4J School Board — September 2, 2026

0:08 Welcome everyone. I call the meeting of the Eugene School Board to order on September 2nd, 2026, at 6:05 PM. Board members in attendance with me are Tom Diliberto, Judy Newman, Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, and myself, Erica Thessen. And Jenny Jonak is away this evening. And then also in attendance is our superintendent, Dr. Miriam Mickelson. So I will now read the land acknowledgement. The Eugene School Board would like to acknowledge that our institution sits on the homelands of the Kalapuya people, and the treaties of 1851 and 1854 through 1855, and the subsequent forced removals of many Indian people from the western Oregon. Some of the Kalapuya were moved to the Grand Ronde Reservation, and some were moved

0:55 to the Siletz Reservation. It is important to note that all of Lane County was an important trading and gathering area for camas and other resources. During the restoration era from 1977 to 1989, Lane County was designated as a service area for the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, Siuslaw Indians, the Confederated Tribe of Grand Ronde, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, the Coquille Tribe, and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. Eugene School District 4J acknowledges that the descendants of original and service area inhabitants of this land are still here today. They are thriving members of our schools and our communities. Countless members of other tribes now also call our community and schools their home. We wish to thank those original stewards of this land. We, as fellow stewards of this land, wish to remember that we need to take good

1:43 care of this land and take good care of all the members of our school district community. So my apologies, I'm going to take a breath because getting out of my day job was a little bit troublesome today. Anyway, so I'm going to move on to board chair comments. So good evening, everybody. It's really glad to see you back. I was truly over the moon to attend the welcome back event with our staff earlier today at South Eugene High School, and I know many of my board members, in fact all of you, were in attendance. So that was great. It really warms my heart to see all of our dedicated, caring, and excellent staff. I am so excited for the year ahead and to welcome our community students in our buildings next week. I'm wishing everyone a wonderful year ahead.

2:29 In saying that, I acknowledge that we have a difficult year ahead. We have had to make budget reductions that are difficult and painful for everyone. As it has been said many times before, working conditions are learning conditions. We know that the only way through this difficult year is by working side by side collaboratively as allies and equal partners with all of our staff in the district. In that spirit, I would like to let everyone know, that for this year, our superintendent, Dr. Mickelson, and our board leadership, myself and Vice Chair Maya Rabasa, will be meeting with each of our employee groups on a hopefully monthly basis. It might be more than four weeks, but hopefully that we'll be getting in on a regular basis, so that we can really put the words that I just said

3:19 into action and work together for the best of our students, their families, our staff, and the community. And speaking of community, we have had board members already out and active and doing lots of great things before the school year starts. We have had board members go to the Boys and Girls Club to learn about all the terrific programs and ways that they support students in our community. We also had board members attend our NAACP 50th anniversary event Saturday evening. I just wanted to say that, as a school district, we are so grateful and proud of the work that the NAACP does in our community, and we are proud to partner with you and honestly look forward to another 50 years. I know they're going strong, and best wishes on continuing to have an amazing year.

4:08 Okay. Next, we have the agenda approval. Are there any questions, changes, or corrections to the agenda? Okay. Thank you. Seeing no objections, let's move on to the next item, which is our superintendent's report. Thank you so much, Board Chair Thessen. As mentioned already, we had our staff welcome back event at South Eugene High School this morning, and I really felt like it was a wonderful start to the year. Thank you to our association leaders and Board Chair Thessen for their inspired and heartfelt words of welcome. I particularly enjoyed, and I think everybody in the audience did, a performance from one of our students, Ilia, and one of our

4:56 talented staff members, Anna Boyd, shared her beautiful poetry with all of us. Many thanks to the school board for attending, along with so many community partners and guests, including our mayor, Karen Knudsen, and to our staff for showing up and bringing positive energy. We're especially grateful to the Eugene Education Foundation, Organically Grown Company, Palace Coffee, and Safeway Coburg Road for the breakfast and their continued support of our schools. And huge thank you to Lisa Fjordbeck, Callum McIvor, our communications team, our sign language interpreters tech team, and everybody who worked tirelessly to make the event so special. This summer, 4J invested more than $30

5:41 million to improve school facilities across the district, with new air conditioning and playground upgrades as a primary focus. And I want to just emphasize that these funds come from a capital projects bond and cannot be used to address our budget deficit. And I'm flagging this specifically because, given our current budget deficit, I want to make sure that this distinction does not get confused. Bond funds are restricted to capital projects and are legally separate from the operating funds used to close our budget gaps. I am very excited to welcome our students back to school next week, and I wish our amazing and fantastic 4J staff a fulfilling new school year. Thank you.

6:28 Thank you very much. Always good to hear from you. Next on our agenda would normally be the hearing of the public, also known as public comment, but we do not have anyone signed up for public comment this evening. So we will be moving on to our next agenda item, which is comments from our partners, our amazing employee groups. So do we have anyone from OSEA? Hi, Lisa. Welcome, and thank you. Hello. Good evening. Twice in one day, I had to find words to speak to you all again.

7:15 Good evening, Board Chair Thessen, and welcome to your new role. Superintendent Mickelson and board of directors, my name is Lisa Jenkins Easton, and I'm the president for Oregon School Employees Association, Eugene Chapter 1. This morning, I got to speak to our staff, and I'm deeply thankful and encouraged to be included in a group of leadership that cares deeply about our students, staff, and community. We may not always agree, but we can support and acknowledge that our challenges are real. This year, OSEA hopes to be focusing on staff morale for our members and to continue to educate our members about their union and our contract.

8:01 This means that our members will have the chance with our statewide program for Legislative Education Day, where members get to be trained and interact with our elected officials and hopefully educate for some common interests that we have regarding our schools and funding. Sorry, I'm a little discombobulated tonight. One of the things I've been doing recently also is participating in a legislative work group regarding Otis investigations, which, if you didn't know, is the mechanism that sometimes puts our staff members on paid admin leave

8:47 while an investigation occurs. It's a very expensive procedure and process, and my hope is that the work from this work group, that they come up with a better system to really identify at the school level if abuse has occurred or not It's widely reported by all the agencies and other districts that are participating that it seems that a lot of things get reported that aren't actually abuse. This is the start of my fourth year serving as the Chapter One president. I've learned many things and been reflecting about what effective leadership means.

9:37 Lately, it means that not only are you able to say very hard things, but that you listen and learn when the hard things are spoken. Our workplace culture in 4J has not been this sort of dynamic, and when I think about the cuts that we are returning to school with, it's my hope that this forces us to be more collaborative, be more compassionate, and from a financial perspective, be more efficient. I want to wrap my comments tonight to remind us all about the changes to nutrition services. While I am not fully aware of all of the things that have changed with our food and our menus and how parents can pay their bill, I know that those changes are real

10:24 and that they are a very big deal. Our staff in our kitchens is having considerable anxiety about these changes. There seems to have been little communication amongst staff members to know whether or not our colleagues in our buildings know about these changes and how they can support our nutrition staff when the hard conversations have to happen with parents or students who are unhappy about the changes or who may not know that there are changes. I do look forward and hope to see how this is communicated to parents and staff, and I hope the communication happens soon. I know we're all really busy. Thank you.

11:10 Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate it. Anybody from EEA? Dave? Jamie? No. Okay. And then I understand Scott Mayers from MAPS. It's good to see you again. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Nicholson, Chair Thassen, and members of the board. I'm Scott Mayers. I'm the outgoing 4J Alternative Education Administrator and co-president of MAPS, the Managers, Administrators, Professionals, and Specialists. So since that group, Managers, Administrators, Professionals, and Specialists, represents such a broad range of duties across the four groups,

11:57 I will focus my comments each month on a different component of MAPS in an effort to better represent the whole group. Since it's the first week of September and teachers are reporting back this week, students next week, the air's getting crisp, it's time to start a new school year, so I'm going to talk about administrators and talk about the beginning of the year from the perspective of a principal. And first of all, the beginning of the school year for a principal starts in July. That's when we start looking back before we can really look forward. We reflect on the year that we've just completed. We look at our data. We identify areas of strength, and more importantly, we identify areas where we

12:47 need to serve our students better. From there, we establish our priorities for the coming year. We develop our goals and our school continuous improvement plans, our SKIP plans. Those SKIP plans are important because then that goes directly into building your leadership plan and assigning teams in your building for doing that work. We take these broad goals and turn them into strategic actions, and we build the teams around those actions. One of the things I appreciate about this process is that we're intentional about who we invite onto those teams. We don't simply look for people who have time on

13:35 their schedules. We look for people whose strengths, experiences, and perspectives can help us accomplish the particular goal we're working towards. This year, that work begins under somewhat different circumstances. So every one of our buildings has been affected by the RIF and resulting bumping process. That means that for many of us, starting the year with new people in new roles, new teams, and a fair amount of uncertainty about what that will look like. There's a truism I've used many times throughout my career, and that is when you add a new member to a team, you don't have the same team with a new member. You have an entirely new team. Every interaction changes. A question gets asked,

14:22 new questions get asked, new ideas emerge, relationships change, the way the teams solve problems change. And that's true even when the change is a positive one. This year, for many of our staff, the changes weren't necessarily ones they chose, so we have to acknowledge that as leaders. We can't simply say, "Here's our plan, now go execute it." We have to build that team first. We have to establish trust, we have to create clarity, and we have to help people understand their roles and how their work connects to something larger. We have to give people a reason to believe that despite all the changes, we can

15:07 still do something really good for kids. Because one other thing that is easy to forget is when we're talking about continuous improvement plans, data, strategic actions, and organizational change, all this work is done by humans. Humans who may be excited about a new opportunity, humans who may be anxious about a new assignment. Humans who may be grieving the loss of a colleague or a position they loved. Humans who need to be reassured that they need to be focused, they need direction, and hopefully, they need to be inspired. That is the work of leadership at the beginning of the school year. Our job isn't just to have a good plan.

15:53 Our job is to bring people together around that plan to create the conditions where people can do their best work and where they can remember why they came to choose this work in the first place. Because in the end of all our planning, all our data analysis, and all our organizational changes we make, there's a student sitting in a classroom that's counting on us. And that is what makes this work worth doing. So as we begin the school year, I think the challenge is to hold two things at the same time. We need to be very clear about where we're going, while also recognizing that we may have to rebuild some of the teams that will get us there. And that takes patience, leadership, and a lot of listening.

16:41 It will take all of us remembering that even in a year of significant change, our purpose hasn't changed. We're here to create schools where every student has the opportunity to belong, to learn, and succeed, and that's a pretty good reason to be here in September. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. We really do always appreciate hearing from all of you. We really do. Thank you. Okay, next up is the item for action, the consent agenda. We have three items on the consent agenda, meeting minutes, approve revisions to the board meeting calendar, and approve routine personnel action. Do I have a motion? Okay, Maya.

17:27 I move that the board approve the consent agenda items as listed on the agenda tonight. Do I have a second? Tom? Okay. So we have a motion by Maya to approve the consent agenda as listed on tonight's agenda, and seconded by Tom. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Okay. We have yes votes from Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom DiLiberto, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Thassen. All right. And items for information. We have three items for information tonight. Board members have all read the materials included in the board packet prepared for

18:13 their presentations. The presenters are planning to be brief in their presentations so that the board will have an opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussions. The first item we have is the monthly financial report. Bob Blythe from Associate Director of Financial Services will be giving us a presentation. Hello, Bob. Thank you. Good evening, board members. So as we get this slide back up, you'll see provided in your packet tonight a

18:58 budget update report. This is an outline of what I'm planning to bring to you regularly this year. It has a brief overview on the front page with a spreadsheet on the following page that shows you budget to actual year to date, and encumbrances, and it says that the date that'll be on the top of that report. I'd love to get your comments and feedback on this. Obviously, through July, there's not been a lot of expenditures. But I really wanted to get this in front of you and give you an opportunity to let me know if there's things you would like to see additionally, if anything doesn't make sense or you want to present it differently. So feel free to provide me with those comments. With that, I'll turn to the presentation I have for you this evening,

19:45 if I can get this to work. All right. So tonight I'll be presenting the first budget and financial update for fiscal year '27, and I'm hoping to use this meeting as an introduction to both the budget as well as the path that we have in front of us. This will include defining some terms that we'll use throughout the year, an overview of the budget, and some events and unknowns that we'll be working on, along with a brief message of what we can start doing today. So I know there's a lot of terms that we use, and we throw these out regularly, and I know a lot of you on the board have heard these before, but there's probably a lot of people in the public who might not understand some of these and the differences because they're subtle, but they're important.

