001Hi. At six o'clock, if we could stand up for the pledge of allegiance. Okay. Has everybody had a chance to look at the agenda? I move that we approve the agenda. I second the motion. All in favor? I Okay. Item number three, superintendent's report. Mr. Jesse. Thank you, board president Wheelander, other board directors, student representative, staff, community members, and students. Uh, I'll start off uh with the celebration from Bordeaux Elementary. So, last Friday they had a writing celebration uh across the school. It was a really wonderful event. Super warm, inviting. There were a lot of parents and guardians there as well. Staff were going through being able to see some of their colleagues and the wonderful work really it is that the staff were doing with the students that's really about the learning here part
002of our high quality literacy movement. Um I was able to read on with uh first and second graders. Um very touching opportunities to um when they were sharing their writing. Some were very reluctant to share them with me, but when they were able to hold over uh hand over their writing to me and I was able to read it out loud, that's when um I think sometimes the magic happens of really sharing the learning that our students have and really just the love of literacy. So, it's not always just about writing something perfect or having perfect grammar. I think that's a lot of times the misconception of what writing is all about, but it's really about being able to learn how to communicate and build their skills. So, uh I really enjoy that. Thank you
003so much uh for the staff at Bordeaux uh for inviting uh me over and being able to share those moments um inside their classrooms. That was very touching. And um I was there this morning and so they told me I was going to get some more invites to be able to go back to Bordeaux um and for some more uh celebrations for student learning and then of course the work of our staff uh with their students and all the wonderful skills they're developing. Uh I just want to do a quick plug. Uh we have one of our programs is open doors. It's at choice. Um we've done a number of things to grow that program over last year and into this year. It's really about a lot of times our students are deficient in uh
004credits. It's an opportunity to really kind of meet them. They kind of need an alternative way of connecting with schools. And so Open Doors continues to expand. We have a number of students going there. Um we're already projecting more students to attend next year. Um, so I just really um want to recognize the the staff at Open Doors and just really get out in the public that we have multiple ways to help your student when they are in high school and they need to get through whether that's getting a GD, additional additional uh credits for graduation or of course experiences out in our community in all the forms that um we have available. So um shout out to Open Doors Choice uh Middle High School. Um, and then my last re uh part is recognizing
005a staff member. Think back to October 1982. Now, some I can see some people are like, I was born after that. Um, so October 1982 was when Tammy Ford, our payroll manager, started here in the Shelton School District. Tammy is an SHS grad. She went on to WSU and came back and has worked a number of positions. Um, also the front office at a couple of our schools, but she's been the payroll manager for a long time. And Tammy is going to retire this month after 42 plus years with the school district. I don't usually do a ton of huge recognitions for staff members, but I can tell you since I've been in this district, Tammy Ford is one of those people that you look at and you go, "Wow, she is a professional. She's
006really inspiring." She just I was talking to her this week. I think she was trying to let on. She goes, "I got Tammy, you're going to be gone. Like, you're going to retire." Like, she's like, "I know. I just don't know. I'm gonna have to set my alarm when I get up." And I was like, "Okay." She's like, "Well, it's just going to be kind of weird." like I've never been away for work for more than seven se consecutive work days. I was like what? So if you know Tammy Ford uh you know that that is absolutely true. Uh she is an ardent worker. She loves um the Shelton school district in our community. She's very special. She's something that makes this place really special. Um she's an inspiration for me and I think many
007others. So, if you get a chance, uh, send an email or a recognition to Tammy Ford. This is her last week with the Shelton School District. So, with that, thank you very much. Thank you. And yeah, not having Tammy around will be weird. Um, literally my entire life there's been Tammy Ford. Okay. Uh, on to community comments. As part of the regular school board meeting, uh, the board welcomes community members to make public comments in person andor by phone as conditions allow. Please follow the full script with call-in instructions and guidelines for community comments displayed on the screen above. And first up is Paula Kennedy. Good evening. So I come to you as principal of Evergreen Elementary and I just want to give you a little bit of information about an acceleration team that we
008started back in November. We did three sessions and it was to accelerate learning and reading. And so we have served 35 students over this um since November and several of them are here to share with you. But we couldn't have done this without these three teachers behind me. Melissa Loth was definitely leading um and she was is a third grade teacher at Evergreen and was our lead. We have Lillian Maten Judic and she is a second grade teacher and she was leading the second grade sessions and we have Calvin Silva who joined us in the winter sessions and um was doing third grade support as well. So we the growth that we showed through this was four to seven levels of reading at times. It was really this opportunity to take foundations of reading and
