School Board Meeting July 5th, 2017 Pt. 2

Okay, it's 7.30, we are off our break.

Director Pinkham, would you like to go for your comments now, sir?

Okay, you have a quorum.

Hi Tatia and Toskalawit.

Thank you and good evening.

Boy I didn't even know where to start here.

Well first of all thank you to all the community who came out and shared their comments and perspectives because again it's you're the ones that put us the board up here in the dais and hearing from you is always going to make sure we're doing are listening to your voices and decisions are going to be rough and sometimes we'll make a decision that supports you but then we also know that sometimes that decision is going to support another people or maybe in a community and that's been one of the tough things about being up here for me since I've been up here and I know it will probably continue to be so but your comments that are be shared with us makes it easier for me as it goes along so maybe by the time my terms up I'll have it down and who knows maybe I'll have to ask Betty if she's got it down yet In regards to the wait list you know that voting on the options that were presented before us I don't know if you noticed a little hesitancy for me on voting you know yea or nay on on the option that was presented you know it's was a difficult decision on what to do.

Do we keep on postponing this but I know that we have to move forward and for me it looked like option that we voted on was the best one if I understood it correctly.

in that we will move the siblings to the schools that they're on the waitlist for and as reference to the promises that were made to Whitman and then just a swap list for the high schools.

So for the high schools and I hope Rainier Beach was shared that information that we're not going to impact you as long as you were able to swap one for one.

So your FTEs or staff and stuff should stay the same.

so hopefully Director Blanford was able to share that with the Rainier Beach students that they weren't going to be impacted hopefully by the option that we approved.

if that isn't my understanding I may need to see about reconsidering what I voted for.

Given that we just had a board meeting last week I really don't have much comments to share with the community this time around but just want to again pass on appreciation of all the work and one thing that I didn't do last week to congratulate all the graduates last week for the ceremonies that attended and plus the ceremonies that they didn't and wish those graduates fruitful post high school career college whatever that leads them to and that they feel that the Seattle Public Schools did prepare them adequately wherever they decided to go.

You know if they want to consider the University of Washington then please send me an email.

Look me up on the UW website.

I'm there.

And that's all I had to share for tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director President Peters are you there.

would you like to make you we can hear you great would you like to make your board comments.

Yes I would thank you.

Well first of all I want to just say I regret my inability to attend the meeting in person tonight.

I am out of town for a family memorial but I will be back soon.

I want to thank everybody who came to speak tonight.

and I think we should think about how we arrange our agenda in the future so we can avoid having votes before public comments.

To the community, the students and the supporters of Rainier Beach High School, thank you so much for your dedicated support for the school.

You know, when we talk about Lincoln High School, I just want to point out that the two projects are not in opposition to each other.

that Lincoln is a response to some capacity needs in the North End but we also need to commit to Rainier Beach High School and it might not be based on immediate capacity but it should be based on a vision and a belief in the current and future students of Rainier Beach and we need to commit resources to that school and I firmly believe that once we do we will no longer have these conversations about wait lists and helping Rainier Beach with its numbers.

So I did not get a chance to speak too much about the end of the year but I just wanted to wish everybody a happy summer and remark on how emotional graduations always are and how wonderful it was to be able to be present at three different graduation ceremonies this past year at Ballard High School, Center School and Garfield High School and how I wish all of our graduates the best in their futures.

So my next community meeting I'm hoping to schedule either later in July or early in August and I will post that information on the district website when that's available.

Two more final comments.

We all As we all know, the state finally came to terms with a budget.

Well, not came to terms, but put together a budget.

And I have to say, I'm greatly disappointed by the process.

To be honest, I'm disgusted by the process.

It was not transparent.

Very disappointed by the outcome.

Appreciative, of course, of any funding that did come in the way of our schools.

However, There were some strings attached, some very serious strings, and I'm very concerned about the disincentives for our teachers and the disincentives against our teachers having higher education and having higher qualifications.

It seems to run in direct contradiction to what all research shows about investing in our teachers and their knowledge and their skills.

This obviously is something we are all unpacking since the budget was not presented to us all in a timely or clear manner.

Finally, this is an election year and it is said that truth is the first casualty of war.

It is often also the first casualty of politics.

I ask all my colleagues to demonstrate integrity, collegiality and respect for each other and the institution of the school board and help support the school district.

To rise above the negative impulses of this political era in which rancor and falsehoods are unfortunately the common currency of too many.

As a district, we have a lot of work to do, a lot more we need to approve but we have also accomplished things and that should not be understated.

Seattle has a national reputation for being on the forefront of some positive accomplishments.

We are a district that has a race and equity policy.

We are ahead of the curve in terms of having our students start school on time based on what is best for them emotionally and academically.

and tonight we are going to be discussing an ethnic studies resolution.

So there are many positives to be said about the school district.

Yes there's more work to be done but we just need to keep the facts in line so we can make positive progress.

Thank you.

Thank you President Peters.

My turn.

My next community meeting is July 15th Southwest Library, 35th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Henderson Street, I believe, and I'm making lasagna, so come on down.

It's good and rowdy and conversations are very thoughtful.

And given our capacity issues in West Seattle and the fact that we have not yet set a date for our carnival of crazy for what we're going to do in West Seattle with our schools bursting at the seams.

I'm sure a lot of the conversation will be in fact about equity and space and Though we get a little rowdy we get pretty darn respectful with each other's needs and that's the way that it should be as well as PTSA's reaching out to each other to make good things happen.

This last year I was able to attend auctions by both Concord and Stanislaus Elementary Schools and I saw a great many faces from other more successful schools helping lift all boats and appropriately so.

I wanted to echo one of the things that Director Burke said about the hard work that advanced learning has been doing in changing its procedures and advanced learning would also would also include Chief Jesse back there, Kerry Hansen, Steven Martin and his team.

We have already more than quadrupled children of color who have been identified for advanced learning because we've been testing them in their schools without disruption, without making folks run to the other end of the city to be tested in noisy, loud places.

And it's working, and we've also been encouraging teachers to identify potential candidates.

Are we there yet?

Not by any stretch.

Are we making progress?

Yes.

Should that be celebrated?

Yes.

CTE, my feelings are well known.

It's my hope we can reach out and partner with labor.

They are anxious to partner with us.

They bring funds and they bring expertise to the table and we're on the same team.

So we've got to make our circles bigger.

I am absolutely convinced that that we can do this a lot better and and with students in the program so follows the money and so follows their opportunity.

And I'm excited about that and I'm excited to welcome the new director of CTE later this summer.

Again my apologies to the students of Rainier Beach High School who were not advised that we had taken a vote prior to their testimony.

Again let's shout out and help each other in real time in the future.

Last week going to SLI and coming here for the JSC celebration was frankly just a blast and the JSC celebration had a part of joy to it that I've not seen in this building and it was very exciting to see it and to see senior staff scooping ice cream on the bulkhead back here, to see Deputy Superintendent Nielsen dancing.

I wish the heck I had video.

and to see folks having fun and enjoying each other as human beings as opposed to cogs in the big wheel was a pretty terrific thing.

I am privileged and honored to serve and I thank everyone in this room.

Let's move on.

Mr. Burke could you please address the 2016-17 superintendent evaluation narrative and evaluation instruments please.

absolutely I'll be brief first of all I want to thank my colleagues for for their work in this it's a challenge for seven people to come together and provide constructive and supportive feedback for our one employee and I want to thank our one employee Superintendent Nyland for him for being receptive and also highly collaborative in the process helping us as a board understand the nuances of the education system in a way that he has he's well versed and I think it felt to me like a valuable process.

So there are two documents posted.

One is a narrative and one is an evaluation instrument.

These are aligned to SMART goals which were identified six months ago.

I want to highlight that this is an evaluation for a six month cycle.

Normally we run a 12 month cycle.

but the board shifted it from December to December to being a June to June evaluation and so this is the work of essentially the last six months and one of the things that we're going to be doing looking forward is to establish a professional practice smart goal and the intent was that it would be introduced at this meeting.

The board is still working through the final details of that with the superintendent so you might see on the agenda where it was posted but then removed so we'll be introducing that at a subsequent meeting.

but I just wanted to publicly thank the superintendent for all of his work on behalf of the students and the relentless commitment to gap closing and staying on point and reminding us what our SMART goals are and I don't know if you want to share a few words but thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you to the board and particularly to Director Burke for shepherding that process.

