Issaquah School District: School Board Meeting Updates: August 13, 2021

Press release from the Issaquah School District:

August 13, 2021

The Issaquah School Board held a regular meeting Thursday, August 12 at the Issaquah School District Administration Building. The meeting was broadcast live on the ISD YouTube channel, and a recording of the meeting is available.

The following is a summary of the topics the Board and district staff discussed and action the Board took at the meeting. It is not an official record or meeting minutes. To review official minutes from all board meetings, please visit our board meeting archive webpage.

Superintendent Thiele began by thanking the Issaquah Education Association (IEA) and the District bargaining team for their work in developing the agreement. While the School Board had already deliberated during the Executive Session they reiterated their gratefulness for the agreement, the speediness, and acknowledged that the agreement focuses on following current health guidance. The School Board unanimously approved the tentative agreement reached with IEA as presented. Listen to the discussion pertaining to the agreement on our YouTube channel.

Thiele continued that Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) were posted yesterday on the district website, and these will continue to be monitored and updated to follow the guidance from public health. If you have any questions remaining about returning to school in 2021-22 please add your thoughts to our ThoughtExchange or rate the thoughts shared by others. The exchange will be open until midnight on Monday, August 16.

Thiele reminded the community that at this time we are not offering remote learning because as a District we know that serving our students in-person offers the highest quality outcomes.

To learn more about the Return to School planning you may listen to Thiele and the School Boards conversation. Also note that Director Dr. Gallinger gave a shout out to Director Nathan Winegar and the entire Before and After School Care (BASC) staff for their ongoing in-person work throughout the duration of the pandemic.

As required by law, the District conducted a public hearing on the drafted annual budget for the upcoming school year.

CFO Jacob Kuper shared a breakdown of the budget and was happy to share that our current enrollment is higher than the downward projection anticipated. Presentation highlights include:

To develop a further sense of clarity, we also want to remind the community that our reduction in force this past spring was not about balancing the budget and it did not increase class sizes. Rather, this ensured we had the right number of staff to serve our current enrollment of students for the 2021-22 school year. For further understanding of this and other budget components, please review the Guide to Understanding the 2021-22 Budget.

Director Marnie Maraldo shared that the Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) is working on their general assembly, which will be held at the end of September. Maraldo further shared that the National School Board Association is doing their delegate assembly today.

As a friendly reminder, the Issaquah School District will send official District communication using only the channels listed below:

Other Facebook accounts or groups, websites, or media channels are not operated or endorsed by the District.

You can view recordings of this and other past board meetings on the ISD YouTube channel. You can also see future meetings on this channel or via Zoom. Check the District website for more information on attending meetings, giving public comments, or reading the minutes of past meetings.

This press release was produced by the Issaquah School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.