To the Editor:

My name is Katie Leid and I am running for re-election to Dayton School Board, position #4. For those of you who are not familiar with me, I grew up in the Touchet Valley, graduated from Waitsburg High School, married my childhood sweetheart, followed and helped him receive his college and advanced degrees, raised two very successful children and completed my education at Washington State University over twenty years ago.

We moved back “home” when I accepted the elementary/middle school principal’s position in Dayton in July, 2003. After an amazing nine years, I retired and have continued to be an active volunteer in our community.

I ran for the school board four years ago to help bring awareness to what the specific duties of a school board member entails and to put students first when making decisions. As Board Chair, that continues to be my focus. Our board has several responsibilities that are mandatory through various policies set by our state, and procedures recommended by our state and adopted by our district. We are also guided by the Washington State School director’s Association’s FIVE core principles. They are:

Responsible school district governance

Communication and commitment to high expectations for student learning

Creating conditions district-wide for student and staff success

Holding the district accountable for student learning

Engagement of the community in education

Embedded in these five core principles, we approve an annual budget and continuously monitor it. Our state would like each district to have a healthy fund balance (about 10-20%) held in reserve. That would mean approximately $700,000 to $1.4 million. This summer, we set a goal of maintaining one month’s payroll in reserve, knowing that this amount is lower than the suggested amount by our state. Because of the McCleary Decision (first decided in 2007) and rendered by the Washington State Supreme Court in 2018, our state legislature has been trying to figure out how to “fully fund education.” I hope you are aware of several 2019 recently enacted laws and local funding formulas that have helped some districts and have hurt some districts, ours being one that did not fare well.

It is the Board’s responsibility to hire and evaluate the superintendent. Our superintendent, Doug Johnson, will retire in 2020 and we are currently looking at options to hire, and hope to have that process completed by March 2020.

Our school board meetings are held on the first and third Wednesdays of each month except

April and August. They are always open to the public. Our first meeting of the month (a work session) provides us (your board) with additional information that helps us better understand the complexities of running a school district. Our minutes are posted on our website, ae available to be read in the district office, and we are available by phone, email or in person to help you be informed of the wonderful things going on in ourd district.

Even though I’m running unopposed, I would appreciate your vote. Voting for me, in my mind, represents a positive vote for our students to receive the best public education we can provide.

Katie Leid