20:33 So, how are revenues and resources different as well as requirements and expenditures? Well, revenues are the dollars that come in from outside areas, and these are things that we'll get during the particular year, while resources are all the funds that are available to the district. So within our resources, you'll also see our unexpended ending fund balance and our contingency numbers. Similarly, expenditures are those funds that are set aside to pay for salaries and services and materials, while requirements further include our ending fund balance as well. When we talk about our operating revenues and expenditures, this is what we get day to day from operations. So these are the revenues that we will see

21:20 coming in from the state and other sources during that fiscal year. And then also our operating expenditures are those expenditures that we have programmed to do the operations of the district in that year. We often talk about the general fund, which we have the most control over in our spending, and other funds like grants, capital funds, and together these two make our total budget. So you'll hear mention that we are operating with a structural deficit. And what does this mean? This is when our operating expenditures exceed our operating revenues.

22:06 So the money that we're bringing in a particular year is less than the amount of money that we're spending on goods, services, salaries, and benefits. When this is the case, we'll need to draw on other resources to fill that gap. And then an encumbrance, which you'll see on your report that I provided with you, is basically a promise to pay. So when we set up a purchase order, we are basically promising to pay a vendor a certain amount of money, and that encumbrance then locks up those funds when someone looks at their budget as no longer available to spend. Now, a PO can be canceled, we don't always spend the entire amount of it, and when that happens, that encumbrance moves back to available for a department to

22:52 spend. And then fund balance. Fund balance, again, is our total resources, net of our assets and liabilities. What does this mean to the average person? It's kind of like a savings account. So it's that money that we have set aside that's not being used in our current budget for actual expenditures, but is set aside as our ending fund balance and our contingency funds. And then finally, what is the difference between ongoing and one-time events? An ongoing revenue expenditure or transfer is something that the district can expect to happen on a recurring basis year after year. So if we were to buy a software subscription, for instance, that continues into the

23:40 future, that would be an ongoing expense. One-time events are exactly what they say. We do it once and it's gone. So in the case of transferring funds from one funding source to another, we could do that one time and that transfer is no longer available. This year, our total all funds budget is about $532 million, with just under $290 million of that being general fund. You can see our operating revenue and expenditures there as well. This is the revenue, again, that we anticipate bringing in from all general fund revenue sources, which is primarily the state school fund, local revenues, and then our local option, as well as general fund expenditures, less the anticipated ending

24:29 fund balance. And again, saying it again, this includes our contingency and our unappropriated ending fund balance. A board policy requires us to set aside 5% of our operating expenditures in this anticipated ending fund balance as a minimum. That will come to about $13.7 million for this budget year, so we'll be ending according to the way the budget is written just above that. So here I'm breaking out the major components of our operating revenues and expenditures, as well as where the additional funding is coming to fill the gap. So our state and local revenue is basically the state school fund equalization. And I'm not seeing the...

25:14 So somehow in translation, the titles in the slide have disappeared. Hopefully, they are in your presentation deck. I can see them in front of me right here. But the orange and the dark blue on the operating revenues, let me get that so I can tell you exactly what those numbers are. But that is the state school fund and our local option. Or I'm sorry, that is the state revenue and our local revenues. It's about $126 million in state revenue, $102 million in local revenue. The gray is the pipe that represents our local option at about $27.8 million. And then we have other revenue at $2.6 million.

26:02 On the operating expenditure side, the very large, kind of really dark blue section, that's our salary and benefits, or people business. The majority of our expenditures go to salary and benefits. That comes in just under $237 million in this budget. Materials and services at $36.4. And then we have $1.7 in transfers out. And then in the very tiny circle, the filling the gap, the $16.4 million approximately, that includes our transfers in of $1.29 million, which is $10 million from the facilities reserve and $2.9 from the sale of a particular building downtown. And then use of fund balance is just under $3.5 million.

26:48 So I apologize that those numbers didn't translate to this sheet. So what are some of the major things that lie ahead of us? Well, we have a new biennium that's beginning for the next budget year. We've got PERSE changes, and we've got contract expirations. The new biennium, what does this mean for us? Well, the new biennium means that we're going to see a new state school fund allocation coming from the state. And we will not know exactly how much the state's going to provide for us until well into our budget cycle, and most likely until after we've adopted our budget.

27:34 So with this in mind, we'll be calculating our potential revenues based on a series of forecasts with different funding levels, and we'll be looking at what this means as we move closer to budget adoption. The hope is that we will get more and more guidance from Salem as we get closer, but again, we won't know for certain until after our budget is developed. Another quirk of the biennium is that we get 49% of our allocation in the first year, which means that we'll need an increase of over 4.5% in the state school funds appropriation just to maintain the same funding level that we have in the final year here, where we got 51% of the current state school fund.

28:19 The state forecast has provided mixed insights with some revenues, like lottery projecting well, and others, like the corporate activity tax projecting poorly. We'll continue to watch this as we go along. We're hoping that the state revenues show some healthy improvements, because that means that there'll be more money available to put into the budget for the upcoming year. So also with the new biennium comes new PERS rates. Now, these rates have gone up historically, and there's nothing that says they're not going to continue to go up. We should be provided with more clarity as we get closer to year's end. But, with this new rate, we'll also see the function of ending of our side account.

29:06 Now, the side account is a pool of money that was set aside from a 2004 bond measure that lowered our overall PERS liability over that time, and that bond has run its course. So, this new PERS rate that we'll see will not only be the increase that the state is seeing overall, but we'll also see added on the removal of our side account. Now, we could potentially go out for another side account right now, but in order for it to be successful and to save you money, you need to have the amount of PERS liability percentage reduction greater than the amount of the interest rate that you're paying on that bond. And right now, interest rates are not favorable, and we

29:52 wouldn't want to proceed. And just during the life of the side account, we have saved approximately $25 million over the life of it. And then finally, we have two employee groups whose agreements expire at the end of this fiscal year. So that would be EEA and MAPPS. The district will be working with these groups to develop new agreements, and that would be reflected in next year's budget development. And I wanted to just end on some of the things that we can do now, and our budget constraints are real. So every dollar saved is a dollar available for the future. All of our spending decisions should pass through the lens of does it provide

30:39 direct support for our students or staff, and does it move it closer to our district's goals? We'll also need to think outside the box. Are there new and different ways that we can work to provide quality education to our students in light of constrained funding? And can we put spending controls in place that give us all a chance to review, contemplate, and evaluate? Review the expense, contemplate its true need, and evaluate if there are alternative options to achieving the desired outcome. Thank you, and with that, I'll open up to questions, and I'll put my glasses on so you're not blurry. Yeah. Does anyone-- Yes, Morgan.

31:25 Going back to the state school fund, Bob. Mm-hmm. So on page 21 of the board packet, so it's got that information about needing an increase of 4.5%. And is that for an increase for one year? Is that over the biennium? Because part of this talks about the biennium, but also I want to- Yes, great. It's a great question. And so when I talk about increases to the state school fund, I'm talking about the entire biennium. So that will be a four and a half-- It has to be more than 4.5%. We have two things that are affecting that. We'll have a lower ADMW for the upcoming year. We're extended, so we know we're going to be continuing to stay extended, which means we're using the prior year's numbers. And then also the fact that we switched from getting the 51% of the allocation to the 49. So we have 4.5% is 4.5% over the total biennium, both years.

32:15 Thanks. Yes, Judy. Thank you. Good presentation. And I had a comment about this- Absolutely ... the layout of the summary. I assume you're saying this might be something we'll get to see up in this format each month. Correct. Which is, I like this format. I do have a request. Yes. Could we see the federal funds and the SIA funds in the same way? This is about half our budget. Mm-hmm. And I understand, they're a little more restricted. On the other hand, we have some flexibility with SIA, and it'd be nicer to have a full picture. Sure. And I can do it for all funds. I'll highlight the funds that you requested

33:03 separately, but I'll also do it for the rest of the budget so you can just see where we're trending just generally. Okay. Thank you. You bet. Yeah, go ahead, Marie. Last year, we also got to see revenues and expenses sort of historically over the year. Mm-hmm. Is that something that we could also see? It's handy in part because things don't necessarily happen the same amount every year, and we're getting budget monthly, which I love- Mm-hmm ... but it's also nice to know that we would expect a massive increase in revenues in November because of property taxes or something. And I think that, is that something-- It seems like a lot- I can absolutely provide that. And if that's something that the board's found, yeah, absolutely we can do it. What you'll also see is on the front page, I will be highlighting those things.

33:48 So you'll have the executive summary, you'll have key variances, but I can also, it's easy enough to provide that as well. But you should be able to see that in a visual form on the front that'll tell you why we're having variances from month to month, just as an explanation as well. Good, thanks. Mm-hmm. Anyone else have any questions? No? Okay. Thank you so much, Bob. Thanks. We will have these regular monthly financial reports, and they will be at the first board meeting of the month because this is our business meeting. So we will have these in. So thank you very much. Our next item is nutrition services update for the 2026/27 school year, and the Director of Nutrition Services, Jill Padros, will lead us through the presentation.

34:54 Oh, excellent. Good evening, Jill. It's nice to see you. Thanks for being here. Good evening, Board Chair Thussen. Sounds good, doesn't it? Superintendent Dr. Mickelsen and board members, thank you for inviting me to this table. So basically this evening, what I'm going to do is talk you through the changes that we are going to be seeing. I think you have an updated version of that. Email? It wouldn't be on Google. It would be email.

35:40 Do you want mine? Why don't we talk about communication? Does that sound okay? So listening to Lisa's report, I did want to talk a little bit about what we have done, and of course, I will work with the team if there's something I've missed that I didn't realize. So a bulleted list that I have is nutrition services communication. We created a thorough communication plan with comms. And we updated our website, which maybe we can share with you tonight. It has all fresh information, but since May of last year, we have been running a banner across our site that explained to families all the different things they

36:26 could expect for fall. We have a lot of helpful pathways for parents to get assistance. We have a 8:00 to 5:00 fully staffed office available to receive phone calls and any even in-person visits from families. We have presented directly to school secretaries, principals, nurses, after-school programs about all the changes that they will be seeing. Principals have been briefed on all of those changes and have received language and resources to use in updating their Student-parent handbooks, newsletters, things of that nature. And then it sounds like there's a news story, which I have not seen, about changes

37:13 that have been posted on our district website, maybe up in the front of it. And then we have the first parent e-newsletter sent to all 4J parents last Thursday. Internally, I have an email that's going to all Synergy families from Nutrition Services with the welcome back letter that you would be seeing if we're going to share the website. That's also posted on the website. So I feel like we've hit communication, but it sounds like from the team that maybe we've missed someone somewhere. So we will definitely work on that. But we have spent since last May attempting to communicate as quickly as possible all the parts and pieces. The website, it's kind of cute.

37:59 AI does amazing things. What it's designed to do is to be able to touch on a piece of information, and it'll turn into a flyer that, for example, the secretary can hand to the family. It's got QR codes. It's got as many access points as we can get for families to get to the information that they need. Ready? Can I plug in? Are you able to just email it, and maybe we can quickly pull it up? Sure. Mm-hmm.

