4J School Board — October 21, 2026

0:10 I call the meeting of the Eugene School Board to order on October 21st, 2026 at 6:02 PM. Board members in attendance with me are Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom Diliberto, Jenny Jonak, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Thessen. Also in attendance is our superintendent, Dr. Miriam Mickelson. I'll start off with board chair remarks. We'll start off very positive, and then I will apologize in advance for seriousness towards the end. It's been a great couple of weeks since we saw everyone. So many amazing events in our school district. So many things that board members were able to go to.

0:57 Hu Lin, our Chinese immersion school, we had board members at their mid-autumn festival. We had a board member go to the Looking Glass Lunch fundraiser. One of the most exciting things, and I even brought a visual, is Edison Elementary just celebrated their 100th birthday. So I love this. It says, "Illuminating minds for a century." And it's great. It has their values of cooperation, integrity, respect, inclusion, and compassion. So anyways, and that was just an outstanding event. So many people came. There was food, games, tours. There were lots of former staff and students, and it was just a hallmark, wonderful, once in a century kind of a thing. We had board members that went to Buena Vista Elementary in a classroom studying

1:45 with students that were studying ancient Egypt. A board member went to Sheldon boys soccer and a football game. And also, Tom would really like me to shout out that the Sheldon band, color guard, and team teamed up for an amazing halftime show. So way to go, Sheldon. That was awesome. Also, I just want to call out, we recently got a statistic this evening that last year, in last year's school year, approximately 152,000 volunteer hours happened in the school district, which, if you put that into an economic formula, that's $1.47 million in volunteer hours from people in our community, grandparents, parents, community members, retired staff.

2:32 So thank you very much. And that was something wonderful to celebrate. For the hard part, I just want to speak to the tragedy that happened on October 15th at Sylvan Ridge Elementary School in the Bend-La Pine School District, where three students, two educators, and the gunman all lost their lives. It's just really hard for me to talk about this, but I just want all of the students, the staff, the parents to know that our hearts are with you at this extraordinarily difficult time, and

3:19 we stand with you as you are processing the absolute unimaginable. As a parent, it is our biggest fear. It's our worst nightmare. And as an educator, a staff member, it's the worst of all things that can happen. It's just unimaginable, and regrettably something that just continues happening in this nation. It doesn't matter who you are. It does not matter what is next to your name on your voter's registration. I think we can all agree that schools are a place of education, of nurturing,

4:06 of growth, of development, of care. And for every child that walks into our building, for every staff member that walks into our building, every volunteer, every community member, each one of them should walk out at the end of the day, period. I don't care who you are. That's the one thing we all agree on is that for every person that walks through our doors, they should be able to walk out at the end of the day. And things need to change. And they haven't changed. They haven't changed since Sandy Hook. And this is just something that too many schools and too many communities experience.

4:52 I am abundantly grateful to our director of school safety, Jen Bills, and all of her team, our campus safety monitors, all of our staff, and all the training that they do every day to keep our kids and one another safe. So to everyone in Bend-La Pine, we send you so much love and compassion, and we are so sorry for your losses. Okay. I will pull myself together. Let's move on to the next agenda item. Next is agenda approval. Are there any questions, changes, or corrections to the agenda anyone would like to request?

5:38 Okay, seeing none, let's move on to the next item. Next, we have the hearing of the public, which is also known as public comment. The board values respectful public participation and appreciates everyone who takes the time to engage in our schools. As a school district, we strive to model respectful civil discourse for our students, and we ask everyone to help us do the same today. Each speaker has up to three minutes. The timer will sound when your time is expired, and I'll interrupt if needed to keep us on schedule. Public comment is an opportunity for community members to share their perspectives with the board. This is a time for the board to listen. Board members will not engage in dialogue or respond during public comment.

6:23 Speakers are encouraged to address district programs, services, and operations. If your concern involves a complaint about a specific individual, board policy provides a separate complaint process. Please contact the superintendent's office for information about that process. All right. So tonight we have four speakers, correct? All right. That is correct. Our first speaker is Lisa Joy. Is that okay? Can you hear me? Okay. Excellent. First, I would like to start by thanking the board for allowing me time to speak this evening. I am Lisa Joy, a teacher at Eugene International High School.

7:10 This is my 12th year in the district and my 18th year teaching. I'm here today to speak about school safety, specifically our district's approach to lockdown procedures and how we prepare students and staff to respond to a violent intruder on campus. From 2015 to 2018, 4J adopted ALICE training. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. Its approach teaches multiple response options rather than relying exclusively on a single lockdown procedure. I was teaching in 4J when ALICE training was implemented and went through the ALICE training with 4J administrators, staff, and local law enforcement. After the training, I felt both empowered and better prepared. The harsh reality is that as a teacher, I may one day face a situation in which I must make urgent decisions to protect both myself and my students from a violent

7:57 intruder. Sorry. Before ALICE training, the thought of that possibility was anxiety-inducing. After ALICE training, I was left with a greater sense of confidence and preparedness. One of the most important aspects of ALICE training is that it does not present emergency response as a rigid sequence of steps that must be followed in the same order, regardless of the circumstances. Instead, response options are considered in the context of the situation. I currently travel between Sheldon High School and South High School, and the classroom environments of these two schools are very different. These differences have a direct impact on how I think about emergency preparedness. My classroom at Sheldon is located in the middle of the building. It has one exit door only and no windows. In a violent intruder situation, ALICE training taught me that securing the

8:42 classroom might require more than simply locking the door We can work together to protect ourselves and actively prevent an intruder from entering our space. My classroom at South Eugene has four doors, two leading to the hallway, one leading to an additional storage space, and one providing direct access to the outside. In an emergency, the appropriate response would depend on the information available and the location of the threat. If the threat were on the other side of the school, leaving the building, provided the route was safe, would be the best option. If the threat were in our own hallway, we would need to consider the complexity of having two doors to defend. These two classrooms illustrate why I believe emergency preparedness cannot be reduced to a single response that is expected to work in every situation. Our surroundings matter. The location of the threat matters. The information available to us matters.

9:29 I believe that our students and staff deserve the opportunity to think critically about the spaces they are in during an active threat situation and prepare for the realities of their individual environments. The recent school shooting event is a sobering reminder of how quickly an emergency can unfold and how important it is for people to be prepared to make decisions under extraordinary circumstances. The individuals who took action to protect others remind us that in a crisis, people may need to access what is happening around them and respond based on the circumstances they face. This is why I believe we must look carefully at how we prepare our school communities for emergencies. I'm here today to formally ask the district to reconsider its decision to move away from ALICE training, depend solely on the I Love You Guys protocol, which often feels one-dimensional and passive, and to give serious consideration to returning

10:15 to ALICE approach when it comes to an active threat situation. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kyle Spradling. Good evening, Board. Thank you for having us here. I'm Kyle Spradling, and my wife, Norese Spradling, and I have two boys here at 4J. Now, I grew up here in Eugene, and my family has a long history with this district. My dad chaired the 4J's Budget Committee here in the '90s, including through the difficult years following Measure 5, and Director Newman worked with my mother,

11:01 Karen, for many years. I spent several years in the Bay Area before moving back to Eugene after getting my master's degree at the University of Oregon. While I was there, I managed a $500 million operating budget of AC Transit, which is the LTD of the Eastern Bay Area. So I understand that public budgets are complicated, and there are funding restrictions, competing priorities, and some generally difficult trade-offs. I know it's not as simple as saying, "Put more money there, put more money here." But I also know that budgets reflect our priorities, and I think feeding our children well deserves to be higher on that list. 4J built a nutrition program worth being proud of.

11:48 Our boys used to really look forward to school lunches, and they've noticed a difference this year. Just this May, the Oregon Department of Education highlighted 4J's inclusive meal choices and scratch-made foods. The program's local purchasing also supports farmers and food producers right here in our community. We've had really positive conversations with Jill Quadros and Tim Hill, and we have a lot of confidence in them and their colleagues. But even a great team needs the resources and staffing to deliver a great program. We're not asking to recreate every expense from last year, and we absolutely support funding efficiencies, but we think the reduction's gone too far.

12:35 This year's reduced service with more reliance on pre-made meals shouldn't become the standard we accept going forward. Here's what I'm asking. As you develop the next budget and reduction proposals, please ask Nutrition Services which improvements to this year's reduced service would make the biggest difference and what they'd cost. Then bring those recommendations before the board while there's still time to make the funding the most valuable improvements a priority. Good nutrition is fundamental to children's health and their ability to learn. 4J has already shown what a strong nutrition program can look like. Please give this capable team the resources to rebuild those strengths. Thank you.

13:20 See you. Our next speaker is Celeste Schwartz. Is that good? Okay. Good evening, Superintendent, members of the board. My name is Celeste Schwartz, and I am a proud member of both South Eugene High School and our school community. I apologize for bearing similar news as Ms. Lisa Joy, but some things need to be talked about, and I apologize in advance for putting things down to numbers. Nothing can say we can't just quantify humans as

14:08 numbers. I know you all carry a heavy responsibility in keeping our students safe, and I want to thank you for your dedication to our district. Your actions do not go unappreciated, and we are thankful to have you all. So I will start by saying 96 school shootings have already happened this school year internationally. These are terrible events, as highlighted by Ms. Erica, and it is just an awful thing. Ever since I was young, we've done these drills, these lockdown drills, where we are in the dark, and we turn off the lights, we put down the blinds, and we hide in

14:54 a corner. And ever since I was little and I could actually think for myself, I thought to myself, "What would happen if someone actually came in?" And it's a scary concept, but it happens. 87% of school shooters are former students, and they genuinely usually know. Either current or former students know about lockdown drills, not to mention it's posted online. We know this, how bullies choose their victims, is usually they find people who won't fight back, and sitting in a corner in the dark really isn't fighting back.

15:44 The thing about this drill is it is only one thing in all of this scenario. It only happens because it's only one scenario where we get to respond. We don't really have any flexibility to do much else. We are not told about what we're supposed to do. Ms. Joy educated us that there are two buttons by the door that we were never told about that talk to the office. We were never informed of this until this year. Many of us still don't know. So I hope that we bring back ALICE training for the teachers. I understand it's traumatic for students, but I really hope that we will be more

16:29 informed about what affects us. We understand implementing these programs takes time, logistics, and careful planning. As a member of this community, we want to partner with you in finding the best, most comfortable way to bring these options back to our schools. Thank you so much for your time and everything you do for the kids and me. Our next speaker is Norese Spradling. Sorry. I was very close to a number of people that were involved in the Thurston shooting

17:18 that happened back in 1986. And I can-- Yes. So it's a little hard to hear these things sometimes, especially as a parent now. You guys have heard my husband speak, Kyle Spradling. My name is Norese Spradling, and we have children that go to 4J now. I'm here to talk about the school nutrition program And the importance of making sure that our children have the nutritional services that they need for learning and growing and being healthy.

18:03 The services that have been cut back have affected our children and their access to food. They do have a medical necessity for a specialized diet, and that was difficult to get set up with the doctor's notices. I can't imagine how difficult it might be considering that those children with dietary needs or cultural restrictions who don't have doctor's notices have a more difficult time of accessing the food that meets their cultural needs. So I would like you guys to look at prioritizing refunding, restoring

18:48 some of those access that the nutritional services had. It's also important for the children to make sure that they have an adequate amount of time during school lunch time period to actually eat the food that they have. The CDC has a recommendation of at least 20 minutes once they get seated in their seats. A lot of children don't actually reach that 20-minute goal, especially if they have to wait in lines for their lunches. So looking into making sure that the schools are allowing an adequate amount of time for the children to consume the food that they get, so they get the proper nutrition, they get their bellies full, and it also reduces a lot of waste that can

19:33 happen when children don't have an adequate amount of time to eat. One of the things in talking with Jill from nutritional services, the shift over to more prepackaged foods. These are foods that are not being made from scratch, they're not being made from local sources. So when you're using more packaged foods, it's a more processed food, and there's more additives that are included to stabilize the foods, such as added sugars and salt, which are not things that are recommended for children to have a high amount of. So I would like us to make sure that we are refunding the nutritional programs so that they can make these healthy lunches harder from

20:20 local sources as much as possible. Thank you. Thank you everyone. We really appreciate hearing from our community, and we really value your voices and your feedback. Next on the agenda is comments by employee groups. Do we have anyone from OSEA this evening to come up and speak? Excellent. Good evening, Lisa. Nice to see you. Good evening, Superintendent Mickelsen, Chair Thissen, members of the board, and

21:07 listening audience. My name is Lisa Jenkins Easton, President, Oregon School Employee Association, Eugene Chapter 1. This past couple of weeks have been busy as ever. Our team has been addressing issues big and small to support our members. These issues have included bilingual stipends, breaks, safety gear reimbursements, testing coordinator pay, Otis investigations, medical duties, athletic coaching leave, and PERS overtime reporting to name a few. We are continuing to bargain over the changes in transportation and the reality of implementing the new contract. It's slow going, but we continue to show up each time for every issue with thoughtful and collaborative ideas. Most recently, we were asked to help with the barriers that

21:54 sometimes happen in order to hire enough candidates for our significant needs EA positions. I think we can all agree this result is a positive and successful temporary side letter to better support our school teams. Our kitchen teams are struggling with the immense workload. There's simply not enough time and staffing to prep all of the fresh items that still continue to flow into our kitchens. I don't ever expect the level of mutual skepticism to go away completely when we're dealing with management, but I also think there always needs to be a level of tension that leads to progress. Every day is a negotiation. Without collaborative and sometimes lively discussion, our staff would be much more

22:41 heavily on the receiving end of being the ones to always make concessions. Concessions that impact their physical and mental health. The right to have these conversations with management is fundamentally beneficial for all. At recent labor management meetings, some information was confirmed that I think is a very important consequence to mass layoffs and budget cuts. For some reason, OSEA members will be penalized for using their look-back rights to accept a job in a previously held classification. HR has interpreted this to mean that will also change their classification seniority. We are once again shining a light on the immensely disrespectful way our classified staff has a contract that is worded just subtly enough to cause harm for

23:29 the experience and work we perform. I've been advocating strongly to district leadership to put a stop to this disparity. There are currently 258 classified employees who have two dates for bumping rights. One is their hire date, the other is their classification seniority. Within that group, you'll find a broad representation of employees who have been promoted within a job type. For example, a custodian who becomes a lead custodian or a member who is part of a progressive sequence, such as accountant one, two, or three. Please feel free to reach out and tell me where any of you have ever seen someone be penalized for being promoted by having their seniority reset at zero.