Before I came to Seattle Seattle was in the process of looking at world class superintendent evaluation processes and Erin Bennett is one of the ones that helps make that process work in terms of making sure that the SMART goals are teed up and reviewed on a regular basis.

And I was going to say we couldn't count I'm sure we probably could count the number of hours that the board spends in setting the SMART goals reviewing the SMART goals and then most recently just this last month or so on my evaluation.

as I shared with the board during that process last week.

This is one of the I think this is the most thorough process that I have ever seen done.

And so I thank you for the thoughtful focus direction teamwork that the board provides to me and to the district.

So appreciate working with you and appreciate that collaborative spirit.

Okay, we are to action items.

Number one.

repeal board policies H 61.00 food service H 61.01 breakfast and lunch program and H 62.00 breakfast and lunch program free and reduced price meals and adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition.

Approval of this item would adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition and and repeal policies H61.00 H61.01 and H62.00.

I move that the board of directors repeal policies H61.00 food service H61.01 breakfast and lunch program and H62.00 breakfast and lunch program free and reduced price meals and adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition as attached to the school board action report.

May I hear from the chair of ops.

Second the motion.

Did it again.

I apologize.

May I hear from the chair of ops please.

This item was heard by the ops committee on the 18th of May and moved forward for approval.

Do I have questions comments or concerns from my colleagues.

Seeing none Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters aye This motion has passed unanimously

Number two repeal board policies H 63.00 food service for the special programs H 64.00 providing meals for private school students H 65.00 joint use agreement and H 65.01 food services for school functions and adopt policy number 6706 food service for school and community programs.

Approval of this policy would adopt board policy 6706 food services for school and community programs and repeal policies H63.00 H64.00 H65.00 and H65.01.

I move that the board repeal policies 8-6-3-0-0 food service for special programs 8-6-4-0-0 providing meals for private schools 8-6-5-0-0 joint use agreement and 8-6-5-0-1 food service for school functions and adopt board policy number 6-7-0-6 food service for school and community programs as attached to the school board action report.

I second the motion.

May I hear from the chair of ops please.

This item was also heard by the ops committee on May the 18th and moved forward for approval.

Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.

Director Blanford.

Only to to thank Ms. Fields for her hard work on both of these policies.

It's greatly appreciated.

Other comments concerns or questions from my colleagues.

Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Burke aye.

Director Patu aye.

Director Blanford aye.

Director Harris aye.

Director Pinkham aye.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

resolution 2 0 1 6 17 17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle public schools.

Approval of this item would adopt resolution 2016 17 dash 17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle public schools.

I move that the school board approve resolution 2016 17 slash 17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle public schools.

I second the motion.

May I hear from the chair of C&I please.

This was heard in the curriculum instruction policy committee on June 12th then moved forward for consideration.

Questions comments and concerns from my colleagues.

Director Pinkham.

I just want to hopefully get on the record for a statement by one of our public commentators about mandating some things and that my understanding the limit of the board the only person that we can direct is a superintendent so we can't mandate the schools to do anything.

So I just want to put that out there and I feel that the resolution does direct who we can hopefully get this ethics studies rolling.

Other questions comments and concerns Director Burke.

I mentioned some things about this at the last meeting and I just want to reaffirm the work of staff on this and this has been fast tracked and I want to take my hat off to you even though I don't have one that it's really been admirable how staff has rallied around this and built bridges with the community and had some challenging conversations held some lively meetings and my hope to my request to staff the community to our educators to our students is to go forward in this with open minds and a spirit of collaboration and spirit of collaboration not confrontation and that we have the hard conversations that we have to and that we work to change the minds and impressions that just have deep seated institutional challenges for Seattle and all around not just for Seattle and so that staff works really hard to try to figure out how to do this in our budget strapped environment.

This meeting was sort of a microcosm of the urgency for this work and the support for this work and the challenge of doing it in our complex environment and scant budget.

So I know that that's been at the root of the the conversations is how we're leveraging existing resources, how we're building off of current work streams, how we're using staff expertise that we have now, successful programs that we have now and that other people have now and that we're not creating things from scratch because there is some great, great stuff out there to support ethnic studies.

And I'm going to continue to ask staff to be really diligent in trying to reach a shared definition of what ethnic studies really is because in all these conversations there's been so much enthusiasm built around it that there's risk that it could be diluted or co-opted or lose efficacy by not having everybody on the same page.

So in addition to implementing stay true to reaching a shared vision of what ethnic studies is and how it actually supports our students.

and thank you again.

Director Blanford.

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments just made by my seatmate around the importance of a clear definition of what it is so that it so that we can dispense with the idea that it is something that it is not.

The emails that we've seen so far lead me to believe that there are multiple definitions of ethnic studies and so that we don't disappoint folks who have been disappointed on numerous occasions.

I think there will need to be really clear articulation of what ethnic studies is.

Secondly I believe that to the point that was made earlier about mandating some sort of implementation plan around this and to the point I think that Director Pinkham made around our ability to actually do that I think there's a key element there.

but to the point that I made earlier when we were discussing this I think that the implementation is going to be absolutely crucial that it's well implemented because we're dealing with issues of race and ethnicity and in our classrooms particularly those two issues if not well managed and well implemented have the potential to be very explosive and we want it to be a positive benefit for our students actually participating in those conversations as well as our educators who are leading those conversations.

So I think attention and focus on the implementation strategy around this resolution is going to be absolutely crucial to ensure that it accomplishes what we as a board have put forward as the aspiration for the resolution.

Any other comments, questions or concerns?

Director Peters, did you wish to speak to this?

Yes, thank you.

Well, I appreciate the fact that we are discussing this and we are putting forth this resolution and I greatly thank the community for rallying around the whole concept.

I feel this to some extent it is supporting what the district has has begun to do, but it's just the beginning.

And I agree that implementation is going to be very important.

And also consistency.

It's not something that we should let slip in any way.

And I actually see this as a very positive, constructive step forward to the district.

We are a diverse district.

It is one of our strengths.

And this will help us welcome all our students and make the most of the student education and make the most of the richness of our district.

And so I'm very happy to be able to support this tonight.

Director Patu.

I too am very pleased that we were able to move this forward and actually make this a reality for all our kids because I think it's so important that all our students learn about each other and the different cultures that are actually there within our schools.

So I'm very pleased that we are moving this forward.

Last up as I said previously I think the keys to really successful implementation here are robust professional development and continuing our conversation with our community and I hope we make this a standing committee and that we report back early and often this this has such extraordinary promise but but the issue of consistency and definition hugely important and I will in fact bring up the statutorily mandated since time immemorial curriculum has not been fully implemented.

Now mind you the same folks that passed the statute didn't provide the funding which is just a huge shock but we got to do better.

We must do better.

I'm very excited to vote for this and I thank the community members that brought it forth and I thank the students in particular that spoke to this issue and Mr. Keneshita Dr. Keneshita and Michael Tolley thank you very much.

Ms.

Shek roll call please Director Pinkham aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Peters aye this motion has passed unanimously

Number four, adopting policy number 2080 assessments.

Approval of this item would adopt policy number 2080 assessments.

and I might add that the action report and attachments have been edited.

Correct Kyle Kinoshta chief of curriculum assessment instruction.

We need to have the second procedure first sir.

Thank you.

I move the school board to board policy number 2080 assessment as attached to the board action report.

I second the motion.

May I hear from the chair of C&I please.

This was moved forward from the curriculum instruction committee on June 12th for consideration.

So just wanted to very briefly take note of some of the revisions to the board documents.

In the board action report on page two we noted that staff had reviewed language from school board resolution 2015-16-15 resolution to request state adoption of alternative summative assessment framework to reaffirm student opt out rights.

So that was one change in the policy text itself.

and page three of four, we made some streamlining to a sentence which now reads, district-wide assessments are those that are funded centrally and used by all applicable district schools.

So that defines what a district-wide assessment is.

On page four of four, we did two things.

Director Geary wanted to ensure that not only were students not punished for not participating in assessment, but not in any way excluded in any way from some of the reward activities.

So we added the word exclusionary.