38:49 I'm also willing to skip the line and give someone else's spot while we work this out. Do you want us to move to the next thing and then come back to you? It's up to y'all. It's up to you. I'm more than willing to come back. It should be there.

39:37 One second. No worries. Hey, that's okay. I was late getting here, so we'll have lots of grace this evening, so no worries. So, while she's putting that up, are there any questions about communications that have gone out? We can see the website. It's very colorful and nice. That was easy. One of the really fun pieces is we created a spot for families that are new to meals. And if you touch it, it's got a cute little flyer. We're assuming the majority of these kiddos are going to be kinders.

40:22 And then we have an opportunity for a little calculator that they can play and learn how to touch their numbers on the keypad. So we've done some cute stuff as well. Ready? And this is a very short presentation. Okay, so basically what we're doing is just giving you an update. We are continuing, if you will, the universal access that we have provided to our students. So one complete breakfast and one complete lunch is available to all students each day at no cost to the student. This is a part of our CEP program, and it will continue.

41:08 So again, like I said, the one breakfast, the one lunch at zero cost, and then also what is continuing is in qualified after-school programs, meaning best high school extended day programs, we're also continuing our free supper program. One thing about our program is students will be provided the meals and items that they select as seconds, and the key to that piece of information is that if they're selecting a second based on their own choices, we are obligated not to remove that from a student, and those charges will be added to the student's meal account. So additional purchases, this is the big change.

41:53 Additional purchases are charged through each student's meal account. Families are being taught that they have two easy ways to pay. We have a MyMealTime process that they add funds online through a portal or a mobile app. They can pay through their school office via cash or check. We will not be receiving funds through kitchens, but we will through the student office. And then those seconds and single milks are charged to that student meal account and either deducted from a prepay or sent as an invoice at the end of the month. Families may contact Nutrition Services for account assistance, scholarships, or forgiveness options. And so we're leaving that independently of the families to work with us on that,

42:42 and we're making that very clear at all aspects of communication and through the teams at the schools to know how to help them navigate to us to make that work. We have created several options in a student's day to offset any maybe rumbly tummies. And so we are really focusing on our No Thank You table. We've always used our No Thank You table, but we're going to be very outspoken about that and telling friends who are not going to eat perhaps an apple that's on their tray to share that with their friends on the No Thank You table so friends can come and take something from that. And it would be provided any whole fruit, unopened, packaged, or whole food items that will be located on all No Thank You tables throughout meal service.

43:32 We have collaborated across the district with Food For Lane County in their Cereal For Youth program. We've centralized that through our warehouse program. And so we are delivering cases of single packets of granola. They're made in a local company here in town, provided to us free by Food For Lane County, and those will be sort of in-between snack opportunities for a rumbly tummy, say after breakfast but before lunch or after lunch before the bell rings. And those will be located, for example, in school offices. Those will be outside of the kitchen environment. We have

44:17 meal assistance through the form of scholarships, meal account assistance available through the Nutrition Services Department, and through partnerships with EEF and right now Metro Rotary. We have built these scholarship funds that we will transfer and pay a negative meal balance for a student on an individual basis. That Metro Rotary fundraising, if anybody's in Metro Rotary, please help. And then the EEF partnerships are designed to be a little bit more larger scale scholarship funds that will land in a scholarship fund at Nutrition Services, and then we will use that to pay those negative meal balances.

45:02 We have another program that has happened so quickly that we didn't get it on the screen, but we have a number of backpack programs that are going to be sent home on Friday afternoons with students. And I found a small grant program that I forwarded on to Dr Mickelson this morning, and we're going to share that with these groups that are going to be building these backpack programs. And so we're hoping we can really get that one up and off the ground as well. Backpack programs are very fun for the folks that get involved with building them as well as for the students to take them home. So the next steps center the students and families. We're really working hard to protect access.

45:47 We're keeping that one complete breakfast and lunch available at no cost. We're connecting families, making payment simple, connecting them with assistance when they need it on an individual basis, and then we're planning to monitor and respond. We're going to track our participation this year, our meal accounts, our service times, and of course, any family concerns that come our way. I guess takeaway for you all is that universal access remains. We are not wavering on that part. And then we're trying to create very clear options for additional foods, payments, and assistance. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Right. Yeah, go ahead, Tom. Yeah, I have a question about, is it My Meal Time?

46:36 I haven't seen the website, but it used to be that if you paid with a credit card, they would charge you 3% or something. Yeah. But I don't remember if a debit card was zero. So they're making their money off those, or are they charging a fee, or maybe both? The My Meal Time is the software system that I use from the student number all the way through the point of sale. Oh, okay. And so they do filter the funds to the student's account, and they do charge a fee on the credit card. Do you know what they charge for the debit card? I believe they charge for any transaction online. Any transaction. Okay. All right. Well, I see there's you can also pay by cash and by check.

47:21 Yes, which avoids that. That's why we're keeping- Right ... creating that option. Great. I'm glad that's there. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, Maya? I have a couple questions. Yeah. First, I'm really excited that we're maintaining a level of universal access, even if it's not what we had been at. My questions are about, I guess I'll start with the payment tab. I'm wondering if there's any spot on the payment tab to make additional contributions that aren't for your child's account, similar to how when you go on a field trip and you fill in, you can add extra. I have a donation banner and flyer created. What I am struggling with is whether or not I would actually be providing it on

48:08 nutrition services website. I am looking more at taking a comprehensive account, and so I actually want to separate it away from my nutrition services, and so Kelly and I are getting started on that fact. It would be really hard for me to desegregate what the parent put in for their child and then move it. I know that sounds complicated, but I think we've got a better path. And so it could be through Meal Time, but we've also talked about maybe it's through some of the other payment processes that are used by the district in a more comprehensive way. Okay. Or BEF, right? Because they're also our partner in this. Right. Yeah. Awesome. No, that's a great question. I love knowing that there is a- Yes ... pathway for- Yes ... making those easy contributions.

48:53 Yes. My other question is about the meal assistance component. And I'm thinking specifically of the part where you're talking about getting access to scholarships and/or assistance. You said that there's going to be a communication. My two questions are, how are we going to be communicating that that's available to people? And then my second part is, what is the method for accessing that? Do we have a low-barrier electronic method so that people don't have to make phone calls? Which for a lot of people is a barrier that they can't cross to get that access. So I'm wondering, is it possible to have a one-click button somewhere

49:41 that sends people to that? We're treating this at this point as an all hands on deck, so if I have someone in, like a counselor that says, "Hey, I know this," we're going to have them call us. We're going to do it at any point possible. We are not going to leave this only on the families. I'm going to see if you think about it at the end of every month, a negative balance. And so we are going to look for ways to offset that. If a family does not respond to us, we are not going to become bill collectors. We have extended unlimited credit to all of our families. And so if it completely is just unresolved, I will then be looking at my large-scale account at the end of the

50:28 school year. Okay. I have to bring that account to zero. If a parent picks up the phone because they're feeling that stress, we are going to support them. Someone in the school does that, we're going to support them, but we are not going to continue to repeatedly bill that. It's being made very clear that this is a struggle. Thank you. It's the best way we can come up with right now. We may, as we go through this, realize that something isn't working, and we will revamp that. But right now, we could not find a way that we wouldn't be overtly targeting a child- Mm ... in any way, shape, or form because I'm unable to collect individual

51:17 family socioeconomic status because at CEP I have to look at it by the school and by the community. I'm not even able legally to start that. So this is our first attempt at this. Yeah. Thank you. We're hopeful. I think it's going to work really well, and we're going to be very gracious with our community. Yeah, Judy? I just want to express my appreciation. I feel like you and your team have thought through so many aspects to communicate the intent of what we want, which are feeding everyone for free in the district and being really respectful for ways that families can access

52:02 assistance. So anyhow, this is just well done, and I appreciate you paying attention to all the details of communication, so- Of course ... I just want to thank you. Yeah. Of course. It means a lot. Anyone else? No. Thank you so much, Jill- Yeah ... to you and your whole team- Thanks for having me ... and thanks for feeding our kids. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Sorry about the little slowness. That is okay. Oh, there's one. Okay. All right, we will now move on to our last item for information.

52:47 Our next presenters are Assistant Superintendent Brooke Wagner, Chief of Staff Carmen Xiomara Obina, Director of Technology Dan Farley, and Director of Research and Planning Oscar Loreo. I need to work on that. Thank you all for joining us this evening. We are looking forward to hearing your presentation, hearing about Senate Bill 141 update, the 4J performance, and growth targets. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Ready. Okay. Good evening,

53:32 Chair Fesen, board members, Superintendent Mickelson. Tonight we're bringing you our first formal overview of Senate Bill 141, Oregon's new educational accountability act, and Eugene 4J's performance growth targets through 2030. This is certainly an accountability requirement from the state, but we want to frame tonight's presentation as something larger than compliance. This is about creating coherence across our district, what outcomes we are responsible for, how we will measure progress, how we will support schools, and ultimately how we improve outcome for students supporting students. Brooke, Dan, and I will each speak to different parts of the work, teaching and learning, assessment and data systems, accountability and district strategy, and

54:18 the methodology behind our targets. There are three things we hope the board takes away tonight. First, Senate Bill 141 establishes a new statewide accountability framework with specific student outcomes that every district must monitor. Second, 4J now has four-year performance growth targets that establish where we are starting, where we expect to be by 2030, and what progress should look like, sound like, and feel like each year. And third, and perhaps most importantly, these targets cannot live in a document at the district office. They have to become part of our school improvement plans, instructional practices, assessment systems, data routines, research decisions, and board monitoring. So tonight is not only about numbers, it's about establishing a

55:07 public roadmap for student success. We also want to give the context of why this is coming before you tonight. ODE provided districts with a target-setting guidance this spring. Our team completed our analysis and submitted 4J performance growth targets in July, intentionally ahead of the August 31st deadline, so that we would be adequate time for ODE review feedback and any necessary adjustments so we can start those conversations with ODE. I am happy to say that we received full ODE approval by August 27th of 2026 of this year. No, 20-

55:52 Yeah, just this past week. Tonight is therefore an opportunity to make those commitments transparent to the board and our community as we move from target setting into implementation. Beginning the school year, the work becomes very practical. OneSchool plan, which is our SCIPS, Star implementation, dashboards, intervention systems, and progress monitoring all being aligned around these expectations. I want to begin... Sheesh, sorry about that. I want to begin with the state framework itself. Before we talk about 4J targets, it's important to understand what Oregon is asking every school district to do differently under Senate Bill 141.

56:42 At the highest level, Senate Bill 141 creates a common statewide accountability framework. There are seven required common metrics that districts will monitor at least one local selected metric, annual targets through 2930, and interim assessments in reading and mathematics three times each year. District must establish performance growth targets in partnership with ODE and publicly report progress for both all students and focal student groups. But for us, the important part of what happens after the targets are created, we have to connect this work and what happens in the classroom and schools. Our SCIPS, which is the OneSchool plan, instruction interventions, assessment practices, data systems, and the support we provide to principals and teachers and

57:28 the support in how we hold space for what we are here for, which is our students. Another important aspect of Senate Bill 141 is the accountability comes with a continuum of state support. The first year is primarily about implementation, monitoring, and building the system necessary to improve. If districts repeatedly miss their targets, ODE involvement increases. That can begin with targeted coaching and eventually include intensive student success teams and greater state direction over the use of our resources. We do not share this to create fear, but we share it because the strongest response is to have good systems ourselves, identify challenges early, understand why they are happening, provide schools with the support that they need, and adjust before

58:18 problems become larger. Our goal is not to simply comply with accountability. It is about building our internal capacity to improve. Good evening, board. Oscar LaRoque couldn't be with us tonight, so I just wanted to-- I know his name was on the document, so. One of the fortunate things about our Senate Bill 141 is, and it's encouraging, it aligns with Dr. Michelsen's Focus 4J. We really believe that it's interconnected. Every student attends, every student learns, every student graduates future ready. So we're not creating an entirely separate system. We're using Senate Bill 141 to strengthen and bring greater focus to the work that

59:04 already exists in our district. And underneath the indicators, we believe deeply that this helps our students feel belonging and engages them. This is foundational work. They will learn, they'll thrive, graduate, and be future ready. Students don't improve because of data. Students improve because of relationships. And when they feel that they are seen, when they feel that they belong, when they can engage meaningfully in their learning, and when adults respond quickly and can get additional supports. So with the seven indicators, they're intentionally mapped across a K12 experience.

59:49 We've shown them here as early indicators, middle grade indicators, and high school outcomes. Obviously, our early indicators that the state is requiring is K2 regular attendance and third-grade literacy. Obviously, broader measures are K12 regular attendance and in the middle level, the eighth grade math. And in high school, ninth grade on track is a critical gateway to high school success and graduation. It's important for us to see this as continuum. Graduation rates and our five-year completion is a culmination of all of these years. It isn't just the responsibility of our high school. So it reflects everything that has happened before: attendance, literacy, math,

1:00:36 engagement, belonging, all the things that we've talked about. So the seven indicators that are required by the state do align with the work that we're doing, that Dr. Michelsen has presented. So for our local metric, each district chooses a local metric, and we selected academic growth. We are using our new interim assessment system, STAR, which this is like a little teaser. Probably, in October, November, we'll be back to do a more fuller presentation and comprehensive presentation on STAR. One of the reasons we picked the academic growth was because it was something that we're already doing. It isn't an add-on.

1:01:21 You probably heard us talk about easyCBM. STAR is the interim system that we're using to replace easyCBM. It helps us have something as we're taking students through the school year. This is also what we will come back three times a year and present to you our interim results. So this is different than OSAS, the summative results that we get over the summer and fall for the kids from the previous year. OSAS obviously is part of this with the third-grade reading and with the eighth-grade math. I just also want to do a reminder that when we have OSAS, non-participants are counted as non-proficient. And as a district, we do have a high non-participation rate, but the state counts

1:02:09 our non-participants as not proficient. So that's the data that we use. STAR, again, will be administrator, just like we've done easyCBM in the past, the fall, winter, spring. The idea is that we're giving our educators hands-on data. The other thing that was attractive about STAR, our multilingual learners, the test is actually in Spanish. And the other thing about the test, it's adaptive as you go. So it can help a variety of learning styles, and it adapts as it moves through it. STAR, the purpose is not just to collect more data. It's really to get that data in the hands of teachers who can make formative decisions as they're moving through their curriculum.

1:02:56 I'm going to pass this to Dan. Good evening, Chair Tessen, members of the board, Dr. Michelsen. As was named, Dan Farley, I'm the new director of technology. I think this is the first time I've gotten to meet you formally, so I'll make it less formal as we move through, I hope. So now that we have described the framework, we want to explain how the actual performance growth targets were developed. And our intention was to use a methodology that's stable, transparent, defensible, and also hopefully understandable to our schools and community, depending on how well I explain it right here. All right, so what is a performance growth target? As Connie mentioned earlier, it really boils down to three primary pieces.

1:03:44 Where are we? Where do we need to get to? And then what kind of progress path are we going to take between where we're at and where we need to be? So starts off with a baseline. We used a stable baseline averaging two years, which was the maximum number of years that ODE would allow to establish where we're at. That makes us a little more insulated from cohort effects or volatility in the data. So we know where we're at is really more of a defensible space with a two-year average. We adopted 2030 targets from ODE. They set ambitious, and hopefully also attainable targets for us in almost all indicators. They used an approach where they took the top-performing 10% of districts and how they have experienced growth across a five-year period to

1:04:32 establish those targets with a similar district grouping. With one exception, we adopted their targets. With regard to graduation rates, there were some additional complexities where the rate that our summer district grouping had established we didn't feel was necessarily attainable. So we adjusted for that In addition to setting that annual target and then figuring out how we get there, which I'll get to next, there also are gap closing targets. We talked about student focal groups, comparing them to all students, and we want to close that gap across time. It's really important when we get to that conversation that we realize that the gap closing target is setting an even higher level of growth expectation for our student focal groups.

1:05:20 And growth is one of the singularly most difficult indicators to move. It's very difficult to accelerate the rate of growth academically. So how do we get from our baseline to the target that we set for 2030? We made a decision not to create a simple straight-line trajectory. We know that it is going to take our system a little while to build the resources that we need to really support and sustain growth. So we are projecting about a 10% reduction in the gap between where we're at and where we need to be in year one, a 40% reduction in year two, 70% of the remaining gap reduction in year three, and then hopefully close the entire distance between

1:06:06 where we are at that time and the final gap in year four. So this acknowledges a practical reality that sustainable student improvement requires adult systems to be established before we can expect those systems to produce their full effect. In terms of the gap closing target, equity is really built directly into the methodology. The target is to reduce the outcome gap by 10%, and that means that we're going to be accelerating growth of our focal group students in comparison to the all student group in every indicator. What's really important to mention here is that any systemic approach and any

1:06:52 approach that uses systems-level data can't place blame for those results or those outcomes on students. Even though they're student-level data, which makes them really attractive to place blame on student shoulders, we have to really make sure we insulate ourselves and others from that kind of thinking. Systems-level indicators are representing how adults in that system are serving kids. So it's really important that we not forget that. We also don't want, as shown on the slide here, equity can't be an appendix to the work. Equity has to be built into the processes that we are following to respond to the data that are generated. And then how well we do that is on us as adults.

1:07:42 So I'm going to-- Wait, wait. So what we know, again, how 4J will make the targets real, and we know that the numbers themselves do not improve outcomes. This is about every single number is one of our students, and I just want to center that in the conversation. So the final part of tonight's presentation is about implementation. How does we as a district actually change what happens inside of our schools in partnership with our staff, all of us together, all of us rowing together? One of the first things is the SCIPs, which is our School Continuous Improvement Plans, is one of the primary mechanisms for turning these district targets into school-level action, not as a plan that's going to sit on the shelf, but an active

1:08:29 plan. It's School Continuous Improvement Plan. It means that it does not have to be perfect, but we have to start. So every school begins with its own data story. Schools examine-- Sorry about that. Schools examine student outcomes and students' experience, including focal group data. They identify root causes rather than simply responding to the symptoms. They establish SMARTIE goals and strategic actions connected to the need of their students. And then we monitor progress. Every school is working toward the same district outcomes, but that does not mean every school needs to do the same strategies. So our responsibility at the district is to differentiate support based on each

1:09:16 building, students' strength, barriers, and data. And just for reference, SMARTIE goals is a framework around what are our goals that need to be specific, clear, and focused on what we want to achieve, including the who, the what, and the how. Measurable, what are we measuring? Ambitious, challenging enough to create a true stretch and significant progress. Realistic, achievable given your current capacity and resource, and timeline. Time-bound, when is this going to happen and how? Inclusive involves traditionally marginalized or impacted students in decision-making and power-sharing, which is our students, our teachers, our classified staff, everybody in our schools coming together and saying: What does this look like? And co-creating how do we move this forward, and based on

1:10:02 the charge and the North Star that our superintendent has set with us, belonging. Belonging. If we belong, we attend. If we attend, we learn, and we can teach. So those are the three key factors that I just want to be able to center that in as we're having conversations with our principals that is part of that. And then equitable, which means directly address the systemic bias, fairness, and structural oppression, and we're naming that as it is. So when we talk about accountability, we have to talk about instructional improvement. We know that for literacy and math, we're going to use STAR, Classroom Evidence

1:10:49 teachers use every day to monitor growth. They adjust their instruction, their Tier 1 instruction, where everyone is receiving that. For attendance, we need approaches where kids feel like they're belonging. We need to make sure we're connecting with families, we're hearing family voice, we're partnering them, and we're removing any barriers that we come across. For ninth grade on track, we need to continue to enhance our transitional systems from eighth to ninth and monitor our ninth graders for credit acquisition, making sure that we're monitoring that so our kids don't fall behind for that ninth grade point. And then for graduation, our future readiness, continuing to expand our CTE pathways. We have dual credit opportunities.

1:11:34 We have AP, IB, and other completion opportunities. So we need to continue those things. We're going to have all this data, but the real question is how do we support the adults in our system look at that data differently, and what decisions we can make moving forward would look differently for those kids? I think the Director of Technology needs multiple and smaller microphones up here. Note to self. So what we're trying to do is essentially making sure that we're gathering all the correct data, gathering it well, and as accurately as possible. The second step is what my team has really been working on, which is making those

1:12:22 data more accessible to staff through appropriate and simple data visualizations that give actually real-time information that can be used to look at current attendance, to look at attendance patterns over the last 20 days, over the last 10 days, year to date. Those are the kinds of things that we can actually really put in the hands of our educators so that they can be immediately responsive or more immediately responsive to what the system is telling us our students need. We will then, of course, work with staff to use the data that are available and more accessible now in data visualizations, rather than having to wait for a weekly or monthly report. The data will be at their fingertips.

1:13:07 We don't want to use algorithms or any of the systems that we're making available to label students. As I mentioned, these data are about systems. They're not about what students can or can't do or what's possible for students. It's about what a system has made possible for those students to do and how we can identify and remove barriers to learning, because learning actually is the natural state. So when it's not happening, we need to figure out what in the environment is keeping it from happening. And as Carmen mentioned earlier, the goal is earlier care. How do we respond appropriately more quickly? That's going to be what we continue to invest in over time.

1:13:52 The guardrails of that work are really clear. Data quality is important. Like for STAR Renaissance, I want to say initially, it's the first year of implementation, so the data aren't going to be as comprehensive at first. They're not going to be as reliable at first. It's going to take us time to build an accurate and defensible data collection system there. By the end of this year, we should have some results that we can really sink our teeth into. In my work at ODE prior, it used to take us about three years to instantiate a data collection process because humans have to enter the data. And guess what? They have to be trained on how to enter the data, and they have to know what the data mean, and then they also have to have access to them. And then the right people have to keep access to them and also keep reporting them.

1:14:37 So there's a lot of shift that happens in data collection that may not be as public as it could be. But it does take a while for those new data systems to mature. One second, I promise. An important governance question is: how will the board know whether this is working? Our proposed reporting rhythm includes STAR updates in the fall, winter, and spring. In the fall, you will see participation, baseline information, and system readiness. In the winter, we will begin looking at growth trends, focal group patterns, and areas where school supports may need to change. And in the spring, we will provide the end-of-the-year growth picture and lessons

1:15:23 learned. And annually, we will bring the broader Senate Bill 141 performance growth targets report comparing actual results against our annual targets. So the board will be able to monitor two things simultaneously. Are we implementing the system well, and are students' outcomes actually improving? Both matter. And this is also part of the requirement of Senate Bill 141. What we can also share with the board is how even as we are hearing this, it sounds so there's no heart in this. How what we are doing is that we're taking Senate Bill 141, and we're moving into with a heart and with a soul around what is it that we need to do for our

1:16:08 students in real time? How do we work together in collaboration with our principals, our teachers, our classified staff, and how do we move together to the goals that we have? And today was a big professional development day, and everybody had those three slides around what is our North Star, so we're all rowing together. So it's really clear what is meaningful for us and really clear how we're putting the heart and the love for our students and our community forward. So I just want to be able to share that directly with the board. So we also wanted to be transparent about the challenges. I'm sorry.

1:16:53 I have a happy clicker. I know. Okay, you do it. Okay. We also want to be transparent about the challenges. This implementation is occurring at the same time as significant organizational change internally and external pressures. Data quality matters. STAR administration has to be consistent. Staff need clarity as we move forward and away from ECCBM. Focal group information must be useful while still protecting student confidentiality. And perhaps most importantly, we must be mindful of change fatigue in our schools, which we are, and our superintendent consistently reminds us of it.