009bridge that gap into comprehension and the skills of typing to actually make it all come together so that they can produce their writing and have it make sense and make it fun. So I have here my friend Stephanie Steph Stephanie Hernandez. She's in third grade and she's going to tell you a little bit about what she does. Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Stephanie Hernandez. I am 9 years old and I'm a third grader at Evergreen Elementary. The afterchool acceleration program has helped me by learning how to improve my reading and typing skills. My favorite part was reading The Kingdom of Renley and writing our predictions about what would happen next in our journals. I had so much fun during this program and I'm very thankful for all the teachers and staff who helped me
010with my growth during this program. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you very much. No, thank you. Calvin Silva. Uh so, uh my name is Calvin Silva. I'm a second grade teacher at Evergreen. Uh I just wanted to add a little bit of educator input to the acceleration team. Uh, I've saw not only growth in my kids, but I also saw more passion and a lot more outcomes from them. So, like they were they were writing a lot more. It was longer. It was more in depth. Uh, so I found it really valuable for my kids. Uh, and I know they're a lot more excited with the upcoming units and a lot more writing they want to do. Uh because now they're just sad whenever we have to stop doing writing because then they're just like why
011why do we have to go to lunch? I want to keep writing. Uh so I just wanna to to add that to it. So thank you. Thank you. I apologize for the name up front. Uh Yar. Thank you. Hi, my name is Yahida and my daughter is a third grader at Evergreen and she was also part of the acceleration um program that they had and I just wanted to add that this has helped her a lot. Um when I started hearing about that budget cuts, my first question to the principal was, are you getting rid of this program because I was afraid that she was going to go back to where she was before? And she's very excited that she went from I think level J to level Q. um she goes home, she brings
012books, she reads. Um and like I said, I'm really excited um that they kept up with the program and it's just really helping the kids a lot and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, [Applause] Kina and Jessica Park. Hello, my name is Jessica Park and um I just want to say Can you get closer to the mic, please? My name is Jessica Park and I just wanted to say that um being a single mom um it this program has really helped my daughter um succeed and she loves it and um you know she growing a friendships and stuff like that at school with the teachers as well has really made her a better kid I think. So do you want to say something? You want to tell them your grade levels that you
013your reading levels? Um, I was a level K and I growed all the way to P. So, I'm really thankful for the after school program. Thank you, Nyla and Heather McCabe. Hi, I'm Heather McCabe. I'm here with my daughter Nyla. She's a third grade student at Evergreen. Um I'm going to let her do most of the talking, but I just wanted to say that um she started this program at a level K and she's now up to a level P. Not only has she improved her reading skills, um, her confidence, she's more outgoing, she's made a lot of friends, and she's excited to tell us what she's reading. She's showing me constantly how many pages she's read every day. Hi, my name is Nyla. I am in the after school program. The after school program
014has helped me with getting more learning. And the reason I'm here is because I'm so close passing my level. I was really happy when I saw Mrs. that Mrs. Aostto was my teacher and I was happy when Mrs. Los was my teacher in after school program. I love I really love it. Also the after school program has helped me by reading, writing and typing. Mrs. cloth will read with you and you will write in your notebooks. I'm in typing on computers. I am typing on the computers. I have some friends in after school program. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Kelsey Barnes. Hi, my name is Kelsey Barnes. Um, I'm reading this letter on behalf of a friend and co-orker who can't be here tonight. um to the Shelton School District Board Superintendent and whomever
015else this may concern. I've known Mr. Goodell since he was my history teacher in 11th grade. Since 2019, he has also been my supervisor as the dean of students at Evergreen Elementary. In that time, I have seen him make great connections with many students, staff, parents, and community members from different backgrounds and cultures. He has shown positivity and leadership during the most difficult and unprecedented times for our school. For me personally, he has modeled great strength, encouragement, attitude, and perseverance during difficult situations, both as my teacher and then my supervisor. I'm extremely disappointed in the district's decision to admit Mr. Goodell's position at our school. I understand the district's goal to balance our budget, but Mr. Goodell's role is a critical one in our school's positive climate and culture. The relationship that he's built with
016families during his 30 years of service in this district cannot be replaced easily and should not be discarded so flippantly. He's played a vital role in improving our students attendance records. If you could see the joy that students have seeing him each day, you would agree that he is one staff member that should be prot protected at all costs. I would urge you to reconsider this decision and look for other ways to save money while preserving Mr. Goodell's role at our school. Concerned staff member John Paul Lester. Thank you. Thank you. Jennica Linea. Good evening. Greetings, Shelton School District board members, Superintendent Jesse, and members of the Shelton community. My name is Janessa Lynama. I am a co-president of the Shelton EOP representing the office professionals. I am a proud office professional for the district.
