Hello.

Welcome. Whoops. Lemme get my microphone here.

Everybody hear me? Here we go. Alright.

Welcome to tonight's wonderful meeting

of the Ashland School Board for, what is the date today?

14th, March 14th, 2024. Hi.

So yeah, what? It's pie

Day. It's pie day.

Alright. Pie day. I should've known that y'all did.

Where's our pie? Alright.

And so let the record show that all five

school board directors are present

and the meeting is officially called to order.

Russell will give our land acknowledgement.

We acknowledge that the sacred land that we,

sorry, can you hear me?

We acknowledge that the sacred land that we live

and learn on today belongs to the Te Kma, Shasta, Modoc,

Klamath and Kla Peoples.

We honor and acknowledge that traditional owners

of the land we now call the United States,

we recognize the Native American people's continuing

connection to the land, place, waters, and community.

We play our pay our respects to their cultures, country

and elders past, present, and emerging.

Thank you. Okay.

So first up on our agenda is adopting the agenda.

So I will take a motion.

I assume everybody has reviewed the agenda.

I move to adopt the agenda. I second. All in favor?

Approved. Thank you. Next we have the approval

of the consent agenda.

So we have a pretty long list

of items on the consent agenda this evening.

Is everybody okay with the consent agenda as presented?

I wanted to pull and talk about IKF,

just had a question about

It.

Sure. Okay. Should we do that first

and then move on with the rest?

Sure. Yeah.

Okay.

So Samuel, I guess this is a question to you

and I'm not seeing Erica,

so I guess it is a question to you.

She was gonna gonna be, am I seeing Erica?

Well, she was gonna be coming in remotely,

but Okay. Maybe not yet.

So I'm just curious and I, I know you've talked about it,

but I I I, I don't really remember,

and it would be just helpful for me to understand again,

so we are no longer going

to measure essential learnings, is that right? As a, that's

My understanding is essential skills

are no longer required.

Okay. And so just in terms

of a check for, oh, is she there?

Oh, yes. So I guess I just wanna feel

really confident that our graduates are meeting, you know,

meeting some sort of standard of skills.

How do we know beyond of course, taking classes,

how do we know that they've met, like these essential, kind

of standard that these, these education levels

that we would want our graduate students to have?

Sure. Graduating students.

Well, I think the, the answer to that one is, yeah, one is

of course the risk course content,

but I think two, that the state is really reevaluating

what it's doing with SBA c,

what it's doing with essential skills.

I'm not sure where the land in terms of

a common assessment tool,

but I anticipate that that will be coming.

And where we're at in the interim is a little

bit up in the air.

Erica may actually have more information on that than I do,

but yeah, it is a fair question.

Okay. In terms of if you're looking at a statewide way

to assure that kids have met certain standards, right.

Standards are embedded in coursework, of course. Sure.

And teachers have to teach to standards,

but it's nice to have a common, common assessment tool.

Yeah,

I think I see Erica. Erica,

Do you have anything to add?

Oh, we can't hear you. I can't hear

you. No,

Erica, if you can hear us, we can't, we're we're,

we haven't quite got sound from you yet, so we're,

we're working that out.

Okay.

Somebody else is talking.

No, can't hear you either. Thanks for checking. Yeah,

Tech support is on its way.

Oh, the Joys.

It's one of our kindergarten students that's helping us

with technology today.

Just

can you try speaking?

I see Erica on mute.

Yeah, we ask her to speak.

Erica, can you try speaking again?

Oh, no,

No. Just a lot

Folks out the Zoom land we hear we're apologies

experiencing technical issues,

But thank you for bringing

This up, Eva.

I mean, I I just so that everybody's aware,

obviously these are standards

that are being mandated at the state level, right?

So it's not, you know,

this isn't a decision we're making as a district.

This is something that we're following Yeah.

Based on state mandate. And

We, and you know, we know based on discussions

that we've had at OSGA, that Oregon students,

the le their achievement level is not

very strong compared to the rest of the country.

So it would really be nice to know what is gonna be done

to make sure that there's a standard

that people are being held accountable to. Okay.

Absolutely. Can you try again, Erica?

Good evening. Oh, yay.

Hello.

Hello. Nice to hear you all.

I can't see you, but I trust

that you are all there and we can

See you.

Yeah, so I, I don't have much more to add than

what Samuel shared, except to say that the state is really

investigating what kind of standardized

measures make the most sense.

I think the state has some concerns about some

of the structures of standardized assessments

and how that can have disproportionate impacts on certain

populations and the, and how those are built.

And so I think they're looking for a different way.

I think there's not necessarily an idea

that we shouldn't have a standardized measure to see whether

or not students have met a certain achievement level.

But right now they're really hoping

or counting on schools, relying on, as Samuel said,

rigorous coursework and then meeting the credit requirements

required for, for high school graduation, which

of course you have to show multiple competencies for that.

Oregon does have some of the highest standards in terms

of the numbers of credits required

for a high school diploma,

which I know is a little bit counterintuitive

in comparison to our achievement.

And it, you know, you could go down a whole,

a whole pathway about grading policies and equity

and grading and whether or not that's a true measure

of student knowledge.

But as we move forward, that's what they're investigating.

I understand it's until 20,

I think they have maybe two more years

before they have to make a decision,

but I could be wrong about that.

They, my understanding is they press a pause on it,

they haven't made a firm decision,

but the pause has been extended another couple of years.

So just Erica, how do we,

and I'm, I'm saying this rhetorically to some degree,

but actually it is a question too.

How do we know that our students who are graduating

are, are prepared?

How do we feel confident that they have the skills

that they need to be successful beyond high school?

Yeah, I mean we really are putting quite a bit

of emphasis on the essential skills that are listed in

the course syllabi.

And what a, what a teacher is saying when they're issuing a

passing grade or offering a credit is

that the students have met those core competencies

and those essential skills that are listed in the syllabus,

that's an imperfect science.

We're also looking at, of course,

the other standardized measures

that we have available to us.

Just because it's not required for graduation doesn't mean

that we are not rigorously reviewing the standardized

assessment results that we get.

And we've also seen a bit of a return to some

of the measures that teachers have

always found most helpful.

So using that writing rubric rubric, for example,

to score student writing and seeing whether

or not they've met the, the assessment

for writing in a, in a neutral way.

So teachers will cross grade those papers,

score them together and make sure that, kind of going back

to that five trait rubric and and pulling that apart.

And some classes are easier to measure than others, whether

or not students have met those competencies.

I think if students have gotten through three years

of math at algebra

and above at Ashland High School,

we can feel reasonably confident

that they've met the standards that they need

to meet in order to graduate.

And similarly with four years of language arts credits

at passing grades, depending on the course,

those essential skills are also pretty clearly delineated.

So we're really considering the awarding of credit,

the formative assessments, the SUMATIVE assessments

that we do have access to.

So S-A-T-P-S-A-T

and then the formative writing samples that

teachers are doing, I think three times a year at this point

to really give us good information

about where they are skill wise.

But we don't have a guaranteed system

as we did when we had the essential skills

requirement. That is a change.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anybody have anything else they'd like to

pull from this consent agenda?

Alright, in that case I will take a motion

to approve the remainder of the consent agenda as presented.

I move to approve the con, the consent agenda as presented.

I second.

All in favor? Alright. Motion passes.

Okay, next we have our school report

and this month we have Willow Wind Community Learning Center

with principal Debbie Pu.

I got Zoe today.

Hello everybody. My name is Zoe

Zoe's a teacher at Willow Wind

and I'm gonna let her introduce herself.

We don't have kids today.

We couldn't get any volunteers, but we brought you virtual

Kids.

You'll see their smiling faces.

I am the garden diversity and nature teacher currently.

That's my position. And I'm here to share

what we are doing in terms of utilizing the school garden

and the greenhouse and starting a culinary program.

A lot of hands-on learning.

I think I'm, there we go.

So each grade gets half an hour to an hour

and a half in the garden every week.

They maintain the garden.

We also utilize the greenhouse as an indoor classroom

and as a place to start the process

of growing food from seed

thanks to an A SF grant.

Last year we were able to purchase some equipment

for an outdoor kitchen,

which leads to cooking.

So, so far we've done three meals

that the students have grown and prepared and eaten.

We find recipes that are USDA

quantifiable and you know, like you would be meeting each

grain requirement, protein requirement

to make sure they're getting all the good stuff.

And so here is our first last spring students.

It would be really cool if I could

have this in presentation,

But

This is not my computer.

If

You hit slideshow on the top in the red bar

and then go to current slide.

Ah-Huh? Thank you.

There you go.

Yay. Okay. Thank you. I'm

The tech guy. Thank

You.

District better be worried.

Give that man a raise. We had all this delicious lettuce

that the students harvested and prepared

and the sixth grade part of garden class is

some culinary projects

and they did a salad dressing challenge

where they had many different oils and vinegars and flavors

and they created different dressings, voted on them,

wrote down the recipes, tweaked them as needed.

And they ended up with this final recipe

that the class agreed on, which was featured

and it was very delicious

and a lot of students ate a lot of salad that day.

Our next recipe comes from Food Hero,

which is a great OSU extension project.

A lot of great education around nutrition.

And we did a three sister soup, which tied into a lot

of the lessons we were doing in spring

around three sisters growing methods

and indigenous agriculture practices.

So we were able to use a seasonal recipe.

We harvested carrots, onions, garlic,

butternut squash, a lot

of stuff, some beans.

And second graders were in charge

of the carrots in their garden beds.

So they harvest them, washed them, weighed them, figured out

how many we would need per pot of soup.

And then the upper schoolers are in charge of

further processing it.

So we practiced some knife skills

and everyone was very safe.

The only things that make me nervous are the box graters.

But yeah, we were able to eat a lot of butternut squash

and carrots and with a side of cornbread.

So they had that grain as well with their protein

and vegetable serving.

And our last recipe was pasta with greens and beans.

This is another harvest for schools, Oregon

and food hue recipe, the pea.

And it turned out a little brown.

But overall really delicious.

