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From local leaders and hometown heroes to breaking stories and in-depth conversations, the KMAS Podcast brings you the voices that matter in Mason County, Washington. Hosted by longtime broadcaster Jeff Slakey, each episode dives into what’s happening around the Hood Canal—government, education, small business, the outdoors, and everything in between.
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Time to check in, Superintendent Wyeth Jessee from the Shelton School District. How are you? Good, Jeff. I was reporting on this week's school board meeting, and for those who either weren't in attendance, although there were a lot, but for a good reason this time, or heard a little bit about it, you had a lot of kids up there talking about stuff.
What was going on? Yeah, we, wow, like right off the bat, we were able to recognize our girls soccer team there at OBJH. I was actually there today at the school and ran into one of the girls there, and it was really nice. Yeah, kids are getting recognized.
You know, they're playing really hard. So we just want to highlight our athletics and activities that we got going on here in the district, and then we had both Bordeaux Elementary and Choice 712 and Cedar High School all presented their school improvement plans, and then students demonstrated some of the skills they got from working on things that were focused on improving each of the schools. Yeah, seems like in the meeting it says both Cedar and Choice, 90 percent of the ninth graders are on track, so that's a really good starting point for them.
Yeah, 90 percent. We're trying to get higher than that for the number of students who are, you know, by the end of their ninth grade year get six or more credits. If you get six or more credits by the end of your freshman year, you are very likely to graduate on time, and graduation is a big deal.
So we want to make sure that kids are on the right track. If they're not, then we have to intervene, and we have to make up those credits, which they don't want to do, families don't want to do. You know, we'll do it, but it's just like, it's just not working in getting kids engaged up front.
Put our efforts in a preventative stance than in a reactive stance. We're recording this on a Thursday, this Thursday afternoon the 16th, but I'm going to air it Friday morning, and so I'm just going to leave that in. You have a chamber luncheon today, is that right? Tomorrow.
I got a chamber luncheon tomorrow on Friday. Yeah, so I'll be presenting some of the same stuff that I put out there around student performance and what our programs are doing for kids, including career technical education at the secondary level, and yeah, some of our struggles with attendance. We had been talking about it too in the morning.
It's we got the kids out from the CTE programming for those internships out to the county and to the Mason Health for the first start of the school year, and I was texting with Commissioner Trask, and I sent her a picture. I says, well, the kids are on the county campus, and she was so excited to have them there, and I think already they got in front of the county commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday, so pretty cool, pretty cool stuff. We're producing outspoken kids.
I think people are going to be surprised about how much our kids now have some really good critical thinking abilities. You know, I've heard when I got here, I heard from a lot of business leaders like, I can't get them to show up. I can't get them to engage with me or answer a basic question or complete an application even, and we've been working hard here, you know, and building those foundational skills, Jeff.
You can see it when you're with these kids in these internships that they're different. They present differently, and they're now pretty well read and able to write and keep working on those social skills, you know, so that they can interact because that's what a lot of, again, our employers are looking for, like, can you respond? Are you ready to do customer service? And we understand that, and that's our part of our job here in the Shelton School District is to fulfill the need of our local businesses. You mentioned some junior high sports.
I remember when those programs came on board and how exciting it was to be able to kind of start building that pipeline to the high climbers once they get to the high school and have a little bit of more skill there. Those classes, the CTE classes, all kind of considered electives, and again, that falls under that umbrella of what some folks in a few months are going to have to start thinking about when it comes to the levy. Yeah, well, I just want to put another plug in here.
The junior high football team, I believe, is eight and one or undefeated. I cannot quite remember. I'm crisscrossing it with maybe the other soccer team or the volleyball team.
So many things coming across my desk, but the football team I do know is playing for the championship in their league, and so like you said, these are the farmer squads. They're out there. They're working on it.
They're working on their skills, and then eventually they go up, and those kids get tapped on the shoulder even at an early age. They're a freshman or sophomore year. They even play varsity sports, and so whether that, again, is wrestling or if that's volleyball or football, baseball, softball, whatever it is, that's really good to get kids started early.
So that we can have some strong athletics, and the kids can have really positive memories of athletics and activities, but the levy pays for that. The levy does pay for athletics and activities. I know some people think that just comes out of our general fund.
It does not. The state does not allow that. When I was talking with your counterpart at North Mason earlier today, we were talking a little bit about this and, again, trying to just explain it in the sense that your business model, if you will, is not one where you can charge more per student per widget to the parents.
If the cost for them, they had some pretty high increases when it came to insurance costs, right, and a lot of businesses pass that on to the consumer. That doesn't happen in a school district. You are allotted monies by the state, and like we've talked about, they don't quite match what the output is for the payments on these things, and that's where that kind of makeup is, right? Yeah, exactly, and, you know, I go around and I talk to staff.
They're even surprised about some of these things. They're like, oh, I didn't, I thought that that was paid for, that we just paid for that as a district. Oh, no, that's not part of Basic Ed and the calculation and the rules.
I get it, but for so many kids, and including it, I don't know about you, Jeff, but for me, I'm like, man, if I didn't have athletics in high school, I don't know where I'd be. It was something that I seriously looked forward to, you know, as part of my academic experience, and, you know, when you start thinking about districts like Yelm or even North Mason, when you don't pass a levy, you know, those costs get put on to parents if they want to have their kid participate, and there's no transportation, right? That's the kicker where I think, again, staff dropped their draws, but I'm like, oh, yeah, and it's $1,300 to participate for a varsity sport, and you got to find transportation, and that's not a good thing. You know, that's the thing why we have public education is so that across the board, kids can have a similar experience as opposed to have-and-have-nots, and we don't want that for kids.
