9-10-2024 WCSD Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees

e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right all right everybody let's go ahead and start to get seated here everybody all right it is 2:04 p.m. on this Tuesday September 10th 2024 this is a regular meeting of the Washo County School District Board of Trustees and now I would like to invite clerk Joe Rodriguez for roll call thank you mam president trust church here U and vice presid Mayberry is excused today for his duties and Trust nlet good afternoon I'm here president Smith here trusty Westlake here and trusty willly I believe was delayed and student representative anniec mam President we have a quum thank you so much and uh trusty Woodley will be joining us and when he does join us we will welcome him and Mark that time and so now we'll move on to item 1.03 and this is an opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous emergency that is affecting so many of our our neighbors and our community members in Washo County in South Reno Arrow Creek and Galina we understand that thousands of people in our community are without their homes um their pets and there's been tremendous loss and so this Pledge of Allegiance is in recognition of the two hero colleagues that I sit with here on this deas then in their day jobs have been working with this so you'll notice that at the de right now we do not have vice president Adam Mayberry and that is because he performs um as the information officer for the Trey Meadows Regional fire and also at this deas we have our clerk Joe Rodriguez who is the assistant fire marshal for the Nevada State Police and they've both been involved with this incident and so clerk Joe Rodriguez on behalf of Vice President Mayberry and all of the incredible First Responders and emergency professionals who are working right now in threat of their own life to save our community and everything would you please lead us in the pledge unit States of America and to the for it stands Nation indivisible andice for thank you all and thank you again to our First Responders and emergency personnel and now we'll move on to item 1.04 This Is Our Land acknowledgement every Community owes its existence and vitality Generations from around the world who contributed their hopes dreams and energy to making the history that led to this moment some were brought here against their will some were drawn to leave their distant homes in the hope of a better life and some have lived on this land for more Generations than can be counted truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of Heritage and difference We Begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth we acknowledge that some of our educational structures are situated in the traditional homelands of the wasu Washo numu Northern pyute niwi Western shishoni and new woo Southern pyute peoples we pay respect to their Elders past and present these lands continue to be a Gathering Place for indigenous peoples and we recognize their deep connections to these places we extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn in their territory thank you all right everybody that closes section one and I'm going to go ahead and open section two our consent agenda items but before we go into into that I do want to make some announcements about today's meeting in recognition of uh what we have Happening Here regionally there will be some changes to today's agenda that will be pulled forward to a p uh a future meeting and that includes so everyone is aware um we will not today be hearing items 4.01 4.02 and 4.04 those will pull forward to a future meeting and ideally the next meeting um the status of 4.05 is still be too determined and so we will see and make I will make a determination on that as the meeting manager depending on how um we're advancing with the timeline um also for the order of that section that will be item 4.03 I will then hear item 4.06 and at that point may make a decision on the status of 4.05 also so that everyone is aware UPF front I've also made the decision to forego under Section Five 5.02 those are the board reports among the trustees and a as we go if anybody joins with the public um I'll certainly continue to reiterate this as we go so those items will be pulled or the one item will be determined at a later point during the agenda so now coming back to section two our consent agenda items um I I know we have a definite uh pull for item 2.16 um and truste church where did you land on item 2.03 to uh pull that 2.03 the capital project audit okay very good um that yeah the audit of the the capital Improvement program okay very good so we'll go ahead and we'll pull items 2.03 and 2.16 that leaves us with items 2.02 2.04 to 2.15 and 2.17 to 2.19 I don't see any lights on so JJ do we have any public comment for those items I do not all right well I will bring it back to this body here to see if there's a motion uh to approve item 2.02 2.04 to 2.15 and 2.17 to 2.19 so moved all right so I have a motion by trusty nette a second by clerk Rodriguez to approve those items as stated I see no lights on for further discussion so all those in favor please say I I I all those oppose nay all right motion carries 5 to zero thank you so much colleagues and now we'll go ahead and we will move on to item 2.03 as a standalone item this is the possible action to accept the audit of the wasow County School District Capital Improvement program Professional Services report by BDO dated March 28 2024 as recommended by the capital funding protection committee and audit committee this is an item for possible action I see that we have Kirk starky our chief internal auditor here but first we'll go ahead and turn it to trusty church thank you very much uh number one for the record uh the audit was great it it it found very few issues um of the capital project basically building Etc so going to the executive summary it drew attention to the need for some clarification on Paul correction administrative regulation 3323 Professional Services can you comment on that and what the plan is to fix it yes sir Kirk starky for the record basically that is an item where when the Auditors were doing the work the they determined that that uh regag was vague in a way meaning that contracts between I think Zer and $999,000 it wasn't talking about who it applied to and they just want clarification on that added that it will will or will not apply to uh contractors in this area does that include or are we referring basically to when we renew contracts without competitive bid is that what it's referring to no it's more like when these were going out for this this in this area for Professional Services like The Architects the engineers on on those amounts it should clarify exactly what it pertains to that was kind of the the ambiguity but I see Andrea's probably got a way better answer than go ahead hi there Andrea San director of procurement and contracts for the record um so what that audit found when I was involved with writing the procedure for Professional Services I was really writing it in mind for consultants and guest speakers and training and things like that on the non-construction side I really wasn't thinking about Architects Engineers things like that so that's how I wrote the the admin regg and the policy to in my mind was geared towards non-construction Consultants but I didn't make that clear in the in the policy and so our our process for engineers and Architects and things like that is a bit different and I didn't make that clear so I'm I if this board accept the recommendations from this audit then I will then clarify the the policy to make it clear that there's a little bit of a different process for the engineers and Architects and then that policy would come back for public review and review yeah I mean if it's a policy follow corre regulation right I right I'm sorry if it's an admin reg then it then doesn't come back to the board okay and that that's my next question and I will I am guilty I didn't research this like I wish I had time to do we need to change our policy do you think because all the regulations are based on policy right I not that I'm aware of our this is particular this is specifically geared at our Professional Services administrative regulation and we don't have a board policy on that um so I think we can make the clarifications in the administrative regulation okay would it be fair to say you'll look into that absolutely to make sure our policies aren't conflicting or if we need a policy we'll get it and all yes absolutely okay yeah just wanted to clarify that and put that on the record thank you thank you so much all right JJ do we have any public comment on this item we do not all right so I'll bring it back to this board and I'm looking for a motion to approve item 2.03 so moved all right so we have a motion Again by trusty Diane nicklett seconded by clerk Joe Rodriguez to approve item 2.03 all those in favor please say I I I all those oppos nay motion carries 6 to zero thank you so much Mr Sharky and we got to do 6 to zero on this one because just so we have the time stamp on this uh trusty Alex Woodley joined us at 2:13 pm. so thank you all so much all right okay now we're going to go ahead and move on to item 2.16 this is the approval of the 20242 Elementary and secondary student Behavior manual and certification that wasow County school district schools are in compliance with Nevada revised statutes NRS 392 4644 and 392 4645 this is an item for possible action and we have with us Dr Paul Lara and I would want to make sure that we fully invite everybody that we have in front of us hi I'm Lindsay Kendrick I'm the director of student behavior and student supports for the district thank you so much Miss Kendrick okay I know that there were a few different um colleagues that had some questions on this but as the official trustee pulling the item I will defer to you first trusty church thank you yes there were some really good back and forth questions got really into the Leeds about what's a what's a deadly weapon versus a normal weapon or whatever and if you brandish it Etc um kind of made my head spin a little bit kind of cutting to the chase to the short version We approved a policy I think about a year ago I guess we have to do this is it true we do it every year uh yes uh trusteed church it's required by Statute that you approve it annually and rather than except last year there were a number of legislative changes that we incorporated in this one um no uh last year we incorporated the legislative changes there were some minor changes this year uh you see that we have two separate manuals an elementary and a secondary um but last year was a very comprehensive thorough review this one is is less so okay thank you for clarifying that uh I think if I remember right my big concern was that the manual gives a lot of leeway to staff and your office in how we adjudicate these matters do we have stat since we have it last year the new manual are we improving are we not improving um I guess I I guess I'll I'll ask that first I'll start and uh Miss Kendrick may want to weigh in so um it's it's a bit of a mixed bag I will tell you that through her office uh I think we had 140 hearings last year which was up about 100 from the previous year now that's consistent with the legislative changes that we requested as you will recall the major changes were to first offense batteries and first offense distribution of drugs um so we expected that change but we we are surveiling what's happening in our schools uh in terms of major behaviors at the high school level they're significantly Down based in on 23 24 but in middle school they're up Elementary they're pretty flat but they're they're up uh marginally uh suspensions really follows the same pattern significantly down at High School School up in middle school and slightly up in elementary school I I think that's I have a couple comments but I think that's all I have for questions for now um and I'll jump in here too so this is a really good opportunity to kind of catch everyone up so um I was also I I asked a lot of those questions that we went back and forth about so really where this was from a community standpoint and I believe it was late fall early winter 2021 and this was on consent and there were a lot of questions and conversations at the time um I pulled it off of consent and that ultimately led to nearly a full Year's worth of incredibly intense work by this team in front of us and many other people to overhaul the behavior manual and the discipline Matrix and also led to a very intense legislative session in 2023 um so wait I think I would have pulled it in December of 22 and then we went through 23 and then um that is also when we partnered with Governor Lombardo's office uh with former board president um Assembly women Dr Angie Taylor among others to see a lot of these Law changes it led to a meaningfully different um Behavior manual and this board approved that after we had workshops we had Outreach and that's what we approved last year so now this is the next iteration of it um and just so everybody can kind of be caught up with how that all took place place so I asked quite a few of the questions um so anybody following along in the public one of the things that our board I think that's unique to governing bodies in Nevada and certainly among trustees um in school boards is that we ask questions in advance those questions and those answers become part of the public record so that everybody can follow along and learn as we do so some of the questions I really dialed into was what constitutes a dangerous weapon and I don't have the intention of making any recommendations to change the manual but I will tell you when I was reading the manual and I saw things suggesting that law is ambiguous that troubles me we later today are going to be settling on topics for our legislative platform and so I asked the questions that I did because if there is ambiguity in the law or if we feel we cannot be taking action because there is uncertainty about what constitutes a dangerous weapon a knife a type of firearm I really want to know that now um because we have that opportunity later in this meeting to discuss wide topics that we'd like to see reflected so I saw all the back and forth I appreciate all those answers but we still have it written that there's ambiguity in the law that creates complications what I do not want is for there to ever to be an emergency here at the waso County School District where a student who has previously brought a weapon that Common Sense May dictate as a dangerous weapon but for some reason we feel that NRS did not allow us to designate it as a dangerous weapon and then have us say well there was ambiguity or we weren't sure that is what I don't want to have happened so my question right now is knowing that we're going into this other item related to the behavior manual and related to what we have written here are you recommending that we advance or bring a focus to the need to clarify any of these things in law around student behavior and I'm not talking specificity just the general