and listened to. Um and I think that went a long ways to developing these schoolwide commitments that we have in place and getting people to follow up on them because it's one thing to say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do." It's another thing to get 76 teachers, 20 support staff, you know, 12 secretaries to do it. And so I think just getting them getting their input and finding out what they really need and then involving them in the
058development and the delivery of it. >> Uh outstanding stuff. Um I am ever impressed with the growth of of the students as well as the staff on the the high school campus. So um hats off to you sir. Good job. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Does anybody have any other questions? What was the date for that Shark Tank event coming in January? >> Or orca tank of January? Third week. It'll be the end of the third week of January. >> Is it possible to throw that reminder maybe out to somebody to get that to us? >> Yeah, we will get that to you. And I would invite you like to come out when we do have our experience. It is it is really uh interesting um to see the students involved with our community
059partners. Um like a lot of times we we kind of doubt sometimes the capability of our students, but when you let them go, they're really capable. Um and and they make they make everybody really proud and um they're very very good representatives of our school community. >> Well, I will tell you after listening to your student that you brought here today, there's no reason to doubt the capabilities of your students. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> And back to Clinton Sherman for the budget update. Good evening again. A quick budget update. Um we're updating this slide um every month as all the expenses come in, revenues come in. Like we talked about, we're going to track with multiple lines. So the dashed lines will stay there and a
060solid line will start appearing. Um so we are outperforming our fund balance currently. Um we thought would be around $10,000. We're at $8.94. A lot of that is some of the reductions for expenses that we've done. One of the things so we're still on track to um end our year with a positive fund balance. Of course it's super early. One of the things that we've realized after four months, December will come up here and we'll have enrollment, which Can you do that for me? It's not working. Great. Um, which I don't have today, but I will next week. And so our enrollment numbers are lower than what we conservatively budgeted for for the year. So, what that means is, can you go back? Thanks. Is that I'm going to reforcast those dotted lines because that
061means our revenues will drop a little. Um, which means that our overall fund balance will drop a little as well. But if you remember, we ended our year outperforming by $400,000. So we do have that cushion there. So this will get updated at the next uh meeting. Um but where we're currently at, we ended October uh with the fund balance of $894,000. Um November will get calculated once we get the county treasures report, which happens this week, and you'll see that next at the next board meeting. Um so we're still on track. We're still doing all the same mechanisms and following the plan, reducing expenditures, trying to forecast out our revenue. Uh we did receive our a portion in advance in November. Um we've been really pushing on paying local vendors and getting caught up
062um from outstanding invoices and that'll continue throughout the year. What questions do you have for me? >> Not not questions, but just want to go back to we're on track. >> Yes. Yes, we're on track. We are we are going to adjust uh based on what happened in enrollment. We're also looking at um other ways to generate more student FTE and so we'll bring those to you when we're ready. >> Appreciate that. And then um you mentioned something that I want to highlight because it's been a question before from the public. We are working on paying all of our vendors on time, paying back anything that we've been we're catching all of that up first. >> Yeah. I don't I don't want to name that. We have some pretty big successes getting caught up. Yeah.
063Uh that have been outstanding for for quite some time. Um and we'll continue that. I have a we have this big checklist and I us on a board we cross them off and do a little high five and move on to the next one. Move on to the next one and celebrate as we go along. But yeah. >> Yeah. I just want to highlight and celebrate those things. So >> yeah. No. Yeah. Thank you. >> And if anyone has any questions feel free to call as always. >> I don't have any. >> Great. >> So thank you. >> Okay. On to this consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to look at that? Oh, student reps. I checked it off too fast, so I'm sorry. All right, we'll start off with Allan from Cedar. >>
064I got one quick announcement quick announcement right before I get into the rest of the stuff before I forget this. Um, Environ, we finally have our competing dates. Uh, the regional competition will be on April 23rd, 2026. Uh they haven't they say location to be decided, but it's always been at Squawken Park in Olympia. So, we're going to go out there and represent Mason County. And when we win, we'll go to state competition May 20th to 21st all the way in Okenogan, Washington. Hope I said that right. Yeah, close enough. So, yeah. Um, so we had a lot of our se Cedar students go to the trip to Evergreen last week and we went there to go complete our FAFSA, get some more information. We were able to talk a lot more about like stuff
065about the Shelton promise and all that and it was really fun. A lot of the students were able to speak to students who are studying fields that they're interested in. I I know I was I was able to also and it was just really fun to do. was a really fun experience. Our psychology class has been working on building brain models. So, we're going to start researching how the brain works and how it affects the mind and all that. Our human human anatomy class has been continuing their project on building prosthetics and we had the prostheticist come in today to help our students uh design their their prosthetics giving them a professional perspective. So, that was very fun. Uh, Cedar High School will also be um as a part of ASB, we're going to be
066hosting a clothing drive at Cedar where we're asking for donations of clothing to be dropped off at the office anytime from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. And those will be those are collected so that they can be processed and be given out at the Win Choice Winter Festival just as a way to sort of try to give back to the community. And speaking on of that, the Cedar High School will be working on the Santa room in Choice High School. And yeah, it's going to be a great time. So, we're going to be glad to see you all there. And senior club has been planning a community event that will be happening in late December. So, stay on the lookout. And don't worry about how you mispronounced Okanagan. They can't say liyw to your tool.