So it reads students who do not participate in district to state assessments for any reason have a right to appropriate learning activities and not be subjected to punitive or exclusionary treatment for non-participation.

We made parallel changes to the procedure as well.

Lastly, in terms of cross-references, we added the school board resolution that I just took note of.

Questions comments or concerns Director Burke.

Thanks for the work continues to be a work in process in my mind and I would like to actually propose a small amendment which I had shared with staff.

Two words.

This is referring to page three of the policy paragraph one.

And there is a line which states All assessments for district wide use will be reviewed for will be reviewed by the school board.

The amended language would be all assessments for district wide use will be reviewed for approval by the school board.

Second the motion.

Questions comments and concerns on the amendment.

I have some comments.

Go ahead, Madam President.

Well, I appreciate the suggestion by Director Burke.

One of the concerns that has arisen about our assessments is the fact that there hasn't been complete clarity and transparency and oversight to various assessments that have been used.

That came up in the past with the M-Class Beacon test.

and then also at the amplify test and also with the map test there were questions about when they were being used who was being used by and parents did come to board directors and ask about some of these and in the case of the amplify I think it did not come to the board originally so this would allow greater transparency it would allow the board to have the oversight so that it can answer to families about what it is we are administering to their students and I think it will allow us all to be able to support whatever tools we end up using.

So I support this amendment.

Director Burke I want to bookend this with a little bit of a higher level discussion recognizing the whole reason that this policy came into existence and was part of a probably over a year long discussion and about four years of really thoughtful work by the staff in collaboration with individual directors and so this topic was discussed in committee and During that process we didn't really refine it to the point of what is the approval threshold for the board and what this language does is it essentially says if it's a district wide assessment it goes through board approval.

The intent is really what what Director Peters was talking about around trust and transparency and the policy and procedure include an adoption component which is significantly stripped down but in the procedure it talks about the school board district staff SEA and pass should be informed of the following intended purpose of the assessment how the results of the assessment will be reported and utilized and how families and community members will be engaged throughout the selection process.

So again the intent is if we're going to adopt something that we're expecting our kids to commit their time to we as an institution owe it to our families to demonstrate the purpose and the efficacy and actually the value because we have this challenge especially with the state assessments of maintaining 95% participation or higher.

So we want to build community trust, that we're picking good tools, we're using them for good reasons, and that when you put an assessment in front of a family and say, do you want your child to be able to do this particular thing, this particular problem, or this particular performance task, or know this particular information, the family would say, yes.

We want them to say that and we want to say how do you know.

Well we don't know.

OK this is how you know.

And we want to be able to build that level of trust in our assessment tool.

So that's that's the basis behind it.

But I really want to make sure that staff has a chance to share because we had some rich discussions in committee around the ramifications of this and impact to workload.

So I want to be respectful of that also.

Director Blanford and then if we could hear from staff.

My question has to do with the clause around approval board approval of assessments before they can be implemented.

I'm wondering have you done any work to identify if there are complications associated with the board actually having to approve the assessments before they're given to our students.

Thank you for that question and I just wanted to affirm what Director Burke was saying that we have taken quite a bit of time to develop this policy and the associated procedure with the intent to involve as many stakeholders as we possibly can as well as of course school board members and we've worked hard to incorporate much of the feedback that we've gotten from everyone including the board.

and we truly believe we probably have one of the most comprehensive assessment policies for any school board school district in the country.

At the same time though there are components that were recommended that we have not incorporated into policy one being the approval process for specific reasons.

I'm going to ask Chief of Student Support Services wife Jessie to speak to that.

Thank you Board Director Superintendent Nyland.

So we have had a rich conversation.

This has come about and we've had this also at CNI committee multiple times and one of the things that really has me nervous just even within the current policy and procedures that we do have really does lie around capacity and oversight.

There's a lot of details in this particular procedure that I already am nervous a little bit about because we are hold accountable promises promises made promises kept.

And we want to do that and as a as one professional amongst many who is responsible for that I have to think about some of the things that are going to get carried through.

Many of the things that we've we've listed as part of the roles and responsibilities for school personnel.

across the 102 schools.

That's an incredible amount of work.

And so it took us just as one example around the interim assessments which again kindly you helped us provide that process is just wrapping up.

We started that process in November.

The incredible amount of time out there on just doing the RFP.

We're not even to contracting yet because we did so much stakeholder involvement in getting a lot of people's input and process.

I understand a lot of the practices in the past where not ideal.

I think this policy procedure does get us way in a better position and obviously does have the accountability language in it.

But I would want to end with a couple points.

learning as always and I tell this to a lot of school leaders is there is no perfect assessment and assessments are is a fluid environment.

It's not adopting a textbook.

Textbooks stick around.

You can supplement assessments have a little bit of a change you move through.

You have to change them just even in their own student population across our very diverse schools here in Seattle.

but also as timeline like I said we want to be ready.

If I put it together an assessment calendar and we were stuck in process and I and we make some of those processes of schools that something's coming and it doesn't deliver.

My name's next to it and so is ours.

So I feel very nervous about that at times.

and then the technical skills and I think actually did a good job of just listening to some of the different kinds of assessments we have.

There's this technicality just to understand the differences between the assessments not only just about how the content or the design of them.

So I think that's good too.

So I can see the I'll just wrap up there to say really do stress that we just want to be very careful and thoughtful and our hope was to move forward with what our recommendation is today.

Understanding this is a process of improvement and that we could come back to adding some of those pieces in a later date and time.

I had a follow up question.

Please go ahead sir.

Has there been any work done with our local districts or around the nation to identify the level of board oversight of assessments.

Are we breaking new ground or have other districts school boards have this responsibility for approving the assessments that are used with students.

I'll let him speak.

I took a look again at the benchmarking districts that we examined.

First of all, you know, Associate Superintendent Holly is correct.

Most of the assessment policies are less than one page.

Ours of course is four and just in terms of how they're spelled out.

And none of the ten that we looked at have any mention of any approval process.

Other directors comments concerns and questions.

You had a follow up.

Yes.

Director Blanford please.

I didn't know if if Chief Jesse had something else to add it sounded like you did want to add something.

Yeah just because I know the procedure accompanies it.

Nobody's procedures.

None of them were laid out nearly to the depth of the procedure that we we have drafted currently.

Most of them talk about really thinking about the state assessments high accountability.

We've added layers.

again thanks to the thoughtfulness to Director Burke and the team within CNI is just again kind of laying that out that that level of depth is nowhere to be found.

OK.

And then one final question certainly has to do with the opt out clause.

and I'm interested for the public record in knowing what the ramifications of us falling below the threshold number for students that choose to opt out of our assessments.

I'm talking about the standardized assessment in this case.

I'll attempt to answer that.

And actually Dr. Nyland was right there.

We had our quarterly meetings with the Department of Education and OSPI.

Department of Education was really clear actually with this and had many questions about our participation.

And you know as the award awarding of federal dollars It was part of that conversation was hey those are some of the things that you know we're expecting Seattle Public Schools to meet their requirements and hence I don't know if Associate Superintendent Tolley or Dr. Nyland wanted to comment specifically to that.

Dr. Nyland you have the floor.

Unfortunately I know a little bit about this one.

So we have been previously on notice from the U.S.

Department of Education that we were falling below the 95 percentile federally required level in half of our schools.

I have not seen the most recent numbers.

My prediction has been that as we become more familiar with the test there'll be fewer opt-outs and our percentage know that under this current presidential administration that they will follow through with punitive monetary punitive measures as was threatened under the previous administration.

However, it is still the law.

We see it in other ways.

We have some blanks up on the wall over there from schools that are no longer recognized because they did not meet the 95 percent threshold.

And as I visited with TOPS, Pathways, a variety of our option schools, they note that when their participation drops, then their test scores drop.

and then they are in a defensive posture as parents come to see them.

My student here because the test scores are going down.

So we are in this interesting world radical middle.

where we are under legal obligations and some of our own making.

We want our schools to look well, do well, enroll well.

And so yeah, we try to find that way where we let parents know that yes, we will honor their right to opt out I know that there's been some issues where that has not felt to the public like we are honoring that to the extent that we should and we're working on that.

I sent a very clear memo to principals and we'll follow up on the ones that didn't quite get the memo yet.

to make sure that they do that.

