On January 22, the board was presented with an Outcome 2 monitoring report. All board directors were present, except Vice-President Maria Flores, absent with notice.
In the Superintendent’s opening comments, Patrick Murphy spoke to testifying at the Capitol about the rising cost of Maintenance, Supplies, and Operating Costs (MSOC). Safety net costs for students experiencing homelessness has also risen. “Special populations that are being transported on our buses, two years ago, we got $276,000. For that purpose, last year we got $71,000, and this year we got zero, and it costs us well over $250,000 just to transport students that are experiencing homelessness in our schools.” Some of that cost was absorbed by grants within the McKinney-Vento program that have shifted to save costs on principal time. The district splits costs in transport per the McKinney-Vento Act with the district that is the home or outbound district.
Following comments, the Outcome 2 Monitoring Report (Outcome 2 states that students will… have the academic and life skills to pursue their individual career, civic and educational goals) began with the Student Mentor Program. The program is an initiative focused on leadership and peer mentoring, specifically supporting underrepresented students. A student-led financial literacy partnership with Olympia Federal Savings, it has allowed students to learn about such real world issues, like financial planning and student loan debt. The program has benefitted students from some of our middle and high schools, but hasn’t been in all schools due to capacity.
Following their presentation, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, Inger Owen, and Director of Assessment, Billy Harris, showed data regarding College and Technical Education (CTE) and dual credit offerings like Running Start, Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and College in the High School (CiHS). Owen said, “Sometimes we talk about it as our academic outcome.” CiHS is available at both Capital High School (CHS) and Olympia High School (OHS). AP is only at OHS. IB is only at CHS. Running start is available at all high schools, including ORLA and Avanti. While there has been a large enrollment jump in dual credit programs at OHS since 2022, CHS has seen a large decline over the last 3 years in CiHS and IB, partly because of the differences in the programs. CiHS is a college course offered on a high school campus, while IB is a high school advanced class that could be eligible for college credit. IB for all was recently introduced at CHS, as well as CiHS. Director Seidel noted, “I think that we have a different set of rules that apply across our district at the secondary level, and we don’t want to use board meetings or outcome monitoring reports to shame schools. However, we do need to have that conversation about every single student having access to advanced learning.” Access to programming that gives all children the requirements to enroll in advanced or dual credit courses was not discussed.
The board recessed at 9:30pm for an executive session on Superintendent Murphy’s midyear evaluation with no further action.