Seattle Public School Board Meeting - October 8, 2025

at 4.35 p.m.

There being no further business to come before the board, the special meeting of the board is now adjourned at 4.35 p.m.

Good afternoon.

We will call the meeting to order momentarily and SPS TV will begin recording.

Alright, the October 8th, 2025 regular board meeting is now called to order at 4 36 p.m.

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

Can I have staff please call the roll.

Director Briggs here.

Director Clark.

Director Hersey.

Director Clark present Director Hersey.

Director Mizrahi.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Sarju.

Present.

Director Top.

Here.

Director Mangelson.

Here.

Director Masudi.

Here.

Director Yun.

Here.

All right, thank you so much.

We're going to get to public testimony here on time, so I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Podesta for his comments.

Thank you President Taup.

Thanks everyone for being here tonight.

October is one of my favorite months.

We have lots of things to celebrate this month.

I want to thank the work that we've done with the special education PTSA to help us as we recognize disability history, acceptance and pride month.

and help us to focus on how we better serve the needs of all our students.

Also October is Hispanic Heritage Month.

We had a celebration in the office today and myself and some of my colleagues were given great gifts to recognize our heritage, Chileno heritage in my case.

Earlier today we had the first meeting of our reconstituted students' academics and services cabinet which has really taken to heart.

revamping progress monitoring which is something we're going to work with the board this month and really working on our strategic plan and how our specific strategy strategies are going to appear in the progress that we talk to the board about later.

In this meeting I want to thank the board for all its attention to several items.

We're going to have a discussion continued discussion on the concept of a pilot for a special Seattle engagement officer at Garfield High School and a student engagement officer excuse me.

And I appreciate the hard work the board has put into this.

Really want to recognize the work of Director Mizrahi who has done continued outreach to the Garfield community and worked with staff on it.

There is an amendment that you'll be considered tonight that I think only improves the proposal and I just want to really emphasize that if there's authorization from the board to move forward in this step that's really the starting line.

That's not the finish line in this process.

We still have an agreement to work through between the police department and the Garfield High School staff and the community and we'll continue to look for that input that I know we're getting as recently this week.

A little bit later Dr. Torres Morales will talk about our highly capable plan and talk about the kind of the substance of the plan.

Later in the year we'll talk about the more administrative processes.

So we have a lot on the agenda.

There's a lot going on and we're a month into school and so excited about what I'm seeing in schools every day.

So thank you very much.

Thank you Superintendent Podesta.

We'll move to student board member comments and before we do that I just want to start by congratulating our student member Sabi Yun who has been selected as the West slash Midwest Regional Vice President for the National Student Board Association.

So thank you Director Yoon for elevating the student voice on the board and beyond.

And it sounds like you just attended a three hour retreat on this as well.

So it's a lot of time and we appreciate you putting in all the hard work.

So with that said going to student board directors seeing Director Yoon.

Thank you, President Taup.

Two things we just wanted to update everyone on.

First is we had our second ASB Executive Council meeting.

Dr. Torres Morales and W.

Chief Gersey introduced the task force and we specifically discussed about how we will go about the selection and evaluation of students to serve on the task force if we were to.

which is our goal and at the end we distributed a survey to gather input on additional topics student leaders were interested in.

The survey results showed that student leaders want to look at the high school day including start and end times, lunch schedule and class size.

The second thing is planning, the plannings we are doing for student engagement sessions for the SEO pilot program at Garfield.

So at the previous board meeting, a Garfield student named Jane Mary testified.

She is also the president of the Black Student Union.

I met with her for like two hours.

We were on a Zoom call for two hours and talking about like what the student engagement session will look like.

And she gave me direct insight and experience as a Garfield student.

She told me that students want to know this pilot as a person, and they want the pilot to understand the needs and concerns of diverse communities at Garfield.

This two-part student engagement session will serve that purpose, and I'm going to go over the brief structure of how we are envisioning this.

First, there will be affinity group meetings.

We have narrowed down five affinity groups you want the pilot to meet with.

The Black Student Union, Muslim Student Union, Somali Youth Association, Asian Pacific Islander Student Union, and the Latinx Student Union.

The second part of our engagement session will include small group discussions during lunch, which are aimed at the broader Garfield community.

The reason we are doing affinity group meetings before the pilot speaks with the entire Garfield community is to ensure there is trust and relationship built within the communities that have historically experienced discrimination or had negative interactions with authority figures.

This Monday I had a meeting with Dr. Chappell, Dr. Hart, Mr. Howard, Assistant Chief Davis, Sergeant Roberson, and Officer Brooks, and they have showed their support for this initiative, and we are aiming to hold both of these student engagement sessions in November.

Thank you.

Other directors.

Director Masoudi.

So during our student board training in collaboration with the superintendent's advisory board group we had the opportunity to hear from Mary Furtakis chair of the State Board of Education where she spoke about the importance of student advocacy at a district level and shared strategies for efficiently communicating ideas with administrators.

The interactive components of the training were especially helpful in deepening our understanding and how policies are developed and implemented.

It was also valuable to gain insight into the structure and the role of the district board.

Great.

I appreciate that.

Director Mingelson.

I'm going to pass today.

Perfect.

Well then we will move right along to board committee and liaison reports and I will just go really quick and I just want to say thank you to our community for engaging with the board again over the last couple of weeks.

Directors had the opportunity to meet with community members to review the superintendent leadership profile report and answer questions about the superintendent search process.

I appreciate everyone's time and dedication and I look forward to continuing to build these relationships in support of our students.

It was a good reminder of how and how important education is in our city to so many people.

And it was really nice to see.

Just as we talk a little bit about this process, this Thursday and Friday, the board will be interviewing the superintendent candidates who we move forward in the process.

We are excited to learn more about the candidates.

And on October 15th, we will meet again to discuss the finalists and next steps in the selection process.

With that do other board or committee chairs or liaisons have reports?

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Yeah I have a legislative report.

So there's a memo that should have just gotten attached to the meeting minutes that has a summary of the WASDA General Assembly and just a really brief statement on what's happening in the state and the federal government which is right now nothing and then there's also a provided is a reshare of a memo from January regarding civil rights for students just as a reminder for us all what's already in law and policy for protection of LGBTQIA plus students and immigrant students that's reshared for people's reference for the Waza General Assembly.

So I represented us as our voting delegate and let's see as I indicate in the memo here I spoke con on a couple of items that ended up not passing which was great because they were really infringing upon the rights and protections of students.

under the guise of parent rights.

There was some really healthy debate among WASDA members about this position that was proposed by a member and why it shouldn't pass around.

The proposal was to remove families from a existing position about the importance of parents and families and to just have it be parents.

And that is a a dangerous limitation for a number of reasons.

What I argued on our behalf was that there are a number of reasons a student may not be under the guardianship of their legal parent or their biological parent and that that is not a place for WASDA for school board directors to interfere with and determine who is and who isn't a parent.

And to my I guess it was a pleasant surprise that one of a colleague of mine that I typically do not fully agree with spoke up in support of what I had said and indicated that they had had engagement with their native families and that the importance of recognizing extended family members and community members who may be most responsible for a child at any given time, that may not be what is typically noted as parent.

So it was really great that there are some different values aligned around this position being brought forward but ultimately we were able to get to a place where the majority of the representatives for school districts aligned with the importance of keeping students safe and healthy and and acknowledging that a lot of people are responsible for and care for students and and mostly upholding students rights to safety.

Other than that things pretty much passed in alignment with was the committee recommendations which also as we talked about when I was preparing to go to this meeting aligned with our own positions we concurred.

The one position was that was recommended a do not pass that we supported passing was a position that we we submitted.

And as I say in the memo here it was around training and funding for school board director school board director training.

It was a good conversation.

There was support generally for the state should should allocate and specify funding for board development.

There was some confusion about the way people interpreted the proposal on whether it would increase the number of required trainings.

But I took some notes.

There was a lot of good feedback and I think we should consider re re re re wording it and resubmitting it next year to to support advocating for state provided funding for board training rather than boards individually having to remove that money from their budget making those decisions.

So that was good.

The one thing I do need from you all is I sent out we have to now submit to WASDA our top 10. All the boards in Washington state have the opportunity to say here's the top 10. it means that of the adopted positions as WASDA is developing their legislative platform they will take into consideration all of our votes this is separate from our SPS legislative platform there's a lot of overlap so I sent out our recommended top priorities and I heard back from two directors so I'm just looking for kind of you were one of them yes good job So basically the positions I recommend we prioritize have to do with funding, but more than with funding, they have to do with actually really examining the prototypical model of how schools are funded.

don't expect there to be a lot of money coming for schools in 2026. Partly it's not a budget year, but also the state is dealing with significant shortfalls.

And so we're going to have to work really hard to to basically protect what we currently have.

So the positions that I am recommending have more to do with like aligning around advocating for legislation and funding allocation that aligns with what districts actually need and pay for and what students need.

So the deadline that WASDA has for that is tomorrow.

So if there's any like last minute things anybody wants to send me I can take that into consideration otherwise I will submit our 10. One other thing that's come up specifically for the state session is a Senate bill and I think I forgot to put it in this memo.

There's a Senate bill 58. I just promise this is my last thing.

5814 passed last session.

It is a change in some sales tax law to provide increased funding for, among other things, public education.

At the time, there was debate with legislators about whether or not school districts would be subject to the tax.

And there wasn't agreement during session about whether or not school districts would be subject to the tax.

School districts are now found that they are being charged this tax.

And so this this bill intended to increase revenue for public schools is partially being funded by charging public schools.

So I have I want to thank our Seattle delegation for being super responsive, in particular, Senator Valdez and representatives Sean Scott.

and Nicole Macri for being immediately responsive when I raise this concern to our delegation.

We're still trying to I'm working with board directors around the state to try to get more information from districts what the impact of this is.

And we'll keep you updated, but it's it's an unexpected hit that could be impacting districts.

Happy, though, that there are legislators that are have responded that they will support us in developing a proposed fix to bring next session or this upcoming session.

And I think that is everything.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Rankin, and I have it on my list.

I did not respond to you yet, so I've made myself an extra reminder note.

I'm seeing Director Clark.

Thank you, President Topp.

Sorry, I was just sending Director Rankin a text so that I'm not having conversation about the last item.

So thank you for those updates and I will get mine in.

I have a couple of things that I wanted to speak to tonight.

Just given the ongoing efforts to remove hard-fought and won protections for our students, our LGBTQIA plus students.

I wanted to just lift up a joint statement that the superintendent and the board made in March earlier this year in response to the ongoing initiatives at the state level and just the escalating situation.

So, dear SPS families and staff, we acknowledge in a time of great urgency, we are striving to provide stability and predictability to our students, families and staff.

As we navigate the consistently changing landscape, we are steadfast in our values and will continue to ensure that every student in Seattle Public Schools receives high quality education and the supports they need to thrive.

We are following the guidance of the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and continuing to serve students in alignment with our policies, state laws, and federal laws.

We are committed to providing a high quality education to every student in our district.

SPS students of every racial and ethnic background, income status, disability status, immigration status, language spoken, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or any other personal characteristic will receive equitable access to educational opportunities and supports.

Our mission has not changed.

Our work will not stop.

The values articulated in board policy numbers 0030, Ensuring educational and racial equity and 0010 instructional philosophy reflect the values of our Seattle community and define who we are as a district.

