001All right, it's uh 6 o'clock. If we could all stand 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 or justice for all. Okay. Is everybody had a chance to look at the agenda? Yes. I move that we approve tonight's agenda. Oh, except we have an addition to the agenda tonight. You didn't tell me about that to begin with. So, under discussion and action items, we are adding 7.02 the superintendent evaluation if that is agreeable to the rest of the board. I second. All in favor? I. And we have an agenda. On to item number three, the superintendent's report. Great. Go ahead. Thank you, board president Wheelander, other board directors, uh, family
002members, uh, staff and students. Uh I will start off with um this uh we had an all day uh session in which we were able to um with teacher leaders from each of the schools as well as school leaders come together for a day uh this past week. Um it's we do this annually as part of our preparation for the next school year. So what are lessons learned from this previous school year and getting ready for the next one? Um so that these uh school leadership teams uh again teacher leaders and school leaders can get together and divide out work plans. Um things like what's your master schedule look like? Is there any tweaks that you need to it? What's your staffing schedule so you can coordinate and maximize all of our resources as best
003as possible in meeting all of our needs. Uh they go through the data uh so that they're like okay so let's identify um students who need which level of support. So we have interventions that we have at each of our school sites. Some of those are very contextual to the school and obviously developmentally appropriate for them. Uh and then uh they put those plans together and then get ready for the next you know ready so that day one you know each year we innovate and do continuous improvement. Um, a couple of the key areas was around specifically tightening down our interventions. So, we know that we've been doing some things for a couple years, which things which interventions work for which student populations. And I think that's always a really key thing. Just because you
004have an intervention doesn't mean it's going to work for every student group, right? We're talking about h, you know, little human beings here, uh, even sometimes those high schoolers. Uh, and we want to make sure that, um, for them that these interventions are the best fit for them. And so then we look at the data, determine like, oh, this really works well when students are at this particular reading level or they need additional assistance around attendance. This seems to work with this population when they are just truent in the morning as opposed to something longer or more um intensive uh around their ability to not show up. So we do that and then we also talk about specific move. We're really into case management. It's something that our high schools have been doing uh well
005and so we're just trying to further enhance those the work of case management. It's really about having an adult really work as an advocate for a student. Um and they're also a connitive of information. So just kind of like some people would call it like a mentor or adviser. It's not quite that. We do do goal setting formally with the students. Uh in a way we call about the whole child. So again what's your physical goals? what are your school or academic goals and what's your social goals. So we keep on those things and then we help the student you know get through whether that's uh something uh specific to passing courses, sometimes it's around attendance, sometimes it's around friendships, right? And so we try to work on that to supporting our students. Um and
006so a lot of excitement in the room getting ready for the next year and just want to thank all those administrators and those teacher leaders for coming last week right here in Mountain View in the library. Uh I just uh there's some questions regarding the elevators both at OBJH and SHS. The one at SHS is fixed and moving. The one at OBJH was operational until March 24th of this year. Uh it was broken last year. Um which is not uncommon for elevators, especially at older schools. uh we had a fix and so there is a dispute with the vendor a little bit around who's going to fix what and what's the cost when it was supposed to be fixed last year. Uh and then we've been using it and so uh it stopped since then.
007So we are working with the vendor to resolve that and get that uh elevator up and running for the next the start of the school next school year. Uh this evening uh Clinton Sherman um executive director of finance uh will be going over doing a budget update. I just wanted to preface with um the notion that we've done a lot of learning from the past. Uh so uh since I've been here there's some things that have been historically done that are making it really challenged to operate a budget. Um one is restricted dollars. So again, those programmatic dollars, those state and federal dollars that are restricted to those intervention type services and specific populations, cash reserves, hard to have when you're using your restricted dollars as your general fund balance, which are can't just pay
008like the power bill, for example, uh off of so you want those cash reserves to not be restricted. Those are those are things that I've said since I've been here. Those are things that we continue to tackle. But we have been taking decisive action right now, getting on that, trying to build out those cash reserves uh as best we can. But the first foremost is to pay down our vendors. Um and so uh again, Clinton will go over some of the details around that. That decisive action plan will help get us to a general fund balance uh for next year. I think you'll see those details um as we lay those out. Um, yes, it does pain me to have to do a reduction in force. It's not by choosing, but we are also mandated
009to have a balanced budget. Our expenses are outpacing the revenue that we do receive. And I think some of the shock that will come to folks is just around um that we just recently have received uh information from the federal government and cuts in some of those programmatic services. So, um, the sands keep shifting. We keep planning. I need more time to plan ahead of time. We can't just take reductions midstream. It's really hard, uh, as a, um, within a$83 million budget to do things when you have annual contracts and things are just dropped on to districts. It's not unique to Shelton in that regard. Uh, other districts will face those things. But again, the unique thing to us is uh knowing that learning from those past problems that we've had, especially around accounting and
010you over reliance on restricted dollars, taking decisive action now, and then also just around seizing on the future success that we want for our students. Our outcomes are good. I look forward to finalizing those and OSI putting those out. Um, I think that's something that we shall all be prideful and something that I think our staff work really hard on despite the current challenges um around the economics of public education um that you know continue to be spotted not just here for Shelton um but also for other school districts indeed. So uh with that, thank you very much. Oh, also in light of that budget uh I will uh I'm asking the board to not provide me with any raise. I don't I don't want to raise in this particular environment. I think things are
011very tight for us and that'll apply also for our executive team. Um so that'll apply for Clinton and Tabitha. Thank you very much. Item number five, uh, or item number four, uh, public comments. As part of the regular school board meeting, the board welcomes community members to make public comment 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. First up will be Eliza Luml. Hi, I'm Eliza Lamel and I'm here because recently the librarian at my school got laid off due to budget cuts. Librarians are very useful tools. They can be used for reading books which stimulate your mind, add to your knowledge and are entertaining and fuel your imagination. Librarians provide books to kids. But when you
012take away this tool, it makes it harder for kids to do all the things books do for us. For example, at MS after the librarian got laid off, my class hasn't gone to the library since. Personally, I always loved going to the library. It's how I discovered some of my favorite books. I think that all kids should have access to the library, but to give kids access to the library, we need librarians. Thank you. [Applause] Dave Lemol, but I'll um so yeah, my name is uh is Dave Lamel. Uh that was my daughter Eliza and she kind of surprised me there. I only saw her remarks this morning. Uh, I I'm aware that you guys have some budget issues and that things are not always straightforward, but um I know that my daughter in particular,
013every day after her librarian got rifted, she was extremely upset every day coming home, why can't we have a librarian? My teacher doesn't necessarily have time to do everything that a librarian does. and and the just the fact of what Eliza said. Hey, I didn't make it back to to um the library the rest of the year. Um again, you guys have the things that you have to do. You have the the uh balances that you have to have to deal with, but uh I think it's a problem for our students when they don't have access to all of those things. And uh I look forward to hearing what you're working on. I mean, things don't turn around in a day, but um yeah, we're all we're all watching and uh wanting to see things
014see things get better. So, thank you for all your work. Thank you, [Applause] Paula Kennedy. Good evening, members of the Shelton School District School Board. I'm Paula Kennedy from Evergreen Elementary. I am here to express my concern regarding the validity of a petition that has been circulated concerning the dual language program at Evergreen Elementary and to address the inaccurate information being shared publicly about the program's current state and direction. During a recent family engagement event, a member of the multilingual Shelton group stood at the entrance of Evergreen Elementary gathering signatures for a petition. Families were led to believe they were signing to enter the event. The false representation compromised the integrity of the event and misled members of our school community. When I asked them to stop, they entered the building and a staff member
015later confirmed they continued petition related discussions inside the school. Despite ongoing public reassurances that the dual language program is not being reduced, there are persistent statements being made that suggest otherwise. These have appeared during board meetings and emails on picket lines. When I asked what they are basing these statements on, the response was dual language included somewhat 500 students at Evergreen kindergarten through 5ifth with two classes each at Olympic Middle School. I think this expanded dual language program was still in place in 2019. This comparison, however, is not relevant to our current superintendent. In 2019, a reconfiguration occurred under Superintendent Apostle and was followed shortly after by the closing of in-person schooling due to the pandemic. The changes that came during the return from the pandem pandemic were nationwide. We have worked intentionally to build
