Jennifer Speirs commented on the MLHS Robotics Team qualifying for District. She thanked Mr. Haugen and Ms. Heater the adults coming to support the team. She said the students really appreciate seeing District adults coming.

Ryan Grant said Knowledge Bowl took 6th in the State last weekend. He also commented on Mr. Haugen making it to the Robotics competition. 

Ashley asked 5th graders at Michael Anderson Elementary how they are planning for the future and if they feel prepared. They said they're looking forward to making new friends and preparing for harder work at the Middle School. They mostly feel prepared but would like more of the experience of rotating through subjects. Areas for improvement are working harder, what was hard early on, is easier now and that, overall, school id great. Their advice for the younger kids is to be a good leader, help out younger kids and be nice, not rude. 

Gabby's visit to Hallett Elementary asked the same questions. Students would really like to keep up with their work once they get to the Middle School. The feel prepared but know that it's a big change. They're excited for new teachers and having more opportunities for art and a better understanding of math. 

For improvement, 4th graders would like to see more students clean up in the cafeteria. They'd witnessed someone being picked on which they reported to an adult as well as some name calling in class and at recess.

5th graders advice for younger grades was work hard, be respectful, put your name on your papers and be prepared for harder work. 4th graders said to have fun and 1st graders want the kindergartners to know they need to pay attention, not talk a lot and make good choices. 

Trinity had the same topics for the Middle School. 8th graders felt prepared but weren't sure what they're getting into when they get to the high school. Areas of improvement included more clubs and competitive soccer teams. Their advice for younger grades was to work harder, as most of them wished they had and that the Middle School isn't as bad as they think, it's not that much harder than the elementary grades were. 

Chucks had the High School. Seniors are preparing to go into the military, college, and for track season. They feel prepared but feel it's coming up really fast. Areas for improvement would be more time in CCR to focus on financial skills, how to file taxes, applying for scholarships and other real life skills. Their advice for younger grades, listening to the advise of others and take advantage of it, lock in and get work done as soon as possible and to focus on grades but not stress over high school. 

Lisa Lemire at the Middle School for their highlights. They've offered cheer this year and it's super popular and unique to the Middle School. High School crew came down to help kick it off. They've also started an e-sports program, they have academic requirements to participate.

175 different students at the High School sports. 

We have such a good group of coaches, working crazy hours and doing a great job. We had a couple coaches earn awards, Nick Puzycki received the WIAA Army Award, and Gene Blankenship was inducted into the Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame.

A year ago we did an extensive walkthrough of every building and generated a report with NAC, an outside company which we're required to do every 6 years. 

We were able to do our own assessment through ICOS this year. Since we did such an extensive walkthrough and report last year, there wasn't much that changed this year, which only moved our numbers from 65.76 to 65.75. We're only required to report on buildings that receive State match but we always review them all. This is an OSPI required annual report. 

We looked at enrollment from 2017/2018 to current. The shared document showed there were yearly declines, with a small bounce back in 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 before dropping again. Our budget is built off of FTE, not head count and we are down approximately 100 FTE, which is the equivalent to 1 grade level. From September to January, the State pays on what we projected, in January they switch to actuals when they look at our actual enrollment. We've done a projected roll-up for all grade levels to try and estimate enrollment and ask our elementary principals what they have for kindergarten registrations to-date and try to create a budget for 2025/2026. 

Impact Aid, as the government makes changes, it's hard to know what exactly might happen with any impact aid payments. We have not heard that that department is not working, we have received one in January and typically receive one in April or May, which is anticipated to be around 1.4m, but we haven't received anything as of yet. Students whose families live on and work on base are considered a 1.0, students whose families live off but work on base are considered a 0.2, so not every student is valued at the same rate.

There is a new software conversion for this year, creating a very short timeline to create a budget. We will need to adopt the budget at the June meeting this year rather than July so it's ready for our July conversion.

Superintendent Headrick joked that Assistant Principals were getting a week off. In seriousness, she thanked Justin, Lyra, Barry and Ben for their hard work.

She also noted that we're combining Education Support Professionals Week and Certificated Week into one with our "Survivor" game show. We piloted it last year with teachers, it was a huge hit, so we're excited to have more staff participating.  

We had a community member send a letter last week expressing concern about the proposed housing development and what impact this could have on the District. We did not have an official statement at the Planning Committee Meeting, Dr. Headrick had checked about making a statement but noted that comments for the subject had closed at the time of her inquiry. 

Proposed location is at the south end of the lake by the city maintenance shed. We were asked how would the district support the additional enrollment the development would bring.  The development is platted as 106 single family homes, reached out to our partners in Cheney as they've done some work with a demographer and what does new housing look like. Based on their estimations per house, for K-12 it averages to 0.4 of a student, or roughly 44 students. If you look at fiscal impacts, that's approximately 0.2, or 22 students across K-5 levels total, not just in any 1 grade. Given the drop in enrollment over the last 6-7 years the Medical Lake School District does have some capacity to support growth within our schools. Traffic would be something we'd work with the city to see how that would impact us. If we ran out of space for students, we do have the ability to add a portable, but don't anticipate it would really be needed. 

Looking forward as we anticipate the application to come in, we will continue to evaluate it and how it impacts us. 

Changes happening in the education system, growth is in our district's wheelhouse and she appreciates the work the district is doing. She asks that we continue to keep doing the good work, to keep being transparent, and allow for parents and community members who might have a hard time adjusting to change, the opportunity to do so.