We live these values every day by celebrating the brilliance and experience of every student, cultivating learning environments that affirm student identities and broadening students' understanding of the world.

Seattle Public Schools stands firm in our values and will continue to stand with and serve all students and families.

So thanks for letting me read that into the record.

I also just wanted to take a moment, given the hundreds of emails that we've received, lack of trust from students, repeated requests and direction from the board, on community engagement and struggles to comply with guardrail three.

I have been working with a student director, Yoon, to create a time and scope limited policy that would set additional engagement guardrails on operational changes in high schools through the end of the 26-27 school year and would need board approval to renew the policy.

This draft of this policy was supposed to be on today's agenda and so I just wanted to take a moment from the dais to call on Interim Superintendent Podesta and President Taub to please put this on the agenda for the November meeting.

Thank you.

We're going to keep going because we've got two minutes till we start public testimony.

Are there other committee and liaison reports?

All right.

All right.

Seeing none, we will continue.

We will move on and we will start public testimony, but I think we have two minutes.

We have two minutes, so we are just going to hang tight for two minutes, folks, and then I will at five directly in one minute now, I will read off the instructions for public testimony.

All right, it is five o'clock.

We have reached the public testimony portion of the agenda.

Board policy 1400 provides our rules for testimony.

The board expects the same standard of civility for those participating in public comment as the board expects of itself.

As board president, I have the right to and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by our procedure.

A speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this meeting may be asked to leave the meeting.

I'm going to pass it off to staff now to summarize a few additional points and read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you, President Topp.

The board will take testimony from those on the testimony list and will go to the waiting list if we are missing speakers.

Please wait until called to approach the podium or unmute and only one person may speak at a time.

The board's procedure provides that most of your time should be spent on the topic you signed up to speak to.

Speakers may cede their time to another person, but this must be done when the listed speaker is called.

Time isn't restarted and the total time remains two minutes.

The timer at the podium will indicate the time remaining for speakers here in person.

When the light is red and a beep sounds, it means that your time has been exhausted and the next speaker will be called.

For those joining by phone, the beep will be the indication that time has been exhausted.

Moving into our list now, for those joining by phone, please press star six to unmute on the conference line and for everyone, please do reintroduce yourself when called as I may miss some pronunciations as we move through today's list.

The first speaker on the list is Whitney Kahn Whitney if you are here on the phone you'll need to press star six to unmute Whitney, you should be able to unmute by pressing star six.

Hi.

Last spring, interagency staff came and gave you a plan on how to keep the West Seattle interagency site open.

You accepted their great plan, showing how valuable their advocacy was, but now they're being investigated for that advocacy.

Please direct SPS to stop this baseless investigation immediately.

I'm gonna cede my time to Demetrius Wheeler, one of those interagency staff, and I hope you'll honor her advocacy and stop the intimidating investigation.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Demetrius Wheeler.

I'm a student family advocate at an interagency and I stand here in solidarity for the staff and students and families who continue to be impacted by these decisions.

Thank you for listening to our recommendation to keep Southwest Campus in West Seattle.

The decision honored our voices and gave student families and staff stability.

but even with that stability several staff members remain under investigation not because of wrongdoing but because we raised our voices for students and families.

Having an investigation hanging over your head is a heavy stressor without advocacy Southwest would not have been moved or thought about any further yet instead of Valuing the advocacy, staff were hit with retaliatory and punitive actions that leave a permanent mark on our professional portfolio.

Staff used their own personal or vacation leave time as allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

Employees were not paid for time, they did not work.

Student education was not harmed.

It was an early release day and the district bore no financial burden.

What staff chose to do on their own leave time cannot be dictated by the district.

to refrain that misconduct or participation in walkout is inaccurate, unjust, and retaliatory.

We're really asking that you take into consideration the advocacy that the staff did for our students and families as we continue to have to advocate because two of our sites were still moved, where safety, has been an issue and it could have been prevented because we came and advocated and we begged and asked you all to please listen to what the folks are saying who are working very closely with kids and families.

The kids told us it would not be a safe space for them to move further south, but yet we still did it.

What we're asking is that you honor the advocacy that we brought forward, honor that we followed the policies and procedures by entering our time and giving notification.

We ask that you please, please, erase or rescind this action against us.

If you look on the application that the district has, we will have to mark that we've been under investigation from this day forward.

And that is a very unfair barrier that you are implicking upon the people who are advocating for students each and every day.

Please, please rescind the investigation letters.

It's unfair.

It's unjust.

The next speaker is Jessica Chong.

My name is Jessica Chong.

My child receives highly capable services and I'm speaking about the HC plan.

I'm glad to see changes like single subject qualification allowing above grade learning and training neighborhood school educators on gifted education standards.

These positive changes improve and expand access to HC services.

Also, district HC staff have truly been listening during the engagement sessions, which is a step forward toward restoring parent trust in SPS.

However, the highly capable plan states that one way the program will be evaluated is using student growth data from district and state assessments.

Which data will be used and how?

Here is why this matters.

In 2019, SPS used metrics from the Smarter Balanced Assessment, or SBA, to claim there was no difference in learning between highly capable students in neighborhood and cohort schools.

But that conclusion was wrong.

The SBA manual states that it only asks questions about content taught in the student's enrolled grade level, so the SBA cannot measure above grade level learning.

HT students in the cohort are taught math two grades ahead and reading one grade ahead compared to HT students in neighborhood schools.

If the SBA doesn't test knowledge of higher grade content, how can it tell us if there's a difference?

It's like using a fever thermometer to test if a pizza oven is hotter than a grill.

In contrast, the MAP assessment can measure learning of some above grade content.

And I analyzed the MAP's math scores from 2017 to 2024 for HC students from first to fifth grade district wide.

Most neighborhood HC students in these data accelerated one grade with Walk to Math and cohort HC students accelerated two.

And I found that cohort students scored 10.7 points higher than neighborhood HC students.

That is one grade level higher, exactly matching the instructional difference at the time.

People keep citing the flawed 2019 analysis as proof that there's no difference in learning between cohort and neighborhood HC students, but our analysis shows that there's a real measurable difference.

More than 6,500 students or 13% of this district qualify for HC services and hundreds more have yet to be identified and are furthest from educational justice.

If we want to honor and support the brilliance of every student, we need to figure out which service models work by measuring their progress correctly.

Thank you.

The next speaker is McKenna Gaudiant.

Hello, my name is McKenna Gaudiant and I'm a special ed teacher and before that I was a para for years.

Part of my time was spent at Garfield High School.

I work with students who have big behaviors as well as academic needs.

I'm here today speaking against bringing armed cops back into schools.

Some of the concerns I have is that this cop will be armed.

It says so in the proposal.

Guns do not belong at school, plain and simple.

This cop will not have access to everyone's IEP and won't be trained with our CPI nonviolent restraint training, which is mandated for people who do physical intervention for students who need it.

And they won't understand what behavioral disabilities students do have.

This cap will not be trained in restorative justice, and that is the position that our school has agreed to go towards.

In many schools across the district, we are being trained in restorative justice, so I don't understand why we're moving backwards.

I also want to now uplift something that the students wrote, Miles Hagopian, Russell McQuire Means, and Leo Phelete Balamont.

This was an opinion piece printed a few days ago in Real Change.

They wrote, why we're against cops.

Let's be clear, cops do not make schools any safer.

A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that cops are not providing benefits for school safety.

They're not reducing crime, they're not reducing violence, but they are escalating the punishment of students, especially through things like suspension.

And this is exactly why we are standing up and saying no to cops in schools, because they just create the illusion of safety, not real safety.

The Seattle Police Police Officers Guild contract says that they must respond to any crime they see, yet something like spraying fart spray or even throwing a carton of milk is technically a crime.

No one should think a cop needs to respond to this or be involved in the discipline of any student over a silly prank.

That should be the role of people who have real relationships with students.

We wonder where this money would come from to pay for cops in schools.

People fear it will come from the FEP levy, not from the police department.

This will be terrible because the money from people's property taxes that is supposed to go to our underfunded schools should not go to cops.

SPOG has caused numerous problems.

Most recently we have seen the SPD attack people protesting in support of trans rights at schools like the Center School that have a population of approximately 70% queer students where a cop would be the worst thing to have.

If we permit SPOG into Garfield, this is just the beginning.

They'll go into other schools where we see a large immigrant population and with the attacks from the Trump administration, we fear that even though Washington's laws restrict law enforcement from working with ICE, we will find them collaborating.

If we allow SPOG in our schools, our students will be targeted.

We have seen SPOG endorse and financially support pro-Trump candidates like Rachel Savage, as well as our Republican city attorney, Ann Davidson.

It is clear what side SPOG is on and it's Trump's side.

If we let this pass, we would be giving ICE a direct avenue to our children and that's why we are fighting to keep cops out of schools.

Again, that's on Real Change Opinion, Real Change Opinion piece written by students.

Thank you so much for your time.

The next speaker is Kayle Frerichs.

Is Kayle Frerichs here or online?

Okay we are going to move on but we will come back.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Is Sabrina Burr here or online?

Okay we're going to move on to Erin Moore.

Good afternoon, school board.

My name is Aaron Moore and I'm a substitute instructional aide.

I'm here to discuss the retaliation against interagency educators.

I actually went and substituted at interagency only for one day towards the end of last school year.

That experience is honestly burned into my memory.

I remember the place as a safe space.

There's an emotion like a warm glow.

I felt like just being there was like being in a bath of the love and care of these extraordinary educators.

I was very impressed by how they met these kids where they were at.

They spoke their language.

They knew how to get inside their worldview.

Otherwise, how on earth do you think they could be of service to them?

These kids who need our support the most, who are in the last supportive environment that we have to offer them before we lose them.

And what happens when we lose them?

I think it can be summed up in one word, harm.

Harm is what happens when we lose them.

You hired these educators to prevent harm to these kids.

That's their primary job, and they take that very seriously.

They fight tooth and nail for them.

Now, let me sum up the situation with the retaliation.

The district decided to make changes to the program.

Interagency educators responded by doing their job.

They came fighting tooth and nail to prevent harm to their students.

Now they are being punished for misuse of leave, whatever that means.

Okay, so clear this up for me.

The district wants these educators to fight for their students except when the harm is coming from the district itself?

Is that it?

In the latter case, they're supposed to just watch it happen like bystanders.

This is crazy.

It's crazy to punish educators for doing the jobs you hired them to do, perhaps a little too well.

I ask the district for three things.

First, stop.

Second, apologize.

Third, make it right.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the personnel report, under separations, the report lists Chief Counsel Greg Narver.

I wish to thank Mr. Narver for his talented service to the district.

On the overlay contract correction, I told the board about an error on the contract before the board erroneously proceeded to approve the contract anyway.

I then wrote to the state auditor.

on the 11 million dollar contract to Bassetti architects for the John Marshall construction project.

Five points.

Number one this is the same architect the district used for the Rainier Beach project.

Number two a KUOW story on Rainier Beach is titled Seattle's new 297 million dollar high school was built on a peat bog.

Then the foundation started settling.

3. Before the project proceeded, I and others appealed the environmental review for the project.

Number four the district's own hearing examiner agreed with us that the district must do subsurface investigations prior to construction.