And at the same time we're hard pressed to find good quality places for kids to screw the 15 hours of testing while they're opting out because all hands are on deck administering the test.

so it is you know we are trying hard to honor the right of parents to opt their children out at the same time we're trying to communicate all the reasons why those tests are important and how we use them and how they're valuable to both the student and to the staff.

And I don't want to dominate this conversation but that comment poses another question in my mind.

We have existing opt out language correct.

and the result of changing the language that we currently have on the books would potentially have the effect of increasing the number of students and families that choose to opt out of our tests.

The language is strengthened.

It's not weakened.

Am I wrong?

In actuality we tried to make sure that the language was neutral you know simply describing you know what would happen and again we changed the language and took the words opt out or refusal out and simply said if the test if students or parents chose not to participate in the test but it has not been I would not say that the language is strengthened it's you know simply there to describe the rights of students and parents.

So how would you describe the change that has been made?

Mostly to make the language more explicit in terms of what the rights were.

Director Patu.

So I know I asked one time about the recruitment process.

So where are we with the recruitment process of that program?

I need a little bit more clarification of your question.

Well I had asked before about you know how are we recruiting students of color for the ACC program and didn't get an answer the last time and wanted to find out where are we with that.

We we have made significant progress in this particular year.

We did provide quite a bit of information in the Friday update a couple of times this year on that most recently this last Friday's update.

But what we have seen through our efforts in particular assessing students at school arts all of our second graders particularly our title one schools and actively reaching out to our families more intentionally.

We have seen a significant increase in identification of students of color.

What percentage would you actually say that you have right now?

I wouldn't hazard a guess.

I would have to get back to you with the more specific information.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham and then you Madam President.

In regards to the 95 percent participation by the federal do we advertise I don't see it listed in here as far as that we can suffer consequences if we don't meet that 95 percent.

Is that something we need to maybe share with the community out there.

Hey we know you have the right to opt out but federal regulations wants us to have a 95 percent retention rate.

I don't know if that would impact that may have someone may say okay I will do it now to help them out or they may say well I'm going to make sure they don't meet that 95% but still that that again that come that transparency that hey here's what we're striving for because the federal government wants is set that participation rate for us.

I'd have to check my letter.

My letter went on at great length I think longer than anybody would read it.

But it I think it tried to make that distinction without calling it out.

So I didn't want it to make I didn't want to make it feel like a threat.

While at the same time I did want to promote the positive aspects of why we appreciated the participation.

want to make it seem like a threat but just so they have that knowledge and not thinking that we're just trying to yeah we want to assess you because that's what we want to do.

No we have a certain target we want to reach and hopefully they can help us reach that target.

Director.

Director Peters the floor is yours.

Regarding opting out.

I believe what we're doing with this assessment policy is merely affirming rights that already exist for students.

And we're just clarifying that.

As to whether or not clarifying that language increases opting out, that's a question of correlation versus causation.

And I don't know if we have any actual evidence one way or the other.

There are other organizations outside of Seattle Public Schools.

I think there's even one called Opt Out Washington.

they are probably impacting the opt-out participation as well.

So what we're simply doing here is clarifying parents' rights.

And then to Jesse's comments about assessments changing and why he opposes board oversight of assessments, I think about the MAP test.

That was adopted in about 2008 or 2007. We've had that for eight years.

so it's not true that our assessments change that much but the counterpoint could be if they are changing a lot maybe that's a bad thing and maybe if we had a more formalized adoption process they wouldn't change as much and we would give greater care to what we choose and better stability to our students and educators.

So again I support this amendment.

Last up real quick I think we know more about assessments now than the Secretary of Education as Senator Al Franken asked her about during her nomination hearings.

I am in favor of this this amendment.

for transparency purposes.

And if if we run into issues then I invite staff to come back and say this is not working for us.

It requires too much too much scheduling issues for resolutions etc.

And if we display the kind of collaborative push that we have already I'm not worried about that.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I will note that I am strongly opposed to the amendment and first off I'll start off by saying that I believe that it is a it is a pretty incredible idea that we would mandate board oversight of every assessment before it can be administered to our students.

I feel like we're getting to a place where unfortunately where where the recommendations of staff are not heated.

The recommendations of our educators professional educators are not being appreciated.

and I fear that we're going down a dangerous path.

With regard to the opt out clause of this I've been on record I've read into the public record a statement made by 20 different advocacy national advocacy organizations that all advocate for for students of color for low income students for disabled students and special ed students and all of those organizations came out uniformly and said that opt out movements and opt out policies like the one that we're considering right now are are not in the interest of closing our achievement and opportunity gaps.

the data that is collected from many students participating in these assessments gives us better data by which we can use to make allocation decisions educational decisions that work to close our opportunity gaps.

And when we give our parents more ability to opt out then we are we are exacerbating our opportunity gaps.

I've been really clear on the record about this.

Many others have written about this.

As an educational researcher I know in my heart of hearts that assessments are not perfect and that we have to constantly strive to identify the bias that's built into the assessments.

But if we get to a place where there's automatic suspicion of any assessments that are applied to our students.

I think we are we are definitely impacting what the educational theory says that you have to instruct students.

You have to assess them and then you have to retool your instruction to assure that all students have had the opportunity to benefit from the instruction.

I think we're putting another piece in a very cumbersome piece I might add.

into that mix.

And I believe that it's going to have negative impacts on our ability to increase excellence for all students and for us to close our achievement gaps.

So for those reasons I'm planning to vote in opposition to both the amendment and the motion.

Director Burke.

I respectfully want to appreciate what my colleague said I think it's but I want to make sure that people recognize that this this policy and this adoption or this amendment are not about opt out.

They're not about the federal mandated test they include elements of that to clarify it.

but it's about defining what our assessments what are our assessment pieces creating common language that we can use as a board as staff as community and creating a common understanding of what are the fundamental building blocks under MTSS.

And so just as a case in point we're working on the RFP that Chief Jesse had mentioned around our interim assessments.

The board and the curriculum instruction committee have not been engaged in that work.

We've been informed but as far as understanding the true theory of action staff has done a ton of work and I have heard about the work.

and I respect the work and appreciate the work but the board has not been brought along with that work.

This policy is our way of saying bring us along please.

in the most recent Friday memo we were notified that the Fountas and Pinnell progress monitoring assessment was purchased and will be used for kindergarten through fifth grade.

Already used in many of our schools.

This is not a new innovative assessment.

This is a tool that many educators use and trust but was not discussed at the curriculum instruction committee.

The board has not been brought along with it.

Again the request bring the board along with this work.

Ms. Shaq roll call please on the amendment.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Nay.

Director Blanford.

Nay.

Director Peters.

Aye.

This amendment has passed with a vote of 4 to 2. Ms. Shek roll call on the main motion as amended please.

Director Blanford.

No.

Director Burke.

Yes.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Yes.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Yes.

This motion as amended has passed with a vote of 5 to 1.

Thank you very much.

Number 5 review and approval of career and technical education 2017 annual plan per policy number 2170 approval of this item would approve the career and technical education 2017 annual plan.

I move that the board approve the attached 2017 career technical education annual plan as attached to this board action report.

I second this motion.

May I hear from the chair of C&I please.

This came to C&I June 12th was moved forward for consideration to the full board.

Comments questions concerns from my colleagues.

Director Pinkham.

Thank you for this presentation and the report.

I'm curious because it seems like to me with some of these technical education programs that when they're put just at one school then that makes it either students do I want to stay at the school if that's my assigned neighborhood school because it has a culinary but I want a different CTE and then if they can't get it at the skill center then they may opt to well I want to choose another school.

Is there a way we can leverage current programs so maybe we can build up the skill center so we have more of those programs there that every student can opt to go to versus gee I gotta if I stay at my attendance area school I'm not going to get the technical or career education that I was hoping for.

Yes, and thank you for having me.

Dan Goldsman, Principal for the Skills Center, and I'll do my best to speak for CTE in general.

Yeah, that's an interesting question, and I think something that we're exploring and working with district leaders and staff at the schools and community members and partners is thinking about other ways to do a little bit more what you're talking about.

One, you know, just a model we've explored is what if some of our half-time skill center teachers could teach introductory versions of the same courses or other CTE courses that would offer electives that we don't have a lot of these days, or we have fewer and fewer of, to give a little bit more in the way of choices for students.