It incorporated our frozen tomatoes from the garden.

Which students? We did a vine ripening experiment.

So we actually harvested our tomatoes green

before frost came, hung them in the greenhouse

and then tracked as they ripened.

And we ended up with a whole like second harvest from that.

And then we froze them

and then we're able to peel them, add them for the sauce,

kale from the garden, which grows year round.

A dehydrated basil as well.

We have a dehydrator that the students like to process herbs

with and we were able to serve that up.

And thanks to the parent partnership program, we have lots

of parents that are excited to be involved

and do want to put in time to make this program successful.

And we're excited to announce that next year.

This year we received a $15,000 grant from the Oregon

Department of Education.

This is to support the school garden.

This is to support students having access

to fresh seasonal food.

And so we're gonna use this to kind

of grow this homegrown lunch program as well

as provide some material support for the garden

and bringing in some ta more

of a tasting table model, but from local farms each month.

Just something to taste to bring their understanding

of what's growing around them

and hopefully open their palettes too.

Some of the more fun fruits

and vegetables that are out there.

So thank you.

And just help support it.

Besides the grant money Zoe runs helps the kids

and they have a farm stand class.

So they're actually running a business, you know,

they sell produce when it's available

or they make products out of things.

They grow like soap and you wanna fill in.

What other things were they making?

Herbal tea, dehydrated, you know, seasonings,

lip balm, little packaged things

that incorporate items from the garden.

And that's also a financial literacy class.

So we do, we do like a business plan.

We, we talk about counting back change to customers,

you know what all that good stuff.

And they're cute. They're cute.

So do you have a booth like the Well

It's just that growers

Market.

It's just on campus.

Yep, it is on, they encourage parents too.

How can we get in on this?

How can other people get in?

So when, when is the booth is after school at

Three 30?

Wednesdays at one 30. One 30. Or one 20 to one 30. Okay.

So early release,

They're out there.

You should put that out there. Yeah, go check it out.

Russell is a frequent customer.

So do you work with Rogue Valley Farm to school at all

or is this a separate? Separate from them?

This is separate. I did serve with Rogue Valley Farm

to School as a food core service member for two years.

And then I was hired on for two years after that.

But then this is entirely through Willow Wind. Okay.

But Zoe meets with them periodically.

I do like, I try to meet with them for PLC, just around

what are the best practices

around garden education at least once a month.

Right.

And I was able to actually last month, attend

the Oregon Farm to School

and School Garden Summit with them in at OSU

and talk in front of 200 people about the Willow Wind

Program at in Corvallis, which was really cool to see.

A lot of people were excited about

it and wanting to know more.

And the Women's History month we, so we had the kids

make Alice Waters recipes and we honored her

because she was the first female chef to win the,

The James Award award for outstanding chef.

So we sent her, we'll see if we hear back.

And we sent her a little blurb

and some pictures about it. I sent it

To her.

Oh cool. Nice. That's awesome.

Well, the report back from my son is

that the food is really good.

He loves it and yeah,

his only complaint is he wants more. Yeah.

The kids like it and we, you know, kids who want

to contribute, I, it was $3 for the meal,

but we feed everybody.

So, but that does help fill the coffers

of the fund in order to, you know,

make the recipes and all of that.

So it's all one big fund that the farm stand goes into.

The grants go into, we got some generous donations from A SF

and then what the students bring too.

So we're hoping to get it to be really self-sustaining.

And next year we're hoping, our goal is one meal a month.

Nice. We did it quarterly.

There is something just

to put on your radar called the Living School Yards Act.

And I, yeah, I just wanted wondered if it's,

it would be federal grants available to, you know it,

it's not just gardens, but shade trees and various things.

I've been following it for over a year.

It hasn't passed yet, but keep

Yourself.

Yes. Thank you guys.

All right. Thank you. Thank

You.

Okay, so next up we have a discussion

of the SEL curriculum committee

and I believe we have our two presenters on line as well

as Diane Barry.

So Erica Bear and Michelle Bollinger are online for anybody

who can't actually see them.

I guess, I'm not sure if you can see

if we can see you on Zoom.

You guys are next. Okay. I think.

Alright, we're ready. Yeah. Woo hoo.

We're all a little nervous, but we could, whatever.

We'll do it. Okay. So Erica is here, right? Erica? Hello.

I am here. Yes. And thank you so much.

We are very excited to share with you the recommendation

of the Social Emotional Learning Adoption Committee.

And they've done a ton of work this year.

And I just wanna say also how grateful I am

to work in a state that has mandated this work

and a district that has supported it.

I'm actually at a national conference right now

and was in a presentation with someone where it's not okay

to do this in their state at all.

So I just, I'm so grateful and this work is so important.

We are going to review the committee's work,

review the recommendations,

and then kind of talk about next steps at the end

of this PowerPoint, which we're not going to get into today

because it's kind of, it's a whole separate presentation,

but it is in that slide deck is all of the reasons

that social emotional learning is so important

and the really critical benefits

that it provides to our students.

So please do review that at your leisure

and we'd be happy to answer any questions on that

or any other part of the presentation tonight

or at any other time.

And with that, I will hand it over to Diane

'cause she really has done the bulk of this work along

with her incredible committee.

Okay. So I know most of you, but not all of you.

My name is Diane Berry.

I think we'll all take an opportunity

to introduce ourselves.

I've been with the district about 17 years

here in Ashland.

Worked in San Francisco before that

and have both a school

social work background, a dean background,

and a school counselor background.

And now I, in the last three years have worked

to coordinate and support our K through 12 counseling

and behavioral health folks.

And I will turn it over to Carrie,

our wonderful Carrie Smith.

Hi, I am Carrie Smith.

I teach second grade at Hellman School.

I have taught at Hellman for 20 years

in kindergarten, first and second grade

and have a,

just a, just a passion for social and emotional wellness

and teaching throughout our district.

So I really thank the board

and the leadership of this committee for

having this opportunity tonight to present

and also just for the past several months that we were able

to really delve into this, which we'll share with you here.

And then we have Michelle, who we don't see, but you see.

Hello, I'm Michelle Bollinger.

This is my ninth school year in the Ashland School District.

I have been at Bellevue Elementary

as a child development specialist that entire time.

I spent three years as a CDS at Trails

and I am currently working at the high school

as the ninth grade counselor.

SEL is my whole world.

And I have so much appreciation for the support

that we have gotten from administration

and the board to have this committee

and to look into programs

and curriculum that are best for our kids.

So thank you so much.

Okay. So really

what we're gonna focus on tonight is just kind

of explaining our process.

And we're gonna assume that the board is supportive

of SEL, but I am going to thank you Rebecca.

I like the thumbs up, but I am,

I guess I could just turn this, I am gonna, just so

that we're all on the same page, just give you a very, very

introductory basic overview of

what social emotional learning it,

it's a real buzz word now a real buzz phrase.

It's, it is across the nation.

And as Erica alluded to,

it's a little controversial in some places.

I've worked with reps

who no longer work in the state of Florida.

So we feel grateful

that it's a priority here in the state of Oregon.

So when we think about social emotional learning,

it really is just our basic social

and emotional skill sets that in days gone by,

we've really taken for granted and we know better.

Now we know that we come into the world differently.

We come into the world with different resources,

with different role models, with different predispositions

and character traits.

And so some of us develop these quite fluently

and quite easily just like some

of us read without ever knowing how we did it.

But we just do it. And some of us struggle more with these

and need additional help.

We have gaps in certain areas and that might be

because of resources at home.

That might be because of neurodivergence, that might be

because of trauma that might be caused all sorts of things.

But we know that here in the public school setting,

just like we can do with reading or math

or science, we can identify those gaps.

And when we explicitly

and intentionally prioritize time to teach,

then we can actually close those gaps.

And what we know is when we have students

who have a baseline competency in these social emotional

skills, what that predicts is immense, immense,

not just in terms of their mental wellbeing,

but immense in terms of their academic learning.

So they kind of go hand in hand.

So when we look at this slide right here,

I'm gonna very briefly, I know it's hard

to believe I'm brief, but I am watching the clock.

Okay, there's five areas, five core standards.

You don't need to be expert at them,

but I hope you can see them.

The two in orange are just called

self-awareness and self-management.

So think about that as self.

And that's where we start to develop that awareness of self,

what that internal world looks like

and how do we manage that self?

How do we regulate our feelings when we're like super

frustrated, our super embarrassed, our disappointed, so

that we can pick ourselves back up and keep going.

All right, then we move on to developing social awareness,

awareness of other.

Can I read how Jill feels? Not right now.

Can I look at the horizon and see the contextual clues?

Some kids can't, when we're really little,

children have a really difficult time figuring out the

difference between anger and surprise.

Can you imagine misreading that down the line?

Those are very different feelings

and that would predict very different social interactions.

And then we move into building relationships, skills,

very basic overview.

Obviously these are complex and nuanced

and become developmentally much more,

much more developed.

That's redundant, but let's just say complex.

As we get older, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this.

You have this, you'll have this in your packet.

This gives you a little bit more description what each

of these five core standards are.

These standards are, were developed by Castle, which is kind

of the mothership of all things SEL, collaborative

of academic and social emotional learning.

It's kind of a warehouse of a wide breadth

of research and best practice guidance.

As Erica said.

We're really fortunate that the state

of Oregon actually prioritized looking at our standards

and PRI and moved, I think spent the better part of a year,

a large kind of statewide committee with all sorts of very,

very experienced

and thoughtful professionals kind

of looking at our standards

and following castle's recommendations

and establishing Oregon standards

and calling them transformative.

And transformative really does refer to kind of an updating

with an equity, diversity inclusion lens.

And really understanding that our traditional

SEL standards were kind

of developed in a dominant culture lens.

And also with a lens that really focused on individual

skill sets rather than oh context of

how those skill sets are developed, you know,

and how we recognize diversity, how we recognize a variety

of voices, how we recognize that to teach

and support strong social emotional skills, we need

to actually support our teachers

with strong social emotional skills.

We actually have to support our parents

with strong social emotional skills.

So this is what they did.