topic it's hard for me to read in the manual that there's ambiguity holding us back so I want to know is are these things that we need to be addressing or taking a position on in the upcoming legislative session as it relates to what we have in today's Behavior manual thank you president Smith for the question and again I'll start and Lindsay May uh want to chime in and um the word ambiguity is is an interesting word and I don't think the intent of what we wrote uh was to say that the law itself was ambiguous the intent was to say that every one of these situations is unique and requires administrators to use professional judgment there are very few instances in which the law was crystal clear that if x occurred y must occur if you bring a firearm to school you must be removed um but without a citation from a school police officer indicating that a student is in possession of a dangerous weapon as defined by Statute we still have administrative obligations and given the context of the situation we may treat a cell phone or a remote control or a microphone as a dangerous weapon if someone was to grab this and Chase one of us down and try to hit us in the head that is threatening us with a dangerous weapon and that's how we would proceed so really what we're getting at is is the essence of these situations where our school administrators and our district administrators have to uh use their own professional judgment I I would suggest that perhaps if if if Chief Moore is present he ought to comment on the law specifically I do not think that our law is creating an obstacle for us I don't know that it could be more clear there are certainly some minor definitional definitional things around knives and stuff of that nature that might help school police in their citing a student but from our angle I don't think uh there's a need for a correction in that statute thank you so much thank you president Smith thank you for that explanation and and and I must say that I I do understand and ambiguity might be the right word and it but it's very situational absolutely um this could be a dangerous weapon a pen could be a dangerous weapon my question is and thank you for bringing this up is that we have an ad administrative regulation 4675 that I'm going to assume will be updated because the last time it was updated was seven years ago so I would hope that we will look at that to to align them and then this won't surprise you I'm always about that training so that teachers administrators bus drivers Etc can have these discussions we're all trying to look it up at the same time you got us on that one uh I guess the bottom line I remember this exact conversation uh last year as well as I appreciate the board president did far more homework than I did and thanks for refreshing my memory because she she nailed it uh it's the my personal opinion just me personally discipline can be a good thing sometimes and we have to air on the side of protecting the teacher and the staff and if a teacher says I really don't want this student back in the classroom I honestly 99% I believe that teacher has to be supported um you know absent just something where it's just not not right you know so I just want to put that on the record just like last year I was really torn I I think I'm going to vote Yes but um it's not the manual it's how we enforce it thank you thank you man president um I know this board and the staff we pretty much went as zero tolerance as we could about a year ago on these things um and you're stating that You' seen an incline um pretty much in the secondary education Middle School is that correct in middle school and element middle school and Elementary not high school high school down um okay uh do you project you know that as word gets out hopefully that these actions are unacceptable that you you we hopefully we'll see a decline in this um uh yes we we are optimistic we a as I think Dr Nicollet mentioned last year we trained heavily on the implementation of the manual Lindsay and Trish scha are doing that again this year I do think that we need to strengthen some of our core practices with positive behavior interventions and supports uh to get in front of some of these things I I really believe I will tell you another piece of data which is hard to talk about but I'm going to go ahead and talk about it is anecdotally we did not have the problems last year that we had two years ago uh in other words people were handling situations so they're up but that's sometimes is a good thing better documentation people are on top of things I do think that in time we will see declines in some of these behaviors especially with some of our Associated strategies that we're bringing to Bear additional clubs and activities cell phone use there's a lot of things that contribute to these kinds of things that hopefully all together we'll see the declines that we want um and then just just for the record especially given like the recent climate that we've had threats against our schools can you kind of just tell the general public or who might be watching like what is kind of the standard Norm of corrective behavior for threats against our schools when we receive well well so the the kinds of threats that we just uh had uh that were sort of social media based school police handles those that take it with utmost seriousness we have internal messages messages out to the community and of course they investigate that and as you know we've had instances in this District where something that originated back East somehow just gets floated over and then we're dealing with that taking away uh important resources to investigate that when we have a threat within a school we have a threat assessment process it's a comprehensive process we immediately do a threat inquiry that's usually handled by a principal or a counselor or school psychologist if they determined that it was a transient situation like it a student just got upset and said some things that they really didn't mean maybe they're crying in the office now they may consider that transient if it's beyond transient they're they believe that the threat is of medium or high concern we will likely have what we call a comprehensive assessment uh where we fully investigate situation we interview everyone involved we develop safety plans for the community and for the student and as necessary we may remove a student under those circumstances es but we take every threat with with seriousness thank you m' thank you thank you president Smith so I was going to ask about something but I want to get back to the what you just said Dr lamara the transient and that maybe wouldn't be handled is you take it serious but maybe it wouldn't have as serious as repercussion because the students in the office now crying but maybe they're in the office now crying because they just got caught and they know it could be serious so I I'm just kind of a little bit concerned about that because to me when threats are made the only way we are going to absolutely stop this and its tracks is to take it and just have a hard nose line on threats I mean this disrupts our children's education it causes turmoil for our teachers and stress for our students everybody now feels unsafe again and every time this happens this is like another gut punch another gut punch and so I mean it could be very subjective as to why that child is crying and I mean if we I know we want to think the best but for a student to do something like that go online and do that and then they go into the office and they're crying I I mean it could just be said as well that now they're caught and so they're crying it's not that oh I really wasn't that serious about it it's like oh crap I just got caught you know so are we taking a hard line or are we going to have this subjective you know cuz maybe this student is a great crier you know and so and then another student comes in and they're just a little bit crying and now you you're putting a subjective spin on it oh well this student feels really bad because it's he's crying buckets but this student over here is just sniveling a little bit well maybe this one the one that's just sniveling is the one who's really sorry but this one's just a good I just I don't know I just I mean to me we either take a hard line on this and try and end this kind of behavior or we keep allowing ambiguity and subjective I don't know um before Dr Lam marker responds after this we're going to go to public comment I saw you had your light on and then um and then maybe we can move forward I have one more thing so I'll let drugo we will close your item and then we'll go on to public common and then continue again with trusty church so thank you for the question and perhaps I introduced ambiguity by using the word crying partly what I'm getting at is and superintendent Ernest has dealt with this firsthand so maybe he could explain I don't know the students in our schools the way the principes know the students in our school let's say a fifth grade child is on a playground and he gets upset because someone took the basketball from him and he says I'm GNA kill you and runs off so that might be a situation in which that threat is transient it doesn't mean there aren't consequences it doesn't mean there isn't a major behavior that you made a threat we will not tolerate that and we create a plan to support that child to better respond to those conflicting situations um what what I'm getting at is for the threat itself to make sure our community is safe and the student is safe we have a very detailed process there is still a whole disciplinary section and you'll see that outlined at the manual when we have threats to students and threats to staff so what I would say is we do take a very conservative and hard line with respect to these instances but we also are going to try to support our students as best we can every every time something like this occurs that makes me feel better just that does thank you the other thing um kind of adding to what trusty Nicollet said about the you know the teachers getting the support and the education and the training and our bus drivers I think think that's really important but especially looking at what just happened in Georgia what type of communication are we going to do uh engaging the parents letting the parent also training the parents that this is The Stance we're taking so you are aware you know things are going to be a lot tighter and stricter and these things are not going to be tolerated how are we be going to be transparent and communicate this to the parents and I think the lake I I and I think everyone appreciates where you're going with this especially given the recent tragedy in Georgia this is still really a discussion of the behavior manual and those processes are probably in excess of the agenda item or not probably they are however you probably ask those questions through superintendent erns okay perfect okay thank you all right JJ do we have any public comment on this we do not all right uh truste church I'll give you the final word and then maybe we can move forward with some action certainly the manual referen is NRS 392 4635 policy for prohibition of activities of criminal gangs on school property I don't find it am I missing it so the PO the manual says list that NADA ofed statutes that says the Board of Trustees will have policy and I looked under policy I didn't find it so do we need to do that I I believe you will find excuse me thank you uh trustee church I believe you'll find references to that within our um uh board policy 5100 on student Behavior I will double check on that though and make sure that if we don't that we address that okay that would explain it thank you thank you for that conversation everyone we really appreciate that and um now I would be looking for a motion to approve item 2.16 all right second all right so I have a motion by clip Rodriguez seconded by trusty Woodley thank you so much Dr lamara Miss Kendrick appreciate that I see no lights on for further discussion all those in favor please say I I I all those oppose nay all right motion carries 6 to Zer thank you so much colleagues and now we're going to close section two and move on now to section three our financial items and we'll go ahead and open items 3.01 the discussion and possible action to adopt wasow County School District board resolution 24-17 a 2024b school Improvement Bond resolution authorizing the district to issue General obligation limited tax school Improvement bonds Series 2024b in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 110 mil5 $5,000 this is an item for possible action and we have with us Mr Mark Mathers our Chief Financial Officer great thank you very much uh so real quickly the uh fiveyear Capital Improvement program that this board approved in April really begins the ambitious and aggressive implementation of our facilities modernization plan as part of that 5year CIP we programmed a total of $675 million of planned rollover bonds um issued over the next five years um this is the first chunk of that this um resolution would authorize um uh myself to begin the sale of of 100.55 million of rollover bonds which combined with proceeds from our last sale will begin implementation again of that CIP specifically this will fund the construction of a brand new Elementary School in the stead area uh the All Phases of the Central Transportation yard project and then completion of the Von rebuild project so in June you had come we had come to you pardon me uh for authorization to go to our debt management commission and oversight panel for Bond facilities for their approval which was required and we've received from both entities their approval of the transaction so this really is the last stop the last approval point for this board again to authorize the sale of these bonds um and so if approved we would sell the bonds um late September possibly but more likely early October and then close the transaction by the end of the month of October and with that I'll answer any questions you might have I don't see any lights on so JJ do we have any public comment on this item we do not all right then I'll bring it back to this board again seeing no lights for potential action to approve item 3.01 so moved all right we have a motion by trustee Dr Diane nicholet seconded by truste Colleen Westlake seeing no lights on for further discussion all those in favor please say I I I all those oppose nay all right motion carries 6 to Zer thank you so much and Mr Ms knows not to go far because that closes item 3.01 and moves us on now to item 3.02 the approval of waso County School District board resolution 24- 018 a resolution of intent proposing the issuance of up to $200 million in general obligation bonds additionally secured with pledged revenues providing the manner form and content of the notices and authorizing officers of the district to take other actions necessary to complete the issuance and related matters this is again an item for possible action and take it away Mr Ms yeah this is so this is very similar to the last item this um is a St necessary for selling what we call wc1 bonds again General obligation