016on our students learning in both our English and dual language programs along with providing stronger multilingual support services. Our ELA scores on the SBA have improved dramatically from only 9% of our students at benchmark in fall of 2022 to a preliminary 23% at benchmark in spring of 2025. We project the growth to reach 30% next year. This growth is not hypothetical. It's visible in our classrooms. I visited Miss A Costa's dual language classroom where Nyla invited me to her presentation in Spanish. It was absolutely beautiful. She has demonstrated growth in English, Spanish, and in confidence. This student success is happening across our campus due to the curriculum instruction and high expectations initiated by our current superintendent leadership, the daily fidelity of instruction by our dedicated evergreen staff, our students hard work and determination to meet
017learning goals, and our family support and engagement in their children's learning. I encourage all of us as leaders and partners in this work to focus on the truth and the data when discussing Evergreen Elementary. We are a school of tremendous growth filled with staff and students who deserve to be recognized for the efforts and successes. Our programs are not being reduced. They are growing stronger every year. Thank you for your time, attention, and commitment to supporting factual, respectful, and student centered conversations about our schools. Thank you for that. Thank you, Marilyn. Aaron, never got to speak so close to you guys before. So, I stood here on May 13th and shared that at that point, our district had already lost 100 staff members. Now, just over a month later, the numbers have grown. As of
018today, here are the updated totals for this school year. 83 resignations, 25 retirements, 18 layoffs, three terminations, seven non-renewals. That's 136 staff members gone. Let's let that sink in for a moment. At the June 10th board meeting, we listened to two and a half hours of courageous, raw, and honest public comment from staff. People who stood right here and describe the toxic culture, fear, and dysfunction they have endured under the failed leadership of this man. And you, five here, sat last night for two hours and 42 minutes behind closed doors reviewing his evaluation. I sincerely hope that time meant something and that you truly listened to what those brave staff members risked their jobs and their reputations to say. Because here's what real accountability looks like. In February 2025, the USS Harry Truman was operating
019in the Suez Canal when it struck a civilian tanker at 11:45 p.m. local time. No one was injured. No serious damage was done. The captain of the Truman, who was off duty and below deck at the time, was still relieved of command. Because in the US Navy, ultimate responsibility rests with leadership always. That's what accountability looks like in a system where standards mean something. Now, compare that to the Shelton School District, where incompetence is rewarded, nepotism is normalized, and bullying is used as a leadership tool. where leaders fail upward and the people paying the price are our staff and students. The contrast couldn't be clearer. People don't leave jobs, they leave leadership and they are leaving our school district in record numbers. The question is, will you do your job? Will you finally take action
020to hold this superintendent accountable? Not next year. Not after a failed levy. Now. Our community is watching and we'll re we will remember who chose courage and who chose complicity. Okay, moving on to item number six, the consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to look at the consent agenda? Oh yeah. Anyway, sorry. Okay. Five reports and recognition. Uh 5.01 uh report on career connected learning. Gretchen uh Melissa, good evening. Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity to give you some highlights of what's happened in the last year. Let's see. Okay, just a recap of what is career and technical education coined CTE because we're fond of an acronym in in education. So CTE is really designed to prepare students for the future by equipping them with skills and knowledge that they need to
021succeed in both college or career. Hands-on learning and real world applications help students see the direct connection between industry and education. Our district provides tailored learning based on our academy and pathway model and labor dem labor market demand here in Shelton and in our region. Great examples are the promotional video our students created for Pest Business Park, which allowed our students to practice and showcase their entertainment productions, project management, and organizational skills to gain a deeper understanding of business opportunities in Shelton and create relationships with our industry partners. Students in CTE programs have the opportunity to earn college credit and industry recognized credentials. They take place in with internships or job shadows and they explore in demand careers. Our industry partners are adamant that our students have transferable skills such as these listed here. During
022our advisory committee meeting this year, our engagement between our industry, education, and our students took place to outline ways to understand and align the compliance and needs during K12 education and what young adults need to enter university or careers. as well. We spent a lot of time aligning both education, what our expectations are for education and what our young people need entering college or career. In order to identify and to meet the diverse needs and aptitudes of our students as well as labor market demand for the present and their future, we spent time this year aligning our courses to the national career clusters. So you can see how we took our academy model on the left and we tried to align it to the national career clusters that are uh aligned with CTE programming. This
023has helped us with our commitment to understand and nurture each student's unique story, strength and need. This works well with themmies and our pathways as well as all CTE courses in our 7 through 12th way 12th grade pathways. It allows us to tell our story, connect to the deep history in Shelton and meet employer needs through transferable skills. Our CTE programs rely heavily on strong partnerships with local businesses, community organizations, and higher education institutions. For example, Olympic College, South Puget Sound Community College, the University of Washington, Central Washington University, Sierra Pacific, Mason County Public Health, Mason General, the Economic Development Council, the Chamber, and WIAA. all provided students with access to real world experiences that gain their interest, develop their skills and aptitudes and show them examples of what could be next. These partnerships also
024ensure that our programs remain relevant to workforce demands and give our students the opportunity to build professional networks while still in junior high and in high school. Together we created pathways that lead to meaningful careers, lifelong success while embedding core academics like math, English, social studies, and science. Academics and credentials happen in a variety of ways. And two ways that we can help support that is through dual credit or college credit and industry recognized credentials through critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and community, I'm sorry, and communication, which are all essential skills for us to navigate as adults and to model for our students. Through rigorous and intentional learning, we are creating our next learners and increased opportunities for students provide different ways for them to learn and to reflect. You can see how much we've built
025our dual credit and our industry recognized credentials over the years with intention. Um, in 2022, industry recognized credentials really took off in the state of Washington and we grabbed hold of that and went with it. Um, so an industry recognized credential can be anything from uh food handlers permit to CPR certification to uh robotics certification which is really hard and we've done that for multiple students in our district this year. It is important for me to say though that uh OSPI is changing the rule set for uh dual credit or college credit and as a district we're still learning what that will mean for us. But my uh I believe that we'll have a reduction in how many college courses we offer because uh the fidelity of what we're offering as ninth and tth graders
026will be changing based on the new rule set. We'll also we also received a lot of feedback from our community partners and our industry partners about the fidelity um of industry recognized credentials in the K12 world and the fact that they're forcing our students to take those tests again in order to receive those once they enter the workforce. So we'll be looking at that to support our students with the learning that they need, that scaffolding that they need, but being mindful of what we're putting our students through as well. These are just a few of the things that we were able to tackle this year. So, uh we everything from revamping the course catalog to creating student and community feedback. Um we were able to build professional networks with our student groups. We had multiple
027guest speakers, hundreds of guest speakers within our district. We did mock interviews, college visits. We created a WIAA partnership and that led to relational learning for our health science academy students as well. We sent students through to state through DECA. We're sending students to uh nationals with Skills USA, FFA and FCCLA. And that's really something to be proud of for our students as well. These are just a few examples of some of the accomplishments that go along with the slide earlier. Uh we revamped our academy posters so you can see how we realigned what it looks and feels like to take those classes at each grade level and the benefits that they have within that academy or pathway. We're running an onair now broadcasting camp this summer and we're extremely excited about that. That's in
028partnership with the WIAA who gave us $35,000 worth of equipment to use at sporting and activities. Um, our students tried that equipment out at state basketball this year. They did a wonderful job and this has led to alignment with University of Washington and their collegiate program through student U, which is a broadcasting program at the collegiate level as well. We targeted students that were non-traditional inside of our classrooms by running classes such as women in welding and women in automotive. We realigned what our college and career fair looks like. So, our career expo took on a workshop feel. We partnered a community member with a teacher inside the classroom and did workshops. So, what does it feel like to have a social media platform at 9th grade versus 12th grade? How do I utilize those?