24:14 I'd really like to understand and know how this makes sense for the district. From where I sit, it seems like another example of egregious waste of institutional knowledge that can vanish at the swipe of a budget cut. We are the only group penalized for being promoted or utilizing pay equity protections to be paid fairly. Just because you are paid accordingly for your skill does not wipe away the years you invested building those skills. I am more determined than ever to figure out why the retention issues are so prevalent or lack of retention. I do think we have discovered something that could be contributing to why people leave here so often. I see no other benefit for management

25:01 aside from gaming the bumping process. It's not rooted at all in valuing the experience of our classified staff. We have a scheduled arbitration hearing for November 23rd over the seniority issues, and I've expressed repeatedly how we could solve this problem and do the right thing. I hope the district will take the opportunity to come to a sensible solution with us that will be efficient with our time and our budget. I'd like to end my comments tonight by acknowledging the weight that we all feel because of the recent tragedy in Bend. One of our OSEA members, Becky Drury, is an inclusion educational assistant and has had already multiple surgeries with more to come and will face a long recovery.

25:48 As a leader, members have been reaching out to me and asking what OSEA is doing to help fix this problem. I can see their frustration, anger, and sadness, but I have to be cautious to not allow myself to carry this burden as a singular responsibility either for myself or my union. But these are our working conditions. I would not hesitate to support members who demanded for things to change. But like all things, change is only possible when we all care enough to show up and unite our voices. This includes everyone, our bosses, our colleagues, and communities. We all have a right to fight for what we care about, and some issues are simply too big to take on as an individual.

26:33 As have many of you, I've spent most of my adult life caring about our students as a community volunteer, parent, and school employee. The constant exhaustion we all feel working in our schools seems meant to keep us silent because there is a real intangible, tangible, not intangible, tangible lack of capacity to make sure needed policy changes that we say we care about so much. We don't have time. We're too tired Systemically, we have seemingly set ourselves up to make sure that educators cannot demand change because the needs are too high, and we are all trying to survive the minute-by-minute expectations of what our schools all now require us to be. We should all be outraged. And maybe when our grief subsides, maybe finally this

27:22 time we will put our outrage to action so these tragedies no longer happen. I welcome the opportunity to organize and advocate around this issue to pursue collective change and to prevent the loss of our students and our colleagues. Thank you very much, Lisa. Do we have anyone from EEA? Oh, hey. Come on up, Jamie. Nice to see you. Good evening, Dave. Sorry, I had that ready, and then I lost it.

28:09 Good evening. My name is Jamie Myers, and I'm the president of the Eugene Education Association. I had a whole other speech I was going to give tonight that's a little bit different and heavier, and I'm going to save that for another time, because tonight I really want to acknowledge the deep loss our friends and colleagues in the Bend community are feeling and the ripple effect of that tragedy across the hearts of all teachers. We are all devastated. So, if you'll indulge me, I would like to share my message to EEA members here tonight. May you remember that you are allowed to be broken before you are brave, that you are not expected to have the right words or make sense of what feels

28:55 senseless. You are allowed to feel the grief and the fear and the anger and simply be human in the midst of this latest tragedy. May you find small moments of gentleness in the days ahead. May you remember that even when our work feels impossibly heavy, and it does right now, we do not have to carry it alone. May you be reminded that your worth is not measured by how much you can endure, and that choosing to rest is not a failure of your commitment. It is a crucial act of self-care because you matter. Hold your people close. Feel the sorrow, but welcome laughter when it finds

29:41 you. Let your community be a place where no one has to pretend to be unafraid and where hope can be held collectively when it feels too fragile to hold alone. I am holding the fragile hope in my heart as I try to envision a future in which none of us has to fear for our lives or for our students' lives in order to nurture and teach the next generation. A future in which classrooms are places of possibility and teaching and learning that never require anyone to sacrifice their safety, and where every student and every educator is free to show up fully without wondering what it might cost them. Until that future arrives, may we keep showing up for one another in whatever

30:30 ways we can. May we have the courage to speak when we are able, and the grace to listen when we need to. And as we look to the future, remember to vote and hold our elected officials accountable for the decisions they make on our behalf. Thanks for listening. Thank you very much, Jamie. Last but not least, do we have anyone from MAPS this evening? No? Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much to our employee groups. We always appreciate hearing from you and your wisdom that you share with us.

31:16 Items for action. Next is the consent agenda, and we have one item for action, which is meeting minutes from the October 7th board meeting. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda? Yes, Maya. I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented in the packet. And seconded by Jenny. Okay. It has been moved by Maya and seconded by Jenny to approve the consent agenda items as listed in tonight's agenda. All those in favor of approving the agenda, say aye. Aye. Okay. Passes unanimously with yes votes from Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom DiLiberto, Jenny Jonak, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Fessen. Okay.

32:02 Next, we are moving on for our items for information portion of the agenda. We will have four presentations tonight. The first item is part of a series of community engagement spotlight. This is a recurring item in our work sessions where we welcome community partners to join us and share information about their organization or program. So tonight, with much excitement, we are welcoming the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and Debbie Williamson, who is their communications director. So thank you so much. What a pleasure to have you here. Oh, thank you so much for having me here. Maybe we could all just take an in breath and be grateful to be in community with

32:48 each other. Thank you board, superintendent. Thank you to the teachers who are here advocating for their students. I'm a product of 4J. I graduated from Sheldon and had a fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. May Downey, who understood that my favorite word was impertinent. I thought it was a compliment. But she turned that bossy girl into the woman that you see before you, and I'm so grateful. So thank you to all the teachers. Thank you. All right, so we get to talk about art

33:34 after following a lot of things, and I'm very grateful. I'm going to leave a pile of guest passes over on the table. Please, everyone here, take one and come enjoy some art, take some in breaths, and forget the weight of the world for a moment. My name is Debbie Williamson. I am the communications manager for the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. I've worked there for 20 years, so I like to say that I'm 20 in museum years. The museum itself, however, has been around for quite some time. Outside here, you'll see our exterior as it looks today, and

34:21 when we originally opened in 1933, you'll see it has a similar exterior, but beautiful banners make it a little less stark, as well as the landscaping. We opened our doors in 1933, and you can see a woman in white in front of the iron grating. Her name was Gertrude Bass Warner, and she founded our museum with a donation of 3,000 Asian objects. But her intention behind founding a museum was much deeper, and we often share a quote that she says, "For the love of the beautiful, that which makes the whole world kin." She truly believed that sharing the art that she collected from other cultures,

35:10 places she traveled to, is the key to world peace, and we all that work at the museum carry that mission forward with us in every action that we do. Originally founded with 3,000 objects from China, Korea, Japan. Here's a historic photo of our throne room, our Chinese gallery. Our collection has now expanded to almost 20,000 objects. So when I say my marketing line is there's always something new to see, that is true. There is less than 3% of our collection on view at any given time. We just opened a new exhibition, Collecting America, that highlights some of our

35:55 new collecting strategies going beyond Asia and including Latinx, Indigenous, and other cultures We also are home to multiple traveling exhibitions. We currently have Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love, from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation on view. This is a phenomenal show, deep as it is joyous, and allows visitors to explore the artwork as they may discover their own identity as Jeffrey so boldly shares his. The museum is accessible as we possibly could be, especially encouraging youth to come visit. Children under 18 are free.

36:41 You can check out guest passes for your family from the public library. SNAP card benefit holders get free admission. We have several free admission days throughout the year. We try to be there for everyone. Oh, sorry. I jumped slides. And this is our most iconic location, the Prince Lucien Memorial Courtyard in the center of our building. One of the most familiar ways that people engage with us is through our cultural celebrations. We host several. Coming up is our Day of the Dead celebration, Día de los Muertos. It's November 1st and 2nd. It's a lovely evening filled with a performance,

37:27 music, poetry. We have dinner at the end. We host it with Meta de UFO and Adelante C. It's been happening in our community for 45 years, 18 years at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, free to all. In February, we'll host the Black Out Day, which is a collaborative event with the Black Cultural Initiative, really encouraging the Black community to take up space in a building they may not have felt entitled to take up space in. It's a lovely event. It'll take place on Saturday, February 20th from 1:00 to 4:00. Also includes food. Feeding people is so important.

38:12 And finally, the Asian Celebration Art Exhibition. Sorry, I'm hesitant to click too fast and click away. There we go. The Asian Celebration Art Exhibition, which is a community art show. Last year we had about 120 works of art from over 60 artists, from the very young to the very old. It's a joyous time to be at the JSMA. But they asked me to come here and talk about the ways that we really engage with 4J, and that is our school tour program. We give tours to about 2,000 K through 12 students every year. That number has remained low since 2020, when tours dropped

39:00 off for the reason we all remember. It hasn't quite picked back up. We're starting to see a little uptick in tours this year, and we're really hoping that more teachers look to book an experience with the JSMA. Our tours are very special. They use several themes that are for all ages. We have Artful Animals and Asian Explorers, Learning to Look. We also have Art Access tours, and those are tours specially designed for children with disabilities. And we have Art and Culture, which is the tour that we can really moderate for any age of audience. We also host special exhibition tours, so if you wanted to bring a class to Jeffrey

39:47 Gibson, which is on view through March 7th, we can do that. We also host Day of the Dead tours for the two weeks our ofrendas are on view. Our tours are very accessible. They are not top-down tours where people teach you what they know. They are instead dialogue-based tours using a system called Visual Thinking Strategy. That's a guided discussion around art. It helps to build critical thinking, observation, and communication skills, and it's rooted in three questions: What's going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that? And what more can we find? This type of tour has demonstrated that it improves

40:35 children's reason, ability to communicate with each other, have dialogue. It often encourages those who are more quiet to participate because we break our tours down into small groups, and they're all led by our trained exhibition interpreters. If a teacher is interested, we will also go into the classroom in advance of the tour and prep them for what it's like to visit a museum. Not every child has been fortunate enough to enter a museum prior to a tour. Each tour can be combined with a studio activity that aligns with the theme of the tour, so children can take the tour and then make something that they can take

41:21 home. Also, every tour that comes through receives a guest pass for their entire family, and at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, family is how you define it, to bring their loved ones back and show them what they were excited to see. We understand that budget cuts are a real thing. We are facing a 25% budget cut ourself. And so we have a special funding program called Fill Up the Bus, where we have raised money to pay the transportation cost of schools that need it so that the tours are even more accessible. There's a place on the tour request form that you can fill out.

42:09 Check a button if you need financial assistance to make this happen for your classroom. We have funds to help you do that. We are just about to release a call for art for our annual K through 12 exhibition. For 19 years, this will be the 19th one. Our chief curator of education and I were just bemusing how-- But we're so young. How did 19 years go by? And it is called New Art Northwest Kids, and we develop a theme and provide teachers and educators prompts so that they can guide their students through lessons. There we go. Whoops, too fast. My fear came true.

42:54 This year's theme is I Am Part of the Story. It is inspired by Jeffrey Gibson, and we have multiple prompts that teachers can use to incorporate in their teaching and use the art they may already have as part of their classroom to submit for this. It's a juried show. It's juried by our exhibition interpreters, artists, and museum staff, and about 35 works get selected. It's a highlight because there's nothing cuter than kids coming into the museum and seeing their artwork hung on a museum wall. The deadline submission is January 24th, 2027, and communications about that go out next week.

43:40 We also have some special programs that I wanted to highlight. The Art Access program happens on the first Saturday of every month. It is a studio program geared towards children with disabilities. It's funded by the Kennedy Center, and we've been providing this to the community for about 15 years. That young gentleman in that photo is Harrison, and he has been taking these classes since he was a child. We also have a Madres program that I love to talk about. Technically, it's for the adults, but we let all the kids come, too. We did some research on how to engage with the Latinx community, and one of the things we heard from young mothers is they don't have a place in which they can

44:28 build community. They don't have childcare for their children. So we combined it into both, and we offer a space for moms to gather while their children can make art, sometimes with them, sometimes apart. We also understand that art supplies might also be inaccessible. So if you have youth that wants to participate in New Art Northwest Kids, we will host several open studios. The next one is April 8th, where we provide guidance on the prompts and provide all of the art supplies a child might need in order to submit their artwork for consideration in the exhibition. There's several ways to get in touch. I just put my website on there.