1:17:41 And our principals and teachers do not need another disconnected initiative. And this is why coherence matters so much. The strategy has to be fewer disconnected initiatives, stronger routines, clearer information, and resources aligned with what individual schools and students actually need. And that is part of we're all rowing together to be able to accomplish our North Star. So this slide shows you the kind of rhythm that we anticipate for the first year. So August for us was about finalizing the performance growth targets. We might refer to those as PGTS from here on, and you guys will know the lingo.

1:18:27 September was dedicated to developing and implementing SCIPS, the School Continuous Improvement Plans. October, we'll have a review of those plans and then identify support needs for schools. In the winter, we'll have the first, what I would call tenable results from STAR. We will also have fall results to share as well. But I don't think they'll be stable enough from the fall administration to put too much trust into. We'll see. I could be wrong, but it does take time for those things to grow. Then, of course, as Carmen mentioned, at the end of the year, we'll be able to give you a snapshot of how we grew academically during the year. We'll be able to, of course, digest last year's summative test results here pretty

1:19:12 soon as well with you, and then again the following fall. Those are always going to be a little bit lagging. They're important as long as participation increases, and they're reliable enough to really reflect what our system is doing. But the addition of academic growth through the STAR Renaissance assessment, especially for our multilingual learners, is, I think, going to really give the board a much better idea of how we are progressing during the year. So we want to close just with some reminders. Obviously, Senate Bill 141 is an accountability framework, but we really see this as an opportunity that's going to change outcomes for students.

1:19:57 And we feel the alignment with 4J and Dr. McKelson's focus for the year is woven together. Our responsibility is to take what the state has given us and turn that into action and really be supportive of our staff. We know that these targets are ambitious. They should be. But we have been thoughtful about our implementation and our through line of having students belong, having students engaged, having students attend, having students learn, thrive, graduate, and be future-ready. So we know that it was packed into a lot. We know we went long. But this is a complicated, extensive bill, and we wanted to make sure that it wasn't seen as

1:20:44 something that we're just looking at as a Senate bill. We're looking at is how do we really make this come alive in our district, and how do we see this as an opportunity? So again, we'll be back. We're going to answer questions now, but we will be back with a presentation on STAR, most likely in late October, first part of November, and we'll have those first fall results most likely combined with that. Thank you. That was really amazing. Let's start off with questions for Tom. Yeah, I have a question. I have a lot of thoughts about this whole movement, but I'm not talking to the people who dreamt this up .

1:21:29 I realize that. But I want to thank you, first of all, for grounding this in what 4J believes in. And relationships are so important, and I heard that word come up several times, and I'm glad you have your eyes on that through the whole time because none of this is going to work anywhere if we don't continue our focus on relationships in the classroom and out of the classroom. I was very pleased to hear that. I brought up, I think, last time we met that at the end, that down the line, I'd like occasionally to hear from people who are actually doing all the work that you started to describe.

1:22:15 The tech people who are putting all the things, getting the contraptions in the right kids' hands, and the people that are doing the schedules to get them to make this work. The people who are providing food. The people who are proctoring the tests, prepping their students for the tests. I know I'm missing a lot of pieces to this, but this is a huge ask for all our buildings, as you know, and you pointed out a lot of the things. But I'd like to hear from the people who are actually doing-- In addition to what you're going to bring us, and I thank you for doing that for those monthly or bi-monthly updates. But I'd also like to hear, I'm trying to refine my ask from two weeks ago, but

1:23:05 to hear from the people who are actually doing it. What are they thinking? Where are the nuts and bolts snags of this? Because I think it's helpful for me as a board member to really understand what we're up against as a district, and I appreciated all the info you gave us today. But I think that piece is also important to me. Fantastic. Okay. Duly noted. We will make sure our end users and people who helped build this. I want to clarify that this isn't additional work. This is a replacement of the EasyCBM that we've done all along with our interim. So I want to make sure that people understand that. In addition, one of the reasons we went with STAR is because the time that it takes

1:23:52 to administer these tests is significantly less. So we'll find out more about STAR- I agree with that. Yeah ... but I just wanted to share that piece of it. And when we do our interim testing, the nice thing for our students, this has been part of their routine. It'll be new for kinders, and maybe our first graders won't remember this, but it is part of the classroom routine in the fall, in the winter, and in the spring. Right. So in that sense, it is part of their same rhythm, but it'll be a new tool. We hope a much more efficient tool. In addition to what Dan was speaking about, our synergy analytics, having the data right at our teachers' fingertips with their roster and where people don't have to

1:24:38 go looking for those things. So our hope over all of this is we're providing more efficient ways to have teachers do examination of the growth or not growth that their students are making and how do they make instructional adjustments. EasyCBM was not a system that allowed that data to be as readily available at our staff's fingertips, and that is something that we've, in our analysis and our process and going through our discovery, was one of the reasons we chose STAR. I'm glad you mentioned the data because that's another piece that may not come right away- Right ... later on, but also the promptness of it- Mm-hmm ... and the usefulness,

1:25:25 and how they're able or not able to change- Mm-hmm ... to alter instruction or alter practices where we can- And I think as we move throughout the year, we'll be back multiple times to give examples. We'll bring, as you're requesting, some of our end users to share that experience. But I want to reiterate what Dan shared earlier. This is almost like, for lack of a better term, the pre-year even. Right. There's some districts that are choosing not to start this implementation till next year, and we didn't feel that that was wise. Districts have the choice, and we chose to go now. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, Judy. Thank you. I just wanted to expand a little bit.

1:26:12 First, I'd like to say, I love that we're going to get updates on the progress on STAR. Maybe add in the attendance data. Yeah. Because if really we're starting with kids belonging and wanting to be here and getting here, that seems like that data we have to pay really close attention to, to make sure we're having an impact that way. I know teachers will know, but we have some aggregate data to look at that way. And then specifically to Tom's request, which I like, seems like this really is predicated on useful data getting in the hands of schools and the right people, the teachers, the assistants, so that we can make those adjustments.

1:27:00 So when we hear from schools, I understand they're talking within schools how they can implement some of this practically. I'd love to hear reporting back that process, and so we see this data, we can do this seamlessly or not, because otherwise, it's just another set of data that sits on the shelf and people are scrambling. So that would be an interesting focus of this because that's part of the system. Maya, and then Morgan. Okay. I have a couple of questions. Some are pretty straightforward, so I'll start with those. I think it was you, Dan, who mentioned that STAR can be administered in Spanish.

1:27:47 Are there any other languages, or is it just Spanish? I don't need a list if there are. English and Spanish are the two languages- Okay. Well, I'll just- ... that it's available in. Okay. Yeah. I assume that there's other methods to help our students who have other languages. Yes. That's awesome. I'm glad that Spanish is at least an option. I'm also wondering, and maybe this is another Dan question, is there any additional technology? I heard rumblings about headphones that are needed for STAR. Are we going to need to purchase them, or our schools, do they have enough? And will they be able to share and coordinate, and is that going to add craziness to the testing schedule also? Which, even if it does, it probably would be helpful to not just buy headphones just to

1:28:35 avoid a scheduling conflict. This is a situation where we already have the muscle and the resources given prior testing behaviors. Headphones are required for a couple of the early grade literacy assessments, but our schools are already outfitted with headphones. We won't need to purchase additional ones. And I think Amazon has five cent headphones, which I would not recommend purchasing, but there are always ways to address those sorts of things. Okay. But we'll prepare at this point in time to be able to do that. Yeah. We have all the resources we need. Awesome. I love hearing that it's not going to be a big financial burden technology-wise. In terms of the 90% grad by 2030, I don't know if this is a Dr.

1:29:21 Mickelsen question or who this question is for. I understand that's the four-year graduation goal, not the five-year completion, but does that four-year timeline also, are we going to be counting kids who get their GED within those four years, or is it strictly diplomas? What about modified diplomas? It's strictly students who graduate within four years, achieving a modified or standard diploma. And is that a 4J decision, or is that a 141? That's a Senate Bill 141 requirement. Okay. While we are tracking data, if it's not impossible, I would love to know, and maybe this is a project for the GED crowd, but I would love to know,

1:30:07 are there kids who are getting their GEDs within four years, or is it typically the kids who get GEDs are the kids who are past the four-year cycle? And obviously that's not a question you can answer now, but it would be interesting to know that while we're looking at this goal specifically, so that we don't lose track of that legitimate pathway. Yeah. And I know it's not our time- I can say that the GED completers can only count within our five-year completer rate in terms of the- Yeah ... federal and state reporting requirements. I'm actually not sure what percentage of our students get GEDs within a four-year period. We can- We will get that data. I would love to hear that. Absolutely. Thank you. And then I guess my last question is a little bit less straightforward. And I want to just echo again what Tom said, none

1:30:55 of us picked this, and I adore and love how it just feels like we're approaching this with integrity and not just a cynical lens, and that we're transforming this requirement into something that's meaningful for 4J, and that's really apparent in the presentation that you gave. I am worried about this year. I'm worried about this year based on some of the things that we heard about earlier today, and the Focus 4J feels like a big part of that, is to really alleviate the extra staff. And moving to a new system, while it's not additional because EasyCBM is phasing out, there is a huge learning curve, and we've already using PD time to

1:31:44 learn how to do this, right? So I'm worried about the time demand on teachers. I'm also on educators. I don't know how this plays in with our classified staff. I know they used to be testing coordinators. Not sure anymore. But I- I would very much like not just to hear from educators, but for perhaps us to include some qualitative data in our board monitoring cadence. And so I would love to hear from teachers, like, "Is this pushing you over the edge?" I also really want to hear from students if our attendance goal is linked to our desire to make school more welcoming and increase a

1:32:30 sense of belonging. I would love to hear if that's something that students are expressing qualitatively and not just because they attended. I guess my last... Let me see. Hmm. I think I'll leave it there for now, but I appreciate you letting me express my hopes and dreams for how this might be acknowledging all of the humans in our system.

1:33:15 And so I guess I will say, I love that you framed it really clearly that this is not about the students. The indicators that come out of this data, it's not the student's fault. Although on the other hand, we do want to credit them when they've worked hard. But I do want to make sure that we don't get lost in creating an environment or a climate where we are blaming teachers and educators for what this year is going to look like. It's going to be a really difficult year,

1:34:00 and I just want to make sure that when we talk about adjusting systems, that we're not just using the word system, and that we are actually going to talk about systems and not the humans implementing those systems. I'm just a little bit apprehensive, I guess is the word. I want to make sure that we don't lose sight of that human part of it from the adult side of it as well. Mm-hmm. Really demoralized adults are not going to help our students. And so that symbiotic relationship, I just want to make sure that we recognize that healthy, happy, joyful adults are more likely to

1:34:50 engage healthy, happy, joyful students. And I'm a little bit nervous, and I just want to make sure that- Mm-hmm ... that's said out loud, and that we are taking care of our adults and not losing them inside of the system. Mm-hmm. Okay. May I quickly address, Chair? I think what I would have to say, Board Member Abasa, is that Senate Bill 141 is very technical in nature, as you all saw. And I would say that we have to implement it because this is the law. What we do with that is what matters. And all the structures that, through the leadership of Dr.