They changed our image a little bit

to add some kind of extension standards into each standard.

And I do wanna make a comment real quick on this.

I don't know if you see these concentric circles

around these five standards.

I actually disagree with the

order, 'cause I do that sometimes.

I think family and caregivers as a social worker

with a social work background focusing on

what are the most important, important first systems

that impact a child's development.

It always starts with families and caregivers.

Families and caregivers are our immediate

teachers and guides.

So when we look at a social emotional, what I hope

for is like a campaign here in Ashland.

We really need to have,

and part of what we looked at when we looked at curriculums

is a parent piece, A parent piece to support

parent education

and understanding of

how critical these critical these skill sets are.

Because as parents, we all come to the call, come

to the table with different kinds

of skill sets in this area too.

Then we move out to classroom, then we move out to school,

then we move out to community.

And this is what Oregon did.

They looked at again, they defined the traditional standards

as transactional, the current standards as transformative,

transactional as being kind of these one-off lessons

of teaching kind of at children.

Whereas transformative.

Whereas we are really looking at environmental shift

of valuing how critical social emotional skills are.

I wanna say before I,

'cause I am keep, I'm doing really good with my time.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna add a study here.

I wanna tell you that social emotional learning began

popping up about 40, 45 years ago.

And it began becoming kind of

known in urban centers.

Urban centers, where we were seeing kids in schools

from less resource backgrounds,

from very diverse backgrounds

and from backgrounds where there was more trauma inner city.

And the reason that they started developing social emotional

programs at the time is they realized

that children were coming into the classroom

very dysregulated from very different backgrounds.

And we needed to actually bring

this into the school setting.

That is where actually second steps started, about 2011.

There was a very big giant study,

Eva, since you're my research person,

put on by the University of Loyola, university of Chicago.

They looked, it was a meta-analysis.

They reviewed, these researchers reviewed

213 studies that looked at

SEL programs in public schools, K through 12.

This looked at SEL programs implemented

with 270,000 children.

And the big result that they came up with,

there were many results, is that across the board

with those 270,000 thousand children,

they saw an 11% increase in academic achievement,

11% on standardized tests.

And they thought, oh, SEL, huh,

this is a powerful, powerful piece

of our educational system.

We've got, and this is when we started seeing a big blow up

of SEL programs across the nation.

And the reason be, it's not rocket science for us

to imagine why when we have kids

who are more self-aware, more self-regulated, more able

to connect to their peer, more able to collaborate,

their anxiety comes down, they relax, now they're able

to focus, they're able to actually access the math lesson

or the science lesson better.

It's not a panacea, it's not an answer,

but it definitely, definitely is a big critical piece.

So that's when we started seeing, again, the big uptake of

of SEL programs

and understanding that they were a really

exciting possibility for all schools.

So Diane, it's like the school lunch

program, right? When we know

That kids are nourished and well fed, same thing.

They're Thank you. Yeah.

Able to have their academic achievement goes up too.

I really think of it almost as a version

of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?

I mean, when we do think about mental wellbeing,

we think about connection and belonging as like critical,

critical foundational needs.

And SEL is something that supports that.

So I am going to transition now to my co presenters

and I think Michelle might

actually, Michelle, is this your slide?

This is my slide and I have

to apologize if you hear some

barking dogs in the background.

Oh, sorry, I'm zooming in from home, so my apologies.

Okay, so we just wanted to share

with you a bit about our committee process,

about recruitment, who our members were

and the voices that participated in this process.

So we sent out surveys to our community in May of 2023,

so the end of last school year.

And we ended up getting volunteers that were teachers,

student advocates, child development specialists,

behavioral health specialists, and educational assistance.

We had representation across all levels K through 12.

And we met every other week for an hour

and a half, September through January.

And, and then some, we've been still meeting groups

of us since then.

I'm gonna, we're gonna try to

do a little co-presenting from two different places.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Carrie now.

This is a list of our com, our committee members.

And I just wanted to show that it is a robust group

that's well represented across the district

in many different roles.

And we came together in whole group.

Sometimes we broke off into smaller groups, sometimes to

look a little bit more in depth at certain pieces of things.

And we just are really grateful for the time in the process.

We got to slow down

and really not rush through this process,

which felt really good and,

and there's just many voices across the district that are

so passionate about this.

And so this is just a little bit about that. Yeah,

So when we started, when we gathered for the first time

as a committee, you know, we talked about the fact that

so many of us in the room had not been taught about

teaching social emotional learning

or more frequently had not learned these skills

in our own school experience.

And so the first thing that we wanted to do was make sure

that we had a common understanding of what SEL is,

specifically Oregon's transformative SEL standards.

And we're going to definitely give you guys a handout

that explains those standards a little bit more thoroughly.

We talked as a group about what our values

and priorities would be.

And we talked a lot about research

and what that research tells us about effective social

emotional learning programs and curriculum.

We knew that we needed to have some sort of evaluation

or assessment tool so that we could really

have clear understanding of the strengths of each

of these programs.

And so we talked about

what sections we would use to, to put on

that assessment tool, what standards we were gonna focus on,

and how to calibrate amongst members where

focus was and where we felt these programs aligned

with our values as a district

and with those transformative organ standards as well.

And this was the assessment tool that we used

to look at several different curriculums.

I think we looked at elementary at four total

and at secondary at four also.

And we used this assessment tool each time to just kind of

rank where we saw all those,

how those different curriculums lined up with that.

And then we calibrated it as a group to come

to our conclusions.

So like Carrie said,

we focused on four curriculum at curricula at each level.

So for elementary we looked at Ripple effects Second Step,

which is our current curriculum.

Primary curriculum, I should say Sources of strength

and Wayfinder, secondary level Ripples effect, character,

strong Nexus and Wayfinder.

We separated by level

and we attended

virtual, my brain just went blank.

We had virtual presentations for each of those curriculums.

So secondary we're able to see some presentations

for the four curriculum.

And then the elementary, we were able to meet

with those presenters and ask some questions

and see their programs.

So for the elementary,

our first recommendation was Wayfinder,

and second is second Step.

And then for secondary,

the recommendation was first was Wayfinder,

and second was character strong.

And this talks a bit about the why of Wayfinder.

I'm gonna speak a little bit as a classroom teacher and,

and just the accessibility of it for

classroom teachers that there is a

really clear, well-defined scope

and sequence that goes throughout the school year.

That's very comprehensive.

But there are also a lot of opportunities

for supplementation in there, for supplementing

for different things that may come up in your classroom.

There is a way that's really easy

and cool to filter for different amounts of time.

You could put in there that you have 10 minutes

and wanna do something with, you know, no prep

or a little prep and different activity types.

There's a lot of overlap with PE and health

and that will be nice for those minutes as well.

It's very user friendly and very relationship focused.

I found it to be not just reading from slides

or any, it was very like, there's some visual cues

to give you that, but it's really about those conversations

and the relationship building in the classrooms

and throughout the school community.

And I just wanna add that Wayfinder has now been adopted

by over 40 districts in the state of Oregon.

It is moving fast and furious.

Part of it is they're very aligned

with the transformative SEL standards.

One of the things that I think is really,

or a number of the things really unique about Wayfinder is

they are very, very aligned with

developmental milestones with kids.

And I think all SEL curriculum should be,

but what we have seen with some

of the curriculums out there is

that there's real misses with kids.

And the minute you're dealing with this kind of content

and you start a lesson that has an image

or an activity that's a turnoff, especially in middle

or high school, you have lost the lesson.

So yeah. Can you give an example of that?

Of, of what will, like, so for instance, like

if you have a visual image,

and really what we want is lots

of different kinds of learning, right?

We wanna get up and move, we want visual, we want auditory,

we want reading, we want, you know, collaborative.

We wanna really mix it up with SEO.

But like a, like something where we might lose, you know,

a lesson is if a visual demonstrating a certain interaction

in this era of like memes

and how quickly things shift and move.

A class can just go, oh my god, I can't believe that, right?

Because it's so old or so passe or Yes. All sorts of things.

Okay. What I really love about Wayfinder is they've got a

big strong team that is working constantly

to keep things current and relevant.

I also wanna just say they have not just,

like Carrie said, scope and sequence.

They have a bank of

400 different activities, anywhere from zero prepped

to maybe five, 10 minutes prep that we can add on within,

we can filter according to what we're looking for.

And they also have collections,

which we've listed on this slide, which are really,

really critical that go beyond kind of those core standards.

Which many curriculums do.

We have some financial literacy embedded in this,

which is wonderful.

We have career in college embedded in this,

which is also wonderful

because we really need to build that in this district.

Digital citizenship, which is critical.

This is where limiting of our children live now

and have their social relationships.

So if we're not addressing that,

we're missing a big, big, big piece.

And so what we love about this is that

we don't feel like we're reinventing the wheel.

We're taking a core curriculum somewhere

and then going, oh, but we need this.

Oh, but we need bullying prevention.

Oh but we need some, we need some of this.

This is giving us access.

They're bringing this giant menu of possibilities together.

I will say too, for our high school group,

we know our biggest challenge is gonna be at high

school secondary level.

We had a science teacher on the committee

and we had an ELE teacher on the committee

and it was just incredible.

Our science teacher said, well I want

a 10 minute lesson on collaboration that takes zero prep.

I teach 10th grade science filter, filter, filter, boom.

There were like three activities right in front of her.

And she's like, oh my god, this is incredible.

I could do this. This is science teacher, right?

Who, when we say at first we say, oh,

you're gonna be incorporating a little social emotional,

let me just back off and say

everyone teaches social emotional.

We all teach social emotional

because that is the way we live.

We're social animals, we're constantly

guiding, modeling, all that.

But what we know the research tells us is that explicit

instruction with practice is very powerful.

And that is what we need in these days when we're getting

less and less of that natural practice that kids are doing

through natural free play, not in front of a screen.

So Diane, does this include also

drug use prevention?

I do believe they do have a whole section on executive

function, which ings to my heart,

'cause that's around a DHD, I don't know,

I actually don't know Jill.

So that's a really good question.

