School Board Meeting August 28, 2019 Part 1

Good afternoon.

Welcome to the August 28th 2019 Seattle School Board legislative meeting.

As we begin we would like to recognize and honor the First Peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the Coastal Salish tribes.

Roll call please.

Director Burke Present Director Mack Present Director Pinkham Present.

Director Harris Present.

And directors DeWolf and Geary are on much earned and well needed vacation.

For those that would like to please stand.

Pledge of Allegiance.

Since we haven't started back to school yet we have no student performances.

Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.

Boom.

Well good evening.

Thanks for.

It's good to have you guys back after a good relaxing break right.

So.

Before I start this evening I just really want to give a shout out and thank Ronald Boy for stepping into if he were here stepping into be the interim chief legal counsel over the summer.

He's provided great leadership and support.

to the team over the last few months and I really appreciate his wisdom and compassion for students as we all know he did some deep work with young people on development of the dress code policy and just has really been helpful throughout this transition.

His focus on students really is amazing and we're so lucky to have him working for our students.

So thank you Ronald.

My comments this year during the board meetings will be tied to our work with our new bold strategic plan.

And I really do want to thank again our community and staff that we have a five year strategic plan that is focused on serving students furthest from educational justice with a laser light focus and emphasis on African-American males and their excellence.

This plan is about changing adult behaviors and our systems to ensure that all students see their individual excellence.

As I'm sure you have heard me say there are no broken students.

There are only broken systems and it is on all of us to create a system where all students thrive.

This year as you know we will focus on three goals in the strategic plan.

We're aligning our staffing and our fiscal resources to ensure that all students are reading by third grade.

Each student enters the schoolhouse and classroom feeling welcomed a sense of belonging and feeling loved and our educators have the belief that each student will be successful in the classroom.

As you also know we launched Seattle Super Readers last June.

We provided 10 books for all K-3 students at 13 schools to take home for the summer with the hope that each student and family would read for at least 20 minutes per day.

We kind of push this out on all kinds of channels and we know that if students are reading 20 minutes a day that they will be prepared and ready to step into their grade without any summer loss.

This summer I put on my cape and I took to reading across the city.

I shared a story at Summer Staircase with our partners from Team Read.

I read to jumpstart students at Wing Luke Elementary.

I visited with students and our partners at Seattle Libraries.

I delivered a message to the students at the Read-A-Rama.

So just a lot of great activities out there.

And I do want to thank our partners in this work M.T.

from Seattle Library shared the space with me at Beacon Hill Library.

But as you see he forgot his cape that day.

I shared our work with Urban League and other partners that they convened.

They're excited about our work and they're ready to roll up their sleeves and help us out with the big lift that we have.

I also visited with CSEC and they are excited to learn more about our initiatives and how we're doing the work.

This.

Seattle Super Reader we have banners going out to every elementary school across the district just to remind people as they walk in that it is important to be a Seattle Super Reader.

This summer school leaders dove into the work their week during SLI started with a daylong session on foundational coursework that is grounded in racial equity.

The Student Advisory Board also met with our school leaders to share their work and their ideas to create welcoming environments for students.

Once again these young leaders showed how brave and how smart they are.

They spoke to all 250 plus school leaders and then broke into smaller conversations with their principals and they were really powerful conversations and I know one that the school leaders also enjoyed having.

and because school leaders seem to be a competitive group we finished the week long session with a rock paper scissor championship.

It was a great week of learning that was both serious about the hard work ahead of us and a fun time to build relationship with colleagues.

We are so fortunate to have this group of leaders and I just want to thank the team that organized and put the School Leaders Institute or SLI together.

It was really a great we had great feedback from principals.

As I mentioned school leaders had a week long session rooted in equity.

New to the profession teachers also spent time learning this summer.

Their training mirrored those SLI trainings.

They learned what it takes to be a teacher in Seattle.

Their trainings were grounded in racial equity as well.

I had the privilege to attend the Academy for Rising Educator Social at Seattle University and I really can't wait to see these young adults in our classrooms as instructors.

Thank you to Seattle colleges and to the city for this partnership.

This program is targeted at high school students in their junior and senior years who have an interest in the teaching profession.

The program provides a pathway for recently graduated high school students to attend Seattle Central College and earn their Associate of Arts degree.

And while earning those degrees students can choose to work for Seattle Public Schools as a paraeducator classroom assistant earning a salary and full benefits while they're in school.

Once students complete their AA degree they enter Seattle Public Schools class the CERT program.

to begin earning their BA and a teaching certificate with the goal of returning to the classroom to serve and make a meaningful impact in their home communities.

This program provides a supported pathway to a career in education advancing racial equity in our institutions and providing success for our students.

So it is a long term view of diversifying our workforce which you know is a priority in our strategic plan.

So it's really great work and it was fun seeing all those students.

and finally you know I'm on the Twitter so feel free to connect with all these areas and stay engaged with efforts that are coming out from the district.

So thank you.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Okay board committee reports.