1:35:36 Michelsen and our instructional cabinet and our leaders in our district, what we are setting, this is not about shaming, blaming, or judging. This is about what can we do together for the greater good? It's the adaptive pieces of the work that need to happen, and therefore the charge of Dr. Michelsen around belonging, engaging, and learning. And this is for the adults and for the students. If an adult feels that they belong, they will create the spaces for our students that they belong, and that they can engage so we can teach them. So this is part of our ongoing, almost weekly conversation that we have had for months. How do we take something so technical and actually utilize the

1:36:21 data, not to weaponize it? And I'm going to use that word, because often in systems, in the design of something like Senate Bill 141, that is what happens. And how do we humanize it? Because this is the tip of the iceberg in what supports. And we don't have enough time, and we would love to come back and say, "What is the support system, and how are we engaging our buildings through the SCIPs?" And how are we supporting and also identifying the exemplars that is in our buildings, that is happening in many parts of our system, to be able to share that. And we believe that this is something that is going to be authentic and natural at its surface, and that's why this year is so-- And I said it at the

1:37:09 beginning, and I just want to be really clear, this year is not about perfection. This year is about being able to know how to hold space authentically because we care so much about this district and our students. So I just want to be clear about that, and also for our board members, that we need to be weather makers and continually repeat that throughout our system so it's believed. If we say it once or we say it in a document, it's not going to be believed. So we need to continually be saying that, all of us, as leaders, as a board, our teachers, how they're experiencing it, and those are the spaces that we're trying to hold. So, not perfect, and I do believe that we're setting the right structures to be able to be heartfelt for our students so we can get this-- I

1:37:57 don't know what right looks like. But surely, we're going to engage in this process through leadership, and this is also the charge that Dr. Michelsen has given us. Morgan is next, and then Judy. For the third grade literacy and the eighth grade math, are those from the state tests? Is that where they're coming from? Knowing that those numbers get tanked by the folks who don't take the test. So we already know those are inaccurate. With the STAR piece, it looks, it says K9. Are we going to be able to see third-grade literacy and eighth-grade math? And for the places that have state testing and STAR already,

1:38:42 do you know how much of a difference they're seeing among those assessments? You want to address that? Yeah. I can say that the information that we have available that we can share with you and make sense of with you is called predictive validity studies. So we know the relationship, the correlation between scores on STAR reading, STAR math. Obviously, the vendors claim that they are always highly correlated with your state summative test, but I do think it's going to give us a little bit different lens. And obviously, as Brooke mentioned, go deeper into STAR assessments design and alignment to standards, all those things that really make it an important tool for us to use, I think in our next presentation. But we can also show you what

1:39:29 we know the relationship between the results are. One of the things Senate Bill 141 required of us is to use one of the state-adopted assessment systems. We didn't have that. That's why we're moving to STAR. ECV wasn't on the list. There are many districts around the state who've been using STAR for a long time. So we could maybe potentially reach out to some of our-- And potentially, as Dan mentioned earlier, we're in a cohort of districts, so we could also potentially reach out to our cohort of districts who have been using STAR longer than us, just to see about some of that correlation between their STAR data and OSAS. But I think third-grade reading and eighth-grade math will be a part of the STAR Interim Assessment.

1:40:15 So we'll see that data separately in real-time, separate from our summative. Great. For the ninth grade on track, with eighth-grade math currently showing at 38%, how do we have 86% of ninth graders on track? What is that actually measuring? Credit acquisition. So the fact that 30% of our ninth graders fail algebra, so long as they have enough number credits, they count as on track. Algebra is part of that, too. I should qualify that. But in our ninth grade on track, we look at credit acquisition. But we also know algebra, passing it in ninth grade is a direct correlation with graduation. So we are looking at

1:41:01 that more closely, and I can bring some additional data back because Sebastian Bolden, our secondary director, is knee-deep in this work, particularly at our high schools. And as the person who's now supporting middle and secondary, this has been A focus that he has been working on with our high school, specifically at ninth grade. We're putting in some new programs this fall specifically. So we'll be able to share some of that stuff with you as we move along. Okay. Yeah. And for that piece, when any of those things where we can see the inputs, like Maya's question about the four-year GEDs, where do they live? What goes into a ninth grade on track number?

1:41:47 Yeah. I think those pieces are helpful. And the regular attendance also, I've talked to families that are shocked by that, how few days out a kid can have and count as a regular attender. And so I think those pieces are helpful for folks to understand what do these numbers measure? Because theoretically, we want all of these things to be happening, and they've been the goals of the district forever, that students are safe and belonging and learning and doing well. These are just different ways to look at that. But it is always handy to know what are actually the pieces that go into that. And I think one of the things that we have discussed as an instructional cabinet

1:42:32 group, particularly also with our comms team, is we need to do a better job of educating our families on what regular attendance, the definition of that. So we will be doing some concerted efforts this year, just even around communication with our families. What does it mean to be a regular attender? And having some clear definitions. Great. That'll be great. I think for the regular attender piece, it's so tough because it's the kids missing school make them need more support so they can stay with their cohort, and also mean we get less money from the state. Mm-hmm. So you get double hit. And so just that piece of what we can do to make it so that kids want to be at school-

1:43:17 Yep ... helps a lot. And we think one of the first things is providing clear definitions and just how we can communicate more clearly with our families. Okay, Judy, and then I'll put myself. Thank you. So following up on that, obviously the K2 regular attendance is about our families. Mm-hmm. So I think information about what it means is important, but also how you support your kids, why it's important. What it really is. Or I think that it- We really need to focus on that because I think sometimes people feel like kindergarten, we can take time and why it's important. But Morgan, I'm going to ask something and you'll have to answer it now, but I want

1:44:06 people to think about it because I was looking at the seven measures that are required. Two of them are measured by our state testing, and our opt-out rate is high. I'm not sure we get really an accurate picture of how our students are doing overall. So I guess I would like us to consider as we look at the data and maybe the disconnect with how much kids are learning on the STAR versus the state testing, we would make a case to use that to monitor our progress and not a state test that might not really be accurately assessing what our students are doing. I feel that for the whole state, and I know it's a federal requirement, but there may be ways to-- I'm looking at Dan because you

1:44:54 briefed this before, but I just want to put it out there that I think if we get enough data to support that, you should let our legislative committee know or whatever. We really need to pursue that because we want our kids to learn and not be measured by something that really might not be measuring what we're doing. So, okay. Yeah. I was like, I'm afraid to touch the third rail of opt-outs, but you opened the door, so I'm going to go ahead and go through it. It's just really hard. I know now my kids are out of the district, but as a parent in the district, I opted out three out of three kids. Two of them for very different reasons, and one was more like me protesting there being so much state testing.

1:45:41 But then what's difficult, had I still had a kid in this district and understood them, them not testing meant they were not proficient, I would have had some struggles with. And so I don't know, I'm just curious. It's really hard. It's like a lot of us want there to be less testing. Now we don't get a choice. There's a Senate bill. So I don't know. I guess I'm just musing about how do we communicate. Because I'm a physical therapist, I run on data, but if my data is not accurate because my sample size is too small or it's skewed or something, it's not good data. So I guess, how are we communicating to families about the

1:46:27 testing? I'm just really curious. Yeah. I'm just curious how that looks when it's going out to families. I don't know. And we used to have a button on the main page, right? Oh, we still do. Oh, we still do. Okay. It's the same one. Okay. Now it's on a menu and not like- It's all the way. Okay. So yeah, I'm just curious what that looks like because I know as a mom-- Because I know there's some other school districts in our county that the kids that do the testing get entered into a raffle for gift cards, and I got all sorts of questions about. But, yeah, I don't know. As a mom, I think it would have made me feel really bad that it's just not that my

1:47:14 kid is not in the data set, it's that my kid is not proficient in the data set. And I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say other than I'm just curious how with this new Senate bill and these expectations of new testing, how we're communicating that to students and their families. Sorry. I just want to thank the team for the framing of the Senate Bill 141, the requirements connected there. I will say that the timing of this is really very challenging because school districts are having to navigate extreme budgetary pressures, and the context within which we are operating in the new school year, we're having to

1:48:00 adjust to so many changes and programs lost. And so I will say that that is a leadership challenge that is front and center for me. I agree with what has already been shared, that we also need to take care of the adults, so that part of our job as leaders is to make sure that the adults in our system who are trying very hard and working very hard, that they are not feeling too much of the pressure. That really is very, very important. And it's really important that we don't hyperindex on the data that is prescribed, and that when we see the growth, that we celebrate it, because the challenge, the risk there is that

1:48:45 our staff members then feel that we are just drowning in data, and there's just so much pressure. And the context that is right in front of us in the new school year, you just cannot overlook that. So we will continue to navigate the requirements that we have no choice about and continue to be as positive in our framing about that, make sure that our students are continuing to learn in a safe and welcoming environment, and make sure that we're also just continuing to support our staff members. Anyone, anything else? Thank you so much. I realize we had you guys up here a long time.

1:49:30 You gave an excellent presentation, so thank you very much, Brooke and Carmen and Dan. We appreciated hearing from you. Let's take a break before we dive into our next agenda items. Wow, there goes my ability to speak. So let's take about 10 minutes, so that would get us back at 8:05. All right. I'll see you guys back here. We went a little over, but that is okay. Grace is important. Okay, so next we move on to items for action. We have three items for action. The first one is our board goals. And I will be presenting this. I know we discussed it at our last meeting. Hold on.

1:50:16 I got to get to the right part of the agenda. So the board goals have been revised and basically I'm just looking to see if we have a motion, if there's any discussion Excellent, Maya. I move that the board approve the revised board goals as presented in our agenda packet. Okay. Do we have a second? Judy. Okay, so it was moved by Maya that we approve the revised board goals as presented, and seconded by Judy. Is there any discussion about our revised board goals? Okay. If not, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

1:51:02 Aye. Aye. All right. It passes unanimously with yes votes from Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom DiLiberto, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Fessen. Yay. So, moving on to the next agenda item. So Maya, if you can please lead us to the review of the revised board values and beliefs. Yes. Just a quick recap for those tuning in. We are approaching our board working agreements a little bit differently this year. We will be bringing back this fall a board handbook, which will be built off of some previous work that we had done around board working agreements. And we are reinvigorating the board's core values and guiding

1:51:52 beliefs and using that as our framework for how we approach the work that we do together and in the community. So we've decided to create a list of core values that then inform our guiding beliefs. And if you are looking at it, you can see, I'm just going to point out a couple of the things that I did change for us based on our last conversation. So I added, "We are student-centered," and I put that at the top as we discussed, and then I also added, "We are respectful, and we are accountable." And I put we are accountable at the end because it felt like a closer. It felt like a period. And I went back and listened to that section of the meeting, and unfortunately Jenny's

1:52:37 not here, but my understanding by the end of it is that she was okay not including open and imaginative and having that fall under the category of curious. Okay. Sometimes it sounds like I'm seeing nods. Okay. Then under the section of students, Judy had suggested that we put, "We believe in centering our students in every decision we make" at the top, so that had been in a different section. So I added that there. The next line, we didn't talk about this, so you guys need to decide if it's okay, because I just added in, "We believe that every student can learn and deserves to thrive." So I put that thrive part in so that it's not just learning, but more. And then the next one, I took a stab at what Morgan had

1:53:25 requested, and I don't know if I got it or not, but what I added, for those who don't have it in front of them, is, "We believe it is our responsibility to provide a well-rounded, rigorous education that supports the academic, social, and emotional development of each student and prepares them to lead a fulfilling life." Okay, great. So that's just expanding on the can learn and making it bigger. Then, the section that listed the protected classes, I don't know if you guys remember the original language. Jenny sent me her suggestion from our discussion last year, and that came to the second to last bullet point, which is, "We believe that student identity should not predict or predetermine success in school." So, that's

1:54:12 another one for you guys to mull over. Under the staff, I added the word "effective" to the third bullet point. I think it was Judy and then Tom who both were eager to see that added. And then under community, the second bullet, I changed it slightly because it was one that we just needed to make the language a little more flowy. And so now it reads, "We believe we can more effectively serve students by developing meaningful relationships and genuinely engaging with families, community, and local, state, and federal governments." The last change to highlight is under leadership. Also, Morgan, this one came from your suggestion, so I'm hoping that it maybe

1:55:00 captured what you were hoping for. So it expanded and so now it reads, "We believe the board must plan and direct resources in accordance with district goals and consistent with legal requirements and ethical standards." So previously, it had said, "In alignment with our beliefs." Mm. And now I changed it to align with goals and the law and ethics. So, unless there are suggestions for changes, those are the edits that we discussed. There's a few more in there, but they're a little bit less spotlighty. So, does anybody have any questions or concerns or

1:55:46 suggestions for anything different? There were those two that I definitely had to listen to the meeting again to make sure I captured, so I want to make sure that that was the intention. In the student section, that second bullet, the second from the bottom. Thank you. Sorry. Student identity should not predict or predetermine success in school. I just keep reading it over and over what that says, where it currently, unfortunately, does predict success in school in concerning ways for many people. But you have a should there, which, so just that,

1:56:31 I think I'm okay with it, but it's that space of, I wouldn't want it to sound like we don't think it currently does, and it's a concern of ours that that is a factor. Mm-hmm. But I think I'm okay with that. I just had to read it a couple of times. And then for the community, with all the commas, is a semicolon-- They're different types of lists. Yeah. The copy editor in me wouldn't mind if that was maybe different, but I don't know how else to frame it. I was trying to play around with how to word the concept of governments with one word instead of having local, state, and federal, because that would eliminate- Mm-hmm

1:57:16 ... many commas. So I don't know if that could be, is there a word that covers all three branch or all three levels? I mean, just government? Yeah. I think government. Engaging with families, community, and government? Mm-hmm. No, it's ugly. Governmental agencies? Yeah. Sure. Okay. Cool. Public entities feels more like EWEB than it does Salem to me. So we said governmental entities, not agencies. Entities? Sure. Okay.

