Minutes August 2018

Board Meeting Minutes - August 11, 2018

At Jerry Apple's home

Those in attendance were: Mike Shephard (President); Alex Hansen (President –Elect); Gerald Apple (Coordinating Secretary); Skeet Gaul (Treasurer); Mike Hahn (ESD #189); David Slipp (ESD #113) Martha Verhei (ESD #112) Kara Bartlett (ESD #105); Stu Soderquist (ESD #189); Mike Heinlen (ESD #121); by Go-to-Meeting, Scott Calahan (University Representative)

1. Meeting Called to Order at 9:15 AM by Mike Shephard, President

2. Installment of new officers and Board members:

. Mike Hahn - President-Elect
. Kara Bartlett was appointed to represent ESD 105
. Martha Verhei was appointed to represent ESD 112
. David Slipp was re-elected as representative for ESD 113
. Jack Coburn was appointed to represent ESD 114
. Mike Heinlen was moved back (re-appointed) to represent ESD 121
. Bill Haley is our newly-elected representative for ESD 171
. Stu Soderquist, Bellingham TSE Coordinator, was appointed to represent ESD 189
The appointed positions are for one year, and the elected positions are for a three-year term. ESD 101 and 123 are still vacant areas.

Alex mentioned that Bree Ammerman from the Bellingham school district would be a great person for the Membership Secretary position, which is currently vacant (Skeet has been fulfilling this person’s duties). He reviewed that the Executive Board is made up of three positions: President, President-elect and board Member-at-large. The Member-at-large traditionally is the immediate past-president and is an appointed position. The other appointed members of the Board are: Coordinating Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, and University Representative. He mentioned that once Bree feels comfortable with her position as a Behind-the-Wheel instructor for the Bellingham SD, she could possibly take over the webmaster position as well. As Membership Secretary, she would resume the practice of providing to each of the ESD area representatives a list of current members in each area as well as past traffic safety teachers who are NOT current WTSEA members. It is the duty of Area Reps to contact past members and encourage them to renew their memberships. Also, she should be given a list of TSE coordinators in the state. Another Board member’s responsibility is to reach out and communicate with members from his/her respective area at least once per year. Plus, board representatives should reach out to commercial teachers in their area and invite them to be WTSEA members.
At the present time, Skeet has approximately five duties besides being the Treasurer of WTSEA. We need to relieve him of some of these duties. Bree would be a good one to come to his aid. We want to keep Skeet around for a long time. Having Bree take over several responsibilities that the Membership Secretary should handle would eliminate a substantial amount of Skeet’s workload. Mike Heinlen mentioned that we need to divide up the responsibilities more.

,	Gerry wanted to give a special thanks to Sgt. Darren Wright of the WSP for presenting to approximately thirty senior citizens at the senior center at Chehalis on April 24th. He will be a general session speaker at our fall TSE conference in Wenatchee.

Action Item: Alex will ask Bree if she is willing to serve as Membership Secretary. If willing, Skeet and Teri will schedule a meeting with her to go over her duties and show her the ropes.

A motion was made by Alex Hansen, seconded by Mike Hahn, that the elections and appointed members be approved. The motion passed unanimously.

The WTSEA Board members re-established the stipends for the following positions:
Webmaster - $600
Coordinating Secretary - $300
Treasurer - $300
Membership Secretary - $300
Clock-hour Coordinator - $200
The clock hour position and Membership Secretary are newly funded stipends as of this Board meeting.

A motion was made by Alex and seconded by Mike Heinlen to establish the above stipends for those positions. Motion carried unanimously.

Alex reviewed the duties of the Board members. These duties include being a presenter at a workshop at the fall conference at least once every three years, or writing an article to be put on the WTSEA website (formerly the Journal). Gerry led a discussion about whether or not we should create Board member notebooks for the new members as we have done in the past. The consensus was that electronic documents accessed from our website would be sufficient. Skeet will send electronically to all of the new board members the following items:

WTSEA Constitution and By-laws
Duties of the officers and board members
Minutes of the last five board meetings

Action Item: Skeet will prepare these electronic folders and distribute them to the Board members

Gerry mentioned that if a Board member can NOT make it to a Board meeting, she/he needs to arrange for someone who is a WTSEA member from her/his area to attend by proxy. (The proxy has voting privileges on any Board decision)
It was mentioned by Mike Heinlen that we need to make the language clearer in the Constitution that a Board member needs to be an OSPI-certified teacher.

Action Item: Alex will write up such a proposal for an amendment to the constitution, and introduce it at the September 22nd meeting.