The district superintendent overruled this recommendation.

Number five the board needs to have a public discussion of these issues and some other issues that I have written to you.

Please pull items four six seven and eight for public board discussion and please vote No.

On school board elections there is a school board candidates public forum at 3 30 p.m.

Saturday October 25th at the Montlake Community Center.

Public speakers include Laura Gramer deaf and hard of hearing activist and Cecile Hansen chair of the Duwamish tribe.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Sonia Herrera.

and you'll need to press star six to unmute.

Sonya, we can hear you, you're unmuted.

Sonia, we're going to come back to you.

So moving on, the next speaker is Liz Berry.

Is Liz Berry here or online?

OK, we're going to move on to Marcela Soto-Ramirez.

Okay, we're gonna move on to Stephen Sander.

My name is Steve Sander, and I am a former board president of Epiphany School, and I became very much interested in what was going on in the public schools for two reasons.

Number one, it now costs over $40,000 to go to Epiphany School, The original intent was to be a neighborhood private school, diversified financially, it is no longer that, it is school more or less for the rich and I don't like the idea of that.

Number two is that I went to Garfield High School, my son was the assistant football coach when I believe his name was Amar, I can't remember his name exactly, Murphy was killed and my grandson was on his team.

Subsequent to that, Ned pulled both of the kids, his other grandchildren, out of Garfield.

And my point on this Garfield thing is that the principal is no longer wandering around because I asked Peter, tell me about this before he went to O'Day.

He said, I never saw the principal, almost ever.

The key, in my opinion, to being a principal is wandering around.

You gotta be there all the time to see what's going on.

And this guy apparently was negligent of that.

So I'm very much against hiring police officers to be in the school.

I believe it's the job of the principal to know what's going on.

If he needs the police, he can always call them.

The second thing is that this district needs financial stability to compete with the private schools.

We also need safety, which I just talked about, and we need financial stability so that we can reverse this crazy thing of so many kids leaving the schools.

Now, what we need in a new superintendent, in my opinion, is we need someone who's a true agent of change.

This guy is probably, or Gal, is not gonna come from the educational background.

He needs to come from outside.

He needs to have a thorough understanding of business, because you've got financial needs, you've got educational needs, and you've got leadership needs.

Can I continue for a minute or not?

We'll have you just wrap up your remarks.

Final thought.

All right.

My final thought is that you need A superintendent, first of all, has got a strong board backing.

Now, Don Nielsen, who I know personally, and who's helped select John Stafford, he's met all of you, I think, and I would really appreciate you considering him, because I talked to him yesterday, and he wasn't part of your last aid, and I find that really difficult to believe, particularly when, like Lisa's, told me that there needs to be a major change in the personnel in the school, and that we also need great financial stability.

He's the kind of leader that can give it to us, and I really hope that you'll...

Well, maybe he is one of your eight, I don't know, but he said he was.

He said he hadn't been notified.

So maybe because he's 80 years old, maybe because he's so qualified, maybe because he's offered to work for free and only do the job until it was done.

and not, he does not look for some career permanent position and so I hope you'll, I know you all know him so I really hope you'll give him a serious interview because that's the kind of person we need to run these schools and I guess the last thing I wanted to say is that Ways to fund it.

I'm involved in the Santa Barbara Public Schools.

I live down there.

You've got 501 things to do, all kinds of stuff in the city.

So I know you need a legislative change to do that.

And the last thing is that AI is going to be a big deal, and I hope you can do your AI program next year, starting in McGilbrough.

We're going to go back to Sonia Herrera.

Sonia Herrera, press star six to unmute.

I'm here to speak to you again about the drastic changes made to policy 4.3.11 concerning SEOs in schools, specifically at Garfield High School.

Students, parents and staff have voiced their concerns for a safer campus and many were on board with SPD on campus not in classrooms with the ability to form an accountability board made up of students, staff and parents.

They want to be involved.

The community wants to be involved in this.

Director Mizrahi went completely against Garfield High School's community's pleas and literally crossed out the ability for that to happen.

The revision also states that the district will be able to review complaints about the program submitted to SPD but does that include all complaints?

SPD has a history of deeming complaints as irrelevant or unjustified on their own discretion.

Also who on the board would be reviewing those complaints?

The board has proven unreliable in reading the policy to its complete extent.

We've had this vote pushed back and back because they keep having to go back to do some more research on the wording.

So then who do we trust?

Will the burden of the review process be then put on to the overworked teachers at Garfield?

Doesn't make any sense.

Lastly you may be wondering why you aren't seeing as many student faces there as you've been used to over the last few months and frankly they're tired.

They're tired of not being heard or taken seriously.

You all on the board represent the district and are supposed to care about the students but clearly you care less about the wants and needs of students and more about your relationships with SPD and your own interests.

I'm just asking you to do better.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Dora Larson.

Dora, you'll need to press star six to unmute.

Hi, my name is Dora Larson.

I'm the parent of a student at BFJ Elementary, and my comment is about the district's highly capable program.

My school community is very motivated to increase highly capable services at all neighborhood schools, including ours.

But with respect, I want to flag for the school board that our community is experiencing a lot of confusion about what exactly the highly capable designation means for students, the plan for the program going forward, and how our school can be part of making services available at neighborhood schools.

We are keen to increase communication with the district about this and help disseminate information to our community.

We would like teachers and school leadership to have clear direction and support on how to provide highly capable students with appropriate education in their neighborhood school.

We are seeking support for ideas such as differentiation, acceleration, clustering, and cohorting within the neighborhood schools in a way that doesn't stretch teachers too thin.

I think the cohort model and the neighborhood school model both have something valuable to offer.

I want this to work in neighborhood schools and ensure that our teachers have what they need for success.

Finally, we also support giving schools the flexibility to work with their particular student population in a way that works for that school.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Robert Engel.

And Robert, you'll need to press star six to unmute.

Hi, I'm Robert Engel.

I'm a member of the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

I'm an activist and an organizer and I fight for police accountability in Seattle.

Police accountability is a crucial part of public safety.

Not only can you have both, you need both, right?

SPD unfortunately has a bad history of handling police misconduct.

You know, why was the agreement amended to remove input from students, faculty, and community members, right?

That just felt kind of disrespectful.

You can't just listen to Garfield community now.

You need to listen to them the whole way.

That means performance evaluation.

That means officer selection.

That means, you know, God forbid, termination of the program.

Everything, right?

My worst fear is for something to go wrong and for students to have no voice, right?

The only way to guarantee this doesn't happen is to put students and faculty in the driver's seat, not just now, long-term.

We need community control now and through the life of the program.

Thank you, I wanna cede the rest of my time to Maryam Barnes.

I hope that's how it works.

If that's how it works.

If not, then Jonathan, I don't know.

Okay, thanks.

Good evening to the board.

I would like to speak a little bit and I'd also like to present a copy of the demands that our organization, the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, has put together with the help of students from the School of Garfield.

May I approach the board to offer a physical copy?

Yes.

And just for the record, can you state your name?

Mariam Barnes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yes, I don't have much time and a lot of it this was said by Rob, but the main point that I want to get across is that it is your job to oversee all of these things, but you're not in the schools.

You can look at things from a bird's eye view and say what's important, but you're not in there, you're not living it, and you need to give the voices to the people who are going to be living in these situations so that they can make sure that things are changed so that they have the best school work and school experience possible.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jonathan Toledo.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Toledo.

I am a concerned community member.

I'm also a member of the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Propression.

And I say that I'm directly opposed to this SCO pilot program because as it stands, it does not let students, faculty, and parents have control over deciding what officer will be selected.

It does not let them have control over the training standards of officers.

It does not let them have control in evaluating the performance of officers.

It doesn't let them have control in the review of misconduct and complaints processes.

And it doesn't let the students, faculty, and parents have control in deciding whether they even want to continue or terminate the program.

Students, faculty, and parents as members of the community deserve to have control of the police.

And if this board goes through with this pilot, then they directly go against the voice of Aaron Murphy Payne, whose son, Amar Murphy Payne, was killed during school lunch.

He wants safety for the students more than anyone else, but he does not want a beat cop who's only there to collect a paycheck.

We need community control of the police.

Don't use the death of Amar Murphy Payne as an excuse to put cops in schools.

in direct contact with students and not give the students and the faculty and the parents any ability to have control over what they can or can't do.

We're gonna go back to a few people.

We missed Sabrina Burr.

You'll need to press.

There you go.

Go ahead.

Hello.

This is Sabrina Burr.

And I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.

But I want everyone to really think about their intentions because our intentions matter.

And also it often manifests our actions.

And we have to admit that we're not a district that's student-centered we know we should be.

And we need to look at what will it take for it to be.

And we have to backwards map from what the students are saying and from what's happening in the classroom what our teachers need what our support staff needs and what our building leaders need.

And we need our district leaders to really understand the workings of the day of the school and what's important to students.

Now this whole lunch thing it didn't have to happen and you guys are trying to make it one day and you think that's sufficient but you're actually asking kids to choose between clubs and to choose a day.

I was just last weekend I had the fortune to be with student leaders of Seattle Public Schools and about 40 students of color African-American, African, mostly males, females for a listening session.

And one thing they all said was important was clubs and safety.

The ones, the 40 that you guys should be talking with, they have no interest in having conversation with you because they have no faith based on your actions.

And we need to change that and the change that made for interagency going into Allen Sukiyama which was a bad move.

These decisions are being made without community without the engagement that our policies and you as the school board said we must do.

Garfield has done that engagement but it's being politicized.

They've done everything that you said and now you've made them wait.

We need to start listening to the students in this district and we need to make sure the adults in this district have the tools, the resources, and the knowledge they need for the jobs they have.

And if they have jobs and they don't have those skills, we need to go out and get those.

Our district leaders are not ones who go to conference and engage with other districts.

Why is that?

So I really want to say, we're saying a whole lot We've done some engagement.

It hasn't been good.

The black community has been disrespected in the whole engagement process.

But what I want you to really think about is what are your intentions?

Are they student-centered?

Do they have to do with learning?

And if they don't, I need to ask yourself why.

Because our kids aren't safe.

The room that I was in with the African-American and African kids, we have failed them career-wise.

course-wise, academic-wise, and we're not even talking to them.

And we need to be.

We need to stop being performative and using all the great words because the community doesn't believe your words because your actions do not align.

We need alignment in this district that's really, really focused on the kids and not the adults, for example, of what's going on with the lunch.

And we need to be about safety we have community partners here that we're not utilizing and I can't say it in this time but we have so many unsafe situations that have to do with enrollment and environment and we need to get to the crux of it but we need to start with our intentions and putting our students first.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Dre Say.

Hi, my name is Drace, I'm a Seattle resident and member of the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression.

There's an overall pattern of many students and community members have spoken up about the lack of student voice and board accountability in multiple areas, including student lunches, the Bridges program, and the Garfield High School SPD pilot program.

With the Garfield SPD pilot, we highlighted our main issue was with the lack of accountability to students and we called for additional oversight in what we call community control of the police.

Specifically, we are concerned students do not have oversight in choosing an SPD officer and that the complaint system relies on an existing system to report police misconduct which is inadequate.

For instance, the Office of Police Accountability has only imposed discipline that resulted in suspension without pay or termination in 12 cases in the past year.

