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Growing Programs While Providing Relief for Central Valley Families...

Stephanie Jerdon, PresidentJanuary 2025

 

Anyone fortunate enough to enjoy the plethora of student music, drama, and art events showcased before winter break can see how Central Valley School District programs have been blossoming. Backed and driven by dedicated staff and volunteers, recent highlights include thriving high school theatre programs, fifth grade strings programs bursting with new students across the learning communities, as well as choral groups at all school levels exceeding participation estimates.

 

With careful budgeting and a growing fund balance, coupled with support from our local levies, the district budget is in a healthier place than it was three years ago, as shown in the 2024-2025 budget update. Therefore, one way the Board has attempted to elevate student opportunities and bring added financial relief to families is by adjusting the 2025-2026 student fees schedule.

 

At the request of the School Board, the district finance team set out to make costs associated with activities consistent across schools, as well as budget a plan to reduce participation fees for this school year. While there is always an option to waive fees for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, these investments of funding benefit all families. The scaled reductions include lowering high school and middle school athletics participation fees and marching band uniform fees, while waiving instrument fees and class supply fees for fine arts classes.

 

In addition, the 2025-2026 budget includes targeted investments to offset other participation-related costs. This includes $25,000 per high school ($75,000 total districtwide) to support performing arts travel-related expenses, continuing the $25,000 per high school investment that began in 2024-2025. The budget also includes $45,000 in 2025-2026 to help offset uniform rotation costs for both performing arts and athletics, with this investment increasing to up to $90,000 in 2026–2027.

 

The business services team will continue to monitor and assess the impact of these changes, and then the Board will consider similar adjustments within the scope of next year’s budgeting possibilities. In the meantime, the Board has been excited to offer these changes to students and their families for the 2025-2026 school year.

 

As a School Board, we see how important the arts are to students and their families, and believe every student should have the ability to participate, regardless of financial background. We stand with our community in fostering and promoting these beloved and enriching opportunities for student growth. Our levies allow us to continue making them possible. 

 

Thank you for your ongoing support!

 

Stephanie Jerdon

2026 School Board President

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CVSD Legislative Advocacy in Action...

Anniece BarkerDecember 2025
 
Legislative advocacy for our students and staff is an ongoing priority for our CVSD School Board. We have been building relationships with our legislators over the years by personally sharing with them the needs our district has. One very important event we have attended and now hosted in conjunction with other valley school districts is a legislative breakfast. This is an opportunity for us to have face-to-face conversation with our Senator and Representatives before the legislative session begins. This in-person conversation is vital for us to have our unique needs heard and to find ways to work with our representatives on advocacy. This year’s legislative breakfast, held on Nov. 15th, focused on a reduction of unfunded mandates and other regulatory issues facing our district. 

Since 2018, Washington State has issued roughly 77 new requirements for public education with most of them being unfunded. With the help of district administration, we have compiled the following three areas of concern under the umbrella of unfunded mandates, which we presented to our legislators:
  1. Implicit Price Deflator
  2. Public Records Requests
  3. Group Homes 
 

Implicit Price Deflator: 

“The Implicit Price Deflator (IPD) is the state's inflationary funding mechanism, which adjusts K-12 funding based on available new state revenue, not the actual costs school district face. This gap forces the district to repurpose local levy dollars – funds that voters intended to enhance student programs – to meet state-driven compensation expectations.” (referenced from district legislative one-pager below)
 
Each public school is issued funding based on a prototypical funding model. Any spending a district does beyond this prototypical model must come out of a local levy. For example, if the state funds a full-time certificated teacher at $80,000/year, but if the prevailing wage for a teacher in your community is $100,000/year (for the ease of calculating this example), your district would need to spend $20,000/year from the local levy to pay the wage difference for that teacher. The important thing to note is that when the state talks about giving an IPD percentage increase for wages, that percentage increase only applies to the amount that the state funds, which in our example above is $80,000, not the $100,000 the teacher is actually paid (in this example). 
 
Our advocacy focus for this issue will help our legislators understand that the current language used surrounding IPD is confusing and can cause discord between the district and the teacher unions during contract negotiations. Misunderstandings regarding how percentage increases actually translate into real dollars can lead teachers to believe that money is being withheld. We are hopeful that with some language changes at the state level we can move away from percentage-based terminology and adopt a clearer total dollar increase. 
 

Public Records Requests: 

With a continual increase of public records requests school districts are receiving and processing, we are asking for some legislative relief to help to accommodate those requests without a negative impact on our district budgets and staff time.
 

Group Homes: 

Central Valley has had a growing number of group homes inside of district boundaries. These group homes have placed considerable strain on our district schools. Currently, 31 group homes operate within CVSD boundaries, significantly increasing the district’s responsibility for providing special education services in both funding and staffing. Nearly all of these students come from outside the district, and the state funding provided to the group homes for their care is not transferred to the schools to cover the educational services delivered daily. CVSD has been working with Spokane Valley City Council to gain information and perspective regarding the role the city plays in these licenses. We believe that advocating directly with our legislators will help bring awareness and better regulation. 
 