bonds just like the last item but in this case instead of pledging property taxes these bonds pledge our wc1 sales tax revenues um there's a little slightly different process to the sale of wc1 bonds again we went to the debt management commission for approval of these bonds and the debt management commission approved it but um when selling these types of bonds there's a petition period so this resolution is the second of three steps now um towards the path of issuing wc1 bonds this would um authorize us to begin a publication of weekly notices in a general circulation newspaper um expressing our intent to issue these bonds and then the public would have 90 days to collect signatures um to place this on the ballot if we had um 5% of the electorate that did so so this begins that petition period assuming we uh don't receive a valid Petition of at least 5% of Voters asking that to be put on the ballot then we would come back to you later this calendar year with the bond resolution just like we did in the prior item so just a necessary legal step in the process to issue these bonds um and I'll be back to you one more time before we actually sell bonds all all right seeing no lights on JJ do we have any public comment on this item we do not all right again seeing no lights on I will look for Action to approve item 3.02 all right so we have a motion by trusty Woodley seconded by clerk Rodriguez seeing no lights on for further discussion all those in favor please say I I I all those oppos nay all right motion carries 6 to Zer thank you so much and thank you so so much Mr Ms all right that closes item 3.02 and section three in its entirety all right everyone that now opens section four our items for presentation discussion information and or action so now just as a reminder to anyone who may be joining us we have deferred and will move forward to a future board meeting items 4.01 4.02 and 4 04 it is undetermined if we will do item 4.05 we will move that to the end of this section so this section will begin now with the opening of item 4.03 it will follow be followed by 4.06 and then at that point I will make a decision about 4.05 so now as we open this item this is item 4.03 the discussion and possible action to adopt the negotiated agreement between the Washo County School District wcsd and the school psychologist Association of Washo spa for a term of agreement from 2024 to 2025 this is an item for possible action and we very warmly welcome Dr Scott barklay he is the president of spa and then also our general counil Kevin pck this is a very exciting item and we look forward to hearing this presentation um thank you good afternoon uh thank you president Smith superintendent Ernst and board members I'm Kevin pck I'm the district's general councel for labor and employment matters uh and with me as uh president Smith introduce is Dr Scott Barkley who is president of the school psychologist Association of Washo or Spa uh before you for possible action here is a new CBA between the district and Spa covering the 2024 to 2027 time period uh the proposed CBA uh uh includes um is included in the meeting materials and here is a summary of the actual agreement uh the highlights of it uh it includes a significant Cola for the employees in this unit uh longevity bonuses for recruitment retention and uh some better ways and strategies for employees and their supervisors to work together into to resolve problems um I just want to say that negotiations with Spa were enormously positive and collaborative uh and so I want to thank them and their negotiating team and Dr Barkley in particular for really being great Partners in reaching a great conclusion to this um we produced I think a great CBA here it's great for this group of employees uh it's really going to benefit the students for whom they serve um so the uh CBA was also ratified overwhelmingly by the spa unit members and uh the staff recommendation for uh this item is for the board to approve and ratify the CBA I'm happy to answer any questions but before that I want to turn over to Dr barklay awesome thank you president Smith superintendent Ernst and board members uh we are so excited to be here and I have to thank you what was it two months ago we came to you and we're grateful that you allowed us to be recognized and engaged in those conversations and then here we are two months later I'm so grateful that you're considering taking the set for Action um I won't go into great detail but the school psychologist we do a lot we have throughout every single school we have a lot of responsibilities and the conversations we were just having about the threat inquiries and things like that we are an integral member of that team because of our training in child development social behavioral development supports so we are absolutely in intimately involved in that process um and I guess I was just want to say thank you thank you for considering this our thank you goes to you um our mental health professionals your value cannot be um overstated and it's very important that we don't just tell you how grateful we are but it's important that we compensate you as valued professionals that's what you deserve thank you very much appreciate that and so my only question uh is of course we did pass s sp231 we as a state I should say can we clarify and ensure that this uh labor group will indeed be able to uh benefit from that that's correct and that's actually included in the uh here in the summer you you see an aggregate 16.75% % Cola over four years that 4% match from s sp231 is included but it's retroactive and so uh this unit will be getting essentially an 8% retroactive Cola for the last fiscal year and then for the current fiscal year 25 there'll be a 4.75% cola which we were able to uh move some things around for them to achieve and get and then for the remaining two years uh of it there's a 2% Cola and a 2% Cola but those have uh kind of standard guard rails on it in the event of a downturn in the um or a budget deficit that will protect them and it also has a reopener above a certain limit uh in case there's new revenues that come into the district that would provide new colas on top of this amount so there's those same guard rails uh that are put in place with some of the other contracts we've recently negotiated well I'm thrilled to see that this is retroactive because to me this feels like we are legitimately and with respect making your organization whole we feel that too thank you very much thank you please know that this question is meant for you to toot your horn and I mean that seriously Mr pick mentioned that it this will help our students by the way I have no doubt about that but I would like some specifics I would like our audience anybody watching to know what those spec specifics are me on a daily weekly monthly basis absolutely um so due to there's a I'm sure you know there's a big shortage of school psychologists so due to that shortage not just in our area certainly in our area but Nationwide um a vast majority of our jobs are helping like socially and academically and evaluating children for special education eligibility and services and also helping to design those interventions um but we go far beyond that our training like we we we are available for all's children especially the mental health and the behavioral piece for sure that's a very big um component we meet with school teams I I I'll speak for myself I meet with school teams weekly um in terms of how to support those children academically behaviorally coming up with um programs collaborating with parents really getting that school Family Partnership trying to help build that and invite them into the pro to the schools so we have a lot of a lot of different roles that we play thank you and that was just like one one it was one of a million I'm not good at my horn you know well it's a and I know for a fact it can be a 247 job absolutely thank I got a call from a parent yesterday I wanted to take an opportunity to just express our gratitude to our school psychologists our negotiation team and you know I wanted to also take an opportunity because you mentioned Dr nicholet that opportunity to toot our school psychologist horn and I'll tell you as a for former School principal that our school psychologists are integral uh to so much in our buildings in terms of supporting students that may have additional needs to offering professional guidance to supporting social emotional needs and really being integral team members we talked a bit about safety as well and their work is just it's critical and uh they are one of many that help make uh schools really successful team so I did want to just pass along my thanks for the work that you all do uh and the negotiations that occur and allowing us to as president Smith said make your whole move forward and just express our gratitude for the work being done thank you very much appreciate that and before we go to public comment I think you have some important people in the audience who might soon be a part of this celebratory photo after the vote um but did you want to introduce who you have with you today sure um we have a couple members of our negotiations team we have our um Chief negotiator Virginia Duran or Virginia Durant and then actual the um committee chair for the negotiations team Sarah Morris a school psychologist thank you so much Sarah all right JD do we have any public comment on this we do not all right well I'll bring it back to this body seeing no lights on I will be looking for a motion to approve item 4.03 so moved second oh wait did oh wait we had two seconds over there all right I I know trusty Woodley is always a gentleman so I'm going to give the first to trusty nicholet I will give the second to trusty Westlake um seeing no lights on for further discussion all those in favor please say I I all those oppose nay all right motion carries 6 to zero and now we will take a photo thank e e e all right all right team well that closes item 4.03 and as previously announced we will move forward um slightly out of order with item 4.06 this is the presentation discussion and possible action to update the wash founding School District legislative platform for the 2025 Nevada legislative session and the 2025 2026 bium including language that clarifies the district's support for a locally controlled education system continue and extend certain sources of Educational Funding and legislative topics related to public education this is an item for possible action and we have with us from pinion public affairs principal at pinion public public affairs Dylan shaver and then also one of our strong team members that helps us legislatively Tess up for men thank you for being here thank you so much Madame President members of the board uh Dylan shaver and Tess hoerman from P pinion public affairs grateful to be here today uh the superintendent has already shot me a look for going too slow so I'm going to jump right into the agenda so very very quickly I understand the constraints behind us today uh we're just going to hit sort of what are we doing here uh I will highlight for you the changes that we made from previous iterations of the document there's a couple of major topics we need to get into for today specifically we'll take your feedback and answer any questions you might have so uh it occurred to me I hadn't really sort of boiled this down for you in a way of sort of the practical application of this document what actually we're going to use it for why you keep having conversations about it a platform at the end of the day A good one anyway is a statement of your values and priorities uh and uh when you approve it what it does is it gives the superintendent the authority to make determinations on individual bills and issues as they come up before the state legislature without having to come back to you during a meeting every other week the legislature is only 17 weeks long you'll meet seven eight times in that period of time so uh this allows us the flexibility to to uh have your blessing to make sort of bigger picture decisions in Carson City uh I've gone over before the characteristics of good platform the one that I want to pull out here is that number two is that it's out of the weeds and number four that it is clear the direction that we can take from it is is clear like any public facing document we want to make sure that anybody on the street can pick it up and read it and understand oh this is what wcsd is doing here uh it's evolved a lot over the process uh when we started uh there was a a very dense uh sort of what I would call a government document we we started an uh Evolution to sort of a a more Dynamic document with a with a layout and everything with your last iteration uh the a lot of the tweaks you see today are going to push us further in that direction also to make sort of the statements of our values and our needs from the legislature more succinct than they have been previously and um if we could go back to that slide for my colleagues and then for the public the reason why you don't see this paper is because all we are doing today is narrowing it down to topic and direction this will be coming forward at least one or two more times and then it will start looking the way this looks but before we get to that we have to dial into topic and Direction so I don't want anybody thinking that this is the final decision this is just that highlevel look again topic and Direction and then the team will be working with the District staff and we'll come back with something like this in the future just so everybody knows that this is just it's not the beginning of the process because as a reminder we had a preliminary conversation in June where we were able to talk openly in a non-action item way then we discussed the bdr in July we recently approved that and so now we're just building on that with today's meeting and there you are uh uh we took your feedback in in uh in June as well as that from the superintendent and the the leadership team and sort of we're back for uh what we would hope to be your last update before you vote on a final product that is of course up to you uh uh so starting big and working small uh like I said the platform's value statements those take shape in form of of the planks of the individual platforms uh we took a note from your bill draft request the Excellence in every hire act and we shot for a little bit more Dynamic language and made just some changes um uh something that was woven throughout the platform that that was sort of late breaking uh especially based on our our feedback from you and some of the other sort of projects we've been doing this interim is supporting our local communities uh it does sort of uh get lost in the shuffle that education uh is conducted by school districts which are local entities that are representative of the communities that they serve they elect you as Representatives uh and so it sort of of Embraces our role to sort of turn around and then support that that Community uh we're creating we continue to create space for students to thrive advocate for smart strategic funding and Empower our Personnel uh and that's