45:15 You can ask Maya or Jenny. They can find me. I'm always honored to talk about the museum, and I hope that you all can come and visit. Sorry I'm so verklempt. I wasn't quite prepared for the weight of the subject. And since I'm here and I don't have to be partisan, I'll just remind everyone that you can go to the NRA's website, and they grade every single candidate. And so check out the grades and then maybe vote the opposite. Does anyone have any questions? Jenny. Yeah. So should people, so teachers who want to book a tour, should they go to the

46:00 JSMA website and there's a field trip button? Yes, there is. It's actually just book a tour. It's right under our About page. Or you can just actually Google book a JSMA tour, and thanks to good ROI, we're the first search that comes up. Great. And how much notice should they give? Four weeks minimum. Okay. Thank you. To any of you. I do have a story. I have to thank you so much. So one of my students in fifth grade went with class to the Jordan Schnitzer. "Mom, we all have to go to the museum." "Oh, I'm a single mom, it's extremely expensive." "No, Mom, they gave us passes." And he was really excited to show me something, and I didn't necessarily know what

46:48 it was going to be. But the absolute surprise and magic of watching my kid sit on the floor for an hour, I could not peel him away. You guys had an exhibit at the time, which was an entire wall of Basquiat- ... drawings and sketches. Could not get my kid to leave. Was there for an hour. I was like, "I'll be back and come and check in with you." So moved that he ended up writing a paper about Basquiat. Still to this day, now as this college student, just absolutely obsessed with Basquiat. But it was so amazing at a time when it was difficult for me to afford things. Because of that tour, because of your program, them siblings and I got to go, and I

47:34 really hadn't gone much. And I just loved it. And then, this past spring, you had an exhibit about art from the Himalayas. And I have to tell you guys, I was there for over three and a half hours. I missed a lunch date that I had because I was so engrossed. It was out of this world. You guys have had a, it was one of the early copies of a Shakespeare. Like, oh my gosh. The First Folio. It was unbelievable. So I am just so impressed with your program and just so impressed with what you do to also support families and students. And I would've never thought of my student as an artist at that time in elementary school. And it's so funny now that they do sketching, being able to see the sketches that

48:22 look so much like Basquiat. But it's like you opened a mathematician and very brainiac kid's mind to art. So thank you so much. Just what an amazing program you have, really. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you for all you do. Okay, so our next item for information is a presentation about the Elevating Student Voice program. We are joined tonight by Liz Johnson, Joel Lavin, Seth

49:08 Pavlin, and Brooke Wagner. Hello. So welcome to all of you. This is going to be awesome. Really excited about your presentation and all your hard work. I'll let you take it away. Well, thank you very much for having us here, Superintendent Nicholson, and school board members. So yeah, we're here to talk about our Elevating Student Voice project that we did last year. We think it's incredibly important that we listen to our students with disabilities about the experiences that they're having in our schools. For this project, and I want to make sure you actually know Liz Johnson, staff development specialist, and Joel Lavin, SSD administrator for middle schools, high schools, and our community transition program. So this project we did last year from December through April, and we went around

49:55 and had small group discussions at each of the secondary sites listed, Churchill, Community Transition Program, Echo, North, Sheldon, and South. Each of these groups included four to 10 students ranging in age from 15 to 21, and they were in grades 10 plus. They were facilitated by our inclusion advisor. That was Liz at the time. That position's unsited, and she's now a staff development specialist and my SSD administrator. And we always had at least one case manager attend from each of these school sites. Hi, everybody. Good to be here. So the purpose of this project was really to elevate the voices of students who experience neurodivergence, but more specifically, students who receive SPED services in our school district. We really wanted to hear from them.

50:41 We wanted to gain insight into their experience so that we can better serve them, so that we understand them better, and to make recommendations to district leadership in order to improve the experiences of those students. So we started with this idea. We came up with three questions. We wanted to keep it simple. The first iteration of this, I had 10 questions, and I was like, "Well, I can't be there for more than an hour, so let's try to reel it in." So these are the three questions that we asked them. We wanted to know what's going well, so what things at school make you feel included and part of the group? We wanted to know what was hard, what's tricky, challenging when you're at school, and what are your ideas for improvement or change. So those are the questions. We printed the questions out, several copies so that they could see them when we

51:30 met with them. And so the next few slides are just a quick summarization. We're kind of going to fly by these slides because we really want to engage in discussion with you if you have questions. But the themes from the first question, what was going well? A lot of people spoke to their peer connections and affinity groups. That was highly noted from most of the groups, that they appreciated that they felt included at those times when they had chances to connect with their peers outside of academics. Another theme was teacher advocacy. Just noting the teachers that showed interest in their lives, who talked to them about their IEPs, who talked to them about implementing their accommodations. Those are things that made them feel included and part of the group.

52:16 They also highlighted hands-on learning situations. So, I think in almost every group, they said, "I don't like taking notes. I don't like just listening. I like when we get to do things." So that was highlighted. And then also noting that access centers do provide that small, safe environment where they have a chance to meet with their peers and a case manager. So those were the things that they noted went well, and Seth is going to talk about the things that they found challenging. Okay, so for that second question, here are the themes that emerged, and we did qualitative coding from the results that came together from all of those different sites. So we did have students talk to us, and this was in common across sites about some concerns they had with their IEPs, specifically noting accommodation

53:02 delivery, with gen ed teachers delivering their accommodations from the IEPs. They also brought up that social isolation or bullying can happen for them. They talked about some environmental and structural barriers that they can experience in schools, as well as ableism and lowered expectations that can sometimes happen. I think you're going to talk. I think I am. For question three, when asked, what could the school do to help you feel even more included and be able to take part? They recommended more professional development for staff on understanding IEPs and neurodiversity. They wanted to see more utilization of universal design for learning and flexible instructional strategies that help make instruction

53:48 accessible for all kids. Consistency in the support because they know there are a lot of people out there giving tremendous support, but having that consistently happen in all classes is important. Some environmental adjustments that can be made, some of those are fairly low-hanging and can be done easily. And then really that the relationships, the encouragement, and the support and the empowerment of our students with disabilities. Okay, I'll use this one too. Hey, I'm Joel Levin. So there was some other data that came up in themes sort of regionally that I'd like to add to those main themes that Seth and Liz were describing. One is, you may be aware of our unified sports program in our district, and some

54:34 schools were really interested in improving those or adding new courses that students could take at the high school level, as well as more CTE classes, which kind of goes with that hands-on point. Another thing that came up pretty often was giving students more accessibility, access to read books, to have headphones that work well, to have other devices that help them read, but in a comfortable way that doesn't feel stigmatizing with their peers. And then normalizing what it means to use technology in schools was also a common theme that came up. I think another thing I want to highlight from this slide is that students brought up having a one-page profile, which those of you who

55:19 understand disability advocacy is a really common theme amongst parents to use one-page profiles. But hearing it from students was kind of unique and great to hear them bring that up. Let's go to the next slide. So some other things to consider about this research is that the sample size was about 8.2% of the population of students with IEPs. And recall that there's also students on 504s in our district, and there's many other students that make up in the 28, I don't know the exact number, but 20 something percent of our school district. So keep that in mind. And those were not represented. In addition,

56:04 there's quite a bit of sort of advocacy that happened by the students and maybe a little bit of overrepresentation by certain students' opinions and feelings that they felt was important, and there might have been some other students that didn't speak up quite as much because they're a bit quieter or a bit more introverted. We tried to elicit some of their opinions, but it was challenging, wasn't it, Liz? Yeah. It could be very hard sometimes. They felt self-conscious to share their opinions, but I feel like if we keep doing it and normalize it, maybe they will want to do it more. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's one other thing I wanted to add, too, that we did not rehearse, but I would like to point out. There's a really important process that we do every school year with students who leave our district. One year after students have graduated from our

56:54 programs, whether it be CTP or our high schools, we are obligated by IDEA to collect post-school outcomes and find out how students are doing in their world outside of high school or transition programs. And we have some good data that we can look at in addition to this to find out what students prefer in their life and what they would like to have changed. And so we're going to try and share that with you in the future so you can see sort of a combination of that data. So based on the whole project, it was about a five-month project, the recommendations that we made are to increase UDL practices across content areas, strengthen systems for IEP implementation, and

57:42 some of you may know about our IEP alignment trainings that we do with case managers every year, so this does address that recommendation. And the last one is to prioritize meaningful conversations with all students. We would like to continue doing this and hearing from the youth. So Seth is going to talk a little bit about kind of what the district response has been to this project. So this is something we believe strongly in, and we listened. Part of those student concerns I had mentioned earlier about IEP accommodations and making sure those get implemented uniformly across classes, we did rounds of training. We did multiple anchor rounds of training last spring with special ed teachers, and then this fall, we did the training with general ed teachers, and we

58:30 kind of planned out a sequence of special ed teachers, principals, and then general ed teachers. So at this point, we have trained all general ed teachers in district, I believe. And you can see the dates listed up there of when folks received some of those trainings. Liz mentioned as we go into this winter, we plan to conduct another round of student listening sessions. We're thinking of a few different questions. I really want to get into what they're finding most meaningful right now and how we can support them on some of those other gen ed diploma requirements that can be a little bit more challenging. But we're still developing what questions we might want to ask them. If you have any ideas for good questions, please send them forward to us. And then I also want to point out one thing I'm really proud of is we're doing a lot of good cross-collaboration work between departments, between SSD, our special

59:19 ed department, and the instruction department. One thing that we work together on is universal design for learning. And I can say this is a real focal point for our curriculum adoption work and our instructional delivery. So trying to hear the student needs and put things into action. So, just to sort of put some final thoughts on this. We want just to kind of elevate the student voice specifically. The students want to be seen, respected as learners, and included as active participants in their own learning. And one other point here, an inclusive education system is not created through a single action, but through many ongoing ones, as is stated by Young, Frey, Fisher,

1:00:09 and Croner. And I think this is just a really important point that the more of a mosaic of these student voices that we hear in our district, the better and clearer it will become what it is that they need. So this is time we can open up for questions or thoughts from all of you. Our intent with our next round is to try and just capture a much greater percentage of our students with disabilities and the voice they can contribute. So I've got Judy first, then Jenny, then Tom. I guess I was fast on the draw. First of all, this is really exciting to see. Thank you for doing this work. And a couple of things. I don't know, having worked at the U of O forever and done many surveys, been in the community,

1:00:56 what you hear is people want to hear, get feedback from the survey. So I hope there's a way, maybe in your second listening session, to make sure that the students who participated get feedback about what's been done and what you plan to do. And then the other thing I just wanted to say is this is very powerful, and it's powerful knowing it comes from the students. It'd be great to hear their voice in it, and maybe you're already doing that. If you have some self-advocates that could share this data with teachers and with people implementing, I think that would go a super long way. We had a student at Sheldon years ago who was the person who started the Look Me in the Eye program. A lot of the same kind of information, but hearing the message

1:01:44 from her, you know who she is. Yeah, we all do. She was incredible. And I know we have students like that now, and I think there's nothing more motivating than teachers hearing from students themselves. So that's my thought. But this is super, so well done, and I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Jenny? Yeah. I also want to call out my thanks for doing this. And I guess I had two sets of thoughts. One was it will be great to continue doing this as a regular course, and maybe it also involves being able to give feedback in multiple ways, maybe surveys for the students who feel more comfortable responding that way. I'd love to see it expanded to younger ages, too, because I think upper

1:02:31 elementary, middle school, I think there's a lot that they have to say as well. And then the other thing is you guys had mentioned follow-up with students a year after they graduate. I don't know if it's ever possible to expand that to students who leave for any reason. Maybe they don't get to graduation. It seems like a lot of those students are ones that we really want to get that feedback from, too. Where do they wind up? Why do they leave? That kind of exit survey information could be really valuable. I believe they were included in that work Joel talked about. It's called post-school outcomes. We do that every year, and I'm really proud of the work Joel and our case managers

1:03:16 in the high schools. They did a tremendous job this year contacting a very high number of the students. That's great. Thank you. And just to add to your first comment, right before this, Seth and I were talking, brainstorming some ideas around maybe picking a region or a couple of schools to chat with fourth and fifth-grade students, because I think, yeah, hearing the voices of the littles is super informative as we move up with the levels. Thank you. Liz feels very validated by your comments, Jenny. Exactly what she was telling me for this time around. Thank you. Thank you. Connie. Yeah, I do have a question. You mentioned ableism, and I think it'd be really helpful to everybody for examples.

1:04:02 Some things never change, unfortunately. Some things do change with times, as things take different forms. But I think it's helpful to anybody who's listening to you, how this is a pernicious problem. Mm-hmm. And it's been there for a very long time, and to hear actual examples of this, because I think lots of people in and out of education can't put their finger on it. They don't really understand it, and I think concrete examples would be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I agree. I think the reoccurring theme that we heard from students in that area was really around low expectations. Just thinking like, "Oh, my kid's on IEPs.