029What does customer service feel like as a ninth grader versus as a 12th grader? How do I perform a mock interview as a 10th grader or as a 12th grader who's actually looking for employment? We had many two we had three advisory meetings this year. Um, and we revamped what that looked like and it created a lot more engagement with our industry partners, our educators, and our student body turned out in droves. And this is an example of how we realigned what the course catalog feels like. So, we uh aligned our courses, revamped how they were written so that they were very student centered and spoke the same language all the way through. And this is an example of a program of study. So what do I take as a freshman versus what do I
030take as a senior? How do I fill all my core academics along with the CTE lens that we're teaching through? And this is an example of a leave behind flyer for the um 20our internship that we ran this year. We had uh a goal of 40 internships for the year and we blew it out of the water by first trimester. Our students were going all through the community um and having 20-hour opportunities within our industry partners. It was so successful that we know how to do it and launch it right away in September. And we have a a line already with our industry partners. From these relationships though, we also were able to do really amazing things for individual students. We found transportation for a student who did an internship at Sierra Pacific that led
031to employment. Uh we worked with the High Steel restaurant and the Climber Burger now is a culinary donation. So every time you purchase the burger, it goes back into their culinary program. That was really important to the owners and it was really important to our culinary program. Our automotive department took a a auto that was unusable, fixed it up, and used it uh in partnership with Turning Point and helped a community member with a need that they couldn't meet. Uh we worked with OSPI this year as well to develop a AI frameworks um at the 9th and 10th grade level. We actually have been so successful that uh they asked us to develop 7 through 12th grade as well. Um and we just delivered the 11th grade framework this morning. That's been really exciting and
032really rewarding. It's an example of what we can do as a staff and what our students can do. So I just want to say thank you and I'm happy to take any of your questions. Fantastic job all the way around from internships to your CTE community contacts. Good job. I'm impressed. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to echo that and I hope anybody listening at home or sees this should be proud of what's happening in our school here. This is a really exceptional program. Well done to everybody who did all that work. We appreciate it. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. I'm also blown away by just how much this has grown over the years and all of the opportunities and having two students at the high school. It's just really exciting to
033me that there are this many opportunities for our kids. Um but I know that sometimes there's confusion in our community about what constitutes a CTE class. And I know that um some people may not realize too that our state of Washington is giving more funds to four CTE programs. So that may be why we're seeing growth of these programs and growth of these opportunities for our students. I don't know if you can speak any more to anything about that. Let me let me see if I can hit the mark. So Shelton School District has done an amazing job of outlining CTE classes and creating these pathways in themies. We've worked really hard over the last four years to reduce the amount of offerings so that we are not overtaking the CTE funding compared to basic
034education funding. Um we've re we've been working really hard to balance that out. I believe I could be mistaken, but I believe we've taken over 30 CTE courses out of the course catalog in the last four years to realign them to speak to the student, to speak to industry and labor market demand both here in Shelton and as a region. And CTE classes do come with enhanced funding, but you have to make sure that those classes are full. So, if I have a class that only has nine students, I'm still not capable of using my enhanced funding. I'm using that for payroll. But if I have a class of 25 students, I'm using that enhanced funding for things like calculators or equipment or big pieces of um big supplies that you need, right? So, in
035a welding room, I need more supplies and bigger equipment than I do in a math classroom. that doesn't mean that there's worth different it but it is different. Um so as long as we're keeping up our enrollment that is the math that does work. Yeah. And that was part of my other question too because I know that just creating the schedule and going through all that coursework and pairing it down to what our industry partners might want, what our kids are interested in, that's a that's a big process and a lot of work. So thank you all for doing that. If a class is not hitting the mark for some reason, like you're saying, it's consistently not getting many students enrolling in it, it's just a handful, you like you're saying, nine, then that is
036something that gets reviewed and then potentially taken off even if people thought maybe that would be a good one or how does that how quickly does that change get made? Correct. It takes months for us to make it through the enrollment process and Shelton does a really nice job of having student centered enrollment. So when a student when 25 students enroll in the welding four program that's not a problem for us to run that class. When five students enroll in start your own business that's a problem for us. And even though it's directly in line with our student store it's still we still have a problem running that. So we as leaders spend hours and hours and hours behind closed doors trying to run the numbers, trying to move students into an appropriate way and
037we don't always run all the classes that we would like to because of that model and especially uh when we're going through financial difficulty in districts. Um that's a practice that all districts use. uh we don't we don't intentionally kill a course or take a course off of the schedule, but we do have to make prototypical model in CTE. And in Shelton, we haven't done a great job of that historically, and we're getting better. Um because we really want those students to have a well-rounded education that hits all the marks with the core as well as the CTE, but we need to run a program that we can afford as well. No, thank you. and thank you very much for all of your work on this. Honestly, just all of the internships that are provided
038for students and I'm just it was a great report. Really appreciate the work that you're all doing. I only have a couple of things. Um you mentioned that on some of the with some of the industry uh partners that uh even though they take a test to in the class for accreditation or or certification that they're still having to go out and retest. Um, how or do you know how are they doing on those retests when they get out in the field? Are we are we They're doing great. That's a great question. Uh, it's not about their ability or inability to take the test. It's about the fact that we spent money in K12 for them to do that and we're still spending money postsecary for them to do that. And how do we um
039marry the opportunity and the practice that students really need in order to be successful? But they're doing great. Good. That awesome to hear. And uh if anybody hasn't had a High Climber Burger, um I definitely recommend them. Get extra napkins. Um they're good. Thank you. Thank you. I just I just want to say I love what I get to do for a living and this district has made it really possible for our students to fly um and to gain practical and transferable skills. and it's a real privilege to stand before you tonight. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Item number 5.02, the budget update for fiscal year 2425. Mr. Clinton, chairman. Good evening. It's hard to follow CTE. The program is robust and incredibly impressive. It's roughly the same size as Olympias, which is they're
040twice as big as we are. So, it's just really an impressive program and one of the reasons I chose to come here actually. Uh, okay. We're going to do a budget report, kind of an update on 2425, where we're at currently, where we see ourselves going, and what's coming up in the future. Um, so I'll walk through some factors influencing school districts currently. Um, most of these won't be new. We've talked a lot about this over the last year. Uh then we're going to go into some financial practices that we've identified and we've corrected, what's been going on in the past, what we partnered with OSPI and the ESD to identify. Uh and then like I said, what we're looking at moving forward uh in terms of the 256 budget. All right. So, we've walked
041through this probably a handful of times. I'm not sure if we use this specific slide, but we we do have a problem with non-restricted dollars covering basic expenses. We do have a problem with the aortionment not keeping up with the cost of salaries or the cost of goods and materials in the in the world. Um we all have kind of probably felt that at home as well with the cost rising. Um in comparison to how those other things are happening, what that means is that our local levy dollars, their capacity is shrinking, right? Because we get we planned that out a handful of years ago. That's a static amount. We cannot go out for more just because the value of your home goes up. Um, and as I said before, those costs are just outpacing
