School Board Meeting September 4, 2019 Part 1

Good afternoon.

Welcome to the Seattle School Board Board of Director legislative meeting for September 4th 2019 first day of school.

And before we begin we'd like to acknowledge and honor the First Peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on land of the Coast Salish Tribes.

Roll call please.

Director Geary Here Director Burke Here Director Harris Present Director Pinkham Here Director Mack Here Director DeWolf Here

And if everyone who chooses to would like to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Given that it is the first day of school we have no student performance today.

Madam Superintendent.

Technical difficulties.

The floor is yours.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- All right.

Thank you.

And welcome back to school.

It was a great great day.

I'll talk about that in a bit.

But before I start I do want to welcome our new chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver to our team.

Greg is another great steal from the city of Seattle and we're so fortunate to have his leadership and wealth of experience.

So thank you Greg for joining us and being a part of the team.

We get to have started the school with the launch of the strategic plan.

Today our tens of thousands of students entered our classrooms.

Families shared their most valuable resource with us.

Their sons daughters grandkids nieces and nephews and so we're so honored to have their trust in our system each and every day.

The importance of this work is never lost on me.

We help build the hopes and dreams of these families and we have the obligation to do right by each of them.

Their futures are counting on it on us.

As you all know these are the three areas of focus going into this year third grade reading welcoming environments culturally responsive professional practice.

We opened the doors to 104 schools across Seattle today.

All including the middle and high schools have been charged with supporting the work To make certain that all of our third graders are reading at or above grade level by third grade and this is a big lift for our district but everybody's been asked to find their place in that goal.

A team made up of central office and school staff worked all summer on start of school issues and I want to thank Wyeth Jessie and Fred Podesta and their teams for their collaboration on this project.

It's a huge huge lift to make sure they're meeting every day and it's just important to know that the silos and central office continue to come down around a lot of different types of work particularly with this team made up of staff from facilities capital transportation HR budget school ops CAI all work through a punch list of over a hundred items to make sure all classrooms were ready All right Nemo.

They've worked through a punch list of over a hundred items to make sure all classrooms are ready for learning today.

Members of this team are also responsible for opening Magnolia Lincoln Ingram and Queen Anne.

Thank you to all who helped create those spaces to ensure that learning could happen.

I know a lot of you were at those ribbon cuttings they were really awesome community turning out so happy about their new learning spaces.

Our wonderful director of nutrition services Aaron Smith all of you have seen he's been getting some great accolades across the city which means that we continue to hire the very best.

He invited Fred Podesta and me to speak to his team as they prepare to greet students.

Mr. Smith grounded the nutrition services providers day of training and racial equity and welcoming environments.

I shared how important their role is. to support our students well-being and Mr. Podesta expressed his gratitude to them for teaching students how to be and just be like in the lunchroom and with each other which is just as important as knowing how to read.

Their work is tied to the strategic plan.

All staff across this district know that they we must all find our place in that.

And so I'm excited to see the changes Mr. Smith has planned for the upcoming school year.

As you know our educators returned to work this week.

Gail Sellhorst the arts manager invited me and Parker who is an eighth grader from Pathfinder to kick off the event for all visual and performing arts teachers.

Parker was a super hard act to follow.

Parker was there to talk about making sure that we are making transgender students visible in our system and the importance of that.

They students like Parker continue to speak their truths and we must listen learn and act.

The rest of the day was focused on the strategic plan and third including third grade reading.

And throughout the day Miss Selhorst grounded the work in racial equity and I just want to thank Gail and her team as well.

Now one thing that I was fortunate to do last week was meet Superintendent Forbes Forbes Bottomley.

He was the first Seattle superintendent from Montana who served in Seattle Public Schools and he served from 1965 to 1973. He's 98 years old.

According to archives he was confronting similar issues in 1968 that we are trying to address today in 2019. He and some teacher colleagues introduced a publication called The Role of Racial Minorities in the United States.

It was a book aimed to correct general ignorance about how people of color participated in and contributed to American society.

