School Board Recap: June 10, 2025

The Issaquah School Board held a regular meeting on Tuesday, June 10, at the Issaquah School District Administration Building. The meeting was open to the public, and was broadcast live on the district’s YouTube channel, where a recording of the meeting is available.*

Today we’re sharing a summary of a few 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. Or, for other board information such as upcoming meeting dates, times and agendas, and more, visit our School Board page.

Before the regular session, the board met in executive session to review the performance of an employee.

Works in Progress

Superintendent Heather Tow-Yick shared highlights from throughout the district, including:

• The latest episode of School Board Chats: District Infrastructure was published this week and is available on the district YouTube Channel.
• Graduation and recognition ceremonies are happening across the district, with the three comprehensive high schools on Thursday, and Gibson Ek and the ACT program on Friday. Tow-Yick congratulated graduates and families, and noted that it’s also an exciting time for students who are moving up to the next level in school.
• At the next board meeting on June 26, district staff will update the board about plans for next school year and introduce new administrators.
• The Washington State Board of Education recently recognized 13 of our schools for closing gaps, academic achievement, and growth.

 

Update on Student Representative Program

The School Board formally approved the incoming students who will serve as representatives to the School Board for the 2025-26 school year. They include:

• Micah Paio, Gibson Ek
• Rex Garner, Issaquah High
• Laya Dhilip, Liberty High
• Videh Jain, Skyline High

Continuing next year are four students who served this school year as well: Milo Walsh, Gibson Ek; Ava Datta, Issaquah High, Krish Parashar, Liberty; Nila Natarajan, Skyline.

 

Budget Update

Chief of Finance and Operations Martin Turney and Executive Director of Finance and Budget Moriah Banasick shared an update about the process of creating the 2025-26 budget. Each year, the following school year’s budget is created using the School Board’s Budget Development Guidelines.

Turney highlighted several legislative changes, including:

• Special Education: The state now funds services that extend through the school year a student turns 22. Overall, the district is still underfunded in Special Education by about $9.5 million.
• Materials, Supplies and Operating Costs (MSOC): allocations were increased and simplified (about $860,000 increase for the district). Also, in 2026-27 there will be expanded categorical reporting.  Overall, the district is still underfunded in MSOC by about $8.7 million.
• Transition to Kindergarten: recognized as a formal grade level, but not part of Basic Education as defined by the state.
• One-Time Funding: $50 per student in June 2025 state apportionment, which means about $900,000 in one-time funding for the district.

Banasick shared information about enrollment and projections:

• The district is projected to have a sustained pattern of declining enrollment, of about 350 fewer students, which will have an estimated impact of a decrease in revenue of about $4 million.
• Earlier in the year, staff estimated the fund balance for 2024-25 school year at a $9 million decline. Since then, two new types of revenue were identified: the one-time funding of about $900,000; and $2.3 million in Transportation funding to offset actual costs. The projected decline in fund balance is now expected to be a $5.8 decline.

“We’re continuing to monitor revenue and spending closely,” Banasick said. “This year’s fund balance decline is primarily the result of a planned investment in curriculum, not enrollment alone. As enrollment continues to decline and funding levels remain uncertain, aligning our spending with sustainable priorities is critical.”

Soon the Finance team will complete the proposed budget and Annual Budget Guide. A public hearing about the budget will be held at the August 7 School Board meeting.

 

Monitoring Report: Results 1, Mission Statement*

Senior Adviser and Strategy Marcel Hauser shared updates about Results 1, regarding the district mission. The board received and reviewed a Monitoring Report for Results 1.

“We have really developed a lot of systems in this past year that we have refined to monitor our own progress internally,” said Superintendent Tow-Yick, while talking about the alignment of the Strategic Plan priority areas to the Results 1. She also highlighted several celebrations reflecting hard work by students and staff. In addition, Tow-Yick and Hauser gave a summary of other work related to the mission:

• Monthly Strategic Plan meetings with all 18 strategies (across the five priority areas) to create alignment across the system.
• Equity as an ongoing journey, assessing gaps between intention and impact in diversity and inclusion efforts. This work will be a sustained, systematic effort.
• Capacity and resource constraints.
• Systemic integration needs and ongoing communication.

Hauser also shared lessons learned and adjustments for next year, for each of the five priority areas in the district’s three-year Strategic Plan.

After discussion, the board voted to approve the monitoring report.

*The recorded video on YouTube has a technical error at approximately the 40-minute mark to the 43-minute mark; audio is not available for that section of the video.