017I was born and raised here in Shelton. Many of the office professionals in our district work and live in this community. I am raising my daughters in this beautiful town, an exceptional district. The Shelton Educational Office professionals are the first point of contact for many of our buildings and provide the essential clerical support to facilitate successful operations. Hi, I'm Kim Ragdale. I am the head custodian at MS, president of SCAP, Shelton custodial and maintenance professionals. We are responsible for all the schools and grounds as well as MCTC ASB300 in the district office. We are the staff who replaces toilets, boilers, sprinkler systems, dispensers, broken windows, clean our facilities, set up for graduation, keep us to up to date with the OSHA standards, fire codes, and so much more. We take pride in our schools and
018care about the students, staff, and visitors who come to the district. We want them to feel safe and proud to be here. It's I've got four different entries here, right? So, can we restart so I have my time? Yeah, go ahead. All right. I'm Heather Kowalsski. I was raised in Shelton. I graduated from the Shelton High School and I returned here to raise my five children. My youngest is attending Cedar High School. I've been working for the Shelton School District for almost 10 years as a PAR educator and I'm the president of the Shelton Educational Support Personnel Union representing PAR educators and food service employees. We're the people who feed our children, teach the children who need a little bit more help, supervise and play with them at recess, help them learn proper behavior, and
019at times we bear the brunt of the behavior that crosses the line. It's a hard job that is done with love. [Applause] Eva James. Hello. Uh, I'm Eva James and I have the privilege of serving as the president of Shelton Education Association and the testing coordinator at Shelton High School. I stand before you not only as a representative of our educators, but also a committed member of this community who, like you, wants the best for our students. Like many of my colleagues, I not only work here, this is where I've grown my community, too. My four-year-old son attends the Early Learning Center where he is taught by the incredible educators in that building. Uh the future of Shelton School District matters deeply to me, not just as an employee, but also as a parent who
020wants my son and his classmates to have access to the best education possible. Now, we get past the introductions. Um, we are speaking together because we firmly believe that as we as budget continues continue to be made that we should continue to make them together focused on what is best for our students, our staff, and the success of our schools. This past year has been hard for all of us. We understand tough decisions must be made. With rifts, we've said goodbye to trusted co-workers and friends, and we are bracing for the next round. We ask that in our budget you ensure district leaders prioritize keeping as many of the caring professional staff working with students in our buildings as possible. We do have some hope coming from state lawmakers who have proposed increases in special
021education funding and vital MSOC dollars if this funding boost comes through in the coming months. Uh the right thing to do for students is to bring back staff who may have been cut previously. Because through all the challenges we faced, one thing has remained constant. our unwavering commitment to our students and our schools. Every single day across the district, teachers, parent educators, and support staff show up ready to inspire, to innovate, and to overcome obstacles. We continue to provide the highquality education our students deserve, and our community expects. We build relationships, create safe learning environments, and push students to reach their full potential. Keep going. Um, Shelton students are succeeding. They are engaged in hands-on learning, growing in their confidence, and preparing for bright futures. We are collaborating in new ways, finding creative solutions, and
022working to ensure no child falls through the cracks. When we come together as a community, when we focused on our students and the incredible work happening in our classrooms and schools, we can move forward. The strength of this district is not a budget line, but in the people who line up every day for our kids. So we ask you, our families, our community members, and our district leaders to stand with us, the teachers, educators, and staff. Recognize the hard work being done. Support us in our mission because when we stand together, our students win. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] And then Heather Smith, are you on here separately also? Okay. Very good. Thank you. Uh, Marilyn Aaron. So, um, first I want to start by saying thank you. I don't know if any of the
023students are still here that spoke earlier, but, um, it's very scary to get up here and speak. I still get nervous and I get up almost every board meeting and talk. So kudos to all of you for getting up here to speak. I'm very proud for each and every one of you. So I appreciate the opportunity to address um a couple topics here that warrant our attention and due diligence. Uh while we're on the budget topic this evening, uh did you know that our district is registered to attend the WSPA educator career fair in Spokane, Washington this year? Uh it's imperative to assess how many district representatives are scheduled to attend that. Also, what are the projected expenses for lodging, travel, registration fees, and pdiums? Understanding these details would help to evaluate the ROI for
024this event. Uh that's return on investment just in case anybody's not familiar with verbiage because I wasn't until a few years ago. Considering cost effectiveness and regional engagement, we should explore local alter alternatives. There is one in Tacoma that's scheduled for April 30th at the convention center. This event may offer similar networking opportunities with reduced travel and lodging expenses. Assessing the benefits of attending the Tacoma Fair versus the Spokane event could lead to more prudent fiscal decisions. Just think of the financial savings this can bring to the district office. Superintendent, in light of potential staffing changes, it's also crucial to understand our obligations. What are our policies on rehiring teachers postcontract termination? And if teachers are released during their contracts, are we mandated to rehire them for future openings for which they are qualified? Clarifying