The book was prepared specifically for the Seattle Public Public School District's desegregation program.

Points developed in the book included the fact that an African-American was the first to die in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and that 2000 African-Americans fought in the American Revolution.

Dr. Bottomley said it is just the beginning but it should be based used by all teachers to supplement and correct the inadequacies of present courses and texts in recognition of the contributions of persons of all minority races.

And so I just thought it was really phenomenal to sit down with him and hear his story and just reflect on the idea that we are still fighting these same fights and even though we have a bold new strategic plan these issues continue And that we are you know it's that true statement of the arc of history is long.

And here was a guy who was doing that similar work.

And so it was just really nice to hear him and sit down with him and to kind of talk with a piece of living history.

He has some good stories about Montana and his transition to Seattle as well.

Hopefully I'll be 98 someday and still be able to meet with somebody someday.

That concludes my remarks.

Thank you President Harris.

DIRECTOR HARRISON Okay.

We are at board committee reports.

However most of our committees reported out just a week ago But perhaps the chair of A&F can report on the quarterly audit meeting of yesterday kind sir.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF That I can.

A&F did have their quarterly A&F meeting last night.

Board members Gary Mack and Harris were in attendance appreciate President Harris definitely showing up.

She's not on the assigned committee but having her there to be part of the conversation is much appreciated.

I want you to know that.

During the meeting we did have our Andrew Medina our internal auditor present his internal audit update.

We did.

Say we had approved it but he did notice that notify us that he will make some additions because he still wants to meet some with some of the small cabinet members to look at some issues and but then again as our finance committee members we can accept any changes that he makes and he'll present them to us and we'll make sure we do that in the proper order that needs to be done.

Most of the stuff that we discussed at the A&F were actually things that we're looking at closing.

I appreciate all the work of our Staff here at the John Stanford building.

Guess the one thing that for me that kind of stood out were still some ongoing issues about site councils PTA's PTO's we're looking at addressing how the communication between those organizations and the schools that they work with go making sure transactions are following proper protocols and procedures and I see this hopefully leading to that we do have something that schools will know to follow so we.

Contract how.

Funds sometimes flow into schools through those organizations and again for the benefit of everyone that's involved.

We also had some discussion with.

I'm sorry blanking here.

You have the issue that we're looking at.

Fiber optics yes and how we try looking at the money coming in there because we do get a credit through the Seattle.

City of Seattle and.

Where does that credit go to and stuff and we are looking to get some more feedback on that hopefully as soon as the October meeting to see what we can do with and making sure those funds are being tracked correctly.

Others that just feel like are again the projects that we're closing out some things that we feel that we need to be addressed and the agendas online if there's anything that people have questions about you know it's a public document please look at it and make some comments.

Director Mack you had some updates.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Yeah I just wanted to quickly touch on we we have our Ops meeting tomorrow and the agenda is now posted.

There's a lot of construction bars coming through because we have a lot of work going on which is great.

But I also just wanted to mention that we're going to be having an update on the start of school including current enrollment numbers etc.

So that'll be interesting and also an update on how transportation went and The initial report that I'm hearing is that we've had less than 1 percent late buses.

So out of 600 and some odd buses only seven were late this morning.

And I know there's still which is this is huge success.

And I'm super excited about that.

It sounds like they're that we're not suffering from the same driver shortage we were before and I'm sure You know I kept hearing on social media that there's little glitches where maybe people weren't catching the stop or just there you know there's still glitches that folks are dealing with but my understanding is that those are getting resolved through customer service and being handled really well.

So I'm really I just major shout out to our team for a great start of school with the buses.

Additionally tomorrow we're going to be talking about the process and timeline for community engagement around student assignment and boundaries.

So that'll give a context for the timeline for that process for the next school year.

This one's already adopted but it'll be for the next school year and I think our goal is to adopt that those by November and we're also Getting an update on the Advanced Learning Task Force and their work and how that ties into the student assignment planning around those topics.

And additionally just for FYI there is a work session two work sessions of the board related to both of those topics advanced learning and student assignment transition and boundaries on September 25th.

And work sessions are here.

They are public that they don't have testimony provide we don't have public testimony at those meetings.

And also brief update on legislative work that we are starting to talk about our legislative agenda for the Seattle School District.

Additionally WASDA is having their legislative assembly both Jill and I plan to be there that's in a couple of weeks on the 26th of September.

And.

So we'll be moving forward on on those things.

Oh it'll be coming the our legislative agenda will be coming through the executive committee in the October meeting.

So if you're interested in that that's where it'll be.

Thanks.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Director Geary please.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Okay.

CNI's next meeting will be on September 10th 4 30 to 6 30. A lot of the same things that we're still trying to finalize.

From last spring we're going to be looking at a board action report around the selection and adoption of instructional materials policy 2015. Yay.

It's been a long time coming.

I'm going to give a lot of thanks to Director Burke for his continued input and work and to.

Former Chief Kyle Pinochet who up until his very last day here helped to work on that policy and of course current chief Diane DeBacker.

So it's been definitely a group effort to try and address many of the holes perhaps that we saw in our last adoption.

So that our next one will go more smoothly and everybody will feel that they participated and ultimately ruled upon a process that they believe in.

So I hope that everybody will take a look at that closely and provide us their feedback any last minute but it's it's coming for a vote.

So hopefully that will be smooth sailing.

Special attention items for the meeting will be the summer staircase report.

As.

Director Mack indicated the advanced learning update and there's been a year and a half of hard work from the advanced learning task force around the recommendations that are being put forth and so there's a lot of good information online.

to be presented in committee and this is going to be something that is going to start being we're going to start taking those hopefully taking those recommendations and seeing them put into action in our district in respect for all the work that has gone into that very I have presented a draft of the anti-racism policy to Keisha Scarlett and so at this point I don't want to make it public until we get some input from our expert but that is also moving forward and so I look forward to getting a draft that can be presented to everybody and get input on that.

Our standing agenda items the strategic plan priority high quality instruction learning experiences will be talking about third grade reading levels and on track graduation and college and career readiness.

I did note that yesterday on KUOW that it was mentioned that as that is part of our new strategic plan.

But they seem to think that we weren't clear on our strategies on how to get there.

So I hope that we as a district will put forth quickly to the media the strategies that I do know we have with regard to meeting our goal because we need to be as President Harris would say loud and proud about the work that we're doing on our strategic plan.

We'll be talking about graduation college and career readiness And then the instructional material updates will be the science instructional material adoption how that is going forward.

We're moving forward on ethnic studies and since time immemorial and I know it feels like we keep saying the same thing over and over but.

In order to do something well we need to do it carefully and they are moving forward so hopefully we'll see those implemented at our schools.

So I welcome anybody to come listen and provide feedback to the board through email as you see fit.

Thanks.

DIRECTOR HARRISON- Okay last the next exec committee meeting will be a week from today September 11. Those are from 8 to 10. And at 10 o'clock everybody gets up and leaves.

We'll be talking about our SEA collective bargaining agreement that will be coming back.

We'll be talking about compensation for nonrepresented staff.

We'll be talking about these happy legislative meetings the timing of them whether or not we reserve spaces for our 20 speakers for particular topics.

How we identify student comments and whether or not we ask our students to declare that they are their comments not someone else's written comments that they have been assigned to speak of and to address timing so that we don't have this big gap between when we start at 4 15 then we take a very long break And we start our public testimony at 5 30 and try to give some balance to the difficulties of getting to the John Stanford Center at 4 15 in the afternoon and given our happy construction out front etc.

And also to the folks that have worked here all day and we don't want to keep them here till midnight.

So lots of balancing to be done and then our usual Updates regarding community engagement governmental relations strategic plan executive committee work plans etc.

And this becomes all the more important as we run into the transition period of the next board that will be seated in December 2019. So of interest and again in committees is where.

Most of the mixing of the recipes is done.

By the time it gets to the dais many hands have touched it and thoughtful robust communication sometimes rowdy is had.

So very much encourage your attendance at any community committee meeting and it's it's fascinating process if if you appreciate public policy.

We do not have a student to give us comments this evening.

So now we move to Romans 6 business action items A consent agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda please.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda.

This is just a simple request not debatable.

Director Pinkham.

DIRECTOR PINKHAM Yes I for one actually given that one of them was saying it's updated since introduction I would like to hopefully that we can share those updates.

Number 6 BEX V and distressed school grant approval Before actually in the Westwood the modernization addition project and then down below says updated since introduction I think it'd be good for us to share those updates rather than be on the consent agenda.

And then we do have some commenters public testimony item number four the Loyal Heights elementary school modernization project.

But the other ones I'm not sure how to approach this because they just say school construction modernization and addition projects and that can include just about all that's on the consent agenda from items number 4 through 7.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Would it would it assist you in making a choice to remove from the consent agenda to hear from Chief Podesta.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Yes I assume so.

So right now I would say items four and six but then I'm concerned about number speaker number two.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Sorry to put you on the spot Chief Podesta but I think that a few words might help us here.

4 and 6 but I was talking about speaker number two.

It just says schools construction modernization and addition projects.

And then all these are modernization addition projects that are listed to the consent.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- I don't know that he can determine the intent of something so broad from a speaker.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Yeah and so.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Right now I'm just requesting number four and six.

If that may be enough again I don't know what the speaker is going to address.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Modified since introduction.

We did talk about it the.

Commissioning report and maybe that and that's I think something the speaker wants to speak about.

So I don't know what to say about that and I have to confess.

The revision to item six since introduction escapes me and I don't see it on the bar.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Well you've got time then because it's just been moved.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yeah if it's been moved we'll talk about it then and I'll try to chase that down.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay can I have a motion for the consent agenda as amended with numbers four and six pulled off.

Move approval of consent agenda less items four and six.

Second.

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

That has been moved and passed number four and six will be inserted at C.

And again my colleagues I'm sure will remind me if I forget.

Okay.

So time check here it is. 440. Public testimony starts at 530. Let's go ahead and have our board director reports please.

Who would like to go first.

Director Mack.

I think I had my coffee today.

Not quite ready but.

Well actually I'm just really excited about the start of school and it feels like it went really really well.

My own kiddos buses were on time and.

Kids were happy and yay everybody's back to school.

So a very exciting day.

I have put in requests for meetings for community meetings meeting rooms for my community meetings.

One in a couple of weeks and one in October.

I hadn't scheduled them for a long time.

I have to wait to find out if I actually get the rooms before I post it but those will be forthcoming.

I have a Facebook page that you can search and I'll post there.

It'll also be on the board's website once I get it locked down.

And I just wanted to again thank everyone involved in the four buildings we opened.

Those ribbon cuttings were really amazing.

It was really wonderful to be a part of that.

See.

All of the alumni that came back from for Lincoln.

That building is just amazingly renovated.

It's it's wonderful.

So thank you again for everyone and hopefully you get to take a look at the pictures if you weren't present for the ribbon cuttings and that's all I have.

Happy start of school.

ELLIE WILSON- Next up is Director Burke.

With the short time between meetings there's also short comments.

So I want to begin by celebrating the Lincoln Links.

Yay.

Not wearing a jacket today not wearing a tie just going with the sweatshirt going kind of throwback.

So that was I've had the sweatshirt for a while and don't get to wear it very much and I really wanted to celebrate that.

So two ribbon cuttings Magnolia last Thursday Lincoln yesterday.

Both buildings are absolutely amazing.

They're gorgeous.

They include a historical component.

I was actually walking through Magnolia and I was thinking this smells like the intersection of old house and new building.

And it just made me smile because I'm kind of an old house person but also love new.

So I want to shout out to our artists and craftsmen.

That have made those projects possible.

We are grateful for everyone throughout the system from our community through our you know our educators and students that fill the halls but the the people that use their hands and and turn raw materials into those masterpieces are such to be commended and I'm excited For our work around the student and community workforce agreement to find more ways that we can put our students in those environments and helping with those experiences.

I want to thank Superintendent Juneau for in your report I hadn't realized some of the outreach you had done.

I just want to say thanks for the connecting with the nutrition services team because I think the intersection of the adult relationships and sharing meals is something that can't be underestimated.

So I really appreciate you.

Making that direct leadership connection with them.

Start of schools.

Just based on the indicators in my email inbox this has been since starting my term the knock on wood most uneventful cleanest fewest bumps start of schools.

And so I want to celebrate that publicly from the leadership all the way through the system.

Families community it's a big lift.

And I look forward to hearing at the what Director Mack had spoken about the quantitative data about start a school coming up at a work session.

We had a wonderful meeting actually earlier today that Director Mack and I had with with district staff around the Advanced Learning Task Force and their preliminary results.

or preliminary recommendations.

And I think that for any of my colleagues that have the opportunity to meet I highly recommend that.

This is a lead into our September 25th work session on next steps and policy conversations.

And I think that the.

It was a really rich discussion about how we serve our advanced learners in their attendance area schools but also how do we not disrupt the experiences that they're having now in the existing system.

And that's a there's a lot of challenge a lot of potential polarity around there and those conversations are going to take all of us really leaning in on them.

So keep your eyes on that one.

And in closing.

Heads up about an exciting event that's in the planning stages with the SPS team.

This sort of speaks to what you had inquired about what is what is the I'm not sure how you phrased it but the the the specificity around our strategies for college and career readiness.

This is a subset of that a career connected learning partnership summit.

This is we've Many of us have been to events that have been hosted by other organizations around career and technical experiences or worksite learning experiences that are being championed or the heavy lift is being carried by our partners and we're grateful for that.

A huge amount of work is also happening here in the district to build those into common systems and this is our opportunity to celebrate that to invite partners collaborators educators To hear about the common goals between our K-12 system and what's in post-secondary and to talk about our strategies and initiatives multi-year to get more student experiences in CTE and in worksite learning.

And to really specifically ask our partners outside the district to help us lift those students put them to work in summer jobs help us fund programs offer volunteer staff to help our existing programs sustain provide material supplies and operating either funding or donations of materials.

So there's a lot of different places That the district has intentionally built into its outreach strategies so that multiple different organizations can find a way to connect.

I think probably all of you as directors and many of you in the public have had that experience of the question how can I help.

And the answer is I'm not quite sure.

And so the focus of one of the focus areas of this summit is to figure out.

Let's answer that question.

This is how you can help.

Sign up here and help our students and help our system.

So I'm super excited about that.

Likely end of October.

Still working out exact dates locations.

More information as that becomes available.

And then in closing just to restate my meetings for the rest of my director term have been set now.

September 14th Fremont Library 3 to 5 p.m.

October 12th Greenwood Library 10 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

and November 9th Greenwood Library 3 to 5 p.m.

and other directors as well as staff and obviously the public community are welcome at any and all of those.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HARRISON- Next up is Director DeWolf.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Thank you President Harris.

No I also want to make sure just first as a citizen of the Chippewa Cray Nation of Rockwell Montana.

Just to illustrate that I am grateful to to live and serve here in a city that is the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish people the Muckleshoot Nation and the Suquamish Nation.

We acknowledge them as custodians of this land since time immemorial and as guests and for many of the folks here as settlers on this land we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to their ancestors and elders past present and future.

I also want to just extend some gratitude to the community and SPS for working to bring a resolution to Bailey Gatzert.

I'm excited that our conversations and community meetings this summer yielded positive results for the students families and the whole Gatzert and Yesler community.

And also really excited for Dr. Bruno Cross as the permanent school leader at Seattle World School.

I know that that community has been yearning for a permanent leader and so really grateful that Dr. Bruno Cross was selected and really excited for his leadership there.

As you know we did have a very busy summer.

As kids were out for this summer we were still busy in our D7 appointment process and so I'm looking forward to next week's final community meeting here on Wednesday to do our community forum for the remaining three candidates for to succeed.

Betty Betty Patu thank you at Rainier Beach.

And then also just wanted to elevate the great work from last school year on our student and community workforce agreements.

Applications for the task force are due by this Friday at 6 p.m.

and I excuse me this Friday September 6th by 5 p.m.

and so I look forward to seeing who's looking forward to working with us on the student and community workforce agreements here at Seattle Public Schools.

I am currently working on school visits for the 2019 2020 school year so we'll have some more updates as we as we get to go visit our schools in District 5. And last thing just want to make sure we elevate particularly as we head into a new school year students and community particularly in our emails and other places have been I'm continuing to advocate that we prioritize the completion of policy 2 0 1 5 which is our vehicle for bringing ethnic studies to Seattle Public Schools.

So I hope we begin moving on this critical piece of the puzzle.

And then lastly just wanted to read a story by one of our students from Nathan Hale High School.

Her name is Rachel Smith.

Schmidt I however you say it and it's called Speak Now and it goes like this.

My words my words are too much for your flimsy rules too much for your confining boxes.

My words spill out of my mouth keeping up with my Amtrak of a brain.

My words speaks truth to me to me of me for me not for you to judge or critique for I spent so long with my mouth shut silent keep my thoughts contained in the box society made but I can't do it anymore.

So you see.

Saying Rachel be quiet means nothing to me.

I have the right to speak my mind for you do not know what I've been through.

The thoughts and emotions.

Life I had hidden away.

Snatching the days I should have used to go to carnivals and daydream on hills.

The years I lost to my disease.

Never saying what needed to come out of this mouth.

This big mouth.

My mom telling me to be quiet in church for the preacher is giving me words.

No I won't be quiet anymore.

I deserve you to hear me speak.

Not for your benefit but for the respect of my words.

Know the appreciation of my words.

Know the wild wind in your hair that is the words coming out of this mouth.

I need you to hear me this time in the midst of mania and out the other side.

Hear me speak.

Then only then will I listen to you.

And again this is Rachel Schmidt from Nathan Hale High School.

Director Geary.

Welcome back everybody to our new school year.

I'm excited to sit here for the final three months of my term.

It's hard to contemplate and every board meeting is going to be a reminder that it's one of my last.

So I'm just going to be really centered on what an honor it is and really appreciate these last three months.

Had a great summer took time off really looking forward to seeing how we move forward on our strategic plan.

Really hoping that we share that news across our district and into every building and into every person who continues to the extent that I feel that the work is not being understood in our city.

As fully as it can to the extent that I hear people talk about our district and I feel they're talking about a district that I don't recognize.

I think it's important that we all try and get out there and tell the world about the work that we're doing to focus on our students farthest from educational justice.

And so whether I sit on this board or afterwards I'm going to continue to do that.

I'm excited.

I did mention the anti-racism policy and I'm excited about that.

I'm excited to have something to focus on.

And it seems strange to have so little time and be bringing something so big.

But on the other hand it took that long to understand what we're doing and for us as a district to be even ready to have that conversation I think.

And it's going to be a beautiful dovetail to 0030 and our strategic plan And it's going to make us even focus in more closely in terms of how our systems may be tripping us up in spite of ourselves.

And so hopefully we will put in place processes by which we can really inspect them once they are identified be it structural institutional or personal racism so that we can hold ourselves accountable to the work that we have said that we want to do because it's really hard work much easier to put on paper much harder to address when barriers are exposed.

So I invite everybody as we move forward in that process to Share their thoughts and feelings about that.

So that's going to be my focus.

I think for the last few months that I'm here that and getting and moving forward on the advanced learning task force.

And I want to share some history around that because it was sitting at one of the meetings one of our work sessions where the question was once once again raised what's happening to advanced learning.

And that was early in our tenure and it was really clear to me even after a few months that given the amount of community input that is necessary the care the thoughtfulness getting voices making sure that we're getting voices from all the different corners that it wasn't going to be something that this board was going to do from the dais on our own.

And so I have to say that I'm really proud That once it was identified that that was a really really big body of work that needed to happen and didn't necessarily align or it wasn't so obvious at the time how it aligned with some of the equity work that we were trying to do.

And yet I think many of us in our guts realize that there was a huge intersection and that until we address that advanced learning we were going to continue to come up against a stumbling block in our conversations and how our district operated.

And so we did that we we allowed a task force to be put into place and do its work very carefully over a year and a half.

And that's an immense amount of work and time.

And so I just give that history because it was identified as something that had to happen.

People wanted something to happen right then and there.

And we recognize that that's not how anything that happened under that system would not take.

And we allowed this to happen and we've had our input on the Advanced Learning Task Force over many many months.

And so that's another piece that I'm very proud of and hope to see come to fruition before we who started that process find ourselves off this board.

So I share that.

I will continue to have my Tuesday morning coffee meetings at Zoka the one on Blakely behind the University Village from 8 to 9 30. This month I will do be able to do two of them one on September 10th and one on September 24th.

Should I have to cancel for personal reasons I will post that on Facebook and I will also post events for those on Facebook.

There's usually a pretty good crowd of people these days and really great conversations around.

Education.

So I invite everybody to come sit down.

I hold mine on Tuesday mornings for those who don't have availability on the weekends.

It's the one time during the week pretty regularly that you can have access to a school board member.

So again welcome to the new school year.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Director Pinkham you're up.

DIRECTOR PINKHAM you're up.

I guess first off just welcome everyone back to school.

Hope every the high schools and middle school and elementary except for kindergarten right kindergarten start next week that they had a good start to their school year.

I was with my daughter yesterday as we had the orientation for the Nathan Hale.

So she's now a Nathan Hale Raider and is ready to start playing basketball is what she wants to play.

So again good best luck to everyone.

Good job to the transportation that we saw that.

Wow 1 percent.

Only seven buses.

That was morning.

But still for us to see that on the first day of school I think is just amazing you know that we're making that kind of an improvement and in this students on school on time because I think as one of our.

People have said that if we can't get our kids at school on time you know that's the first and foremost we need our kids in school learning.

So thank you to the transportation departments because I think that success is on you and unfortunately you're also going to look at when things don't work well we won't be we'll be looking at so but first congratulations.

Also congratulations to the new schools that started.

Rick now has his high school in his district ready and rolling and showing the paraphernalia off.

Yeah.

All right.

And I wish I could have made it out to some of the ribbon cuttings but sorry I wasn't able to make it but congratulations to those schools as well.

Also the Urban Avent Education Alliance is kind of doing their annual Billy Mills event and this will be on Sunday.

September 8th from 2 to 4 at Green Lake.

Good chance for people to go out there.

Billy hasn't been running the last few years because he's still kind of recovering but man for.

He just looks fantastic.

He probably because from 2 to 4 Green Lake they meet up just right by the outside the community center that's at Green Lake and.

They have a fun run walk with them so just one trip around the Green Lake and those that run run those up.

Rather just take their time walk but it's just a good time for community.

They plan to hand out some school supplies as well to our new returning school students.

So I encourage people to come out there.

I can't make it.

I got a wedding to attend to this weekend on the other side of the mountains.

I also want to acknowledge Nancy Bob.

She was actually here prior to her starting.

She's one that helped with the sign that we see behind us and that's going up at international schools.

And I told her one goal is hopefully get this sign up at all schools all 100 for schools.

So we do acknowledge that you know what land we're on and I do appreciate that that we're saying that.

And I go to other meetings now I'm starting to hear it more often that people will start their meetings acknowledging the land of the Duwamish.

Suquamish or wherever they may be that this is becoming almost common rhetoric that we're hearing.

I appreciate that and I appreciate that Seattle School Public Schools does this as well.

So thank you for doing that.

I still have to schedule my community events but once I do we'll get them posted as soon as possible.