An important and central idea for this year’s advocacy is to provide some possible solutions for these issues that our legislators could consider as they are engaged in the work this legislative session. We will continue to work one-on-one with our local legislators now and throughout the year, including testifying where necessary in committee hearings to help bring positive change for our students and staff.
 
Together we can make a difference. 
 

Anniece Barker

2026 School Board Vice President

CVSD Legislative Priorities

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CVSD's “SIPs and PLCs in Action” Initiative...

Stephanie Jerdon, PresidentNovember 2025

 

Like the staff throughout the district, the School Board seeks out opportunities for professional development to better support student learning and enhance the system that serves them. School directors and superintendents often share ideas they have developed or are excited about in order to benefit other districts.

 

Last year while attending the Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) Annual Conference, School Board directors had opportunities to attend break-out sessions covering a variety of topics. One session I attended introduced an initiative called “SIPs in Action," which connected the Board to the work on the ground that teaching teams and administrators do to strengthen student outcomes. After sharing the initiative with the Board, our Board-Superintendent Team (BST) was eager to tailor it to our district. Further, the BST built the initiative into our 2025-26 goals under Academic Achievement.

 

The newly CVSD-customized “SIPs and PLCs in Action” initiative has a two-pronged approach, which both strengthens the Board’s ability to 1) understand and monitor School Improvement Plans (SIPs) in progress and 2) experience Professional Learning Community (PLC) work first-hand on late-start Thursdays to see how schools are working toward their SIP goals. ALL SIP plans are submitted to the Board at the start of each school year for review.

“SIPs in Action” is spread across several scheduled Board meetings. Half of our 29 schools present what their SIPs focus on. Administrators prepare a slideshow detailing school goals based on assessment data, surveys of students, and other school statistics. They share successes they are seeing, as well as challenges their school faces.

 

“PLCs in Action” is calendared out at the other half of our schools throughout the year during Thursday mornings before students arrive. Board directors have the opportunity to sit in on teacher teams. During this PLC time, teaching teams are assessing student data, managing learning supports, magnifying teaching effectiveness by sharing strategies based on what is learned from student data, and identifying progress towards essential standards mastery.

 

To ensure the Board connects with every school in both ways, schools will alternate prongs of the initiative each school year. Next year, the Board will have SIP presentations from the schools who received PLC visits this school year. Those who participated in SIPs presentations this year, will receive PLC visits. 

 

This month, the Board has its first “PLCs in Action” school visits and its second round of “SIPs in Action” presentations. We are excited to be underway and are eager to learn more about how schools support student achievement.

 

Review the "SIPs in Action" presentations to the Board:

Stephanie Jerdon

2025 School Board President

Pam Orebaugh, President

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Your School Board Ensures Safety Matters!

October 2025
 

The safety of our students and staff is the top priority of the CVSD School Board and district. We are always evaluating and looking for ways to increase safety.

 

With the passing of the capital levy in February 2024, we increased safety in numerous ways. We fixed sidewalk issues that were potential tripping hazards. We replaced older playground equipment at five of our elementary schools, as well as upgraded to ADA-compliant material underneath them.

 

Construction was completed on safety vestibules at five of our schools in August. Another five are scheduled for completion in the summer of 2026. This will ensure that all our schools have a locked entrance with a place for visitors to be screened prior to entry, out of the weather, with an intercom to the office. Office visibility from the front of the building was enhanced, security cameras were added, and technology systems upgraded, ONLY permitting a single point of entry into our schools through the offices. Safety vestibules increase the assurance that only those safe to enter our schools are allowed to do so.

 

Another significant change coming in summer of 2026 is improving Central Valley High School’s student parking lot entrance/exit. Numerous parents and citizens raised concerns about students not having a protected left turn onto Sullivan. Students would often make potentially dangerous left turns, some accidents occurred, and pedestrians crossing at the intersection were also at risk. Therefore, in partnership with the City of Spokane Valley, the entrance/exit will be changing. We are adding a third lane which will be dedicated to turning left onto Sullivan. The city is also looking to add a dedicated flashing crosswalk between 8th and 16th Avenue. Currently, the only safe crossings are at 8th and 16threspectively, which led to students attempting to dodge vehicles if crossing Sullivan between these streets. This dedicated Sullivan crossing will make students much safer. We also asked the district to see if the city can reprogram the light at the entrance/exit of Central Valley High School to increase safety this year while awaiting the completion of construction.

 

Resource Officer

Along with these safety measures, the Board approved contracts to continue partnering with both the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department and the Liberty Lake Police Department for resource officers/deputies in our schools. Additionally, the district employs campus resource officers to help keep our students safe. The goal of these officers is prevention, while building and fostering quality relationships that empower and help our students.

 

Safety considerations permeate the work that the School Board does for our students and staff—everything from academics to sports. We will continue our efforts in this imperative work.

 

Pam Orebaugh
2025 School Board Vice President

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Meritorious 2024 Recipients with the School Board
2024 District-wide Meritorious Honorees with the School Board
Early Learning Center Group Photo
WA Representative Schmidt visits the CVSD Early Learning Center with School Board (L to R: Cindy Sothen, Executive Academic Officer; Anniece Barker, Board Legislative Rep.; Barb Sattler, ELC Director; Rep. Suzanne Schmidt; Tere Landa, Board Director; Stephanie Jerdon, Board President
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