1:04:50 They can just get this worksheet or this simple thing," and them seeing that as being one of those things that keeps ableism going, those low expectations. But I do agree, I think having some specific examples of that would be helpful for people to hear. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. This is really illuminating. Thank you. Okay. Maya. I'm also wanting to echo that call for the younger voices to be included, but I also would encourage you to even go all the way down the-- If they're old enough to be in our schools, then I would love to hear what they have to say about their experiences, and I trust you all to figure out how to ask the questions in order to make it appropriate. One of the biggest reasons that I'm excited to see it go to

1:05:37 the younger part is that while we're getting all this information, that one-page part, that's so huge. Those one-page things are so critical in that process. But to see that they're advocating for that very powerful form of advocacy makes me excited to see the potential of it starting at kindergarten, first, second, because that's like that muscle memory buildup thing, but also that touch point and being able to come back to the kids and being able to find out five years later, 10 years later even, if we start young enough. Yeah. But then just I think that one of the most critical things that we do with our students is teach them how to be advocates, not

1:06:26 only for themselves, but for each other. But that self-advocacy component to me feels really, I don't know, it's beautifully placed in this process, and I really want to appreciate that. I am wondering also about the part where, I forget exactly how it was worded, but it was about bullying, and it was about feeling excluded. And I loved that at the end, it was, "They want to be seen," and it talked about being as learners. But I'm wondering how we can take this information and also include it in the category of their space for friendships and relationships, and where that comes-- But how that takes form in what you all get from this

1:07:13 information and what 4J chooses to do with it. I don't know if I need an answer for that right away, but it felt like that's the part that makes us whole, and it's also maybe the hardest part sometimes. And so we identify it, and then it's like, "Oh, we're really good at systems." Yeah. And then it's, what about these other parts? So I'm hoping we don't lose sight of that because it is hard. Thank you for illuminating that, and also thank you for saying you don't need an answer right now. Because I was internally panicking of how I was going to answer it right now. So thank you. But something to think about. I appreciate that. And Maya, I wanted to comment just briefly on some of the things you brought up. I think that

1:07:58 we all have multiple facets of our own identities, and there's cultural, and there's racial, and there's economic, and there's all of these things that we start to learn about when we're young children and as we grow older. And I think neurodiversity is a very important facet for students to develop early on. And so what you're hinting at here is that perhaps our district should start thinking about how do we help students develop their neurodiverse pride as they grow up and start to think about who they are as a human being. SEL lessons on neurodiversity and understanding disability. There's a lot we can do. Yeah. Morgan, and then I'm going to put myself on the queue. Thank you guys for all of this. It was also helpful earlier, was it last year we

1:08:44 got to hear from the parent groups that you have? And just that space where I know that not everybody tunes into every single board meeting. But just that piece of the work where it's listening to families, listening to students themselves. And one of the things I wondered about is when you're talking about implementing accommodations, and you did these trainings, what were some of the key pieces that really felt important to the students that they get conveyed that were sort of at the heart of the work that you did with our educators and administrators? I see both of them wanting to jump in as well. No, you go ahead. One thing that I recall coming up directly is their desire that they do not have to go advocate for those accommodations each and every time.

1:09:30 They're on a plan, and they should just be offered to them. Sometimes they feel like they have to push or fight for the accommodations. There's so many teachers who just are great at delivering them. And so in some cases, it was trying to just help create that understanding with teachers and understanding the different types of accommodations that might come up. We also spent a lot of time making sure teachers understand the modifications end, when we need to distill concepts down to a core essence and really individualize that for students. Go ahead. I think another point was students wanted teachers to be curious. They wanted them to find out more. And sometimes they did, if they had time. Sometimes they didn't. That's what I was going to say.

1:10:20 And I really appreciate you doing the one-pagers. Just some context for that. If you have a child that gets services through developmental disability services, every year when you do your Oregon Needs Assessment and you're coming up with a plan, part of what you do is that the young person receiving services works with their care coordinator to make a one-pager, and those one-pagers got all of their caregivers, their DSAs, their direct support person, or their PSPs. And so I think that's great because it's melding what we're doing at state level and at Lane County with developmental disability services and really merging that because it teaches the kids from a super young age forward about what is important. What do you want us to write on this paper that you want your caregiver to know

1:11:08 about you? Your favorite things, the things that give you a hard time. So I think that's great because it's really kind of making that language similar, and it's teaching the kids how to think about their strengths and all those types of things. So I really appreciate that you're doing that. And I was just thinking as you were talking about ableism, I mean, ableism is rampant. It's cancer. It's everywhere. I work in healthcare. I carry a significant amount of ableism that I have to work every day. So I think, for staff, it's okay constantly to question yourself. Like tonight, I made comments about that every person that walks into our school should walk out. There are lots of people that do not walk in.

1:11:54 They wheel in or my children's dad is blind, and people would always be like, "See you later." Literally not seeing anyone later. And it's like, these are all good-hearted things. They're not meant cruelly, but it's how we use language. It is ableist, and it is deeply embedded in the culture. And so, as the adults, it's okay to go like, "Wow, did I miss the mark on that? I didn't mean to miss the mark on that." But there's a difference between intention and impact. And part of attacking ableism is going, "Well, my intention was not to hurt someone. However, it did." Or, "I missed a whole group of people that are marginalized and overlooked." So I appreciate your work, and I think it's okay to tell our staff It's okay to ask a colleague, "Wow, am I always that ableist?

1:12:41 Does that all get out?" And for her to go ahead and tell me that it was, because that's how we're better educators and we're better adults and, down the road, better parents. So I really appreciate this work. I know it's hard work, and I'm so proud of you for doing it. There's a question. Yes. I just wanted to say with the comments about self-advocacy, I think we all know, there are groups in our community through Arc, through DD, and it would be great, and maybe you already do this, to have mentors of self-advocates talk about how they develop those skills. Because again, seeing yourself, it just seems more possible, and it would be a great partnership and as I said, you might be doing

1:13:26 them. And I have to say that the kids are already big in kindergarten, so we do one-pagers with kids transitioning into school from early childcare. So one-pagers families do with their kids about stuff. So they're great. Joel, you got me really excited when you were talking about the student empowerment through self-advocacy, and I would love to see neurodiversity also be a teaching in the gen ed classroom, not just for students receiving services, for a variety of reasons. And I also think part of it has to be educating students about their rights, because I think the only way we're really ever going to overcome ableism is

1:14:13 for the students to lead the way on this. And I think it should be just as we talk about civil rights courses, we talk about race, we talk about gender, we don't talk about disability very much, and that should be part of the conversation, just like we talk about all of those other contexts. Yeah. We are right there with you. Thank you for saying that. And I forgot, I just want to echo what you guys were saying about communicating with the middle schoolers and with the elementaries and the early elementaries. When I think about students that are having difficulty with sensory integration, regulation, those types of things, that shows up more at the elementary and middle school level. So things that

1:15:01 I as, am I a neurotypical person? But it would not sometimes make sense to an adult that trying to use the restroom where there's multiple stalls and bright lights and the doors slam really loud and they echo, that's a barrier for a student to use the bathroom. They can tell you that in first grade. They can tell you that in second grade. So I think it's important that you engage with those kids earlier because they have insights that the adults are all going, "Oh, I never would've gotten that. Thank you for telling me." So anyways, definitely engage with the littles. But yeah, go ahead, Jenny. And I'd also give another example that I have seen come up a lot at the elementary level, which is, to talk about everything in the context of a student's decision or choice, and I

1:15:46 think sometimes that ignores some of the struggle that kids are dealing with where they're trying to communicate a barrier or trying to communicate a problem, and it's taken as a decision to either be defiant or to be something else when it's really communicating something entirely different. True. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your hard work, and outstanding. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is it okay that we take a break? Do you want to take one now? Or do you need- I think we need a break. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Let's go ahead and take a break. Can we be back at 7:22, everyone? Will that be okay?

1:16:36 Oh, that's only through-- Oh my gosh. Don't allow me to 7:30 too. Yeah. 7:35? All right. Let's do 7:35. We will be back at 7:35 so we can have a break. 7:35. Yes. Next on the agenda, we will receive the annual Division 22 report presented by Judy Josiah and Carmen Chamorro Urbina. So welcome to both of you. Division 22 is a report that we get every year, and always excellent information.

1:17:23 Wonderful. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Fesen, board members, Dr. Mickelson, and members of our community. Good evening. My colleague will introduce herself. Good evening. My name is Judy Josiah. And Judy Josiah and I are presenting the Eugene School District 4J's annual '22 compliance report for the '25/'26 school year. Okay. Thank you. So Division 22 establishes the standards. Oregon school districts are expected to meet across teaching and learning, student safety, educational systems, staff practices, and community engagement. Each year, districts review their status report, that status publicly to their

1:18:09 communities, and submit formal assurances to ODE. This is both a compliance requirement and an opportunity for transparency to be clear about where we are doing well and where we can continue to improve if improvement is needed. And so this requirement is part of, again, Division 22, and 196 school districts are subject to it, and also 19 ESDs. So when this presentation was provided to you last week, the information reflected the status of our review at that point in time. The slide shows 56 items in compliance, one item in corrective action, and two requirements that are currently waived. I do want to give you an update since the board materials were prepared at that

1:18:55 time. We were still completing follow-through related to equal education opportunities, specifically the work connected to our non-discrimination notice and required civil rights information. Since then, we have completed the work with the support of our communication department, including the necessary updates to coordinators and contact information and the district non-discrimination information. Therefore, 57 items are in compliance and two are in waive, so we are in absolutely great shape, I would say. Division 22 covers five broad areas: high-quality learning experiences, aligned and focused educational systems, engaged partners and communities, safe and inclusive schools, and committed and supported staff.

1:19:45 In the high-quality learning experiences category, the district is in compliance with graduation and career education requirements, health education, media program, tech requirements, and instructional material standards. The area still under an approved correction action plan is physical education at the elementary level. This is not a new finding. The district has an approved plan in place and continues to document implementation against the plan. So it is not that we're not in compliance, but there's correction actions that are being implemented in the now, and the implementation plan has been submitted to the Oregon Department of Education and has been approved. Therefore, that is the process that we are currently in.

1:20:32 At the elementary level, the approved plan, again, that I talked about previously, include PE instruction, classroom-based physical activity, social-emotional learning, and active morning meetings. Together, those components are part of the district's response to the state PE requirement. Our next step is to redesign the plan. It's not to redesign the plan, but it is to verify the implementation is occurring consistently, and that we have a supportive evidence organized and ready for review by the Oregon Department of Education. In this category, the report reflects compliance with the local essential skill assessments requirement and with the district improvement plan requirement.

1:21:18 The separate essential skills diploma requirement and the English learner assessment rule remain waived through the state's current waiver period. For the district improvement plan requirement, a review confirmed that 4J strategic planning and ODE-approved integrated guidance work provide the district's continuous improvement framework. That includes our every student attends, every student learns, every student graduates, future ready priorities, our 90 by 30 North Star, Senate Bill 141 performance growth targets, data-informed planning, engagement with the community, annual reporting, and alignment of resources with district priorities. Based on that work and the supporting evidence, this item remains in compliance.

1:22:06 Second. There you go. When the board materials were prepared, again, we were still completing follow-through with the equal education opportunities that I explained briefly. Since then, we have completed that work, including the required updates to our non-discrimination and civil rights information. As of tonight, the equal education opportunity is in compliance. That means that our one remaining corrective action area, like I explained before, is our physical education. All five standards of the engaged partners and communities are in compliance, including complaint procedures and family rights related to tax services.

1:22:51 All four standards in committed and support staff are also in compliance, including personal policies and teacher and administrator evaluation systems. Taken together, these areas reflect the systems the district has in place to support transparency, family rights, employee expectations, and continuous improvement. Our work between now and the final submission is very focused. So we will also update the final public report to reflect tonight's current status, post the report, and complete the ODE submission. The goal is to make sure that the public record is accurate and that we continue using this process to support accountability and continuous improvement. So these are kind of the three actions that we are currently taking.

1:23:38 By November 1st, the district must present the annual report publicly, which is part of the process that we're doing today, and post it in our district website. Tonight's presentation is part of the public reporting process, and the final posted report will reflect the current status. I have described tonight, rather than simply repeating the earlier board packet snapshot, we wanted to provide the community and the board what does Division 22 include and all the work that goes in it, and it is, I would say, a collective work that brings all of our offices together to be able to be in compliance with Division 22. And by November 15th, the district submits its formal assurances to the Oregon Department of Education.

1:24:24 At the center of this work are the same priorities guiding the district more broadly. Every student attends, every student learns, every student graduates feature-ready. Division 22 gives us a statewide compliance framework, but the purpose behind the work is much larger. Making sure our systems are serving students well, and that we are transparent about both our progress and the areas where work remains, where we have to do a little bit more work. That includes being clear when our status changes between the time of the board packet is prepared and the time we present publicly. So thank you, and Judy and I are here to answer any questions. Yeah, Morgan? For the physical education piece, it's really helpful to see the plan.

1:25:11 But what was it that they're correcting? Is it minutes? What is it that it's trying to solve? I see what we're doing to solve it. Mm-hmm. But what is it? Is it that the kids weren't having enough PE minutes? Is it that the curriculum wasn't updated? What was it that put it out of compliance? Go ahead. So, the minimum requirement is 60 minutes PE with PE teachers per week, 50 minutes PE with classroom teacher per week, and 30 minutes SEL lessons per week, and 45 minutes morning meeting. Now, in terms, I think they're having that in place, so it's not like they missed out on something. So getting the whole piece together. In fact, last year, we had both middle school and elementary in the same bucket of

1:25:57 where we're doing corrective action. Middle school, we've achieved that. But with elementary, we are almost there, and it is about consistent implementation. Anyone else? Yeah. Go ahead. There were two essential skills that were waived. I don't know if I overlooked it. Did you tell us what those essential skills are that we've had waived? Can you hold that? So the one- Do you want to say it? Okay So the one was essential skills diploma requirements, which was waived through the end of the '27,

1:26:43 '28 school year. And then the other one was essential skills assessment for English language learners, which was waived through the end of '27, '28 school year. Okay, great. Thank you. I also am wondering about the PE question. I don't have the slide in front of me, but there was the list of the things that are happening. So ODE doesn't require that we meet those expectations with PE delivered by licensed PE teachers or endorsed PE teachers. It's okay for that to happen with classroom teachers? Is that what I'm seeing in that list? It's not like PE teachers are going into the classrooms and leading morning meetings.