042the revenues that come into the district. Um, I wanted to do a quick thing about how important the levy is to all school districts. Um, the levies currently are um a tricky thing with with inflation and what people are willing to support. Um, the levy in uh in Shelton is roughly 10% of our budget. we get about $8 million for it and then because we passed the levy the state comes in what's called um levy equalization dollars and they give us an additional 2 million when you pass it. If you don't pass it they don't give you anything which has always felt and backwards to me that if you didn't pass it you would need it but that's not how they look at it. So this is a quick breakdown of how those how a
043levy dollar is spent in the Shelton school district. So roughly 17% goes to facilities operations. That's utilities insurance. We talked about that during the legislative session updates, how they don't give us enough for utilities and insurance. Um special education as well, that's subsidized by the levy. Athletics are fully funded by the by the levy. All those activities as well. Um and then that basic education enhancements is is I mean the enhancements is an interesting word. words, but we have to use how the new levy laws uh read. What that really is saying is that the levy dollars stretch out and touch everything. Classroom supplies, teacher salaries, benefits. I mean, um I won't get in the weeds about SEB, but SEB is a new benefits program that came up and that is subsidized by the levy
044as well because it doesn't generate enough money for the school districts, which is why they went to it because it saved the state money. Um so that's a quick breakdown of how a levy dollar is spent across the Shelton school district. This is not um this is a pretty common split for other school districts. It's it's roughly around this everywhere else as well. What's new for us going into this next year and this year are what's happening at the federal level. Um if you've been following what's going on, and I know a lot of people have, this may seem new to you, and it is. It's it's also new to us. There's some reductions coming. We were made aware uh a couple weeks ago that in 26 27 more reductions will be coming are are
045proposed with from the current administration and we're a big ship. It's not really easy for us to turn quickly. I know we're a a midsize school district, but we have locked in contracts that we can't move on a lot of times. And so what we're looking at for moving into next year versus the year we're ending is about a million dollars reduced in federal dollars. Um, Title One, uh, currently looks like this. Some of that's still outstanding. Some cards may fall later and and that may change, but we're budgeting as conservatively as possible to be as fiscally responsible as possible. And so, we're looking at a million dollars with some title programs. Carl Perkins is a small reduction. Um, and then in the following year, there's a long list of other title programs, safety school
046grants, uh, at risk youth that are currently being proposed to receive a 70% cut. and that is drastic for our district. uh we receive a lot of federal funding normally and so any of these reductions in dollars hurt um yeah so we've also updated some procedures because we we ended this when I first got here um we ended the year at a $2.3 million u deficit uh that triggered us looking at what's happening internally and in partnering with the ESD we've identified some long-standing deficiencies in the accounting practice um and Then we realized uh I can tell you actually tell you on my eighth day I realized we needed to do an aortionment advance. If you remember I I came in and we borrowed money from our future revenue essentially and we've been paying that
047back since. Uh we'll have to do another one of those next year as well. Um and we started evaluating the full scope of the situation. And so then we began a process for calculating current year reductions which we unfortunately had to come in uh midyear and do a reduction in force and and make some shifts to our staffing levels because they're we're higher than what we could keep up with. And that is just the fact of the matter is that we are a people or organization. That'll come up really that'll be made really clear in a future slide. And so the reductions really have to be in people unfortunately. Um we received a letter of binding conditions in January. We expected that any district that ends the year with a negative fund balance automatically gets
048put in binding conditions. And that edict was to finish this year in a positive fund balance, which we pushed back on a little because we found out in January and that's halfway through the year. And as we just talked about a second ago, we're kind of locked in for most of what we can do um already for that year. So we made um a bunch of cuts um and try to make some moves I'll talk about in a second. Uh and then we began training a new financial services department. Uh they've been doing great. We started investigating and getting on the horn with all of our vendors to make sure we had actual understanding of the outstanding invoices that we had that we were carrying as a district and then we finalized reductions for this
049year in February. We brought that to the board and made and additional plans for the following year. So that was a lot. I felt like I talked pretty quickly so I apologize for that. What questions did you have so far? Um, you talked about uh accounting practices and then you lumped in some outstanding invoices. How far back can we identify that things weren't being paid and why? Um, sure. So, um, the accounting deficiencies are are u some of innocuous and small and some are larger like the invoice one. Uh, a quick easy one. Um, this is going to feel in the weeds and I apologize. I uh I do wear glasses on purpose. Uh they're real. So, our local receipts are supposed to go into a specific GL and they were going into a different
050GL that they eventually moved to. Um it it's not that huge a deal. It's just not what the accounting manual tells you to do. And so, that was a smaller one. Um and there's a wide range of them, but the biggest one is that the ESD helped us identify is we weren't recognizing at the end of the year outstanding invoices as currentear liabilities. they were rolling them into as new liabilities for the for the upcoming year. So, not only were costs outpacing revenues, but then we weren't recognizing those costs until last year in that current year. Does that make sense? It's it's okay if it doesn't. So, let's say we owe um the ESD or um anybody, any vendor uh $10,000. You're supposed to recognize that as a liability on your books as you close
051the year. We have a long practice of not doing that of recognizing that as a new liability in the following year and partner with ESD will recognize that have been happening for for years which when they're $10,000 is not a huge deal but when costs are are rising at such at a rapid rate and that isn't your practice and then you all of a sudden do it and end you it forces you to have a $2.3 million fund balance deficit. So long before COVID, a prior administration um we identified some um a handful of accounting practices that were just deficient. Okay. Yeah. Would those be practices that we would at some point want to turn over to a forensic accountant or auditor to to take a look at to make sure there was no mal
052or misence? Um let's see. That's a great question. So forensic accounts are expensive which isn't alone precluding their use. Uh we don't currently have the cash flow to to do that. But also we haven't identified actual loss. It's just deficiency in accounting practice. So things that will show up on an audit finding or in your fund balance once you correct them. And so we've we've gone through and started correcting these um accounting practices. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think that for me, just for having been on the school board for a previous administration, too, we had quite a bit more money in our general fund, there was just a lot less we had a buildup of quite a bit more. Things are not the same
053now. And so it seems like the margin's smaller. So yes, that's how some of these things are. And that's true um in every school district. When enrollment is growing, which Shelton had a long history of enrollment growth, revenue will outpace your expenditures. But when revenue dips down, it doesn't it's not a parallel. Expenditures are still tracking up even when revenue is going down, right? It's actually has a weird inverse relation. It takes time for the ship to turn to lower your expenditures and revenue comes down. So that is exactly right. So yeah, now things are a lot thinner. uh when you end in a deficit, you have to make um really difficult decisions. And actually OSPI and our ESD have acknowledged um just the decisive nature that the board and the superintendent and administration have