I will have one sometime in September and definitely October and November.

So and I am going to try to make it out to at least Rick's some Rick's meetings as well since we're so close together and some of Jill's but then I can't make 7 30 coffees so.

And definitely some of President Harris's as well.

Actually maybe that should be a gold mine to make every one of my fellow board members community meetings at least one of them before this ends.

Lasagna.

But that's all I have.

Thank you and everyone welcome back to school.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Okay.

This meeting is truly about gratitude.

And first of all thanks to my colleagues sitting up here.

I might not agree with you but I love you to death.

Community meetings.

September 28th 3 to 5 Southwest Branch Library.

October 19th High Point Library 3 to 5. November 16th Delridge Library 3 to 5. In September you have a one out of two chance of getting lasagna and if I don't get there in September you're eating lasagna in October and all are welcome.

We are rowdy we are thoughtful and we welcome you.

Thanks to the good folks working in this building and all 104 we have agreed.

We have agreed now that 104 is standard language.

OK.

No more guessing.

So says the superintendent.

An incredible amount of work has been done over the summer.

I think that folks have a misimpression that The lights are dark here and that's that's absolutely not the case.

And to see our four rehab buildings to have start of schools this morning Superintendent Juneau and I and the mayor and the police chief and council member Herbold and Seattle Housing Authority director Andrew Lofton Welcomed our students at West Seattle Elementary and there was a pony to boot and a DJ and it was a huge celebration and it it made me feel ever so hopeful for the year.

Then I went up to see Lunch Lady Dory at Denny International Middle School and I was promised a cookie.

And Erin hear me clearly it was not a home baked cookie.

It was a cookie out of a freezer in a plastic wrapper.

And that woman can make incredibly good cookies.

So as soon as we can bring back scratch baking and the smell of cookies in our cafeterias I will be forever grateful.

And I'll get my food handlers permit so I can help bake them.

A huge thanks to our Seattle Education Association members who voted on this contract who negotiated since May and a huge thanks to our Seattle Public Schools staff who also lost their summer and put in probably several hundred hours working to an agreement that we can live with.

Now it does take down our rainy day funds.

So if you come calling bring money with you because a couple of years from now it's going to hurt like heck.

And I don't frankly expect a whole lot of help from the legislature.

But if you know any legislators let them know we're coming because we are not funding the way we need to and in this world class city.

And to Director Burke's comment that we have Extraordinary partners in this city in this world class city.

Let's do a full court press for folks to open up their checkbooks because they'll be hiring our graduates and they need our graduates to be ready to go.

And a huge thanks to everyone around and notice I didn't say up and down the food chain because I don't believe in an up and down food chain.

Thank you to the crossing guards to the cement mixers to our teachers to our senior staff to our instructional assistants to our administrative assistants.

We can't do it without everybody pulling the same direction on these oars and our work is too important not to be working as a team.

Couple of other comments.

No doubt folks have listened and read about the 20 minute lunchtimes that the state auditor's office has tagged and as the superintendent of public instruction has tagged.

We made a lot of progress a couple of years ago.

It'll be interesting to see where we stand on that.

And that's again one of those individual 104 buildings leadership principals large and in charge.

and trying to do best practices.

If they don't eat they can't learn.

They don't eat healthy they can't learn.

The Advanced Learning Task Force recommendations are attached to the Friday memo.

I encourage you to look them up and start giving us your input.

And a special thanks to Chief Podesta.

who listened to the requests and pleas from the West Seattle community who was grandfathered in on highly capable and we got us a school bus and it's hugely appreciated and Fred you're reaching out and answering emails to constituents.

I bow down.

Thank you.

That's the kind of sensitivity and is Superintendent Nyland used to say fly to the ball that is hugely appreciated.

Again it's an honor.

It's a privilege.

We've got great work to do.

When we leave the house at our house we say carp diem which is supposed to mean seize the day.

We yell and say seize the fish.

I love you.

We're taking a break until 5 30 until public testimony and there will be no more breaks because We're going to get out of here early tonight.