Another thing, and my, forgive me for bringing up summer school again, but that's my job.

you know summer school is one of those ways that we can get those students in lots of different experiences and explore career pathways and get those CTE credits as well.

Other questions concerns or comments from my colleagues?

Director Burke.

I've used up more than my share of airtime so I'll be brief.

Obviously one of my favorite topics I want to bring to my colleagues and the public's attention two points.

One of them in support of what what Principal Goldsman had just mentioned on page seven is a table that shows the skill center enrollment and this is one of the things that that staff has added which I think really helps tell this the story of some of our challenges around our skill center.

and this relates to our six period day our 24 credits the requirements graduation requirements that we have to fit in that are squeezing out opportunities for electives for students and squeezing out the ability for them to be able to do skill center programs.

There's a column that shows the historical enrollment in skill center during the school year which is essentially flat for the last four years.

there's a column which shows the summer enrollment for Skill Center that shows a consistent climb over the last four years because summer enrollment is not limited by high school schedules.

And so and it's not it's an opportunity that our kids want.

It's a place where kids are going.

They're getting those credits they're getting those classes.

And so again it's a it's a call to the board and staff to figure out how we can do our high schools to open up some of these options during the school year.

The other thing I want to do just to bookend that on page eight there's a table of participation in CTE and skill center coursework by demographic groups.

And if you look through the demographic groups that are participating in our CTE classes there's CTE participants and then concentrators which are those that do two or more CTE courses.

and I challenge anyone in the district to find a better demographic match in our programming.

When you look at the demographics of our district and you look at the demographics of our CTE programs they are so well represented that we have to figure out how to replicate it and grow this program.

That's all.

Comments questions concerns.

Director Pinkham.

For maybe leveraging also our local community colleges is that an idea for this since they have running star students going there to take like math and other classes but a lot of the community colleges have these kind of current technical courses as well.

Is that also being considered.

Absolutely, yeah.

And, you know, one of my favorite examples these days, we're starting a new maritime operations course, the director at the Seattle Maritime Academy, which is an annex, a site for Seattle Central.

She and I have been working together all year and working with partners like the Port of Seattle, other folks, think about how we can do a great job of starting our students in high school, getting them interested in that career pathway, and moving them into a Seattle Central College program like Seattle Maritime Academy.

That would just be one example.

But yes, Dan Gallagher and I and Jane Hendrickson have been meeting with and working with folks from Seattle colleges and want to strengthen those partnerships for sure.

Yeah thank you because I think that'd be great because we're getting some students that can graduate with an AA degree and future students graduating with a certification as well in some of these career technical programs.

Thank you.

And if I can just add to that to make sure folks know that actually we do provide college credits through some of our courses as well in the high school like the tech prep program as an example.

Director Patu.

I'd just like to echo what Director Burke has said in terms of how important it is for us to really support our CTE programs because not all students want to go to college.

A lot of them are actually looking for jobs right after they finish high school.

So I think this is a great opportunity for us to really look at how creative can we be in terms of actually supporting our CTE programs.

Director Blanford.

Because I'm experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance I will just share that and this is no reflection on on the hard work that you're doing.

I to celebrate the fact that CTE is is as diverse as our district is as a whole.

We heard testimony earlier today about the need for our highly capable program to be similarly diverse.

and I believe that that should be as high a priority as the other programs that we're looking at because ultimately we are making decisions about who gets to go to college, who doesn't get to go to college, I believe that those decisions should be made by the students and families and that we should offer maximum opportunity for kids to explore their passions and discover what their passions are.

It's in my mind it's we celebrate on one end and on the other end we look at work that still needs to be done and particularly the work around our highly capable programs needs to be done.

Rector Burke.

I would not want to bring this up but since two of my colleagues did I feel I have to make sure that we as a district recognize that CTE is not a division between kids that go to college and kids that don't.

CTE courses are an opportunity for our students to touch things that's more than a textbook more than a computer to be creative to learn skills that they may use in a job they may use when they're remodeling their house they may use when they're sewing clothes it's an opportunity for them to do things that they're not necessarily going to do after their high school career.

And so I want to be really my ask to everyone in the district is that we work really hard to recognize that every CTE course is an opportunity to do something beyond that CTE course.

And it's not a mandate that somebody is going to go into a particular career or a particular track but rather that it's an opportunity that opens up a wider set of possibilities.

And I know I've heard that from colleagues as well but I just really want to go on record that that's an important part of our messaging as a body that's leading this district.

Director Patu.

On that note I would also like to say that yes we encourage all our kids to go out to college but not every student want to go to college.

They want a skill that they can actually utilize.

to be able to get a job.

I know this because I work with a lot of those kids in the past.

So when I say that we want to make sure that our kids have an opportunity to get a job, these are for students that actually do not want to go to college, who really wants to start making money and be able to support themselves.

So we have an opportunity to do both.

kids can go to college and we are having programs that actually support that so they can continue on to further education.

But we also have opportunity for kids who do not want to go to college but want to get a job so they can actually be able to support themselves.

May I add a comment there?

Is that okay?

Quickly.

I would agree.

And I think just to make sure everyone hears different examples of pathways that students have, we have students who are going straight into jobs at Boeing and Orion and other places like that the day after they graduate from high school.

They might go on to college.

They might get that paid for by Boeing and other organizations.

We have other students going on to nursing school right out of our program in West Seattle, the nursing assistant certification course or our firefighting course.

One of our students, Katie Lutkovitz, I believe is up at Fairbanks University with her firefighting training from Skill Center, taking that on to college.

So yeah, it's absolutely, we have a wide range of opportunities and a really wide range of pathways that students can take.

I'm not going to comment because I think my views on this are very clear that we need to make the circle bigger find more mentors experiential learning is I think outstanding and I look forward to hearing from you next year on your annual report to see how much progress we've made.

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you sir.

Thank you.

Number six approval of Seattle Public Schools 2017 2021 affirmative action plan.

Approval of this item would approve the Seattle Public Schools 2017 2021 affirmative action plan to be submitted to OSPI and implemented by the responsible parties and human resources.

I move that the school board approve the Seattle Public Schools 2017 to 2021 affirmative action plan to be submitted to OSPI and implemented by responsible parties detailed the attached plan document in human resources.

I second this motion.

This matter came before A&F on June 8th for consideration.

Questions comments concerns.

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Burke aye Director Harris aye Director Pinkham aye Director Blanford aye Director Patu aye Director Peters aye This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Number seven.

City of Seattle families and education levy F.E.L. and Seattle Public Schools S.P.S. personal services contracts P.S.C. for Seattle Parks and Recreation City Year of Seattle and University tutors of Seattle schools.

Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent execute contracts for a combined total of one million eight hundred seventy six thousand three hundred and eighty two dollars.

with City of Seattle's Parks and Recreation Department paren $543,492 University tutors for Seattle schools $522,890 and city year $810,000 for the school year 2017-18 for the purposes for the purpose of providing families and education levy funded activities.

I move that the board authorize the superintendent to execute the contracts for a combined total of one million eight hundred seventy six thousand three hundred eighty two dollars with the city Seattle's Parks and Recreation Department five hundred forty three thousand four hundred ninety two dollars university tutors for Seattle schools $522,890 and city year $810,000 for the school year 2017-2018 for the purpose of providing families an education levy FEL funded activities in selected elementary K through 8 middle and high schools with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contracts.

I second the motion.

This matter came before A&F on June 8th for consideration.

Questions comments concerns Director Blanford.

At the last board meeting I asked that this to make sure that this item did not end up on the consent agenda.

The reason for that is I'm just wondering for the public record if you can make a brief brief presentation on each one of these items so that we know what we're approving.

Sure.

Michael Stone director of grants physical compliance.

I'll do my best.

So as part of the family and education levy the city has set up their own request to allow CBOs to come in and work with the schools that the funding is provided to parks and recs comes into many of our middle schools and our elementary schools for out of school time to provide before and after school programs academic support as well as enrichment activities that can be from sports activities to also let me go into a specific one of the addendums to highlight something.

Sorry about that.

they provide site coordinators volunteer coordinators and bring in tutors at Parks and Rec University tutors is also the same they will be in elementary schools middle and high schools providing tutoring services throughout the day before and after school.