054done to correct this uh imbalance of our finances. Right? It's not all districts are are are doing it. I mean, there's I'm not going to name other districts, but there are other districts that were named to us that aren't doing this to correct it as strategically and effectively as as possible. So, yeah. Any questions? I I've got probably I don't know 10 more slides probably. We can keep them going. All right. Uh, so what we did uh moving into next year is that we did reduce staffing levels. We've reduced staffing costs by approximately $5 million. uh across the spectrum with certificated and classified staff. We reduced um building staff by 7% and central office staff by about 32%. Now um I don't want to make a false um correlation that we reduced more district office
055staffing in numbers. We we didn't but the percentage was greater uh if that makes sense because district office is is staffed at a lower level. The other things that we've done and we will continue to do and we've talked about quite a bit is we reduced um school and department budgets. We froze classified substitutes. We we're we are helping with coverage from other buildings when there's an outage. Um our accounts payable person has covered secretary subs a couple of times this year. We will continue to go and do that next year. We offered furloss to central staff, support staff, principles, administrators, the superintendent. We've all taken furlow days. We'll do that again next year. Um and the big thing is hiring is really u an important job for any indust for any system and industry
056hiring well. And so when there's an o uh an opening now, we have to review that really strategically to see do we have to fill this job or can we not? And so even though we have done um some staffing cuts, we also need a second grade teacher. And if if not all certificates are are the same. So that's why you've seen some hiring while we're still with these reductions because we still have needs uh based on what the student numbers are. Um yeah, so what we're doing, what's coming up for us? So as we recognize the outstanding invoices in August, we do that calculations through November. Uh we'll actually look like we'll end the year with a negative fund balance again. Uh which we're working with OSPI and the ESD on. While that's occurring,
057we're also I've brought a couple of surplusing uh of items to the board. We've done some portables. Those are um selling quickly. Um we have a buyer for the the home that we talked about before. we are leveraging attrition um and we'll continue to do so. And just as a side note, the the when you're having to leverage attrition, you are subject to the opportunity of attrition. So if nobody leaves that that lever can't be pulled, right? You can't review anyone if there's no vacancies. Um just just FYI, I guess. Uh we are prioritizing some um our local vendors and the ESD and our community colleges for running start services because those are the priority. We really have tried to minimize the impact of students as much as possible through these reductions which is uh
058if you can imagine really complicated. Um we are withholding next year 2% of our revenue that's coming in that's basic ed those levy equalization dollars and levy that's roughly $1.7 million uh that we'll get into during the uh budget workshop or study session. Um, and the district oddly has some other assets that we're also exploring whether liquidating those make sense and we'll bring those to you as as we have more information. So, at the end of this year, we'll look like we'll end uh at a negative $2 million and then at the end of next year, we look conservatively have a a projected ending fund balance of $1.5 million. And I want to be really clear, we are budgeting conservatively in enrollment and in revenues just because there's a lot of unknowns and I don't
059have a great crystal ball. And so the best way to do that is to be conservative as possible. So this is a graphic representation. We've seen this before. The um orange num the orange line is expenses. The revenue is how our our revenue comes into us. And the line below that in green is our fund balance. You kind of see how it um upticks at the end. That's when we're recognizing them in the in the system. And the reason it's not recognized now, which is again a little bit in the weeds, is that's not how the accounting system works. You move them at the end of the year into a liability account. Right now, they're just holding to be paid. Um, that's all that is. So, that's a breakdown of what that looks like. Um,
060I've talked a lot. Again, I'm going to ask if there's any more qu any additional questions so far. Great. Okay. This is what the conservative dollars looking to come into the district next year look like. We're roughly $84.5 million are coming in and 55% of that comes in as basic ed dollars from the state. That is unrestricted basic ed dollars. What's interesting is that another quarter of our revenue comes in from the state as well, but those are restricted. Those are lap um transitional bilingual other programs that are tied to specific interventions for students. Then again the local levy is roughly uh 10% of our budget. Um that federal number has been reduced by a million dollars from last year. We service a lot of non-high districts that surround us. So the that other districts
061is for the high school services for those districts is about 2 million. And that little sliver of 02 is uh facility rentals, any fines or fees, uh any sales of goods that we might have that are smaller. It's just a really sliver of amount, but I wanted to be as transparent as possible. Um what our expenses will look like for next year after all those reductions is roughly 80.5 million. And this is the slide that I wanted to show you how people oriented our industry is. Right? We have 46% is in certificated salaries, 18% is in classified salaries, and then almost 20% is in benefits. So 85% of our system is people, which means there's not a lot of room for the non-people stuff to make these reductions. Um, and in MSOC, you know, insurance
062is over a million dollars. Our utilities is $2 million. I mean these are these are big bucket items that that we are looking to um make some efficiencies in our in our utilities and um in all those M socks we are looking to leverage those and make sure we're using our buying power responsibly but the important note is that we are people industry and and that's the bulk of our expenses. So it's also where the bulk of the cuts need to come from. So this is the same dollar amount looked at in a different view. Um, most people like pie charts. I somehow my brain doesn't like a pie chart. So, this is like a cake pan. I I don't I don't know what you want to call it, but uh just how my brain
063sees it. Um, so hopefully it makes sense to you. Um, these are by activity levels. So, this includes all of those object codes, salaries, stuff, benefits. So, teaching activities is teachers and extra extracurricular and that is 56% of the budget. Um teaching support is um librarians, counselors, nurses, par educators. Um other support is utilities, um insurance, a wide swath of things. Central admin is also tricky. It's not just the central office staff. It is uh any supervision. So deans, uh operational supervision, those are the big ones. actually about $3 million of that is is what's called activity 21 which we'll get into during the work session. Um it's mostly operational supervision. Uh it's also has like the Wasipsy and Skyward. We pay 300 grand for that. That's included in that one. And then principal's office
064is everyone in the principal's office. Uh principles, secretaries, the copers that are there. Anything else is coded to activity 23. Um okay. Okay, so that is a really high level view of where we're at now, what we're looking to see next year. Um, here's a graphic representation of what that will look like. We're going to use the same graph. I want to have some um continuity in how we're viewing our data. And so here's a breakdown of those um object codes, those big buckets, and where we project the ending fund balance to be. This is still early in our budget season. We've done a lot of work since January on this, but it'll be refined as we learn more from the federal government as some other things shake out from the state level. Um, we
065talked before how we lost that OSSI grant. We don't know what that looks like, if that's totally gone or they come back with a smidge of it. We want to account for all of those changes. Uh, so once we know, we'll update it and you'll know next. That was a lot of information. What questions do you have for me? I'll jump in. I mean honestly it when you're going through all of this it is complex and it is a lot of information and I think that you know there as much as we try to simplify things down and I really appreciate you going through all of that and your cake chart and all of that it is very complex and we're talking about restricted funds restricted dollars we're talking about the fact that this is
066a peopleheavy business and then the emotional aspect of that is that if we are in the situation that we're in, we have to let people go and and that's very complicated. Um, I appreciate all of the reports. I appreciate the hard work that everybody in the school district is doing to give us actual real numbers um and to get to the bottom of where those land so that we can make better decisions. Everyone can make better informed decisions on how that is. I also really appreciate that you're prioritizing vendors, local vendors, because I do think and it's something that's been really hard as a board member. We have a credibility issue and we need to be paying the people that have given us services and the only way we're going to be able to rebuild,