1:58:01 Does anybody else have a suggestion for how to eliminate some commas? I'm an Oxford comma guy, so I'm not going to be eliminating. I love a comma too. I'm usually into adding one right before the and, but yeah. Oh, I think you can put it there. I'm not going there. I think someone took it away from me. There was a time when I would fight you, but no. No, I'm all for the Oxford comma. It's that they're two different types of lists using the same comma- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... is the problem. No, I like streamlining it. My suggestion was expanding it. I mean, my own comments, but I'd rather streamline it. Because community encompasses so much, too, from nonprofits to businesses to-- So, might as well just do some lump words.

1:58:48 So is everybody okay with replacing local, state, and federal and governments with governmental entities? Yeah. And then are there any other edits? No? Does someone else want to make the motion since I just presented it? I feel weird. Tom. Yes. I move that we adopt this as edited very recently. If we can remember all those commas and little words. Yeah. Okay. Do I have a second? Rick. All right. Okay. So it's been moved by Maya to approve the- Moved by Tom ... Moved by Tom.

1:59:35 Oh, my goodness. Moved by Tom to approve the recently revised and edited board values and beliefs and seconded by Rick. Any more discussion or are we ready to vote? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Excellent. Passes unanimously with yes votes from Tom Diliberto, Judy Newman, Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, and myself, Erica Thessen. Yay. Okay, so the next agenda item is budget committee selection process for 2026-27. We have four positions open on the budget committee. One term is a partial term with two years remaining of the three years, and the other three are full three-year terms. Ooh.

2:00:22 And the materials in the agenda packet outlines the process that we used last year, and we thought it worked pretty well. Yeah. Bob will answer any questions we have. But yeah, how is everyone feeling about the process that we went through last year? Yes, last year. Yeah, because it's every year. Yeah. No, it isn't sometimes, but yes. So my question was that it refers to an application form that's proposed. Is that included in the packet here tonight? I'm realizing I don't

2:01:07 see it in my version of the packet. I think the answer is that it wasn't included, but we'll get it- Great. It'd be handy to just see that, especially if it's opening in two days. But the timeframe looks fine. And if it's the same one as last time, I think they worked fine. It would just be nice to put eyes on them. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else have any... Are you wanting to see it now before we vote? Mm-hmm. If possible. I don't know if it's easily findable.

2:01:55 In the essence of expediency, if it's the exact same as last year, I don't need to see it, I guess. It would be great in the future to have it, just as an FYI for those of us who don't remember it perfectly. And just real quickly for the public, I'll review over the timeline. So the applications would open on September 4th. The applications would close on September 30th. Staff would confirm statute requirements with applicants and prepare a presentation for the school board on October 2nd. And then, the board would review the applicants on October 7th to determine finalists to invite to speak at the next board meeting. And then on October 21st, the finalists will speak for three to five minutes, the

2:02:40 board will complete ballot voting, and then the four new selected board members will be announced and appointed. But yeah, I don't know if we can find the- I found it. Okay. I just emailed it to the board right now, last year's- Okay ... application form. I've got a question, Erica. Mm-hmm. Since we have two different term lengths, we've got some three-year terms and a two-year term- Mm-hmm ... how would we determine which applicant or finalist or person would go into which of those pools? Oh, that's actually a good question, and I hadn't thought about that. That's at the discretion of the board. So board members, what are we thinking?

2:03:27 That's an excellent question, yes. Can you please repeat the question for me? We're looking to fill two different types of positions. Some of them are three years, and one is two years. And I don't think we need to know right now how we would differentiate, so long as we're not asking applicants if they have a preference. Which, if it doesn't affect the application, we can figure it out later, but if we don't know ahead of time, anything where we would ever see an applicant's material and then decide part of the process is super funky. So we definitely need to have that determined before any of us see anything from an applicant. Okay. Yes, Maya? In the past, for the most recent passes when Tom and Erica had been on the board

2:04:13 and we needed to fill their positions when they'd been on the committee and, yes. And what we did is we drew the names. So that's how Dave Wallace and Amy Fellows ended up with shorter terms, and then last time we moved them forward. But we simply drew their names and assigned them to the positions that way. So it wasn't like we were picking favorites with somebody getting a longer term or a shorter term or whatnot. That sounds fair. I think that does as well. Yeah, Tom? Yeah, I agree. I think that sounds fair. That sounds like let's, yeah, continue doing that. Anyone else have any discussion, questions?

2:05:02 Do we have a motion? Yes, Maya. I move that the board approve the budget committee selection process for the 2026-2027 school year, as presented in the board packet. Okay. And do I have a second? All right, Rick. Excellent. So it's been moved by Maya and seconded by Rick that the board approve the budget committee selection process for 2026-27 as presented in the packet. Any more discussion? No. We ready to vote? Okay. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. It passes unanimously with yes votes from Tom Diliberto, Judy Newman, Rick

2:05:49 Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, and myself, Erica Thessen. And now we are moving on to items for action at a future meeting. We have two. Oh, thank you, by the way, Bob. He's like, "I'm so glad I came up here." Thanks, Bob. Many thank yous. We have two items for action at a future meeting. So the first one is a proposed policy that our chief of staff, Carmen Chamorro Urbina, will share with us, which is considering approval of Policy KNA. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Thessen, board members, Superintendent Mickelson. Tonight I'm bringing forward Policy KNA, immigration enforcement on district

2:06:34 property, for its first read. There's no action requested tonight, and our goal is to briefly explain why this policy is before you, highlight the primary protections and responsibility established in the policy, and receive your questions and feedback. And we will bring the policy back to you on September 16th for consideration and final approval ahead of the statutory deadline, which is September 30th, 2026. Can you do this for me? Thank you. This policy is before you because a new requirement established by the Oregon legislature in 2026 through Senate Bill 1538, Senate Bill 1594, and House Bill 4079. Oregon school districts are now required to have

2:07:21 policy consistent with the Oregon Attorney General's model public policy related to federal immigration enforcement. OSBA developed a Policy KNA and two companion administrative regulations to support implementation. Our 4J policy workgroup reviewed the proposed policy and recommended moving it forward to the board. One point I want to emphasize is that this is not simply about adopting language to meet statutory requirement. It is about making sure that if an immigration enforcement situation occurs, our employees know exactly what to do, who to contact, and who has the authority to make decisions. We do not want an individual teacher, secretary, principal, our bus drivers, or employee having to make a legal determination on their own. So tonight really begins the board's formal review process, and I would have to say

2:08:10 that this builds on the work that we have been doing for the last two years with our immigration stands and our immigration directives. At its core, Policy KNA creates a clear coordinated district response. The superintendent identifies a primary immigration liaison and one or more alternate liaisons who serve as the district's point of contact. If staff receives an immigration enforcement request, including a warrant, subpoena, court order, or other request, they immediately refer to the immigration liaison. The superintendent or designee must review and approve the district response, and legal counsel may be consulted where there is uncertainty. An important distinction is the policy is the difference between an administrative

2:08:58 immigration document and a judicially authorized warrant, subpoena, or court order. Absent appropriate judicial authorization, employees may not provide federal immigration authority access to non-public district records or facilitate for immigration enforcement purposes. And I might highlight that already we have safeguards that come from the federal government that we cannot disclose the student's name, and we do not ask for immigration status. The policy also protects confidential information. That includes student records and personally identifiable information. What the regulations are doing is taking another step of support and protection, as well as information such as addresses, school or work schedules, contact

2:09:44 information, and subject to limited legal exceptions, citizenship or immigration status. The key point is that staff are not expected to make these legal determinations themselves. We are creating one clear district response pathways. Next slide. The policy also establishes what happens when federal immigration authorities are reported to be on school property for immigration enforcement purposes. First, the immigration liaison must confirm the information. Once confirmed, notice is provided as expediently as possible through our existing electronic communication methods. Notification goes from students in grade six and above at the affected school, parents or guardians or students attending that school, employees of the affected

2:10:30 school, and community-based service providers that have elected to receive these notices. This, for us, would be new based on the current processes that we have. The notice provides the general location of the federal immigration authority and whether classes or school operations were affected. It may also include district and community resource for impacted individuals and families. At the same time, these are strong privacy protections. We do not disclose personal identification information, legally protected information, or information that would threaten student or staff safety. So, the balance here is communicate quickly, transparently, while protecting privacy and safety. And again, everything that I mentioned that is currently in this slide would be new for us as the School District 4J.

2:11:19 Next slide. This is where policy becomes operational. The superintendent identifies the primary immigration liaison and alternates, and those individuals receive specific training at designation at least every two years. District employees also receive training following adoption of at least every two years, and new employees receive training within the 30 days of employment. The policy will also be included in the district, in the student handout, and made available at the district website in culturally appropriate languages. There are two companion administrative regulations that provide day-to-day procedures that I will highlight, which is AR 1

2:12:04 establishes the response procedures, and AR 2 establishes the documentation and accountability processes. I can go into a deeper dive if you would like, but I can also send you a one-pager what that means. Next slide. So, tonight is the first read, and there's no action requests tonight, and we're asking the board to receive the policy, review the proposed language, and provide questions and feedback. And we will incorporate any necessary revisions resulting from tonight's discussion, along with any additional legal review that needs to happen. And the policy will then return to the board on September 16th for consideration and final approval, understanding that there's a statutory deadline that is

2:12:52 September 30th. And our goal is to have the policy implementation structure that is legally compliant, protects students and family privacy, supports our employees, and provides a consistent district-wide response. With that, I welcome any questions or feedback. Does anyone have any questions? Maya? I apologize for not having been in the policy meeting ahead of time to be able to ask about this, but the very last sentence, do we need the word "all" in it? Is that required? Or, "The district will provide the required training to new employees within 30

2:13:41 days of beginning employment." I'm just wondering about that word "all." So, Maya, can you repeat that, please? The very last sentence in the entire policy. The district will provide the required training. It says, "The district will provide the required training to all new employees within 30 days of beginning employment." Mm-hmm. Yep. So every single new employee will be receiving the training? Yes. Okay. Is there a reason that the previous sentence, "The district will provide relevant training to district employees," that we don't have "all" here? That's the current employees that we have. So it goes in two stages. That right now, everybody, every single one of our employees, is going to receive a professional development around the policy. And we are developing what that looks like, and we're working very closely with

2:14:28 other districts to be able to calibrate that. From that point on, any new employee will then receive that training within 30 days. Okay. But at this point in time, and the policy actually also states a time, which is at least one hour, and that is at the discretion of the district, so that might look in different ways. And also understanding for our district is that we have provided a lot of professional learning already around the policy that's very similar. We would only have to kind of reteach

2:15:13 some of the structures around the protections and where they go, but many of the processes are still the same. What the staff needs to know is that if there is immigration enforcement showing up to the front desk, they immediately call their principal, and if the principal is not in space, they immediately then-- We have a repertoire. They call the district, and then right now, both Christine Nesbit and myself are on call to be able to then provide support systems for the building. That stays the same, and we have been training our staff on that for the last two years. What is different is now district-based, which is how do we communicate to

2:16:00 the families, how do we communicate to the students? And that's going to be part of the AR and the work that we're going to be implementing once the policy is approved. And then how do we communicate to the community-based organizations? That this is now part and required as part of the policy. I hope that makes sense. But in the now, we would have to go through a professional learning that we need to guarantee that every single one of our staff understands what the policy says. Welcome. I really appreciate that the policy doesn't have the time in it- Mm-hmm ... recognizing that the state sometimes changes those, and I love a policy that we don't need- Exactly ... to change because Salem gets on a whim. And so I really appreciate that it says training but does not specify a time limit.