In addition, he suggested that we should consider creating a new Board position for one commercial school teacher to serve on the board. This would be a state-wide position, rather than an ESD area. This is important because we have several members now that are commercial school teachers, but they have no formal voice or vote on Board decisions. This amendment, if approved at the September Board meeting, would then be voted on at the fall conference on October 13th. This position would allow the commercial and public schools to work closer together on legislative issues and clock hour opportunities. We need to listen to the concerns of the commercial school teachers who are members of our association.
Mike Heinlein made a good suggestion that we put questions on the back of the clock hour stamp card, to see if people at the fall conference are interested and qualified in being on the WTSEA board.
Stu Soderquist brought up the question/concern over the reality of the changing dynamics of the Board. We now have several conditional teachers on the Board, and fewer certificated teachers. Do we need to make sure that at least a certain percentage of Board members are certificated teachers who have gone through more rigorous training? Currently, the Constitution does not limit service on the Board based on the type of teaching certificate a person holds. As long as we are considering changing the wording, should we take into consideration this new reality? The counter to that argument was that as long as a person is qualified and willing to serve, and is dutifully elected or appointed, then we should be happy to have her/him serve. A conditional teacher can be ever as effective as a teacher and as a Board member as a certificated teacher can be.

Action Item: Alex will make sure that these issues are on the Agenda for further discussion at the September Board meeting.

Gerry stated that the minutes of each board meeting should be put on the WTSEA website sooner for members to look at. Alex questioned that perhaps we should change our practice of waiting until the next Board meeting, several months later, to approve the last meeting’s minutes? An electronic vote should be provided within two weeks after the Coordinating Secretary sends out the Board minutes to be reviewed. We will try this. Gerry will send out the draft as usual, giving all Board members a chance to review and offer suggestions for corrections. After the additions or corrections are looked at by the Coordinating Secretary and President and necessary changes are made, then the Board minutes should be approved electronically. This allows the minutes to be put on the website earlier so that the members are not receiving old news

Action Item: Gerry will get the draft of the minutes distributed to the Board ASAP after the meeting. Board members will provide feedback. Alex and Gerry will consult and create the final draft and submit it to the Board for electronic approval. Once the Board votes to approve them, Skeet and Teri will post them on the website

3. Consent Agenda Items:

Minutes of the April 28, 2018 Board meeting - Gerry

Coordinating Secretary’s report - Gerry

Senior Driving report - Gerry

Gerry is teaching two classes in August

1. Chehalis Senior Center - August 14th

2. Makah Indian Reservation - August 21st

3. Next year, he will do classes at the fire hall in Lacey

.	Martha Verhei expressed an interest in teaching the class at Lacey. She wanted to observe Gerry teaching the class once.

Treasurer's Report - Skeet

.	Currently, we have a little over $14,000 in our checking account.

Website report- Skeet and Teri

Action Item: The WTSEA board would like Teri to send out the protocol for the Go-To-Meetings before the September Board meeting.

The first one of these meetings will be held on Saturday, September 22nd. The cost of the Go-to-Meetings per year is $300. Because some Board members would still like to meet in person, that option was discussed and accepted by consensus. The Board members in the southern region could meet at ESD #113 or Gerry’s House. The northern Board members could meet at a certain location in the north Sound. With this $300 fee, we decided to cut the stipend for Board members from $50 to $25 for each of the five required Board meetings. Thus, our budget would NOT see a big change for the line-item for board meetings. Only the driver would receive the $50.00 stipend for gas and mileage

A motion was made by Alex and seconded by Gerry that we approve of this. Motion passed unanimously.

A motion was made by Mike Hahn and seconded by Martha to approve the consent agenda items. Motion passed unanimously.

4. Old Business

.	A. 2018 Fall Conference - Gerry and Skeet

.	So far twenty–two people have registered for the fall TSE conference. We have three exhibitors and one sponsor registered so far.

Action Item: David Slipp will be provided $600 to obtain door prizes for the conference.
Action Item: Mike Shephard will buy the food and beverages at Costco in Wenatchee.
Action Item: Gerry will send to the Board members the 2018 fall conference budget.
Action Item: Skeet asked Gerry if he would contact the speakers for the conference and discuss with them the following items:

1. Title of their presentation
2.  At least three objectives for their presentation
3.  A course description (summary)
4.  Names of all presenters contributing
5.  Bios of all presenters This information needs to be sent to Skeet Gaul: sgaul@live.com, and to Dave Slipp, the Clock Hour Coordinator, for our records.

Action Item: Gerry will contact Terry Bonney from Cathlamet HS to have him send the “Cliff Boyce Award” plaque to Chuck Filippini so he can update the plaque for the new nominee by the time of the conference.