067you know, public trust is to be prioritizing that and letting them know whether it's a payment plan or whatever it is that we have to do um to get us back on track. so complex because we're also looking at as the superintendent said shifting sands of state and federal dollars that we're not exactly sure where that's going to come in at. So, um I don't know if I really have qu I'll have questions as this goes along. I I just very much appreciate getting down to some real numbers to deal with and um there's always going I think that um there will never be a lack of a need to help educate everyone in our school system and in our community of how these dollars are used and and why some things can only be
068used for certain things and you can't just take something out of a pot and and pay another thing. So um I guess that's just I appreciate the work that you're doing very much and I appreciate the report of course. Yeah. Similarly, I really appreciate the detail and I know it can get a little deep. Sure. And maybe start flying overheads, but I think we need that that provides that transparency. Yeah. To say why are we doing this? This isn't just arbitrary. And I appreciate you breaking down here's where it comes from, here's where it goes. And and really give that picture. And I think it's important. I appreciate you do that every single time. And I think it's important to keep doing that. And for for those people that have deeper questions, I know that
069they've contacted you before and you answer those questions. Yeah. I'm I've have a 8 19 year history of talking to community members and board members about it. It is a complicated um document and process and I'm happy to walk anyone through if they have questions. Yeah. I think transparency is is the key and so I'm happy to do it. Yeah. And I appreciate that. And I just want to say we're we're not hiding this process. We're being very out there. And if if you want more details, if you're that person that wants more, I know you are available to ask those questions. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Of course. Uh, two super short questions. Um, just to get us completely out of the weeds with us and the public and everybody else. We're paying
070all of our bills now, correct? Yeah. I I wanted to say that. Yes. Um, I have spoken to hundreds of our vendors and in local and non-local and um, when I walk through where we're at and what we're doing and what we're committed to and it was actually really helpful to me because I didn't know what this vendor did for the school district and then so I would go talk to that director or department head. What is people doing for us? How's that work for us? And so I've had some really open conversations with the vendors and they've had a ton of empathy for us and have really been on our side which is um been really valuable to me and another I think Feather and Shelton's cap about how everyone's kind of in this
071together and so yes we have either payment plans with everybody or or and we're getting caught up for sure. Okay. And then can I jump in on that one? Yeah. So um it is really embarrassing when we can't pay the bills. when I got here, when you have nothing but restricted dollars in your general fund, you can't use those dollars to pay some of those bills. Those are some of the first phone calls I got and I can't go back and know how long. We do know this is preceding that practice of holding on to bills and not paying them because you didn't move that debt into the next fiscal year. So, the sense of urgency of paying it obviously gets diminished when it's not even on the on the books. So it's something that
072I think is important for this community here that we that is what we've had to un to dig in to find out what happened in the past so that we can turn around and own that we can't the unfortunate side what also coupled with that is I know we keep going over it the expenses are outpacing the revenue which made that situation worse when you have that the only monies that you had on the books was restricted dollars. So, we don't have we have we had $4 million in liabilities. We're able to pull down two two million of liabilities as you can see on the in this presentation. But that's why taking swift action now to get there because we still can't pay everybody right on time and we won't be able to do that
073for a while. And that's the part of prioritizing who gets paid when as the revenue comes in and we still have to meet all of our general operating expenses. So I'm just trying to be really super transparent on that. I don't want trying to explain some of these complexities and I appreciate that but is still not enough revenue to actually pay down all those things. Um and so that why some of our bigger vendors as we've noted whether that's the PUD or the colleges or ESD we have to make because those bills keep coming in the expenses are over a million as you have debt with them and you have current ongoing expenses. Um the need is to get we have payment plans with them and so that we can pay down towards those. Um
074and that's a really unfortunate um situation. I I monitored that accounts payable. I have for years. So that's what I I pushed to him about some of the priorities that we have to do to operate because there are times when we have a vendor that does need to pay at the same time of making payroll because the aortionment's really low that month. And I think the public doesn't understand the state does not pay us the same amount every month. So when it's low and payroll is there, payroll just takes everything. Yeah. And this month in June, there's a portionment delay for a portion of it as well. So we won't receive that revenue until July, which is already a high month anyway. So, it's not super helpful for them to do that. That is a
075a mechanism of legislative action and them having to balance their their year. But, um, that stuff happens all the time outside of our control. Now, we're going to get less revenue than we initially forecasted, you know, three months ago. So, and I guess the last kind of basic question is with with everything going on, the the plans that you have, it it all makes sense, but just to verify the there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. I mean, I'm a fan of a plan and we have a rock-solid plan. We've been moving through that plan. It's been difficult and um heart-wrenching. I mean, I don't I don't enjoy spending a day having to call 50 vendors about how we're behind in their payments. That doesn't feel good probably personally, I would
076imagine, and it doesn't feel good at work either. And so, we are moving through a plan and it Yes, definitely. So, what that looks like for um next year is ending the year with a $1 half million fund balance. And again, that's conservative. It could it could be higher than that. Um it probably should be higher than that based on what we're what we're doing. Um, but I want to have conservative revenue figures and higher expense figures to have a buffer to make sure we're okay. And then the year after that, we'll build that up fund balance up again. We can loosen our belts a little. And then once we get to the minimum fund balance, the that is board policy, then we can spend the $85 million that are coming in. Right now, we
077just can't do that. And then we'll get back to what would kind of be status quo. We'll have a healthy fund balance and then we can spend the money coming in. And that's really the goal. in I mean because the the real goal is to have the minimum fund balance policy and then spend today's money on today's kids. We're aren't able to to do that right now because of these liabilities in in the combin conversations with your other kind of financial big green guys. Um do you think that the the cuts from the state and the fed resources are you think we're pretty close on those? Do we not have any real clue? Um we are all going off the same information, right? we get title one allocations, other other things may come up. Um,
078but right now that proposed 70% cut is what we're all working off of right now. The other one that is we talked about before was how special education has shifted how they're funded. We told you that last meeting and so they lowered the threshold to like the state safety net. And last year we received probably $600,000 of safety net. This year that'll be $300,000 of safety net. And next year it'll be like $150,000 safety net. So we don't have that same trend of reduction in cost for sped, but those dollars are just going away because of the mechanism of legislative action and what's happened at the federal level. So we're as crystal ball and accurate as we can be based on the information we have, right? We all are, I think this year, you'll see
079across the state much more conservative budgets than in previous years for sure. Yes, ma'am. and then move us backwards because my question is back to the levy dollar. Yeah. Can I get some examples of basic education enhancements and what what those look like or maybe just some general examples of things that Sure. we really need this funding for. Yeah. We've talked a handful of times of how we're on the average we receive average salary dollars for each teacher and that average is around $78,000. But the average teacher in Shelton costs over 90. So that difference is actually made up by the levy. And that's true for every staff member. What that's basic funded um principles, classified staff, um like IPD was two and a half% this this year. That generated for our par staff $10,000,