2:16:45 And that was the discretion of the district to be able to do that. Right. The majority of this policy, because of the ORS requirement, is based on the sample policy coming out of the AG's office, right? Okay. And so the vast majority of this is directly lifted from ORS, or if there's pieces that are additional, came directly from the AG's office that the district is required to deeply consider- Mm-hmm ... in putting together a policy. I just want to confirm. I think both. Okay, great. So it's convenient that many of these things I feel like we're in the direction of. That notice section- Mm-hmm ... we very much are not, particularly relating to students.

2:17:30 And I just think about How you could notify a school that we have immigration on property in ways that aren't- Traumatizing ... deeply traumatizing, and causing students to look at each other and make assumptions- Mm-hmm ... and all of these problems. Mm-hmm. I recognize that it is coming from Salem. Mm-hmm. And so the policy and the actual AR and how these are implemented are different, and I appreciate that the word is just notice, but looking at these pieces and just the potential for that to be just so deeply upsetting for people,

2:18:15 versus the need for people to have information to be safe. And so I hope that it sounds like you're already noodling through those pieces. I think I get the intent of this- Mm-hmm ... from the state, but just thinking about the reality of it in a school, and for families, seems very challenging. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, and. Yes, we understand the intent, and yes, it has unintentional consequences and impact on the communities that we're trying to support and protect. And, I would say that we are working very closely, once this is approved, I'm going to be engaging some community groups to work with

2:19:03 us and also some, through COSA, equity directors in other districts to see how are you doing this, and what does that look like, sound like, and feel like, and always having our North Star, how do we minimize the impact, and how do we do this in a humane way? Yeah. Maya? I have another question. I'm wondering about... So I don't know the law off my memory, but, is it written exclusively about students? Because it feels like this policy kind of leaves out the staff in a way

2:19:48 that I'm wondering if we can include, even if the AG overlooked that. Um Is it for the notification piece or for the protection piece? No, it says confidentiality of school records. Oh. I would love it to also say employee records, because I imagine that we have employees who could be vulnerable just as much as we have students. And on that same note, I do also just want to flag that it might be something for us to engage in a conversation to take this new legislation and see how we can build it into our next rounds of collective bargaining, much like Woodburn did up in their

2:20:34 district, so that we codify it and preserve the physical and emotional safety of our staff as well. So I don't know how that fits into the policy. I know we have to pass it by the 30th. Mm-hmm. So I don't know if I flag this and we consider revising it if we want to incorporate language to more fully embrace all of our 4J peoples. Anyone else have anything?

2:21:20 Well, thank you very much, Carmen. I appreciate you and the policy committee's work on this. The board is required to take action on this policy before the end of this month, so we will bring this policy back for action at our September 16th meeting. Beautiful. Oh, wait. Yeah. I just want to say that, like you said, Carmen, the amount of the work that went into what we already did, really is, in my opinion, where the truly meaningful work has been done. This is super important. It's absolutely critical. It's required. Mm-hmm. But 4J, really just the foundation of what was already in place because of the tremendous amount of work that's gone into it over the last few years. I feel

2:22:06 very confident to say that this was probably an easier policy to put in place because it's so directly linked to what we have already initiated here. And so thank you. Yeah, because truly, the leadership and the foresight to have put things in place ahead of time is invaluable. Yeah. So I think my assumption is that personnel records for our staff- Correct ... are as protected in the same way that student records are- Correct ... already. Correct. So I think that that's important to know and communicate as well. Beautiful. Thank you.

2:22:51 Yeah, go ahead. Clarifying question. Are there revisions then that we need to bring back, given that the timing of this is our next meeting, the next board meeting is on the 16th, and what you just said, Judy, I just wanted some clarity around what revisions, if any, do we need to bring back so the board can take action on this on the 16th and we are legally compliant? Yeah. Dr. Nichols, on the one revision that I heard is a little bit more investigation around the employee piece. Okay. That's the one, if I heard everybody, all the revisions correctly. That I'm going to do more research and have a conversation with Christine and look deeper at the policy.

2:23:37 Do you also want us to look into the new employee training piece to see if there's any flexibility there? If there's flexibility, I think that, like Morgan was saying about writing policy so that it doesn't tie our hands in unnecessary ways. Because that one is very time-bound. It says within 30 days. Yeah. You were just thinking about whether the word all needed to be included or whether it could just say new employees. That was the one question, right? It's all employees. Yes. Round one. The second part of it is any new employee. Yes. And I think Maya's point was, in the previous section, even though we know it's

2:24:23 all, it currently just says district employees, and so just that space of being careful with the contra journal policy of whether all is then needed in the next sentence. Okay. And I will bring clarification to the next presentation for sure. Those are the two things. Thank you. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll let you. Okay, so the next item for action at a future meeting is, should we consider scheduling a fall retreat? So one of my questions is, we had sort of a truncated, shorter retreat in August. But the question is, is there some interest in

2:25:10 holding one in this fall? And then the question would also be then, are there things that people want to work on? I have a wish list if we have one, what we'd be looking at. But, so I'm just trying to gauge interest from everyone about, would you like to have some type of a fall retreat? I don't know if anybody would like to start us off with some... Yes, Judy. I'd like to hear your wish list. Board self-assessment. I'm sure there's lots of other things, but that's my most favorite one because that's a goal that we did not meet. But yeah, Morgan.

2:25:56 Yep. That sounds fine. I was having trouble being like, "What would we do with the time? And how much of a burden would it be on staff?" But if we are sitting around assessing ourselves, and there's less of an impact on staff, even if what we're doing is figuring out how in the world we're going to assess ourselves, we're a chatty group, that's going to take us some time. So I think that would be fine. Okay, and then my other question is, when would we want to be able to do it? Would we want to be able to do something like, I don't know, is there time for it? I don't think there's time for us to add it into a night where we have regular meetings already scheduled. Yeah, so I think we would need to look at a different evening, or unless it's a Monday or something, that we would be able to do it.

2:26:43 But I do think board self-assessment would be important. So, do you all want us to try to come at you with some dates, or do we want to come up with a date this evening? Not this evening, okay. I just want to remind us that, I don't think it's been said in a while, but our informal expectation has always been that we keep our Wednesdays open in case we have extra meetings. So my suggestion would be to throw out those extra Wednesdays as options- Okay ... as a starting point before we go down the rabbit hole. Yeah, Tom? And also, if we have 4:30 times, if we don't have some other

2:27:29 executive session or some other type of meeting, then we should at least consider those, I would think, so we don't make another date for all of us to be down here on a separate Wednesday. That can be good or bad, depending on the day. Okay, so how about we gather some available time on Wednesdays to see when we can get in? And then, my other question to all of you is, other than my urge to get the board self-assessment done, is there any other things that you all, burning things you would love us to do in some time when we have with one another?

2:28:14 Morgan's like, "Hmm." Right, I don't know. My other question was that phase of do we have to do the ethics training every year, or is it just once in our term? So do we have any other components that we can't do independently? Because if we could do those independently and sign that we did, that'd be great, but I don't know what has to be done in a public meeting. And so I don't know if there's some rules about that. That doesn't sound like a particularly retreat-focused activity, but if it does need to get done, I want to make sure we do it. That's true. In the past-- I agree, we're not going to sit together and do our self-assessment, potentially, but if we all do it and then look at the results together, that would be the content, I think. Okay. And it depends on what self-assessment we want to do. OSBA has helped us before.

2:29:03 We haven't found that assessment as helpful, potentially, but we can leave that to leadership to look at. Mm-hmm. Yes, and I know you've spoken with some... Yeah. Yes, I was able to do some research and just find out if other districts are doing board self-assessment and what forms they are using, so we have some examples. Is that what you were asking? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, because Lisa and I will probably help with scheduling, are we prioritizing October, November? Fall is... Are we thinking more? That's a very good question. It sounds like October. You're looking like it's very full October.

2:29:49 Okay. Every single one. Yes. And it sounds like this first one would be the figuring out how we are going to do the self-assessment, so that we can do that, and then later conversations would be doing it and having those data points. Or otherwise, you can, in your chair, like Glory, pick one, and then we can just do it. That's true. So either way is an option. Oh, I do. Hmm. Is that something that we can choose in leadership, yes? In, I don't know if it was in the last, maybe it was in the retreat that we just did, or maybe it was in the spring, but we talked about-- Yeah, it was in the last one

2:30:34 when we made our goals. We talked about, because we're catching up from last year, doing a condensed, shorter version. And then, so it might be something that we could push out the assessment, the shorter version, discuss the results at the retreat, and then also plan a more comprehensive one for the spring. I think that sounds great. Because it's nice to know what your comprehensive assessment is going to look like when you take on work. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that would be good. Okay. So it sounds like this is something that we will be looking at in our next meeting. We'll get some dates thrown out

2:31:21 about scheduling some time together. We will choose an assessment, a shorter, condensed assessment, and then really use the retreat to look at the results of that and what a more comprehensive assessment would look like for us. That sound good? Yes. Oh, yes, and some games. Lots of fun group-building games. Next on the agenda, we have committee reports by board members. So I know Workforce Negotiations Ad Hoc Committee met recently, so I don't know who-- Is there anybody sharing an update? Gosh. Yes, we met, and we're continuing to meet often, which we've taken up most of the

2:32:07 Wednesdays, by the way, additional Wednesdays- ... just so you know, so we'd have to meet later. Well, we're done by 5:00. We are really working hard, and we had a very ambitious timeline, so we are backing up and adding some things to our process about understanding authority within our own district when we bargain, how agendas are made in each employee group, how things to bargain for are selected, just to understand the nuts and bolts. We're taking our next meeting next week to do that, and then we'll

2:32:53 dig more into the debrief process with an eye on what things that we can really realistically impact and recommendations. What recommendations can the board actually act on? So we're feeling all that out. And it's been great. It's a really engaged group, and I hope that we'll be able to get our work done in a reasonable amount of time. Excellent. I appreciate everyone on this committee and all your work. Any other committee reports? No, okay. Next is consider board requests for agenda items or for information.

2:33:40 Does anyone have anything? No one? Okay. Last is good of the order. I have a good of the order that I'd like to share. I wanted to shout out the North Eugene Theatre Troupe. This weekend, they volunteered at a local dog rescue fundraiser and adoption event, and it was really neat because the students were, the whole time, in character as characters from the movie "Best in Show," and they sang, and they performed, and it was actually really great. So I just want to shout out those kids. School hasn't started. They didn't have to be there, but they're out in the community volunteering and just bringing joy to everyone. So that was great.

2:34:27 I wanted to shout them out. Yeah. Anyone else? Okay. Well, fabulous. Thank you, everyone. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 16th at 6:00 PM, and we'll be seeing you again. So this meeting is officially adjourned at 8:51 PM. Thank you.