uh instructors School social workers who are gone so not them for sure school police whomever uh under the planks uh and while these aren't word for word these are pretty comprehensive as to what what we would propose to put in a final product uh we want to emphasize uh local decision making that includes a component of the Excellence and every hire act where we're saying you know trust us as professionals on the ground uh in these communities to to hire for needs that best fit our school uh it also includes trusting our community to elect their own trustees uh we we know that there has been a push to make these a point of bodies um uh also includes engaging our community with uh the the sighting of schools right we we just got through uh a push and pull over what schools can go where at the at the Reno city council where the applicant didn't really even have to consult the community and uh so we we want to really emphasize that we support a a locally driven education system uh then uh we include under this plank the call for Universal prek and Community wraparound Services uh you know the the instructors in our classrooms and educational Personnel are being asked to per perform a vast array of services uh uh that really belong to other government entities and uh you know we're essentially saying look you got to invest in these kids so they can show up ready to learn and we can focus on teaching them creating space for for students to thrive this is the least changed section I think all of this language is ported directly from your your previous iteration we want to close the digital divide we want to expand accelerated summer after school learning opportunities uh you know we want to address Equity issues provide forl and and provide for well-being and safety that in the context today is obviously I think on the front of everybody's mind empowering our Personnel you may recall the centerpiece of our previous uh platform was a 20% increase in base funding that we would then uh put towards enhancing the the pay schedules for personnel uh uh we obviously having gotten that done sort of toned the language down a little bit but we obviously uh we didn't want to send the message that we were turning our back on the idea of competitive pay uh and then this other than that particular sort of changed of the language everything else uh Remains the Same we want license or Flex exibility we want to make sure that we can provide a safe and supportive workplace for our Personnel uh we want to be able to provide a lot of different routes for our Workforce to grow uh smart strategic funding uh there's a lot that fits into this uh the most critical of it of course is funding to the legally mandated class sizes we do want to make sure that the S sp231 funds that got that came through the last legislative session those are ins sconed somewhere where so that we're not constantly sort of with our hand out to the legislature saying hey you gave us the money to pay these folks do you know um and of course protect the revenues schools get and keep them in schools uh and uh you know fund intelligently there's no reason to cap uh the weights uh last session we took a run at it this session you know I uh we have to keep in mind that the state funding pie is is is one whole uh but we cannot stop continuing to advocate for for them to do the right thing as it relates to these weights uh and then of course just straightforward fiscal responsibility uh there are any number of bills every legislative session that want us to prepare a thousand different reports or can tell us where we can and can't close schools and those uh I read your emails uh and and what those circumstances might look like at the end of the day you know those sort of fall into both local control but also fiscal responsibility let us be responsible with the resources you send us but also you have to be respons responsible as a legislature for for what you're asking of us so those were the planks very briefly uh superintendent ER I'm not sure I fit right into your time F but I'm close uh uh and so there's two key topics that we wanted to pull out one is testing time which is inartful here really evaluation and Reporting time generally uh for whether it is you know the overlap between uh State and County assessments and the lack of interchangeability between them uh whether it is the Reams and Reams and reams of reporting that that teachers have to repair to go up to principles that go up to Deputy superintendence that all get bound up and sent to nde to sit on a shelf somewhere or what have you you know the these analyses sort of live in this space uh I it's pulled out in its own plank because you can sort of see where that falls into every plank in this platform and sort of is an overarching theme uh of of what we hear from you and from from your personnel the next topic is Charter Schools I think I put 47 slides on this in here uh and I'm going to summarize them uh and uh as both neutrally and skillfully as I can I apologize however if I fail to miss both of those marks uh Charter Schools intentionally operate under a different set of rules and laws in in school districts that is the stated goal of the law that is why they exist when the legislature created these in 1997 they did that so that school districts could look at those schools as a crucible and adopt Lessons Learned and best practices the law since then has meandered from that Concept in ways that have created essentially a two track system for public education uh and uh you know there's a thousand other conversations that come in here as they relate to taxpayer accountability uh to for for-profit education management operators to just the the uh uh the way they're allowed to staff their schools but at the core of it is we have created a two-lane system now and uh there has been I don't want to say A Chorus but there have been a lot of opinions from the staff and from folks sitting at this table today about the the district's approach to that our recommendation specifically is this should not change from superintendent to superintendent to superintendent because when we go to the legislature every two years we want to make sure that we are taking a consistent approach and so we we provide you a little bit of analysis in the in the board book today as well as with some suggested language for how this can appear in the charter uh specifically to take a stab at finding that uh that consistent approach uh uh we as consultants from the outside we do our best to pull in the arguments we hear from you and from your personnel we run them by the superintendent and give you sort of what can pass for a reasonable recommendation however we understand that this is the kind of thing you hear a lot about from constituents and is hot button for many people and I don't want to bring you sort of a flaming a flaming thing so uh uh what we would advocate for recommend in there is really advocating for excellent for all students we want to ensure taxpayer funded educational opportunities follow consistent rules standards and oversight that demand the protection of public resources discontinue the use of for-profit educational management operators and that opportunities that may arise from charter schools be available to all students this has three key components in it the last one being we want to make sure that if there are benefits to the rules they get that all students have access to those benefits and if there are no benefits to the sort of special set of rules in that second lane that things are tightened up uh uh to protect both taxpayer resources uh and allow those kids uh uh the best opportunities they can get uh it is important to note and I'm sure one of you say it so I'll say it for you wasel County School District Remains the largest sponsor of uh of charter schools in this community uh sponsoring I believe 11 of the 18 that are here uh I have not heard from anybody on this board or on staff that that's something that you would intend to walk walk away from I want to make that very clear because I know the public is watching um but uh again we are trying to find language that that makes very clear sort of where the district lands on these things uh so uh I apologize to truste church for not making any more jokes this time I was in a an abbreviated period uh when we talk about what your final product might look like uh I included sort of the the internal draft that we have there don't hold me to anything you you see there it's just uh a little more succinct than our last one and uh we try and make it pretty and approachable for for just anybody off the street to look at and understand okay here's an unflattering picture of me and six other people uh we are happy to hear your discussion and uh take any feedback or advice you request you may have thank you president Smith um I missed the jokes but it did make it go more quickly so it works fine I'm I'm going to hesitate a little bit to bring up this subject I'm looking at our superintendent our president and our general counsel because if I cross the line pull me back totally fine when we talk about charter schools and we talk about Excellence for all students I will share a topic that has come up up for me and it's wc1 funds and I'll be I'll be straight with you I am not quite sure how to address that when others from Charter Schools parents uh Etc bring up the wc1 funds and why they do not have access and that is wcsd sponsored Charter Schools I really don't know what to say because I didn't understand exactly how the mechanism worked when it first came to the commission and then how it was passed I know we worked hard to pass it but what in that passage excludes our 11 charter schools from accessing those dollars if it's okay I I had that exact same question and I got a first level answer I would love for other people to jump in um but I had that exact same question and when I I learned when I asked that question is that we are the sponsor of those schools but we're not necessarily um The Entity that oversees them so as a reminder they all have their own individual boards that oversee them so we're in a sponsor capacity but they're not actually um part of the oversight of the district the second part which is critically important is that those assets are privately held assets that would be taking the Public Funding from wc1 and ultimately those schools own them in a private capacity they're not for public use so voting doesn't happen there Cub Scouts don't happen there those are privately held assets they are not public assets owned by the community the way that our schools are that's the first level answer that I got and I I'll be honest most people were pretty happy with that once they understood that Charter Schools own those assets privately and not necessarily for public use which is different than the portfolio of schools in our group I'm not suggesting that's the end to the answer but I will tell you that when I ask that and when I answer that people feel a little bit more clear about that thank you and I would have to say that I didn't understand that privately public if I need more help yes because charter schools are publicly funded but their assets are privately held it's very unique and that's it's it's normal for it to be confusing for most people because it's not like you go to a Reno fire department and then see a private fire department funded by our tax dollars right next door to it but you see that um in in these capacities and so that is important that it is absolutely true that charter schools are public schools but it's important to understand that they are publicly funded and yet privately held assets which is very unique in government and I think I cut off our our chief legal council and also our public affairs uh I'm going Trump your legal counsel uh just to give him a break but the I I helped WR uh and and helped run the campaign for that particular ballot question uh and uh even in the phrasing of the question uses uh outside of capital projects of the was County School District would be disallowed the question specifically put to voters was shall the board of County Commissioners be authorized to impose a sales and use tax of 0.54% in the county to fund only capital projects of was County School District um and so going outside of something that would be uh uh that would even if this board wanted to uh I am not entirely certain that that that you would be able to and and thank you for that and that was the other part of the discussion that I held with this group of people and I I I I was I was caught off guard but that's okay and that's why I'm asking so I can learn the the comeback on exactly what you said was yes but we are Washo County school district schools because we are sponsored by Washo County School District now that public funded versus privately held assets I'm going to still wrap my mind around that because I'm getting that I'm getting that so the fact that our 11 sites our washa County School District sponsored schools does not equ equ to they are Washo County school district schools entitled to the wc1 okay all right thank you all right I don't see any lights on and I do have something that I I want to bring up but it's more for an item for consideration and action so I'd like to do that on the other side of public comment do you have a question or clarification okay lot lot of questions com yeah go go for it well let's start with the questions if we can then we're going to go to public comment and then we can come back for items that um maybe we want the board to consider changes on that that kind of thing but go ahead truste Church well it's more comments so I guess if you want to do it that we'll have to wait you want to do it now I mean I mean we could do it really anyway it's just it's good to get the clarifications here from the public and then we can come back with what we think now that we've heard from the public because I have something that I'd like to consider us to ask but I wouldn't do that until the other side of public comment why would probably be better now cuz you my statements really are throwing out for discussion or response go for it um number one on school choice good discussion we've had many board members that say they're in favor of it uh the way that Charter One is written to me is like a poison pill if we said well we have concerns about for profit and end it there and and we just can't discuss it today there's just not enough time I mean this is symposiums are held on this issue that weekends or weeks the idea of the charters in my mind is go forth and prosper you're not subject to our regulations that's the intent you you make it work Student Success is the goal and you are not under our thumb and you are don't you know for example do or do they have to follow restorative credit restorative discipline um credit recovery and if they want to do it a different way if they want to teach their share program differently no parent has to send their kid to the charter school so uh that's a real poison pill in what I'm hearing today and then I'll move on to um what I do totally agree with is the unfunded mandates if you want to even comment on that I call it the three Rs I think the first thing we need to do is repeal correction review repeal or replace before we start adding more we need to go back and get rid of I just read the the NRS on the gangs it's like why do we need that in an NRS we do it it's just burdensome to to create an unfunded mandate on us um and if you'll go back to page 10 uh competitive pay um safe and supportive workplaces that gets right into my criticism of restorative discipline safe and supportive I I just don't believe they're compatible personally I I think restorative discipline is needs to go back to the drawing board under competitive pay I would argue and I been a government employee so I I know it's not just money it can be housing affordable housing that we're going to create a program for affordable housing so just in my mind my personal opinion if we look at competitive pay in our brains we include anything that helps recruit and retain staff and affordable housing is just one one idea it may be better pension benefits it may be better medical benefits for the family so PID just in our minds I would argue doesn't necessarily mean cash money in the paycheck um and I think that kind of sums up but thank you for letting me uh get that in there but yeah the the charter school issue is really a for me it's a it's kind of a poison pill in here absolutely um I'm going to go to public comment and then I'll come back and lead us off do we have any public comment on this the board received an email from kayn Evans okay so I'm going to bring it back here so we've got this this platform um I am going to in a moment bring up one item that I'd like to see added in the list of local decision making um but at we have had the meeting in June um and the meeting in July and all that discussion we've had ultimately created these topics and specific areas that we'd like to see written in certainly not the finished document as a gentle reminder this is the legislative platform for 2025 so it's important to remember um who is going to be moving forward in that capacity and then uh what the board wants for its topics and areas of focus um and then also what the voters are interested in as well too in the leadership of our district so with that said um the way that we make changes to this is by individual motion we may be very happy because again Dylan and and superintendent Ernst went back and listened to all of the previous meetings I did as well too because we have a very important person missing and that's vice president Mayberry so I do want everybody to know that I rewatched the June and July and August items and I spoke with trusty Mayberry certainly I cannot um make a vote for him but I can assure you um that he has read this and that he's comfortable with the topics that are there okay so that way he's not missing also vice president Mayberry is expected to participate in all the future meetings before we even land on a final but I did just want to acknowledge that so the one thing I'd like to bring up to my colleagues is in the list on slide eight under local decisionmaking um where it says we have like a whole list of things um electing their own trustees I would like to suggest to my colleagues and I will make a motion to include trustee compensation on that I do think that that should be a locally held decision um at the very least I think truste compensation is something that needs to change and the reason is is that I'm a believer that the compensation that we receive right now is exclusionary to the public being able to serve on this governing body a couple weeks ago or maybe was it last week uh I had the opportunity to speak to Mr Clark's government classes at Reno High School one of the most common questions that came up in every single one of those classes was how much money do you get paid for the work that you do so I always answer that by answering questions or asking the question back what do you think that I make and I always frame it what do you think it's worth for people to be making these decisions and to be involved and so I heard 85,000 90,000 100,000 and I told all of them that we make $750 a month and the one the first young man that asked me that question said we value so little it's that little they value that so little and I was like well I don't know if they see it like that but I do want the public to know that this isn't just about increasing our compensation I don't know what the answer is um I've heard great ideas around maybe anchoring trusty compensation to starting teacher salaries among other things but I will tell you that you have to have a degree of privilege to serve at this de for $750 a month we are not getting single parents who want to serve their communities and feed their families so you have to have the privilege of being independently wealthy you have to have the privilege of being retired and have a pension or a retirement that can pay for you you have to have a partner in your life um that is willing to pay you have to work full-time and have a job that is willing to spare this much of your time and that means we are excluding huge portions of our valuable Community I want voices from underrepresented communities at this de and they cannot feed their families and they cannot contribute to the decision making ultimately in this governing body for $750 a month and so for that reason um if anybody wants to jump in I I am going to make the motion to include just simply trustee compensation and again not setting what it should be but I do think it's something that we have to start raising at some level um about what it is that we make and the value of what we provide to our community that's my soap box thank you m president um that's the something I can get behind as well um I recall a former trustee used to serve here not that long ago and um he needed to one of the things was that he had the insurance through our district and at the end of you know the compensation of the month he used walking away with less than $200 and I do know that we do a lot of work um and that's definitely something I can get behind I could look myself in the mirror and know that we are under valued for sure so I do support that President Smith thank you president Smith I just know personally I ended up having to quit my job because this was taking up so much of my time and so I retired three years than before than I planned but I never thought of it in terms of what you put I mean that was a sacrifice I was willing to make but I never thought of you know I'm 62 I mean young a young person a young minded person you know really on fire to serve their community and just having a a new Fresh um ideas there there's no way that they could do this that I I mean I don't think they I wouldn't see it I wouldn't see it happening and I don't think we've ever had someone like that you know a young person wanting to jump in and serve and and in fact I tell I tell a lot of young people when they ask me about this and I talk to them and I tell them how fulfilling it is and it's I said it's it's so important to serve but I always now I'm thinking back on these conversations I always say but you know you you're going to have to wait until you're retiring and you you can do this as like your full-time job and you're not dependent on the the financial reimbursement and I said but it's it's important to do it at any time in your life but it would be exciting to have young people be able to do it too with their fresh ideas so that I love that perspective I appreciate that I view I understand that maybe once upon a time the intention for $750 a month was meant to be humble but I will tell you in a modern lens I find it to be exclusionary trusty Woodley oh I'm sorry I thought I saw your l on on trusty church we agreed thank you uh yeah I actually agree 100% I just looked up the minimum wage even if they paid us minimum wage and this is truly a full-time job uh $2,000 a month minimum wage and nobody I don't think McDonald's or anybody pays $12 an hour uh the if you look at transparent Nevada and you look at the school corre the uh waso County City of Reno city of Sparks I think they're making anywhere from 80 to 15,000 a year and we're not seeking that uh and we are the biggest government agency in waso County we are the biggest budget not trying to show off to the others but we are and yet yeah I don't even I don't even have an office I have a little thing where I check my mail you know and and uh yeah so I can get behind that 100% that it just people can't afford to be you know and and I would argue with due respect and I love Minal County where I'm kind of from and my wife's from that's a whole different animal you know they it's one little town with one little school each and they don't it's not a full-time job probably for them but it is here with a over a billion dollar budget so yeah Count Me In uh thank you madam president I agree as well I'm not going to um say the state the same but I will say just one of our collateral duties um I I know that I'm privileged because my job allows me to take eight days of vacation for required meeting that I have for Nia that alone I know 20 years ago I couldn't afford to take a week's vacation use it up for meetings so uh definitely I think we are excluding a lot of great candidates that are out there and I I know they exist because I've had individuals tell me there's no way I would do that for that thank you um I I am for the local control concept I am not for for increasing our pay uh I would prefer that that money go to the classrooms I've I've struggled with this notion since I began to serve and and I I I cannot support it what I can support is a look at local control and I will tell you that our colleagues in the smaller school districts they do not have the luxuries that we have one of them is sitting right next to me to my left our general counsel and the depth and breadth of the professional help that we receive our our smaller school districts do not have that luxury and so therefore uh let us never think that we do more we do differently in our 17 school districts I will say it again I I I appreciate the local control uh and for me personally I would rather see the dollars in Washo County not go to me um I would rather see it go to the classrooms thank you I appreciate that and with that in mind I would not set in my motion that we set how much money we should make only that it be included in the local control so before I make the motion I I know we did a lot of talking I want to give you the opportunity and then I'll go ahead and make a motion for the inclusion of that I have uh just sort of a a a statement sort of a little bit of analysis and then I've got language that I uh uh hopefully I can get trusty Nicollet on board for but but it'll be up to her uh first um I don't I don't think I have to tell you that it's it's very sort of you're stepping out there politically uh and that is a challenge that if you believe in it we will go there with you uh trusty niolet does raise a point though that with including this you are going to um you will have done it uh and so if it is important to all of you that it be in there then then that's our value uh and but just just be aware that public elected official compensation is often a third rail and the reason it hasn't changed is because is uh ultimately I think that that elected officials are reluctant to advocate for themselves in front of their constituents Beyond vote for me and so this sort of adds another layer um and if it is a challenge you willing to take on then then we will take it on with you the language we' recommend to do that uh so we we see there trusting our community to elect their own trustees and we would add to that and determine how best to comp compensate them uh this again just makes very clear this isn't something that should be decided at the State Legislative level uh nor should just like like what uh council member ree on the Reno city council makes should not be decided by the state legislature uh just like Mr Rodriguez and his uh other capacity should not be decided by the state legislature and so forth so although you are now so that was a bad example but uh this would sort of just just put uh school districts and uh School trustees in the same place as any other uh sort of locally elected or appointed official and that's why I'm okay with it because I would not be okay with suggesting how much truste should make I believe it should be a local decision um I do know it's the third rail for others uh but we make $750 a month so I don't think they're going to make it go much lower than that um or I think that that would be much of a difference to us um so my interest is in the local control I think you have to start somewhere and I will give everybody this I get this question all the time how um like there is a lot of support and um admiration for our board I'm really really proud of that people ask all the time how do we get more people like the colleagues you have here at this day is serving I tell them the number one thing is that we have to be able to compensate uh this work appropriately so again I am not suggesting we set a dollar amount but rather that we advocate for local control somebody has to be out there and people understand all the time I would like to see single parents from underrepresented communities serving on these governing boards and you cannot do that for $750 a month so for me personally it's an exclusionary privilege um but I do think it should fall under local control but I am not foolish enough to set a dollar value to it so on that note I'm going to go ahead and make a motion um now remember before I make this motion this is just to include the topic as you draft the platform you'll decide what the phrasing is this is just to include the topic somewhere in the legislative platform but I'm not setting what that would be um so I move to include in local decision making um for our 2025 legislative platform to include a statement that allows the board or community to determine how best to compensate trustees all right so we have a motion by me president Smith I have a second by trusty Westlake um I see lights on so we'll start with trusty church and then glow to clerk Rodriguez yeah I'm definitely in favor uh quick normally when I see that done it normally effective 2028 or something so that after people are termed out that's generally the way it's done but we don't have to put that in there quick question aside from your really good haircut um what's that last word under local decision making uh School sighting where one places a sighting oh okay okay got it got it you got you tricked me I thought you missed a tea or something and by the way we're going to have another motion to pass the whole shebang this is just for the one inclusion because it's not there uh thank you m president and uh I just kind of um I want to appreciate where trusty Net's coming from um I definitely hear what she's saying but I would also like to remind the community and this kind of just a lot of the work that we've done over the several years um the Schoolboard shortages um teacher salaries