025these policies ensures compliance and informed decision-making regarding personnel management. Board members, it's your fidiciary duty to scrutinize these matters thoroughly. Do not accept explanations at face value. Delve into the specifics, request comprehensive comprehensive documentation, and verify all information. This level of diligence is not just expected. It's required. Remember, as elected officials, we entrust you to fulfill your responsibilities with integrity and rigor. With three board positions up for election this year, I don't know why I got so loud. Sorry. Accountability is paramount. If you are unwilling or unable to perform these duties, it may be time to consider new leadership. Our students, staff, and community deserve nothing less than our unwavering commitment to excellence and transparency. Thank you, William Sullivan. Hi, my name is William Sullivan. Um, I've been working to try and resolve a issue
026with Bordeaux school now for three, four months. I came down here, made big scene, kind of got an investigation started. I believe the superintendent sent some people down to Bordeaux. Um, we had a meeting and that was about three months after the incident. I finally got some correspondence from somebody. Um, now I've been waiting another month because I had to fill out the paperwork to see the bus video. Um, Bordeaux school told me they hadn't seen the video for three months. Um, you're the this sorry the student safety, sorry, the guy that you sent down that's in charge of student safety. Um, he was able to see the video the next day. He was able to just go straight down the bus garage. Boom, boom, boom. They went down and seen it the next day.
027Then they came back to me and tell me, "Oh no, Bordeaux's already disciplined this person. Bordeaux has been telling me they haven't seen this video and they had no knowledge of the information for three months that they lied to me. I'm still waiting. On the 28th of this month, they're finally supposed to finally release the video to me so I can see how traumatic this experience was for my daughter on the bus. The student that attacked her was a fourth grader. She's a first grader. My children are very small, so she's about half the size of the other kids. She had her bass her backpack taken from her, her hair pulled, her glasses taken from her and her glasses mysteriously came back four or five days later and everybody says, "Oh, we don't know what
028happened." That's unacceptable and I shouldn't have to come up here this many times to get transparency from my school. I understand that you have to protect people's um confidentiality and you have to protect the other kids' privacy and stuff, but you are trampling on my rights and you're trampling on my my child's rights to protect other people's rights. And that's what's been happening in this country is we feel that we have to protect people who are in the wrong and it's got to stop. um here just this last week, you know, we're talking about budgets and stuff. Bordeaux sending kids down to the high school on a bus to go see a play or something. Sounds like a pretty good thing to do, right? Well, our taxpaying money pays for Bordeaux school and it pays
029for the high school and it pays for the buses. Why are all the students being told they have to pay $5 per student to go from the middle school to the high school when I already pay for both? So all the kids from all of the grade schools got bust up to the high school. How many kids is that? Because we were supposed to pay the PTSO. How am I as a taxpayer forced to pay a PTO PTSO? And the school's like, "Oh, no, no. The this school's going to get it." And then this school says, "Oh, no, no, we're not getting the money." The PTSO gets money. No, no, the PTSO says, "No, we're not getting the money. We're just accepting it and then we're going to give it to the school." I don't
030know what kind of shenanigans this is, but you cannot bust our children from one of our schools that we pay for over to another one of our schools that we pay for and charge us a fee for on the schools that we pay for. Keep digging into this. Have a good day. [Applause] On to item number five, the uh report from the student board representatives and we'll start with Kaylee Allen. Good evening. Um choice. Okay. Hang on, Kaye. One more. Uh, didn't get their name on the list. She Good evening, uh, parents and the school board. This is kind of adlib, but I'm here to formally propose amendments to our district's harassment, intimidation, and bullying policy to better align with Washington state law and to enhance the safety and well-being of our students. Specifically, I
031recommend that our policy be revised to classify verbal threats such as, "I'm going to kill you," or, "Are you ready to die?" as forms of physical aggression to ensure that such serious threats are addressed with the urgency and severity they warrant. Washington law already provides clear definitions for harassment and threats that should be reflected in district policies. RCW28A300.285 285 defines harassment, intimidation, or bullying, otherwise known as HIB for 3207 policy for Shelton school districts as intentional acts that physically harm a student or damage their property, substantially interfere with a student's education, create an intimidating, threatening or hostile educational environment, and or disrupt the orderly operation. of the school. RCW9A.46.020, which is criminal harassment, states that a person is guilty of harassment if they knowingly threaten to cause bodily injury to another person, placing them in
032reasonable fear that the threat will be carried out. If violating HIV policies does not result in strict and consistent consequences, it fosters a culture where repeat offenders escalate their behavior over time, making schools increasingly unsafe. According to the US Department of Justice, individuals who are not held accountable for aggressive behaviors in school settings are significantly more likely to engage in repeated or more severe forms of violence later in life. The National Center for Education Statistics data shows that schools with weak or inconsistent enforced policies on bullying and threats report higher rates of repeat offenses with bullies being 60% more likely to have a criminal conviction by the age of 24. My proposed amendment is that we revise the definition of physical aggression, update the HIV reporting form, implement training programs, and have stronger consequences to