And of course City Year has been coming in and doing strong academic programs in our third fourth and fifth grade classrooms and our middle schools in the feeder pattern towards Denny Mercer and Aki.

There they are providing 8 to 10 core members who are working directly with identified students academically and with after school activities beyond academics.

Thank you for that.

I primarily didn't want this on the consent agenda because I wanted to have the opportunity to thank our community partners for the critical work that they do helping to educate our students and get them ready for their future.

So I wanted to be on record being saying that.

Well I do want to add City Year has actually done a lot of work this year in expanding their tutoring programs and working directly with my department for Title I and LAP.

Helen Finch who actually retired this year has been providing professional development to City Year core members in working with the leveled library intervention kits that some buildings are using specifically for academics.

Thank you for that and thank you for bringing that forward.

Much appreciated.

Other comments questions.

Director Patu.

Do we have an evaluation or assessment piece on each one of these programs to kind of tell us exactly what you know what they've been success that they've had with our students in each of these schools.

The Department of Education and Early Learning with the city has that date in the provided in their yearly report that they bring to you in the fall.

for all three programs.

It's it's compiled data of how students are doing.

I could ask them.

I'm actually meeting with them tomorrow.

I could see if they could bring that information forward with all three of these programs.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Any other comments questions concerns.

Ms. Sheck roll call please.

Director Burke.

Hi.

Director Pinkham.

Hi.

Director Harris.

Hi.

Director Patu.

Hi.

Director Blanford.

Hi.

Director Peters Aye This motion is passed unanimously

Number eight approval for contract amendment with school data solutions for school based implementation of MTSS student data portal RFP 09615 approval of this item would authorize superintendent to execute a contract amount with school data solutions in the amount of three hundred sixty six thousand seven hundred fifty dollars for the student data portable portal excuse me homeroom.

I move the school board authorize the superintendent to execute a contract amendment with the school data solutions in the amount of three hundred sixty six thousand seven hundred fifty dollars for the student data portal homeroom in the form of the draft contract amendment dated May 23rd 2017 and attach the school board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract amendment.

I second the motion.

May I hear from the chair of C&I please.

This came to C&I on June 12th was moved forward for consideration.

Questions concerns comments on this action item.

Director Pinkham.

Can I hear from any of the other directors that might have seen the demonstration on their thoughts.

I was unable to see the demonstration the timing didn't work out for for either of the opportunities.

Well when I went to SLI last week and I sat at one of the teacher tables I was about assaulted when we started talking about this.

They were beyond psyched.

Dr. Kinoshita you remember that.

and you said you were going to hire me to do the rah-rah on it and I came into this conversation as a significant cynic but these teachers were really really pumped about being able to build their own data profiles and that was about as real as it gets for 45 minutes zipping off of that so I'm still a cynic but I'm a believer cynic now.

Yeah because when I arrived at the meeting it was just wrapping up their presentation but I recall that one of the schools that was the principal I was presenting was all hyped up about you know they're very thankful that they got to be one of the 15 schools to try this do the trial for this program but I didn't really get to see how this program actually worked.

It's Rox Hill and she'll walk you through it.

Other questions comments concerns Director Peters.

I remember when we had a demonstration or presentation from the vendors of homeroom at a work session and I did have some student data questions about that and how they how they treat student data.

I don't feel that my questions were fully answered and because I was not at the meeting where this item was introduced I feel I don't have enough information on this item to vote for it.

And so I'm going to have to abstain from this vote.

Thank you.

Other questions, comments, concerns?

Excuse me, Director Burke.

Along the lines of what Director Peters was asking about, I had a community member ask me what if I don't want my students' data in this system?

Do we have a mechanism through our beginning of year forms or is that built into our existing process?

that families who do not want their students' data online is covered.

What would be my advice to that person?

We already have that data.

This is just a different way of really formatting that data.

So those pieces that we had for the students we already have existing in the system.

Power school is really where it's drawing directly from.

So it's to say not in power school would create all sorts of other issues.

obviously emergency contact information educational choices.

Okay and and is it is it safe to say that one of our goals here is to greatly reduce the use of spreadsheets and what not in the school based processes and save our educators the challenge of creating their own and maintaining their own.

that is a pretty big threat that we're currently facing here in Seattle is when people use Excel spreadsheets and then pass them all around.

And we exponentiate data breach opportunities.

Abound.

Yes.

Yes.

And so we've reeled back dots has been really great about that reeling back on the Google Docs.

this is just another next layer pieces.

Let's start rolling it back so we don't have to do that.

Exactly.

And so that everybody every and also just the opportunity.

Everyone knowing every student story strength instead of some people only having access especially our classified personnel.

They're really critical.

Well I'm excited about this as a as a tool.

And you tie this with stability of assessments.

It's going to be great.

Roll call please Ms. Shek.

Director Blanford aye Director Harris aye Director Burke aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters abstain this motion is passed by a vote of five to zero to one

Number nine award contract RFP zero four seven seven two to thought exchange by Fulcrum Management Solutions Inc. for the community engagement platform approval of this item would authorize superintendent to execute contract RFP zero four seven seven two with thought exchange in the amount of three hundred twenty five thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars for a district wide engagement platform over a three year period from 2017 to 2020.

I move the school board authorize the superintendent to execute contract RFP 04772 without exchange in the amount of three hundred twenty five thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars for district wide engagement platform over a three year period from 2017 to 2020 in the form of draft agreement attached to this board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

I second that motion.

May I hear from Chair of Ops.

Thank you.

This item was heard by the Ops Committee on June the 15th and moved forward for consideration.

Questions comments concerns on this action item.

Can I ask why it was for consideration instead of approval.

Did you not have the RFP number.

So the reason it was for consideration at that time is we had not finalized a vendor.

Thank you.

Other questions comments concerns?

Director Burke.

Thanks to the team for putting together a web conference.

I had the opportunity to see the tool to hold the puppy as it were and it's it's a cool puppy.

So one of the things that I came out of it with is that this is not a silver bullet that will reach our marginalized communities or communities that have been typically underserved or under communicated with.

This is something that we're going to have to have as an explicit part of our strategy to engage to make sure that the data and the relationships that we're building with them are reflected in the tool so that we have balanced data.

But it's really neat in terms of reporting and the conversations that it can create and the way it can pop certain themes and certain trends to the surface.

So I'm excited to see what it yields in upcoming months and years.

Director Blanford.

And I'm on record also sharing that concern around making sure that we're reaching out to our communities that have not been addressed well in the past and knowing that an electronic software program is not going to be the solution to that issue.

but hopefully particularly by disaggregating data the data that it does collect that will allow us to have a better sense of who we've talked to and what they have to say about decisions that are pending before the board.

So I'm planning to support this but my hope is that that can be as robust as possible.

and over time that we can discover new and more innovative ways to reach out to our underrepresented community so that we get authentic feedback across the spectrum of the city that helps to inform our decision making processes.

Director Pinkham.

Public testimony brought up some concerns as far as I think one just the safety of any comments that are put in there with what the vendor can use those for.

Hopefully we'll see that the FERPA and other things will apply to this that the vendor can't use anything more for it than what we're contracting them to do.

But also given that director Burke has seen a demonstration you know how do we know when they analyze it what they give us is what we want to see I guess.

And then the other thing about you know the comment about Spokane using it to help promote a levy.

Do you have where we looked at Spokane when they used it what kind of feedback we get from them.

So that was a couple questions I'm going to ask my colleagues to answer.

So community engagement do you want to speak to Spokane.

Hi, Rachel Nakanishi, internal communications specialist.

So it was Highline that used this tool to pass a bond that had failed twice previously.

And I think they really wanted to increase trust with their community and also increase visibility about a lot of the concerns about why the bond had, the levy had failed.

and so I think what it really helped them see was the values that the community holds and it really promoted sort of interaction and engagement amongst community members rather than just the school district pushing out information.

So we wouldn't be using this tool specifically for that purpose but that was one demonstration that they shared with us that an example where they really saw increased trust.

Other questions?

Comments?

Concerns?

I'd like to address.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

I'd like to address Doctor Pinkham's comments around data security.

So first of all there is going to be no FERPA related or private sensitive data in the system.

That said we do have in our contract that any data that is posted on the system is going to be owned by Seattle Public Schools and cannot be owned by cannot be used by the vendor without our consent.

And at this time I also want to address Director Burke's question from last meeting around the pricing and why it was different from San Juan's Unified School District.

So the key difference between their contract and our contract is that they had a five year term with limited number of engagements.

Our contract is structured so that we have unlimited engagements over the three year term that we have.

Additionally we also have access to a hundred professional licenses to their professional tool which gives us some additional capability in terms of using the tool with a smaller group rather than always doing a full out community engagement for example being able to use it with a smaller group such as in community group meetings.

I want to say thank you to your team and I want to ratchet back and say thank you to the community engagement task force that that started vetting these and I appreciate your tenacity in making this happen.

One of the things that is most exciting to me is that folks can use this on their cell phones.

And that that opens up a very wide.

opportunity for engagement with folks that we have not had in the past and I don't believe in silver bullets.

I believe in in well targeted initiatives and review of those initiatives and you put a hell of a team together and thank you for that.

Roll call please.

I apologize Betty I did not see you.

Director Patu.

I also want to say thank you for another new two but I am an old fashioned person.

I still believe that personal touch in terms of reaching out to our community and especially our underserved community parents that we really need to reach out to.

Thank you for the work.

Roll call please Ms. Sheck.

Director Blanford.

Avaid using all capitals' This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Number 10 awarding refused disposal and mixed waste recycling collection services bid number B 0 1 7 5 3. Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute a contract with Recology clean scapes covering the period from August 1 2017 to July 31 2020 in the amount of eight hundred three thousand nine hundred ninety four dollars and sixty six cents annually or two million four hundred eleven thousand nine hundred eighty three dollars and ninety cents over a three year term of the contract.

I move that school board authorized superintendent to execute the contract through ecology clean scapes covering the period from August 1st 2000 excuse me August 1st 2017 to July 31st 2020 in the amount of $803,994.66 annually or two million four hundred eleven thousand nine hundred eighty three dollars and ninety cents over the three year term of the contract for refuse disposal and mixed waste recycling collection in the form of the draft agreement dated August 1st 2017 and the attached to the school board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

I second the motion.

Hear from chair of ops please.

This item was heard by the ops committee on June the 15th and moved forward for approval.

Comments questions concerns Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Introduction item resolution 2016 17 dash 27 fixing and adopting the budget approval of this item would adopt resolution 2016 17 dash 27 to fix and adopt the 2017 18 budget.

This matter was heard in A&F June 13 for consideration.

Ms. Sebring take it away.

Linda Sebring budget director.

We have a short presentation for you tonight but I would be happy to answer questions as you go along.

I know typically in the past we've had a budget book at this time but due to the very late legislative session we are still working on the budget book and we'll have it to you as soon as we are able to get it done in the next few weeks.

So what we have for you here.

is me hitting the button the wrong way.

Sorry.

Just want to go through this first slide is the high level summary of the four funds that we asked the board to vote on.

The expenditure amount as I'm sure you're familiar with in the past is the amount that we are discussing and that you will see on your resolution.

The beginning fund balance and revenue for each of the funds is to help demonstrate that we have the resources available to authorize the expenditures that we're requesting.

So we're showing the general fund budget at 857.7 million.

The associate student body fund at 6.7 million.

The debt service fund at 2.6 million and the capital program at 258.5 million.

the only one with transfers out is the capital fund at 21.1 which is its reimbursements that it provides to the general fund when it uses services and staff on the general fund.

So the next couple slides are just some demonstrations of what's been happening with our enrollment, because of course our major driver of our revenue is our enrollment.

So the first slide here is the October head count, which is the highest count of students for the district in October.

We've been going up.

We had a little hiccup there where our curve changed slightly, but we are still increasing in student counts.

This other slide is a comparison of what we call the annual average full time equivalency.

This is how we get funded for students.

So it's how much of a 1.0 is a student in our schools for the 10 months that are counted.

So the blue bars are what we have budgeted and planned on.

and the red ones are what is actually been happening to the district.

So we've gotten better.

We've been overshooting enrollment a little bit at a district wide level but we've gotten a lot closer in the 16-17 school year.

So we're happy about that that the money is aligning a little better.

We know we still have some challenges with when kids are not at the schools we sometimes anticipate them at.

So next slide is general fund resources over time.

Some history for you the 15-16 school years actual revenues.

What the adopted budget for 16-17 looked like and what is being proposed for the 17-18 budget.

As Assistant Superintendent Burgi said we have some capacity we've built into the budget.

So we these numbers here that you're seeing the state and other revenue sources we made some guesstimates some very educated guesstimates with a lot of discussions with the legislators as to what might come in for additional revenues.

We weren't correct on all phases so we will be making some slight changes between now and when we bring actually ask you to vote on this on July 26 and we'll give you a summary at that time of where some changes occurred in what our assumptions were with the legislature and what our guesses were here.

We still anticipate that we will remain within the expenditure amount on the previous slide which is what we're asking you to vote on.

If for whatever reasons as we go through the school year in 17-18 and determine that we won't stay within those bounds we will come back and ask the board to do what's called a budget extension.

We don't foresee that at this time but just wanted to let people know there's a lot of uncertainty that was thrown into the budget with the legislators.

So we've broken out on slide 7 here again views of history where we've been our 1617 adopted budget 1718 recommended.

This is I'm going to show you a couple different views of the budget.

This is by state programs.

We've broken out into a little bit more details of some of the programs that we find people ask questions about.

So it shows where the we have a 68 million dollar increase that's occurring in the budget we're bringing forward.

and the majority of that increases coming in through regular instruction.

And when we look at it from different perspectives you'll find the majority of the increases coming in through compensation increases.

There's a cost of living adjustment through the legislature.

We have contractual.

We have a slight increase in staffing and we have an also a slight increase in medical coming through the legislature.

But when we're as big as we are and we have I think we ended last year with 10,500 employees.

Any changes usually drive the biggest cost there.

On this we anticipated a slight decrease in vocational education.

That'll be one of the areas as we discussed that the legislature gave us a very nice surprise of a little more money for vocational resources so that will turn that number positive.

after the tables on the different views of the budget.

We've also put together some donuts.

I'm evolving.

My staff is teaching me to evolve from my pie charts to my donuts.

But this is just another visual of how to see how the budget spreads out across our different programs.

And the one that I know we've talked about before is regular instruction, which in the 16-17 budget was 48.8% of the budget.

So it is moving up slightly to 49% of the total budget.

Another view that's very popular is the expenditures by state activity showing our teaching, teaching support, principal's office, other student supports.

The slide right after this has the donut view and then after that there is definitions for folks.

So if you want to go two slides ahead this is to help our public and everyone understand what is made up of teaching.

These are definitions and categories that the state sets.

So when we're trying to be comparable with other districts we look at how much is Seattle spending on our teaching teaching support central admin.

and I'll just go back briefly actually to this one.

Central admin is something I know we talk about a lot.

We are at about 6 percent which is between other districts we've looked at a 5 and 7 percent so we're about right in the middle of where administrative costs are for a lot of our peers looking at Portland trying to equalize Boston and you know looking at some of the other larger districts in this state.

Third view of looking at the budget.

This is called by objects.

So this is where you see that the majority of our funding appropriately goes towards our certificated salaries, our classified salaries, employee benefits for both groups of staff, supplies, purchase services and travel.

capital outlay again these are categories the state has.

The negative number you have there in supplies is caused by the reduction in textbooks that we had a significant budget in 16-17 for textbooks and it currently we have pulled those funds back to help balance the 17-18 budget.

just another visual of how things lay out.

A majority of our funds is people.

People are what makes the school district function.

The slide 14 and I can pause if anybody has questions.

I'm not seeing any.

Slide 14.

Oh I asked.

I'm not able to go back and cross check this because we're going through it quickly and I appreciate that.

Salaries make up forty six point one percent certificated salaries make up forty six point one percent.

And then when we roll back to the previous it's almost like forty nine percent I want to say by activity group for.

teaching six oh 62 percent okay so that 62 percent is that salaries and benefits so that's where the.

Correct.

I mean just in terms of adding together course pieces of the pie employee benefits it's 21 percent here.