1:27:29 So- Is that- Okay, here's a snapshot. The 60-minute PE says it has to be a PE teacher, but then the other ones does not specify PE teacher. It says classroom teacher. However, I could get much more clearer explanation from elementary director because they work with it. So I could follow up on that question. I just wanted to make sure that I was-- I felt like I was making an assumption, and I wanted to make sure the assumption was accurate. Okay. Thank you. But we can get you that information to the whole entire board with clarity what does it mean implementing our plan, and what does that look like, sound like, and feel like, for sure. Yeah. Betsey? Just wanted to say, in the context of what we're going through right now and with

1:28:17 all the budget cuts and adjustments, I'm really impressed and grateful that we have such a great report and that I know how much work this takes to pull this together from so many different sources. So thank you. I'm appreciative, and thank you to everyone in the district who does all this work. So it's great. It's everybody. Thank you, Board Member Newman, because it does take the entire instructional cabinet, and it takes our HR department and our finance department and our facilities department. So it is a collective report that we come together. This table is actually full, as everybody's trying to make sure that we are in

1:29:02 compliance. And as you all know, as board members, four years ago, we were not. And so for us to be able to be completely in compliance is a big achievement for our district. So we're very proud of this. Yeah. I appreciate that clarity. Thank you for letting us know, because I think, especially in the public, they don't realize, like I didn't even think about facilities and how different groups have to be involved in making this report. So thank you. And just a gentle reminder, many of these Division 2256 requirements, they're not funded. Just have to say that. Sorry. That is also an excellent point to bring up. Thank you both for being here and giving that report. Okay. So now it is time to hear from our budget committee

1:29:50 finalists. So hello, everyone. First, on behalf of the board, I want to thank all of the community members who applied to be part of the budget committee. We had 12 respondents, and the list of candidates and their qualifications was definitely impressive. The board would like to thank all the candidates for their interest. At our last board meeting, we selected seven finalists from the 12 applicants. Tonight, we will hear comments from the finalists and ultimately select our four individuals to appoint as budget committee members. I will say that, board members, Pamela Culbertson, she tried to send a recording, because she was unable to be present here this evening, but her internet is not cooperating, and so we won't be

1:30:35 able to hear from her. She's been diligently trying, but it's hard when your internet is not helping you with that. Before we begin, I'd like to underscore a few points that we should all try to remember about the budget committee Our board policy, DBEA, states it is the function of the budget committee to approve appropriations for expenditures before the start of each new fiscal year, as presented by the budget officer to the committee. The budget committee may choose to make appropriation levels or to change appropriation levels. However, it does not have authority to make programmatic changes. In other words, we will spend quite a bit of time understanding what the director's finances look like next year and what level of appropriations we'll need to adopt to best meet the challenges we face in the year

1:31:20 ahead. However, this is probably the most difficult piece to remember in the process for everyone involved. The superintendent, with the help of her staff, is the one who ultimately makes the very difficult programmatic changes to make sure we serve our community as best we can, ensure we spend within our means, and as per 4J's foundational pillar, position our district towards fiscal sustainability now and into the future. It won't be a shock to anyone that 4J, like most districts in Oregon, continues to face some very difficult financial decisions. It is important to note that the role of advocacy has not changed and remains a welcome part of the budgeting process. Decision-makers need to know clearly what is happening in our district, where the

1:32:05 critical areas are, what is working, and what needs to improve. This information is especially vital to our superintendent, who has a legal responsibility to make what will probably be the most excruciating decisions on staffing, facilities, and other operations. The whole system depends on information from all stakeholders, even more so in times like these, when our funding continues to be woefully insufficient. At this time, we will hear from our seven finalists, technically six. Each finalist has been invited to share comments that they feel best reflect their perspective, priorities, or approach to serving on the budget committee, particularly in a time when resources are limited and student needs remain high. The format is similar to public comment.

1:32:50 There will not be an interactive interview. The board will listen to the comments from the finalists and take that into consideration along with their written application when they select the finalists to appoint to the budget committee. Each finalist will have three to five minutes to speak to the board. I will invite finalists one at a time to share their comments. We will be able to keep the same process as we do for public comment. A timer will be used, and a chime will let the speaker know that their allotted time is complete. So, finalist, like I said, Pamela Culbertson won't be able to be here tonight, but still should be under consideration as one to be chosen. So we're going in alphabetical order. Scott Fellman, why don't you come on up?

1:33:48 Hi. Hello again. Three years ago, doesn't seem like it was that long ago, and then again, it also seems like a very long time given some of the things that have happened since then. I sat at this same table or one very much like it and talked about the things that I would bring to the budget committee. Large among those is the nearly three decades of public service that I've had in this community, serving every angle, every niche, every little spot in this town. In addition to being a 4J parent, 4J volunteer, local sports coach, community volunteer, and so on. In the last three years as part of this committee, supporting this staff,

1:34:37 supporting this board, we worked through, as you all know, some very difficult stuff, and as we all know, we've got more of that to come. So why am I coming back for another three years? Because it's one of the most important things we do, educating our children, and if I can have some say, some ability to support that effort, then I'm going to put my time and energies toward that. The greatest accomplishment that I think we made in the last three years that I'm most proud of being a part of were the improvements to the budget process for 4J. The first year, not a great process. Good feedback at the end, good decisions made coming forward from that, including

1:35:24 the staff decision-making model that was not only so good that it helped us make really good decisions moving forward, but was so good that our special consultants that we brought in last year wanted to steal it from us, which is sort of the ultimate compliment for that kind of development. So what I hope to bring, if appointed to the budget committee again, is helping us make sure that we continue to use that excellent tool to keep our priorities and our values front and center in the very difficult decisions ahead. And as a member of the committee, to help, in my own unique way, keep things on track, keep us moving forward, help us put diverse pieces of input from the very interesting and very diverse perspectives

1:36:13 that we have, the thoughtful, committed perspectives that we have and will have, into a cohesive whole that we can use to help inform the final budget decisions to make sure that we're representing our community and communities, especially those that have less of a voice of their own, and to make sure that we're keeping the education of our students first and foremost as we go forward in what is likely to be a very challenging next few years. Thank you. Thank you very much, Scott. Next up we have Bonnie Glass. Hi. Good evening.

1:37:02 All right. Good evening. Thank you for having me here. Let me get myself situated here. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and share a little bit about myself and what I think I would bring to the committee. Some of you may know me as the former owner of Euphoria Chocolate Company, and my decade-plus experience as a small business owner taught me practical skills in budgeting, how to read financials, creative problem-solving, but most of all, making difficult decisions with limited resources. I've worked as a congressional staffer, where I gained an understanding of the differences between federal state funding requirements, what do those restrictions look like, and the responsibilities that come with each. But I'm also the mother of a 4J middle school student.

1:37:49 Our family is in its ninth year in the language immersion program. We started out at Buena Vista. We've continued on into Monroe Middle School. Go Mustangs. In addition to my professional experience, I bring an unwavering belief in the value of public education. I'm the product of public education, and I believe it's the great equalizer, even in moments that are as difficult as this. I recognize that 4J, like many other school districts, is facing a significant financial challenge or challenges, and these circumstances require difficult choices, thoughtful prioritization, and a commitment to making the most of available resources. And I believe those decisions must keep students at the center

1:38:35 while also recognizing and supporting the staff who serve them every day. I consider myself a practical realist. I'm direct, I value collaboration, and I believe we accomplish more when we listen to one another and work toward common goals. No one person has all the answers, especially when the challenges are as complex as these. By bringing different perspectives to the table and working together, we can make thoughtful and informed decisions, and I want to be part of that process. My commitment to this community is deeply personal. I grew up in a military family, so I moved frequently, and when our son was born, my husband and I decided to move back to his hometown because Eugene is a great place to raise a family. We decided to live here, and we want to invest in this community and be part of its

1:39:24 growth. But mostly, we want to make sure that we help create a community that our son and other young people look at as a place that they want to stay. And making that future for themselves be possible, 4J plays a critical role in that. Throughout our experience in 4J, I've been continually impressed by the people who make our schools work, from teachers, counselors, nutrition services, custodians, support staff, and so many others. You can see their dedication and their passion, and they're trying constantly to meet students where they are, no matter how difficult things are for them So I'm coming to this opportunity not with a list of positions or preconceived notions. I recognize that I would have a great deal to learn if I'm selected. And so I approach this with a willingness to listen, to ask questions, to be

1:40:12 educated on the process, and to understand the trade-offs in every decision. I would want to bring that practical experience that I have from my professional life, my commitment to collaboration, and my perspective as a parent and community member. But above all, I will remain focused on the goal of ensuring that every 4J student has access to meaningful education opportunities and the support they need to succeed. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next we have Kristen Rush, who will be speaking to us via Zoom. Hi. You caught me at baby bedtime, so I apologize for my Zoom attendance.

1:41:00 But I'm here, so I'm very grateful for being here. So good evening, and thank you, members of the board, for having me, and thank you for considering my application to the Budget Committee and for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Kristen Rush. My daughter, Emmaline, she's a second grader at River Road. I'm a trained school psychologist, and I currently work at the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, where I support social emotional learning and educator preparation. I recently completed my doctorate in educational leadership at University of Oregon and serve as the treasurer of my union sub local. I'm interested in serving on the Budget Committee because I care about our public schools and the people who make them work. As a parent, and the wife of a special education teacher, I want my daughter and

1:41:46 every child in our district to have opportunities to learn, to build relationships, and get the support that they need. And as a school psychologist, I've seen how much educators and families put into that work and how difficult it can be when the needs exceed the resources that are available. My current work at the state level has also given me experience looking at education from a broader systems perspective. I spend a lot of time thinking about the connection between what we want for students and the policies and resources that we put in place, and what is actually happening in schools to make that happen. So I would bring that experience to the committee, along with my financial experience as a union treasurer. That role has given me practice reviewing financial information, tracking spending, and being accountable to people who the funds serve. I recognize that recent budget decisions have brought real loss and

1:42:35 uncertainties to our school community, along with a lot of difficult questions about the district's finances. And so, personally, I would want to understand the assumptions behind the proposed budget, how these projections change as new information becomes available, and what our decisions might mean beyond the current year. So for example, like when considering a reduction, I'd want to understand what happens after. Do those needs go away, or does someone else have to meet those needs? And then what do students and families experience differently? Could saving money now, for example, create a greater need or expense down the road? And then I'd also want to understand who's most affected. A reduction can look really different for a student who has other supports available to them and ones that depend on school for that support.

1:43:20 Through my advocacy work, I've learned that people most affected by a decision aren't necessarily the people that we hear from. So, some families have time and flexibility to attend meetings or write to school boards, and others care just as much but often face barriers to participating. So I would take that into account when reviewing public input and consider how proposed changes may affect different parts of our school community. And then I also really care a lot about how difficult decisions are communicated. Family and staff deserve clear information about what we know, what's uncertain, and how decisions are being made. And then when reductions are necessary, we need to recognize that people that may be experiencing real loss and give them time to support and navigate those changes. And personally, that includes building administrators who may be processing some

1:44:07 losses while also helping staff and students and families process losses as well. And so I'd want to understand what supports they're receiving and what we're asking them to take on. So if appointed, I'd bring my experience as a parent, as a school psychologist, as an education policy professional, and understand that the committee's responsibility is to review the proposed budget, consider the community input, and work with the board to make decisions that are within the district's available resources. I'd come prepared, ask questions when I don't understand something, listen to perspectives different than my own, and do my part to help the committee make informed decisions. So thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much. And next up, we have Courtney Salik.

1:44:57 Good evening. Good evening, and thank you for having me here tonight. As Scott mentioned, three years ago when I joined the Budget Committee, the process was difficult. We didn't get a lot of information, and through that process, I feel like I helped contribute to seeing it improve year over year. And as I think about why I'm applying to come back as a Budget Committee member, I originally wanted to be here because of my background in finance and my 15 years of experience working with accounting and reading financial statements and helping prepare budgets.

1:45:42 And I keep coming back to this webinar that I got to attend about a month ago called Do Hard Things. And everyone has to deal with hard things. Nobody's immune to it, and it's the mindset that we get to choose to show up with. And one of my biggest takeaways from that webinar is that even as we're going through something hard, we can acknowledge that this is hard, but I get to show up. And the reason I came back, and reapplied to be a part of the Budget Committee is with the prior three years of experience, I know how difficult what we're facing is going to be. And I know that this is going to be really hard, not only for our students and our

1:46:27 staff, but for our community as a whole. And I want to show up and be a part of that conversation and help guide the decisions that are being made around our budget, to support our community and our students and the teachers and all the staff who serve these students to the best of our ability as a 4J school district. And so that's why I'm here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Deborah Smith. Hi. Good evening. Okay, so I'm wearing my husband's glasses, and I'm not sure why, but men never clean them. Have you ever noticed that? So I'm going to do my best.

1:47:12 So, board members and superintendent, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. I'm Deborah Smith, and my connection to 4J goes back many, many years. My children attended schools all across the district. We had kids at Evergreen, Santa Clara, Gilliam Elementary Schools. We had kids at Spencer Butte, Madison, and Kelly Young Middle Schools, and North, South, and Sheldon. So we've experienced 4J across the district. It's certainly made us aware of how different schools experience financial struggles in different ways, depending on how those schools are able to fill in the holes themselves. Today I have a grandson at Willie Gillespie Elementary.

1:47:59 So like many parents, I experience 4J not as one school or neighborhood, but as a collection of very different school communities. I also had the privilege of serving on the 4J Budget Committee for several years during George Russell's tenure as superintendent. I think I was here in 2008, which was also a super, super hard time. I served on the District Capital Advisory Committee associated with the bond measure that resulted in the new Kelly Young and the new North Eugene High School. My husband right here did as well, right there. So when I saw that there was an opening on the Budget Committee, it felt like an opportunity to come back to work that I know is important, that I know how it

1:48:46 goes, at a time in my life when I have both the experience and the capacity to really contribute. Professionally, I've spent most of my career as a public servant. I started in accounting and finance and ultimately served as CFO and assistant general manager at Eugene Water and Electric Board. I went on to serve as the general manager of Central Lincoln PUD, and ultimately as the CEO of Seattle City Light. We're back home in Eugene now, and I now serve on a nonprofit startup board, which is building a new energy market for the West. Those experiences, all of them, taught me a great deal about budgets. But probably more importantly, it taught me about public budgets, which are

1:49:32 different. Public budgets aren't simply financial documents. They're statements about the values and priorities of the organization that's moving those budgets forward. They require us to make choices among many worthy needs, often with limited resources, and then to be able to explain our decisions ultimately to the people that we serve. I understand that the role of a budget committee member is not to run the district. It's to learn, listen, ask good questions, understand the financial trade-offs and realities, and help provide thoughtful public oversight. That's the part of the work I would especially enjoy. I love digging into complicated financial situations and issues.