In addition, the police chief can actually overturn findings by OPA, which happened three times in 2024. From 2016 to 2020, OPA sided with SPD 98% of the time when it came to complaints of police discrimination and 27% of people who file all complaints about SPD are black.

The current system does not lead to justice for Seattle residents.

I'm confused as to why, after hearing testimony from a broad group of people last month, SPS has removed some of their only checks on SPD that existed in a previous draft agreement.

Instead of hearing the students and community concern about oversight and accountability, it looks like SPS has gone in the opposite direction.

I'm calling on you to improve the draft agreement to improve student oversight in the program, especially with regard to student officer oversight and setting up a separate complaint system or mechanism.

I saw the recent amendment by Director Mizrahi, so I'm confused as to why on the one hand there's like an attempt for increased oversight with this amendment, but on the other hand, multiple things are being rolled back in the MOU that seem really negative.

I don't understand really what's going on between the board and Podesta, but it seems like these attempts, whether it be by Director Yoon or Director Mizrahi, are not fully being reflected in the draft agreement between SPS and SPD.

So we're calling for community control and student power.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Manuel Eslay.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Manuela Sly, Student Safety Committee Chair for Seattle Council DTSA.

I'm here to talk about student safety.

Like many here today, I didn't come to testify about the SPS, SPD, MOU.

I'm here to talk about the harm and pain inflicted to students inside school buildings perpetrated by teachers and administrators.

Many cases have been denounced investigated, taken to court, and settled.

This has cost the district millions of dollars.

But I'm not here to talk to discuss that.

I'm here to focus on the student victims, their families, and the lifelong impact in their life.

District and many times unions point their finger at each other while this is happening.

It has been widely reported for years, the physical and emotional abuse and assault incidents in the district.

Principals calling the police on little first and second graders, teachers punching middle schoolers on the face, coaches grooming and sexually harassing high school athletes, vice principals questioning students and their families' immigration status.

Even a case of a little kindergarteners was placed in a case-like space, while peers walk by confused to see him there sitting alone.

But don't take my word for it.

There's plenty of documentation I can direct you to this one and many other cases of inappropriate and disgusting adult behavior in Seattle Public Schools.

the system relies on families moving on or students finishing their time at school.

But advocates like me do not forget we are the institutional memory of many.

So my question to you is today when is it enough.

How many more students have to end with brain injuries broken dreams and broken hearts.

How many more until district staff administrators officials people with high level and high angles are held accountable.

How many more iterations of a school board until our children are safe at school.

Our children and communities deserve answers.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jonathan Smith.

Good evening.

My name is Jonathan Smith.

I'm a project developer with Mercy Housing Northwest, an affordable housing developer, owner, and operator.

And I wanted to address the board about two projects coming up in the next year that will help to address one of the biggest issues facing our city, the lack of affordable housing, and particularly the lack of family-sized housing, two, threes, and four bedrooms.

So the first project I wanted to bring to your attention is the Lake City Family Housing Project, and that is located at the current site of the former Lake City Community Center, which folks may know was burned in 2023. So this particular project will focus on will have 112 units of housing, 70% of which will be two threes and four bedrooms.

It will also feature a community center which will include a full gym that will be operated by Seattle Parks and Rec.

This project will also provide on-site services that will be in tandem with Mercy Housing Northwest and with Family Works.

This project will plan to be under construction beginning at the end of next year.

And the other project I wanted to bring to your attention is the Mount Baker TOD project.

This one is located just adjacent to the Mount Baker light rail station.

It is part of a master plan development.

The first phase of it will be 241 units, 70% of which will be family size units, 72 two bedrooms, 56 three bedrooms, and 14 four bedrooms.

This project is a partnership between Mercy Housing Northwest and El Centro de la Raza, a local community-based organization.

This project will also feature an early learning campus from the University of Washington, which will also include an affordable childcare space.

it will also feature a community hub that will be operated by El Centro de la Raza and a retail component for local businesses and with the last thing I wanted to bring up was that we do have a community event that's coming up at the Allen Family Center November 5th at 6 p.m.

to provide updates specifically on the Mount Baker TOD project and a timeline of how when construction will begin appreciate your time

The next speaker is Amanda Thornwell Amanda Thornwell Okay

As a parent of a former student at Garfield, I would like to talk about the harm, the SRO, and the Garfield admin inflicted on my son.

Hopefully it can help you craft policy to prevent harm to other students.

I sympathize with the Garfield community as you beg the district to find ways to keep the Garfield students safe.

Police presence is a very powerful deterrent.

We know in 2020, this SRO presence at Garfield was often requested by the Garfield school leaders.

to deal with the students who were on the verge of making the wrong decisions.

What is the difference between the wrong and the right decision?

For my son, his wrong decision was trying to talk to the press about the hazing on the swim team at Garfield.

And the president of the SLO was powerful enough to shut my son up for good.

For those not familiar with my son's case, please google Garfield hazing.

Some details were covered by NPR, The Seattle Times, King 5, Chapter 7, and The Stranger.

The harm was that the district determined that it did not violate any district policies for the school leaders to use the police to stop my son from talking about a swim team hazing.

The district spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending this position.

And with policy 4311, it will be official that school leaders can use the SRO to stop dissenting opinions.

Specifically, page 2, paragraph 5, security staff could serve...

as a student advocate, as the direction of an administrator.

Let me assure you that when my son was in the room with the SRO and the vice principal, the SRO did not act as an advocate for my son.

Page 3, paragraph 2, safety and security staff, contractors included, are considered district employees.

So what that means is that the district employees would be considered district employees and would be applied to follow orders from the school leaders.

There's no harm in that, right?

School leaders always put your student safety ahead of district's interests.

Do you trust the district to be in control of such a powerful tool as the police, a tool that could be used to harm?

We know because it was used to harm my son.

This was a message my son received from the SRO and the Garfield leaders.

We want you to stop talking.

It's not your best interest.

You will be expelled.

Putting the police in a position where they're under the authority of the Seattle Public Schools is not in the interest of our students.

If we have to have police in or around the schools, then let's ensure that the policies are written to prevent abuse by the school leaders.

If you think that the district would never use the police against your good, well-behaved student, think again.

It happened to mine.

The next speaker is Oliver Misca.

Hi good afternoon or evening school board directors.

Thank you all for your work and dedication to our public schools.

My name is Oliver Miska.

I was a teacher and now I work in education policy but I'm not here today on behalf of any of my clients.

I just want to take a second to just acknowledge how difficult this conversation has been hearing all of these people over the last couple of months.

We have all said very different things.

Sometimes they're true.

Sometimes they're not.

It's hard to know who to believe.

It's just been really hard.

and so I just wanted to start by saying that.

And especially after hearing what she just said, I had not heard that story yet.

I have the privilege of helping to support the Keep Your Promise Coalition with over 15 community student and educator organizations that have endorsed us.

I just want to make five points noted for the record in regards to tonight's policy and the vote tonight on policy 4311. The first is that the Mayor Harrell's office, according to a recent documents released from a public records request, included 15 SROs or SRO-like positions included in the FEP levy.

Later it was scrubbed from the public facing documents, but not removed.

We have no evidence of whether or not it's been removed, whether or not it's been included.

Just speaks to the lack of transparency from the Mayor's office, especially considering point two.

Mayor Harrell is running on bringing unarmed cops in our schools.

Point three the SPD or the SPOG contract does not allow for unarmed officers to be on duty.

Four students have asked for cops outside schools or not at all.

Five, the policy as we adopt it tonight, if you vote yes or if you vote no, it really doesn't ensure any of those things are addressed or that they'll happen.

And finally, whether you vote against or for this policy, You can do this pilot.

It's gonna happen.

I think clearly there's been a ton of community calls for it.

You did a pilot last year.

There already was one.

And the sad thing is that there's the same pattern.

The district keeps asking forgiveness rather than for permission.

If your role on the board is the city liaison, you have a lot of work to do.

And I think we should just conclude on that.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Amijah Smith.

Hello Amijah Smith.

Good evening everyone.

It is hard to follow or not be touched by the mother who just shared an experience about her son on the swim team.

But just to make a long story short don't bring the police inside the school's Garfield.

If another school wants that talk about it with another school.

I'm from a legacy family where my mother graduated from Garfield.

I graduated from Garfield.

My older children graduated.

I just had a senior leave last year.

And hopefully if it's up to me my granddaughter who's in kindergarten now with Seattle Public Schools will graduate from Garfield.

I have seen firsthand what it's like inside the Garfield community.

It's more dangerous inside the school by the teachers and by the staff than it is by someone outside of the school.

Outside, in my opinion, is more safe than inside of the schools.

And I'm going to call out Mr. Reese at Garfield High School, who bullied my son last year for just being in class trying to do his homework.

During his strategic planning, we're supposed to be focusing on black male achievement.

and I could talk about others, the librarian who's mad because he's a Running Star student and doesn't think that he should be there doing his homework.

And others when he's an AP Calculus who thinks that, you know, go after school and get some help when they don't even know AP Calculus to help him.

and so when his friend and his peer and a legacy family, that family knows my family and our community, is killed on the football team, my son said, they don't care about us.

They're out here talking about the staff and the environment.

They don't care about us.

They're just acting like this, like it's something to do.

My son was depressed behind that.

And so he's dealing with multiple things.

The basketball team, dealing with these people inside of the schools, not supporting emotional and mental health.

Where was the resources when our football player left?

There was no resources at Garfield.

We had to get resources outside of Garfield.

And when my daughter was there and graduated in 2012, when the officer was there for somebody bullying her, he said, I'm just here to see what police report I'm going to write.

So what I'm saying to you today is when I called the police for my children when they were in elementary school, when a substitute came and hit my third grader, when another staff person was bullying my elementary school fifth grader, I said, I'm going to call the police.

Guess what happened?

I was told I can't get back on the campus.

She got to leave because what the school is going to do is protect itself.

You guys are going to protect yourself from legality.

but it's the family and the community that got to support and put our children in therapy and get them back and get their spirits rights while y'all trying to kill their spirits.

Now, not all of you all, because there's some really great people at Garfield in the district that I've had to partner with all these years because I've been here many years advocating.

But what I'm trying to tell you is that this by I know you guys want me to stop, but this interest of bringing police into the schools is not going to solve the problem.

What was been working at Garfield was when we had community passageways on the site, working with the community, building partnerships in the time when these when the violent happens because they weren't there because they was called to do something else for the organization.

Fund them, bring them back or somebody like them, bring them back.

But don't bring these officers in here and play in this game now.

Families appreciate having them on the campus and around, but don't bring them into school when you know we're working on the prison pipeline.

You know that that's the cause that's going to send our kids to prison.

These educators ain't caring like that.

Their voice is powerless.

So I'm going to stop and fall back, but this is what I'm saying.

that these y'all care more about the unions, care more about their jobs, the district care more about legalities and care less about the youth.

And my son gave me permission to say that they don't care about us.

And they didn't care about Amara, as many people talk.

He said they didn't treat him like that in school when we was in the hallways together.

So I don't want to play the games with Seattle Public Schools.

Do the right thing.

Bring them on the campus.

It's helping the community, but don't bring them inside because until you want to really show how this is going to affect discipline, reducing discipline on our black and brown and disproportionate populations, then talk to me about bringing the police into school.