uh going out there advocating testifying to our legislators like we've I truly cck ourselves in A Mir we have put a lot into the classrooms we put a lot into our buses we we're um we've done a lot and to kind of just picky back up what you're saying pres Smith like people were saying like man you're doing the Lord's work and uh and we uh put up with we I want say we uh we get a lot um from from our communities both positive and negative and uh you know to uh um can remember one my colleague saying like you know doing that for 700 bucks that's crazy you know and uh even know trusty uh uh Church stating that you know kids at McDonald's are making more than we are and we're making policies and you know large budgets for below minimum wage you know I think that's something to be said so um I just want to I hear what Tres Nicholas saying and to the degree I hear I agree um but we've done a lot and we put a lot into these classrooms thank you um and if the legislature is interested in more boards like ours this is one of our recom recommendations on how you get that done um trusty nicholet couple things thank you um so we're looking at a a request to change the NRS because it is in NRS what is I'm not I tried to look it up real quick 386 thank you 38632 so what my reference was very valid thank you very much and and so that would have to be our attack second Point um serving on the legislative committee I'm the chair for Nevada Association of school boards much like we were able to successfully increase teacher compensation and and SB 231 which we hope will continue I believe that our best approach to local control is throughout the 17 school districts and and that is something that I think that I could personally move forward as long as we stay with a local control concept and then I can fight it later if I need to so again the NRS um that is something that we would have to be willing to tackle find our Champions you know that and then is there any way we can this is a stretch approach it through the funding support and you don't need to answer now but I just I can't help but Wonder so uh there would be a lot of different ways to approach it I I would clarify however uh that uh this board selected its Bill draft we do our best to find and support or encourage the introduction of bills that do the other things in your in your platform and so while it would require a change uh to to 386 like Mr Ardo uh uh said uh the any number of things can happen after that uh and and so uh we would sort of take an opportunistic approach we certainly don't take this as direction from you to go out and get us paid so much as start telling this story as and frankly to tell it in a way that President Smith trusty Westlake and others sort of emphasized that like what what you've got is an equity issue uh at at some point unless somebody is at a place where they are like me where they are paid to be here or or where they have some external support mechanism to allow them to be here uh you know they are sort of excluded from this service so we'd start telling the story and kind of after a little bit you remember a lot of these these topics from your platform have been in for a while so we uh like I said we I guess I'm sort of being very longwinded on this we would be opportunistic we'd see where the opportunities were and push it when they came up about as far as we could um um but I don't take anything in here as prescri prescriptive as to the how or the tactics or even what legal change would get it done it's just this is something that the trustees here value and so I would say you got to start somewhere and I have not seen anybody be willing to put this down and I'm going to now call for a vote and see if that's going to be the waso County School District so all those in favor of the inclusion under local control for trustee compensation please say I I I all those oppose nay motion carries six to zero and now we see the Domino's pushed okay colleagues so we're going to bring this conversation back um certainly open to any other um changes or inclusions we want to seat otherwise we have a motion in front of us to approve the platform with the inclusions um trustee um clerk Rodriguez followed by uh trusty Church uh thank you m president um sorry I just got a call from work pardon me it was under uh theci side with uh safety uh safe and support of workplaces um one uh this might be appropriate place to talk about NRS so I know NRS 2891 190 uh States school police officers and U basically states that they are a limited jurisdiction agen um so basically I'm sure lot of us know but for those that don't know it basically just limits our police officers have authority on school property with a few exceptions um one of the things that I know just um from a while back where I worked withr when I was younger um that our school police is actually the largest uh dayshift um agency uh more so than Reno even so we actually have a lot of officers out there and um given that they are a specialized type agency and officers uh I know that like washer County and Reena a lot of times when there's issues or you know basically uh Bears will have you with our juveniles that are going to and from school it's ofly convoluted as to who's responsible for the safety of those children to inform school things of that nature so um this would be a place where I like to see you know and I've always had this mindset you either a police officer you're not you're a law enforcement officer you're not um so this would be a place where I would like to see maybe have that removed and honestly I don't think that' be a fiscal note or anything like that honestly I think it just be some language cleanup um leave that to my colleagues out there to see what their thoughts are or opinion so for that so this would be under um Empower our personnel and in which one of these the safe and supportive workplaces or the Workforce Development yeah so stating you know I I'll just kind of be candid here you know students are making threads off of school property you know um now I'll just be honest I know a lot of our agency out there to stretch thin but this is also what our officers do on a daily basis you know so even though that threats made off of school property that would fall in jurisdiction wherever that student's living whether it's spark screen or the county um and I do believe this is where our officers we have the Manpower things of that nature to look at enforcing that investigating it whereas you know maybe detective a TH or something like that you know I don't want to say it will fall to the bottom but it's more of a priority to us if that makes sense maybe not threats to school but you know threats of violence things of that nature um if that makes sense absolutely so then um oh um definitely go ahead uh trusty Woodley but what I'm hearing is that we may have an inclusion to the Empower our Personnel to offer full recognition of school police officers on yes um so basically we're we're limited jurisdiction I would like to see about removing us from under that okay um I'm gonna have Tristy Woodley go and then I'm GNA word smend that you uh thank you madam president for the opportunity to uh just to tack on to what uh trusty Rodriguez is stating um not not only that but they also have the Intel that the other agencies don't have and and I know what he's talking about because we've had situations where we've had Parents strated with incidences with kids and then once it's off campus um it's a jurisdictional issue so now it goes over to the other agencies one of the other three agencies that as stated previously um they do have priorities as well I mean truth be told you know active homicide that you're working compared to an accusation that a student uh made a threat via social media is U very different in comparison of priorities so that's something that we are always dealing with that that um for lack of a better term that that challenge of competing for the attention of priorities so it is definitely priority for us if we hear a threat but when you see what the other agencies are dealing with on a regular basis um it it it will not reach to that level of whatever it is that they're addressing at the time so I can see how helpful it would be to remove that restricted jurisdiction to give them the ability to continue to address the situation dealing with our students but it just didn't happen on site because the thing is if it happens right across the street we're done you know so that's yeah exactly thank you um so we'll go to trusty nette but what I'm thinking is that and again these are just topics for inclusion so we don't have to worry about word smithing it we would just potentially or have uh clerk Rodriguez potentially make a motion for something as simple as to remove school police departments from The Limited jurisdiction designation because again remember we're not word smithing right now we're just providing the direction on High level topics that would be nestled within some of these other sections um trusty nette thank you um I I I think you probably already know that every semester I do a police ride along and learn so much with every ride every ride is unique and so I've been in this situation where I've watched our officers our and our our truancy officers attendance officers have to deal with some things when they're off property so my real thought is this this is not my area of expertise and I would prefer personally that we we ensure that this topic is something that our wasel County School District Police Department chief and staff are comfortable with I don't know for a fact that they would want this to happen they might they might not um I prefer before we start start charging uh opinion with this work that I I at least would like a better better handle on Chief Etc going yes this would be awesome I I don't know uh what the outcome would be with the question may I chime in uh yeah I can totally support this giving our officers full peace officer Powers uh I I Know Chief Moore's not here but uh it doesn't say that they have to go off campus but if there is an incident we had the incident with you know kids shoplifting at the grocery store where it would be nice maybe to have an officer be able to be there and intercede if needed but at the chief's discretion it's not like you will do it it's that you may do it so yeah I'm totally supportive I think the best terminology is probably full peace officer Powers that's my opinion thank you and uh Char N I hear what you're saying um and this is also I do believe this is where um there supervisors you know this is you know your concern should be addressed by you know the Department's policies and things of that nature like actions you will do on and off and again this is um again just providing stronger better service to protecting our schools because this goes beyond the school walls um and as our department we all increased our school Police Department we're hopefully Chief Mor we're hiring people um so this is something that I think could be addressed and it's just it's really real you know these thre come off school property they're not always on here and they to say it like trustworthy say this stuff can fall to Wayside on a case load from a detective so may I absolutely I I I really understand the concept and thank you for this um I take it to this next level our police officers highly trained want to get involved I'm just going to assume they want to get involved they have they have the TR training to be involed it seems to me there's another element of Cooperative agencies that have to be on board with each other that okay Officer Nicollet was County School District I'm looking at a Reno PD and now we have we have a collective understanding of our roles and that would be extremely important oh that would be great uh honestly that's not happening from a standpoint like you know kids are going to fight down the street you know the Burger King you know was always thinks like oh that's School PD School PD oh that's not our own jurisdiction they're like well what do you guys do I mean literally it's that this happens a lot so and I think that's where we can bridge that Gap I I think I have like because again I mean um here's where I kind of land on this obviously it's very important what our school police thinks but we as a governing body also get to State our intentionality for where we'd like things to go in the state I kind of have an idea remember this is just a motion that would include this this in addition to other things that we have too but I think I I maybe have one in my head um trusty wesle did you have a point or a clarification on this okay a little bit uh looking at it a little bit differently just from feedback that I've gotten from community members um I think this would do a lot to give our community um some uh feeling they have a little bit of a a safety net there because it seems like what I hear most often is well why aren't you involved in this why why isn't the school police doing something about this this started at school and most of these things do start at school and then they carry on other places and it's like well you know out of sight out of mind but I think from what I get from um in parents grandparents um business people that I've talked to is like you our police have a better understanding of what's going on because they were there at the ground level is these incidents are escalating and maybe if our school police could be involved along every step it won't get to the most drastic final result we can we can turn it around because like you said we do have the knowledge of what these kids are going going through in school maybe bullying um maybe not having a supportive family life and so who better to to be involved through the whole process than than our school police and they would have access directly then to our school psychologist talking to the teachers I just think our public would feel safer and that we were more on top of providing safety for these kids Madam president if I may uh having heard this conversation and and and had a little bit of sidebar with my colleague here we believe that we can actually include this in what we bring back to you without a separate motion uh we we believe that providing tools for maintaining safe learning environments gives us a pretty wide swath and we can just sort of make that language a little more clear after talking to uh Chief Moore uh and uh uh come back to you with something for for final approval fantastic okay so then I'll bring it back to this body we've had some great conversation um you know and so we've all had the opportunity to to talk to a certain degree so we could entertain a motion or um other individual changes yeah I don't think I have the votes two more votes to discuss the charter school so unfortunately that's a poison pill I'll vote no but just verbally I support all the other stuff thank you I know I mean and you're right absolutely you know place the vote um that you're interested in I will just point out that this is the 2025 legislative platform and there's a lot of consensus around that that is also one of the areas that vice president Mayberry brought up very specifically in June um 100% vote your conscience uh I know that's been advice to our other governing bodies but something to consider is that this is going to be the legislative platform for going forward um so with that said we've had great conversation we do have a motion in front of us um it would be amended to read I move that the Board of Trustees provide Direction um in addition to changes made during this item related to the 2025 2026 was County School District legislative platform second all right we have a motion by trusty Westlake and a second by trusty Woodley and seeing no lights on um all those in favor please say I I I all those oppose nay oppose nay all right motion CU is 5 to one thank you so much colleagues all right that closes item 4.6 and thank you so much Tess and Dylan we really appreciate you and that brings us to about 353 and um in in conversation with uh superintendent Ernst we will go ahead and move forward now with item 4.05 this is the presentation and disc discussion on the entry plan for Joe Ernst superintendent of schools for the wasow county school district for presentation and discussion only um and as a reminder to everyone this will be the last item in this section and we will move on to our next section after this thank you everyone and uh just as an aside I just want you to know how much I appreciate all the work that you are doing and understand your perspective and just wanted you to know that we appreciate your service to was County School District and our community I'll move through our superintendent entry plan thank you JJ really it's based on Three core values and that's commitment to our community achieving academic excellence and pursuing goals with integrity and transparency you can also see down in the right hand corner a firm belief that we hold as a school district I'll jump into the timeline and the phases so entry plan outcomes uh bringing this forward to all of you today providing a midyear summary on January 28th and then uh a larger summary at our state of education uh throughout there are continuous opportunities for feedback and collaboration and what we're proud of is that we are really developing um thorough evaluation of strategic plan initiatives I do want to back this out for a moment though and I want to make sure that I'm acknowledging our leadership team I understand that this is uh our superintendent entry plan uh and happy to share that I also want everybody to know the importance that we rely on our team and uh our team has very much contributed uh to much of the thinking around our entry plan you can see that we started in ambitiously in July maybe even in June and we Center the phases on hope we move to the second phase which is centering on excellence and then third centering on reflection right now we're really work working on listening learning and strengthening relationships I'll talk more about that as we move forward we'll continue to analyze lead in indicators on progress uh that is being made as we look at Phase One centering on hope we are talking about strengthening those relationships and I can tell you um it's been a tremendous uh opportunity as an ambassador of was County School District to meet with so many Community Partners and that includes some of those Outreach efforts um visiting from teachers to principal focused groups teacher focused groups Department walkthroughs I've had a chance to meet with state legislators uh the mayors of both cities uh just continuing to work with our highered partners uh at all levels and then looking at other Community Partners communities and schools children's cabinet continuing to work with our tribal leaders and so it's really been um a rewarding experience to have a chance to meet with so many Community Partners so willing to invest in education and then always working on strengthening collaboration amongst our trustees our associations centering going forward on phase two we're really emphasizing operational excellence and uh in my superintendent reports in just a bit we'll talk about that relative to some of the emergency efforts that have occurred really right here you can see that we are really um focusing quite a bit on chronic absenteeism we know that we'll be going into that more in depth at our next uh board meeting so we'll save that I want to thank uh Dr lamara and our associate Chiefs for all of the work that's being done on a very arduous problem and something that we are really working to aggressively strategize and work towards improve because we really believe it to be a Cornerstone in improving our academic outcomes phase three we're going to look at making sure that we're recognizing our successes I think it's important for us to do that we'll acknowledge where we have to get in better on and I know as a leader of our um leadership team that we all acknowledge that and we'll continue to reflect refine and work to get better and then we'll continue to report on the Strategic plan throughout the year I think our first uh strategic plan reporting will come on October 2 second thank you to Dr Davidson her leadership on really developing an outstanding uh template that will help all of us more easily access a large breadth of information and then I really like this the uh quote here when we strive to become better than we are everything around us becomes better too and I know that we Embrace that as a team and just want to say thank you team for for being here uh at this point then I look at uh three and that's going to be centering on reflection as we just discussed progress to date I think it's important um really have asked our leadership team to identify specific areas that we can ensure progress on during incremental phases throughout the year we started with what we can make progress on in September we'll look at January and then we'll look at the end of the year and what I can tell you about our leadership team is we have a committed group of leaders that when we say that we're going to do something we're committed to doing it and we're committed to doing it together and that's critical in what we're doing so you can see that we've developed comprehensive F focus groups one of the some of the most rewarding is just simply going to departments and meeting with staff uh uh something that's interesting to share is that in meeting with staff it's amazing the size of our organization and I'm reluctant to share but there's times where I'm putting names and faces together uh and I've been in this district for plenty of time and uh but I think it's important that we do get to know each other uh in better ways rather than that email exchange and so I can tell you with every opportunity I've been working to introduce myself and uh again uh reluctant to say that goes as far as a building right here and so I think that's important I've connected with many diverse community members to gather input strength and relationships and then something that we're going to Institute starting in a couple of weeks is a cup of joe with Joe and so this is going to be I give a lot of credit to some of our outstanding team members that come up with a lot of creative thinking and and uh this is just a chance to sit with our teachers and our staff to listen to them uh it's really open form not coming with a set of questions but giving an opportunity for a staff to sit down in a busy day to try to just pause for a moment and hear more directly from them around progress concerns ideas I really believe that the front lines are Where We Gather great ideas and so this is part of that I know that uh our Chief Human Resources officer had to step out but we have made such significant progress on classroom vacancy this is a celebration that cannot be understated um what we looked at at start of the school year to what we have now and then from what we saw today uh when I talk about superintendence reports without the progress that was made here on Staffing vacancies I'm not sure we could have taken the report the the approach that we did today with opening 90% of our schools and that's something that's really uh important for us to connect how important it is to have Staffing we are continually working to increase security measures again I'm going to talk a bit more about that in the superintendent uh report at the end of the meeting um I'm appreciative of Chief Moore and his leader ership to build uh tremendous Bridges with law enforcement and our community agencies um it is evident what an outstanding job he does in collaborating with all of our agencies and I know that we're really fortunate because you can see our emphasis on pedestrian safety and you could see our law enforcement Partners out in force on the first day of school supporting us and work working to uh understand that we do this as a community and then the communication and I'll recognize um Adam cersi in his work again our associate Chiefs I want everyone to understand and I know you do they help bring so much of this together and so this has been a critical effort when I look at Family engagement this has really been an important Endeavor and I'm proud to say that great progress is made because it is so important that we're making sure that our students are fed uh we again will go into more uh detail I'm looking forward to Dr lamara and Associate Chief presentation on our plan to decrease chronic absenteeism uh we continue to develop uh CTE student advisories and sixth grade Athletics is moving forward just about as we speak so that's near and dear to my heart um the monitoring of leading indicators is something that we're really trying to improve on we don't want to get to the end and find out that maybe we weren't making the progress that we were and so this is something that is a challenge but something that we've identified as important to monitor the progress as we're going forward and then of course I know that Jen van tress is out there the expansion of uh our Early Childhood Program uh The Hub out at Cold Springs Middle School and so I'm grateful and again what I really want to impress upon is while I've identified leaders the cross collaboration is what makes it happen and so when we look at that we have to look at the transportation and what that looks like and um I'm pleased and I've talked to our leadership team recently about the cross collaboration that's occurring and moreover without Direction the cross collaboration that they are identifying as needs and then moving forward that with urgency and so I think that that's important and then we've talked here about our bill draft resolution and today a little bit more about our legislative platform so while it's an entry plan what I want to be uh hopefully uh clear is uh we're moving with as much urgency as we can to to make what we identify as potential improvements and we're going to always build on strengths to reach farther for those improvements so looking ahead I do think our future is bright uh it's been just a tremendous honor to lead this uh school district and uh and so I'll talk about you can see the four and strengthening organizational culture we've talked about this as a group Culture is something that you can feel something culture is an advantage that can lead to substantial Improvement and we're really working to attend to culture in more explicit ways so that we can really grow culture culture is not an accident and we're keeping that at the Forefront of our thinking designing professional learning around that and really recognizing we do base that culture on what we've identified as 10 guiding principles um that we've shared with principles that we share that we reflect on as a leadership team on how we are doing around these guiding principles and how that's contributing to the strengthening of our culture and perhaps where we might be able to grow engagement is um gigantic and that's not just from a student level that's from an employee level as well achievement as I've stated many times and it's a large system um but I know we're determined to improve academic outcomes and I see that determination in our team uh that's here today uh and even some that may not be and we are really determined to improve academic outcomes and then everything's about putting the Strategic plan to action and and we've really been able to align resources to that we'll continue to broaden our thinking around what the Strategic plan offers and where there are additional areas that are high leverage of which we can consider resource allocation to continue to strengthen what are maybe some of the pieces that maybe aren't as identified in the plan and I think that's important that we continue to broaden that you can see what the goals are we've talked about those safety and belongings everything I'll talk about that more in the superintendent highlights our pillars and then I want to take that to quality of learner and this this is something that's really important we aim to cultivate these qualities in every student yes we are working to improve academic out outcomes and we know in talking with our Community Partners that these qualities of Learners are front and center of what our employers want in our community and so while we work to make the improvements and academic outcomes we cannot lose and we have to be careful about being overly discreet in learning outcomes and make sure that we are not becoming too specific that we're not getting to what are really important qualities that we want everyone so you hear that we call it qualities of a wcsd learner sometimes we've heard it portrait of a grad portrait of a learner but this is we're we're calling it qualities of a wcsd learner because when our school our kids graduate this is what we want them to be able to do going forward this is something I'll close with together we'll create a brighter future for every student and alone we can do so little together we can do so much I thank the team for being here today it's an honor to work with you and that's where we're at on the entry plan I think it's phenomenal and you very diplomatically left off managing the seven of us the phone calls and texts you get from us I think this is wonderful oh my goodness I mean there is a reason why all seven of us I will speak for vice president mayber even though he's not here there is a reason why all of us as different as we are from the way we think the perspectives we have and the values we carry one thing we unanimously knew that you were the next leader of the waso county school district and this plan reflects that and the fact that you have all these leaders looking out at you in support is a clear demonstration to Washo County and the state of Nevada that you are the chosen leader for our community I think this is wonderful thank you so much thank you president Smith I I appreciate that but it's uh we are the leaders and I really mean that and then I didn't get a chance to say thank you to Michelle Anderson for putting putting all of this together being so patient with me as we are uh working through some of the finer details and always doing it with Grace and uh and laughter and and working to get to um