1:50:20 I like understanding what's behind the numbers. I've always felt that numbers tell a story, and often the stories are quite interesting. I'm comfortable asking questions, including difficult ones, while still being collaborative and respectful of the people that are doing the work. I also believe strongly that equity has a place in public budget discussions. Every budget decision has consequences, and they are often experienced unequally across schools, students, or families. Good financial stewardship means asking not only, "Can we afford this?" But who benefits, who's affected, what are the trade-offs, and most importantly, are we directing limited resources towards the things that matter most to students?

1:51:09 Finally, I would bring a strong commitment to community engagement. Budget committee members are a bridge between the school district and the public. I'm comfortable speaking to groups and explaining complicated issues in easy-to-understand ways. But I also know that being a good bridge means being a good listener. I'm at a point in my life where I'm quite intentional about how I spend my time. I'm looking for opportunities to contribute locally, to use the skills I've accumulated over a long career, and to do work that matters without needing to be the person in charge. Serving again on the 4J Budget Committee fits that goal extremely well, and I would be honored to serve, and I appreciate your consideration. Thank you so much.

1:51:57 Thank you. And now we have Abby Stille. Hi. Good evening. Good evening, board members and Superintendent Mickelson. My name is Abby Stille. I'm a parent of two 4J students, and for the past three years, as you know, I've served on the 4J Budget Committee. My family has been part of 4J for more than 10 years, and along the way, I've served in PTA leadership, including as president and treasurer, on site councils at elementary, middle, and high school. And I've attended a lot of 4J meetings,

1:52:43 for better or worse. I don't know. Following my kids through all levels of K12 has given me excuse me, insight into what students need at each stage. And it has connected me with teachers, staff, and families along the way. I'm asking to serve again because I believe that I, along with my fellow committee members from the community, bring a really valuable perspective to this process. We aren't district staff, and we aren't board members. We have an independence and sort of outsider status that lets us ask questions and bring up concerns that people closer to the work and the process may not be considering or may not be in a position to raise.

1:53:33 And I think that matters because in the years to come, we're going to be faced with a lot more hard decisions. And more reductions are coming. In my first term, one of my goals was to understand the district's finances as fully as possible so I could help ensure budget decisions reflect the district's values on equity. What I've learned, though, is despite our best efforts sometimes, when cuts happen, they often don't fall evenly. Decisions like reducing free meal access hit our most vulnerable students the hardest. My commitment is to keep asking, who is affected by these decisions? Is there a way to reduce harm to students and staff?

1:54:21 And what alternatives have we considered? As a communications professional, my career has often been spent taking complicated information and making it clear and accessible. A budget can feel impenetrable to many people, and we need our community to be able to understand it. I appreciate the proactive communications efforts the district has made toward this goal last year, sharing budget information more transparently and accessibly, and I'd like to build on that. As a member of the budget committee, I regularly shared budget information with parent groups and individuals, answered questions and corrected misconceptions,

1:55:06 encouraged people to sign up for public comment and write in, and sought out concerns from teachers and staff to bring with me to our meetings. I care a lot about this district, and I would appreciate the opportunity to continue this work with you all. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, all of you. Kristen's application is not in our-- Excellent. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, all of you, for your interest in serving on the budget committee. Such excellence right now, and I'm like, "How do we choose four out of seven?"

1:55:55 The next steps will take place in the next section of our agenda this evening. You are welcome to stay as the board takes action to appoint four individuals to the budget committee. You're also welcome to leave the meeting and go home and enjoy the rest of your evening. Staff will notify all finalists of the board's decision. For those appointed to the budget committee, staff will share information about future meeting dates and resources. So thank you again to everyone who applied and to all the finalists for sharing your comments this evening. And thanks so much to our 4J community for your continued support of the students that we serve, the staff we value, and the districts we believe in. Okay. So, next, we're going to move on to items for action.

1:56:40 We have two items for action this evening. Both are budget-related. The first one is to select the four finalists to appoint to the budget committee. The second item for action is a resolution that will direct the superintendent to develop a sustainable budget and to authorize the reduction of force. It's an understatement to say we have a challenging budget season ahead of us. Okay. So first part is budget committee selection. And I know Bob, if you-- Bob also wants to come up and join. Oh, hi, Bob. Okay. Excellent. I know. I'm expecting Lisa again. So we have-- Now we're going to select four individuals to be appointed to fill the

1:57:26 four openings on the budget committee. The district is seeking to fill the following positions: three full-year terms, which are three years in duration, and one partial term, which is two years remaining. So in our process, the board will use a ballot process to somehow impossibly select the four finalists who will be appointed to the budget committee. Bob will facilitate the board's budget committee selection process. Staff will distribute and collect ballots and read the votes into the public record. Staff will enter the votes into a spreadsheet that will be visible to the attendees in the boardroom and those participating via Zoom. Candidates must receive at least four votes in each round to advance. Voting rounds will continue as necessary until four candidates have been selected.

1:58:13 A random selection will then be utilized to determine who will serve the full three-year term and who will be the person to serve the partial two-year term, which means we will put the names in a hat and randomly select 1% to serve the remaining two-year term. So Lisa, could you pass out the ballots? Yes. So she's going to pass out the ballots, but I do recommend that because one of the applicant's paperwork wasn't in here. Thank you so much. That we be able to look it

1:58:58 over. I don't know, just five minutes? Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.

2:01:33 Okay. That's time. Thank you, everybody. So I will go ahead and try to do these in order. So starting with Tom DiLiberto. He voted for Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Abby Silly. Rick Hamilton voted for Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, Deborah Smith, and Abby Silly. Jenny Jonak voted for Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Abby Silly.

2:02:18 Morgan Monroe voted for Scott Fellman, Courtney Sellike, Deborah Smith, and Abby Silly. Judy Newman voted for Scott Fellman, Courtney Sellike, Deborah Smith, and Abby Silly. Maya Rabasa voted for Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, Deborah Smith, and Abby Silly. And Erika Thessen voted for Bonnie Glass, Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Abby Silly.

2:03:06 So, right now, the top candidates with votes are Scott Fellman with five, Kristan Rush with five, Courtney Sellike with six, and Abby Silly with seven votes. So we have four top finalists. Well, we have five who are above. Yeah. One, two, three, four, and five who received four or more votes. Hmm? Okay. Yeah. Standby.

2:04:06 So we'll go to a second round of voting. Abby Silly was unanimous in the selection process, so we will go forward with the next group that had four or more votes, which were... Here we go. Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith.

2:06:04 For those listening online, just to explain to you, so we did the first round of voting. We have one person, Abby Silly, who was unanimous, and then we have four other candidates, Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith. That now of those four, we'll be choosing three, and then we will have our finalists. So anyways, now we're going to go to voting. I just want to explain to people who are not watching, but are listening on radio. Thank you. Yeah, my play-by-play skills are not what they used to be. I love baseball, so of course, like the commentator, yeah. There are ballot papers being handed out to everybody at the moment with the voting

2:06:51 on it. They are slowly coming in to the ballot collection site. No hanging chads, no digital balloting. Okay. So let me order again. Okay. So, Tom DiLiberto voted for Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, and Courtney Sellike. Rick Hamilton voted for Scott Fellman, Kristan Rush, and Deborah Smith.

2:07:40 Jenny Donach voted for Scott Fellman, Kristin Rush, and Courtney Sellike. Morgan Monroe voted for Scott Fellman, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith. Judy Newman voted for Scott Fellman, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith. Maya Rabasa voted for Kristin Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith. And Erica Fessen voted for Kristin Rush, Courtney Sellike, and Deborah Smith. And so

2:08:28 we are going to... Hold on one second. We've got to figure it out. So we have three candidates with five votes, one with six votes. In the second round, we're going to move forward with Courtney Sellike with six votes. We will then take the remaining three for round three, and we'll be voting for two additional members. I will say that we have such amazing candidates that it's a

2:09:13 hard problem to have to be able to take seven outstanding human beings and pick four of them. So as we prepare the next set of ballots, remember, we'll be voting for two of the

2:09:59 remaining members, Scott Fellman, Kristin Rush, and Deborah Smith.

2:11:03 Okay. So round three. Tom Diliberto voted for Scott Fellman and Kristin Rush. Rick's in here somewhere. Rick voted for Scott Fellman and Deborah Smith. Jenny voted for Scott Fellman and Kristin Rush. Morgan Monroe voted for Scott Fellman and Deborah Smith. Judy Newman voted for Scott Fellman, Deborah Smith.

2:11:48 Maya Rabasa voted for Kristin Rush and Deborah Smith. And Erica Fessen voted for Kristin Rush and Deborah Smith. So that is our final two candidates, two receiving five votes, which would be Scott Fellman and Deborah Smith. And we lost Lisa. We're only-- We're done. We're going to go with the top two.

2:12:33 Okay. So just making sure I have this. So our four new budget committee members are going to be Scott Fellman, Courtney Sellike, Deborah Smith, and Abby Stille. Correct? That is correct. Okay. Just want to make sure. Okay. So next, so we have our four selected budget committee members. Congratulations, and thank you. Now we need to randomly select who will serve the two-year term, which I know Lisa's working on. Erica, can I ask a process question? Yes, ma'am. Once it's determined which person will serve in which of the seats, will there then be a motion-

2:13:18 Yes ... to be voted to the record? Yes. Amazing. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for the clarification. I am randomly selecting who will serve the two-year term. And that will be Courtney Sellike. Okay. So now I need to ask for a motion to approve the selection of the four individuals

2:14:03 to be appointed to the budget committee. So do I have a motion? Yes, Maya. I move that we appoint Courtney Sellike to the remaining two-year term. We appoint Abby Stille, Deborah Smith, and Scott Fellman to the three-year terms. Okay. And seconded by Morgan. Any discussion, everyone? Yes. Just thank you to all of our applicants. You are all amazing and incredibly impressive. And it was incredibly challenging to choose. I know that I certainly applied to the budget committee and certainly did not make it. So you're in good company, if that's the case. Yes. I will reiterate absolute excellence. Seven excellent candidates.

2:14:51 It's hard to come down to four when we have seven such amazing finalists. Okay. Anyone else? No. All right. So it has been moved by Maya and seconded by Morgan that we appoint the following individuals to the 4J Budget Committee, Courtney Sellike to a partial term ending on June 30, 2028, and then, oh my gosh, Scott Fellman, Abby Stille, and Deborah Smith to serve a three-year term ending June 30th, 2029. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously with Rick votes from-- With yes votes from

2:15:36 Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom Diliberto, Jenny Donach, Judy Newman, and myself, Erica Fessen, who currently is serving as the comic relief this evening. Thank you so much. I'm so proud of all of you. Also so excited for us to do all the hard work after the first of the year. Actually, our staff is doing all the hard work that we do get for. Okay. So next up, we have our second item for action, which is Resolution 202627-05, directing the development of a sustainable budget and authorizing a reduction in force or RIF, and our presenter is Dr. Miriam Mickelsen, our superintendent. I will let you take the floor. Thank you so much, Chair Fessen. Bob Blythe is joining me tonight for this

2:16:24 presentation as well and will certainly help me answer questions from the board. Good evening. And first, thank you so much to all of our budget committee applicants. I'm so grateful for your engagement and support. And congratulations to the budget committee candidates elected to the committee. I am looking forward to working with all of you. We have a very difficult job in front of us, and yet it is so important and critical. So thank you for your commitment. One of our foundational pillars in Focus 4J is financial sustainability, and so on this topic, Bob Blythe and I are here tonight to discuss our fiscal year 2027, 2028 budget forecast. After the presentation, the

2:17:12 board will be taking action on a resolution authorizing the planning for a reduction in force for the next school year. So tonight's message will include information around our initial forecast for next year and how we are going to approach the projected structural deficit. Before we get into the details, I just want to say how indescribably hard it is to be having this conversation again, especially after the significant budget reductions that we made last year. We have funding challenges, and addressing them will take time, and regrettably and painfully require more difficult decisions.

2:18:00 And I know that these decisions take an emotional toll across our district and our community, and I am so deeply sorry that we're facing another round of difficult choices. And it truly breaks my heart when I think about our dedicated and hardworking staff members who show up to work every day, bringing their best selves on behalf of our students with this reality looming over them. At the same time, we have a responsibility to put our district on a path toward long-term financial sustainability for the sake of our kids so we are not facing the same severe funding challenges year after year after year. And I also know that this difficult news comes on the heels of devastating events

2:18:50 in Bend, and so the timing of sharing this difficult news just makes that much harder. Before I ask Bob to talk about our budget forecast numbers, I just want to emphasize that the structural deficit that we are providing the board tonight-- Let me go to the next slide. Thank you. $30 million to $35 million, that is the range. This is a starting point for the budget reduction process. So much is unknown this year that makes forecasting extra challenging. But with the size of the impending budget reductions, we have to start planning now. So last year, we began, as we all know, the work of closing the

2:19:38 gap between our expenditures and our revenue, and that work must continue this year. The principles guiding the work this year are the same principles that guided our work last year, informed by feedback from our staff and students and families, community members through that exchange last year and listening sessions. You have in front of you, and the board has a copy as well, of a one-pager that puts our complicated and complex financial forecast into hopefully something that is a little bit easily digestible. But the guiding principles. First, we must prioritize direct

2:20:26 services to students when we think about budget reductions. Given the size of the projected deficit and our declining enrollment, as superintendent, I cannot promise that school-based staffing will be unaffected. However, we will work very hard to minimize the impact on our schools and preserve the services that students need the most. This is a shared priority of the board, myself, our district leadership team, and again, it reflects what we heard from families, students and staff, and the community last year. Another guiding principle is to align our staffing with declining enrollment to the very best of our ability.