When you want to talk to me about reducing police violence to our children, then talk to me about bringing them into schools.

But in the meantime, don't bring them.

The community call for that.

Don't bring them.

Thank you.

And we are going to go back to someone we missed on the list.

Kale Frerichs.

OK, Liz Berry.

Marcella Soto-Ramirez.

Marcella press star six to unmute.

Okay we're going to move on and that concludes public testimony.

Thank you and thank you everyone for giving up your time with your family and from work.

I know we all have busy lives and many things to do so I appreciate you being here to provide testimony with us this evening.

We're going to take a quick break.

We will reconvene at let's say 6.04.

That's 10 minutes.

I'm coming down.

Thank you.

How are you?

All right, I think we have returned.

We have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Try one more time, Director Mizrahi.

Second.

Thank you.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Briggs and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

Do directors have any items they'd like to remove from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

All right, the consent agenda has passed unanimously.

We will now MOVE ON TO ITEMS.

WE WILL NOW MOVE ON TO ACTION ITEMS ON TODAY'S AGENDA.

FIRST ONE IS APPROVAL OF THE REVISED POLICY NUMBER 6222, SELECTION OF CONTRACTORS FOR SMALL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS AND RENAMING POLICY SMALL WORKS VENDOR AND CONSULTANT ROSTERS.

MAY I HAVE A MOTION FOR THIS ITEM?

All right, hang on just a second while we get a new microphone for Vice President Briggs.

Okay.

Is this on?

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

I moved that the school board amend board.

Nope.

Sorry.

I jumped ahead.

I'm really confused.

Where, where are we here?

oh that is the right one oh okay sorry I got yeah all right I move that the school board amend board policy number 6222 selection of contractors for small construction projects and rename it small works vendor and consultant rosters as attached to the board action report I further move that the board adopt resolution 2025-2602 authorizing district participation in the municipal research and services center roster programs

Second.

Okay, thank you.

This item was introduced at the previous board meeting by Dr. Buddleman.

I have a conflict that requires me to abstain from the vote, so I preemptively request it not be included in the consent agenda.

Do directors have any questions before I call for the vote?

All right, then staff, please call the vote.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Clark?

Aye.

Director Hersey?

Aye.

Director Mizrahi?

Aye.

Director Rankin?

Aye.

Director Sarju?

Aye.

President Topp?

Abstain.

This vote has passed with a vote of six ayes and one abstention.

Appreciate appreciate that and moving on to amendment to board policy number four three one one school safety and security Services program may have a motion for this item

I move that the school board approve amendment one to the board action report titled amendment to board policy number 4311 school safety and security services program and substitute the version of the policy attached to this amendment to the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report the substitute policy shall control I further move that the school board direct the superintendent to provide the board with a plan and timeline no later than December 31st, 2025 for collecting data, including through community engagement to assess the effect.

So we let's go to the underlying one.

This is this would be director Mizorah.

He's amendment.

Oh, sorry.

So let's start.

Let's start that again.

We're looking for amendment to board policy number four three one one.

May I have a motion for this item?

I move approval of the amendment to board policy for three one one school safety and security program as amended by amendment one.

Perfect.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry.

A little bit of procedural.

Nope.

Okay.

So we're going to do this one more time.

You're just motioning the thing that we postponed at the last meeting.

You're just motioning that.

I'm just reading the text that's written here.

So what do I have to say?

Okay.

I move that the school board amend board policy number 4311 The end.

Second.

Okay.

We have a motion and a second.

So this item was postponed.

Hang on just a second.

Postponed for action from our September 24th regular board meeting to the October 8th meeting.

Before I open it up for a motion on the amendment, are there any director questions on the original item?

So this would be without Director Mizrahi's amendment.

So the underlying, oh, Director Rankin, sorry.

So I have a clarifying question.

Yes.

Because every amendment is sometimes different.

So right now on the floor is the original amendment to policy 4311.

Yes.

will we be voting on the amendment and the underlying item separately, or does the amendment supersede the underlying item?

So after we have discussion on the original item, I will turn to Joe here for, or Director Mizrahi, sorry, for his amendment.

We will vote first on his amendment.

We'll see if there's others.

And then we will vote, if it passes, we will vote on the original item with his amendment.

if it doesn't we will vote on the original item.

Okay, so there's, thank you for that clarification.

Can I, do you need this?

No, no.

So this is very confusing and it's really important that we as board directors be really clear in plain speak so that our constituents can understand what we're doing.

There has been a lot of back and forth.

I'm even a little bit confused, but I think I'm getting clear.

So can you in plain speak explain to those listening what we're doing?

So right now, what we are contemplating is an amendment to board policy number 4311. This is what we reviewed at our last board meeting.

That is what's on discussion now.

And if there's any questions on that underlying amendment to board policy.

What I believe is going to happen, because it was posted, is Director Mizrahi is going to make a motion for his drafted amendment, and he'll have an opportunity to explain his amendment, and we'll be able to have a discussion on his amendment.

So it's amendment to the amended board policy.

At that point, we will vote on Director Mizrahi's amendment after discussion.

If that amendment passes, then we will vote on the package together.

That's his amendment into the original amendment.

Does that make sense?

So there will be two votes.

We are taking two votes.

Yes.

Two separate votes.

two separate votes.

Director Rankin.

I do have a question on the original item.

Yes, and that's what we, I would like to get to any questions on the original first, Director Rankin.

Thank you.

So on the original item, the memorandum of understanding is a draft that's attached.

But our vote, what we are deciding, what we have authority over, is the change to policy language.

My question is that it feels like there is an implication that approval of the policy change also approves the MOU.

It does not.

That's what I want to clarify.

So that the MOU is essentially procedure.

The policy change is simply the language that's in 4311. So my question on the underlying item is what is the recourse or what can the...

Ideally, we, the board, we set governance parameters and we get out of the way and we let you actually do your job.

Same with the superintendent sets parameters for the school district and then gets out of the way, provides resources and gets out of the way and lets principals and teachers do their job.

We're not in that space.

as a system and this is a really good example of that.

So I want us to be super duper clear about what the board does and doesn't authorize.

I have no issue with the policy language change.

I have big issues with the language in the MOU.

and so what is the role of board oversight or what actions are you, the superintendent, going to take to ensure that the MOU actually reflects what we, the board, find by our policy acceptable or not in our schools.

There's some language specifically in the MOU that is contrary to our policies on isolation restraint.

It's contrary to language that I personally and other people have worked on at the state level that I have real concerns about.

There's stuff about property damage.

Hell no!

Do I want a police officer interfering with a student who may be having a bad day, maybe isn't doing what they should be doing, but also maybe is having a behavioral crisis of some instance and is flipping over desks.

I don't want a teacher interfering in that instance, much less a police officer.

And the way the language is in the MOU, I am really concerned actually conflicts with that expectation that we have that physical intervention should only be used in Seattle Public Schools when there is eminent risk of serious harm to people, not to things.

Eminent risk of serious harm, not property damage.

And so that's just one example of where the language in the MOU to me is not consistent with the expectations and parameters that we have set, not only in this policy, but in our other policies.

And so if we were to approve the change in the policy, where is the accountability for ensuring that the implementation of the MOU is not the draft that we see today.

Well, your policy requires input from the community before executing these annual agreements.

and limits it to Garfield.

We've been to the community to talk about concepts, and we've heard a lot tonight about accountability.

The main thing we've heard in those sessions is interest in how the community weighs in on the assignment of an officer, the training that an officer has, and accountability steps if something goes wrong.

So I think Those concepts are there.

We would need to keep working with the community on the specific language on the MOU.

I think any language that's meant to cover, like your example about property damage, it really falls under the umbrella, if you will, of policies that we have now and procedures that we have now about any time administrators call the police.

The point of all that language is and we have safeguards about our relationships with law enforcement.

We're trying to emphasize over and over that any student behavioral issues need to be handled by staff, but there are times now, they're very rare, when a school might call the police and that is the only time, The intention behind the Memorandum of Understanding that I think we have agreement with SPD on is the only time an SEO would offer any services like a regular patrol officer would do is in a circumstance where we would have called 911 instead of waiting for a response from patrol if there's someone there.

That language needs to be fleshed out to make sure that's crystal clear what that means.

This is not meant to be patrol on our campus.

That's not the intent.

Well, and I think that it does need to be fleshed out because consistent with that and also what we just turned to testimony and what I and I'm sure others know to be true is I mean, I know that a kindergartner was just suspended for 10 days in our school last week, a couple weeks ago.

Kindergartner for behavior for 10 days.

Whoever made that decision is not somebody I want deciding whether or not they should call police.

I know I have been with families whose police have been called on a fourth grader and parents show up to school and the kid is strapped to a gurney.

And like, That is police behavior, but that is also the front office admin who called the police officer because the kid was throwing around some papers.

So I also want to be really clear that the disproportionate discipline and the culture that we have in our buildings, this MOU with one officer on one campus is not the tipping point of where there are problems.

We have an underlying culture of being punitive and discriminatory towards children, with or without the police.

but I want to make really sure that any agreement we enter into with any other entity doesn't...

So what you're talking about is yes, there's community input, but I'm talking about the board's role in the boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable.

And before you even get to talking about the specific implementation with the Garfield community about an officer at their campus, All of that has to exist within parameters that we've already set on behalf of the entire community about what's acceptable and what's not.

And so that's what I'm looking for is, I guess, what's the guarantee that we have that the MOU will fit within those parameters?

And if it doesn't, what do we do?

Given the governance process that I think you're all striving for, those parameters need to reside in the policy.

And if there are further amendments needed to the policy, then be it.

The draft MOU attached to this action is for reference only.

It's not for approval.

I mean, there's an amendment on the table today.

I'll just be honest.

Just to be practical, we're not spending a lot of time working on this MOU right now if we're not even sure it's going to be authorized or if the underlying policy is still under amendment.

So what anybody's seen in these drafts are illustrative.

There's been a certain amount of lawyering in these discussions, but there has been no intent for substantive change between us and police because we wanted this discussion to occur.

in our public engagement sessions we've had so far, we really tried to hit the highlights.

What is the community most interested in?

And again, what we heard over and over is we want to have a say in how an officer is assigned.

We want to understand how they're going to be trained and what their role is.

And we want to understand if there's a problem, how accountability works.

And if we need to keep working on the language, I guess after If we do this the way we're contemplating doing it, we'd invite the board as well to be part of that engagement process.

We would do it first.

The MOU has been available for many, many weeks, and so we probably just need to sit down and talk about it if there are questions about it.

We didn't just post this for the first time today.

This is where we landed in this summer.

So there is no interest.

I think I can speak for Dr. Hart.

There is no interest and the police department in trying this pilot program over the objection of the community or the board.

This is supposed to be a positive thing.

It's supposed to be an asset and something that's supposed to help.

There's no future in doing something people are uncomfortable with.

So I don't think we stop working on the MOU until...

This is a complex issue.

We are never going to get 100% consensus exactly.

I don't think that's in the cards.

But if we don't sense that there's support for the program in general and how that assignment is going to be for the officer, I don't know why we would take one is one further step.

We appreciate the data collection in the amendment.

How are we going to measure this?

In the end, we want to know, do people feel safer or do they not feel safer?

Those were the questions we asked about increased emphasis patrols.

Did this make you feel safer or not?

Would going to the next step make you feel safer or not?