And obviously that's a big, big content area that we want

to make sure is looking good in our health,

but also in our general kind of confidence to be able

to talk about responsibly. So that's a good question.

No, I don't think you can, you can see the zoom screen.

It looked like Michelle was jumping outta her skin

to add something earlier.

Were you raising your hand,

Michelle?

Did you just search it?

No, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to jump in

and say that the word we were all looking for in regards to

that feeling when the middle schoolers are like,

oh I don't, it's cringey. That's what they would say.

Thank

You. It's cringey

and it's, and it's very, very true.

And I think that speaks to a slide

that we're gonna see in just a second about our current

curriculum Second step.

So I'll, I'll hold on a second and jump

Back in.

Yeah, we've been told that's cringy sometimes. Can,

Can I add one, one quick thing.

I think there's something magical about the fact

that the elementary group

and the secondary group recommended the same curriculum.

There's something really lovely about having

that articulation, page 12.

And I think one of the reasons that we spoke to

the secondary group, not only the breadth and ease,

but also what I was thinking about

with the cringey piece was the age appropriateness.

Sometimes we run into with middle school students

and high school students as if a image looks too young

or reminds them of something

that they did in elementary school,

they're not going to engage with that.

So that is something Wayfinder does really, really well.

And it's one of the few programs that has a well developed,

well evidence-based backing at secondary,

secondary look at second steps

because that doesn't exist at secondary.

So really excited about the K 12 continuum.

I will say it was developed through an innovation kind

of incubator project at Stanford at School of Ed

and has is based in

and supported through ongoing collaboration

and research with two professors and

and researchers at Stanford.

And I forget where,

I know there's a third woman who's a big part of their kind

of research pool there.

Thank you Erica. All right, anything else?

We can tell you more about that later.

Ooh, now I am getting close to time.

Okay, here's just a quick image.

We've gone over Wayfinder Michelle, you're on.

Yeah, so second step has been the social,

the primary social emotional learning curriculum

that we've had in the Ashland School District K

through five for what?

About 15 years Diane, would you say?

I think 20 at least. Yeah,

20.

Yeah, for a long time. And it certainly has some strengths,

but there are also some gaps.

And one of those is exactly what we were just talking about.

It is very much, especially the new curriculum,

you know, it has shifted.

They really adapted to the Covid situation

and so they turned a very hands-on puppet based

curriculum into a digital curriculum, which was very good

because it was accessible, right?

But now that we're back in person,

it is very much like a PowerPoint presentation

and the images are very, very young.

And as we even get into that fourth

and fifth level, we lose a lot of engagement

with this curriculum.

And so it's been really tricky

and we've had to fill in gaps.

So we've supplemented with curriculums like Mind Up,

which is a neuroscience based curriculum with sources

of strength, which is a wonderful supplementary curriculum

that focuses on suicide prevention and mental health.

But again, we wanted something that was more holistic, that

met the developmental needs of all of our students

and that was engaging and,

and really accessible for teachers

and for parents, which is a really big part of Wayfinder is

that parent education piece.

So that,

Alright, we Character Strong was our second choice

for secondary.

Second Step was our second choice for primary.

It's a really strong curriculum.

It was actually developed, it's one of the few curriculums

that was actually developed at the secondary level,

rather the primary, many of our SEL curriculums kind

of grew out and were extended from

elementary up to secondary.

And that's kind of been a complaint over the years.

This curriculum was actually developed at the secondary

level by high school teachers.

So it's got a lot of great, great qualities to it.

We did purchase it, I think it was 2021

and used it, but I will not say with Fidelity,

but we did use it at a HS

and a MSA bit during distance learning.

But given what that year was,

we didn't really do it Justice, got mixed reviews.

But we do feel like in terms of what we looked at

and what we researched, that would be our second choice.

So we are recommending as a committee

that we purchase Wayfinder K through 12.

I will. And then what we would like to do

is we do have sources of strength

through an Oregon Health Authority grant.

We've had quite a few people trained.

We aren't gonna go into that.

And we have all the materials at the elementary

and through the peer leadership group at the high school.

We wanna implement sources of strength as a compliment

focused on connection and mental health.

We do have mental health pieces in Wayfinder,

but sources of strength structures differently

and we have teachers and counselors who

are feeling like it offers some really wonderful

supplementary lessons.

So that's what we're recommending.

And Erica's gonna finish this up.

Yeah, so we are getting ready, it's not ready yet,

but we're getting ready for the public viewing

of these curriculums.

Mark is, it's all electronic, so none

of these have physical components.

So we're getting it all set up on the website.

It's gonna take Mark A. Little bit of time to get

that all up and organized, but hopefully soon.

And we'll send out an announcement when it's ready.

We'll also set up times

where the curriculum can be viewed at the district

office on a computer.

So for folks who can't access it at home,

we will have it set up in the district office with ways

to provide feedback so that you all can consider that for

when it is time for you to actually make a vote.

I don't know, we might have to wait

until May to do the vote.

'cause I don't know that we'll going to have 30 full days.

As for policy for feedback,

because it's gonna take us a little

bit of time to get that up.

So may should be just fine.

But the all three of the, the first

and second choice at both levels will be available

for viewing and we will take feedback on that.

But the committee was United

and Wayfinder being the top recommendation.

So we're ask asking folks to really focus on that.

But all of the materials will be available

and then we will return likely in May.

It says April, but I didn't do the math very well.

So likely we'll return in May for an official vote.

And hopefully at that time public comment will be positive

and your all's review will be positive

and we will be able to take that to a vote

and actually adopt the curriculum

and begin the implementation planning process.

Alright, thank you. I mean, I know our,

our questions are always gonna start with a very basic one.

Is there a big cost difference between these curricula

that we're looking at as far as your first

and second choices and what, you know,

what would the difference be between those?

There isn't, I can answer that

there's not a big cost difference

or when we look at second Step

and we really look at if, if we were paying for K through,

we've only paid through it K through eight,

but if we were spending it, you know, pay paying for it K

through 12, which it doesn't exist, right?

We'd be spending about the same amount of money

character strong about the same amount of money.

Okay, thank you.

How much is it? A lot?

Yeah, no,

So it is

$10 per child.

So we have about 2,500 students.

So if we were to buy it per year, it'd be 2,500.

If we'd buy it by for by three years, which Eric

and I talked about, we get a 10% discount.

So it'd come out to be about 67 50 for three years.

And what we are getting for that, which we don't have

quite the breadth of in the other curriculums,

is we get parent, we get a whole parent access

piece of this and staff kind of support

also we get our professional development included,

which kind of front loads us in August,

returns in the fall, returns in the spring to kind

of layer just like we did with our math curriculum.

And that is also what we finder would

include in that package.

Yeah. So $6,750.

Alright, it's a bargain. I mean 67,000.

Sorry, I missed a zero. My white.

Oh it's only $1 a student. Oh my god.

If anybody from Wayfinder was watching, they'd be like, oh

Diane, what are you doing to us?

Cringe. Yeah. Cringy.

Any other questions I have,

I have three questions that are kind of related.

First of all, just what are the expectations about

who is gonna be teaching SEL?

Are all teachers gonna be required at all levels

to teach SEL classroom sort of special areas,

specific content teachers at the high school?

How much time per day is gonna be required?

So I'm just kind of curious,

where does this fit in the day of a teacher?

So I'm gonna just answer very quickly

and then Erica can answer.

And I know we are past our time

and we can certainly take more time in April

or May to kind of, you know, talk more about implementation.

But that's a very good question

because when we think about transformative SEL

at the elementary level, which is so foundational, right?

It's not a 20 minute one-off a week.

And that at some places has been

kind of what we've been allocated.

So we had this mandate from Oregon Department of Education,

but per usual nothing about, oh we are gonna get all sorts

of extra time during the day to do this.

Or by the way, we're gonna give you a load

of money to do this.

This is an unfunded mandate. Yes, okay.

Of course kind of like Addie's act, kind

of like Addie's act, which was my other

big, you know, question.

It's like we need you to do this and push this in.

So one of the things we need to really think about as we

do this is our teachers'

wellbeing and mental health.

Because our teachers are maxed out, right?

I mean we know that that's not, there's no,

they're very tired.

They feel like there's more and more and more.

So that's where I think we come to our leaders

and our community and we ask us ourselves

what's what's most important and,

and how do we puzzle this together?

Because we can't get more room out

of finite amounts of day.

We just can't. So one

of the beautiful things about SEL is it crosswalks

with health, which is great.

There's a lot of crosswalk of standards,

so we can double dip there.

A lot of this SEL can embed

in core con not very nicely in some core content areas.

Like I just brought up the science, we can actually

use 10 minute breaks at the high school level

and pull up some math oriented activities

that do all sorts of things.

They kind of recalibrate us.

They, I mean I love that I have Alan here

'cause Alan knows all about integration, you know, of

and whole child teaching and how successful that is.

I think these are really important

but complex conversations.

But what we do know is

however we do this, it needs to be go slow to go far.

And that's, I borrow that from sources of strength

and saying that when we bring something like this on,

it's not something that we say, oh gosh,

we want every single one of these teachers,

da da da da da doing this by the end of this year.

Because it's just, we're going to have folks

who have more aptitude

and ability in their roles lend themselves to that.

We're gonna have folks who we do expect

to do it, but need more support.

And then we're gonna have folks who really don't wanna do it

or have anything to do with it

and don't believe in it, right?

That is the reality and feel like this even here in this

district and feel very, very

frustrated with that piece.

So we have some work to do,

but the science, the social science tells us that

we need this and we need to make this a priority.

Especially because our children are getting less and less

and less free play.

They're getting less and less unstructured time,

they're getting less and less face-to-face time

to develop these skills in the most natural way.

They typically did 10 years, 20 years, 30 years ago.

So that's why this has to be a teacher support piece,

a parent support piece, and a student support piece.

Those are my thoughts. So no easy answer. No easy answer.

I have a question. Michelle. Michelle has her hand up. Yeah,

Yeah, thank you.