2:21:11 As enrollment declines, our staffing levels involving all of our employee groups must adjust accordingly. Without these adjustments, expenditures will continue to outpace revenue, putting us at risk of facing the same financial challenges again next year and the years to come. Another guiding principle is to limit one-time fixes. One-time funds can provide temporary relief, but they do not resolve the ongoing structural deficit. So it is important for us to understand that we no longer have comparable reserve of one-time funds to rely on. And while temporary measures may still be necessary, our focus must be on the

2:21:59 sustainable solutions that bring expenditures a little bit more in line with reliable revenue over the next several years. This one-pager shows the path forward, and I will say again that this whole process can feel very daunting. We will move forward with as much grace, transparency, thoughtfulness, and kindness as possible, and we will, just like last year, present the reductions in phases, starting with the board action on the resolution tonight. The first phase of reductions will be announced in December, and that will include possible changes with the high school

2:22:44 bell schedule, any leadership positions that might be eliminated, and district department reductions. And so we'll start with reductions farthest away from our students. And the timing. This timing gives our affected staff, especially holding leadership positions, where open leadership positions typically begin to be available starting in December. So this timing gives our impacted staff time to explore other opportunities, and this also gives our departments that need to reorganize and rightsize the time between December and June to do that necessary work.

2:23:31 And then in February, we'll announce phase two of the reductions, addressing building-level staffing. And these reductions will involve class size adjustments and enrollment decline adjustments. So this timeline allows HR to carry out the RIF process carefully and give our principals time to develop master schedules with reduced staffing. In the spring, I will come back to the board and seek guidance on how we explore longer-term strategies for financial sustainability. Sometime in May and June, the Budget Committee and the board will consider and approve the budget for fiscal year 2027-2028.

2:24:19 And following tonight's action on the resolution, we will begin in earnest our efforts to engage with staff, students, and the community through various listening sessions and surveys because we want to give everybody meaningful opportunities to share their perspectives as we work through these very difficult decisions. So with that, I'll turn it over to Bob for additional information on our forecast. Thank you, Dr. Mickelsen. So you see on the left-hand side the budget gap. And why do we have that? We all know the story of the time through COVID and ESSER dollars coming on.

2:25:05 In the time between 2020 and 2025, we added approximately 600 FTE to our system. A lot of that was for added behavior supports, some reduced class size efforts that we did, and just overall trying to get more adults into the schools as we saw our children coming back from what was once in a multi-generational pandemic and trying to get them back acclimated to the educational environment. Obviously, that's not sustainable over the long term, especially as those federal dollars went away. We're also seeing a declining enrollment across the district.

2:25:51 This year, we are experiencing just over 600 decline in enrollment. And when you look at that against the state, the state's looking at around 9,000. In percentage terms, that means that we're dropping faster than the state. And so overall, that means that our revenues are declining. And we all also know that state funding is not keeping up with the increased costs that we're all seeing in our districts, especially when it comes to special needs, which continue to increase year on year. And the high-cost disability dollars have not really been adjusted for quite some time.

2:26:37 So I wanted to first start off with where we are right now. Everyone has seen these numbers before. This is our 26-27 budget deficit. This is where we started this year as far as our operational revenues, which are the dollars that we're going to be bringing in that are new for this year, versus what our budgeted expenditures were for the year. You can see the revenues coming in at $258,600,000, expenditures at $275 million, which gives us that deficit that we saw of basically $16.4 million. We filled that gap, as Dr. Nicholson said earlier, with one-time funds. That is something that we cannot continue to do.

2:27:22 $10 million of that came from a one-time transfer out of the facilities reserve, $2.9 million came from building sales revenue, and then we did a drawdown of our fund balance to provide us with a balanced budget for this year. So going into the forecast for next year, it is going to be very challenging as we go through this because there are a lot of moving pieces right now that we do not have good answers for. The primary one being that we're entering into a new biennium. And when we do that, the legislature has to meet, agree on what they're going to provide for funding for the state school fund, and this is a process that happens at the same time we're building our budget.

2:28:08 This year, we also have a gubernatorial race going on, and the outcome of that could change the timing of when we start to get information coming out of Salem. Typically, the governor would want to put out a number pretty soon, January and December even, at times. If we have a change in leadership at the state level, then they need to have time to get their staff and everyone into place, and we wouldn't expect to see what the governor's proposal would be until probably February. February is very late in the process. This is where we have to make really difficult choices and communicate these out. So in light of that, what Dr. Nicholson has directed the finance department to do

2:28:55 is to provide a series of forecasts at different levels of state school fund funding. So I have been in contact with CFOs and business managers across the state at the larger school districts to try to align our assumptions with what they're working with. And we decided to use as an upper band for now at eight and a half percent increase. There are some districts that are using a slightly higher number. There are some districts that are using a slightly lower number. No one that I spoke to is using an up band at this point. So at an eight and a half percent increase in the state school fund, you can see that our total revenues would be $263 million approximately. We would be looking at total expenditures based on status quo, of

2:29:42 $292.6 million, which would leave a deficit of just about $30 million that we would have to close. On the lower end of our band, we used a four and a half percent increase to the state school fund. Now, what that means for us is that would be approximately flat funding from the state, from the first year of the new biennium from the current year. The formula uses a split of a 49 to 51% share of the state school fund. And so when you look at that, along with our decreasing ADM, which is slightly aligned with our enrollment, we would see total revenues of about $257.6 million and total expenditures, again,

2:30:31 $292.6. So that gives us a deficit of $35.5 million. Now, all of these numbers that we're using right now are the best information that we have right now. There are a lot of moving pieces that we're going to learn more about as we move forward in this process. We're going to be very transparent with that. We will be coming to the board with any adjustments that we see to these numbers or just any new information that comes in. If there's any period of time where we feel we need to alter assumptions that are in the model, we will do that. One of the big changes that we are doing this year is that outreach to other business managers to make sure that we're all speaking

2:31:19 the same language. We certainly have different inputs that we need to take into account for each of our different areas, but there are also areas where we should be in pretty close alignment. The other thing that I just wanted to point out on this is if you were to see what the revenues would look like, you see the $257.6 is slightly below what our overall revenues are for this year. So while state school fund revenues would have stayed approximately flat, we are forecasting decreases in other areas of revenue, such as our interest. We had been seeing decreasing interest rates. We started to see a slight uptick in the last couple of months, but we're also looking at a smaller overall value of funds that we can have deposited and invested

2:32:08 to earn that interest. So I just wanted to point that out because you would see a slight drop in overall revenues even at that four and a half percent increase in the state school fund from what we have in this year's budget. So with that, I am open to questions and you know I love questions, so I'm ready. Johnny. I have a couple of questions. Jenny, you have a couple of questions. I know, it's shocking. My first question has to do with the percentages for the state school fund. Mm-hmm. And where they come from. I assume we've probably checked in with COSA, OSBA, other school districts for what they're projecting in terms of the potential range.

2:32:57 Correct. So, we have talked to other school districts. COSA is right now focusing on what the current service level number is, as an idea of where they hope the governor might land, and that's slightly higher than the eight and a half percent. That's a ten and a half percent. If we get better information that that is potentially something that could come, we would definitely move in that direction. I can tell you of the business managers that I spoke to, one of them is using ten and a half. All the rest are using between seven and eight and a half percent. And my second question is, basically, I would love to go one through one with

2:33:43 all the assumptions or moving pieces that are built into these projections. Absolutely. I'll take my glasses off for this, though, and turn up the computer here. So, I'll just go through some of the major ones. We use an inflation rate, to increase what we anticipate our materials costs will increase by. The inflation rate that we currently have built into the system is 3.2%. Recently, you may have heard the CPI increase last month was stated at 3.7% for the entire United States. We focus on the western region inflation rate. That CPI came in at 2.9%, and so we're going slightly above that.

2:34:30 We anticipate that that could continue to tick up. We are using a PERs composite rate of 25.4%. We just recently got our PERs rates, so we know what they're going to be for the biennium. When I say composite rate, there is a different rate for your tier one, tier two retirees, and for your observ, which is tier three retirees. And so we take what those percentages are, and then what ratio of each of those groups we have to come up with this mixed rate. We do have a PERF debt service percentage in there for 2028. I have spoken to this before, that our site account is expiring. We do have to make our last payment on the 2004 debt

2:35:18 service. So we have a 2.1% debt service rate in there right now, and then we are using a PERF pickup of 6%. So all of those things combined, that 24.4, the 2.1, and the six is what we are using for our PERF costs. FICA stays level at 7.65. Right now, for our workers' compensation and unemployment, those are two expenses that we basically come up with what our anticipated cost will be for the year, and then we have to have a percentage of our salaries to be able to come and generate the revenue to pay those bills. So, for workers' compensation, we're using 0.7%. And then for unemployment, we're using 2.3% right now, and this is one of those

2:36:06 items that is an unknown. We will be getting our first quarter unemployment information. That'll really be the first opportunity we have to see what the impacts of our reductions in force will be on our unemployment in the next few weeks. Once we get that, that'll give us a better indication of what we can expect for our costs for next year. Again, I said we use the band of 4.5% and 8.5% for the biennium. That is for the entire biennium. So, that's the increase in the total we had for the last two years to the next two years. Our local option levy, we have that in there at a collection rate of 95.44%. That's the same percentage that we use for our

2:36:55 property taxes. That is a factor of people who tend to not pay their property taxes, so that's an actual number that we get from Lane County. So we know that that's what we should anticipate. We also have a compression rate in there of 9.5%, which I'd be happy to talk to people about compression later. 9.5% is actually the compression that we're currently seeing in our last four-year report from Lane County. We have an expectation that our high-cost disability reimbursement will go down slightly. That is a trend that we've seen year on year because the amount of money that's available has stayed static and the number of claims against that have increased, so everyone's getting less year on year.

2:37:42 We're also expecting our transportation grant to continue to decrease slightly, and we're decreasing it on how it's decreased over the last three years on a year on year basis. So, I want to point out the difference between forecasting and budgeting. So when we built the total cost in our forecast for what the cost for licensed, classified, and administrative salaries would be, we took the total list of actual employees we have now. We got an average on what that was because we have unfilled vacancies. We use that average to cost out the rest of the vacancies.

2:38:28 So the dollar amounts that we have in the forecast will correspond to what we have budgeted in actual-- Well, not budgeted. In what we actually have in our system for employees, as they sit right now. We are using a step increase percentage for licensed of 1.69%, classified 1.64, and management admin of 1.44%. Now, the actual step increase, if you look at the salary table, is higher than that. 3.7 for classified, I think. I don't know. I'd have to look at the salary schedules. They're all a little bit different. The reason why the number is lower is twofold. One, you have people who are already at top step, and then we're looking at this in the totality of the salary costs, and so the value of a 3.7

2:39:17 increase for someone who's at one of the top steps is going to be a greater percentage of overall salary than someone who's at the bottom. So these, again, are numbers that we've looked at historically as what the actual change in cost from year to year is by step. We're using a vacancy savings of 0.25% right now. It's a very small percentage. And then we have two transfers in there that are the only transfers that we're showing in the forecast. One is our nutrition services transfer of $1.5 million, and the other is a transfer out for FICA savings as part of the negotiations, where

2:40:03 any savings that we get that the district doesn't have to pay into FICA is transferred into the insurance reserves for the different employee groups. Got them all down? I did get them all down. All set, right? Thank you. Judy? I'm sorry. That was great. Just to follow up, so I noticed that we don't mention the cost of OEB, like the healthcare benefits. Is that pretty stable number? Yeah. So OEB benefits, as far as how the cost of the district, is something that is very easily known because we have district contribution. The district contribution is a static amount.

2:40:48 The cost overall definitely, that's a cost that gets transferred onto the employees. And that's what the insurance reserves are there for, to create subsidies to reduce those costs. But as far as the cost of the district and what would be in the forecast for its effect on our general fund, would only be affected if we had something in our collective bargaining agreement that increased the district contribution per employee. The other question I had, you mentioned in the presentation, I know it's true, that we seem to be decreasing enrollment at a higher rate than the state. Correct. So did we project a smaller piece of the pie or just a flat-- Because it sounded like you used last year's revenue.

2:41:33 Mm-hmm. So actually, for our revenues, I used the same model that ODE uses to calculate what we would get for a state school fund. So in that model, I have the state numbers, which are decreasing, I think, at 0.33%. And then I have ours, which are tied directly to OSCR's projections, and then translating those into ADMR. So those numbers, it's not going revenue to revenue, it's going to student population through the whole entire state school fund formula, based on what we anticipate the number of total enrollment will be in the state versus us. Yes, Morgan. For the step increase with the history, since we have so few early career people

2:42:21 because of the cuts from last year, did you take that into account when you were looking at the historic piece with that step increase? The way we review it is we look at a scattergram. So we take all the employees where they are right now, and we throw it into a scattergram. It tells us what the steps are that everyone is at, what the salaries for each of those steps are, and then we do that calculation directly from that. And then we take whatever prior to calculating a step increase for all the people on the scattergram was to what it is now, and that's our percentage. So we're looking at it in real terms. Okay, great. One of the things we don't know is going to be some of the cost of living increases that are going to be coming out of bargaining that's happening soon with our EEA members.

