The Edmonds school board convened for the first time this year on Tuesday night.

The meeting began less than two hours after Susan Phillips was sworn into office. She is returning to the board after leaving at the end of 2014. She was re-elected last year after April Nowak decided not to run again. Phillips’s term will run until 2017.

“Thank you to my predecessor April for stepping up,” Phillips said during board member comments. “I know she did a great job and I’m looking forward to following in her footsteps.”

Several field trips were approved, but one raised some concerns from Board Member Gary Noble.

The trip is for the Meadowdale High School Yearbook staff to go to New York City for the California Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) workshop in March. Noble’s concern is that there are eight students going with just one chaperone.

Noble was clear that this does meet the district’s standards and he did not challenge whether or not they should be allowed to attend; the field trip was universally approved by the board. But Noble did ask for district staff to review other districts’ policies and compare them to Edmonds’ policy to see if a change should be made to the district’s policy.

“My concern is for big trips like this, if there’s a major problem with one student, it would be difficult to supervise the others,” Noble said.

The board also discussed the need for more classroom space at some schools. The best way to get it is to move some portable classrooms and buy a few more.

Meadowdale High School, for example, needs about three more portable classrooms. Staff recommends moving one classroom portable from Terrace Park Elementary and buying a double classroom building. Sherwood Elementary needs two more classrooms. The best places to get those portables would be from Hazelwood Elementary and College Place. A double could also be moved from Martha Lake Elementary to Beverly Elementary. A new double would need to be purchased for Westgate Elementary School.

Assistant Superintendent Patrick Murphy presented the board with an update on students enrolling in AP, IB and honors courses.

Right now, the average student earns 6.6 AP, IB and honors credits. Girls earn an average of 7.5 and boys earn an average of 5.7.

On average, students at Edmonds-Woodway High School earn 9.7 credits, the highest among the district’s four comprehensive high schools. Students at the other schools all earn between 5.4 and 5.6.

Murphy says that is to be expected, because Edmonds-Woodway is the school designated for gifted students, so about 60 students who are taking mostly honors courses attend Edmonds-Woodway but live in the boundaries for the other schools.

Overall, Murphy was pleased with these numbers.

“We know that kids who take college credit courses in high school are more likely to apply to college, go to college and graduate from college,” he said.

The board also heard a report from Executive Director of Learning Lara Drew on how much time students spend taking tests..

Students spend, at most, less than 2 percent of their classroom time taking tests at each grade level, with 2 percent or less being the recommended amount of time. Students in kindergarten through second grade, seventh grade, ninth grade and 11^th grade all spend less than 1 percent of instructional time taking tests.

“I think we’re in good shape with assessment time,” Drew said.

Compared to a selection of other states, Washington students performed the best in the Smarter Balanced Assessment for math, just above Vermont and Oregon. California and West Virginia did the worst. Washington students did slightly above average on the English Language Arts tests. Missouri did the best and California did the worst.

For most grades, Edmonds School District students did slightly better than the state average on both English language arts and math.

The meeting ended with a short discussion about the search for a new superintendent. The board will interview two recruiting companies on Thursday and will consider a third if neither of those fit what they’re looking for.

-By Natalie Covate