There's a kind of a PDF going around with numbers that you guys have put out. Can you explain what this discipline number from 865 to 201 means? Yeah, sure. So, as part of every school district here in the state, you had to report your what they call state reportables.
It's not a tricky name around exclusions, and those exclusions include out-of-school and in-school suspensions and expulsions, and so those incidences get recorded, and we report those to the state, and then they, you know, those-that number you're talking about when we're looking at, you know, suspension data starting at 865 in 20-21-22 school year, that's how many-that's how many suspensions that there were. Not kids, suspensions, and then now this last year, we're down to 201, so it's 24-25 school year. That's a 77% drop.
Super proud of that. That's really good for us because when the kids are out of school, one, they can get more trouble. Two, when they're in our care, we can educate them more and help teach them to be a productive citizen, a, you know, a part of the schools community.
That's just really critical for us, so it's-there's a lot to it. I-we probably don't have time for this conversation on this interview, but there's so many things that we do to help teach kids the right way instead of the wrong way, and there are natural consequences that happen during the school year, and like I always say, you know, if there's a significant issue, like a fight, for example, or drug use-you know, kids are suspended. That's part of our policy here for the district.
What do you know about, and you've talked about this in the past, where you've been able to find kids who have kind of fallen off the radar, brought them back into the fold, into the choice and CEDAR models, but what do you know about the number of maybe those kids who were suspended one time or more times that just choose to not re-engage in education after one of those incidents might have happened to them? Yeah, I want to answer that question. Let me-let me just be like, I think you just raised a really good one-choice, right? Choice is an alternative high school. It carries a reputation in this community.
You know, it's kind of like where kids fail out, you know, to choice, and that is not the case anymore. I was just there this morning. There's so much learning going on there.
All those kids are actively engaged, and that's part of our job, like when we offer a really good educational program, kids want to come. When we wrap our hand-our arms around them and say, hey, we're going to help you get across the line. What do you need? You need some food.
What's-what is it that's-that you're struggling with? You know, we're-we're going to do the wraparound services that are to support these kids. I think they had three suspensions last year at choice because we can deal with it. We're-we're equipped.
We have counselors, mental health therapists at choice to help support those kids. I think that's just a really good thing. Yeah, there are some kids that drop out.
We've actually gone back out and tried to get those kids to re-engage with school. We always do. We have an open doors program, for example, for our youth that are 16 and older to get a GED or to get a diploma, and we are kind of, as I like to say, open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to give flexibility to whatever those kids need to get their credits, whether that's using some of our online modules or coming in for tutoring.
They can attend some classes part-time if need be. You know, we just-we have to adapt our model to fit the needs of our kids, no matter where they're at with their credits. And how does that-how is that working with the online? I mean, our-our, you know, we had such a push a few years back when everybody was home doing online schooling, and it's kind of become works.
I know-I know folks from all sorts of different backgrounds who may have never considered that as-as an option, thinking, well, you've got to be in the classroom. But for certain learners, that works better. Self-paced, self-motivated type students might be able to get through things a little faster and work towards their graduation quicker.
Is that-where are you seeing, like, the numbers on people are-are utilizing those online services still through the district or-or however? Yeah, it's-it's niche. You know, when you think of 4,500 kids, we don't have that many kids that are doing online learning here. Okay.
You know, and that, for us, you know, could be around 100, 150 at the max, and that means even part-time online, if that makes sense. So, it's-it's not even as if they're only online. There's other schools-online schools that offer full-time online programming.
We-we don't. We have a hybrid model. You can get most of your education, but we believe that checking in and in person just to see how you're doing on your assignments, you know, that one-on-one tutoring that you can get with an adult is really key because not all things are easy to learn.
Concepts are learned online. You know, and I'll-I'll throw in here, you know, again, I've, you know, it's 25 years of an education that's, you know, there's been homeschoolers all the way back in the day, and when eventually they do show back up, there's usually some holes in-in their academics. It's hard to support all of the state learning standards and keeping kids up to educate kids at home.
I'm not saying it's not-it's impossible, and I'm not saying it's not all-it's not-it's just not for all kids, and kids are social learners for the high bulk of them, but there are some kids, like you said, that-or family reasons, you know, that they choose to do that. They do that. I just say keep engaged with us.
One way or the other, even if you just did our online program, that allows us just to stay connected in case they choose to come back so we know their story strength and need right away, and we don't have to display catch-up. Friday the 17th at the PUD3 offices. It'll be the October Chamber Luncheon with you there talking about things that are going on, and I think you can still register for that.
Just go to the Shelton Chamber website or events at masonchamber.com. I got that email in earlier for that one. So just another update on things that are happening in the district and ways that you can connect. You guys have been out at Oysterfest and this and that, all the other things.
I think coming up to the Spooktacular here in downtown Shelton, which will be a good opportunity to engage with Shelton families. So lots-doing-doing a lot out there and a lot to talk about, I guess. So that's cool.
I love connecting with the community. There's so many good things, a lot of good questions, tackling some rumors, and also creating some really good ideas. You know, just all so many people across the county just so vested into public education.
I can't believe how many people come up and go, I just think public education is so important. I remember why it changed me or the outcome that I had. Well, that's great.
I think that's just a cool thing, right, Jeff? Yeah. I think this cannot be lost in this, you know, we get lost in the details sometimes and I just think sometimes we lose like a sense of like, hey, that's a great thing here in America. We got public education and we can do that and we take whoever comes in the door and whatever it is and whatever conditions are going on, we will treat them however, you know, equally as well as anybody, doesn't matter whatever it is, whatever skills they need.
I just, I'm proud of that and I think a lot of people have really good positive memories of what some educator along their life did for them to make them who they are today. For sure, for sure. Superintendent Jessee, always good to talk with you.
All right. Thanks a lot, Jeff. All right.
Have a good one. You too.