2:43:06 But our OSEA members, we know that because bargaining is done with them. Is that included in that staff piece for the OSEA folks? Yes. Great. I know that there's a real tension, and people talk about not wanting to bargain in the budget, and I'm not asking for a specific number. Mm-hmm. But I think one of the things we saw, my understanding of part of what happened in Springfield, was that they didn't include plausible ranges of what a COLA would be, and then it ended up being very challenging for a host of reasons. Sure. And so just how are we navigating the plausible reality that there will be a COLA coming out of those negotiations

2:43:51 within this so that you're getting the expenditures estimated? Right. And yeah, without a surprise, and also then people don't think of demonize. Mm-hmm. What's that look like? I want to, again, emphasize the difference between a forecast and a budget. Yes. And what happened with our neighbors was partially a budgetary issue. In the forecast, we basically take all the information that we know, we add in any assumptions that we feel are appropriate to come up with what our expected outcome will be. If there are things that are omitted, for instance, if we omit COLA increases, then you can have an understanding of what a COLA increase would be. And usually, you'll find out what is a small increase.

2:44:37 So when we're looking at where we're at right now, we're looking at it with all the assumptions that we currently have in the budget. We also have an understanding of what anticipated costs could be that might not be in those assumptions. We are taking all of that into consideration, the possible COLA increase from EEA. We just can't pinpoint numbers, but we're taking all of those into consideration. Right. Because otherwise, in my head, I go, "Oh, that's this many million dollars," and I add it to the total. Yeah. Okay, great. So I don't need to do that. Okay, thank you. Anyone else have any questions?

2:45:22 Yes. You talked about inflation for fuel costs. Is that part of that inflation? But I know that they're shooting up much faster than we're seeing. Yeah. So again, this is a really nuanced part of this whole thing. Fuel costs are extremely volatile. We know that. The percentage of our materials and services cost is not huge, but I would say it's material. So the 2.9% right now that was in the last Bureau of Labor Statistics number was including the changes in western region fuel costs. So again, that's something that we'll look at more closely because there's also the anticipation that we could have some geopolitical changes in the positive direction

2:46:10 that might reduce those costs in the future. So, again, yes, it's something that we're aware of. If we get new information from transportation, that there's something else that we need to be taking into consideration, because it's not just fuel costs, because it's petroleum products, right? So everything that is affected by petroleum costs, if we see another spike of 10, 15% in those costs, then it goes into everything else like tires and just the movement of food and everything else. So we'll continue to monitor that. And again, if we are getting information that says that we need to increase that cost, we'll put it into the model, we'll share it with you, and we'll explain to you exactly what it meant. I really appreciate this. Doing a forecast and doing a budget and forward-looking

2:46:58 is making an educated guess, and that's a really hard thing to do. And I really appreciate how thorough you're being and how transparent you're being with these pieces, because all you and your team can do is make an educated guess about what stuff is going to cost. And Miriam and your team, you have to make decisions about what you do with that information. Mm-hmm. And it's really intimidating making decisions based on educated guesses, but that is literally how budgeting is done. Well, and again, another thing that we learned from last year is that we cannot stop looking at things every single month. What is changing? How is it impacting us? Making sure we're coming back to you guys with anything

2:47:44 that we see that's material, that's going to move these numbers, and not being afraid to say, "You know what? When we started this, we thought it was 3.2, but guess what? Now that we're looking at it, maybe we put 3.7, we put 3.8 in there, and that was just another $2 million." And as much as we don't want to hear that, it's going to be something that we're going to be organically making sure we're staying front and center with those numbers as we get better information. And with the reserves we've had over the last few years, 2% difference, we've been able to absorb it. Last year, we absorbed it by using emergency roof fund, for example. Mm-hmm. We don't have those anymore. And so I really appreciate it. Yeah, Jenny. So I'm trying to think of the biggest moving pieces that might impact how much

2:48:32 monies we'll have, how much revenue we'll have for next year, and it sounds like the biggest moving piece is maybe enrollment and how much we get from the state, neither of which we will know before we finalize the budget. Is that accurate? So state school fund, absolutely 100%. Our enrollment number, our ADMW, we should have a pretty good sense of that because we're extended. And for the listening audience, what that means is that we calculate our ADMR, which is average daily membership residence, and it takes into consideration time that students are actually at school. If you have a student that moves into the district half a year, they're basically a half of ADMR. We then turn that into ADMW, which is the weighted version of that,

2:49:19 which takes into account poverty, pregnant and parenting, ESL. There's a bunch of things that go into that to weight it. And then when ODE, the Oregon Department of Education, is looking at, "Well, what are we going to use as your calculator? What is that multiple but per student?" They take the higher number of either the previous year or the current year. If they take the previous year, they say you're extended. And we are extended, and we will be extended for the foreseeable future, as well as a lot of districts in the state, because everybody's seeing the declining enrollment. So we know what that multiplier will be for the next year. It's the year after that, that we would have a little less certainty about, if that makes sense.

2:50:08 Anyone else? So I'd like to ask if... Oh. No, I'm just going to- Oh, okay. I was going to ask for a motion. Yeah. Maya. I move that the board approve resolution 2026-27-05, directing the development of a sustainable budget and authorizing a reduction in force as presented. Oh, okay. All right. I don't even know who to go with. All right. So it has been moved by Maya and seconded by Rick Hamilton. Is there any discussion? Yes. I just want to check in that by putting this resolution forward and voting for it, what we're doing is creating an opportunity for the superintendent and her team to

2:50:53 start planning. This isn't determining anything specific other than we are imbuing you with the authority to figure out what to do so that we can live within the money that we have. That is correct. So in December, for the first phase of reductions, I will come back to the board, and at that time, I will seek authorization for the reduction levels for maps. And I come back similar to last year. I come back in February, and I ask for authorization to reduce by X number of FTE per license. But today, you are voting on a resolution that allows me to begin planning, because that is so critical.

2:51:38 So the budget document that we present to the budget committee and the board will have been as thoughtful and planful as we would possibly make it. Yes, Jenny. I guess one of my questions, in the presentation, it talks about guiding principles, which is prioritize direct student services, align staffing with enrollment, and limit one-time fixes. I assume that those are also going to be the guiding principles for the proposal that comes back to us. Okay. Along with other values that we had identified last year. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, so all those in favor of the motion to approve resolution

2:52:23 2026-27-05, directing the development of a sustainable budget and authorizing a reduction in force as presented. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Okay, passes unanimously with yes votes from Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, Tom DiLiberto, Jenny Jonak, Julie Newman, and myself, Erica Thessen. So thank you so much, Bob, and to Miriam. Thank you. I appreciate it. So I realize we've already had one break tonight, but it is 9:14. So can we take a very quick six-minute bio break, come back, and we need to move on for items for action at a future meeting.

2:53:10 Be back at 9:20. And I'm asking staff too, please be as brief and succinct as you possibly can for your presentations. Thank you. It has been a long meeting. It has been an important and substantive meeting, but I do have a proposal from my fine board vice chair, Maya Rabasa. I'll let you go ahead. I'm going to drop a motion in your lap, if you seem to awake. I move that we postpone the first three items of the item for action at a future meeting, so the board self-assessment, Policy DDD, and Policy DDDG, until our November 4th meeting and go through items four through six

2:53:58 tonight. Excellent. So it's been moved by Maya and seconded by Jenny that the first three items for action will be postponed till our next meeting, but that we will proceed with the next three items for action at a future meeting. Any discussion? I just want to confirm that none of those are substantially time sensitive. Great. Thank you. Okay. We have thumbs up. Okay. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Excellent. It passes unanimously with yes votes from Tom Diliberto, Jenny Jonack, Judy Newman, Rick Hamilton, Morgan Monroe, Maya Rabasa, and myself, Erica Fessen. So that means that the first thing we will look at is

2:54:46 revisions to Policy CBG, Evaluation of the Superintendent, and Christine Nesbit, our general counsel, will walk us through the proposed changes to this policy. Good evening. Sorry for the lateness. Enjoy seeing you. Okay. Thank you very much. So, Policy CBG is a policy related to the evaluation of the superintendent. There is a minor change in it really. It's placed in the footnote, and it relates to when the board holds executive sessions to evaluate the superintendent. Notice must be provided to the superintendent within a certain period of time, and there are some other requirements. This is not a new law, but it is considered to be helpful to have it included in

2:55:34 the policy so that when you're accessing it, you can readily see it. So, that is all. If you have questions on that policy, I can take them. Anyone? No. Okay. Excellent. Next, we will hear revisions to Policy DBEA, Budget Committee, and again, Christine Nesbit, our general counsel, will walk us through this. What did you say? DBEA. Yes. This proposed policy amendment reflects a fairly minor change to Oregon law, which

2:56:21 clarifies that if there's not an educational equity advisory committee member who is available and willing to serve on a budget committee, that the budget committee does not need to have such a member. Okay. Does anyone have any questions for Christine about that? Excellent. And then lastly, we will hear about revisions to Policy GBA, Equal Employment Opportunity, and again, Christine Nesbit. Sure. So the law changed earlier this year related to veterans' preference in hiring and promotion, and it is now extended

2:57:07 to state service members. And this policy change would extend the preference in hiring to those individual state service members or former state service members. So that's the primary significant change in this policy. You see a section that's been revised at OSBA's recommendation, and that includes some additional detail about Title IX requirements, such as we have to post the name, address, and telephone number of the Title IX coordinator. So that really is just a revision and a minor addition

2:57:52 that relates to existing law. And then finally, we also are including a reference to-- There's a requirement in an OAR related to districts having hiring procedures that reflect equal employment opportunities and procedures that are intended to eliminate the effects of past and present discrimination. And so this policy just more closely mirrors that existing OAR. It's been the practice already, but this policy now clearly reflects that. Okay. That's it. Does anyone have any questions at all?

2:58:39 Thank you so much this evening, Christine. These three policy changes will come back at our meeting on November 4th, yes? All right. So we are now moving on to board committee reports. I realize a lot of committees have been meeting recently. So I'm not sure who wants to go first. Ad hoc committee, legislative. Anyone? Yes, go ahead, Tom. Yeah. I went to my first EEF board meeting. Met some of the people in there. I was just impressed by their dedication. They know that education in the state is in peril, has been for a while, but

2:59:25 it really is now, and they are desperate to know how they can help. They've broken records this last year in raising funds for a huge variety of really important drives and initiatives and just sustaining funds as well. And they're looking to better their accomplishments. So I'm really impressed with them. They're really smart, resourceful people. And I'll be meeting with some of them soon, and I'll be hearing more from the listening sessions that we're going to start tomorrow at

3:00:10 EEA from employees and from other staff members and the community about what's on their minds. We're getting an ear full already in our email about the beginning of the year and how that's rolled out, getting used to some of the drastic cuts that we've made already. So yeah, they want to know how they can help, and I was just very grateful for that. And it was a productive meeting. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much. Judy, you want to report on that? Well, the board's ad hoc committee on labor negotiations, we meet pretty regularly. We just wrapped up the process of hearing from each group

3:01:00 and having a discussion, finding out what went well, what did not go well, what some ideas for carrying forward in the future. And our next meeting, which is this coming Friday, will begin to try to synthesize that information and look at what kinds of recommendations we want to make to the board and if we need other resources or information to come to the group in order to do that. And we're going to do that. We have to set the stage because recommendations can come from the group. The board only has a certain amount of power in all this and authority, so we're going to try to be careful about what we're recommending the board do and

3:01:50 what we are recommending for everyone to consider when they enter into bargaining. So it's trying to find that balance because we reviewed the laws around negotiations and the roles and responsibilities. So now the work begins. It's a dedicated group of people, and everyone is attending every single meeting and participating. I'll ask Maya and Tom, you want to add anything? Just a reminder that the meetings are all recorded and available online, and that maybe the three sessions where debriefing happened, if you prioritize listening to any of those, are probably the ones to listen to if anyone up here or in the

3:02:36 community is so inclined. Yeah. I said this at the committee, I think others have as well. I've been through bargaining many, many times in the last 20, 25 years, and I've always had huge regrets. So many people at the table have huge regrets about what happens at the table. And I'm just very hopeful, I'm very thankful that we're talking about things that went well and things that did not go well. And just the commitment to improve the process makes me hopeful for that. So really glad too that we're going through this

3:03:23 exercise, and hopefully we'll come up with something that will be great for all parties involved. Okay. Then the second committee is the legislative committee, and we met, and we've set up a cadence, so we're probably going to meet every other week for a while, given we're gearing up for the legislative session. But mostly we did some planning for the breakfast. We're going to have an invitation going out on our letterhead from Erica. We had a save the date that we sent out to our legislators. We're meeting with our student reps to talk about how they could participate, and we will share our agenda as soon as we set it, which will be at our next meeting. So more to come.

3:04:15 Thank you so much. I appreciate everybody's committee reports. Next, we have a section to consider board requests for agenda items or information. Are there any items board directors would like to add to future meeting agendas, or that you would like more information regarding? Anyone? Okay. You two. No, I was just going to say there's so much on the plate of the board and the sup right now. There's all kinds of things we can think of, but there's more pressing issues right now. So I...

3:05:03 Yeah. We do have our hands full. I could not agree more. Okay, last. Good of the order. Does anyone have something to share for the good of the order? Anyone? I would like to shout out all of the IHS students in 4J that volunteered this weekend for Shelter Here at the Run For Our Lives. I did not run the 5K. I merely stopped by to say howdy and get my shirt. But there were so many IHS students. They do it every year. They dress up as zombies to help encourage the runners and walkers to go just as much faster. But they make it lots of fun, and they put a lot into it. So thank you to all of our IHS students that volunteered. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you, everyone. Our next meeting is scheduled for November 4th at 6:00

3:05:53 PM, and I adjourn this meeting at 9:35 PM. Thank you.