033pre to prevent recidivism. That's all. [Applause] Thank you. Kaylee Allen from Choice. Good evening everyone. Um, Choice Junior High ended trimester 2 with an educational field trip to the Department of Natural Resources in Olympia, Washington. The stu the students engaged in a hands-on adventure at the Washington Geological Survey before heading off to the Myma Mounds. At the MMA mounds, students investigated their made predictions about their formation. Um, they've also been exploring history and the environment. In trimester 3, students will be figuring out how they can design a sustainable community in Washington state that addresses local environmental challenges. This is a collaborative project between the two junior high school classrooms and incorporates standards from math, science, history, and ELA. At Choice, one of our clubs has started a clothing drive to help fill the family resource
034center with clothing that teenagers will in need will want to wear. They call themselves the cat club in reference to our school mascot, which is also a cat. Their mission is to help better our school community through projects like these. Our advisory classes have each been given a box to fill, and Mr. Brun has so graciously offered an ice cream party as a reward to the class that brings in the most clothes. We also start starting to build a mentorship with Evergreen Elementary School. Currently, we have got a handful of mentors who help walk a kindergarten student to school each morning as his guardian is unable to at the moment due to health complications. We're also starting conversations with Evergreen principal to match some of our students with some of their elementary students for reading
035andor PE and recess. The Pathways program is continuing their study on social media and online safely as well as focusing on community resources that are available to us on their weekly outings. Lastly, the Open Doors program has had three students graduate. One of the students had his first successful genre interview with Sierra Pacific. Additionally, a student was interviewed for a PBS Cascade feature article about Senate Bill 507 aimed at funding barrier reducing resources from open door students. Our students are steadily chipping away at credits to get past the finished line in time for June 6 graduation. Thank you, Alan RmIrez. I do apologize. I'm a little bit sick. So, if I sound weird, that's why. Uh, so yeah. So, we were starting a new trimester and this uh this new tribe, we decided to do
036culture day a little bit differently. Instead of having students go around the whole school going to different classrooms and doing different activities in those classrooms, we've decided to instead keep the students to their own advisories and it was a smash hit. We had some really the juniors had a lot of fun. The freshman had a lot of fun. Sophomores also did. Seniors were well they were seniors so they also had a lot of fun together. And uh we were also uh upcoming as conferences in one week next week. Yeah, next week is conferences and the staff have been have collaborated with students to uh organize a family barbecue on Wednesday of that of conference week just to sort of sort of bring the community a little bit closer together. So if any of you are
037down to um come over to Cedar on Wednesday, we like to make that invitation. Uh yeah, next week on Wednesday. Uh for our conferences, we also have each individual student is making their own version of a high school and beyond plan. This includes all students from freshman all the way up to including seniors, even though they have theirs done already. So, we're just excited to see how all of these presentations turn out. We also have one new student who has been assimilating well into our into Cedar Culture. and the junior class. I'd like to give them a special shout out. I might be a bit biased, but I think we've been doing a lot of good work to try to keep Cedar Culture afloat amongst a lot of these unknowns that the entire district really
038is going through at the moment. And we also had an entire day dedicated to celebrating our amazing seniors. We got to enjoy their high school and beyond plans and uh sequentially while enjoying some popcorn, some cookies. It was a very nice day. Good to see uh these seniors graduating and I'm excited to see what the uh today this year's junior class will do once they're seniors. Thank you. Okay. Item 5.02, the OSPI asset preservation program, uh annual condition update for Evergreen Elementary and Olympic Middle School. Mr. Robert Herren. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and vice chair and esteemed board members and student representatives. Thank you for seeing me here this evening to bring you our annual bureaucratic requirement that uh so every year we have uh under the when we received funding for the construction of
039Evergreen and Olympic Middle School, the state required us to join their asset preservation program which has a annual requirement function for reporting. And so by the end of March every year I have to submit send to a report which provides a building condition assessment which is uh a long list of goes through all the different uh facets and parts of a building. And so we do our assessment under their definitions of what the condition of those two buildings are. And so as a part of that requirement they ask for uh school districts to provide that information to the school board. So you know what is being sent to OSPI for its annual condition and so that is what was provided for you in your board packet. It requires no action. Uh it is just a
040report and so uh that is that is the current condition as our assessment based on the information that they require. So the biggest change that happened is we had to remove most of the components uh into the fair category for because their definition after a building is 20 years old that it cannot qualify for being above fair unless those components have been replaced or significantly upgraded. And so uh MS and Evergreen are in pretty good condition. They're now 22 and 23 years old which is hard to believe that the time has passed. They're in their final third of their life for a 30-year building span for what the state defines for the life of a building. And so, uh, we're pretty happy with their condition. And of course, with additional capital funds over the next