I just, I wanted to add that we, the committee

and the counseling and behavioral health department,

and many of our teachers have been talking about

that exact question.

How are we going to fit this into an already very full,

full day and week and how are we not going to overload

and burn out our teachers?

And there's a lot of ideas

and there's a lot of models that, you know, we're open

to trying, we don't have any one answer yet

because, you know, it's,

it's pretty brand new at the high school

and so we're at different stages of implementation

with SEL across the district.

But it's certainly a huge priority to figure out how best

to roll this out in a way

that doesn't feel like a burden to our educators.

And I would say from a, a classroom teacher, I would love

to have SEL in my schedule every single day.

So I would, I know right now we have about a once a week

chunk of time that we can do it from between 30 minutes

to 45 minutes, depending on grade level.

But you know, I would ask for half an hour a day,

just start the day with SEL

and it could be a structured lesson, it could be something

that's coming up in the classroom.

There's just all kinds of ways

and I think getting us all on the same page just then is

gets kids in a place where they can access the rest of their

day and education.

So yeah. Rest

A lot.

I I just have a question about implementation

and give it a little bit of context.

I think I'm, I'm really excited about the idea

of incorporating SEL and,

and anything that helps our children feel mentally

a little bit more robust and are getting some

more support with that.

But my, my question, how is the, the first choice,

like Wayfair way, Wayfinder Wayfinder

intended to be implemented?

Like what's their best practice that they define

for implementation and does that meet up with the challenges

that we're seeing for?

So Wayfinder, which is really logical,

has many different suggestions for implementation models

because it really depends on the district,

it depends on the school site.

So they're incredibly flexible

and creative in their support with onboarding.

And in fact at the end of April, they're inviting all

of the newly adopted districts to send a team

and to actually participate in a day long kind of overview

and planning session to kind of jumpstart, you know,

the summer or fall kind of, you know, implementation,

whatever that looks like, you know,

best fit at your district.

So that, that's not an easy answer,

but what I would say is it's logical

because it has to be flexible.

If, if some districts are just starting here, you know,

and thinking we're gonna have a slow growth model

with those early adopters and then we're gonna grow it out.

That's what fits for them.

I think that we are beyond that

because we have pretty robust SEL buy-in

and implementation in our elementaries.

We have it going on in our middle school

at this point also in all of our classes.

The idea, the best practice model Russell,

is that teachers teach it.

That's the best practice. Is that always gonna happen?

Maybe not, but the reason that is, is

because then we actually learn as we're teaching

and we're actually then beginning to integrate the language

and the concepts into the rest of the week.

So it's a really different kind of learning.

We can reference something we discussed on Monday,

on Tuesday afternoon, you know, that kind

of thing as we loop around.

So that's a really different kind

of learning than having a specialist come in once a week

and deliver a lesson and then leave.

That being said, our counselors,

our child development specialists are anticipating doing a

lot of pushin so that not only co-facilitating modeling,

but also moving in to do additional kind

of higher stress lessons.

You know, when we're talking about maybe mental health

or Aaron's law, you know, there's all sorts

of different kinds of content that, you know,

for good reason teachers might feel like I need some help

with or I need you to take this.

So a real collaborative effort. Yeah.

So I just, so I, I'm super concerned about the drug use.

Yeah. That's happening at the high school.

And what I see is that, I mean, what I've,

what I saw from the lend report was that it said that

the prevention efforts are really embedded into SEL.

So I just would love to hear

30 days from now when you come back, like how that piece is,

is going to be included in this

S so Jill curriculum.

I think a lot of what we think about in terms

of the elementary level is really that

basic core SEL is prevention

because ultimately we move toward responsible decision

making, which is really critical thinking, right?

It's more the high school. I'm concerned about that.

Well, no, I'm gonna move back

and I'm gonna really push hard

and say, we actually need to be doing this in elementary

and we need to be, and from a medical model, we need

to be doing it from elementary.

But when I looked at health standards in Oregon,

we don't see drug and alcohol covered in health standards.

Although I did just discover two excellent curriculums,

I think free from Stanford that do cover elementary,

TH, c, and vaping, which is a start

because we are starting to see

that even at late elementary. Okay. So

Sources of strength does not

'cause according to that report, it says source

that Ashland School District does cover prevention

in elementary level

With sources of strength,

but maybe it's included in the curriculum,

but not, you mean in terms of drug and alcohol?

Yeah. I am not aware of what we're doing

with drug and alcohol at the elementary level right now.

I'm not, I'm seeing lots of no head shakes, you know? Yeah.

And I think because honestly,

the reason I think it's important is

because we have to help parents have conversations

in elementary, if you are not having a conversation

as a parent, and these conversations have to happen, happen,

happen, happen, happen.

There is no once, twice, three times

they move developmentally with a child.

And if you're having your first conversation in ninth

grade, I'm sorry, it's too late.

I mean, I want you to, if you've never had one. Yeah.

And then I want you to have a lot.

But in terms of prevention,

we have to start having developmentally appropriate

conversations with our children.

Much, much, much younger. Yeah.

Because we are not just exposed to it in our environment.

We are exposed to it in our social media world.

And we have lots and lots and lots of 10 and 11

and 12 year olds now in social media

and seen in all sorts of images

and not understanding it, not developmentally being able

to like, begin to comprehend without adult education,

conversation, reflection.

So the grownups have a lot of work to do.

Yeah. And, and I would also say, you know,

decision making is a big part of the FDL curriculum

that does tie into this starting in kindergarten.

But we'd be, we happy to take a look at where

that falls into Wayfinder

and bring that back to you in 30 days

or when we come back for the actual adoption.

And also you have access to the materials.

It was, should have been in your packet.

So feel free to dig around and take a look

and see what, what you see as holes also.

And all of that work would be done in combination

with our health teachers, which is

where the standards live at the secondary level

around drug and alcohol prevention.

I have a couple questions. I, I like our process

as a district for curriculum adoption.

I think it's thorough and thoughtful and transparent.

I, I am glad to hear

that you're excited about your top choice.

And I'm wondering, as part of, I'm glad

that we get people the chance to review it online,

but is it, is there a possibility to do that facilitated

because just being able

to view it on computer is not the same thing as experiencing

what that's like facilitating.

Like I know as a board member, I would love a chance to see,

to hear what you're excited about.

So I would be more than happy.

In fact, the founder

and his team is, would be more than happy

to join us via Zoom in either April

or May, whatever the date works.

And actually walk us through.

They were actually even happy

and willing to show up tonight even though

they're in different places.

And I said, no, this isn't the time or the place.

So, and I think they're the experts at that.

So if, if that would be helpful.

We could like schedule a little bit of time for them in,

I think we can talk about that.

Yeah. For agenda or maybe even work session or something

because I, it feels like that would be helpful for, for us

to share your excitement and also for parents

and for teachers, if we're looking at buy-in, I would like

to hear more in April about implementation plan,

even if it's, here's a bunch

of different ways that we might try it.

Sure. But I'm also curious about, so I know understand

how we adopt curriculum,

but how do we evaluate what's the period

and process for evaluating how it's working for kind

of all the layers that we had in the SEL l.

So looking at how is it working for students?

How is it working for teachers in the classroom?

How is it working at the school level?

How is it working at home?

What is our, what is our evaluation method

for seeing over the next time? So like

A post-adoption mean

Yeah.

Post-adoption. How do we know that it,

what we chose is working

Well, we have all sorts of data.

We can look at Wayfinder itself, embeds both formative

and summative assessments so

that we can take formative assessments

every week if we want.

They're very, very brief from the students.

They're like five or six questions.

And we can also,

but there's summative assessments.

We can graph it. We can look at children by individually,

by group, by grade, by gender, by ethnicity, by age.

I mean we can do whatever we want with that data

and say, wow, are they growing in these core areas

according to these measures?

I think some of the other ways we hope

that it's impacting is honestly,

and what the research tells us is increased attendance.

Now there's all sorts of confounding variables to that.

So can we really say, oh, that's our SEL curriculum. No.

But could we say, wow, you know, if we are serving our kids

or our parents and we're seeing a little bit more

engagement, then we see attendance go up.

Right? What SEL tends to do is create connections

often between core content.

The why, what I love about Wayfinder is Wayfinder has added

a sixth standard, which is something

that is addressing this big sense of

edness in our adolescence right now.

And that is purpose.

And there's a lot of research coming out on purpose right

now, and that a lot of our young people are feeling

really overwhelmed by the bigness of information.

Like literally our brains don't like

process as much information.

We are not given, you know, what we're built for.

So there's a lot to process

and there's obviously a lot of overwhelm in terms

of the global and the national news

and what's coming up around the corner for this generation.

It's not what it was for any of us here in terms

of our coming of age time.

It's just not. So part of our challenge as educators is

to be relevant and be current with our children

and to really try to empathize with them

and get into their skins and their experience

and think what is this world look like to them?

And then how do we shape our parenting

and our education to meet them where they are so

that when they come of age at 18, 19, 20, they can feel

that optimism and that sense of connection to something

that is good and big and limitless.

Right? So what I do love about Wayfinder is there's a lot

of work on purpose, on agency and purpose.

Because when we look again at the research, we see a lot

of our kids feeling A lack of sense

of what is this all about?

What's the point? So I, I just wanna propose,

I mean this is obviously a, a big and very important topic.

I would, I would kind of like to see us maybe have that sort

of a demonstration at a work session maybe in April.

Yeah. That's what if, if everybody would agree to that

and then we can sort of continue having a little bit more

of a deeper dive into it. Thanks,

Rebecca.

I'm sorry we went way over. So Erica knows this about me.

Erica, just say stop Diane.

So I mean, actually Dan asked a question that I think is

pertains to more than just this curriculum

Adoption.

Right? Right. I think that's a big question too. Really

Big question.

So I don't know if that's an Erica question.

Certainly not for this moment, but really important. Yeah.

Can we talk about that? So we're

Adopting curriculum. We,

We we're making big curriculum adoptions

and we don't know what the post-adoption

assessments look like.

And so could we please have that at a,

at another board meeting, really be helpful to know what,

you know, what we have in place and,

and if we don't then what are we gonna have in place?