080right? That's how much money actually came in as new money for them. But to give them all IPD is $100,000 because our needs are greater than what OSPI's formulas are driving into our district. It's not only so that difference is also in the basic education enhancements. Yeah. And it's not just an enhancement for the the salaries, but it's also um as they proportionately what the positions they fund. So security is like always a really good example. So the state funds I think about one security personnel for every 5,500 students. So we have more than one security personnel here. Yeah. And so if that you know the levy backfills Yes. those other additional positions. Um that happens usually in nursing for example. Um uh uh sometimes counseling definitely mental health. Mental health has nothing. They don't
081fund that. So some of those dollars are also support um those positions as well. Yeah, we do try to leverage the grant dollars that come in um those cate categorical dollars that come in from the federal government or if we go out and and seek more grant dollars. But as we spoke about, we're given a million dollars a reduction in federal dollars. So there's more we can only spend this dollar one time and what seems to be happening to us is we're forced to spend the same dollar multiple times, right? Yeah. I I had another quick question just because it's coming to mind as we're talking about prioritizing like the community colleges the colleges because we've got more students. I don't know if there's been an increase in students that are doing running start and
082that's obviously not something that we can predict each year either until you just know who's signed up to do that, right? And then they get the dollars for the student versus them being on. Yeah, it's really a flow through. um those dollars come in from the state and then we get an invoice from them and then it flows to those colleges. Yeah. And and you're right, we don't know we we do try to forecast based on trends. I will say that um the COVID closure really upended everyone's trend data. I mean I could I could forecast enrollment pretty accurately before that and I think it might be another three or four years before we can do it again super accurately. And so right now we we do try to forecast as accurately as we can
083what that running chart number will be. But we we don't know until the kids sign up for it, right? I'd be curious just to see how much that did grow because I would imagine that, you know, once everyone went to virtual learning there. I know many students do, you know, the online Yeah. running start. And so then that is there's more kids that are more comfortable doing that and taking advantage of it, which is great to get the college credit, but that is another dollar that's that is that we have to factor out. So yeah, that's right. That is a huge loss, right? So that's around $18,000 per student. If you're already planning your budget on that, two years ago was the was a big uptick in the number of students for Running Start. We
084can bring back some numbers as part of even in that work session for us. Yeah. To just have let you know where we're exactly at. Yeah. And and I'm not saying that's a it's a bad thing. It's just having to account for that. Yeah. I think it's a great opportunity for I wish my kids did it actually. So, anybody else? I really appreciate you bringing us something that's easy to read, see, understand. It's Sure. Thank you. Yeah. If you have questions, let me know. Happy to happy to help. Always happy to help. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now on to item number six, the consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to take a look at that? I motion to approve this evening's consent agenda. I second. All in favor? I. Okay. On to item
085number seven, discussion and action items. Uh 7.01 will be the proposed revised policy 3242, the closed campus. Chelsea Brady. This be the second reading. Recommend approval. Yes. Good evening, board president, members of the board, superintendent Jesse. Um, as you just stated, this is a second reading for uh board policy 3242, closed campus. This is really just a revision or an update. It's a very short policy. Um, and it's just to bring us closer to current practices and allow some flexibility for schools to have some autonomy and be able to put some things in place specifically for those high school 11th and 12th grade students. It was a good short policy. I went on to look for page two and there wasn't one. It wasn't there. Anybody have any questions about it? I would take a
086motion. I motion to approve proposed revised policy number 3242 closed campus. I'll second. All in favor? I. And it passes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. On to 7.02. The superintendent's evaluation. superintendent this year was evaluated on uh the following criteria. Student outcomes, fiscal management, and communication. Uh while we can't go into the entire evaluation here, um you can do a public records request under RCW42.56 and you can get a redacted version of that. Um is there any discussion and do we want to move forward with anything? Is there any is there any discussion and do we want to move forward with anything at this time? I think that because the the RCW for this has changed this year. So if you're seeing some confusion on all of us as board members in order to be
087transparent on that in previous times um there really was no discussion and it's still a personnel report and it is still confidential. We looked those things up as we're trying to manage exactly how we discuss um an employees evaluation in public. And so yes, like Matt said, we were evaluating the criteria on that. Um we did, as we are perfectly capable of doing, having these discussions in executive session because they are personal or personnel and confidential. and we spent quite a bit of time last night going through all of the aspects of of this. So, um I think we have spelled that out and that will be given to Wyth to take a look at and also moving forward. I think that we will have a number of things that we're going to be jointly
088working on. I don't know if there's other discussion items or anything that you'd like to add. No, except I think again I want to highlight we can't just give that to the public. If you want it, what's that? RCW RCW42.56. You can request that and you can get a copy of that. Um I think we we see an opportunity ahead hearing from teachers, hearing from district for new collaboration. I guess that's what I'd say. I think I'm hopeful that we can see um yeah, a higher level of morale next year at this time. So, and and in there there's a lot to be said about what is going really well in this district. I'm one of the newer board members. I got to tour the schools, got to see the implementation of some of the
089new practices. Those are really good and they can be lost in the challenges. And so, so we've done our best. We spent a lot of time yesterday. We take it very very seriously. Just because we can't tell you the details doesn't mean it wasn't taken seriously. So, uh we heard what was being said. Um our solution was that anonymous survey that only 25% of the people took, but since then I've heard it's because they were afraid for retaliation for taking it. So that was our first step. Um, and more to come. We did hear you. Well, and also I think a big component of this is what we've been talking about tonight with our budget update and seeing very clearly where we're at as a school district. You know, this is something that the board
090and the superintendent have to take ownership for is the position where we're at. We're in binding conditions. We are in a financial situation that um that we all that is difficult and that we all have to dig in and do the hard work to get out of. So I think that that is also a very large component of this um as well. But there are a lot of wonderful things that are going on in our school district that our superintendent has been directly involved in guiding and we do thank you very much for all of that. So at or yeah, do do I hear a motion to accept the evaluation as written finally by James D based on all of our notes and conversations last night? I'll make the motion. Thank you. I'm not going
091to repeat all that. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I I get that to you. The law's pretty unclear this year. They did rewrite a lot of it as far as what we can and can't do. Uh we're still feeling all of that out and our attorney actually didn't get back to us in time to answer a couple of key questions. So that's where we're at right now. Thank you. With that, we'll move on to item number eight, board comments. We'll start on the end with Mr. Dale. I don't think I have too many except um again there are a lot of challenges facing this district. Um it's a unique position to be on the board and to work and there are things you just can't communicate and and so I I I guess
092I would encourage people to if you can keep communicating, keep asking questions, but also don't always assume the worst. There is there is work to be done and there's a lot of work to be done, but there's so many great things happening in this school district and a lot of people working really hard. I think I think the best is ahead. Um there will be free food at Shelton High and Mountain View um for during the summer for kids 18 and under. So if you you're in need or know anybody that's in need, please let them know. Good evening everyone. Thanks for being here with us. Scores are up and gaps are closed through the aligned curriculum and I but I want teachers to feel valued for their expertise, experience and interest that they bring
