One School

One Team

One Purpose - Student Success

Last week guest speaker Ron L James returned to Tonasket for an assembly for our MS and HS students to speak with them about the power of choices. Students also heard from Johnny Vega and TJ Griffin. Ron James shared with them his life story and inspired students to, "make their next choice, their best choice!" Later that day, community members were invited to view the movie about his life. It was followed by a question and answer session. It was a powerful opportunity for students and community alike.

• Our final count for our Capital Projects Levy is 53.15%. Thanks to our community for its continued support of school levies! There’s a lot of preliminary steps to do before the actual work begins, such as working with an architect to draw up plans for some of the projects and once that is done, advertising for and receiving bids. We anticipate this will be a busy upcoming spring and summer as the projects get underway.
  
  
• The next PSE mediation meeting is scheduled for Dec. 4 or 17.
  
  
• Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to meet with Tonasket Mayor, Dennis Brown. We had a good conversation on how the community and the school can be stronger partners. We plan on meeting at least quarterly.
  
  
• Three board members and I have been at the WSSDA Annual conference this week in Spokane. It’s been a great learning and team building experience for all involved.
  

• At last week’s superintendent’s SAC meeting at the ESD we discussed the following:
  

1. Cultural Humility and Excellence in Equity

2. El Data best practices and next steps

3. TPEP Update

4. Post-McCleary including discussion on four-year budgets, SEBB, negotiations and communications

5. Reports - WASA, legislative agenda, AASA, and OSPI
   
   

• We were notified that we received a competitive grant to help offset the costs of replacing the valves in the HVAC system. Great work to all that helped on this grant!
  
  
• The second North Pod Crisis meeting with the ESD and area superintendents from Tonasket, Oroville, Omak, and Okanogan was held on November 7. The discussion was around emergency processes dealing with fire evacuation and lockdown procedures. Go Kits were also discussed as well as radio communications. The goal of these pod meetings is to mold our current Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and emergency “flip charts,” (typically found in classrooms), together into a similar document to increase plan uniformity, consistent language, etc. amongst our pod districts. The district committee working on our EOP has met a couple times and is scheduled next for Monday, November 19. The committee is making good progress.
  

• Fall parent conferences were held last week. In March, the HS will be using the spring conferences for scheduling students for 2019-2020 school year. This is a good opportunity for parents to be involved with their child's 2019-2020 high school schedule.
  
  
• The Tonasket School District is offering an educational opportunity for school district personnel and interested community members. Introduction to Grant Writing will be held on Saturday, December 15 from 9 am to 5 pm in the district office board room. This class is offered at no cost so please make arrangements for your own meals, snacks, and drinks. Please sign up at the Tonasket School District Office or call and leave a message with Janet Glanzer at 509-486-2126 extension 3 by December 11.
  

We currently have two positions open, MEP Migrant Student Advocate and Custodian. Interviews will be scheduled soon.

• Retired teacher (39 years) and head wrestling coach Dave Mitchell was inducted into the National Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame. Congratulations Dave, you deserve it!
  
  
• Enrollment for November is 1,108.79. We are staying fairly steady in our enrollment numbers.
  
  
• As a District, we now have access to phone-based language interpreters. This phone-based language interpretation is a three-way phone conversation with a human interpreter. The interpreter facilitates meaning-for-meaning communication between a limited-English proficient person and our English-speaking staff.
  This service can be used on speaker phone for meetings, student-led conferences, or other needs as appropriate. This service was added for times when we have a huge need for interpreters and our great staff cannot be everywhere at once, or for when interpretation is needed and our on-site staff interpreters are unavailable.


• At the State Championship, the boys team finished as the 9th best team in the State. Garrett Wilson got on the podium for the 3rd year in a row finishing in 13th place.
  

Results:

Garrett Wilson—13th

Israel Gomez—54th

Angel Depaz—87th

Waylon Thomas—89th

Curtis Willson—113th

Cristian Zarazua—116th

Carter Timm—135th

~ Superintendent Steve McCullough

Link to What Every Employee Must Know on Website: