Seattle School Board Work Session - May 3, 2023

I don't think so.

The special meeting of the board this special meeting of the board the special meeting of the board is now called to order at 4 30 p.m.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record I'll call the roll Director Harris.

That was a present from Director Harris.

Director Hersey is not able to join us this evening.

Vice President Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director Sarju is not able to join us this evening.

Director Song Maritz.

Present.

And this is Director Hampson.

The superintendent is also present.

We will begin this evening with a budget work session.

I will now pass it over to Dr. Jones.

Take it away.

Thank you, Madam Chair Hampson.

We are pleased to be here today.

This is our continuing education information sharing feedback analysis of how we're getting to a place where we're Bringing a balanced budget forward and we have named this funding our future and that is our intent.

We're trying to make sure that we're being solid in our fiscal stewardship and that we keep our goals and our most important priorities up front.

And so today's objective is we want to present the details about the elements of the 2023-2024 fiscal stabilization plan.

I'm being specific about that.

In so doing, we want to make sure that we focus on the central office adjustments and the reductions.

We want to highlight the utilization of the economic stability fund also known the day fund and we want to update our current revenue situation basically outcomes from the legislative session.

Next week 510 we'll have part two of this and we'll focus on special education current and future financial picture.

So this week we're going to focus on again central office adjustments The Economic Stabilization Fund, update our current revenue situation with the outcomes from the legislative session.

So I'm gonna pause for a second so that we can get the notebooks to folks.

You might be looking at this online, but some of us also like paper.

Thank you, kind sir.

Okay if we can go to the to the agenda.

So we are doing a little context setting with funding our future then we'll come back with the budget development status update.

We'll take a deeper look at the budget development calendar and then we'll spend some time talking about our general fund balancing process.

The third part of the presentation, we'll talk about the fiscal stabilization plan and the use of the fund balance and one-time funds, our increase in revenues.

Again, that's primarily the legislative work that we did, central office cost, and then we'll have some dialogue about the next steps in the May 10th meeting and planning for 24, 25 and beyond.

Next slide please.

Again we're funding our future.

Next slide.

So I wanted to just express some of the lessons learned going through this 23-24 process.

We've tried to be transparent about the process in terms of the challenges.

We also want to be a learning organization.

We are an education institution and we need to learn from these processes.

This was obviously a difficult process but we've had some good takeaways and so We have grown much more knowledgeable about our budget and fiscal picture.

We haven't had to do this level of critical analysis before so I want to claim that as learning.

We also have a much deeper understanding of our resources at not just the division level but at the department level in going through the process of doing the reductions and adjustments folks had to really dig into their budgets in ways that we haven't in the past.

Through this process and thanks to many of you and particularly Vice President Rankin we have learned to work effectively with our legislators and our Seattle delegation and that's been a great learning experience for me and going to Olympia and talking about our issues and being very specific with that.

I think next time we do this this legislative season I think will be even more effective.

We are now prepared to enter into the multi-year fiscal stabilization planning.

We've talked about the fact that we're here in 23-24, bringing that plan forward.

But as we enter into the multi-year fiscal stabilization planning, I think we have much more insight.

And then we have a tremendous appreciation about the complexity of doing annual enrollment staffing And the budget balancing process simultaneously.

And so we have some lessons learned there and I think we may approach it differently or at least we're much more aware of what the intricacies of that are.

And so I just want to say thank you to everybody in this process and it was difficult.

I set out a charge to folks to do the hard work of looking at their baseline budgets and And bringing forward at least centrally bringing forward almost 15 percent in terms of reductions and adjustments and folks did it.

And these are the things that we learn as we walk through.

Next slide please.

So this is worthy of a drumroll almost that we do have a balanced budget plan for 2324. Again this was difficult it was not an easy to get here but we do have a plan that balances out.

The resolution 2022-23-14 that's numbered as has given us clarity moving forward.

It's given us role clarity.

It's given us clarity around what are the elements of this fiscal stabilization plan.

And we have listened and we've adjusted the plan.

So in this plan we're not going to have school consolidations in twenty three twenty four.

We aren't going to have athletic fees and we aren't going to have a three tiered transportation solution.

So I want to acknowledge that we've we've heard from from you all and other folks around these elements and we've made the adjustments and we've made we found other ways to be able to balance the budget so no school consolidations at 23 24 no athletic fees as we was once proposed and we're going to a two tiered transportation solution versus a three tiered and so please note that and we were on the same page about our priorities.

And in so doing we prioritize central office reductions and adjustments to minimize cuts at the school building level.

And so that was all very intentional as we've as we've gotten to this point.

So I want to stop right there just for a second to see if there's any questions about how I'm framing this how we've gone about this and then we'll we'll get into some detail here in a minute but I just want to.

See if there's any reactions thoughts wisdom that board members want to offer up.

I have one comment that might even be better for later because I know we're going to talk more about the committee engagement involved with pulling out the plan as we're working on it.

But I know we've seen already a lot of reductions that are happening in Central Office which I think people stomach better than taking it out of the classroom but at the same time I worry about our capacity to do the engagement we're going to need to do considering I think we're down to How many digits in our community engagement and family partnerships department?

I'm probably getting the name wrong.

It changes sometimes.

So I'm concerned about that.

I'll be very, very honest.

And I know I've said that previously in meetings.

So as we do get into what the engagement process is going to be, I'll just throw that out there now that I have big concerns about the capacity we're going to have with what we're left with people in that department.

So I won't name names.

We know who's gone.

And it's very sad because a lot of our great people aren't going to be with us soon.

So I'm concerned about that.

Yes and we are we are also concerned and when we enter into the 2425 process we're going to be talking about the concept of well-resourced schools we're going to be engaging in deep conversations with with the community and that's going to require a significant lift.

And so we recognize that and we'll we'll have to do do things a little bit differently.

We don't have enough people even with our current staffing level to do the type of robust engagement.

So we're thinking about that.

Beverly's going to comment on that a little later on the presentation around how are we going to ensure that we are getting that feedback back and forth from what the community wants.

And we started talking about this concept of well-resourced schools.

We have not defined that yet on purpose because we want to go deep with community to understand what that is.

So yes so noted and we want to make sure we're doing deep engagement for the 24 25 multi-year process.

OK so so moving on I think I'm going to hand it over to To Linda, Linda Sebring, introduce yourself please as you come on the mic.

Linda Sebring, Budget Director.

So I'm gonna go briefly through where we're at in the timeline right now.

And we are getting towards the end of our timeline here.

We're on May 3rd with this budget work session.

We have basically three major activities left.

We have the special meeting part two next week.

And then we will be bringing the budget to the board for introduction on June 21st and have our public hearing on the budget on that same day.

There is a scheduled vote for the budget on July 6th, which is a Thursday.

Next slide.

So this is a little bit more deep dive down and part of that learning and sharing of knowledge.

This is where we're at right now in the detail behind the scenes of what's going on.

We're in a budget balancing process in the finance division.

So this week we've been working on reconciling the budget, which right now is about 34,000 lines of data.

That's what our budget is.

There's about 166 grants.

And when the legislature did their funding recently, and we'll talk a little bit more about this later, they had just made a major adjustment to pension rates, which we talked internally and made a decision that we needed to adjust all of our costs for labor because it was just too big of an adjustment to not take.

So we had to adjust all of the grants.

Our non-grant positions we can automatically do with our software, but the grants you have to go through piece by piece to get them back in balance.

So we were finishing that up.

We have to make sure that every one of those 34,000 lines has state required coding so that when we upload it to OSPI they don't boot it out.

So that's what's been happening this week, and then we lock the budget for changes.

And what I mean by locking the budget is all those lines of data, they stop moving.

It doesn't mean that there can't be decisions changing what we might do with the budget, but it will not be reflected in the budget book, nor will it be reflected in the recommended budget.

We will be setting a dollar amount for the budget, and anything will have to play within that dollar amount.

So any changes in expenses, we'll have to have other offsetting changes in expenses.

Starting next week through the 21st of this month, we start building data sets for our budget document, which is technically the budget book.

So we pull all the data and start writing that narrative to explain what do we do?

What is this budget?

What do all these numbers mean?

As I put in a third bullet, if there are changes after today, what we'll do is we'll put a page in front of the budget book saying that the book may not reflect these changes in these analytics, but here's what happened after this point.

So just to know that at some point we have to lock it because there's a lot of tasks that have to occur in order to get those analytics done and get to people.

Getting at the end of this month, we will be doing a final review and edit of the book and then send it to publishing services and we'll be starting to draft the budget resolution and board action report.

The reason all this stuff has to happen by June 5th is there's a public hearing that's happening on June 21st and we have to get notices out to the public by June 7th.

And when you send out a notice, you also have to have your budget document available.

So it may seem like we're doing things faster than you might want us to be doing them, but in order to stay on the current timeline the board has laid out, these are the things that are happening behind the scenes.

So I just wanted to give a little bit more in depth on what was going on there.

Next slide.

And now I'm going to pass it to Deputy Podesta.

Good afternoon everyone.

Fred Podesta interim deputy superintendent.

I'm going to give what's labeled the fiscal update which is really to highlight the changes since the last time we got together in a budget work session which was at the end of February.

While all this is a difficult subject again as Dr. Jones said ask for a drum roll.

When we met in the last work session we Didn't have a path to balancing this budget.

We were still had nearly a 21 million dollar gap to fill.

And so it's good news that while these are hard decisions and will have impacts on us all it's good that at least there's a path that we can get there.

And so this was the picture that we described to you again at the end of February.

And if I could have the next slide.

This summarizes the changes between February 28th and today with the line items that changed highlighted in the table.

I will note that we have not since we're getting ready to finalize this budget we'll have other year end issues that the 24 25 numbers are not updated yet that we haven't remodeled what that looks like.

So we should really focus on the current year which For the next few weeks that's really our focus is to get this budget reconciled once and for all and then move into the multi-year planning work that we described which at the start of this conversation we said our problems are bigger than can get solved in a year.

We really have to have a longer runway in how we do this process and That's an aspect we really appreciate of the resolution that the board adopted on the 26th that instructs us to refine our planning and budgeting processes to get to a multi-year sustainable plan which means the calendar that Linda just walked you through will look a lot different in future years and we need to move some decisions and big strategies more upstream in the process so we're not at this stage and still making difficult decisions.

So the things we refined our estimate of the ending fund balance to add $400,000 there.

We use we're proposing to liquidate the entire economic stabilization fund which we will need to repay and we'll talk about later.

