“We’re pleased with her leadership in a difficult year,” school board president Tom Albright said. He added checks with neighboring districts show the pay is “well within the curve, maybe a little below.”

Finance director Jim Baker said the state finally approved funding for the new cafeteria at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Because the district started planning the project with money made from interest earnings, it hopes to go to bid this fall with completion in September 2016.

Baker said district enrollment was down 1 percent for the third-straight year from 10,711 to 10,600. “I don’t see any change in the trend for next year,” he said. However, full-time kindergarten will improve the numbers overall.

Nation wanted to know why.

“Is it not enough electives?” he asked.

Assistant superintendent Ray Hauser, sitting in for the vacationing Berg, said much of it deals with family circumstances, but many students are choosing Running Start because they can get college credits cheaper.

Nation added that the school board needs more work study sessions on the calendar to keep up with all of the issues of the districts.

Board Member Bruce Larsen agreed.

“We gotta get crackin’,” he said. “We need a meeting schedule that is more robust for us to do what we need to do.”

Board Member Pete Lundberg continued to push for graduation not being tied to a state assessment.

“Going forward in life should not depend on what happens one day at one time,” he said.

In other school board news:

•Baker said the district’s summer program for feeding kids up to age 18 a snack and lunch is up 25 percent compared with last year. It’s done over seven weeks at nine locations. “We have hungry kids in our community,” he said.

•Baker said 94 district buses passed inspection. The district will get four new buses in October.

•Artist Glenda Powers of Marysville said she has a sculpture for the district, inspired after the lunchroom renovation fund-raiser following the M-P shooting last fall. She would like to unveil it at the ground-breaking or grand opening of the new lunchroom.