Each Central Office Administrator and Board Member shared something they observed in the District or Community.

Ashley started by saying, she, Chuks and Trinity really enjoyed attending the WSSDA Annual Conference in Spokane with the Board. They liked getting to meet student representatives from other districts and hear their various visions and goals. It gave our representatives a lot of things to think about and possibly implement down the road. 

The focus during the school walks this time was based on the Medical Lake Promise #3: Promote Hope and a Vision for the Future from Early Learning Through Post-Secondary. Students were asked these 5 questions: Do you have dreams or goals for the future? Do you think you can achieve your dreams? Do your teachers help you believe in yourself: Do you feel excited about going to school? What can do we do help you reach your goals and feel hopeful about the future?

Ashley went to Michael Anderson Elementary, Gabby was at Hallett Elementary, Trinity went to the Middle School and Chuks went to the High School. 

All students at Anderson said they are excited about their future goals and how to get there. Most say they feel they can achieve their dreams if they work hard with the support of family and teachers. All of them said their teachers help them believe in themselves and provide help as needed. They're excited about school and said the teachers are what make it that way. More clubs and afterschool activities around careers are what they feel would help them reach their goals. 

Students at Hallett shared their future goals and dreams, most were about being in the Air Force, being police officers, being parents, restauranteurs and famous soccer players. They believe doing well in school will help them accomplish those goals and dreams. Their teachers are encouraging and pushing them to learn. All students are excited to go to school, most said it was to see their friends and some said it was to learn new things. After school programs related to the military, a career day and information about what it's like in High School and college are things they'd like to see as options to make the school better. 

Every Middle School student has dreams and goals for the future, some of which include being an MLB player, actresses, lawyers and scientists. The students feel they can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough, and said they are excited to go to school. 

High School students have goals for after High School which include going to college, and joining the military. The students felt their school was doing a good job of preparing them for the future but that some personal finance guidance would be helpful through CCR to help them with every day life skills (paying taxes, balancing finances, etc.). They say their counselors have been helpful with scholarship opportunities and feel the school is doing a good job of promoting a positive and hopeful outlook towards the future. Most students felt there wasn't anything extra the school could do to prepare them for post-graduation. While a few felt cracking down on absences and classroom disruptions would be beneficial. 

In an earlier meeting we had a community member bring a concern to us about the High School wrestling room. We want to recognize that we take concerns seriously, and Chad Moss has done some work researching and reviewing those concerns.  He had our insurance carrier came out to walk the wrestling room and do a safety evaluation. They noted, that while what they found was not a huge safety concern as far risk management is concerned, some light fixtures hanging low and equipment that is being stored in the room when did not belong could be easily corrected. There was also a sprinkler head hanging low. Options to correct that could be moving the light fixtures and sprinkler heads up into the recessed ceiling and storing the unnecessary items in a different room. 

As a suggestion, they said the supervising windows currently cut into the wall need to be made safer. Chad was also told that Clear Risk will match up to $5,000.00 for that room's updates. He will be writing a formal report to share with the concerned community member mentioned earlier. 

Rob shared a power point highlighting AimswebPlus comparing ELA and Math data from Hallett and Michael Anderson Elementary for grades K - 5. There was a slide explaining MAP growth, which was pertinent to the next slide depicting reading, algebra 1 and science data from the High School, and reading, math and science from the Middle School. Mr. Haugen's next slide was a score comparison between the District as a whole as well as individual schools compared with that of the State. It was interesting to note that our students were outscoring the State in every subject and grade shown except for math and science at the High School. SBAC scores in ELA, math and science were reviewed based off of demographic. Rob noted how improving scores ties into the Medical Lake Promises working towards our vision for the future. 

The WSSDA Conference was in Spokane this year. Our Board said that it was great networking with other school district board members. Hearing how things are going for them, what's working, what's not working. 

In connecting with new board members, some were mentioning their districts had gone through some hard times. Those districts were working on establishing connections with their community and families and they were having a difficult time. 

 Our Board gave kudos to the Medical Lake School District administration team for their hard work around building community relations and said "our District is lucky, a lot of boards around the state are not doing as well as ours."

WSSDA gave Kim the opportunity to attend the Milliken Leadership Conference Milliken Corporation campus in South Carolina.  Milliken specializes in flooring and innovations and currently have 1500+ patents, some of which are washable crayons, the color in Windex that doesn't color the surface it's placed on and a whole host of others. 

While Milliken is a business, the goals in a business are similar to goals in a school district, and can be cross referenced. There were leaders from businesses around the US as well as other school leaders. It was really interesting and great to meet such a vast group of individuals. 

3 Key topics from the conference were:

• power of transformational leadership
• brand identity and transformational leadership
• continuous improvement

It was a very insightful conference and Kim was honored to have to have the opportunity to attend. 

Earlier in November, our MLSD team visited the Early Learning Center at Central Valley. Looked at their daily operations, and visited with them about how they run their ELC.

Our team has also met with KCDA about a 4 classroom modular building bid. Currently the State is taking up to 3 months to approve plans before anyone can move forward with their building process. So by planning now and getting as many things in line now, we hope to help lessen the gap between plan/site approval and construction. 

We put out a "needs assessment" survey and have received approximately 100 responses so far. Of those responses, 40% shared their children are not in any early learning programs. 30% of those who responded are also looking for birth to 3 support. So the need in our community is out there. 

We have a meeting with local  child care providers and the ESD on December 5 to see how can we partner together to build a community learning continuum.

Once our ECEAP application is approved, we can order the modular building and get the ball rolling and hope for an August delivery. We'll begin advertisement for our ECEAP program and run registration the same timeframe as kindergarten, which is March 1. 

Staffing for the program would consist of a lead teacher, assistant teacher, family coordinator, educational coach. 

Currently the State funds for 1500 ELC slots state-wide. 75 is the minimum we can request, we're going to ask for 100. 

High School principal, Chris Spring is retiring the end of this school year after 32 years of service.

We're proposing to use the same hiring process as we did for the Middle School principal position. The positive feedback for that was great and it ensures an opportunity for staff, students, parents and community to weigh in on what they'd like to see as a building leader.

There will be surveys for staff, students, families and the community, in-person meetings, application screenings for the same groups, an interview panel and information nights. The initial survey question, "what are you looking for in a principal", will help drive the qualifications we list in posting. 

We'll send out a timeline for High School staff on December 6, followed by communication to High School families on December 9. We'll gather staff and family feedback December 6-12 and share that feedback on December 18.  December 19 - January 17, the position will post and be open internal and external simultaneously. Applications will be screened to narrow them down to 4 highly qualified candidates on January 21. We will invite volunteers to be on the team with interviews taking place February 4-6. Finally, Tuesday, February 11, we will have selected the new principal.

The Board will meet, with no action to be taken, for 20 minutes. 

Executive Session ended at 8:01 p.m.