It's while we would prefer not to use the whole thing it's good that it's there.

It's good that it's bigger than that.

If we had always held it to the minimum amount it could be we would once again be back in a place where we're not sure how to balance this coming budget.

And that's why we need to do multi-year planning because we're going to need to replenish that fund.

The capital funds transferred stayed the same.

We have been going through very rigorously the balance that we may have on ESSER funds and it's pretty much all committed but there are some that we can apply to balancing fiscal year 23 24. Our special education team has done a tremendous job applying for safety net funds.

So we're seeing a big increase in applications this year and expecting that to carry into the coming year.

So that will help us close the gap for next year.

The reductions in the central office, which have been the centerpiece of this, we did not quite hit the target of $33 million but we came very close and it's I can't say enough good words about Linda and her team and all my colleagues across the district who really dug deep to find efficiencies in the central office rethink how they can do things.

And likewise with school level reductions these are kind of systemic things that we did we had modeled when we came to talk last time 11 million we ended up at the 10.2 million dollar mark.

So again in both those areas district did a good job and came very close.

And then in this presentation we're really balancing this with the impacts of the recent legislative session which we'll also go to in a bit more detail.

So that, again, while this is a very difficult process, these are very difficult decisions.

It's really great to be in a position where we at least have a path as opposed to not sure how we're gonna get there.

And I think we're gonna take a pause now and ask Dr. Pedrosa to kind of facilitate some discussion of what we've covered so far.

Hello, everybody.

So I am going to be a facilitator for the next at least two questions as we process the information we have.

I just want to share with all of you that when Student Outcomes Focus Governance was first adopted last year, we and Dr. Jones, the Dr. Jones leadership and the team, We have embarked on a type of inquiry process internally which we call project management oversight in terms of really analyzing our goals and our guardrails and our district initiatives.

So that's been a process we sort of turned ourselves inside out to do that and so we're going to practice those protocols here in this process.

So the first one is just to share the next slide please.

And we call it a whip around.

So we'll go through a whip around process with all of you.

So what is the most important thing you are curious about or have learned from the last series of presentations around the budget?

So we're gonna keep that.

I'm gonna just, I'll have someone start, but then we'll whip around and hear from everybody.

So I see you have your mic, so go ahead.

Oh I was just going to ask if you could define whip around because I wasn't familiar with that term.

Val in the board office was kind enough to look it up for me.

I understand it's an educated teacher's term.

Yeah and I'll say it was a process that actually small cabinet needed to work on themselves.

Full disclosure.

We finally got it down to a whip around process and by the third session correct it took her many times.

So a whip around process so everyone gets to have gets to process the information.

The question, right, be thinking about the question.

And then in a whip around fashion, we're gonna start so everyone has a voice.

So everyone has an opportunity to share a response to the question.

And if you're not yet ready, we will come around to you, but everyone at least in a very succinct, we say like one or two top level thinking around the question or answers to keep it high level so that we can hear from everybody in this space.

So that's the protocol we've been using.

It's challenging, but it's the way so everyone's voice can be heard, and then we'll just follow a succinct and go around the room.

And then at the end, if somebody wants to make an additional comment, they can.

But there'll be more reflective questions as we go.

There'll be three, a series of three questions.

Oh yeah and then you can pass that's the final piece you can pass if you if you don't want to say anything you have the opportunity to pass.

So.

All right are you ready to go or does somebody want to go first.

No I was going to ask.

OK great.

So we'll start we'll whip around to Rankin Director Rankin.

Sure.

And we'll go this way.

I think I'm the most curious about.

You know thinking past this year about the you know.

Well repaying the economic stabilization fund makes me really nervous.

I am also really glad that we have that available because during COVID there was a lot of.

Pressure to well we should just spend all of that and we would be in a really different situation right now if we didn't have that to go to.

But I'm worried about that that's that's increasing our future deficit because that's money in the future that we will have to put back in that fund rather than spend from operating funds that we get from the state.

So I'm curious about what that is going to look like how that's going to work.

I'm also curious about.

It's just one thing right.

It's one or two things.

I'm going to try to keep us on track because we've got a tight schedule today.

The other one time.

So I have a larger curiosity around ESSER funds and what that I see that some of those will help are some potential solutions but there are also things like elementary level social workers that are being paid for through ESSER funds that will not exist in the future.

So.

I'm curious about the existing services or positions that we have that are funded through ESSER that we will either have to make decisions about not having anymore or find different sources of funding because that that money has to all be spent by August of 2024.

All right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Director Song Maritz.

I think I'm most curious about the risk to operational integrity for the central office adjustments.

And I think that knowing the narrative behind how each department approached their cuts will be helpful in understanding what are the risks to operations.

Like one that kind of quickly comes to mind for me, for example, is the adjustments to transportation.

I'm curious how we will be mitigating the risk of the domino effect when there's a late bus, for example.

And I do actually have some specific questions now that I see the side by side of what our previous projections were and our current projections.

But we don't have to answer this right now.

Director Harris.

Thank you for the clarification on athletic fees.

Thank you very much on that.

And thank you for pushing out more detail on this and I see some two by two questions that I hope was the trigger for that information.

Part of my continuing frustration is we have all these departments.

We have all these employees.

We don't really have an up to date org chart.

We don't really have job descriptions.

And I take this Extraordinarily seriously in my role as elected and fiduciary.

So some of this and I appreciate that it would be 25 pages long but the underlying issue here is kind of a lack of information and we need to be learned up.

We need to be fed on a regular basis.

So that we can in fact do our jobs with a fiduciary intent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

I kind of already shared a curiosity I had about our ability to do the engagement that we need to do.

So I think I'm also going to piggyback a little bit on Director Songwritz's request to know a little bit more of the thinking and the rationale behind those cuts because I would like to assume they weren't arbitrary and they were actually strategic.

But knowing how that happened I think would help us not just in our job but in our communications with the community to explain How and where those are.

Beyond that, I am curious about, I look at the comparison between on the May, but multi-year budget planning as a May 3rd, looking at this next year versus the following 24, 25. A lot of the places that we're pulling from for 23, 24 aren't, Apparently available maybe because there's a line as if they don't exist for 24-25.

I'm wondering if we know those aren't going to be available or if they potentially would be.

Specifically we're using capital funds for 23-24 but not for 24-25.

I'm wondering if that's going to be another possibility.

I know that as we're still building there's been contention that that's money that Could be better used elsewhere.

I know that we know it can't necessarily be used elsewhere, but clearly some parts can because we're doing that.

So can that happen ongoingly or is next year the end of that?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Director Hampson?

So a echo or companion comment curiosity around Director Song Maritz's concern.

I think you said it as mitigation to the cuts in central office.

And I'm thinking about it in terms of compliance.

Maintaining adherence to compliance and continuous improvement in that same vein.

And how we stay committed to that.

And there's a whole subset of things that I won't go into.

And then the other thing I'm curious about, as we go into our policy governance process and adopt a more focused governance policy manual, what critical directions remain What critical directions that we need to provide to you, the superintendent, remain in terms of the vision and value clarification in that policy development, as in the core governance policies that are regularly updated, where are you all seeing that we're lacking having provided clear direction?

Because I think that would be really good feedback at this particular time.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I will pass this on to, I believe, is it Fred Podesta?

Yep.

Yes, thank you.

We're gonna walk through the first part of the plan as Dr. Jones-Ludu.

We're gonna discuss some of the strategies tonight and then some on May 10th.

If I could have the next slide, please.

So there are really seven big moves, if you will, categories of moves that we're making to resolve the approximately $131 million deficit that we, planning deficit that we went into this.

We've mentioned a couple times already, liquidating the economic stabilization fund, some kind of single biggest line item in here.

There are other uses of one-time funds that we're taking advantage of ESSER and other things as well.

And you know that as Director Smith noted that that's why we need to get into multi-year planning because some of the strategies that we have this year are not going to be available to us next year.

We found ways to increase revenues largely through the great work that many people did to get a positive legislative outcome.

And then we focused really as far as making either funding adjustments or cost reductions in the central office and we have two categories there.

Staffing costs and non-staffing costs.

So we'll go through those in a little bit more detail as we go.

Again, if we could go to the next slide.

And we'll talk together about using fund balance and our reserve, and I'm gonna ask Linda to go through that to explain policy around it and also the replenishment plan.

Thank you.

So what you see on slide 17 is, to answer some of Director Rivera-Smith's questions, the allowable costs to capital fund, I'll just jump there, that was not extended in this legislative session, so that will not be available for 23-24.

ESSER funds, as we discussed, have to be fully expended by August 2024, so it will not be available.

The Economic Stabilization Fund will not be available for 2024-2025.

Sorry for jumping around a little.

I should probably change the order of these things.

But the Eliminate Unrestricted Unreserved Fund, what that represents is when we end the financial year and we take all of our revenue and subtract out all our bills, it's whatever's left over.

So that is considered a surplus from operations.

We don't know what that might be going forward.

We have a $1.1 billion budget.

I don't have the final number for 2324, but there's anticipation that hopefully we will have something left over at the end.

It's very hard to land exactly on the penny.

So we will monitor that and whatever we might have left over, I'll talk a little bit more on the next slide, which is how will the board and everybody want us to use it?

So jumping into slide 18, this is the full narrative of policy 6022, which is our economic stabilization fund.

The highlighted portion refers to if it drops below 3%, that there must be a plan to repay it, and that we have to bring a resolution forward to the board asking for permission to utilize it as recommended in the policy up above, which is to buffer the district in difficult times like this to protect programs and general fund shortfalls.

That's in the first bullet up above.

The reason for this fund is to fund activities that would be reduced, suspended, or eliminated due to general fund shortfalls.

Next slide please.

So slide 19 is a repayment plan that we are proposing and we will be bringing to the board next week for a introduction and action of a resolution to use the funds and then a repayment plan.

And as you can see in the policy we will be reviewing this repayment plan on an annual basis with the school board in case something changes.

Our current strategy is we would start the repayment in the 24-25 school year.

Since we're borrowing it to pay for 23-24, we won't be able to start looking at repaying it until 24-25.

We are also proposing a five-year repayment plan to get it back to 3%.

Right now it is at 4%.

So if our expenditures are maintained in the $1.1 billion range that would require $33 million or $6.6 million per year for five years.

So that's the Economic Stabilization Fund.

Next slide please.

Do we want to pause just for a quick second I see we have some some questions about the Economic Stabilization Fund please.

Does this district have any precedent for using the entirety of its fund?

FY01-02.

Was that a consequence also of declining enrollment or was there a one time event?

There were a lot of events at that time.

I'd have to go back.

I joined the district in 03. There were different it was a different situation and again it was it was cumulative of a variety of things and yes the district did not have this policy in place so the policies changed regarding the economic stabilization after that event occurred.

On the previous slide the use of the fund balance one time funds the allowable costs from the capital fund you said wasn't extended in this legislative session.

Does that mean that that would be I know you know next legislative session is not a budget year.

It's a supplemental year supplemental budget year.

But.

Asking for extending authority to districts to use capital funds more flexibly wouldn't impact the state budget.

So would that be something that would be a good thing to advocate for in session in 2024?

It is definitely something we can advocate for.

We did advocate with our lobbyists this year for it.

I believe the, I don't remember if it was the senator or represented individual who helped champion this the last two times and they are no longer in the legislature.

So there's no one that our lobbyist was able to find who wanted to bring this forward.

I mean I think there are some good reasons statewide not to do that because districts it's really inequitable for districts that don't have the capital funds available to do that and ultimately the responsibility of basic education is the state.

So if districts are using local capital dollars to offset the cost of basic education that gets into a whole weird however There are a whole bunch of districts that are going I mean 200 something districts out of the 295 districts in the state are having or have had the same meeting that we're having right now with different numbers and different you know some different conditions but everybody is looking at how to reconcile their budgets due to you know Chronic underfunding slash outpacing of costs due to funding and enrollment decline.

And so I would imagine that in next legislative session there will be a lot of discussion of like how what avenues are there for the state to allow districts to use more money for capital funds without the state actually increasing revenue to provide those to districts.

So that was this might be something that to talk to folks about in the interim and just ask What legislators that will be there next session might be.

Anyway, I'm thinking about pros and cons, but this is something that I'm seeing as something we could look to for next session to increase that allowance, knowing that next session is not a session where more money is going to be coming.

And then the other question on the economic stabilization fund.

I mean, I'm assuming that you're presenting this as an option because it's a good option.

My wonder is, is finding $6.6 million every year for the next five years realistic and possible, and how can we help?

Future boards and our community understand like when it comes to that that that this was a choice that was made to close the gap right now and we still have to make it up and we will be doing future boards We would be doing future boards and the district a great disservice to use this fund and not replenish it basically.

So I guess my question is this is something that feels feasible to do and is not a kicking of the can.

I think it does feel feasible to do in the, as Linda pointed out, it is hard to land a $1.1 billion budget exactly.

So we're hopeful that we'll really be taking that out of year-end reserves is likely how we'll be funding it.

I don't think anything longer than five years is already a bit long.

I mean, this is meant for unplanned emergencies.

To plan on being lucky for more than five years doesn't seem like a plan.

So if we can do this, and that's why that annual review is important, if we can structurally build budgets that gets the $6.6 million contribution in and use your end reserves, that would be a better approach because things do happen.

Our current financial, The situation is not a rainy day thing.

It's weather.

It's a structural thing.

It's climate change.

And this is meant to solve, you know, so it's really good that we have it, but this isn't really what it was for.

And it only makes sense that we use this, but we need to make structural changes.

We are not reacting to a short-term, one-time thing.

to a new reality.

So we need to replenish this as quickly as we can.

Yeah I don't I absolutely don't want to put future boards in a position where if an emergency comes up that's not available.

I just had a brief question about why the 6.6 million is the trigger on the underspend or surplus.

How we arrived at $6.6 million.

We decided that a five-year window seemed reasonable and is within our kind of low year-end kind of balances.

So we need a $33 million fund.

So $6.6 million is a fifth of $33 million.

Oh, that's all.

It's not.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Again, we have big challenges.

I mean, to be honest, 24-25 is gonna be harder than this year was.

Okay, I guess that's not how that reads to me.

To me, it's saying that any, if there's surplus, any underspend exceeds 6.6 million, any surplus.

What we're saying is let's try to budget for 6.6 million structurally.

Okay, because it kind of reads like it's saying above and beyond 6.6 million.

We're hopeful that that would be a discussion as part of that annual review is if we build a budget for 2425 that includes the repayment plan and then at the end of fiscal year 2425 that we also have a year in balance that the annual review would also decide should we use some of our year in balance to make yet a bigger contribution than 6.6 million.

So.

Oh OK.

But we're saying, let's plan for a minimum of that and then decide.

And again, as we get into multi-year budgeting, we'll have different sorts of discussions when we close the books about what's...

We'll have a discussion on the front end.

What's the right thing to do with this balance?

So it's 6.6 plus.

Plus.

Okay.

It's just something about the way it's worded that's not clear.

If there is any plus.

So that's good feedback since we're writing this resolution that we make sure that we're clear of what we're saying.

You don't want to get on the wrong side of that.

Yeah.

I think one way or the other what we're really trying to say is a minimum one whether it's year in balance or built into the budget a minimum of 6.6 a year is what we'd like to do.

Okay.

I'm hoping that Linda can talk about what is in the underspend budget.

What's that made up of.

Is that positions not filled etc.

And what has our underspend been Annually for say the last three to four years.

Because this is not this doesn't give us context is my concern.

So if you can answer that question briefly and if you need more clarification we'll do it after our next part of this meeting.

And then Director Songwritz also keep your question brief and if there's any further clarification needed we'll go back to that after the MMIWP proclamation.

So the brief answer is we had this thing called COVID that threw the district in a spin.

One of these years, three years back, we ended the year with 75 million unspent.

And that's what's funding this year.

Pre-COVID, we were very happy when we ended the year with about 20 million unspent from one year to the next.

But we do an autopsy every year, and we look at where we have underspends and where we have overspends, and we use that to adjust the budget for the future.

So to end with 10 million is starting to become a very low number.

But there's anomalies that happen.

We have austerity measures in place right now.

We are not filling all vacant positions.

But we also have some costs that we didn't anticipate coming into this year that are significant.

So it's all a balancing act of there's overages and there's under areas within the program.

And this is where, when the music stops, where the system's at.

10 million is very close to the edge.

Planning on more than that is probably It would be a blessing if we ended with that, but it would also say that we still have excesses in the budget, and I don't believe that.

Is the $6.6 million already included in the 24-25 projection?

Because right now we have a $104 million resource gap.

Would we need to add another $6.6 million to that?

We have not updated the 24-25 budget.

Once we finish our major decisions on 23-24, We will be building a three-year out-years.

It's part of what we bring to the board every year is out-years.

And we're going to be doing a more detailed version of that this next year, but it's still at a very high level.

And we won't be done with that probably until the end of this month.

OK.

OK for a pause.

All right.

We will now be pausing the budget work session to offer a proclamation on missing and murdered indigenous people awareness during murdered missing indigenous peoples awareness week.

I'm going to read a short statement pass it over to Superintendent Jones for some very brief remarks who will then pass it to our director of Native American Education Gil Morris and then we'll invite our students up to do the proclamation and offer a song.

So.

I wanted to share just two things for folks to know if you are interested in more information about this week of action.

I encourage you to go to the Indigenous Women's Resource Center.

They have a tremendous number of Resources that you can use on social media, but also resources to educate yourself and also for reporters to want to report on the topic of Murdered Missing Indigenous Women.

And additionally, I wanted to highlight that here in Washington State, in 2022, the Murdered Missing Indigenous Women and People, MMIWP Task Force was formed.

with some really spectacular art on the front page.

I encourage you to pull it up on the state's website.

And considering what remarks to give, I really wanted to highlight the words of the members of this task force with respect to the perspectives of Native people here in Washington state.

And so I'm gonna take a few things from their statement at the onset of this report.

And I don't know when the next report is coming out, but this is some really solid work.

I'd encourage folks to keep an eye on it.

It's a really amazing group of representatives from the Native community that make up this task force.

Since settlers arrived in the Pacific Northwest, violence against Indigenous people has been a constant and pervasive threat to safety, sovereignty, and traditional ways of life.

In 1855, the rape and murder of a Yakima woman, her teenage daughter, And Young Baby became the first official recorded instance of an MMIW case.

We've been fighting for justice ever since.

Every racial group has uniquely experienced white supremacy, systemic racism, and institutional violence.

The disproportionate violence experienced by Indigenous people is the result of specific targeted federal, state, and local laws and policies that sought elimination through forced relocation, removal, and brute force with intention of destroying communities and culture.

This harm continues when indigenous people are murdered or go missing and the compounding effects of this historical trauma are felt deeply in our communities.

In fully addressing this harm, we must acknowledge the unique relationship that our communities have to the land and the responsibility of the state and federal and local governments have to our people.

The failure to live up to this responsibility only continues the oppression and subjugation of our families and culture.

Throughout the process to date families of missing or murdered loved ones have shared powerful testimonies about how systemic and institutional barriers create and reinforce existing harm, trauma and pain and I'm sure we'll be hearing some of those from our students today.

This proclamation brought forward by UNEA and representative students is a first step of many as we work to correct history, restore balance and uphold the unique status of Native people in our state.

In doing so, we aim to find equitable, implementable solutions that are grounded in our district, our city, our state and our nation.

I'm sorry, let me start that sentence over.

In doing so, we aim to find equitable, implementable solutions that are grounded in indigenous values and ways of knowing.

And to that end, we worked, was fortunate to get support from staff members, Gail Morris and Lisa Love to make sure that we were able to connect this proclamation directly to experiences of native students in SPS and to provide the superintendent with some direction as to what we would like to see in order to take that full knowledge of this Disproportionality of experience of violence and make sure that our students have that awareness as they're going through the system and also that we're tracking the extent to which they're suffering those things and we're hearing from Native students about their experiences and looking to them for their voice in terms of how we solve those problems going forward as a school district so that we're not just looking at this as something that's out there and separate from us but it's part of the work that we do here.

And then I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Jones, and he's going to let Gail Morris talk about what she's doing to help train educators in SPS to make sure they're able to teach about murdered, missing indigenous women and people.

Go ahead, Superintendent Jones.

Yes, I'm honored to be representing Seattle Public Schools in this endeavor to recognize this proclamation, murdered, missing indigenous people and women.

This is a tremendously important matter.

It's going to be something that we are going to be in a leadership position on.

So I want to thank UNEA.

I want to thank the students for your voice.

We remember when you came to the board meeting and you advocated for such an important endeavor.

I also want to thank our board members for teeing this up and getting behind this.

And so particularly with Director Hampson and her urgency on this matter.

So we are really thankful that we have Gail Morris here to walk us through, to give us some context for why this is so important.

And this work is, again, something that I'm honored to be part of.

And so thank you, Director Hampson and Gail.

I'm going to turn the podium around so we can make this happen.

Hold on, please.

Where do you want do you want to sit up here do you want to go to the podium where do you want to go Gail.

OK that sounds good.

Come on up Braden.

First I want to thank school board directors for inviting us me us to come Director Hampson for putting this together and Superintendent Jones for always being a part of this to UNEA and to all the SPS students and clear sky students and interns and their families that are here.

I brought my grandson with me because we are on our way to hockey and so I won't be able to stay very long but this is really important to me.

So first of all I'm Gail Morris.

I am the First Nations from the west coast of Vancouver Island.

I'm also Shawnee and Scottish on my father's side from West Virginia.

Let's see.

This is really important to me.

Do you want to say who you are?

Raiden.

This is a really important topic to me.

Growing up a lot of my aunties, my cousins went missing.

I was born here to avoid residential school but grew up on Vancouver Island until I had to come back and I grew up in Seattle Public Schools.

There's this highway in Canada, it's called the Highway of Tears, and it's a highway where a lot of Native women are stolen and murdered.

And this hits home to many of us back home on the island and many people on the interior, because it's interior, but a lot of people leave our island and they go up there for jobs, fish camps, whatever.

And they've gone missing.

We haven't found most of our missing aunties and cousins and sisters.

And I've grown up wondering what happened to them.

And we didn't talk about it like we do today.

And I'm just so proud of that, that we actually have a voice to talk about this, because we do need to talk about it.

And we could get into big details, but I'm not going to take the time away from the students.

But one of the things that I think and I hope that you guys address is why this is a huge issue on reservations because of state laws, the police laws, reservation laws.

And so they get away with what is actually happening.

I know a couple years ago Matt Remley was working with City Councilwoman Deborah Juarez on a similar proclamation and it started to come out at that time and I was thinking why aren't we doing something in Seattle Public Schools and for me I knew why we weren't doing it because we had to research more on it because it's such a sensitive topic.

And we want to make sure that we're giving the information correctly to teachers because first of all we know that teachers are reluctant to teach tribal history because they feel like they're not native so how can they teach it.

So we encourage them to do it and we're trying to find ways to help them navigate this and then finding material that is age appropriate like Raiden's in second grade what are they Teaching in second grade, right?

What are they doing to the young kids to kind of start scaffolding that knowledge as they get older?

And we did find a few things that we put into the library, but we didn't want to put it into the library without actually giving proper training.

So every month we do professional development on what we call Red Wednesdays.

That's where all teachers take training and every month we have something different and we do it in a month in advance.

So we actually did Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in April so that teachers could plan with us and be prepared for May.

Yet today we just did one on two spirits so that they can prepare for June.

So what we did is we did the training online.

We found resources online.

We have them in our library and we posted them in our Schoology course page.

Now I can't share that because it's internal and unless you're a teacher you can't access it or an SPS employee.

We tried to put stuff on our external page as well for people to use.

We don't want to keep the curriculum so we do have an external site under American Indian Studies and well April was a short month and a lot of people got sick this month and then, you know, we just kept trying to update it as much as we can and then tried to get books out to teachers and Shanna was going into schools and helping teachers with their curriculum that they're going to use.

So the most important thing for us was to educate staff on what it is and what does it mean and how it impacts us and the trauma that we go every day through that.

And we do.

And how are they going to teach that?

Then we had to talk to them about triggers.

Like, what are some of the triggers when you're teaching this curriculum with students?

Because students can be triggered because you don't know if they actually have an auntie and grandma or someone who's missing.

And I think that's really important.

We did find a red dress project, and I'm sure you all know about the red dress project that we felt was a little appropriate for younger students, and we talked about how to implement that in the classroom.

And then there was, no, I'm sorry, that was the faceless doll project, and then there was the red dress project that we did for the older school-aged children.

And then we talked to them about Rosalie Fish's activism, and many people who are, many people are very familiar with Rosalie Fish.

If you're not, she became, I mean, nationally famous.

She's a runner.

It was a black and white picture with the red hand across her mouth.

And it really sparked the nation into action.

A lot of what we were doing was trying to at least get the word out.

And I'm so grateful that this proclamation is gonna come out so that we can actually add that to teachers for a resource so that they can help students understand what it means.

You know, we talked about...

If students ask about missing and murdered women girls to spirit you will be prepared to respond to them and we use guidelines from their voices will guide us on the website MMIWG slash FFADA.

I can send this page out.

I wasn't asked to bring anything today so I only do what I'm asked to do because sometimes I bring too much.

For middle school and high school we showed videos linked in the presentation and what they could use.

We recorded it so teachers have access to it.

If students wish to become involved we suggest using the online The MMIP organizing toolkit, which is a really great site to look at.

And it's linked to all these different missing and murdered indigenous women sites that you can use.

And it's an amazing site.

And, you know, we're here.

The best that we can say is that we're here to help you through this.

Like, what do you need?

So curriculum specialist Shanna Brown has actually gone into schools and worked with teachers on what it looks like to present the information in a way that children will understand it.

I wanted to make sure that we weren't just presenting it in a way that glossed over why Why it is.

And it was something that we really and we're going to keep working on it because it's not an easy topic to discuss.

It's a heavy topic to discuss and it's really hard to train to especially if you're impacted by it and women missing in your life.

We did this that we sent out to people, no more stolen sisters, wear red on May 5th.

I wore mine.

I've been in schools today and teachers were like, oh my God, did I miss it?

And I'm like, it's actually May 5th.

I'm like, I'm doing this today to give a little update on what we're doing.

And then we put this on the site and it has the links on it.

If anybody wants it, they can email me and I would be happy to give them this with the links on it.

Like I said, I didn't make any in advance for everybody, but I feel like this is really An opportunity to work with organizations to make this a stronger curriculum, to get more people in here to talk about it, to find ways to implement it in a way that students are supported because it is such a heavy topic.

And it's a way for us to tell our stories and our stories since colonization, right?

Since they landed, well, I'm going to say here on Plymouth Rock, but in general down in the Te'ano people's territories, right?

This is definitely a work in progress and it's something that we're not taking lightly and we're really working hard to make sure that the content that we use and that teachers use are using it correctly or they can ask us for help.

And so that is my update on that.

And again I'm just grateful that there are people out there there are people everywhere putting this work out.

Thank you so much.

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

We're treading.

We're treading until we can like really with fidelity figure out how we can address this in all ages of children because it's a lot.

Thanks Raiden.

So now I believe we're going to read the proclamation first.

Does that work?

Isabel Hawkinson's going to read the proclamation.

Where would you like to read it from?

Do you want to be here?

OK.

And I just want to note right here for you that I would suggest that we come back in a year and look at some of the recommendations that are made to the superintendent and see where are we with them because they're pretty critical components and look would be more than happy to work on students that are interested in getting involved at a deeper level if they want to work with any other SPS staff on because there's definitely a role to give for students to have voice in these things.

So take it away Izzy.

I'm Izzy Hawkinson Old Harbor Tribe and I go to Roosevelt High School.

I'm a junior.

A proclamation of Seattle School District number one King County Seattle Washington declares May 5th as Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day MMIP.

MMIP Awareness Day is an opportunity to raise awareness to the national and local crisis of missing or murdered indigenous people.

Whereas MMIP is an acronym inclusive to all of our indigenous relatives, including LGBTQ plus two spirit.

and is alternatively written as MMIWG, MMIWIP2S, or MMIW.

Whereas on May 2022, President Joe Biden proclaimed May 5th as National Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, a day for actions calling justice, and whereas Indigenous women, girls, men, boys, and two-spirit people are more likely to be targeted with various violent crimes, Such as trafficking, murder, homicide, rape, and sexual assault crimes.

And Washington data source.

Whereas research indicates one in three indigenous women are sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime.

And four in five indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime.

And whereas a recent study found that American Indian and Alaska Native women are murdered at a rate ten times higher than the national average.

Whereas, according to the recent data report, 393 indigenous people went missing in Washington in 2022. Whereas Seattle has the highest number of MMIWG cases according to a study by Urban Indian Health Institute of 71 cities across the United States.

And whereas according to the recent CDC data among teens nationwide, more than one in 10 teens have been forced to have sex.

Up to 27% since 2019 American Indian or Alaska Native youth were significantly more likely than most other groups to experience forced sex at one in five.

American Indian or Alaska Native students were more likely than students from other racial and ethnic groups to experience sexual violence at 16%.

A higher percentage of American Indian or Alaska Native and black students experience unsustainable housing compared to Asian Hispanic and white students.

American Indian or Alaska Native students were also more likely to experience mental health crisis such as considering suicide 27 percent plan 22 percent or attempted suicide 16 percent than any other ethnicity or racial group.

American Indian or Alaska Native students also have the lowest rates of feeling connected to someone at school.

with 54 percent whereas most recent to 2022 Seattle Public Schools school climate data indicates American Indian and Alaska Native teen students have the lowest overall rates of experiencing belonging social emotional well-being equity and in particular student voice at 64 percent 14 percentage points below the next lowest group and whereas the Seattle School Board recognizes Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday of October And Seattle Public Schools acknowledge the vast impacts of intergenerational historical trauma including health and educational disparities homelessness and other social emotional political disadvantages experienced by Native American Indian and Alaska Native students.

And whereas Seattle Public Schools is dedicated to improving educational outcomes undoing legacies of racism and providing a safe environment to support every student with a moral and ethical responsibility to teach the full history of these United States and all of its impacts and opportunities.

And whereas Seattle Public School embraces a targeted universality approach to reweaving our educational systems with the focus on students furthest from educational justice and bringing awareness to the history of precipitating injustices.

Therefore Seattle Public Schools declares May 5th as MMIP Awareness Day.

MMIP Awareness Day is an opportunity to educate, inform, raise awareness and show unity for social justice and to call an end to MMIP.

Seattle Public Schools will encourage district wide discussions lessons and presentations in classrooms and in homes throughout not only this day but to continue conversations throughout the year.

And therefore Seattle Public School Boards encourages district data collection tools such as student climate survey Healthy Youth Survey Youth Risk Behavior Survey and SBIRT screening brief intervention and referral to treatment are desegregated by student race slash ethnicity and evaluation with Alaska Indian or Alaska Native via focus groups for recommended district action policy.

Therefore Seattle Public School Board encourages a targeted universal approach to the sexual assault slash harassment policy work centering MMIWP history awareness and data transparency.

Therefore Seattle School Board encourages inclusion of MMIWP history and data and sexual health Curriculum and students rates and responsibilities.

Therefore Seattle School Boards encourages superintendent support for expansion of MMIWP training among SPS staff.

Thank you Izzy.

And as some follow up to that I know we have some other speakers.

If anybody wants to come first I can just call on you.

Landon do you want to come up first.

Oh whichever whichever Landon Z I don't.

Hello.

Yeah.

I'll just get right into it.

MMIWP is very important to the native community and.

We have hopes that it becomes more and more important to other communities as well.

The reason that I'm up here today is because I had a cousin who was recently murdered through neglect, I guess.

That's the best way to say it.

She was in a residential mental facility, not in Seattle, but in Utah.

And she was from Seattle.

She's a coastal sailor.

She's still a Guamish like me.

And she complained of pain in her stomach for months and months and months on end.

She knew she was sick.

She knew something was up.

They just blew her off every time.

That's what every one of us has felt at one point in time.

She kept telling them and they just kept blowing her off.

She fainted one day.

They called her dad, Dean Goodrich, my uncle.

They told him that she had fainted, but they forgot to specify that they were actively giving her CPR to try and resuscitate her.

And thirty seconds later he got another call saying she had passed.

Indigenous people go through A lot.

And I mean, when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

Like, from racism, hate crimes, all sorts of stuff, even to M.I.W. But we never really, I mean, sometimes, but we never really get, like, not compensation.

I'm struggling to find the word, but anyways.

Yeah, justice.

But, yeah, we never really get justice for those people that we lose, and that's something that needs to happen.

And it needs to be recognized not just in SPS or, for example, any other school district, or just a state.

United States should recognize it.

Yeah, we go through a lot of stuff.

I don't really have much else to say.

Thank you for being here and taking your time to come and support this.

It means a lot.

And yeah just thank you.

Savannah do you want to come up next.

Hi I'm Savannah.

I'm from the Blackfeet and Blackfoot tribe in Montana.

I want to thank you guys for the time that you've given us and we want to invite you this Saturday for our event.

We're going to have a march and we have a couple other events going on for this week.

But I want to also talk about what's happening.

As a kid growing up, I didn't really get the chance to really be able to know about a lot of culture about Native Americans.

I wasn't given that opportunity when I was younger to learn about how to make a drum or how to make a stick or a shirt or a skirt.

Because I didn't really get that information, I had to figure it out myself with the hand of my mom.

And even though she's not Native, she still was there to support me and help me.

But what I see around more often than not is that Kids have to go through a lot when they're younger.

They have to, especially Native kids, because they have to go through trauma and all the above.

But we need to bring more awareness.

to the sixth graders, middle school, high school, so they know what's going on around them instead of just what's going on within communities that they just know.

We need to bring more awareness outside of their communities so they can hear from others and hear their perspectives of what's happening with the MMIP, the MMIW, and the MMIG.

And I also wanted to say that not only does that happen on a daily basis and we need to bring more support to that, we also need to teach kids about it from the ages of maybe from third grade on up because if they don't learn at a young age, they're not going to ever try to want to learn.

They're not gonna wanna learn about what's happening outside or what's happening beyond schools or beyond what's happening.

And I just feel like they need to know.

They need to hear and listen about what's happening.

They need to learn about the stories that are happening and what happened a long time ago, but not just hearing about stories that have been told wrong, even from colored communities as well, because community Not many people really hear about communities that are having justice and what's right and what's wrong.

They're just hearing about what happened and why people did what they did, but they don't hear about how it affected others deeply.

Thank you.

Thank you, Savannah.

Kayla?

Is Kayla?

I'm a little tall.

I'm a freshman at UW and an intern with UNEA.

Thank you for having us here.

I graduated from Seattle Public Schools Ingram last year and now I'm a freshman going into college.

And I want to speak on just like How lucky that this is finally happening because while I was in school, it was a bit difficult to navigate these resources and find opportunities to voice MMIWP activism inside my education, especially when I would go into school and people honestly didn't even know what that was about.

I kind of took offense to it because as an indigenous person, I want my people to be heard not only in the context of colonization or oppression, but also in the parts of the oppression that's ongoing today and that we have to live through every day.

So I'm happy that today this proclamation is getting passed.

And we'll come back in a year to revisit.

I hope we see you guys this weekend.

We also have an event tomorrow at North Seattle College from 6 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

And it's an MMIWP project and activities.

So I invite you guys all to come.

Oh, yeah.

Today we'll be singing the Woman Warriors song taught to us by Roxanne White, who's Nez Perce, and the song was gifted to her, but it originated from Martina Pierre, who's First Nations, and she's one of the 13 grandmothers.

This song came to her in sweat lodge ceremony, and it's a prayer and honor song, so please stand.

Thank you.

Do you all want to come all the way up and stand in front of the dais.

Oh OK I'm sorry I've been just been instructed the camera is there.

So let me move this out of the way and then maybe.

The wheels are locked.

Aho pina gigi.

All right did we have any other students that didn't get a chance to speak or we.

Just.

One more Landon.

And then Izzy there's actually you're going to be a signatory on the proclamation as the one who presented it.

Does she come to you to do that or this one.

OK.

Come on up.

I'm just going to hand you this mic so we don't.

Come on up.

Yeah I'll give you the take that over.

If you don't mind doing it without the podium or you can go back up to the podium if you want.

So I don't have like a speech written or didn't really think too much about this beforehand you know but I just you know I just want to say like being native there's Like other people said, if you're not native, you just wouldn't understand what it's like.

Oftentimes in schools we're taught just about what happened hundreds of years ago, and that's important.

It is, and we appreciate that.

But that genocide is still ongoing.

That genocide is still ongoing.

And part of that is the issue with MMIW.

And how when our people go missing, we don't get the same attention that others do, you know?

Our lives are seen by the federal government as less important, and it's really unfortunate.

Even though it's been, you know, Hundreds of years since we've been colonized, we're still facing the same issues we are today.

When I go to visit my tribal community, which is the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes from Flathead Nation in Montana, I see I see mobile homes falling apart, molding with four different generations of family staying in them, struggling to get food.

A lot of the adults are on meth and are alcoholics, and even some of the youth, a lot of them.

I don't think people really realize That still goes on.

When we go out on our tribal communities, it's like being set back 50, 100 years the way we're living.

We see all this stuff on the news about poverty and just negativity from other countries around the world.

I don't think what people realize is we're living on our reservations and in our tribal communities like we're in third world countries, you know, in our own country, and it doesn't get talked about on the news.

And I don't know.

That's all I have to say.

Hello.

My name is Aidan Galindo.

My tribe is Apache.

I'd just like to say I'm grateful to be here and with everyone else.

We were able to share this song.

I think that's just really important as a Native American because We just got to bring awareness to this stuff.

MMIWP, people are oblivious now.

People don't know what's happening.

Again, this was stated a few times hundreds of years ago.

People know about that, but they don't know what's happening now.

Again, oblivious.

It's crazy.

A lot of people just don't know.

It's good that we're here to bring awareness because this stuff should be known.

All right.

I just want to say pina gigi.

Did we get everybody.

Thank you.

Oh fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah, so on behalf of UNEA, we would like to gift you guys this original ledger art by Giselle Jenkins, who's Aleut.

And she made this herself in Clear Sky Academy and then took it on her own.

And we've decided to ask her permission if we could use her print.

And yeah, so this is for you guys.

We want to say thank you again.

And we hope that you store this someplace where everybody can see and maybe put it in a frame.

We love our frames.

I think, yeah, we'll definitely get it.

As you see, Superintendent Jones is really committed to bringing out some of the Native art that we have had in archives.

And I think this would be an amazing addition to the art that we have.

There's someone right outside the board office that we brought out, really prominent, amazing Native artists.

If you haven't seen it as you're leaving, it's called Little Hawk.

It's a really incredible piece.

Trying to put more of a native face on this building and in this institution.

And also there's school board positions coming up.

Some folks aren't running like our beloved Director Harris in West Seattle.

Always a good opportunity to point out that we always need native people on the school board and as teachers as well if any of you are thinking about becoming teachers.

So thank you for taking the time to come down here.

Would love to shake your hands if you're willing and.

Any picture opportunities you want to do and then we'll get back to our really exciting budget conversation which you're more than welcome to stick around for.

I will say that one of the things that we're learning in the work we're doing with government to government tribal consultation is how important it is to tell our native families to provide transparency with our budgets.

And how we're showing how we're using our funds.

And so we're kind of at the cusp of a new era in Seattle Public Schools of trying to figure out the best way to provide all that transparency.

So hopefully that is something that comes out of this not so exciting work that we're going to go back to.

But thank you for helping us shine a light on this week of activism.

Thank you.

I just want to say real quick on behalf of UNEA board I just want to say thank you to Seattle Public Schools for inviting our youth clear sky youth working with the youth with the proclamation.

Thank you so much.

And just thank you for being a huge supporters of our native youth.

They are our future and thank you very much.

We'll take a short pause while we do a picture with everybody on the board and can we invite staff up too.

I think we face that way.

So my butt's on the camera.

One, two, three.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

It's still good.

We need a team.

It's over here, they gave it to us.

Is it Giselle?

Oh, you can?

Thank you.

Oh great, thank you.

I'm glad to be here to support my kids.

My twins are in the first guiding class on Tuesday at North Seattle.

I told them, I was like, I'll be there.

Thank you.

My fellow board directors, I'm putting the proclamation on your seats.

Yeah, pass it around and sign.

Get in your last handshakes.

Say your goodbyes.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

So we would.

I guess I'm getting an email tomorrow.

An update.

Apparently some things are not working.

So I was going to tell Director Rivera-Smith the way she just looked with the red and the braids.

I'd like to see the dress and the mini.

Okay for those of you out in TV land we're just getting resettled here.

We are on.

Oh did anybody have any follow up questions to the responses on their last questions under economic stabilization fund the policy and repayment process.

Director Song Moritz and Director Rankin Director Harris you all had questions.

Did you get your questions answered successfully.

Yeah OK so I guess we can move on.

to the increased revenue section.

Is that where we are?

Thank you, Director Hampson.

I'll cover increased revenues.

If we could go to the next slide.

Again, increasing revenue was one of the seven kind of major strategies we identified in this balancing plan.

As Dr. Jones noted, we got feedback during this process and have been adjusting where we can.

The bulk of our increase What we're calling here increased revenues as a result of actions in the recent legislative session.

I mentioned earlier as we were doing the fiscal update that our colleagues in special education have done a great job of filling applying for safety net funds and we're expecting considerably more funding from that source both in the current year and the coming year and that represents the five million.

And as we've discussed this budget we've talked about athletic fees were highlighted earlier but we had also a proposal for some administrative fees and we really took to heart the discussions that you all had I think led by Director Hampson at the recent at the last board meeting we adopted some housekeeping policy changes to align Partly to align with state law but those policies some related to accounting practices and the use of fees and really felt that this was more ripe for a comprehensive discussion about how we approach fees whether we approach fees and just didn't feel like this was ripe.

I guess we are facing big problems so you know this we may need to talk about this subject again but we're certainly not ready to do this now so.

That's why we backed this off.

If we could go to the next slide.

Just a confirmation.

Director Hampson, you'd ask about what kind of critical direction policy items that we might talk about.

And this is one in terms of fees.

What is the...

What are the policy constraints on fees or what is the policy direction on fees?

So this would be an ideal example of we'd want your direction on what does this mean for globally for Seattle schools and how we pursue fees.

And to grant funding and donor funding and other revenue sources, just kind of that umbrella world and then Are there things that it is reasonable to ask students and families to participate those who have the means particularly for things that we do that where we get no state funding.

It's a discussion we should have but in a holistic way and we just don't have time to do it justice right now.

So this slide shows the impacts of the recent legislative session and the two columns really relating to kind of the issues that we have as we go into a budget saying hey this is the structural deficit we believe we have.

The column on the left the column of numbers on the left the middle column I guess represents kind of how we went into this process planning and really after analyzing the governor's proposed budget and then shows where we landed and Where we kind of net out relative to our own expectations.

And so it's important to understand what this is trying to say.

And it's good news in fact.

There are people that have been here a lot longer than I have, but I think this is the most constructive session in recent memory that people have.

So I really want to express gratitude to you all, Director Rankin and others who helped us with the legislators.

We had great partners.

In the Seattle Council PTSA and Samantha Fogg helped us with advocacy and then we have friends in our delegation Senator Peterson, Representative Paulette and many others.

We're really championing some of the causes.

We still have a lot of work to do but I can't express enough gratitude to you all and others who helped this be a positive experience for us.

So.

And special education was a focus.

So getting an increase in the cap was important and the multipliers lead to the 15.8 million in funding.

And then the other adjustments below relate to technical adjustments that the legislature made in a variety of on line items and how they ripple through our own circumstances.

So we had modeled, we had been telegraphed that there would be a much larger pension increase than was expected.

The legislature and the retirement system were able to adjust that and so given that any changes to the pension have an outsize effect on us because of the way we fund positions When good things happen, it's a net gain.

This is a one-time issue, but we'll take whatever we can get.

There were increases for maintenance supplies and others.

Transportation, the one area where we did get a gain was for alternative transportation by setting up a safety net.

Fund for that as well, for transportation that isn't yellow school buses, but alternative, usually passenger car transportation.

The cost of living adjustment that the legislature made was smaller than we had built into our model based on the governor's proposal.

So while those increases Our net cost for us, it being smaller, made it not as big a net cost for us.

With the exception of our collective bargaining agreement with the Seattle Education Association, the structure of that agreement is the State adjustment or 4 percent whichever is greater so that line represents a delta between the 3.7 and the 4 and how that ripples through our system.

There again where medical rate cost increases but not quite as big as we had modeled and then other miscellaneous adjustments.

So the net of all that is the.

The shaded line at the bottom, it's the net of where we landed, which was $12.3 million to the good relative to our pessimistic look after we banalized the governor's budget that we would be 2.5 million worse off.

And so that guesses the net of 14.7, which again is really good news.

And thank you all for the help.

Can we go back up to special education percent increase to 15 percent?

What would we have if they had gotten rid of the cap entirely?

Which is what I think all of us wanted to have happen since the cap has no reasonable basis in logic or otherwise.

I can't answer our rate but maybe Dr. Pedroza or Director Sebring.

I don't have that answer.

I think 15 covers where we are or pretty close but that doesn't mean that there should be that doesn't mean there should be a cap but from I think we live pretty close within 15 percent at the moment.

I was just going to add that it's it's however many students we have that qualify for IEPs over over the 15 percent which right now I think is like 15.2 in SPS.

Spokane is somewhere in the ballpark of 18 percent I think.

So it's it's significant not as significant as the I mean the multiplier increase helped districts out a lot and the lifting of the cap certainly did some more significantly than others.

Some states many states actually have a mechanism by which if you qualify for an IEP the state funds it.

There's no limit because.

IEP is under federal law for access to basic education.

So there isn't a limit because the limit is just it's more of a reimbursement model.

And again while this was a good session and we made great strides we still have a lot of work to do but take the win and we have to keep moving from there.

And I think we had Dr. Pedroza was going to facilitate general questions and then we can take specific questions as well since our last break.

And I do want to provide additional information, so this will be actually a precursor to the next session after this, which is on central office costs and reductions.

I just want to share that one of the things I want to share, because this has been brought up in the previous sessions, is when we started this engagement with central office in early December, Dr. Jones gave us, all of us, when we were looking at our 15% to really prioritize There's three big bodies of work when we do our cuts, and I wanted to make sure that that was answered.

One, goals and guardrails.

Number one, priority.

So when we're looking at cuts, ensuring that we could still uplift the goals and guardrails in the work that we're currently doing.

And I know this, and I'm not saying this because this is in my mind, because this is what I shared with all of my team as well, because they are the leaders of the goals, right?

So making sure that we were looking at that.

What were the strategic initiatives, right?

Inclusionary practices, all of the key initiatives, holding those as a second tier priority.

And then third, all the contracts with our contract agreements, our labor partners, as well as our state and district policies.

So just want to share that with you because we talk about targeted universal and universal design.

So when we designed our budget cuts, we did that with those three priorities.

As key in the very beginning starting in December when we're looking at those reductions through up until December to March and we reviewed it many many times.

We analyzed it so I wanted to make sure that this board understood that and community understood that as well when we made those central office reductions.

That it was really done intentionally.

And we are still gonna be analyzing those impacts further, but I wanna make sure I shared that with the board.

And so in light of that, I just wanna, that was the question that I wanted to have this information because, so how does what, we're gonna do another whip around, how does what we presented today connect to the board goals and guardrails, generally, in your mind?

So I'm just gonna give you a minute to think about that question.

And then we'll go to the next question, which is what are potential challenges we need to consider moving into the next budgeting process for 24-25, okay?

So just think about those questions and then I'm gonna start actually with the first question.

How does what we presented connect to the board goals and guardrails?

Generally, I'm gonna start with, actually you have the mic.

Yeah I wanted to go because I'm actually going to leave because I have to know that Lisa's back because I have a flight to catch.

Go ahead and then we'll move around that way then.

You want me to answer the first question first.

You can answer the other one.

I think the big challenge moving into the next budgeting process is aligning a really clear direct connection to how.

I guess sort of how are we going to rebuild in a way that is consistent that is has an eye towards the most efficient effective way to deliver the services Even at a reduced funding, meaning not spending beyond our means, but if we really do this appropriately, what does it look like?

And keeping those goals and guardrails, but also in that process, defining that well-resourced school.

What does that actually look like?

And there's only so much information we have right now.

And just even in listening to you talking about that.

Well I'm not supposed to go on a tangent but so yeah that's my answer to that question.

I will leave it to the other directors to answer connection to goals and guardrails because I'm struggling with that and I'm going to Head off and try to.

And I apologize.

It's unfortunate we have two directors out not within their control.

So I apologize that we're going to be down to four directors but we will still have a quorum.

So Director Rankin is going to take over facilitating.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I saw the question and I actually pulled up the golden guardrails just to cross check there and see if I could make some connections.

And I really can't honestly.

So I'm not seeing how they're directly or I guess even generally related to our golden guardrails.

I'm leaning I guess the most if anything towards the guardrail number two the superintendent will not allow operational systems to deliver unreliable services service.

So I'm hoping that that was used in deciding what to cut and where to cut to do so while still maintaining and holding to that guardrail.

And I guess obviously I'll make the assumption for all the goals that these cuts and decisions were made to assure that we can still fund the goals and guardrails.

But I'm not seeing that per se.

So maybe that's something you guys could flesh out later.

But that's the best I can do.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

Goals and guardrails.

We have to figure out what a well resourced school is.

We've been bandying this term around.

We.

Move our pendulum back and forth school based district based system of school school system.

And towards that end we have got to take a look at the weighted staffing standards.

They're not fair.

They're not transparent.

And that's absolutely student focused.

Thank you.

Director Song Maritz.

I touched upon this and the last round we did but I'm still wondering about the risk to operational integrity.

So tying it to specifically Garble to we just did a we just had our memo presented and the two interim metrics were around staffing on the first day of school and the second one was on time bus transportation so My wonder is the budget adjustments that we have made, how will they impact those two interim metrics?

Are there any risks associated?

What can we do to mitigate those risks?

In terms of potential challenges we need to consider, And I brought this up several times.

I am concerned about special education.

We are, you know, prior to the legislative session, we were in $90, $100 million deficit relative to how much the state funds.

The overall budget deficit is $131 million.

So that is the biggest driver.

And, you know, the challenge is, is that I think Probably we can expect that in an environment of declining enrollment, that ratio is just going to increase above the 15%.

And knowing that what we have bargained with changes to the CBA collapsing the two service models, we already are doing deficit spending, this is going to be the biggest challenge, in my opinion, around the 24-25 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I would say what was presented connects very broadly and generally to goals and guardrails in just in the sense that there was a prioritization of preserving buildings and that's where the students are.

Once we drill down any further level I would say it doesn't.

And that's not meant to be a criticism.

I know we're in this like shift right and I don't expect all of a sudden everything to be you know I know this is a large ship that takes steering but I will I hope and expect that Moving into next year's budget lens is more of that direct connection.

This is sort of a right now fix, thinking to the future, but there's not time to make wholesale changes to the way education is delivered or to even think about the ways in which they might be.

But that's the bulk of the budget.

It's like, what, 85%?

of our budget is staffing costs.

And so if we're not looking at ways to ensure that all of those costs are aligned with that we have the right people in the right positions to support student outcomes that is If this was my household budget and I was addressing the money that we spend on movie tickets and the money that we spend on gas and not looking at can we still afford our mortgage, that would be We have to still live in our house, right?

So that might be what you want to wait.

But at some point, you have to say, can we still afford this house?

And do we need to think about making a change in order to still be able to go to the movies and pay for gas?

I mean, the movies, that's not a very good example.

But you know all the other things and that I think is what the conversation about a well resourced system of schools is well resourced system of schools is not wishes and dreams.

Money is going to drop out of the sky or the legislature because we know that it's not.

It's more about reeve like how do we.

Accept the resources that we have and see where there are ways that we could make different choices to maximize those resources.

And so that is I think what the goals and guardrails are shifting us towards that at least of the board that higher level thinking of instead of you know why did it cost this much for you know that exterior paint for those three schools to say I want to see movement on student outcomes and the other the how is is up to you all.

But but here's what's important.

So that's you know and I don't I didn't expect necessarily to see that but that's where I want to see the shift happening towards.

And I think I've said this before not I know I've said this before not not how do we look at our budget and have less or more of some things but how do we build back up How do we kind of free ourselves from things that we think are set in stone that are actually not?

To make sure that we can meet the needs of students, provide safe, welcoming working environments for the adults and meet the goals.

And I think sometimes we have a lot of constraints and then sometimes I think we make constraints for ourselves that Maybe we could free ourselves from just by kind of shifting our thinking.

I think that's what this whole thing is about.

So potential challenges moving into the next budgeting process I think is that much more difficult conversation about what does happen in buildings and if If money is being invested in buildings in ways that produces student outcomes.

And then also that we have this kind of duality where people say oh reduce central office reduce central office and then say why isn't the district doing X.

That's the district support is going to come from central office.

So if central office is a skeleton crew We don't have those supports to provide to students and educators out in our buildings.

And so I think that's going to be a really big challenge is just the balance and helping folks understand that We are all the district and in fact that the most I would argue most important part of the district is the teachers that are in the classrooms with our students.

And so when we start talking about the about what's happening in building is it something separate from central offices that it's not it's not helpful.

It's not helpful but I think it's also.

Easy especially in a scarcity mindset it's easy to get into trying to figure out whose whose fault.

Oh it's the parents are too demanding.

Oh the kids are badly behaved.

Oh the teachers don't want to do X Y Z. Oh central office is incompetent.

That's really easy.

And we can't do it because it's easy to do and it's really hard to get what we what everybody needs out of that, especially the children, because then it becomes about adult problems and we're all here for kids.

I think that's going to be the biggest challenge is just kind of like Helping people understand that these are that what decisions this board and the next board future boards will have to make won't necessarily be about whether or not we want to accept the fact that there's a budget deficit.

We have to accept that.

The choices that we have to make is within that what are we going to do to do the best that we can for the kids and for everybody that serves the kids.

So I would say I would go back to I think I mentioned before about ruthlessness and ruthlessness.

I don't mean let's take away arts from everybody.

That's that's just stupidity.

That's cruelty.

Actually ruthlessness I mean being really honest with ourselves and each other about what is and isn't supporting our children.

And being willing to make the changes and willing to admit hey we tried this thing it's actually not doing what we thought it was going to do or you know it's not like actually X group of kids or X school really needs this not this.

We have to be ruthless and be brave enough to say when we're when something is not serving our students because that's our number one job.

Thank you.

I just want to make sure that I know some of you just answered the first question.

If anyone wanted to answer the second question what are the potential challenges we need to consider moving into the next budgeting process.

If somebody wanted to answer that I want to make sure you had the floor to do that.

Director Harris.

Trying to connect my dots here.

I recall way back when and you were around madam when we had budget conversations like this.

One of the things we did to prioritize our values was if we get more money what would we spend it on.

What would we bring back.

Because one can hope and pray that we're not always going to be in a deficit situation.

So what comes back first is it you know FIFO or LIFO here accounting wise first in first out last in first out.

What's more important to our values to the students.

And that's a really difficult conversation.

And it's a little game of thrones.

But I think it's worth having.

Thank you.

Does anyone else want to add anything?

All right I will pass this to Deputy Podesta.

Thank you council.

If we could move on to the next slide.

And one more actually with this this section is about central office cuts and Dr. Pedroza did a great job of describing kind of the values that Superintendent Jones was very clear about giving leadership in the district as they approached any reductions adjustments you know what what they need to preserve and how they need to articulate Either links to our strategic goals or impacts on students.

So we started the process with identifying where we felt there was discretion flexibility in the part of departments so functions that were not legally required or not really spelled out in contracts particularly collective bargaining agreements or other types of contracts where we had a commit a commitment that we couldn't dissolve.

And so an initial target of 15 percent of that flexible amount not across the board for the department but to the extent that some departments have more flexibility than others.

And again division leaders were asked to preserve resources for students support the strategic plan when division leaders came and talked to the whole cabinet and presented Their ideas and that was a question they were all asked.

And again Linda has referenced the 34,000 light items in this budget and people looked all over the place.

So it is it's difficult to just synthesize.

So what happened across all those things because people found a little bit here a little bit there.

They made adjustments in programs they looked at their historical spending.

Where could they make adjustments?

So it's not an easy task to synthesize that into something that we could all digest in a week if we were all sitting here.

And then we keep saying reductions and we should use that term advisedly because what we're saying is reductions to general fund expenses.

So finding other ways to pay.

It's not always that we stopped doing something.

We found another way to pay for it either It would be grant eligible, so we could move something to a grant.

The capital fund, we've talked about a temporary ability we had in a budget proviso that allowed us to shift certain typically non-capital expenses to capital, but we did that everywhere we could find it.

We looked carefully, we asked managers, think about, is this really a legitimate capital expense?

Does it have to stay on the general fund?

Everywhere we could, we looked at, you know, in our CT budget, any budget that was non-general fund, are we charging our capital program appropriately?

Are we charging any enterprise funds we have appropriately to make sure that we could relieve pressure on the general fund?

So that was our first push of this that we started in December.

Fred, that's like an acronym, enterprise funds.

What the heck does that mean?

An enterprise fund, in us it's culinary services.

It's funds that we get revenue dedicated to that.

And is there any place, those are the kinds of questions we ask.

Is there any pressure that, Culinary services is putting on the general fund that could come from the revenues associated with culinary services.

And that's a true enterprise fund in our accounting system.

But there are other things like that where we have revenue sources that are not general fund.

Can we leverage those?

So it's not really a minor point that you'll see that some of this is because we're asking ourselves, well, is this a reduction and what was the impact if it went to another available funding source that wasn't Under the same amount of stress as the general fund, perhaps there is no reduction in service.

So it's important we keep saying reduction, but to understand what that means.

And then after we did the initial, asked division leaders for the original 15%, I'm glad we did this, we rethought, well, is there any path that wouldn't liquidate the economic stabilization fund?

So then we went back to the well and said, okay, now thank you very much, we need to find And there we were really asking for folks to think about are there things that could be re-engineered, other kinds of reductions.

We all had a target of what the number we were looking for, but it wasn't assigned by departments like the original part.

And fortunately we did do that because even though we are liquidating the economic stabilization fund, we needed that extra push of 7 million to get us to the target that we had.

If we could advance the slide please.

— Fred real quick I was I've been reminded that we were over time right now so I want to know what the pleasure of the board is.

This we do think this is still really important stuff.

I don't know what your time constraints are and what what would you like us to kick over to May 10th perhaps but we can we can keep rolling until you all don't have time to until you run out of time.

So I just want to see what the board's pleasure is in terms of continuing this.

Chair Rankin.

What do we estimate we have yet to go over.

I'm personally fine with another 20 minutes to seven if other I mean I would be fine with more than that but I'm not the best person to ask because time and I have a tenuous relationship.

Is seven OK.

Everybody.

OK.

Thank you.

Staff.

Staff is that OK.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you for it.

Thank you.

I will try to pick up the pace.

And you've seen this information before that just breaks it and it got and this is the data that we presented last time so the numbers Need to be adjusted a little bit but the point here is gives you a relative sense of scale on a division basis and also illustrates the point that two-thirds roughly of what we're broadly calling a reduction represents a reduction that we're spending less and a third is shifting to a non-general fund source and so Look at this at your leisure, but it's just good to see how the adjustments played out and then relative to the overall budget, not just the flexible budget that a division had.

So if we could go to the next slide, we'll lay out the major strategies in operating costs.

Certainly.

Additional work on program reductions elimination slash pausing of central activities to achieve the additional seven million dollar cost reduction.

What program reductions are we slicing here.

In the you know so things that we.

We're more line item oriented with the 15 percent.

I'm trying to think of an example again.

There are different.

That was the request.

I don't want to read about it in the newspaper.

I guess it's the biggest piece here.

And again program reduction here is really speaking on the kind of financial term of art of program.

So an example that Linda reminded me of is we look through our Cell phone charges and felt you know this could be managed better and made a kind of across the board decision across the central office.

Getting rid of the way that this is written.

It's good and vague.

We're not getting rid of several of our departments if you will.

This is strictly financial programming.

This is not something that is going to necessarily affect students.

Again you know you see where we focused and I'll answer that question in a slightly different way in a future slide but no these are not programs that are being offered out in the world they're kind of financial programs the way we think of them you know.

Again telecom reductions is a good example.

We combined operations and purchasing and our distribution services.

And what really what Dr. Jones requested folks to do when we took a second bite of the apple was Don't think at the line item level.

Think about how you all can collaborate and see if we can collapse things and find efficiencies.

You know go back and identify things frankly that well maybe you can't get it done this year but with enough lead time we can start penciling it in for 24 25. But yeah we'll work on that language.

This is not meant to convey educational program.

Thank you.

Thanks for the question.

The 33 million in total adjustment relative to the 441 million, that's about 7.5%.

So it didn't quite hit the 15% target.

Is that because the 15% target is actually over two years?

The 15% was 15% of where we believe departments have discretion.

Please correct me if I'm misreading this, Linda.

What we're showing there is against the total budget.

So how much did you reduce even relative to your division budget?

And we had already discounted things where you had no discretion.

You had a labor contract that we have to honor.

And so that wasn't part of the target that was set.

Have I said that correctly?

So a quick example on that is the finance division.

This is a percentage against their entire budget, but a third of the finance division is our insurance cost.