you know high level thinking and she's always willing to do that and I want to just make sure that I also said Thank you to Michelle for for helping put all this together nice uh thank you madam president um I'm so glad you are president cuz you say it right you say it night you have finesse thank you so much um as a marine the best I can say is thank you very much job well done and we are very happy to have you and we look forward to see even much more really appreciate it we love that you're a people person too amazing all right seeing no other lights on I will let trusty Woodley have the last word on that so thank you so much much all right that closes item 4.05 and section 4 in its entirety and moves us now to section five now normally we would go straight to item 5.01 T student representative but um super earnst may need to excuse himself at some point so I am going to go ahead and jump over to 503 the superintendent's report so we can hear from him to our community thank you president Smith um so I wanted to take an opportunity uh during our superintendent highlights uh to just recognize the magnitude of the situation uh with our Davis fire uh I don't think there's anyone in here that is not impacted in one way or another and some more substantially so than others um and so uh I just want to begin by honoring all of those uh and uh recognizing the impact that has occurred and um trying to continue to think forward and work to the greatest extent possible to continue to keep our community safe and work with our local agencies um to do so um and I also want to just express our gratitude uh that we have in was County School District on agencies working so well with us to help provide us information that allows us to make uh decisions in the best interest of our students and um that collaboration is really uh vital and I always find that emergency like situations can very much reveal the best about humanity and so that's certainly evident we certain have work to do right now and um and uh there's work to still be done but I just and you know um uh clerk Rodriguez I just want to say thank you to you I know that vice president uh mayber is not here uh there's just tremendous efforts around a really serious situation and um and then our our team coming together willing to meet on the drop of a dime to make sure that we're um thinking things through and really making sure that we're not making any decision that is not is is not trying to turn over every stone and I really appreciate that about the team in terms of the way we go about interacting to get to really tough critical decisions so I just wanted to take an opportunity I appreciate you allowing me that opportunity to do that and then it gets to our schools and and so I want to tell you this this is just amazing I talked about this Staffing vacancies and I I will tell you that without the work that occurred in the summer and getting to the level there would be no way we could have opened 90% of our schools today it simply would not have been a possibility but by doing that we were able to get to 90% of our community getting back and we know families have have their challenges and they're going to work but I want to share some of the some of the beauty behind things and that's um so we know we have schools closed and some of our teachers don't live in those areas and so what we ask teachers on a volunteer basis to do uh and in working with our associations and partners we asked them if they would be willing we knew they couldn't go to their school but we knew we had vacancies and other schools our associate Chiefs knew every vacancy we were looking at for today and asked them to go and work at other schools just on a voluntary basis that's the quality of people that's the kind of staff that we have and I just think that that's important for people to know so just wanted to to speak to that from the Davis fire uh perspective I also wanted to speak to um the recent uh event and threats that have been made um we talked about it briefly uh already today uh but I do want everyone to know uh how important we take those threats and um we were late into Saturday night early into Saturday morning um working to investigate because um school safety is everything uh to us uh and I uh thank our school police officers who who um represent that every day um and we really were looking at this situation uh very critically and I and I give a lot of credit to our students our families our community members who really surfaced this right away and um it was just tremendous efforts and then the leadership of of school police and their work with the FBI and other authorities helped us get to the bottom of a threat that really was um uh unsettling during uh this time and I want folks to know that when those situations occur and we are are able to get to the bottom of those uh that we will move uh forward to the full extent that we can because that is not acceptable if we're trying to raise and decrease chronic absenteeism people have no idea what those types of threats do to our students to our families to our staff and so when those pieces come forward we are going to move forward we are going to make an arrest and we are going to do do everything we can and I just really appreciate the determination throughout Sunday uh again uh I don't know if the leadership team or a whole lot of people slept this weekend uh but uh they were really determined everyone again uh working together and then I take it to some of the enhanced security that we put in and those are good things safety and belonging that's our beam right and so uh the pieces that we put in from the single points the the films and the the the the the different security measures that that were part of the the plan that that you saw from cic Simply um every second counts and when we have situations it's immediate mobilization to the quickest extent and I think we've seen some evidence uh at least of um these pieces being critical layers to the safety of which we're trying to get to and maintain at all times so I did want to uh uh talk about that just a little bit uh and then you know finally I I think I want to also conclude kind of on that uh uplifting note uh and that is um I talked about uh how proud I am to to to be able to work in this uh capacity and uh work with um various leaders uh that we have in the community and I'm really happy to have been able to sit most recently uh with um our our the mayor of Reno and we had some wonderful conversations and one of those was around was County School District having an opportunity to come forward to our city council to present the incredible work we're doing around a facilities modernization plan what we're doing in that area is just substantial for our community it benefits Beyond just education and so being able to come out and show the collective work that we are all doing I think is is really kind of a uh a nice opportunity and perhaps something that that hasn't happened before and and I think we welcome that and and are ready to lean into that space so you could probably see I could probably go go on and on and on uh but I'm really proud thank you uh everyone for being here um and uh we'll continue to work uh as hard as we can for the benefit of our students our staff and our families so thank you thank you um I wish all of you out there could feel the wonderful energy coming off of you towards superintendent Ernst so thank you so much for that superintendence report uh very much understand that you may need um to to pop up and and to leave although we are coming close to the end of our meeting but please feel free to do that so that closes item 5.03 and brings us now back to item 5.01 our student Representatives report all right hi everyone um over this last weekend I know there was a lot happening but with the work that everyone's been doing I would say that at least where I'm at we had a really seemingly seamless transition back into school um and you know people talk but it didn't really feel like many people were talking today so uh props everyone who was working on helping all the issues this weekend um school's kind of ramping up obviously with all the things happening Sports and activities so it's been great to see a lot of people flourishing in all the activities they're doing um we have seen a lot of growth in student voice and the areas that we're growing in it um include possible student voice councils in elementary schools which would look a little different than high schools and middle schools but we may be looking into that um we've had a few meetings already and we've seen a lot of diversity in our group and it's been really great talking with everyone um oh I feel like I had so oh and another thing coming up for students um um there's a small group of us that will be helping um with an event called flip the script and we might be working with students from Clark County um which would be great and we'll be uh helping ask questions for some District members so that's a really great opportunity that I've been presented and that some of our other students will help us with so it's kind of what's been going on lately well thank you so much Annie I appreciate that and that closes item 5.01 and SE five and its entirety and we'll move on now to section six our closing items uh starting with item 6.01 our public comment JJ who do we have with us today Daniel Gomez hi Mr Gomez it's very nice to see you yeah come on up yep no right out here thank you so much for being with us today thank you uh the last few hours have been a real um uh education in itself so I'll try to get to this quickly okay I do have the the 12 uh single sheets for a summary for you I'm something you can take with you and review so thank you esteem board members for your time I just wanted to recap the topic at a high level and read a little more detail into what I sent you yesterday for your reference I provided a one sheet summary of the Salient points of my request please note the highlighted points the first part is my request to Kate sroy I hope I got that right CCA assistant director niaa the second part is simply the wasel County School District zoning tool found on the internet and the third part is a response from Kate sroy acknowledging the lawful request and handing it over to the wasel County School District Board of Trustees for any final approval so it reads to Kate Croy please see my official request for a final appeal hearing this is not now a hardship appeal but an appeal for a hearing based on newly by me discovered NRS thank you note subsection 3 of NRS 388 a474 and the use of the word or which is a legal term here or is used as a disjunctive meaning it separates things for example in contrast to and which is conjunctive and combines things the word tells the reader to take your pick so NS 388 a474 Board of Trustees required to allow pupil to participate in class or activity of school district in which pupil resides in certain circumstances revocation of approval subsection three upon the request of a parent or legal guardian of a pupil who is enrolled in a charter school the Board of Trustees of the school district in which the pupil resides shall authorize the pupil to participate in sports at the public school that he or she would otherwise be required to attend within the school district or upon approval of the Board of Trustees any public school within the same zone of attendance as the charter school if space is available for the pupil to participate and B the parent or legal guardian demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Board of Trustees that the pupil is qualified to participate and then below you see the uh was County School District school zone indicator and if you read down through it the finding demonstrates that Charter School Coral Academy is in fact within the same Zone of attendance as deani Ranch High School then F following is the um the response from uh Missy uh good morning good afternoon Mr Gomez the statute you have cited NRS 388 a474 subsection 3 requires you to obtain the approval of the Board of Trustees of the wasel County School District W thank you so much Mr Gomez I know it's it is a three minutes but we all do have this right and there's just one line at the bottom if I might add I can't I'm so very sorry but we're very very grateful we're very very grateful thank you so much okay maybe we can address this at a later time through email absolutely okay thank you thank you Darla Lee hi welcome M Lee thank you for being with us and I love your scarf thank you uh yes Darla Lee for the record and um yeah didn't expect to be the last man standing here but uh I felt it was important for you folks as trustees to sometimes hear directly from uh people on the ground so to speak because a lot of these meetings seems to be way up here and I was glad to see that the superintendent brought forward the uh the subject of uh chronic absenteeism because I happen to live as maybe some of you recall uh in the HOA directly across from hug high and we are continuing to have the same problems that we've had since that school opened and that is having students wandering through our private streets and um it has become as the school year has developed um I can give you just a quick example where I left and uh around lunchtime and folks that were from the school I saw coming in the our entrance knowing they were going to hang out on our grass leave their water bottles and sometime I have to say I pick up a lot of the Little P you know tiny uh vodka uh uh bottles you know their little Miniatures and uh that is is I go through the neighborhood and pick up trash which I do and uh this is a it's just a total disrespect for property but I call relle uh um uh Millo and say there is and at that point uh I saw a gang of at least you know eight or so students coming in when I was leaving and she said I'll send somebody out which she did congratulations to her she does a great job but um so unfortunately these kids that on the first initial round were at least some of them were taken back to school some of them just run off or say F you and go on their way um and that's her telling me this not my imagination um but when I came back and that was when I left I called her she sent somebody out I came back and there was even more of a group uh of kids that were congregating on our streets so she sent three more people and uh just uh today I left again about lunchtime same scenario when I come back the group is larger so I'm sorry but it's it's going Beyond just chronic absenteeism these kids go to school and then they just feel like they can leave and I you know so thank you very much Miss Le we appreciate you being here Jeff Church welcome Mr church I'll be very brief from time to time been about a year I hand out ideas for agenda items so here's five core values that I'd like us to discuss as possible agenda items thank you thank you very much Mr church that's all I have all right thank you so much all right that closes item 6. 01 and brings us on now to 6.02 our next meeting which will be September 24th 20124 and now to item 6.03 at 4:31 p.m. ijn this meeting thank you so much