Okay. I think that's wonderful. Okay. Great. Yep.

Yeah. And

Do have plans, have some great homework.

Happy

In the work session. Cool. Great.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you all. All right.

Thank you. Thank you for letting us go beyond.

Thank

You. Bye Michelle. Thank you. Bye Erica.

Okay, so we will move on to our recurring reports.

We'll start with our HS student report.

Sweet. So Hank and Noah are both out tonight, so

We got some guest speakers.

Alright, so a HS just had our classified staff

appreciation and leadership hung out, hung up a bunch

of like individual posters for them to really just honor all

of the hard work they do for our district.

And then we had our first career day since COVID

and that was a huge CE success.

Students really loved seeing all the different booths

and places that they could go explore

different career pathways.

Oregon Battle of the Books team won region

are region five championships

and they're headed to state in April.

So that's really exciting, bad fun.

And then our DECA team went to state

and 18 people placed top 20 in their category,

including two seniors, Junie

and Skye who are headed to nationals.

So that's really exciting. Wow. Yeah.

Can you just remind us what DECA is?

Honestly, it's not something I have a lot

of background in, but it's basically from talking to friends

that do it, it's like many, almost like business platforms

that you present to a panel of judges to kind

of like sell and market an idea

or, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, an idea

or a business as like a almost smaller model of like

owning a business and selling stuff.

Which I, it seems like a really cool thing.

It's a lot of speech and debate components, A lot

of like selling components.

So it's just how well you can prevent your,

I present your ideas and like formulate your thoughts

and present, just like sell your things, which seem

to be pretty good at because this is the second year we've

made it to nationals that I know of, so. Wow.

Yeah. Nice.

Awesome.

We have Matilda the musical,

which is running until this Sunday.

I overheard in the library

today. That was pretty awesome. So

It is amazing.

Yeah. Sweet. Check that out.

Winter sports are just wrapped up. We did pretty good.

Three wrestler boys went to state

and then will Downs placed forth.

Our snowboard team is currently at state.

They also had a successful auction

fundraiser last Friday night. And then

Yeah at Scout it was, it was very fun.

So good to hear. And then

a double podium sweep at a tournament in the weekend

of February 17th, 18th, which is pretty sweet.

A senior Aidan Espinoza placed fourth in the state swim

championships and then softball, baseball

and track have all started to finish our last season

of sports for this year

For,

That's it from the high school. Alright,

Thank you.

Okay, so next up we have AA report with Alan pki.

Thanks. Only two pages today

The, the district asked both unions about a potential cut

day on April 22nd, which is the snow day makeup.

OSEA and a EA have pushed out a survey to determine

how members feel about donating a day which is equivalent

to a half a percent of salary through a furlough day

and a collective effort to help with balancing the budget.

We're still tab tabulating the results on this internal

fundraiser proposal and we'll be able

to let the district know by Friday if members can afford

a collective financial sacrifice towards offsetting

operational costs.

We are grateful for the contract language

that requires the district to negotiate cut days

with both unions.

So that was the main topic

of conversation at the last meeting.

Ashland Connect. Amanda the Ashland Connect teacher was able

to attend an amazing digital

and hybrid learning national conference in Austin, Texas

recently by securing funding through a grant

and the S-O-E-S-D.

She's excited to bring back a lot of information

to the enrollment innovation committee.

Yay innovation committees

and to start to build a strong foundation

for Ashland Connect to retain current students as well as

to help draw in the 280 plus potential students

who reside in Ashland

but are not currently attending our schools.

If we can move our program from the post covid response

model to a viable alternative choice for families,

we may be able to bring back many

of those students to our district.

Ashland Connect has also been grateful to join both Walker

and Trails on many fun field trips with AC students lately,

including the SOU women's basketball game ice

skating and various hikes.

Willow Wind has says conferences were well attended

with teachers fully utilizing the three allotted days

to meet with families to

because of the team approach at Willow Wynn Teachers

Conference with their core group,

but may also meet with families

of students in other classes.

Last week the entire student body came together

to show appreciation of our classified staff

by writing notes and cards, singing and creating art.

Oh we didn't sing at high school. Each.

Each student brought in a piece of fresh fruit

and these were divided up

and placed into festive baskets for our wonderful EAs office

and janitorial staff members to take home.

We appreciate everything they do for our school

and our students over at a MS.

The drama club presented SpongeBob the musical last weekend

while one day was canceled because of snow.

They are rescheduling that performance.

Over 180 students have signed up for track

and are excited to get started.

Dr. Geneva Craig came

to speak about her experiences marching on the famous Selma

to Montgomery March school-wide students explored the civil

rights era before her visit

and were well versed in the significance

of Miss Craig's experience.

The a MS band will be performing on March 14th at 7:00 PM

oops and all are

welcome Bellevue.

Many students attended a women's basketball game

at SOU last month.

That was a great success.

Students walked used public transportation

and school buses to travel to the game.

We're hoping for the whole school to attend next year.

We're hosting a family science night at Scienceworks next

week and are preparing for the change maker March

by highlighting one

of our staff's tie dye skills to help make shirt.

It's for all students. Members

of our staff are still anxious

and saddened about the number of EAs being cut next year

and we are not looking forward to having less support

for students and losing incredible people

that care deeply for children.

Over at Hellman, the Dragons enjoyed showering our

classified staff with lots of love, love, love.

During classified appreciation week we wouldn't

be us without all of them.

We are holding collective space for the stress

and grief are classified folks

and all of us are feeling with the EA cuts next year.

Affinity groups, junior coaches walk

and roll Lego clubs, spring music concerts,

stem fair field trips, state testing,

computational thinking lessons, math studio start lessons,

change maker activities.

Lots of good stuff happening at Hellman.

That's an elementary school. All that

Stuff.

Con congrats to Hellman's Oob team for the regional win.

They get to represent our school district

for the second consecutive year at the state competition.

Go Ashland. Yay.

Trails is looking forward to our spring sing.

Next Wednesday the 20th.

The event will take place in the middle school commons

with a performance from each class.

We have also started a school wide unit on light and sound.

This current week we are having our sources

of strength Spirit week and Monday is pajama day.

Tuesday is wear any color day. Wednesday is cool.

Hair day and Thursday is match with your friends day walker.

All of Walker School went

to a really fun SOU women's basketball game.

That was the place to be apparently.

It was amazing and we all had such a great time.

Teachers are feeling overwhelmed with the amount

of professional development days that require them

to be away from their classrooms with no additional time

to prepare for their subs as well.

Student behavior has been challenging when both

of the grade level teachers are gone.

Teachers are very grateful for the time to connect

with students and families during our spring conference.

And we're pleased with the amount of families that attended.

And you all covered high school very well

except Brain Bowl is this Saturday over at SAU

and hopefully we'll bring back the trophy it sits in the

high school when we win it and then she takes it away.

So she just took it away. Hopefully we'll get it back.

So when is that on? It's on Saturday.

Saturday? Yeah. So we're in from eight to about four.

It's missing that too bad.

But if we get into the top two we'll be on

TV and that's when you can watch it.

Oh that's fun. Yeah,

That's the fun one.

Yeah. Alright. Thank you Al.

Do people use that word anymore?

Okay, next up we have OSCA report with Steven Ek.

Hello. OSCA.

Chapter 42 officially started our bargaining

with the district this month on March 5th,

the official bargaining updates are gonna be posted on the

Ashland School District homepage under the

OSCA bargaining updates.

For anybody listening.

In our first meeting, we agreed which articles are gonna be

opened and shared some proposals.

19 out of our 22 articles were agreed to be opened with

just three articles.

Article one on recognition, article 17 Strikes and Lockouts

and Article 21 Separability of Provisions.

Those are gonna remain as they are

during our first round of bargaining.

We made some good strides

and even Tad tentatively agreed on our proposal

for Article 12, which is about holidays.

And we're glad to be officially adding Juneteenth

to our holiday roster

and providing time for families to celebrate the liberation

of enslaved people.

The end of us chat slavery

and a momentous occasion

for the working class that built this country.

So OSEA Chapter 42 looks forward

to continuing our bargaining

as we meet for the next session.

This upcoming Tuesday, classified appreciation week,

which people alluded to was March 4th to March 8th.

And classified staff across all our sites we're really

thankful for the communities that came together to honor

and celebrate our members.

We look forward to sharing that kindness

with our certified staff friends

during Certified Teachers Appreciation Week,

which is May 6th, May 10th to May 10th,

it's Youth Truth Survey time across all the sites.

So we encourage families to talk to their students

and complete the family surveys that were sent out.

The information that comes from those are a great resource

for us to improve the access our programs.

So more petition, more participation, the better.

And we love just getting more voice from the community.

We already talked about the Oregon Battle of the Books.

Helman Dragons Fifth grade,

they took first in regionals, Ashland High School.

They took first in regionals as well.

So they're gonna both be going to state

and I hear Ashland Middle School is

competing later this weekend.

So we wish them well and hope they have a lot of fun.

Ashlyn High School's theater department is currently

presenting Matilda the Musical.

We've already talked about it, but we

encourage people to check it out.

It's a really great production tickets and shows.

Showtimes can be found on Ashlyn hs.book ticks.net.

That's book TI x.net. There's a show tonight.

There's a show tomorrow at seven

and then Saturday there's a double, double feature.

2:00 PM and another at 7:00 PM And then the last show is

gonna be Sunday at two.

Huge shout out to our OSEA member Nathan Yankee,

the theater coordinator who's done so much work to make,

make these productions happen.

He trains students how to be safe in the the scene shop.

We're really lucky to have him along with

our theater director Sean.

But Nathan just wanna celebrate him

'cause he's one of our OSC members and love him March 21st.

Bellevue's Organizing the Family Science Night.

We just love that partnership that we have with Scienceworks

and sharing our vision of inspiring learning for life.

So we hope people can get to that. And then

Lastly, spring break is coming up at the end of the month.

Some of our staff are gonna be still working

through spring break, especially our custodians

and all of those guys who are still at the schools,

just keeping it running.