That's where Dr. Hart started his process, talking to his community.

and believes that there's room here and there's an opportunity, but we don't want to do it over people's objections.

That would do more harm than good.

Vice President Briggs.

Okay, so would you say that it's, is it accurate to say that A vote to approve this amendment, the amendment to the policy, is basically the board just giving control to the Garfield community for them to decide what is right for their community.

I mean, ALTI would need to be approved by the superintendent at the time, but yes, that would be, we would follow Dr. Hart's lead, we have all across, is he and his community comfortable with this?

And that would be our intent, that's why the policy amendment that we proposed really emphasized that these are kind of building level discussions, that these agreements only last a year at a time, and that students, staff, and families need to provide input into the MOU.

Other board directors?

Director Mizrahi.

So I move that the school board approve amendment one to the board action report titled amendment to board policy number 4311 school safety and security services program and substitute the version of the policy attached to this amendment to the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report the substitute policy shall control.

I further move that the school board direct the superintendent to provide the board with a plan and timeline no later than December 31st, 2025 for collecting data, including through community engagement to assess the effectiveness of the school engagement officer pilot program at Garfield High School.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Director Mizrahi has made a motion for his amendment.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motion has been moved by Director Mizrahi and seconded by Vice President Briggs.

I'm going to pass it over first to Director Mizrahi to talk about his amendment and then open it up for further board discussion and questions.

Yeah, I'm gonna go through the amendment.

I'm gonna talk a little bit more than I usually do on this, but just to say first of all, because I know adult learners have to hear things multiple times, including myself, that what we would be voting on and discussing here is just an amendment to the underlying issue.

We would vote on this, and there's a whole separate vote on the underlying whole package.

So I'm gonna only be speaking to the changes, and I know folks have lots of thoughts on the on the whole deal.

Okay, so I'm just gonna go through this.

There's about four areas I wanna talk about.

So the first is at the...

is a section that clarifies the role of the SEO and the limitations that the moratorium has.

I actually don't think this is language that is necessary under what the current policy is, but we've heard lots of reports and lots of testimony about police officers who felt like because there was a moratorium on SEOs, SROs, that it barred them from accessing the building in an emergency situation or barred them from accessing the building should there be a need to take a statement from a student or even one example we heard is an officer who was stationed outside who couldn't come in to use the restroom.

and as far as I understand that was never the intent of the original moratorium so this is just making it very clear that at schools where there is still a moratorium or whatever that it is not at all infringing on law enforcement agencies doing the work that they have to do like in any other building or responding to emergency situations.

Okay, so that's number one.

Number two is one thing that struck me, and I appreciate the board delaying this to give more time to work on these amendments, was that the underlying policy amendment that we were voting on was not a good match for the things that we were hearing from the community and the needs that we were hearing around the SEO program, particularly that we heard time and again from people who were in and certainly from people who are skeptical of the SEO program, that this was not meant to be disciplinary and not meant to be someone patrolling the halls of Garfield or any other school.

So I put in this paragraph that makes it clear that the intent is addressing external threats and concerns, that it shall not serve as an enforcement arm of school administration, and that the focus of the SEO is to respond to external threats and to prevent them from impacting the learning environments.

That's point number two.

Number three in this amendment is making a clearer complaint process.

I know that understandably, and I would say I'm in full agreement with, skepticism of OPA as an enforcement arm for complaints.

So this would establish that there would be an internal complaint process set up at the school site that would be communicated to students and families.

I would say that the original MO that the original MOU that I saw already allowed for this process.

I have every belief that Dr. Hart would have set this up anyway, knowing the connection that he has to his families, but this is just making clear that that is a board expectation.

Number four, this is talking about any potential expansion or or extension of the SCO program and making it very clear the data that we would need to see in order for that to happen.

There's already language in there that says that it shall not be expanded without further board action.

That was already in the original language, but this would further amendment to say that the superintendent shall provide an analysis of the program's effectiveness, potential budget impacts of expansion or extension, and present alternatives to armed officers as part of the school safety program, which is very important for me know that we would be doing work for a year to see if there are alternatives to armed officers.

So those are the four categories.

Once again, I think that no matter what people's feeling is of the underlying issue, I think it is good to amend the language to make it better, and then we can all have our discussion and thoughts about the whole package.

But I do think that these amendments are intended to be responsive to the community concerns and also clarify our values as a board.

Questions or comments about Director Mizrahi's amendment?

All right.

I'm not seeing any.

So I'm going to ask staff for the vote on the amendment.

So this is just on the amendment.

It's not on the whole package.

It's just on the amendment.

Director Clark?

Aye.

Director Hersey?

Aye.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Aye.

Thank you.

Director Mizrahi?

Aye.

Director Rankin?

Aye.

Director Sarju?

Aye.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

President Topp?

Aye.

Amendment 1 has passed unanimously.

So just so we're all going to follow along in the process here, I'm now going to call for a motion on the item as amended with Director Mizrahi's amendment.

This is the one I already read, right?

Yes.

Okay.

I move approval of the amendment to Board Policy 4311 School Safety and Security Program as amended by Amendment 1.

Second.

All right.

We have a motion by Vice President Briggs, seconded by Director Mizrahi.

Discussion.

All right, staff, please call the vote.

Oh, wait.

Oh, Director Hersey, I'm sorry.

No, you're good.

You're good.

I don't have as much a question as a statement in just terms of like...

I don't even know where I want to go with this.

This has just been a mess.

Like, it's been a complete mess in terms of sorting...

How do we provide...

a school and community with the opportunity to help their students and their staff and anybody who is associated with the Garfield community feel safe.

And it has just been a real shame in my opinion, not on the fault of anyone who has testified or who has stepped forward, not on the fault of anyone at the district, but just like from our perspective as, or at least from my perspective as a board member, this was one of the first things that I worked on when I got added to the board in 2019. and is one of the last things that I'm going to see on my way out.

And just the trajectory of how difficult it is to navigate conversations around safety for our students, it's weighing heavy on my heart.

and I know for a fact that no matter what we as a board select tonight, that there are going to be folks who are still afraid at the end of the day, whether it be afraid from threats on campus or whether they be afraid of threats inside the campus and inside the building.

So I think for me, this complexity is both is wildly unacceptable and completely necessary.

What we know for a fact is that there is a real threat that is repeating itself day after day, specifically in this part of the city, and there is a barrier that is supposedly in place that is keeping our children less safe.

I have my own opinions about whether that barrier is a real thing or not.

But I think that what is outside of the realm of opinion is that there is a real need to address threats to our children in that part of the city.

And I just really want to make my opinion on all of this clear that this conversation has become so warped over the past few weeks that it's disappointing to me that we are struggling so hard to coalesce our communities around what we need to do for safety for our children.

So I just needed to put my two cents on the table before we move to the vote.

Director Sarju.

Thank you, Director Hersey.

Your point is well said.

My addition to that is I think what the situation represents is when you start from a place of lies, deceit, hiding things, not being authentic, this is where we end up.

It is a sad statement on adults.

Period.

It's a sad statement on adults.

We should not be in this place having this type of conversation.

And the reason we are is because of the discombobulation of adults.

What I'm angry about is some years ago, and when I say some years, I mean just a couple, there was a memo that was written about upping safety on our campuses, one including Garfield.

It went nowhere.

It sat in an email.

It went nowhere.

It was essentially unfunded.

And when I say essentially, there were some funds, but not to the magnitude as the memo represented.

And then we come to now, where we now have a public records disclosure that behind the scenes, The plan was funding 15 police and schools.

And now we have some totally different narrative.

I was supposed to get a document.

I've checked my email.

I support the FEP levy.

My hope is that What I was told was changed to general language is actually what happened.

I'm still, I will follow up with the individual about the email that I cannot find yet.

but the FEP levy isn't just about police, it's about free college for our kids.

We have just wrapped and warped and manipulated to the point where we could risk free college for our kids.

What a shame on the adults.

Shame, shame, shame.

Because this thing is now charged.

It's an us versus them.

I see some public servants in here who risk their lives for their families every day when they put on a uniform.

I ain't gonna call them out.

I respect them, I respect the profession, I come from that stock, and yet here we are.

and we're here because of lies, deceit, intentional discombobulation to advance a personal agenda.

And I'm angry about that because at the end of the day, we're playing with kids' lives.

Director Rankin.

to execute, college and also preschool.

And that is funding that is being completely gutted at the state level because they're going to make up their own shortfall.

And while they congratulate themselves for preserving K-12 funding, they're gutting a whole bunch of other things that are going to impact our families and kids that we really need the support of the city from.

From a community representative point, from the job we were elected to do up here, I want to vote yes on this because it is a very reasonable change to an existing policy that would allow schools' superintendent to enter into agreements with other public entities that serve the same communities.

The problem that we're all grappling with right now is that we don't trust each other.

I don't trust that if I vote yes on this very reasonable amendment to the policy to allow the superintendent and Dr. Hart to do what they need to do, I don't trust that it's not going to be, that I'm not signing a blank check, not a blank check, but like signing away guardrails around this.

And our community also doesn't trust us They don't trust school staff and administration.

School staff and administration doesn't trust the district.

We don't trust each other.

And I'm not sure how, like, I really want to take a leap of faith into we're going to do things differently.

We're going to turn this around.

But I've tried it too many times over the last six years and been kicked in the teeth.

And so it's like Lucy with the football.

I'm gearing up to kick a football again, and I really, really, really want this to be the time that it works out.

But I'm painfully aware of how many times I've ended up on the ground with the football pulled away by colleagues, by folks in that seat, by staff.

And so I honestly do not know how to vote on this.

I honestly don't know.

And I don't want to abstain, because I don't have a conflict of interest.

And as I said at the last meeting, we have dragged this out for so long, which is also really frustrating, because we're at about the same part we were, to Michelle's point, a year ago.

We were in a position to, like, let's just try something for a year.

And I don't know what happened behind the scenes.

It just went nowhere.

and so we're back in the place of mistrust because I still feel like there's something going on that we don't know and I don't know what it is and I don't know if it's on the city side or on our side because this shouldn't be that complicated.

Building principle is saying, I need better support to keep my students safe, and I want to make sure I have this agreement in place to support with safety around the campus.

That should be like, of course.

Of course.

It's painfully unstraightforward.

and I can't tell Mr. Podesta if it looks like you're gonna maybe get a response.

I'm not asking a question because I genuinely truly don't know what to do right now because I would like to vote yes and do our freaking jobs and not that frees everyone in a block of ice about actually like, and we have a whole bunch of other things that we need to spend time on also, a whole bunch of other things.

But I don't have the confidence that I'm not going to regret it later.

a couple points.

And that's not meant to be personal.

It's fine if it is.

That goes with the seat.

I think staff amended after our last discussion about our summer discussion about this, amended the size of the check to just Garfield High School.

These are by definition annual agreements.

and so there is already pretty much a limitation in scope for this pilot.

This is not compared to where we started this discussion.

I think there's been a certain amount of limitation.

I think that year that you talked about Dr. Hart used it very wisely because after the start of school last year we had increased police presence and he needed that time to gauge people's reaction to that.

We came to the summer, we've given you Dr. Hart, Mr. Howard and I have briefed the board and we used Dr. Hart's memo that Director Sargew referenced as an outline that included a request for police presence and we outlined how all the other steps violence interrupters, case management, increased safety and security staff, improvements to technology to improve the buildings.

