Teacher and community member Ryan Grant thanked Mr. Craig Johnson for helping a student master the bugle for an ROTC performance. He mentioned all the sporting events are still taking place at the Middle School and how exciting it is for our 6th graders to be able to participate in sports and be in the league with Mead. Ryan also invited everyone to the Dollars for Scholars awards on Monday, June 2 and noted that Alexis Alexander will be the special speaker. 

Bill Colley's High School civics class created a mock house and senate with half the students representing the republican party and the other half representing the democratic party. Students created bills and presented them to other students in class. Bills that most students felt would be a good one to get passed, presented them to the two history/civics teachers, hoping the bill would be accepted. Of the 80 bills that the students created, only 4 were signed into action.

The Board asked for an example of one that passed. Students said that the bill abolishing the Washington state bag tax passed.  

For this assignment, students researched actual bills that passed and/or didn't pass by legislators. This enabled them to figure out what might be worth presenting to the teachers. During this process, they found out that well worded bills with more detail were more likely to be chosen by all students to be presented to the teachers. 

Another take away, was that those chosen to present the bill, whether they wrote it or not, were the ones in the hot seats for answering questions and being blamed, so to speak, if the bill ended up being vetoed. 

They said this assignment helped them better understand the process and all said they would not pursue a career in politics. 

Trinity went to Michael Anderson Elementary and talked with 1st, 4th, and 5th graders. She asked how they felt the year went, and most said it went great. When asked what made it great they noted it was the teachers and their friends. Areas that were a struggle were Zern math and science, and only one student said they struggled to make friends. Students felt they had achieved a better understanding of math, and that fractions were getting easier as the year progressed. 

Ashley talked with 4th and 5th graders at Hallett Elementary who felt school work was relatively easy, especially since they thought school was going to be harder. The 5th graders said they had struggles with math and science, specifically fractions and dividing. They've been practicing opening locks for lockers when they're in higher grades. Students said in the beginning math was confusing but it got easier as time went on. They wanted to improve their reading fluency. Most felt they were reading just to get through an assignment, but wanted to go back and do better and read for fun.  The 4th graders accomplishments were making friends and being more kind to others.

Chuks was at the Middle School and talked to each grade level. All grades said they felt good about the school year overall. 8th graders felt they were in a good spot academically, while 6th graders felt they did average when it came to school work. Students in 7th grade said they felt accomplished at grade level standards.

Gabby talked to High School 9th and 10th graders who said they felt good overall for the year. Some said they wished they had picked better classes geared more for their career choices. Students said catching up with work when they'd been sick was a challenge and some new students didn't feel they knew their way around school. A lot of students felt they were more involved with drama classes and new sports. 

Student and Community Services Director Tawni Barlow presented "what is Social Emotional Learning." She talked about how SEL helps children and adults manage emotions, work on goals, learn about empathy, relationships and making responsible choices. 

Tawni discussed why we prioritize SEL and about the Washington State standards. Next Tawni went into depth about how students are screened for behavioral and emotional problems and the process flowchart. She also noted that parents can opt their student out of being screened. 

Last year, the District received a grant for a Peer Specialist that was supposed to go for 2 years. The program and funding was discontinued in May 2025.

Tawni was able to share the collected data from the Peer Specialist program for the short time it was going. 

Assistant Superintendent Robert Haugen gave an update on our Home Connections. He shared the front facing flyer that has been posted around the community. He's working with a third party vendor "schooldata.net" that offers curriculum for ALE students, those identified as Highly Capable and those receiving language supports which will also benefit those in the Home Connections program.  

A few parents in the group are asking to add in a specific writing resource for the curriculum which will be presented at the next board meeting for approval. 

Our Military Family Advocate Rey Ornelas, is helping with the Fairchild Air Force Base homeschool community to get the word out about our program.

To date, Mr. Haugen has met with 8 families with a total of 12 students to discuss the program details and review curriculum. Not all of those families have enrolled yet, but we're feeling very encouraged that they will. 

With our new website rolling out, we have a dedicated space on the main page for Connect + Learning options.

Our 2023/2024 school year audit finished up in April. Auditors are typically onsite between one to four weeks with the remaining hours being offsite. We had a clean audit with only two minor house cleaning items. 

One interesting thing to note, we only did the financial audit and not the accountability piece as originally planned. The county auditing team was behind, timewise, so our two year accountability audit is being pushed to next year and will be a three year accountability audit along with the fiscal audit. 

Director Johnson said it was fun to host the WSSDA District 10 meeting at the Wellness Center. She noted it is always interesting to hear thoughts and happenings from directors of other districts. She said it was a very informative meeting and she enjoyed meeting new people. 

Gerri also attended the Tribal and Educational Leader Convening at Northern Quest Casino on March 27. In talking with one school district , they're moving from a five day school week to a four day school week.  

Dir. Cooper really liked the Tribal and Educational Leader Convening event. He felt it expanded his knowledge about tribal customs and liked how they were teaching their students about their culture and being able to integrate that into their current curriculum. It was his first time attending this event.

Dr. Headrick moved recognition of our three senior board reps up to allow Chuks the opportunity to get to practice. 

Dr. Williams-Gilbert handed out thank you gifts to Trinity, Gabby and Ashley from the Board and District Administration and read a speech she'd prepared to express thanks and best wishes for their next journey.

An Early Learning program has been a long work in progress. It has been the District's goal to get Home Based Instruction and Early Learning programs out this year. There were rumblings about State funding for Early Learning that were going to be a potential barrier. This has been little progress to date. We continued with our Early Learning survey and Transitional Kindergarten interest survey in the spring and had parental interest with over 50 potential students in our area we could serve.

Recently, I testified in front of legislation asking them not to cap funding for Transition to Kindergarten. They did cap it, but at the current TTK enrollment levels. Michael Anderson Elementary is currently at 20 and also our only program so far, so that makes that number our cap. ECEAP (Early Childhood Education Assistance Program) resides under DCYF (Department of Children Youth and Family), they had a limited increase in ECEAP slots with no opportunity for new providers which is what we would be. We reached out to the ESD's ECEAP coordinator who asked if we'd consider being an ECEAP sub-contractor for a current provider. Community Colleges of Spokane has the big, broad contract with DCYF for ECEAP and sub-contracts to private providers. Three days later we were meeting with their team and found out we can be sub-contractors with 20 spots, they'd contract through us and we'd do the teaching.  As of right now, they committed 20 slots to us. We have asked for a total of 40, if they have the opportunity to expand, we will see. MLSD is planning to open ECEAP as sub-contractors for DCYF at Hallett and Michael Anderson Elementary in September 2025. We are currently working on a braided model, which would allow us to use TTK and ECEAP slots along with local funding to increase spots available. 

Community Colleges of Spokane will come out and do assessments of the spaces in our elementary classrooms to make sure we're good to go. We will be sending out the exciting information to families once we have received a contract through CCS for the program.