Director Mack are you ready for Ops and Director Pinkham for A&F and Director Burke will you be giving the CNI report and Director Gary's absence.

There you go.

Thank you.

Good evening.

We did have a Ops meeting since the last board meeting which was full.

and I think we went a half an hour late.

I apologize for that happening.

Try to do our best to get everything through but we had a lot of important things to talk about including we had a great conversation around policy 6900 and 6901. 6900 is a facilities master plan policy that we don't have in place yet that we're looking to get into place and then retain 6901 which is levy planning.

And it was a robust conversation with the drafts in place.

two kind of fundamental things that came forward from the committee were the importance of including the technology planning into the levy policy which is the 6901 as well as ensuring that 6900 gets a full racial equity analysis on it.

So we'll be getting updates at the next meeting about where we're at in the process of those two things.

We got some special attention items around updates for the Playground Redevelopment Fund.

The policy 3208 sexual harassment annual report which is an annual report that comes to Ops regarding the Title IX requirements for sexual harassment.

The actual report didn't come there's a new task force being formed so we kind of got an update about what's happening with that and the actual report will be coming next Ops meeting.

it's been added to the agenda for then.

We also got updates on where we're at in the process of doing recruitment around the capacity enrollment and facilities master planning advisory committee as well as the task force and in short both of those are moving forward we're working on getting the notifications out and facilitators and etc.

So those are moving forward and you'll be seeing those soon.

Next meeting is already next Thursday because of timing of calendars of the summer and so forth.

So we've got a number of construction bars that are coming forward.

Ten of them I think maybe even more.

lots of construction activity happened over the summer so that makes a lot of sense.

The special attention items I already mentioned the sexual harassment annual report.

We're also going to get a start of schools update around operations including an update on the enrollment numbers and that compared to projections etc.

So we'll kind of see where we're at at the first day of school.

And I think we'll probably get an update on how transportation seems to be going etc. those sorts of things.

We are also getting an update on the process and timeline for the 2020-21 student boundary changes and student assignment plan where that what's happening in terms of community engagement what things are going on and we have a work session now that's scheduled for September 25th on that topic a board work session here in this room.

And finally I am super excited about the ribbon cuttings that are happening.

We have two of them tomorrow and two on Tuesday.

And this is one of those really exciting wonderful celebrations of amazing work that our staff and communities do in support of students and can't wait to be there at Magnolia tomorrow and Ingram and then Tuesday is Queen Anne and Lincoln.

So you can find the agendas for the Ops on line I believe which also includes information about other meetings like the BEX BTA Oversight Committee meetings and so forth.

So and then just a quick update on legislative stuff.

Legislative Assembly for WASDA is coming up in three weeks or something.

and I believe that Director Geary is going as well.

Director Pinkham A&F Audit and Finance.

Thank you very much.

We our last audit and finance meeting was this past Monday August 19th.

Grateful that all of our members were able to join.

I'm going to just jump first to the special attention items that we had there was regarding some of our contracts that are going over the $250K.

A lot of it was just more for us compliance.

We had a yes we need to proceed with these.

We don't have much choice but again just a notification for us.

Others were just about contracts that we have where either some positions weren't filled do we do the temporary or do we seek for hire.

so appreciate our people keeping us posted of when we exceed those 250K.

The five bar arms that we discussed will be introduced today and appreciate again again our committee members that really had some good questions in particular with Gates first data infrastructure they were asking questions about student privacy and what's going to happen there and we got some good feedback on that and some discussion I think will possibly continue today as well that some of the other board members may have.

The Amazon Future Grant with that with the FIRST Robotics I'm glad to see works actually expanded that because it did FIRST Robotics was in some of our schools but now being able to hopefully to offer that to more of our lower income the schools that want to target it.

Yes Washington FIRST FIRST Robotics yes FIRST Washington whichever yeah whichever way it goes yeah.

is and and then also a science grant that was applied for and there's some questions that the board had without as that as far as the timing when that grant was submitted.

The 2019 best primary preliminary award.

This looks like a past five years we've had this grant and hopefully we can continue and this year looks like we'll exceed the 250 K.

And the teacher diversity contract I think you touched on some of those things that we're looking at and what we're doing there it's great to see that.

I hope that's one thing I always kind of dream that we grow our own and get our students that are interested in teaching and get them in there and provide that direction for them.

So it's good that Seattle Central what they're able to do and get them moving forward there.

So I appreciate that.

Our next regular ANF meeting will be September 9th but prior to that we will have our quarterly audit and finance meeting on September 3rd so.

Hopefully people that want to make it there and you'll see the agenda's posted when they're available.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Thank you Director Burke.

Can you step in for Director Geary the chair of curriculum and instruction.

DIRECTOR GEARY RANKIN- Absolutely.

So curriculum instruction policy committee met last week Tuesday August 20th.

Topics that were covered some of them you'll see here.

The.

board action report which also came through A&F around the Amazon engineer grant update the first Washington.

We the other thing that came forward that is up for intro is the annual approval of schools the CSIPS.