All those other things have been addressed.

This was the outstanding request from Dr. Hart.

I think this policy change is pretty limited in scope.

I'm in no position to offer any amendments, obviously, but if the limiting to this, just Garfield, limiting it to just this school year, if that helps build trust because we are using the term pilot advisedly.

It's been a long time since we've had these types of relationships.

We want to see how it works, too.

We have been moving very deliberately.

We've gotten a great partnership from police with increased presence.

There is a need, and we wanted to see how staff and students reacted to that, how the community reacted to that.

This is going to the next level.

We should not move any faster than is possible, and so we're certainly could limit the scope of this to whatever you feel that you could trust us with, but that's our intent.

If this doesn't build trust, again, it's going to do more harm than good.

Vice President Briggs.

Let's just keep this going all night.

I guess my question is, if this does not pass tonight, what is preventing Seattle Police Department from continuing to patrol the area around outside of Garfield and around the neighborhood?

Ultimately that's a question for the police.

We've gotten great partnership and cooperation from patrol officers that's not a dedicated, they have many obligations, they get reassigned, that this is a unique relationship that we think is helpful because it is a sustained presence, it actually is in a fashion that officers can make connections with staff and know each other.

We've heard from police that people have been supportive, but they also ask questions, well, why is the officer in a particular area?

Why don't they talk to us more?

Can we engage?

And that's why it's called an engagement officer.

I think it's a different type of assignment Yes, and we get great support from patrol, but that is a moving target.

We're asking for something dedicated to building relationships, so it's a different sort of assignment.

So that can happen, and I expect it will, and we've benefited from so far, from that type of relationship so far, we think going further would be helpful.

Yeah, no, please.

Let's make sure we get all the questions out on the table.

I do not want to rush this.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

So just reaffirming that the action that we are considering is the policy and not the MOU.

I feel that it's been made very, very clear by those of us on the dais and by community members that we don't want to be in a situation where a police officer is inside the building telling kids to get to class and telling parents that they need to leave campus and that kind of thing.

Like I said, I mean, I know the MOU has been out there.

There are changes from what I saw over the summer, I think.

So in a direction that I don't appreciate.

I guess this feels like a bad relationship where it's like we broke up.

We talked about why we broke up.

They got their stuff.

They moved out.

We're considering getting back together.

But what I feel like the MOU is, is like, let's just have it go right back to the way it was before.

And we're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Things have changed and there's a reason we broke up.

and I don't mean to like make light of it, but that's just, I mean, this is about a relationship.

It's about relationship.

It's about being in community with people.

So I guess, Fred, I'm gonna just totally put you on the spot.

Is it your understanding?

And is it, I mean, are we all in agreement that like, because I kind of feel like we're all repeating ourselves, but we are repeating ourselves because then we don't see our direction reflected back at us.

What are the assurances that this person will not find themselves spending more and more time in the building policing kids instead of protecting the safety of the campus?

What like that's it that's really it because nobody has said never ever like we live in a city we understand that police is part of living in a city but we I feel have been extremely clear that that's not how we want our schools to operate on the inside and so that's my last hesitation is like I just kind of don't believe that it's not going to become that

I think, I mean, we also have civilian safety and security staff and their relationships with staff and students are important.

So we do think a certain amount of engagement with students and other staff, the point of this is to have a relationship that and at peak times of year, we hire contract security and other folks to work outside the building, but that doesn't lead to a relationship.

This isn't to augment our security staff.

It's to help us when we do need, the primary goal is when we do need to work with police, we do have face issues around some schools where there are community issues.

There are places where we're working with the police anyway.

Having a a consistent kind of liaison in that relationship would help the Garfield community, would help us with our relationship with policing overall is the goal.

Again, I think we put in the agreement, we put in the policy, clarity that this is not about policing students.

And many of the threats that we're concerned with are not about students.

There are circumstances in the surrounding area.

There are some of those circumstances police know things about that we don't know.

We're trying to leverage the knowledge they have about threats.

We've had issues just this week where we've been alerted by SPD that there are threats to particular staff and campuses.

We rely on that relationship every day.

We think it would be good to make it richer.

This is obviously a very difficult subject, which is why we want to tee this up as a pilot and start by starting and try something with all these constraints.

We'll make sure the board completely and the community understands this memorandum of understanding.

And I do think that, again, the main change over the early drafts that was a bit more driven by subject matter expertise was it became a bit more lawyerly and more, you know, there was a WASDA model, there were other resource documents.

If we need to step back and make it a little bit clearer and clearer, it's worth however long it takes to make that happen because this is an important step.

I mean, you made the analogy to broke up, we're getting back together.

I would say we're getting back together on a trial basis.

And we're trying to see if this works.

Yeah, yeah.

That's why it's a pilot.

And in state law and in the policy, we're asking you to approve all these agreements expire annually.

and so there is only so much runway on this issue.

It isn't, we start from here.

I don't think there's an opportunity to go from zero to 60 on this.

And as you said, it took us a year to get this far and that was not people sitting on their hands.

That was Dr. Hart working very hard with his community to say, I'm ready to try to bring something forward.

Director Sargi, let's have Director Rankin finish her thought and then we'll come to you.

I was just going to say, I'm not running for election.

So I have, you know, somebody at a conference, somebody once said that I was just recently at, when you're a school board director, it's not, I mean, it's not just at this conference, but like it's not, this is not about what Liza wants.

I'm here representing a whole entire community and they don't all agree.

and I think part of our job is being willing to make the hard decisions that may mean we don't get re-elected if people don't like it because we're doing the right thing for children.

So I'm just gonna say right now, I'm gonna vote yes.

I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna do a leap of faith and I'm gonna vote yes because, mostly because one of our building leaders is asking for support and we just had a whole bunch of people tell us that with lunch schedules, we should let building leaders tell us what they need and we're talking about a principal who is asking for support to prevent violence around their campus.

So I can't really say, oh, no, but I don't trust you to make that decision.

If I don't trust, if we don't trust that Dr. Hart and other principals are asking for the things that we need, I'm not sure what we're doing.

So this is against my own, like, I wish we didn't need police.

I wish this wasn't a conversation at all.

I'm just going to go on record and say, I'm taking a leap of faith, I'm going to vote yes, because we all need to come together and figure this out.

And I will have no hesitation, if there's any inkling of it becoming a problem, I'll have no hesitation immediately bringing policy 4311 back onto an agenda to revoke any and all MOUs.

Director Sarju.

So what you're witnessing are two people can disagree and still love one another.

Because I deeply, deeply, deeply love Director Rankin.

Deeply love.

Y'all figure out what that means.

I'm sure some people are like, oh, they're having an affair.

No, we're not.

No, we're not.

For me, this moment, you're not gonna rebuild trust with me in a 15, 20-minute conversation.

Once trust is broken, and I've told my board colleagues, I don't trust some of y'all, and I don't say that lightly.

You have to repeatedly do something to me to make me not trust you, because I generally am a forgiving person.

I told Dr. Hart I support him.

I told him before one thing was said to me and I told him the same thing after one thing was said to me.

And where I'm at now is I don't trust this district.

You all have broken my trust over and over and over again.

with multiple, multiple programs.

I'm not running for election.

I will never run for anything again.

And the reason is I can't suffer dysfunctional adults.

I can't suffer adults who lie to my face, smile in my face.

Mavis Staples says lying, you know what she says, I'm looking at my people.

Y'all know what Mavis says.

That is what has been in this district for decades.

I cannot in good conscience have somebody give me a little kiss on my cheek and tell me, oh, I promise it's not gonna happen.

No, when you've been telling me for almost four years that I can't trust you This is about kids at the end of the day.

I want Mr. Hart to be able to make Mr. Hart building decisions.

And on the record, I cannot vote yes on this total package.

The trust has been broken.

It is not going to be rebuilt before the first Tuesday in December at 5 o'clock when I am officially done.

I don't know what y'all are going to get.

There's a good chance you get somebody who doesn't give a flying care about black kids in this district.

That's a possibility.

I care about black kids.

I always have cared about black kids.

And I'm going to go out caring about black kids.

My colleagues know I talk about black kids all the time because until y'all correct the disparities once and for all, we are not standing on equal ground.

Too much data that says having a police officer in a school creates more disproportionality, not less.

That's the data, I'm not making that up.

And because of how this whole thing happened, like the lies and deceit for me are the line in the sand.

Like I recognize, yes, maybe something has been amended, but why couldn't you start there from the beginning?

Tell me why we can't just start from a place of trust.

Why can't we start from there?

So that's all I have to say.

I feel horrible about this.

Director Hersey already said it.

This is ridiculous.

Adults should be embarrassed.

by this behavior.

Because at the end of the day, we fail children when we're spending.

I'm missing a basketball game.

I just want you to know that.

The WNBA is happening.

That's what's important to me right now.

And I'm sitting here willing to have a conversation about lying and deceitfulness.

I'm hoping I'm hoping that from this point forward, we can stop the political wrangling and put kids first.

This should not be about winning an election or not.

This should be about what's best for kids.

And I'm not talking about this police issue, I'm talking about in general, our job.

And so I appreciate, I just wanna express appreciation for Director Mizrahi's amendment He didn't just like five minutes ago come up with that.

He took this and he thought about it and he probably toiled over it and wrote it and rewrote it.

That's labor on behalf of kids.

And yet here we are.

Mr. Mizrahi.

Yeah, just a few things.

First of all, appreciate the appreciation.

And I don't know if it, whatever happens, I don't know if it is any solace if we reject a better version of this language.

But appreciate the support for the amendment.

And I guess I would just underline, no matter what happens with the final vote here, I think Director Briggs asked a very important question.

There's nothing in our policy that stops SPD from having enhanced patrol, having an officer stationed outside of a school, even incidentally using the building or responding to emergencies in the building.

We added that language in the amendment, but we added it for clarity's sake.

I don't think it's even necessary.

The SEO is a very specific program.

It's a term of art.

It's a legal distinction, we don't have an obligation to have SCOs in our building to have safety around our building.

So I don't want there to be, whatever vote occurs, I don't want there to be a false narrative that we are rejecting safety for our students.

Director Rankin.

I was also going to say, we're targets either way.

I mean, I've already said that I'm going to vote yes, because if I don't believe that we can do better, I can't make it the next two years.

But also, I know that somebody somewhere, oh, Liza voted to bring police back to schools, even though I've been one of the most vocal people about disproportionate discipline and actually have followed it up with policy work.

Yeah, I don't think there's a popular vote here for any of us.

And so I just...

But it's not even about being popular.

It's about, like, what's true and what's not true.

And especially right now in this...

The national climate, everybody's looking for some reason to tear people apart and...

If an MOU is developed that doesn't align with our policy, that's not flying.

That's not flying.

Further comments from directors?

Director Yoon.

I just wanted to say that just having this conversation is a healing process.

Aside from trust being broken with the community and students and us being so disconnected, these students at Garfield are very traumatized and some of them are still in that process.

So I just wanted to share that whether or not this passes tonight, and if it doesn't, even if it does, We really need to work harder to make sure we are supporting students in that process and as I mentioned before and during student comments, I am working with Garfield students directly to make sure we are providing accessible and safe spaces for students to talk about their concerns.