067So it's okay. Abigail choice. >> I'm Abigail from I'm Abigail from Choice Pathway. Students went bowling. They made 300 Christmas cards for veterans and for homes. The middle school class is learning about dinosaurs and making 3D models. They are learning about the Nquali Bridge and how how it's unhealthy. Choice students have been decorating doors and classroom for the winter program that has been around for 20 plus years. It's going to be on December 18th from 5:30 to 7:30 for all of you to go. Eight 80 students are meeting their SIP goals and 31 students are getting a 3.0 GPA or better. Open Door students have been taking a community-based approach in their work and students families resource center. Very good. Thank you. Now, on to the consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to look
068at that? Oh, that's right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You'll have to say your name again. We got a substitute for Shelton High School. >> My name is Lawler Hernandez. and I am the SHs ASB treasurer and I am a standin for NVACH. So starting our report, our sports season is just kicking off. So classes and clubs are doing winter fundraising and basketball concessions. Um we have a gingerbread competition that is open to everyone in our school and leadership is taking partake is partaking in it. Uh, our senior pictures are due the 11th as well as their quotes. We put out a lot of warnings out there, so make sure they get their deadline. And senior sweatshirts are for sale. Um, talking about freshman seminar, freshman seminar are doing health science academy expo next week. For our
069sports, we have more sports representation in the mini dome. I think we have a wrestling hall of fame now and we are working on recognizing our student athletes. Our social media campaign to pass the levy is in the works with leadership. We understand the importance of making sure our student voices are heard especially when it comes to the levy and so we are working hard towards that. Our job internships have been kicked off. A lot of students are going to internships which could be the EDC or the ELC and a lot others. Our girls basketball is leaving for Alaska on the 17th for their basketball tournament. And finally, Cedar wants to meet with eth with SHs, our inter high rep, and so we can establish a good relationship. And that's it. Thank you. >> Thank
070you. I've totally lost control here. Okay, before we move on to the consent agenda, have I missed anything else? All right, consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to look at it? >> Yes. >> I motion. Okay. I motion we adopt the consent agenda. >> I second the motion. >> All in favor? >> I I >> All right. On to item number eight. the proposed resolution 25-10, adoption of the 202526 capital projects fund budget extension. Mr. Chairman, >> yes, this is the action item from the public hearing that happened earlier in the meeting. Uh and and again, we forecast out our budget in the spring. We had the flood and the insurance check came to us and it can go either way. Sometimes the insurance can pay directly or school districts can. We asked them
071to do it. We still got the check so it's flowing through us. So, we need to increase our expenditures by half a million dollars. And that's really it. >> Any questions? I have one. >> Yeah. >> Um, why was the preference to get the check instead have the insurance paid directly to the >> No, the preferences the uh all the other checks were paid directly and then the large one they want because it was so large they wanted us to verify the work. So, we came through and did a walk through and that's really why it came to us. Okay. because we also questioned it because I said, "Hey, I actually if I have if I take this check, I have to go to the board and do a budget extension, but if you pay
072them directly, I don't have to do that." And they said, "Well, we would like you to do it." I said, "Sure, no problem. It's just a meeting and discussion." Yeah. >> And it's important enough that we should talk about it anyway. >> Right. Because the in the inn is now subject to the state audit and that's fine. So, okay. >> We have all the backup and for that and photos and everything, >> right? Any other questions? >> I would take a motion. Having heard no public concerns, I motion we com uh pass the proposed resolution number 2510 adopting the 202526 capital projects fund budget extension. >> And I will second. All in favor? I >> I. >> All right. Passes. >> Thank you. Moving on to uh board member comments. Mr. Wilford. Well, Christmas time
073is upon us and we're in Christmas Town, USA and downtown looks amazing right now. Pardon me. If you haven't driven down Railroad at night, I highly recommend it. Uh Festival of the Furs has put on a whole lot of community events for everybody to get involved with. Um, I believe there's one at OBJ this Saturday. Uh, take a look at that and then get out and enjoy some time with your family and friends and your neighbors and um, enjoy the long break. We'll see you in January. >> Director Dale. >> Yeah, I'll echo that. I got to be down on Friday night at the community treelighting and there were students from this community down there singing their hearts out and it stopped raining for a few minutes. Um there are a lot of our students
074in the parade the next day. It did not stop raining for that unfortunately. Um, but it's really great to see the community involvement here. And and I want to echo just one more time, SHS, I appreciate the report and the effort and all of the different moving pieces of what it is to teach in 2025 and to see that improvement is fantastic. I I appreciate the teachers. I know how much it takes and then to add on calling home, but to pull students back in is is valuable. So, appreciate that effort. and we kicked off winter sports, so there's a lot to go watch. Get out there and watch a couple of games somewhere. That's all. >> Director Gilmore, >> thank you everyone who is here with us tonight. And uh it's always really great
075to hear the school improvement plans and the great work that our families, our teachers, and other staff in in our buildings are doing. I can't believe we're already rolling through Christmas. Uh we had a really exciting sport and sports season. Really great uh reports from all of our students this last little bit of the school year and um looking forward to that big final rush into the end of the year. >> All right, this be our last meeting for 2025. So, um let's just uh get another year going uh the way we finished this one. Uh it's all all good stuff. Um the uh wanted to thanks again to the community for um putting everything under the Mountain View giving tree. Um I noticed outside here we've got the science kits. So hang on to
076your hats. Mountain View kids. That's all good stuff coming. You'll enjoy every one of those. Uh clothing drive at Cedar, don't forget. And also around town, Toys for Tots coming up. Um, and with everything that we talked about with attendance and all that attendance means, um, we're coming up on resolution time, boys and girls. Let's see if we can get everybody doing 100% re, uh, attendance on their New Year's resolutions. That would be huge. Um, throw a little reading in with that. We're going to have some real success. I don't have anything else. So, with that, I would take a motion to adjurnn. I motion we adjourn. >> I second the motion. >> All in favor? I. >> All right. It's 7:02.