We as a board talk a lot about the continued school improvement plans and so I just want to continue to elevate that.

as a governance tool as a public transparency tool as a vehicle for essentially school leaders families educators administration to find common voice common alignment.

So it did come through committee with a request to have a little bit longer review time so we'll discuss that when it's introduced.

We had special attention items an annual assessment report that talked about the negotiated assessment calendar for the upcoming year and other work that's being done in assessments and a brief advanced learning update as well.

We talked about the policy 2015 and instructional materials adoption policy and then also some of the specific adoptions that have already taken place implementation to date on the science materials and since time immemorial there were a couple of questions that came up and there were some replies some feedback from that in the Friday memo.

So looking forward next meeting is whatever the next Tuesday is I don't have the date in front of me but the we'll be doing an adoption update on the Spanish adoption which is in progress as compared to something that's already been done.

Thank you.

September 10th much appreciated.

There'll be an update updated discussion on advanced learning and the advanced learning task force and then the intention is to bring policy 2015 the instructional materials adoption policy forward.

That has been a very heavy lift a lot of policy and procedure work.

So I encourage my colleagues in the public.

To take a close look at that and let us know if there's things that we feel like we missed.

We're also going to be talking about anti-racism policy that's under underway doesn't have a number yet.

We're looking at policy 2023 which is around instructional technology.

We have a standing item to discuss the strategic plan that also will be an opportunity to touch on some of the things that Superintendent Juneau mentioned.

That's it.

Okay well the executive committee met last week on August 21st and we spoke about several issues.

We talked about an amendment to.

Superintendent Juneau's contract and you'll see that on the agenda this evening.

We spoke about the extension of the contract with Durham School Services and I believe Chief Podesta will be presenting on that as well this evening.

Durham has stepped in to assist us and we're mighty appreciative of that.

and I might add that work still continues on the think tank as far as alternative solutions that has been very community based and driven.

We talked about the District 7 appointment process.

We talked about oversight work sessions for the year 2019 20 and.

It gets a little awkward when there's going to be a transition of the board and the present board sets the agenda for the next board but we're trying to be sensitive to that and executive committee meetings are open and we've seen some folks that will be stepping up at those meetings and we highly encourage that attendance.

We talked about the nineteen twenty school year calendar.

There was one day that was mistaken on a bar.

However all of our outward facing communication had the correct information.

So that was determined to be a Scrivener's error and an amendment.

We talked about the ITAC advisory committee and the annual report and the fact that the first year terms are expiring and.

Director Burke and I and Chief Berge and members of the Technology Department met and Vetted candidates and we're very excited for the new candidates to step up and huge huge thanks to those that served and are not continuing and we did approve some continuing terms re-upping if you will.

Been lucky enough to attend several of those meetings partial meetings and I'm really impressed at the level of dialogue and input and we can only do better when we have more communication more outside experts helping us out.

And again those are public meetings and you're welcome to come sit and sit and learn.

Board policy 1400 meeting conduct order of business quorums etc.

That's the policy that sets our start time at 4 15. And then we have these wonderfully awkward gaps.

until public testimony starts at 530. It is not lost on us that perhaps we need to tinker with the timing of these meetings and it's not lost on us that there are a number of folks that continually testify and in order to keep these meetings from not lasting until the lights go out at midnight.

we're thinking in terms of potentially you know putting students first if in fact the students have written their own comments as opposed to others for them.

Potentially slotting some strategic plan or race and equity slots out of that 20 to be continued.

It's a rich conversation and it's probably one that the board in December will want to take up.

there are so many moving pieces to changing a policy like this but but know that we recognize the issues and the transparency issues and the difficulty of coming down to the John Stanford Center during rush hour.

Many of us live that life as well and the other issue is to have our very capable staff here to advise us when they've been here all day.

So to be continued if you have thoughts please let us hear from you.

and we talked some about community engagement public affairs and then we ran out of time.

And at 10 o'clock everybody gets up and leaves.

So to be continued.

We have reached the consent agenda portion of our agenda.

May I have a motion for said consent agenda please.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Does anyone have any items that they would like to remove from said consent agenda.

Speak now or forever.

Director Pinkham.

I think again as kind of what we do when we have someone in public testimony that lists they have something they will address on the consent agenda and we do have someone that says they want to address the consent agenda number one from public testimony.

So I would request to remove number one from the consent agenda.

Okay.

That's six meeting minutes approval.

Do we have anything clearer than that kind sir.

Other than what's on the public testimony list that's all I have.

Okay.

It's your right.

Do I have a motion to pass a consent agenda as amended.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended with item number one removed.

I second.

All those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Okay.

Thank you for that.

And we will move item number one on the consent agenda to action item number one.

And I'm sure you all remind me if I forget because we're a collaborative board.

Okay.

We have 50 minutes before we start public testimony.

As many folks know we had a historic vote last night and this board will be going into a closed session.

So this meeting will be recessed so that our staff can advise us on labor negotiations.

We will be back 5 30 on the dot.

Thank you so much.