Correct and all of our certificated staff are not in the teaching category.

Right.

So it's it again it's multi-dimensional views of looking at how we are planning to spend our resources for next year.

So slide 14 is another view that we added in last year in the budget book and people seem to continue to have an interest in it.

So we go through and we add up all of the costs that are you know staff and resources that are directly in the schools which is more than just the school funding formula.

It's our nurses our custodians our food services and take out all the people that provide the support for them that may be in this building for their professional development their supervision.

and find out where the dollars lay.

So we're still looking at over 80% in direct services compared to about a little under 20% for support services and last year it was exactly 80-20.

So it's 80.4 in the schools now and 19.6 support services.

Slide 15 is a legal requirement for the district.

This is our maintenance supplies and operating costs.

So the state has a formula where they give us funding based on the implicit price deflator and where they've put in the prototypical school model how much they're going to provide us per student for these different services, technology, utilities, insurance, et cetera.

What's interesting I find very much about this comparison is looking at, you know, we do a really nice job on our utility costs are lower than the state average, our insurance costs are lower.

Our technology costs are lower but some of our other costs are higher and this is the first year in I think it's the two years we've been asked to do this report by the legislature.

All school districts have to do this where we have to put a little caveat on the bottom that from the district of the state's perspective we're getting more money in maintenance supplies and operating costs than we are spending on maintenance supplies and operating costs.

and again I hate to go back to it but our main cause here is that we've had to eliminate textbooks to help balance the budget and that's the big difference you'll see of curriculum and textbooks was 7.6 million of funding, 0.7 of district expense at this time.

That number may change as you go forward with further analysis of the budget.

I have a question.

Director Peters, please go ahead.

Yes.

Well, thank you for this presentation.

I have a question on the item you just mentioned.

So are you saying the state provides $7.6 million in funding specifically for curriculum and textbooks?

And as a district, we only spend 0.7 of that for this year or next year?

So the state is allocating us 7.6 million under that category.

They allocate us funds under a lot of different categories.

It's not restricted to that particular area.

That is just a way they do an allocation through the prototypical school model.

Well then what does it mean?

What's the significance of it being called out as curriculum and textbooks on this slide?

Well the significance is again it's a funding formula from the state and it's for curriculums and consumables that the students use as well.

It's part of the prototypical school model.

So there's different factors that are part of the prototypical school model.

The major one is the different staffing factors.

So class size, number of nurses, principals per their school sizes.

And then there's the non-staff resources they provide us.

These are the non-staff resources they provide us.

But as we've discussed before, they're still working through the issues of fully funding staff costs.

So even though they're allocating the funds and they're saying that we're funding, you know, these types of resources, we still have that challenge of they are not fully funding the prototypical school model.

So we need to make difficult choices as to where our resources go.

Does that answer your question?

I'd like to delve into that a little bit more at a later time with you.

Certainly.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

So to the point that was just made I think what you're telling us is that though the state has made an allocation of seven point what's the number?

Six.

Seven point six million dollars that are I don't want to say designated because that implies that we have to use it for that purpose.

Allocated.

Allocated.

We have the flexibility to use those dollars for other purposes.

It's just a blanket amount of money that's given to us without restriction and then we can allocate based on our own discretion.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Superintendent Nyland please.

There's an awful lot of complexities in the budget.

I would just remind us that we pay 33 percent of all of our salaries.

One hundred million dollars we pay.

So the legislature does blame us partly for this is that we gave you money for M socks and you spent it on salaries.

To some extent we did.

We owe our employees a decent competitive wage that the state is not funding.

So the bottom line and that's what it is.

It's an allocation and another quick correlation you can see is the minimal amount of nursing that the state allocates in the protocol model right now and that's insufficient for the school.

So that's we have to find other sources and then you guys make the choices as we go through.

So we have to say at the bottom of this and then I'll just move on as to, you know, what do we do with the money?

Well, we used it to help balance the budget and to protect our other programs that we considered critical to our students and provided resources back into the buildings.

So, next steps.

We have two weeks from when after the governor signs the budget to get our what's called our F-195 which is the actual form we send into the state filed and loaded and filed.

Well OSPI has not released it.

They need a little time too.

So by July 17th we have to have these thousands of items in our to make up our budget all summarized and loaded up to the state so that they can start doing some error checking which they do for all school districts.

July 19th is our public hearing.

We've put notices.

I think our first notice already went in the newspaper.

There will be another one going next week.

The public hearing for those interested will be at the John Stanford Center.

I believe it's at 430. 530, thank you.

530 on July 19th and then July 26th we will ask the board to vote on the budget and as I mentioned we will be bringing back a summary to the board prior to that as to changes we may need to make in the budget like the learning assistance program is getting more resources and we'll need to make that change in order for it to pass all the edits with the state.

and then in August we load the budget into our financial system so everybody can start putting expenditures against it for next school year and September 5th it's approved by the approved budget goes to the ESD.

So you have a couple appendices, both online, and I think you have a hard copy.

One is what people are very interested in, which is a district-wide staffing FTE, a comparison between our adopted 15-16, 16-17, 17-18.

And we also have a link on the web page of the school allocations for people who are very interested in what's going on with the schools.

Superintendent Nyland.

I want to thank our fiscal staff.

This has been, I don't know what a polite term would be for this year, but it has been a challenging year.

Umpteen budgets on our end.

Many, many work sessions with the board.

Thank you.

And they've been providing support to the legislature, trying to figure out what the different scenarios might mean.

and in case you missed it earlier came within $200,000 of guesstimating what we would get in terms of funding from the legislature that would be available for our restoration.

So thank you very much for the work and I would add another interesting timeline begins ticking on the day that the governor signs the budget.

and that the state then has 30 days in which to respond to the Supreme Court to explain to them how they have developed a plan for a sustainable fully funded basic education system that meets the McCleary requirements.

And then the news lawsuit will have 30 days to respond to that and then the Supreme Court will take it under advisement and who knows how long they will take.

That's right.

Well true.

Will be very interesting to know whether they've already anticipated this and they already have a decision waiting.

Last year they acted on October 6th I believe or whether they will give it due consideration because of the gravity of the situation.

I think they have acted as late as January of the following year.

So again thank you to our staff for great work this year.

Director Blanford.

I saw an email from Council Treat I believe that said that we that news has already responded and said that it was insufficient.

We're not surprised by that are we.

We're not surprised by the fact that the funds that have been allocated are judged insufficient by by news.

OK.

We're leading the pack.

OK.

That's good to know.

Thank you.

I want a round of applause for you all.

Thank you so much.

Director Burke before we adjourn.

Is just to clarify that thanks for the brilliant presentation it's super clean super easy to follow even at this late hour.

So my question does this or does this not include restoration 4.05 whatever X.0 we're looking at what we just talked about earlier today.

so it doesn't include the details of it but back to the very beginning what we're asking the board to vote on is the initial the expenditure amount so it will It will fit in with this $857.7 million.

As the superintendent mentioned, we anticipated where additional funds might come in.

Categories are off a little bit here and there, but it will fit in with that expenditure, which is what we're asking you to vote on.

We will be coming back with a little sheet of changes we're going to be making to the finer details.

So said differently, the activity breakouts, the object breakouts, the program breakouts are going to shift a little bit, not a major amount, but they're gonna shift a little bit between the percentages.

I guess to clarify, we were looking at, you know, whatever, 7 million of restoration funds that is included in this expenditures amount already, but if it were not included, then our net operating activities would not be as negative.

we would be in a better position in terms of a higher existing fund balance at end of year per the budget.

Yep, that's right.

I mean, there's always capacity that's built into a budget.

You don't budget down to the dollar.

That wouldn't be very smart of us.

So there was a little bit of budget room that we'd built in, not knowing exactly what would be approved, but enough that we had capacity to actually spend money and didn't have to come back around just for that purpose.

Director Patu.

Actually I just wanted to follow up on what Director Deline had said earlier about how she would like to actually to look at programs and evaluate programs that have been around for a long time whether they're good or bad.

I think that's a great idea.

I think we keep programs for so long that we don't know whether they're working or not and that's one way of saving money.

So I'm with you.

OK.

It is 928. This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much.

Director Peters, safe travels home.

Thank you.

Good night.