093to the classroom. I hope in the upcoming school year solutions can be found to encourage feedback as part of continuous improvement as teachers become the experts of navigating both the requirements of the lesson plan and classroom management. It is my hope that the continued collaborative efforts of aligning classroom expectations and removing inappropriate cell phone use from the classroom will continue to foster a safe and welcoming environment. I appreciate the voices that came out to speak last week, especially the union coming out and providing their collective voice on behalf of the teachers. I'd like to encourage staff to participate in any surveys sent on behalf of the school board to make sure we can address the needs of our staff and promote a collaborative work environment for a positive learning community. Thank you, Director Davidson. Yeah,
094I want to thank everybody for coming to the meeting tonight and I really appreciate your daughter getting up and being the very first public comment and and that I feel like comes to the heart of some of what we are dealing in our school district right now because the reality is I want that little girl to have all of the opportunities that that we've been able to give. And you know, that's where I know that we're going to have to find a way, and I know we've got wonderful people working for the school district that are going to try to find a way to give those library experiences and not have that go away. Um, it it truly is a heavy burden to feel the people part of this business because you don't get a
095chance to just cut off something that that doesn't affect somebody's life. And it not only affects the employee but it affects the students that feel that impact. And the last board meeting was um was a turning point for me and you know for me personally to really know and to realize I am going to be here for at least two more years that I don't I'm not up for election. Um, and I want to dig deep and get and do the hard work and listen and have the hard conversations. And I we have a wonderful community. I've lived here. I went to high school here. I went to Mountain View Elementary myself. Um, you know, we have a wonderful community that finds ways to come together. And I think we have to remember what our
096common goal is. And it's those students and it's the opportunities that we can provide. And we need to come to this with a mindset of wanting to work together. Even if you don't like me as a board member or you don't like somebody in the school district, let's find a way to have that conversation to get through the barrier to to do what the common goal is, which is to provide these these opportunities for our students, for all of our students. And um I've done a lot of really hard thinking since that last meeting. And that that really has been important to me. I also do very much want to say that it's difficult when people stand up or online go through personal attacks or they're very disrespectful. We are still human beings and we
097have feelings too and our children see these things and our community's children see our behavior. And I think we can all do better with that. And and just have we can have respectful difficult conversations and and I think we can all work on this to have this all get better. And I guess that's what I want to leave it with tonight. Um first of all, I apologize for missing the last meeting. Um it u I I watched the the video of it and it was it was very difficult. Um I saw a lot of things that that really bothered me in there. Um and I I kind of want to remind everybody that I I know you know they you hear you know replace the board or replace superintendent, replace whatever, but one of the
098things that that people fail to realize is a we're up here for free. Um, but currently two out of the three positions that are up for election are running unopposed. So for all of the arguing uh and and being upset that we're not doing the job you want, um, nobody ran against us. And so if you want that voice, you're going to need to step up. It's an elected position. We're, you know, and and it is it is an unpaid position. some of the things that came out um you know about the budget and and about placing blame and things like that. A couple of things that I really want to point out is, you know, the the I was able to make some phone calls to to people around town and and because I
099live here and I know folks, we stopped paying bills as far as anybody can tell back in 2018, long before any of the people here um were were doing this. And the people here now figured it out and stopped it. And I have no idea how deep a hole we would be in if they didn't. So, I understand the pain, but at the same time, the the corrections have been made and we are moving forward. I I heard a lot from teachers and I I dug into student outcomes over time and I I get that everybody wants to have autonomy and do their own thing, but just like playing any sport or going into the weight room, those first couple of weeks hurt and and we make changes and we do things differently. our school
100abilities and and outcomes took a dive starting in 2014. That's as far back as I could go. And they dipped every year down to 2022. And they've gone up every year since then. That was a change in leadership in the district. And again, I I feel bad that anybody feels bad, but I can tell you that the outcomes are are kid-entric. I can tell you that I care 100% for the kids in this district. When I showed up one day to drop my kid off, I ended up coaching football for 5 years. When we couldn't find a bus, I went and I took bus driver lessons and I got my CDL and and worked towards that. when we didn't have a fifth grade camp guy. I I didn't even have a kid in fifth grade,
101but they knew that they could call me. I mean, this is this is all kid- centric. And I feel bad that teachers don't feel like they can speak out or they feel like they're hurt. I want to remind you that um if you don't feel like you can uh speak out, you are protected by the whistleblower protection act. Uh that's in uh the the US Department of Labor and OSHA. Um, there's also a whack that covers it. Uh, it's actually RCW42. Also, I heard from people that were upset about children being abusive or or hurting students. There's no place for that here. And I understand that. Absolutely understand that. And any teacher that's been hurt, I can't apologize enough. And and I if it were up to me, and I know people don't hesitate to
102call me, I've had to pick my children up several times, take them home. I would love to be able to do that. However, we're bound by whack 28A600.20 or 020 through 6 or 460, uh 320, 210, 211, 090. I mean there the list is long on the things that we have to deal with in in attendance and and discipline and all of those things. We need to work together on that. Um this does need to be collaborative. I I also heard that, you know, it would be nice if the the school board could come into the classrooms and and take a look around and see what's going on, but there's problems with that also. We, you know, we would have to get fingerprinted. There'd have to be policy change. there'd have to be things that
103went on. And the last time a a school board member went out into the school, we got complaints about the school board member going out in the school. So, you know, I understand, but we all need to get on the same page. And and that's been a continued problem. I want to hear from teachers individually. I want to hear from the union individually. I want to hear from the leaders individually. One of the things that needs to stop and I'm sorry if we have made it so that you didn't feel like you could but when you lo use a proxy to come up and talk to us and they give us halftruths technically corrects or outright lies it makes us very difficult to have any articulate decision or or be able to take things seriously
104when they come from folks like that. Um, again, that was a that was a rough rough meeting to watch. I wish I would have been here. Um, it it killed me to see the way this board was treated and I'm sorry to you guys that I missed it. Um, I'm going to leave it there. With that, there's no executive session. So, what I hear uh the lady with ESL. I forgot your name. I'm sorry. Um Paula, I have experience being in the schools. I'm with the Lions and we do vision and hearing screening and um the so the last three years I've done it and each year I notice an improvement in the children and last year there didn't need any interpreters to follow them through the procedure. So to me that says it's working
105and that was at all the schools not just evergreen. It was Borderaux all around. Um previous years many kids had to have interpreters follow them through the whole process. So I know something's working. So kudos. I guess I'd like to add to I do appreciate what Matt's saying. Um some of the some of the tenor wasn't maybe the best, but I am so thankful for every single teacher that got up there last week and I would encourage our teachers to keep doing that. We can't know if you don't communicate and I I just so thankful. That was a useful two and a half hours. So, thank you very much. Again, there's great things going on. We're we're going uphill. Things are are looking better all the time, despite what some people might try to tell
106you. Um, again, motion to adjurnn. I move that we adjourn. I'll second. All in favor? I I