.	Chuck needs nominations for two awards: Distinguished Service award Cliff Boyce Teacher of the Year award

Action Item: Gerry will contact Sheryl Vanderwalker and Mark Butcher to clarify with what topics we wish them to present on

Sheryl Vanderwalker: How to utilize digital cameras to support classroom and behind-the-wheel instruction.
Mark Butcher: Situational Awareness, the GDE Matrix and the Systematic Approach mentioned in the introduction to the new curriculum guide. We will discuss Mark’s comfort zone with discussing commentary driving as an instructional tool to develop these skill sets.

Elections: proposed new bylaws/procedures - Skeet

We need to change the election procedure for Board reps and elected officers. It takes a lot of valuable time to run an election if there are no volunteers or nominees. That time could be focused on more important matters and it does NOT serve the function for which it was intended. Skeet proposes that we amend our constitution at the next conference to say as follows:

“If there is no more than one person nominated or who volunteers for either a specific ESD representative position or for an elected officer (President or President-elect) position, the election procedure should be waived and the sole volunteer should be appointed by the Board for that position.”

We would run an election and send out ballots only if more than one person on the ballot running for the respective position (Area rep or officer).
In objection to this proposed change, it was noted that even if only one person is nominated or volunteers to run, his/her name should still be placed on the ballot with a space for a write-in candidate. This puts the decision in the hands of the members, rather than the Board appointing a person. At least the members are given the chance for their own say. This is also consistent with the election process in our state and nation.

Action Item: The Board needs to approve Skeet’s proposed amendment if he formally submits the language at our September board meeting. The vote will settle the matter if this is only language for the Bylaws. If it is a constitutional amendment, then the language will be voted on by all members at our fall conference.

According to the Constitution, the Executive Committee is directed to do the work of running an election. The election committee (which is the President, President-elect, and Member-at-large) shall take the “election process” off of Skeet’s plate as much as possible. Skeet may still need to be involved in sending and receiving ballots through Constant Contact.

CWU summer courses - Summary by Alex and Scott.

Alex had fourteen students enrolled in this summer’s classes. They were offered in Bellingham because Bellingham School District is bringing back TSE as an accredited program and had committed to having enough instructors for us to run the program, unlike last year when the courses were cancelled due to inadequate enrollment. The Bellingham story is an encouraging one. An article by the Everett Herald telling that story is featured on the Legislative page of our website. It was a major challenge for Alex to teach all four endorsement classes, making for long days and weeks. Stu Soderquist, Traffic Safety Education Coordinator for the Bellingham SD, was a big help. He was the teacher of record for the Bellingham teens, taking that burden off of Alex’s plate. Nevertheless, towards the end of the course Alex suffered a stroke. Sheryl Vanderwalker volunteered to help Alex with finishing up the behind-the-wheel drives, which was approved by CWU with Scott’s encouragement. Alex is very grateful to Scott, to CWU and to Sheryl. Scott and Alex thanked Mike Hahn for volunteering to help with the driving as well.

Scott had some good news to share with the Board regarding the CWU TSE courses. Scott’s dean at CWU said he would support the program being offered in other locations around the state if the courses were profitable. Scott could possibly move these courses to the continuing education department where the program would be more flexible.

A goal for WTSEA and CWU to jointly pursue, which we have asked for at the state level, is the development of an accredited Trainer-of-Trainers (TOT) program similar to what Oregon has.

Mike Heinlen and Skeet mentioned that it would be beneficial if we could spread out the four classes over the whole year and possibly in four sites throughout the state.

Approval of WTSEA budget for the 2018-2019 school year beginning 9-01-18 - Skeet

Action Item: Skeet will send the proposed budget to Alex by September 1st. Then, Alex will send the budget to the board members to review and to approve at the September Board meeting.

Clock-hour issues - David

It was mentioned by Alex that we need to follow the Constitution and our Clock-hour Application packet. This issue came up at several of last year’s board meetings. The Board reviewed the minutes of these meetings, and our current policy. It was determined that all we need to do is to continue to follow our written procedures. This is a brief summary:

Offering clock hours to meet continuing education requirements is one of the most important services we provide our members. WTSEA is an OSPI-approved clock-hour provider. Typically, we offer clock hours to our members for attendance at TSE-related conferences, most usually our own fall conference, the PNW regional TSE conference in the spring in Portland, Oregon, and the PDSAW workshop in Renton. We also offer clock hours for attendance at the annual ADTSEA conference. According to our clock-hour policy, WTSEA members are not limited to attending conferences to get their continuing education clock hours, even though that is usually the only in-service opportunities we approve. For example, there are many training opportunities available, such as the recent DOL Stakeholder’s meeting at the Kent City Hall. What is important is that if there is a training someone wants clock hours for, their first job is to see if their own district can sponsor the clock hours. If not, then members can submit a clock-hour application for consideration. The catch is that WTSEA will not take responsibility for writing the objectives, writing the summary, etc. This is the responsibility of the person or group requesting the clock hours. The application should be submitted to WTSEA two months prior to the event, but this is NOT always possible. However, in no case can WTSEA approve clock hours for attendance in an in-service after-the-fact.