But we hope our community, staff

and students have a safe and relaxing break.

Thank you.

All right, moving on

to board report. Would anybody like

To start us

Off?

I can start. Well, I thought that

after we selected the next superintendent it was gonna

be smooth sailing.

I thought we were gonna have very little work to,

I thought we're gonna be able to coast, but

no, you haven't been on vacation.

No, I've been on vacation. So I I,

I counted my hours 'cause I was curious about it.

About 30 hours in the past month on board work,

not counting a three day conference

for student success in Portland.

So that is a bunch of things.

Enrollment innovation committee,

Jackson County Library visioning session,

a board work session behavioral

health summit that we got to go to.

That was awesome. That was an all day thing.

All day union bargaining observation

and an afternoon session of that PTC meeting.

Another innovation full committee meeting

and countless drive time calls

for Sunstone Housing Collaborative, which is an outgrowth

of the innovation committee on enrollment

subcommittee for housing.

Thank you dad. Good. I cannot compete with that.

Well it's not a competition that's, I'm not proud of that

All.

So on April 15th I dropped in on Walker Elementary school

science night at Science Works.

And it was just fun to see the kids, they're

so comfortable in that space and they're so engaged

and they're just running around having a good time.

So I really enjoyed that.

On February 26th, I went to an all day event put on

by the S-O-E-S-D on, it's being called now,

career Connected Learning.

Really cool brainstorming about how

K 12 we're gonna be looking at implementing CTE

and connecting learning to, you know, outcomes

that can be really beneficial post high school.

I saw students from Eagle Point

and South Medford talk about their CTE classes

and how much it affected them both in preparing

for a career and for college.

I'm hoping maybe Ashland will be

involved in that in the future.

And on March 1st, thanks to Rebecca and Steve over there.

They led a tour for the ISTs on the remodeled schools.

It was wildly successful.

They are incredible hosts

and I'm excited that they've connected with some realtors

and are gonna do some tours for realtors

because I think that is the next step in what we need to do

to enhance student enrollment

and bring families to our, to our community.

I think with real estate agency

and how incredible our our schools look,

it should be a selling point for them.

So that's what I did. Go ahead Russell.

Okay.

Let's see. In no particular order,

I did sit in on a all day session observing bargaining,

which was, I just felt really privileged to be in the room

and be able to get, see the dynamics firsthand

and also just see everybody working really hard to come

to a positive starting point, I guess for,

for bargaining the day that I was there.

And just a lot of commitment

and a lot of heart from everybody in the room,

which is really wonderful and I hope to sit on a, on more

of those as it continues.

And then I got to go to the fifth

and middle school strings performance that was really fun,

including is a fifth grader

who leads did not and did this crazy solo.

It was awesome.

So kudos to Lauren and her program.

It's really, really wonderful. And then beyond that,

doing a little bit of work with the innovation committee,

continuing to tie up our project

and hopefully get close to presenting

to the board pretty soon.

And also got to meet

with Erica from the Ashland Schools Foundation

and just developed a little bit of a connection there.

She's really wonderful resource and nice to get to know her

and and try to coordinate a little bit better in the future.

Awesome. Let's see.

Yeah, I went with Dan to the Behavior health summit,

which I absolutely love.

It's like this convergence of all the different partners

that work in behavioral health in Southern Oregon.

And it was just, just a wealth of information

and all the amazing work they're doing with schools in

southern Oregon and what's available.

Also got to go to the Jeff Merkley town hall.

I was lucky enough to get a a ticket pulled

and got to ask him a question naturally asked about

how the government is supporting public school.

So also went to a SF board meeting

and met with a Maslows project, make sure that

the housing on school district property

is gonna meet their needs.

And then also got to go to the amazing track meet,

which was awesome.

I mean Ashlyn is such this hub of a talent

and there was this sixth grade girl who was, you know,

I think she finished two laps ahead of

a majority of the second place.

Everyone else, she's like the fastest runner in the state.

Debbie knows in the nation.

Yeah, she's a sixth grader at our school.

I had no idea, but she was really fun to watch. So yeah.

Alright, thank you Jewel.

All right, so I have a couple

of quick just kind of good news things.

And this was already touched upon.

I got to be a moderator for the Walker O Bob Toit.

And that is just always like one

of the highlights of my year.

I just look forward to that so much.

The kids are so enthusiastic and it's just the best.

It's so much fun. And then I took the high school team

to the regional championship, which as you heard they went.

So we get to go to state C

and I will follow up on your

statement about the fifth grade string.

So I went to the high school orchestra concert

and I mean I just love Lauren so much

and it was so much fun.

I there the, the audience was actually heckling.

Have you ever seen heckling at an orchestra concert?

I mean, it's just such a nice environment.

Everybody's so enthusiastic, they love each other.

Who was heckling? It was just hilarious.

And, but even more important, so

this past weekend was the yearly, they call it the solo

and ensemble festival where the students compete either

as soloists or in groups to get

to the state championships as performers.

So there are six categories for the strings.

And Ashland won four of those categories.

Solo violin, solo cello, solo bass,

and also the small strings ensemble.

And they came in second for the large string ensemble.

But this is unprecedented.

I mean that was like world domination level events there.

It was really amazing.

All we were missing was viola

and we would've just had the full suite.

So it was really exciting to see.

And I mean, as you said,

the talent in our district is just amazing.

And even more than that, just the enthusiasm

and the love of, you know, these,

these events is just really nice to see.

And most importantly, we have a special guest

with us here tonight who I just can't wait to bring up.

Can you please come up? Dr. Joseph Hatrick is here tonight.

Welcome to your first official board meeting

and I will let you introduce yourself.

But we are so excited to have you here.

It is great to be here. Good evening everybody.

My name's Joseph Patrick, future superintendent.

Let's make it clear. Sam is still your superintendent

for a while, but I'm really excited

to take the helm July 1st.

Incredibly excited to tour all of the schools tomorrow was,

was really appreciative of a confidential process,

but the downfall was that I didn't get

to enter any buildings.

So I mean, community members may have been making phone

calls to the district office, seeing cars,

you know, circling the buildings.

All I could see was the outside.

So really excited to see the inside and meet students

and and staff tomorrow.

So we're just here getting a feel for the community this,

this week and weekend and seeing the schools.

So really just excited to get a feel.

So thank you for having me.

Thank you. And I hear you're going

to see Matilda, so that's

Great fun.

Going to see Matilda on Saturday afternoon.

Yes. Excellent. Really excited. That's

Really fun show. Yep.

Thank you so much.

Alright. Yeah, again.

Oh, and I actually, I'm gonna throw out one more thing

because as, as you know, I, I have a, a high school student

who has been through some very,

very difficult times this past year and he is back with us

and he is feeling great.

And he is, thank you.

He is performing on Saturday at three

with the Rogue Valley Symphonic band at the,

at the music center at SOU.

He will be doing a bassoon concerto

and I know he would just love to get

as much support out there as you guys are able to give.

And anyway, it's been very nice to be home

and finally hopefully have most of this behind us.

Cut your back. Thank you.

Okay, next we are up to the student board rep report,

which we will again turn over our able reps over there.

Not a ton going on here.

It's a lot of this like brewing college decisions

and career decisions that everyone can feel coming.

Some people are di deciding that now.

On top of that, looking for future board representatives.

So we've been talking to some people

that we think would be a good fit, very exciting,

and kind of gain the spiel, telling them

to hopefully come watch in the next couple of months.

Save the dates for the benefit ball.

Should be going out soon on May 18th.

So mark your calendars.

And then I had the opportunity to meet with BSU

to talk about potential SRO enactment, which was Oh great.

Super informative.

And it was overall overwhelmingly

positive, which was great to hear.

There was some conversation,

but it was mostly just a, that sounds great.

We have the same concerns as everyone else.

And I mean it all really just comes down to the person

as making sure it's not some, it's somebody that's connect,

like, 'cause people can feel that they can connect with.

But yeah, it was a really positive interaction. So.

All right. That's really good to hear.

She pretty much covered it.

I think you had a superintendent tour today.

Oh, that's actually tomorrow.

We got the date wrong tomorrow. Okay. Right.

I'm meeting with the new superintendent.

So that's to give you a tour of the high school.

I'm excited for that. Yeah,

Excellent.

So, and I mean I, as you probably know,

we are all very excited to also, you know,

meet the new representatives for next year.

If there's anything we can do, we would be happy to meet

with them or come into the leadership class

or anything. Oh, that's

Amazing.

Yeah, just we might come to reach out questions

or anything. Yeah, maybe

Still right now, maybe I'll

email you guys to see what a good,

A good

Day would be to come in and appreciate, maybe

Ask some questions.

There's definitely a couple really excited students

that wanna be part of this,

So, okay.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Is that it?

Yeah. Alright. And public comment.

I don't believe we have any.

No thank you. Okay.

So next is our district staff updates.

And we'll start with superintendent report

with Samuel Boff. Right.

Well, lots and lots of wonderful things going on.

I'll try to avoid a little bit of redundancy here,

but I just want to talk, as Dr. Patrick mentioned,

we're gonna be, begin doing a tour tomorrow.

We'll start reading with cabinet.

We'll hit all of the schools and,

and very fortunately have some wonderful tour guides,

hopefully at the high school and a couple others.

We hope in terms

of students actually helping facilitate those tours.

We'll have lunch with district office staff and,

and kind of looking forward to that.

Dr. Hatrick and I have been working a little bit

behind the scenes as I want to keep him informed

and engaged in some of the conversations we're having

around staffing and,

and making sure that we're setting the district up

for success really throughout the transition.

So I think that will be work that we'll do ongoing as,

as we kind of move towards July one.

And then we're also talking about the possibility

of times depending, I know Dr. Patrick is already

currently in his, his,

his previous district still finishing up the year.

But the hope is that we might be able to arrange a day

or two where he could come down to meet

with, meet with folks.

Tomorrow is gonna be pretty quick tour,

but hopefully we can get some additional

time if we can make that happen.