And it's very hard and these students are hesitant because we're kind of reopening a wound that's been patched and it's probably going to scar them for the rest of their life.

So I just want to put it out there.

Yeah.

I appreciate that, Director Yoon.

Others?

All right, if staff could please call the vote.

Director Hersey?

Aye.

Director Mizrahi?

No.

Director Rankin?

Aye Director Sarju?

No Vice President Briggs?

No Director Clark?

No.

President Taup?

No.

This motion has failed with a vote of two yes's and five no's.

I just want to say I appreciate the conversation here.

This is not an easy topic and I also appreciate Director Mizrahi's work on an amendment.

I think that there's more work to be done here.

And I am looking at a vote here where we have two of the longest serving board directors voting yes as well, who have been here through this entire history and that hits in a different way.

I am going to take a five minute break and we will reconvene at 7.17 to go over it.

We have introduction items and informational items.

All right, let's finish this meeting.

Let's call the board directors back to the dais, please.

We're gonna now move to the introduction items on today's agenda.

First, we'll start with resolution 2025-26-3, Certification of Excess Levies and Calculation of General Fund Levy Rollback for 2026. I'm gonna pass it over to Dr. Buddleman to introduce this item.

Good evening, Curt Fettleman, Assistant Superintendent for Finance.

This is an annual certification that is required for school boards and other local municipalities who have taxing authority to annually certify to King County the amounts they will raise through taxation.

This resolution before you includes three levies, one for the general fund and two for the capital fund.

The amounts for the general fund EP&O levy are TBD as we await information from OSPI to make those calculations for us.

Approving this would allow us to collect those levy funds for the 2026 fiscal year, or calendar year, sorry.

Happy to entertain any questions.

This is required for us to collect our levies.

Questions from board directors?

Or are we all discussed out?

I don't know how to...

This is the most exciting thing.

Fred Podesta, or Superintendent Podesta, any questions?

All right, thank you, Dr. Buddleman.

I will...

We have one information item on the agenda and I'm going to pass it over to staff.

It's the 2025-26 highly capable plan.

So I'll bring up Dr. Torres Morales.

Good evening school board directors, city of Seattle.

We are here to present the 2526 highly capable plan.

So I'm gonna do a little bit of conversation over where we were and where we're going and then I'm gonna also introduce you all to Dr. Paula Montgomery who began as our director of highly capable services this summer in July.

And so she'll be talking through some of the nuts and bolts of the actual plan.

For context, if we recall there was an update to policy 2190 and some conversations last year around the plan needs to come back in the beginning of the year and then there needs to be a vote later in the year to accept the plan and that we did the thing so we can submit for reimbursement with the state.

So this is our attempt to align with the policy and to come forward with the plan in a timely manner early enough in the year so that the board can ask questions and see to see what we're doing.

For context, I want to go through a couple things around what's different and what I mean by that is if we go back to around 2020, We did not have universal screening processes.

We do have those now.

The data used for this is data that is collected at our schools.

It's not a separate test that kids are doing to be identified.

We also started working on equity for underserved groups, meaning multiple pathways for certain students, for example, multilingual students.

The way we look at their profile when we're determining for services is different than a student who potentially, or a student who's not multilingual.

and for context as well, currently 12% of our students, so 12% of students who are enrolled in Seattle Public Schools have a highly capable designation.

And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Montgomery to talk about the plan for this year.

Alright, thank you.

I received one question from a board member, so I hope that you got an answer for that.

I appreciate that question.

It's one that I had questions about myself.

As Dr. Torres Morales said, I just took over this position on July 1st.

I did a little bit of overlap last spring, and we are in the process right now of engaging with communities and families.

This board plan is our best thinking at this point in time.

We are committed to listening to our communities through I think it's four remaining engagement sessions.

We are looking at that data.

We are hearing their ideas.

We're hearing their thoughts.

We're really listening for the gaps as well.

And we are committed to coming back in February with recommendations and a tighter plan for what services look like in fall of 2026. And that is intentional.

That's before the open enrollment process for our families.

In terms of what is happening this year, some decisions had to be made so that we could move forward.

So specifically, we've made some changes to the identification and referral processes already.

So very specifically, we've actually narrowed the scope of our universal screening processes.

And some of this is because we want to get some things right.

We want to really pay attention and orient our department towards services and supporting teachers and we were spending the majority of the department resources and time on identification processes.

So we are still using universal screening but we've tightened it up to align with local districts and state law and so we're doing a universal screening process at first grade and fourth grade.

There are also the opportunities for family and educator referrals at all other grade levels and we've increased communications for families.

There's already been two communications that go out to families about family referral process A third communication is going out, if not tomorrow, then it's on Friday of this week.

It goes out in our top 10 languages.

We want to make it easy for families to refer their children and for educators, but we also just want to be pragmatic about the capacity of the department and the needs that we heard from educators specifically district-wide.

We are also looking closely at our teacher screening process.

In the report it talks about specifically the demonstrated performance tool.

That is really a teacher rating scale.

We have spent time this summer mapping to other districts, mapping to best practice to better fine tune that tool.

We have vetted that tool with a number of Seattle Public Schools' elementary school teachers.

We're about to release that tool in the next month, but we're thinking it's going to better capture our outlier students, our students who don't show up on those test scores, but our students who have the potential and who are showing some hallmarks of being ready for gifted or highly capable services.

We also are working with our multidisciplinary review team and processes.

This will happen in January and this is a team that overlooks and oversees all the different data pieces and a portfolio of pieces for identifying, not only identifying students for highly capable services, but matching the services to the need of the child.

We are also committed to using existing classroom-based teachers in Seattle Public Schools to make those decisions and we have some commitments from both our cohort schools and our neighborhood elementary schools.

Teachers want to be at the table when these decisions are being made.

They're the ones who really understand which students, how students can be served in neighborhood classrooms and which students might need something very specific in a cohort model.

and then the final big, big change for identification this year is single domain identification.

So we have at this point in time, we have 12% of our population who has been identified as highly capable.

Those students qualify in both math and literacy.

Starting this school year, we will identify students in either math or literacy or both and services will begin in the fall of 2026 for single domain services.

A few more things, and you can find a lot of it in the report, but I did want to point out our current work of our department.

We have been focusing on professional development.

The number one thing I heard as soon as it was announced in April that I was taking this position, I heard from a lot of elementary school teachers.

The neighborhood model, it's a great vision.

Policy 2190 is a great vision, but we need support.

We need to know how to do this.

What does it look like?

help us, help us, help us.

I heard that repeatedly.

One of the things we did this summer, we offered professional development specifically in July.

We redid that professional development in August.

We had over 90 elementary school educators come to our training.

It was very tightly focused on one, just helping folks understand what we mean by highly capable and highly capable services.

Two, just laying a foundation for universal design for learning.

It's UDL, we say it all the time.

We have 104 schools and we're trying to get really tight on which UDL strategies will meet the needs of students, highly capable, identified or not, but students at grade level and beyond grade level in any classroom.

and then we also talked about multi-tiered systems of support as well as the gate standards or gifted standards and how to embed those in existing district curriculum.

Like I said, we had over 90 elementary school teachers attend this.

We are redoing this training this Friday and actually I have a good problem to solve.

At this point in time, Teams only allows for about a thousand folks.

Actually, if we had every single educator log on individually, we would have over a thousand teachers attending this training.

So we're hoping it's an opportunity.

We know it's an opportunity to get everybody really clear and on the same page about what do we mean when we say highly capable services?

What could that look like at the foundational level in neighborhood classrooms?

We have cohort models at the elementary level.

We know it's two years acceleration, but what does it look like at the elementary?

And how do we use UDL, Universal Design for Learning, and depth and complexity, gifted standards, and embed it not just for the kids we've identified, but for any child on any given day who's at grade level or above grade level in a classroom.

A few other things, we have site-based support specialists in our department.

We have actually three teachers on special assignments.

Right now, those teachers have a caseload of schools.

They're spending approximately four hours a week at school sites.

There's a small menu of things that they're working on with educators.

and they are also collaborating with building leaders to try and really buffer up what does it mean to serve a wide range of kids in a classroom and very specifically the focus for kids who are at grade level and ready to go slightly beyond grade level on some standards.

Two more things that is a part of our current work.

We are working hard on a new to Seattle process.

We've heard and in our engagement sessions we keep hearing from families who are outside our system.

They've chosen for whatever reason to send their students to a private school or to a charter school.

And we're working on a process that we hope to have in place by open enrollment of next year to open enrollment of 2026 to assess students without making them spend a year in Seattle Public Schools, go through universal screening and then transfer schools if and when they qualify.

And we're hearing that that is a huge gap in service.

I said last night at Garfield High School actually in our engagement session, I said I want our private school families to come back to Seattle.

and we're committed to figuring out at least in this department with this mechanism how can we recapture some of those specifically kindergarteners and first graders back to Seattle Public Schools and then finally math is on everybody's mind in the highly capable world and probably throughout our district so one of the things that was our current work we created a summer math program specifically for our rising fifth graders to take a compacted sixth grade course during the summer over six weeks to have those neighborhood students, those students who are in neighborhood schools, join the cohort schools, Thurgood, Marsha, Decatur, and Cascadia, in sixth grade at the five pathway elementary schools.

We are still working on a longer term solution for that math trajectory.

Currently, our models, we have two very separate models.

We have a cohort model where kids are two years accelerated, and then we have a neighborhood model where kids are at grade level.

And we're working in partnership with the curriculum and assessment department very closely.

In the board report, we talk a little bit about a grade four and five math project.

we have five elementary schools connected for that project and part of that project is actually to build out materials for grades four and five that will meet the needs of the teachers that are aligned to our district adopted materials but really flesh out some deeper learning and access to accelerated standards.

Anything else?

Okay.

Thank you, Dr. Montgomery.

Open for any questions from directors.

Thank you, Dr. Montgomery.

It was wonderful to put a face to the name.

We do have some questions.

It looks like Director Mizrahi.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

It's really helpful.

I have a question about the summer accelerated math.

And so is a long-term goal rather than having that compact summer math for the neighborhood school to be able to offer a similar education to the cohort model where they wouldn't have to do a summer program in order to take the, I guess it'd be the seven, eight math in sixth grade and then qualify for geometry in middle school.

Is that the long-term goal is to have it be a similar?

offering?

That's partly why we're doing the community engagement now to hear from families specifically what they would think the service potentially should look like and when we come forward in February we're gonna say like yes this is a long term goal in that direction.

For now we did have to do this to make sure that we were getting students accelerated services as we commit to because that is also part of the law but we have not yet to determine if that's the way we're gonna approach this every year or are we gonna make some changes down in the way the curricular mapping is going in the neighborhood model to address that?

And that's partly what the four or five course that Dr. Montgomery's talking about around the materials, that's what some of this is gonna address as well.

So we're working through it.

We look to have a definitive answer to that in February when we come forward with our findings from our engagement sessions.

And is that summer program something that you have to have qualified into highly capable to have access to?

Okay.

Yes, at this time.

Any other directors?

All right.

Thank you, Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Torres-Morales.

I appreciate that.

So I believe that is the last item on our agenda.

I'm just making sure.

Yep.

So there being no further business to come before the board.

The regular board meeting is now adjourned at 735. Thank you, everyone.