041few years, we could keep those buildings in in good shape for many years to come. Stand for any questions. Okay. Thank you. Uh, any questions? Okay. Thank you for your diligent work on this each year. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Uh 5.03. Yeah. Uh budget status update. Uh Clinton, chairman. Uh good evening board. Uh I wanted to walk through a quick overview of where the budget currently is at, what we're projecting, uh how some of these numbers are generated through the prototypical school funding formula that comes from aortionment. And we'll talk about efforts we've made this year to end our um with our fund balance being in a positive. So this is a graph you've kind of seen before. It is walking through our revenues and our expenses. is the revenues of the
042blue line. Those those giant peaks that look like outliers of revenue collection are outliers. That's when the local levy dollars are collected uh in the spring and in the fall. And so that's why those those big spikes there. Um that bottom one is our fund balance. And as we ended the year in a deficit uh the end of August, um we realized we some changes had to be made and made a bunch of reductions. And what that's forecasting out is a positive fund balance at the end of the year of about 333,000 which is not a lot of dollars. Uh we we know that needs to be about 4% of our budget. So it needs to be in the millions. Um it's not it's not a lot of cushion, but that's where we're at now
043as we project out throughout the rest of this year. I'll take questions as you have them as well. Great. I updated this slide and this is um kind of a complicated slide but I wanted to walk through as students are the generators of all of the funding and all the staffing levels. Uh what this um table is showing is how many students are necessary to generate one staffing unit of a specific position. And so you have uh a custodian at the elementary level needs 241 students, but a sa a safety or stu a safety or security officer would need 5,000 students at that same elementary school to generate one FTE. Right? So those are the outliers um on the table. This will be up for folks to take a look at, but this is what's
044driven from the aortionment um from the protypical school funding formulas. These are all formula driven. the student FTEE 832 kids at um Oakland Bay Junior High would be necessary to generate one librarian. Right? So if you take those dollar take these factors and turn them into what we're actually being allocated and then what we're actually staffing our levels at, that's what this table is showing you. And then what the variance is in actual dollars between what we're paying for our staff and what the state's giving for our staff. Does that make sense? Great. And so what that does is it generates a negative of 5.5 million um in in just salaries. Not talking about the different M socks we've made cuts in the last couple of years. Even before I got here, there was a
045real uh effort to reduce those material supplies and operating costs to kind of cut the fat away as people used to say. And this is happening um as you'd expect across each position in different ways, right? We know that classroom teachers, we get paid 78 79,000 for each teacher. In Shelton High School, we value high educated, high experienced teachers. Those cost more on the salary schedule. That's around 90,000. So you take that out. You calculate that out and it's negative 2.3 million. The other the thing that's really important about this table is that this is only talking about basic ed funded and basic ed account coded coded staff. So, the classroom teachers, we really have way more than 166 teachers that were funded for uh even the 165, this is not including um special education,
046CTE, Title One, Lap, any of those categorical programs, just the 01 dollars are what's represented in this table. Okay, great. So, that difference of five and a half million we've talked about as well. We tried to create um kind of easier to digest infographic about where a levy dollar goes. And so 47% uh 47 cents of each levy dollar goes to those basic education enhancements which is mostly salaries. 19 cents go to athletics which are wouldn't exist without the levy of course. Uh special education's never been funded fully by the state or the federal government. and facility operations. We've talked a lot about though about um utilities like um our power, the PUD bill, insurance has gone up by about $400,000 the last couple years. And so those are things that we're feeling personally and
047also things we're seeing at the district level. Uh one thing I wanted to add to this infographic is that for each dollar that a taxpayer chooses to with their yes vote to give to the district, the state gives another quarter. Right? So every dollar is generating 25 cents from the state and what's called levy equalization dollars or local effort assistance. I think that's an um just important thing to understand how that works. Any other questions so far? I think now is when I'm going to pass it over to Tabitha about some reductions that were made this year. So, like Clinton stated, um, basic education is funding is not meeting our needs, um, and hasn't been meeting our needs as inflation has been increasing over the past few years. So, in preparation, um, coming into the
048current school year, um, we made some cuts into our budget. You can see those up there. We've talked about these before. Um, central office staff, we reduced as many non-staffing costs as we could. That's always where we look first. We've limited subs, extra hours, and overtime for classified positions. Um, we've implemented a hiring freeze. All of our administrators and our non-represented staff are taking furlow days. And, um, we've been as creative as we can to move categorical funding to offset basic ed expenses. So, as we move into next year, um, we're really looking at a couple things. So from last year to today uh we've reduced 55 positions in the district. You can see that table on the right hand side there shows um that the bulk of those have been in classified positions um
