North Mason schools praised for safe transportation

Inclusivity project hosts training webinars

Kirk Boxleitner | Aug 25, 20220

The Aug. 18 meeting of the North Mason School Board saw Superintendent Dana Rosenbach congratulate Director of Transportation Maurine Simons and her crew for being recognized by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for their annual inspections over the past two years. She also shared details about OSPI’s 2022-23 education requirements and Inclusionary Practices Project.

State school chief Chris Reykdal and State Patrol Chief John Batiste cosigned a July 22 letter lauding the North Mason School District for its “outstanding” and “exceptional results” on WSP’s annual inspections of school buses.

“We congratulate you, your administration, and the staff of your transportation department for these outstanding school bus inspection results,” the letter stated. “We look forward to your continued support of student transportation safety. Keep up the fantastic work.”

Rosenbach said the recognition reflects the school district and its transportation department’s support for safety.

“We are the only (school district) transportation department around that did not cancel routes on a regular basis,” Rosenbach said. “Last year, we did consolidate routes, as Maureen and her team worked really hard to figure out, with fewer drivers, how to get everybody to school every day, in a consistent manner, but we did not cancel a single route.”

Rosenbach said North Mason managed to transport students to school, athletic events and extracurricular activities without hiring outside buses, “and I don’t think there’s another district that can say that.”

Rosenbach shared with the school board the district’s basic education requirements, “expanded from a few years ago,” when its questions were more along the lines of, “Yes, we have the right number of minutes and days of school during the year,” and “Yes, we have all the requirements that we’re required to have for our kids to graduate …”

Rosenbach cited “new requirements for elementary school science” and delineated the efforts schools are taking to ensure students “have high school and beyond plans,” with multiple course paths to either graduation or continuing Career and Technical Education, at each of the district’s three high schools.

“We have to talk about all the dual-credit options our kids have,” Rosenbach said. “There are questions having to do with equity issues. Are we doing the required (Northwest Native American Reading) curriculum? Do we have social and emotional learning provided for, as required by new laws? Are we ensuring every kid in our school district gets at least one of the arts every year? All these things, we’re now certifying in this report, that used to be a much smaller one.”

Rosenbach addressed North Mason’s participation in OSPI’s Inclusionary Practices Project.

“We’re in our third year of participation,” Rosenbach said. “We were in the first year of the project.”

The inclusionary project enlists state support for professional development to help staff serve students in new ways.

Rosenbach told the board of three upcoming training webinars on Sept. 6, 20 and Oct. 11, to be followed by a Saturday morning board retreat to “discuss and digest that information” before exploring “a new strategic planning process for the North Mason School District.”