So excited about that. Wanted to, let's see,

one big piece of news.

I was able to go up to the Oregon Association

of Central Office Administrators Conference last week

because one of our own was recognized for folks

who don't know COSA

and OA coa are the, the,

the administrative professional organization in Oregon.

And the KOA ex award of excellence this year went

to our own assistant superintendent, Erica Bear,

where she was honored by colleagues throughout the state.

It's a big deal and incredibly well observed.

And the best part about it was, you know,

I snuck her to the front of the room.

She had no idea. Her family snuck in the back and, and,

and it was a big surprise.

She was upset about the prize,

but grateful for the recognition.

So surprise by her. So that was, that was pretty nice.

Boy, our, oh Bob kids are scary.

So I won't elaborate more on that, but in a good way.

I did wanna assure Dr.

Hatrick that if he has opportunity to see Matilda, the pokey

that is portrayed is not an actual place at the high school.

So that's good news.

DECA by the way, is Distributive Education Clubs of America

and it really deals with business.

And so it's incredible that we've gotten that program back.

It is part of our CTE cadre programs

and we're really excited by that

and how quickly that's grown.

All of our administrative teams the last two days attended,

or actually today and tomorrow, are attending

threat assessment workshops, which has to do with

how we assess when there are individual threats by students

or individuals in school.

How do we deal with that? How do we process that?

So that's really important training for them.

Fortunately, it's right over at SOU sir,

if there is something urgent they need

to duck out for, they're able to do that.

But that's, we're excited to be able to have that training

and have it so close high school, this is the time of year

where if you have a chance to sneak over to the wood shop,

you'll find a bunch of kindergartners swinging hammers

and using saws assisted by their high school peers.

And I can't tell you what they're working on

because that would blow some secrets.

So, but it's really, really cool.

The last bit I wanna say is I think we are within a couple

of days of announcing a new hire for the trails principal.

So looking forward to that.

We had a robust hiring process, a lot of interest

and should be able to make

that announcement relatively soon.

So excited about that. And that's it for now,

unless there are questions.

Alright,

Thank you.

SI will say

that ear pulling is also not encouraged in our district.

For those of you who have seen Matilda,

Definitely not.

Okay.

So next we have a capital bond update.

We have Steve and Mike ready to go.

Good to do something. Everybody leaving?

I take it personal, I take

Their

It's the intermission time.

Everybody's getting up for the seventh inning stretch.

Yeah, well they're doing that. I'll,

I'll echo what Sammy said.

I'm thrilled to see, to hear that Deca iss back.

I was actually a deck of President College. Oh, nice.

So I, I love the organization. That

Sounds amazing.

It was,

I it does sound

cold emergency.

I was just, yeah, I don't have any.

Perfect. Okay.

How come we're not seeing it on the presentation?

Did we change the, the

Zoom?

That's a good question.

I mean, we can jump in. It's just,

I think the world is seeing a

blue screen that says questions. Yeah, I

Know.

And I'm not sure why it's not broadcasting that.

So the, the zoom screen is on there.

Yeah, but it should be on the monitor screen isn't,

I mean, we can jump into it.

I believe you guys have

Seen the report.

We don't spend a lot of time referencing the report.

We can get started if you'd like.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you once again for having us.

We'll wait for Jill to get her Tic-Tacs,

Come on.

You're holding us up.

No worries.

A little relaxed. Sorry.

Y'all good? We're good. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you for having us.

As I promised these lost control of the meeting,

these monthly reports are gonna get shorter and shorter.

We, we just finished our one year warranty walk, believe it

or not, at Hellman and the middle school

and trails, with the exception

of the roof at the middle school,

which we're still working through.

But yeah, we're really the, this,

this report's gonna get shorter as we further along.

So we're gonna dive into this one.

This is for February of 24.

Yeah, thanks Steve. As you mentioned, you know,

this is really kind of morphed into somewhat

of a high school report at this point.

So activities at the,

at the high school are moving along well.

We are continuing work on the humanities building.

Really the, the focus there,

of course is on the, the seismic.

We're ooc occupying the first and second levels. Now.

The majority of the steel that you see on kind

of the exterior of it for the seismic upgrades

for the drag beams and the shear walls

is gonna be installed in the next week with the anticipation

to pour the shot creek.

So essentially the concrete coating

that's gonna encapsulate all

that steel over the spring break for those first two floors.

So it's gonna be kind of a monumental move

and then it'll quickly cover up all of that work.

So it won't look like there was much done there.

But I think everyone's had the opportunity to see kind

of the extent of the, the steel structure

that's there on the interior of the building.

They're continuing to work on the mechanical, electrical,

plumbing and fire alarm runs.

So all of that is roughed in.

So conduits and pipes are in getting ready

to start pulling wires for all

of the upgrades on the interior of that building

over on the science building.

Similarly in the science area, all the demo

and abatement is completed over there

and they're starting to put in their pathways

for the new electrical and mechanical for the upgrade

of the, the science classrooms.

So that's kind of a, a quick run

through from high school standpoint.

Outside of that, we hit kind of another great milestone.

The solar ground, mountain solar array is now live

and producing electricity.

So to date we have produced

6,257 kilowatt hours.

So that might not mean a lot,

but I hope to show it, we'll send out a link,

but there's a dashboard where you can kind of view the,

the live stream of what's going on there

and how much produced already some.

Okay. You guys might have already seen it.

So anyways, yeah, it's very cool.

552 gallons of, of fuel, 261 electric cars,

over million smartphones charge.

That's kind of the power that's been produced so far.

So a great way to apply that to kind of real life scenarios.

So we do have a kind

of kickoff ribbon cutting, if you will next week.

So excited to introduce that to the community

and start reaping the benefits of it.

So I think the district as a whole should be proud.

It's a huge monument here is one of the, the largest kind

of solar arrays in the, in the Ashland area.

So can I ask, is that, does

that feed into our, you know, the, the wider

Array

Array it feeds and then back we get back

trails as much as we've put in? Or is that just going

Directly?

Okay.

So the, the way it's set up is it is

net meters back to trails.

So it essentially produces power for trails

and yeah, with that right now Ashland isn't quite set up

with infrastructure to, to feed power back to the grid,

but still a great monument. So yeah,

I mean I love the location you guys picked.

I mean it's hidden, it's like kind of in an area

that wasn't used.

Oh, I mean, unless you live right,

It's low profile, it's low profile.

She got to watch the progress. So she got

To hear the I hear it, feel the progress

Hear. So I still feel it.

And don't forget, we still have some more solar to go.

We have that 1% requirement

and I think we're about halfway through that.

So we'll be coming back hopefully in the next year

or so with another project that, that, that meets

that 1% requirement.

Thanks.

Yeah. Any, any questions?

Yes, I do have questions. Are you, I know we go talk.

That's alright. Well,

I just hadn't looked at the financials in a while

and I just wanted a reminder because I think, and,

and maybe I'll kind of say what I remember.

I'm, I just look, I'm just looking at the first two pages,

but just

as a reminder on the

program budget, there were, there was

the system system development charges with the city

and also the other

planning fees.

And the, the planning fees was the, was the one

that we had budgeted like a significantly less amount than

what the charges ended up being.

And, and I know that the city worked with us

and we made some modifications.

It looks like the SDC fees are, are very small.

Were were those the ones that they reduced

and what, how did that all get resolved?

Yeah, so I think you were well aware of that

as we were kind of working through it.

It, it became apparent

that there was gonna be a significant amount of

not only fees for SDC system development charges,

but also just the overall permit costs.

So plan reviews, building permits,

structural reviews, those types of things.

So with that, we have seen a reduction in, in all

of the projects going forward of what's been charged as far

as the percentage of the, the overall project cost.

So that was somewhat of a break

that we received from the city.

And then in addition to that, I believe there was some

funds returned Steve, if you remember the

Exact amount.

Yeah. And, and don't forget this, we went through this

with girding builders and then we pushed pause

and then we had to go and we had to resubmit a lot of

that back through planning.

And that's where that reduction was seen was in the, like

for instance, we just met today

and there's no SD SDCs on the science building.

We got that one, we got the permits back for that

and nothing.

So we we're seeing a drastic reduction,

but I think the, the budget is a little bit outta skew right

now because we, this is literally the second time we've

made an attempt at this project.

And so a lot of that stuff had to be resubmitted

through planning, so.

Hmm. And I don't know how, or,

or exactly what the amount was that was returned.

We'd, I'd have to go back a couple.

It was, that was over a year ago, almost two years ago.

So I'm gonna have to go back

and look and see what that amount

Was.

It was around like 600,000. Okay. That's, that's what

I recall.

I wasn't in the current role I am now, so I wasn't,

it's a little bit detached from it, but,

But we'll dig it out and, and get it to you.

Yeah. I more just wanted

to see like if they're like ongoing what,

what you both just talked to if that, if

We, if it feels drastically lower

Yeah.

There has been a reduction overall as far as the,

the percentage that's been charged to the district.

So on the, on the projects going forward.

Great. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think we have one more phase.

Yeah.

Third, third phase.

It has to go through planning. Yep.

Okay. For the high school. And then, am I reading it right

that we're down to six and a half million?

That's, that's what's left of the bond

From unallocated, correct?

From allocated, yeah.

Okay. We're still working within high school

bond project allocation.

That budget that that six and a half million is unallocated

and those are monies that have not been allocated and

or have come back to us from the other projects.

Okay.

Like we just got 600,000 back from Walker.

That was con contractor contingency

that was unused. Yep. Wow.

So there's a, there's some additional kind

of funds within the individual project level

that we're reconciling

as we've reached the completion of these projects.

So to balance all of that out, we'd like to do that.

But we should be currently on track

for, for being on budget.

We do have the last bid package

for the high school out right now.

We received bids last week.

I should have updated you guys on that.

We got good coverage there.

We don't have the, the numbers of exactly what

that bid package equates to.

So that's really the final piece.

So with that, we'll be able to look at the, the budget

for the high school as a whole

and see kind of where we're landing as far

as whether we're over under budget

and then looking at kind of reallocation of some