049that we uh reduced coming into the school year and then during that midyear riff um that we did back in January. So going into next year, um as Clinton pointed out, uh $330,000 is um not sufficient to have in reserves. And so we need to make some additional reductions in order to get there. So that will result um in a reduction in force um in addition to not filling positions um that are vacated for a um multiple reasons. However, our reduction in force, we anticipate will be less than 10 um total staff members, certificated staff members, and it's we're really looking at people um that won't be able to fill any positions that we have available because they have really specialized endorsements. So, again, less than 10 and all of those individuals will be notified
050of that um no later than April 4th. And any individuals that are being displaced, so their position will no longer exist, but they will have a position here, will also be notified um by April 4th of that change. Um and new vacancies will only be filled if essential. We're talking classroom teachers are things that we're going to have to fill, but there could be positions that come open um through like a resignation that we decide that um you know for the 2526 school year that we're not going to fill that position. Um, and through all of this, um, as Superintendent Jesse has said before, we will still have to do some hiring. Um, we always have some positions that need to be filled. We look at specialized positions like special education, multilingual staff. Um, those
051are the types of things that most of our staff are not endorsed to teach. So, when those become vacant, we do have to fill those positions. Um, so you will see we do have positions posted right now and we will be actively recruiting for um some of those positions um in a multitude of ways to make sure that we get the most qualified staff in our district. Do you have any questions about that? All right, I think that's it. Yeah, I've got one I've got one quick question. Yeah, back to the furlows for this last year. Do you have a number on the savings that that represents? Um I don't have a specific um number. We do have that line item somewhere, but I don't remember it off the top of my head. Um you
052know, it's several days for um all of those people. So um those are being taken out on a monthly basis, reduction of a monthly basis. So it's being a a savings over the uh school year. Okay. I think it's like 140. Yeah, that sounds 140. I'm sorry, I missed the beginning. It's 144,000. Perfect. That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Sorry, I missed the word fur. Apologize. Any other questions? Any other Thank you for your very clear graphics and explanations. Appreciate it. Of course. Okay. Thank you. On to item number six, the consent agenda. Has everybody had a chance to look at that? I motion to approve this evening's consent agenda. I second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay. Item number eight, legislative update. Good evening everybody. Um the remaining days of session will
053be mostly focused on reconciliation between the houses um to finalize the operating capital and transportation bud budgets. In order to remain alive, all bills must be out of their opposite house policy committee by Wednesday, April 2nd. Shortly after that on April 8th they need to be out of their fiscal committee and then there will be eight more days Wednesday April 16th before policy cutoff to adopt those bills. So in summary a really quick turnaround on a lot of items and decisions are happening in the next couple weeks. On Tuesday March 18th the economic and revenue forecast council uh released their first update since their uh November forecast. um their prediction put it put it at approximately 844 million below what was projected in the init the initial large forecast. Um it's important to remember that
054um the forecasted revenue for the remainder of 2325 is higher than in November. And uh I put too many math things in here for everybody. Moving on. Um March 18th, the economic and revenue forecast council um oh I'm repeating myself this tonight. It's important to remember that the revenues are still increasing. So both the Senate and the House released budgets in their respective houses yesterday. This is still the proposed budget with the end of session seeing the final agreed upon results um by the April 27th sin and die deadline. uh the farther apart the two proposals are, the more difficult the ne negotiations will be. So far, education funding has remained a priority. Um but now with the big two, with transportation off the table, um there have been changes with uh just the materials,
055supplies, and operational costs remaining and special education funding. On Wednesday the 19th, the House Appropriations Committee held public hearings on both of these remaining bills. Senate Bill 5192 is for material supplies and operating costs, also known as MSOC, and Senate Bill 5263 for special education. They had uh two really important hearings um as last year's significant cuts were made between proposals and final budgets, adding to the big push for these bills to uh succeed this year. I wanted to take a second and highlight Senate Bill 5263, which is the special education bill, since it will benefit our district and students and provide an additional 853.7 million in the 2527 school years and 1 billion in 2729 school years statewide. Once these allocations are made into law as part of basic education, they cannot be cut
056in future budgets. Due to this and the fact that the state is facing a significant budget shortfall, um they may be higher than the legislature is willing to commit, but um we can just keep advocating on microphones. Um I'll provide further updates on any other bills as those budgets get finalized and the final numbers are decided on those two packages. Thank you. Next is board member comments and we'll start on the end. Mr. Dale. Yeah, I want to thank um in particular the Evergreen team that came tonight. Thank you for sharing what's happening there. And to all those students, I think they all went home that got up and spoke on the mic. Thank you very much. I know how much um effort and bravery that takes. Thank you for sharing your education with us.