Action Item: Because there is always confusion over the continuing education requirements, Alex will update the continuing education memo posted on our website. In addition, Dave and Alex will review the language in the clock hour application packet for possible changes to be submitted at the September board meeting.

6. New Business

DOL DRIVES and new TSE curriculum rollout, and proposed WAC changes.

Meeting at DOL on 8/06/2018 - Mike Shephard

Loni Miller talked about the new portal system called DRIVES being rolled out in September. Mike mentioned that the portal will be down from August 29th to September 4th. He mentioned that if you log out of the portal, you will need to log in again with a new code confirmation. This is for security reasons.

DTS Stakeholder’s meeting – 8/07/2018 - Alex

Alex attended this meeting at the Kent City Hall. There were four presenters. First, Loni Miller spoke on the new DRIVES portal. Second, Pamela Meyers spoke on the new curriculum that came out on August 1st. It is available for view on the DOL website. It is merely a comprehensive list of required curriculum concepts that all must teach. Phase II is the development of curriculum support materials, which should be ready by next May. Third, the new lead auditor discussed four common problems that the audits have identified. Three of these items dealt with the DOL written and road tests and common mistakes that are made by examiners. It was stated that the DOL has not yet worked out how the audit process will be conducted in public school programs for the upcoming school year. These will not begin until fall of 2019, and they will be “soft” audits geared more to educating about how things should be done, rather than bringing down the hammer. Finally, a data analyst, Dan Cook, shared a power point reviewing Target Zero data and research on new drivers and vehicle fatalities/collisions. The trajectory for reaching Target Zero has been going down steadily over many years, but for the past few years collisions have increased and we are no longer on target for reaching zero fatalities by 2030. Data showed that eighteen-year-olds who have not taken driver education are much more likely to get into a collision than a novice driver who has taken driver education. Therefore, the agencies are considering introducing a bill to require training for all novice drivers, regardless of age.

.	B. Upcoming Meeting on 8/23/2018 at the DOL at 1:00 PM - Alex

This meeting will deal with possible new WAC changes, audits, curriculum roll-out, and the TSE coordinators’ workshop on October 12th in Wenatchee. The DOL and OSPI will discuss what they will present at the pre-conference workshop. Alex mentioned that the DOL will be looking at probably five items when they do a public-school audit. But, details are forthcoming once new WACs are approved.

.	C. CWU/OSPI/DOL Meeting – Scott.

In June, Scott met with Patty Enbody from OSPI and several people from DOL at CWU. The new curriculum was discussed, as well as the need to develop a state-wide vision, especially for improving our teacher training system. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of communication between CWU, DOL and OSPI over the years. So, this is an encouraging thing, and hopefully a beginning of a more cooperative conversation going forward.

.	D. ADTSEA and NSSP conferences in Chicago - Gerry

Gerry mentioned that he took seven students and three adults to the NSSP conference. The Shelton SADD club students won several national awards. He was very proud of his students. Next year the NSSP and ADTSEA conferences will be held in July in Burlington, Vermont. There were six people in attendance at the ADTSEA conference from the state of Washington.

Action Item: Due to time running short, Gerry will report on the workshops he attended and on new promising vendors or speakers at our September meeting.

7. Other Business:

Alex mentioned that there will be a meeting at the Washington Traffic Safety Commission on September 21st from 1:30 to 4:00 PM. This is the result of the passage of SHB 2970, creating an “Autonomous Vehicle Work Group” last legislative session. The WTSC invited Alex and other WTSEA members to be members of this workgroup, which will meet periodically. But, Alex cannot attend, so Skeet volunteered. It is important that WTSEA have representation at such meetings. We are thankful to Skeet for representing us, and for Mike representing us on August 6 at the DOL DRIVES meeting.

Action Item: Skeet will give a report at the September meeting.

A heartfelt thank you to Gerry Apple, and his lovely wife, Helen, for hosting us at their home and for the lovely barbecue

Next Meeting: September 22 at 9:00 a.m. It will be a Go-to Meeting; Members who wish to meet in the traditional fashion can meet at ESD 113. Gerry will make arrangements.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 P.M.
Minutes respectfully submitted by:
Gerald Apple,
WTSEA Coordinating Secretary

​​​BOARD MEETING MINUTES

​Board Meeting Minutes - August 11, 2018

BOARD MEETING MINUTES

Board Meeting Minutes - August 11, 2018