And it was taken out of the equation before they went after 15% because it's not something we can cut.

So it's examples like that.

And I apologize.

Some of the percentages at the bottom, that 21.1 is should be crossed out because that was some costs across the entire district not just within that division like the cell phones that Fred mentioned.

I think I'm having trouble understanding the additional seven million is that so the 18 million that's on a previous slide is the seven million in that 18 million.

The 7 million is in the 33. When we started this discussion in the fall, last fall, we were saying we're going to look to cut from the central office 25 million or 26 million and then We started this process and said, you know, we probably should look for more.

And so that became 33 million, of which we found 31.8, if I'm remembering my math correctly.

So we just moved the goalposts for central office leaders to say, oh, we need to find more.

Two more questions.

So if we look at the general counsel adjustments, I'm just curious, how much risk is there to that?

Because litigation is really a moving target.

So I don't know if you have done any risk analysis because it's a pretty big chunk of their budget.

You know that came from the legal department thinking about what they could do in house, how they use outside counsel.

We'll see this in contract fees yes.

There's a certain amount of weather forecasting in litigation expenses and so they participated but there is risk for costs that whether it's What percentage of students that we have above the cap.

There are things that we can't control and budget is a plan.

The last question I have is around the kind of process when it came to staff adjustment.

So I know in the school building level we're talking with the BLT you use the racial equity tool and I'm wondering if there's something similar that you also used in thinking about staffing at the central office.

Yes, in terms of people thought of the demographics of their team, how they face the public, and again, our strategic priorities to see if in terms of maintaining diversity across the central office and the impacts that this would have as far as delivering services to students furthest from educational justice, It's a big number in terms of three dozen people is a lot of people in a lot of positions.

Some of these were vacant.

Relative to the overall staffing there's only a certain amount of little room in making these decisions and first and foremost it had to be about the body of work and how the body of work affects equity for the district but those were certainly factors that were thought about.

If we could advance the slides please.

So in terms of non-staff costs, these are the major categories we've talked about and we'll go into a bit of detail in transportation efficiencies.

This is an area where efficiencies is the right word.

This is not by and large a reduction in service.

Back to the points that Dr. Jones reinforced at the top of the meeting.

I think we all with the proposal last year about moving to a three tier bell time I think everyone gave direction the board included that Is there another way to find the same efficiencies?

And I really think we should celebrate the great work of the Transportation Department that really put their heads together to find a way to continue to deliver the service.

And being the simple-minded person I am, I tell them, well, you just still need to find the same number.

We were looking for a target before, and please find another way to get something at that scale or larger.

We looked through lots of contracts to see where are we really spending money, where could we bring things in house to find contract, reduce contract services across the district.

People looked at supply budgets.

We looked at the strategic plan, had a funding plan from very early on in the first adoption of the strategic plan.

There was COVID, there were other shifts that made in the plan along the way.

So that team looked at, so what are we actually using here?

What were some original assumptions that involve non-staff resources that didn't shift with our strategies?

Do we have flexibility there?

And again, this is the area where we're looking at every line item, see what makes sense, what doesn't make sense.

The last one, the school rebate energy efficiency a long time ago, that was about how schools operated buildings.

Now we're getting energy efficiency by doing things in how we build buildings.

Having this incentive, it wasn't really effective anymore, so we were looking everywhere.

We want to drill down a bit into the transportation efficiency, because it's the single biggest line item in terms of an adjustment to operations in this whole plan, and since it affects students, Bev Redmond and Public Affairs and her team have been great partners with transportation, so we've kind of, the Transportation Department has kind of adopted her.

So I'm going to ask her to talk about the transportation changes.

I appreciate the confidence in making me the transportation department's muse tonight.

So as Fred mentioned we are certainly looking at the largest area in our efficiencies within the transportation department.

And while Dr. Jones said we are not going three-tier, we're talking about improving our two-tier service and our routing.

And our teams began looking strategically for regional analysis and really going deep in terms of what they were doing and researching to come up with the efficiencies.

I may see some people telling me to move closer to my mic.

Oh, sorry.

Switch slide.

Okay.

And to come up with some alternatives.

So what we're looking at in terms of the slide taking a look at how to minimize that impact but still gain that efficiency.

We've come up with a solution that will impact a minimal amount of schools we believe impacting the start times and end times by switching the tiers of 12 a total of 12 elementary and K-8 schools.

So again minimizing that particular impact but moving from tier to tier to get that efficiency and by doing so that would save 35 buses and I believe I learned the word controls if I'm right listening to everyone save 35 bus buses for a total of 4.5 million in terms of savings moving on through to our Our nonstandard routes we would call those shuttles.

Looking at high school and middle school routes that are not included in our current transportation service standards.

So this is outside of what we guarantee as a norm.

And that would yield us about 1.8 million in savings and then also looking at increasing inclusive transportation for students with IEPs again four hundred thousand dollars in savings.

If we could go into the next slide to look at the detail.

What we're preparing to communicate to our families because this is an open meeting as soon as you put something on the screen it is so and people will have questions.

There will be information that needs to be shared.

So as soon as we close this meeting tomorrow there will be a communication going out to our families district wide.

That explains what this is and what the essence of tonight's meeting will be and following that on Friday to the schools those 12 schools that will be switching those tiers we will communicate to those individuals schools and families as well.

So in terms of what we're looking at you're talking about a shift of start time so.

You're either going from 855 to 755 or the reverse 755 to 855. The length of the school day and I want this to be super super clear.

The length of the school day remains the same.

said one of my favorite words is saying and I repeat the length of the school day remains the same.

You're talking about shifting tiers and start times.

Also just want to reiterate what we're going to be doing in terms of communication.

We've been working with our child care partners and our building leaders already pre-stocking them with this information so that they don't get a gut punch by seeing it on the screen tonight.

So that advanced work has been done.

And we have I would say they have been incredibly gracious incredibly wonderful to work with us on this and work with the transportation team and the public affairs team going through the cadence another one of our favorite words in terms of communication certainly tonight is one of those big steps because this is going out not only over teams but also out on YouTube.

We're also going to do that that district wide recap tomorrow again following up on Friday.

And we are certainly looking to host another information session because people will have questions.

What does this mean?

How does this work?

How will we be impacted?

Putting up our teams that work most closely with the decisions and the information so that they can have that direct contact.

Again, we'll be in touch with the families to let them know when that next session will be to come out and hear that information or using it virtually for those who cannot Perhaps make an in-person meeting so maybe looking at a hybrid approach but more details to come on that.

Also want to lift up because I don't know that we'll get there before the end of today's session that information sharing is the precursor to community engagement.

It's part of that cycle.

So making sure that people have our families have that fact based information solid and grounded makes the open conversations much more easy.

When we begin to start talking about that well resourced school that they will have that confidence to come back to the table at another time when we can have that that idea exchange.

So that's a little bit about our transportation changes.

And I'll give it back to Fred.

Yes.

Actually I'll try to be brief.

I just wanted to take a second and express extreme gratitude for the transportation department and for this for doing this work.

And for this is kind of actually the perfect example of.

My definition of ruthlessness and what it takes to really examine, okay, the way it has been done is not the way it has to continue to be done.

Where are changes that we can make?

And even though it may be uncomfortable or awkward or something new like to me I know I know schools are impacted and there will be just some disruption there and folks will have to adjust their schedules.

I don't want to discount that at all.

But this to me is a really perfect example of the kinds of shifts that the kinds of way that we need to thinking about how we create this system of well resourced schools because this is a solution that maintains The very clear priorities of community, of not having times move earlier, of not having elementary schools have two hours apart of start times.

So it maintains that thing that was so clearly very important.

Because it would be, we could say, yeah, three tiers is less expensive than two tiers.

We're just going to do three tiers.

That's the wrong kind of ruthlessness.

When I'm talking about ruthlessness, I'm talking about ruthlessness for ourselves, not towards other people.

The ruthlessness of being willing to be critical and examine our own, what we each have our own authority over and how we can make changes, even if we don't maybe want to, but how we can make changes in service of students and in service of creating a system that will support the district as a whole.

And that to me is what this does, is being honest about, hey, we're providing some one-off transportation That maybe at the time they were started were necessary.

Now bus lines have changed.

There's more access for those students.

This is a service that people definitely I'm sure like.

I'm sure there will be people who are frustrated or disappointed that like oh my older child had this bus and how come my younger child doesn't.

It's because things change and they have to change.

But that is very different from how do we, we have made a commitment to transport children to school who cannot otherwise get there.

That is untouchable.

We have to continue to do that.

But being brave enough and willing enough to look at like, oh hey, actually, these things that were necessary at one time, There's other opportunities to achieve that same end which is getting the students to school.

We no longer need to maintain this additional thing even though people do appreciate it and like it.

And also with the inclusive transportation for students with IEPs I would say like saving four hundred thousand dollars is awesome.

But what's even better to me is that students who do not have specific transportation needs will be riding the bus with their peers.

And that's worth way more than $400,000.

And that's the kind of student focused lens that I think as we're moving through this that willingness to say okay instead of less or more of what we already had what would different look like and what we could do what could we do still center students and our values and and You guys did it.

And I'm not pretending it's going to go off without a hitch and everything's going to be perfectly smooth and everybody's going to be super happy with it.

But from the high level, this is such a reasonable solution.

Oh, sorry.

So if I may, I'd like to stop here.

I know this is abrupt, but folks have to go and we're going to lose quorum.

But also, I just want to say I hear you on an organizational agility.

You want to know that we're focused on students.

You want to see the alignment with the goals and guardrails.

We want to make sure that there's operational integrity.

Those are all things that we'll try to work through to make sure that we have some solid answers for.

So when we come back next time, we'll pick up where we left off and then we'll go right into our other big ticket item, if you will, our special education cost.

And so thank you for being attentive today.

Hopefully this was fruitful and informative and we took a lot of notes to know that and so we'll follow up accordingly.

Director Rankin, do you want to have any parting direction?

I was just going to ask before I adjourn us, just for confirmation, if folks have questions between now and next week, should we send them to the board office, send them to you, use the form?

I guess are you accepting of questions between now and the 10th.

Ideally we'd use the board office format and then they can collate and sift and distribute them to us.

We don't need to like wait for stuff on the 10th.

Just send it.

Yeah please.

Just making sure because it's sort of two parts.

OK thank you so much.

Thank you.

There being no further business on the agenda this meeting stands adjourned at 7 0 3 p.m.