057That's a really encouraging thing to see. Um, thank you for everybody from the community who showed up tonight. It is encouraging to see so many of you here. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing your heart and I appreciate that a lot. Uh, one more shout out. I got to visit MS about a week and a half and what a remarkable school. It was a blessing to see Mary and that team and all that was going on there. So, appreciate everybody who maybe doesn't get seen every single day. We know you're out there working. Appreciate you all. I as well like the evergreen acceleration. So exciting and thank you for sharing that with us. It's good to have positive feedback. Thank you for your outstanding reports and thank you Lauren for outstanding update. I
058know it takes a lot of your personal time to do this so I really appreciate it. I know. But Thank you everybody who came out tonight to show support for the district and our teachers. I would like to highlight a special thanks to the parents who came to speak um about their experience. It was really really wonderful to see the collaboration between our um community families and teachers as we improve literacy as outlined in our district strategic goals. So, thank you. Thank you for being here with us tonight. I too want to thank everybody for coming tonight. It definitely in the 10 years that I've been on the school board um as a school board member, I want to work together with all of you to make this school district the best place that it
059can be. And I really do appreciate your comments and having you all come up and speak together. I also want to thank the Evergreen team. That was wonderful. And every time I hear something like that, I know that every single school has its own culture and flavor. But if there are things that we can take that are working well and doing well for students, I would love to have those shared across the school so that others can can have that excitement and that enthusiasm. I mean, when people are wanting to stay and write instead of going to lunch, that's that's amazing. I I love seeing the enthusiasm on the kids and really appreciate them getting up and speaking because that's not easy and they all seem to want to do it. So that that was
060wonderful and to have the encouragement from the crowd too was wonderful for them tonight. Um I am also as a school board member on the board of health and there was a meeting today that is always televised um I believe through Mason Web TV and they did if you're curious about something they did a whole thing on on teen substance abuse that are things that you can find at gas stations. Um, it was very enlightening to me, things I was not very much aware of. And that whole presentation is recorded if you're curious about looking at that to just inform and educate yourself on some things that are legal but maybe can be abused. So, I thought it was very informative and wanted to pass that along. I also um am heading up again the
061school board Drake Scholarship this year. So, that has opened up at Shelton High School and I believe the other I think it might just be particular to Shelton High School. I I we'll have to double check on that. But, um there is also Rotary scholarships that have a deadline coming up I think in the next week and many many other scholarships for our graduating seniors. So, if you know someone make sure that they are getting in touch with their schools and getting that information on doing some of these scholarship applications that are out there. And other than that, um, good luck to all of the teachers during conference week. And that's it for me. Uh, a couple things. Um, if you really want to get out and advocate right now for education, uh, contact your
062uh, local uh, congressman. Um, they are spending $600,000 on wolf rehabilitation in the northeast uh, corner of our state. Um they're building hatcheries for just feeding whales. Uh they're doing a bunch of stuff that um frankly we need for books and teaching kids and getting teachers and all this stuff. Um without getting into a political diet tribe, if this is where we want to spend our money, we need to get out and talk to our folks. Um, so, uh, with that, we are coming up on the end of the year. Uh, for most seniors, be your last, uh, last harrah. Um, so don't start slipping now. Make sure you hit all the classes. Do all your homework. Um, don't do anything crazy in the parking lot that's going to get you in trouble. Uh, talk
063to your guidance counselor about scholarships. There's lots of them out there. Um, and Evergreen Promise. and Evergreen Promise. Don't forget Evergreen Promise. That's I love seeing all the posts. Um with that, we've got a bunch of kids taking advantage of it. This a a huge huge deal. Um it's pretty much it for me. Uh with that, we do have an exempt session. Any idea? About 30 minutes and then we're going to come back and adjourn. So, um that's it. Thanks.